One of my favourite places in London is hands down South Kensington and Chelsea. The beautiful streets just make you think you are in a film set and as my favourite film is The Parent Trap (absolutely no shame), I get excited to find houses like ‘7 Pembroke Green’. Anyway, so once a year I have a valid excuse to visit the streets of West London, not only to indulge in the many health food delights (which I do) but also for a trip to see my Cardiologist.
Let’s rewind a little bit…
So when I was 15, I was diagnosed with an extreme case of ‘Coarctation of the Aorta’, a heart condition which was going to drastically shorten my life had it not be found. After my first surgery at 15, I was told that I would forever more have to take medication to keep my blood pressure under control. At the time, the thought of taking a pill every day didn’t really phase me. I then went on to have more surgery and was deemed fit at age 19 to do all of the things a healthy human could do! (I later took advantage of this when I chose to skydive and scuba dive).
Now, at the age of 24, I have been taking my ‘life pills’ (as my friend calls them) for 9 years, with many more years ahead of me. But yesterday, everything changed for me…
A healthy diet is one of the things I value most in my life. It all changed when I was diagnosed with PCOS almost 2 years ago and I had only really been eating with the goal of ridding myself of it in mind, I hadn’t even thought what it was really doing to the rest of my body.
As it turns out, my diet was doing more to my body than hopefully just cleaning up my ovaries. With the help of a wholesome diet, including chia seeds, buckwheat and a wealth of green goodness, everything I had (and have) been eating had been magically working at lowering my blood pressure!
So when I met with my cardiologist yesterday, he suggested that I stop taking medication and work on things naturally!!
This news may not sound like a huge deal to many people. But for me, it was a major mile stone!
It reaffirmed why I do all of this when people think I’m crazy for not eating ‘normally’. It made me realise just how amazing food can be and how all of the hard work I’ve put in can finally pay off. Now I know I haven’t cured myself of a horrible disease, it’s only coming off medication, and I’m grateful for the minor adjustment that it is, but to know that you can do so much to your body without the need of strange drugs is such a great feeling! To know that it’s one less pill I’m relying on to keep me healthy.
This all may sound a bit drastic to a lot of people, and I feel strange publicly shouting about how elated I am, but I wanted to share a positive to eating well. I have never eaten well to lose weight. People often say ‘she eats so well and exercises all the time, why is she not tiny by now?’, but why is that the goal? What really does that give us? Why aren’t people’s real motives to eat well and exercise to make us the healthiest versions of ourselves? Surely that should be the biggest factor? Leading a healthy lifestyle because you owe it to yourself should be the goal… am I right?
Anyway, my news brought me so much joy that the next obvious thing to do was go to Tanya’s and eat raw chocolate goodness and drink matcha until I was green all over! So that’s what I did. Celebrate health with health! Spread it everywhere kids!
So friends, you may have days where the last thing you want to do is eat well, it may seem like a chore, it may seem like it will taste disgusting. But just think what else it could be doing for you.
YA NEVER KNOW, YA HEAR ME?
Good. Okay. I don’t know how to round these things up…
Share if you dare!
Sarah x
