This article is for you, who is tired, fatigue, continuously in physical pain or simply anxious and mentally drained, you who feel not quiet like yourself lately.
Let’s start this project, to get you back.
Exactly 390 days ago, I came to a shocking decision, even for myself. I decided to leave an important role in a museum that I have helped built from scratch. I decided to leave immediately with no foreseeable plan of coming back. I decided to just stop and focus on healing.
This decision was coming from a full year of invisible physical pain, an undefined autoimmune diagnosis, months of fatigue, and years of chronic sleeping disorder. There were many times when I had to work 7 days a week, way overtime with just 2-3 hours of sleep the night before, and for months I walked around with painful inflammations in various parts of my joints.
There are moments when I had to jump onto an ojek (motorcycle taxi) to rush me to the therapist so I can come back to the next meeting online. The rush and the ride in the middle of polluted Jakarta traffic on its own must have cut the efficiency of the therapy by half :D. And do not count the amount of money I had to spend for therapy, blood tests, doctors and medication, a lot of them were not covered by the office.
Juggling like a circus woman between work, children, doctors’ visits and blood tests. I went through steroid injections and medicines for hormone and relaxation to get me going. In total, I could be gulping 14 capsules in a day. And did the method made me better? Nope.
I felt constantly in pain, anxious, cranky, sleepless. One of the medication left me craving hard for it. In short, I did not feel like myself. So a drastic turn must be taken.
I took a break from a career that I love, because I love my self and family more. The world can wait for me to heal.
On the other hand, food healing has been my other passion, and during that transition the calling was even stronger.
Of course the plan was not that simple. My hard work and money management in the previous years have paid off and I have managed to save some money that will last me and the household for a few months. I approached a couple of organizations that can give me curatorial job that I can do in my own pace. I live relatively minimal, growing vegetables in my tiny backyard, shopping from local traditional market, stop going to expensive restaurants and more importantly I don't have to spend any more money on doctors and medication.
I dedicated the year 2018 to fully learn about food healing, I read books and articles about food healing, travelled to Bali to take raw cooking class, meet my holistic therapist regularly, connecting to holistic healers to learn from them, back to exercise and finally gathered all my resources to enroll to Academy of Culinary Nutrition. Learning culinary nutrition has deepened my understanding about how nutrition enable our body to self heal.
Now at the end of 2018, I can run, jump, self heal, help others to self heal, and I sleep through the nights! I am back with ideas and motivation to create changes in my community and the arts. I got me back!
Now let’s get YOU back.
To start with, below are the basic steps that I took:
1. Vitamin D – I was very low Vitamin D deficient which wrecked me physically
and mentally, so came the days of sunbathing, eating healthy fat and
being mindful about the products that I consume.
2. Autoimmune Protocol diet. Basically eliminating a number of variety of foods
for 30 days and introducing it back slowly to recognize which food I am
intolerant to.
3. Food Elimination – Following AIP, I eliminated food that did not work for me:
Gluten, refined sugar (replaced them with coconut sugar, honey, dates,
molasses), and processed food and sauces.
4. Fixing the Gut –The AIP itself is already helpful in fixing and minimizing leaky
gut, on top of that I drink bone broth every morning and consuming food that
contains collagen and probiotic.
5. Anti inflammation – I make eating anti-inflammatory food an everyday
business.
6. Heavy metal detox - I took on Medical Medium approach to clear up heavy
metal from my system. In just one week, my 14 years old psoriasis were gone
and never coming back.
7. I commit myself as a Sleep Activist. I read the books and articles on how to
sleep better, take naps and eliminate blue lights in bedroom.
8. Techniques and Nutrition for relaxation – I meditate, get more contact with
nature, and I focus on food that contains magnesium, selenium, and potassium to help me relax.
9. Walking - the simplest way to exercise. I took a walk around my housing area or in the zoo nearby.
And above all I swore on this as the basis of my lifestyle credo: whole food and nothing but the truth.
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