FROM CHAOS TO CALM

BReaking tHe taBoo: sHaRing MY eXPeRience oF BRinging MY HoRMones Back in Balance

Writer: Anne van Merrienboer

Designer: Anne van Merrienboer

Ever since I can remember, I have struggled with my hormones, facing symptoms such as battling fatigueness, apatite swings, and acne. Trying to look for a solution, I have visited my doctor too many times and scrolled through the countless results that popped up when I Googled my symptoms for hours. My doctor swears by artificial hormones, such as created by the pill. He prescribed it to me after having a short 5-minute visit during which he did not ask me about my diet and physical activity routine. It for suuuure would help, he said. Fact-check, it ruined everything. I kept experiencing the full side-effects list, no matter what changes we made to the prescription. So, I stopped taking the medication, which got me back to square one. I got frustrated, after all, of all people a doctor should know what would cure me in the long run, right? Wrong.

So, after all these years of taking medication which fail to help me, I want to take you on my journey to take back control on my own body. Your hormones have a very high impact on how you feel and how your body functions. If they are out of balance, so are you as a whole. This occurs for both men and women and is caused by various factors such as age, food allergies

Back to Google it is

My journey, comically, went on with turning back to Google. However, this time, I intended to seek help rather than generate unhelpful answers to my symptoms. I expected that finding the right orthomolecular dietitian would be hard and would take me at least a week, however I was taken by surprise by

Intake

It was finally time to meet up with my dietician. I sent them the documents a few days prior. This gave them time to go through everything and prepare for our intake. Nowadays, many professionals in the field offer the options to do it either on- or offline, this gives you the freedom to choose whatever is most convenient. While going through the documents, we mainly elaborated on the different symptoms I had and how they could be related to hormonal imbalance. They gave me extensive explanations about everything. Finally, they gave me a list of possible alternatives for the types of food they thought would be best if I stopped eating for a while. Overall, it was a very pleasant and informative experience. Only, I found out that my journey is just about to start and it will be hard.

Preperations

I picked out an orthomolecular dietitian that met my personal requirements and scheduled a meeting with them. There are a number of professionals out there so you can choose the one that you feel most comfortable with. As the diet is based on various personal factors, such as food intake, allergies and personality, you will receive a number of documents you’ll need to fill in beforehand. This way the diet will be very personal.

Week 1

The first week was a disaster. A very tough personal event resulted in me completely losing myself. I binged on my comfort food, which of course, didn’t relate to my diet. The one thing that did help me keep a bit of routine was walking my dog every morning and evening. I also met my daily goal of drinking water, as that didn’t crash with the feeling of being too full. Towards the end of the week I started picking up the diet for real. It was still 50/50, however, it was a start and I believe that’s praiseworthy. Taking care of yourself is hard, especially if it’s a new turn in your routine. Your mind needs some time to accept the changes you’ve made and not see them as a burden. So, give yourself some slack, that will make the journey a bit easier.