How Resetting My Gut Health Gave Me My Life Back

There’s nothing worse than feeling sluggish, locked down, weighted by your mind on a regular basis and finding yourself on a treadmill of mental fog you just can’t seem to get off. Then add on top of that systemic racism that blocks you from certain opportunities, then stack on top of that a global pandemic, and being immune compromised so there’s more limitations to your day to day life. It’s easy to get depressed, but when I learned earlier this year that I had IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and ADHD, and on top of that I am a type 1 diabetic since 2015. Admittedly, I’ve been feeling quite defeated by it all. All of these health issues have had a negative effect on my cognitive thinking, and basically my ability to get. shit. done.

So, like I had done before, I put my head down to work, and blamed myself for feeling lazy, unmotivated, disappointed for not being my best self, like it was all on me for being so below par. It just wasn’t true though. How could I want to be my best self, but still be facing such a high wall of mental blocks? Something didn’t add up.

Then I started learning about gut health.

Yeah, weird, we don’t really think about it at all, but your gut health is really the boss of the whole body functioning operation. Our brains take cues from our guts, which means that what you’re eating has a direct correlation to how you’re going to feel. So, what was I eating that made me feel so depressed and emotionally volatile? Sugar, wheat, processed foods, the whole shebang. At this point, I thought to myself, well this is how I’ve always eaten. Could our food system be built to destroy us and not support us? It sure felt that way. I felt betrayed for not knowing better, but the positive side of things, is that now I know!

I found some great cooking books on IBS, and found some natural plant powders from Apothecary that support my mental health needs, which have a bunch of really healthy ingredients. I started getting serious about taking care of me. Suddenly the weight of everything around me didn’t feel so hard to face. My dreams and life felt so much better. It wasn’t that my dreams of being an incredible actor, screenwriter and eventually run my own production company weren’t possible, it was just that I needed to reset my health from the ground up so I could see clearly again, or maybe, for the first time. But I could only get here by taking responsibility for my life again.

It’s been about 3 days since I’ve made these changes on how I approach making food for myself, and it’s been like lifting a black veil over my head. I’m no longer mourning my health condition struggles every day, instead, I’m carving out a better path to heal myself and come out the other side more confident in who I am and what my voice has to offer the world.

So, I challenge you to reflect on your gut health. Read up on it, and then enact change so your future self can thank you later. Go on and change your gut health, trust me, it will make all the difference in your life.

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