HOME GROWN

At the beginning of my experiment an old mate from grade school told me she had a friend she grew up with in Pittsburgh that had gone organic and lost 40 lbs in a matter of two months. I later found out it was a small exaggeration. I am so glad I waited to speak to her until this last week because we both have the same story to tell. Her journey didn't influence the outcome of what happened to me and I would probably have doubted her anyway. I NEVER would have thought I would lose weight by eating more food!!!

Her name is Heather Henderson Price. Heather is originally from Pittsburgh, but now lives with her husband and kids in Georgia. Heather was generous enough to allow me to listen to her life's story about her relationship with food and how it related to her.

She just as I had been raised mostly off of food grown in her garden. If "they needed carrots for dinner she walked in the back yard and picked them". As Heather got older she married and had three children. Each pregnancy she packed on the weight and found it impossible to get off. During one of her pregnancies she had an urge of to consume oreos and other processed foods which is what made the weight creep on so easily.

Eventually Heather went to extremes to lose the weight, but she couldn't shake it. It wasn't until she had tried every weight loss gimmick on the market (the shakes, etc) that Heather decided to visit a weight loss center for assistance. The center showed her how to eat again and emphasized whole, fresh foods. Processed foods were eliminated from her diet. Heather intuitively took it a step further by eating a lot of her foods organically because that's what she did when she was younger. She quickly sloughed off 30+ lbs within a couple of months from the diet change and still continues to maintain it over a year and a half later.

Weight wasn't the only major change that Heather noticed by going with whole, fresh foods. Heather was on migraine medication. She would get persistent migraines throughout the month. When she changed her diet her migraines disappeared. Occasionally she will get a migraine about once a month.

Heather's family began to also see other benefits from the diet change. At 8months of age one of Heather's kids was diagnosed Tuberous Sclerosis Complex which causes epileptic-like seizures. After years of dealing with different issues with the drugs, etc they took her daughter off of the medication. For the last six months Heather's daughter has not experienced an epileptic episode. Heather credits watching her daughter's diet and making sure she doesn't get any refined sugars or processed foods.

The part that blows me away is how Heather and I both react to industrial food now that we've made these changes. Four times through my journey I have had SIGNIFICANT reactions to my food where I get nausea, severe headaches, and a feeling similar to a hangover for two days if I eat something that is not organic. I have been able to go back to the sources of each incident and pick out which food was the problem and confirm that with the people that served me those foods! The funny thing Heather said when she goes to visit her family in Pittsburgh she has the same problem!!! She also feels "sluggish and fatigued".

After speaking to Heather I now wonder if people are more prone to chemical sensitivity in their foods if they had little to no exposure to chemicals in their food as a child? Changing our diets allowed us to increase the volume of food that we ate and resulted in weight loss we were both unable to achieve in prior attempts. Would someone raised off of pop tarts and McDonald's have the same benefits or weight changes that Heather and I had? I have to find someone willing to take the challenge!

It's also interesting to reflect on seeing the swelling and weight gain in my aunt who is vegetarian. She seems to eat a lot of tofu which is mostly genetically modified. If she went entirely GMO free would she lose the weight?

If anything it was certainly consoling to speak to someone on a similar journey and see that organic has had a positive outcome in our lives. We both feel more of a sense of control about how we look and feel.

Heather and I also agree that sourcing our food is going to be the next biggest challenge for both of us. She wishes she could have a garden like the one she grew up with, but her back yard in Georgia is all clay. We'll get there Heather. I promise!