How I’m handling some chronic health concerns, without weight loss.

Until I started growing, birthing and feeding babies, I never had any true concerns about my health. 

I had some PMS, recurring migraines and some pelvic floor stuff- but as far as things that you’d get assessed during a physical with a primary care doc, I was ship shape.

Until I went through my first pregnancy.

And now I’ve got some metabolic health concerns to navigate.

• Hypertension

• Elevated blood sugar

• Fatty liver disease

I’m working with both a primary care provider locally as well as a naturopathic physician via telehealth. The combo of support and guidance has been very helpful and I’m making progress in the right direction. 🥳

But what I’m most proud of though is my mindset around all of this.

I would have had a much harder time with these chronic conditions in the past as I would have felt like my body was a failure. I would have felt like something was wrong with me and I was somehow broken. 

While I certainly don’t feel cheery about having high blood pressure, I do feel like I’m able to navigate these things without going into a shame spiral or feeling like I need to completely overhaul my whole life in order to “fix” myself.

There are habits and choices I’m making everyday to help my body but nothing feels like a punishment. 

And this is a nice place to find myself in as I move forward in my health. 

I don’t have to be consumed by all of this (which is a blessing and a privilege) but I can still make progress. 

I also know I can pursue an improvement in these metabolic issues without focusing on weight loss*. And what a gift that is!

I know I can make improvements in my body by tweaking things I’m already doing and I don’t have to kill myself trying to lose weight. I don’t have to go on a weight cycling bender (that would ultimately make my health worse) in order to see progress. 

I wish this for everyone navigating health concerns.

You can make changes, you can implement new habits that support your body and none of these have to involve weight loss. 

Because at the end of the day, our bodies are going to ebb and flow through health, through different sizes, through different levels of functioning, and we don’t have to try and control every single aspect of these.

*You can be certain that my PCP did suggest weight loss as the first step for improving fatty liver disease. I quickly ignored that comment and went on to the tangible action steps she and my ND provided instead!