Where's Bethany?

HERE!  I'm right here....promise, I haven't moved or taken up the vagabond life.  Our Summer has simply been insanely busy and filled to the brim with adventures and travel.  It has been incredibly wonderful and such a blessing to be able to travel, but lets face it.  Travel is hard!  I know that I haven't been home or settled in a while when I think about my blog and pine after it.  It miss it.  I miss writing and chronicling our journeys.  I do recognize that living in the moment is way more important than writing about it, but man.....I've lived......now I want to sit and write!

So I have several blogs that are hopefully going to pour out of me now that we are home.......and school is about to start!  Did I say that with enough excitement?  SCHOOL IS ABOUT TO START!  HOLLA!  But before I do all of that jazz and talk about the fact that Memaw and Papa officially become Arizonans next month (AHHHHHHH), I want to take a chapter here and catch everyone up on what's been happenin' with me.

Ever since I started experiencing all that health nonsense I have been under careful watch of my naturopath and wow have we done some stuff.  After my initial results came back, we started this slow methodical process to get to the root of the problem.  The first month started with  adrenal supplementation and digestive help.  I had some change with that, but nothing super significant.  The next step in the process was to eliminate food sensitivities.  Now......I think food "sensitivities" and food "allergies" get a bad rap.  I know........because I am one of those people that tends to get annoyed when people "can't eat that."  Really?  So I went into my food sensitivities test with a little skepticism.  After a really cool electrode test, it would appear that I currently am sensitive to over 120+ foods.  This list includes ALL Dairy, ALL Grains, including oat, quinoa, ALL Beans, ALL Sugars, All Nuts, Broccoli, Cauliflower, White potatoes...........Holy Crap on a Cracker.  Are you kidding?

My eyes got wider and wider and my awesome Doc calmed me right down.  "Bethany, your body is out of balance and we don't know why.  When things are off, digestion suffers. Eliminating these things my help us narrow it down more."  Not forever mind you.....just for a while.

Thank God I was raised to cook.  Eggs, Meat, fruits, Veggies..............thats it.....oh and coconut.....and coffee (Praise the Lord).  So for 6 weeks I have steered into this and completely changed and revamped our entire family diet.  I took everything on my list out.  GONE.

And the improvements have been steady.  I went through horrible withdrawl the first week and then a period of adjusting to all the heavy fruit and veggie, but man, what a clean and awesome way of eating.  I do miss certain things, but not like I thought I would and wow, have I seen a change in my physique!

Left is now, Right was 3 months ago

Unfortunately, all of the issues are still not solved so the next step is to continue with the elimination diet and add in some natural progesterone.  The exciting thing is that I can add peanut butter and quinoa back in limited amount.  This is like being given the keys to the candy shop!

Yes I am still training for races......I have 2 Olympic Tri's coming up and of course my big Marathon in December.  I am also falling in love with weight lifting at the gym with my incredible coach Dawn.  I am getting stronger and more defined which has always been a goal of mine.

This year looks a lot different than last year and while at times it has been hard I am embracing the change.  IRONMAN will always be there for me, but right now I am getting my body back into peak health and reveling in the time I can spend doing other things and traveling with my crew.  Life is so worth living and living it well.