A little over 7 years ago, I started realizing that what I ate was impacting my physical and mental health.
At my parents' house, the cupboards were filled with cereals (Krunch, Miel Pops, Tresors), Nutella, supermarket jams, “Côte d’Or” chocolates...
We often had breakfast out, ate at McDonald's once a week... In fact, we lived like most people.
Those were our pleasures. We thought it was good, so we ate. As simple as that.
Except, the imbalances began to pile up. I was getting sick several times a month and missing classes.
Here’s a list of the main problems I had:
Chronic insomnia (I sometimes slept 3-4 hours a night, or ended up with sleepless nights.)
Hashimoto's hypothyroidism
Asthma
Severe acne
Intestinal inflammation
Nervousness
Loss of balance
Difficulty concentrating...
Sinusitis, conjunctivitis, ear infections, colds…
I spent a lot of time at doctors' offices, with specialists, and in hospitals, but nothing helped.
And one day, my mom read this blessed magazine, "Femmes Actuelles." That day, everything started to change.
We had just learned, from a short article, that refined/added sugar could harm health. That you could get sick more easily, that the immune system would weaken, that sleep could be impacted... But mostly, that it caused pimples!
And that was my starting point.
What bothered me the most back then wasn’t even my lack of sleep or the illnesses, but the pimples. I was self-conscious and didn’t want to cover them with foundation.
I was 17 years old then. And my mom and I started emptying the cupboards. No more Nutella, no more sugar-filled cereals. No more fast food. We started learning about what a healthy diet really was.
But it took me several years to figure out where sugar was hiding. Because I didn’t know much. I thought I had removed everything I needed to. Yet, I was still going to Starbucks several times a week, alone or with friends. And the drinks there are full of sugar! It was when I wondered why I kept feeling drained after drinking there that I realized sugar was hiding in them. And I’m not talking about natural sugar, but added sugar.
Over the years, we started reading product labels. And then I fell in love with natural health and began studying naturopathy.
Finally, after several years, I understood that to avoid eating junk food, you simply have to eat raw, natural foods. Cook homemade meals as much as possible. By learning about nutrition at school, I freed myself from all those diseases I had been carrying for so long.
By cutting out refined/added sugar:
My intestines healed
My autoimmune thyroid disease disappeared (naturally, because it was linked to my gut health)
I no longer have insomnia (which was related to chronic inflammation in my body and my fear of death. I also worked on the emotional side).
My skin is clear and smooth. However, it wasn’t just by stopping refined sugar that I achieved this skin! I’ll talk about that soon.
I no longer have asthma
And I have much better emotional control
The big plus is that the tiredness after meals is gone. Because sugar (refined, added) makes your blood sugar spike quickly, then drop too sharply. And that causes fatigue.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t know that one day I could live without all these issues. Without needing medications that didn’t really help me. Because they never addressed the root cause.
Healthy eating is a pillar of health. Doctors and hospitals could be freed from many patients if only we paid more attention to what we put into our bodies.
We live in a world where pollution is everywhere. We can’t control everything. But we have the power to choose what we eat and what we put on our bodies (cosmetic products).
Just by changing these things, our health levels up!