Hey there, in this episode I'm going to dive into a question that I've been getting quite a bit as I have shared bits and pieces into my journey to a clean lifestyle and really swapping out products and changing how I eat and working with functional doctors and just making some adjustments to really supporting my body and endocrine system and learning what my body needs and giving it what it needs.

After not only seeing my body give and send me some smoke alarms or some signals that something maybe a little bit off from cystic acne that I had for several years as an adult chronic cystic acne another skin condition called tini aversa color as well as chronic bloating those are some symptoms that I had for a while and just kind of lived with because they weren't totally disrupting my life.

But then when I went through two devastating losses back to back it really jolted me to not only make changes or reduce things that may you know be putting some toxins into my environment of my body but really commit to a full lifestyle change and it's been a journey I feel like I'm still in the middle of it it's a process I learn more every day and I'm really kind of in the middle of it myself.

But as I've shared bits and pieces into what I've learned I've actually there's an episode one twenty nine where I share an update on some of the testing that I've had done and things like that if you're interested more on the family building side that's right talk a little bit on the journey to motherhood and then episode one thirty two is a recent episode that we did.

Really on how we can start building a healthier home some great resources in places to start.

But as I've shared not only those things but also bits and pieces into my journey online and on social media many of you guys have reached out and asked what does this look like from a financial standpoint and how could I do this on a budget or how can I make and begin to make some of these changes on a budget how can I begin to work this into my life if I don't have.

You know tons and tons of cash just sitting there to all the sudden put into my wellness fund which most of us don't we have to make adjustments and we have to.

I'm going to dive into that part of this journey a little bit today in this episode and give you a little bit of an overview of not only the changes I made but also some different ideas or ways that you could get started how you could really pursue doing some of these things on a budget and what you need to know from a financial perspective so let's dive into it.

You're listening to she with Jordan Lee Dooly a personal development podcast for the everyday woman come invited leave ignited here's your host Jordan Lee Dooly.

Okay so let me give you a quick overview of some of the things that I really overhauled or changed and I'm not going to get too much into the story itself but I'll just kind of do a quick debrief so I have over the last several months almost pretty much all of 2020 it's been a process I actually started this process much more seriously.

I started working with a functional doctor in February which was between my losses I had a loss in January and then I got pregnant again in March and ended up losing that baby in June which was really hard because that was a later miscarriage and carried that baby much longer and so I mean both were really hard in their own way but that one really was a harder recovery journey like from a physical healing standpoint and I had started to try to make some changes once I started working with the functional doctor and he basically started working with me and I had a lot of work with him.

I had a lot of work with him and he was a doctor and he basically showed me my lab results and he was like it looks like you might have some inflammation in your body and your gut you know we let's clean up your gut you've got some irritation going on there and so I basically learned about inflammatory foods from that and cut out or drastically reduced most of those including dairy gluten refined sugar caffeine alcohol so we processed food so I know that sounds like pretty much everything besides carrots and that's kind of how it felt honestly at first and so all I knew to do because I didn't feel super well equipped on the

okay I know I need to cut these things out or I should for a little while as I'm trying to reduce inflammation in my body and reduce you know and and he'll might got I felt really confused as to how I was going to move forward in that because it felt like such a drastic change and so I would buy things like gluten free bagels or free crackers and that's fine like there's nothing wrong with that but that was kind of all the only change I made is like I just went for reading regular crackers eating gluten free crackers or whatever.

And then when I ended up losing the second pregnancy after you know trying to implement those changes not only before pregnancy but during it when you're not just the whole time and all you want is like I don't know bread and crackers regular bread and crackers when I ended up losing that baby I remember just feeling mad and thinking like this is bogus this stuff doesn't work these this health change stuff is just all bananas like this is all bogus and I was really mad and for a few weeks I was just kind of like whatever and I anything I bagels and I drank water and I was like I was like I'm not going to do that.

I had bagels and I drank wine and I just took my I was because I had lived for like two and a half months I was being so restrict no like four months I was being so restrictive trying to you know make sure I didn't hurt my baby by eating a bagel or whatever and I was like living in this toxic mindset and then I was really mad when I feel like it didn't work and I think what hit me about a month or so maybe close to two months after that loss.

I had this big realization after talking to some friends and I actually spoke with somebody who specializes in this kind of stuff my functional doctor did to but we didn't talk so much about the nutrition side of things other than we did but I just for whatever reason it didn't click with me till I had some other conversations and I realized wait a second I don't think I'm like nourishing my body like I don't feel well equipped on like what should I be eating every meal every you know every day.

I just know what I shouldn't be eating and I think I got gotten so focused on that that I really didn't feel or I really hadn't focused on supporting my body understanding what it needs understanding how to support my endocrine system what types of food it's going to thrive off of how to heal it with food that all just all I knew was like cut these things out because they're causing inflammation and that kind of mindset I think can really cause a really unhealthy and toxic approach to food and it can be we can start putting foods into categories of like that's bad that's bad.

And there are certainly things that can be more harmful or more disruptive to our hormonal system and our endocrine system that I've since learned but when we're just like I know I don't eat gluten I have to do this like we almost can live in such a way that we're not living you know and so especially when we don't we're not replacing anything that we're cutting out with really whole nourishing foods and life and a lifestyle that really supports what our body needs.

So when I had this big epiphany I ran it by my functional doctor I think he was kind of like yeah that's what I've been trying to say but for whatever reason it just wasn't clicking for me until it was set in a different way and by someone else.

And so we walked through what it looks like to focus on okay let's just not eat like let's not or let's make sure we're eating a lot of foods and nourishing my body every single day with foods that don't naturally have inflammatory properties in them anyways you know what I mean like instead of just replace it with food.

We're just replacing gluten free crackers with or gluten crackers with gluten free crackers maybe we try to say hey let's have a sweet potato and you know a piece of really like nourishing piece of protein you know so anyways I started to kind of get this like full picture of how this was supposed to look and be able to do it consistently when not only did I have that realization and talk to my functional doctor about it but also when I read the book woman code and that is actually where from a budgeting standpoint as we try to do it.

But it's a budgeting standpoint as we talk about how to do this on a budget that is actually where I would recommend you start is with some resources that are like 10 bucks like this book woman code something that can help you walk through and learn more about your endocrine system learn more about how your female body works learn more about how our systems and our hormones really work together these are things that I felt like I never learned in health class like yeah I learned about the nucleus of a cell and I learned how to dissect a frog but I didn't necessarily learn about my hormones.

...