THE HEALTHIEST YOU

Progress not Perfection, straight forward changes to create your healthiest you.

One half of ALL adults have a chronic illness, which means multiple medications...side effects....drug interactions and yet nothing to solve the ROOT of the problem. Instead we treat the symptoms of the disease. Sure some medications help to prevent complications of the diseases, but what about PREVENTION or better yet HEALING!?! As medicine advances we are learning that increasing certain foods, herbs, vitamins, minerals and decreasing others can help us heal from the inside out. Limiting our chemical exposure...increasing our movement...focusing on natural or homeopathic medicine we can heal ourselves from the inside out.

it can be very confusing and extremely overwhelming!!! Most people make drastic changes and then cannot stick with it. Let's learn about making lifestyle changes that stick. If we take time to learn the WHY behind things it helps motivate us to make the changes more permanent. I'm not your average physician, I trained and practice as an MD, but I love the intersection of traditional medicine and holistic medicine. Every day I learn more about both.

Join me on this journey of decreasing stress and inflammation through the food we eat and the life we live. Let's become the healthiest version of ourselves one step at a time while learning the science behind it all!

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BIO

Marguerite Weston, MD
I am a Family Medicine and Sports Medicine Physician practicing in Ohio. I have been practicing for over ten years and in three different states, but am finally back home, Go Buckeyes! I am currently studying Functional Medicine and planning for certification to be complete this fall. I love the intersection of traditional training and holistic medicine.
I am a wife, mom, encourager of others and lover of education. I love trying new recipes although I am not an adventurous foodie! I love to make healthy choices although I also love pizza and homemade chocolate chip cookies. At the end of the day we are all a lot more alike than we are different let's show each other some grace.

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MY TEST RESULTS THAT LED ME TO FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

MY JOURNEY INTO FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

I have always wanted to be a doctor and I loved every rotation in medical school so family medicine was the logical choice. I also love sports, I played soccer at a small university in Ohio (GO POLAR BEARS!)! And so I completed a sports medicine fellowship after my family medicine residency.

THE TURN

My first job was with the University of Oklahoma and in Oklahoma everything changed. I started having numb patches over a couple different areas. I cannot remember if it was before or after my first child. You think you are going to remember things…like the date of your last mammogram…you can’t!! I’ve had patients unable to tell me which knee was operated on! We’ve had to look for scars! So anyway…weird neurological symptoms in a 30 something year old female equals MRI’s and labs to rule out MS. Have you had an MRI? I felt like the criminal in Con Air with that mask on my face. My ANA (an autoimmune marker) was in the “gray zone”, not negative, but not quite high enough to be considered positive. However it was definitely high enough to freak me out. Plus my brain MRI had some abnormalities, abnormal but not quite consistent with MS. Great just what everyone wants to hear...that your brain is not quite normal. Couldn't be my left elbow or a toe...had to be the brain! Followed that up with spinal MRI’s, which were completely negative (great news because typically lesions in the spinal cord means active MS). And so I will continue with MRI’s yearly to every other year-ish to make sure nothing is changing in my brain. What caused the MRI changes? No one knows. But it is pretty freaky knowing they are there.

THE FREAK OUTS

Many of you have gone through similar scenarios I’m sure. So you start playing the “WHAT IF” game…a dangerous little game! I can what if myself into having an incurable cancer, into something happening to one of my kids, to the plane crashing. Specifically with the MS scare I “what if-ed” myself into a wheelchair. I remember one day my kids were in the car and one of them forgot something so I ran back up into the house, bounding up the stairs to grab it. While I was going up the stairs I thought to myself, “what if in ten years you can’t run up the stairs?” ….cue water works. I cried often and hard. In my warped mind I already had mom guilt about imagining the girls having their mom in a wheelchair at graduation and worried that they would be embarrassed of me, sad they would have to care for me. Seriously…and I have a lot of anxious patients so I know I am not the only one with the “what if’s”. Why don’t we “what if” my kid is so smart she gets a full ride or “what if” I meet an amazing group of friends that I just click with? Why does it have to be worst case scenario on crack??

THE UNKNOWN & UNCONTROLLABLE

I tend to be a tad of a control freak. So logically I looked at what I could control with these symptoms. How could I normalize my labs? I wanted to know the WHY. And so I started studying inflammatory foods, which led me to functional medicine. I changed my diet. Luckily I’m married to the most amazing man ever so when I said we are now eating a plant based diet he was totally supportive. We were not perfect but we were pretty good. And lo and behold…my labs normalized! My ANA dropped from 1:640 to 1:40…whoop whoop!!! Now the MRI is still abnormal, I'm not saying it is going to be normal next time. Honestly, medically speaking ANA is not part of the MS diagnosis, BUT no one likes having abnormalities. You want to be boring and normal when it comes to medical testing.

NEW WAY OF THINKING

For over ten years I have been treating patients with medicines...medicines and more medicines. I wanted to learn about natural ways. Well guess what…FOOD IS MEDICINE! What we eat matters.

Now I'm not perfect, we still love ourselves some pizza and I still bake cookies with my girls. We are no longer all plant based but we definitely eat more plant based. It is so cool (inner nerd alert) to see what a body was made to do and how a body uses the foods we give it. I grew up learning a calorie is a calorie is a calorie....oh so not true!! It is about the cascade of hormonal reactions that occur when we eat certain foods...it is amazing!!

One of the areas of my job that I love the most is education. I love educating patients. Now believe me there are times when I start on my "rants" about things I think are so great and a patient will stare blankly. Yes I then wrap it up quickly. However when I see a patient move towards the edge of their seat or their eyes widen in awe...it is on!! I will draw, demonstrate, re-inact, raise my voice in excitement! I love that part of my work. After all, who is going to do what I ask of them if they do not know the why behind it?! I have to "sell" my patients on the reason they need to eat a certain way or exercise a certain way. My goal is to give you the why behind things. Then and only then will you truly believe and then act. And once you prove it to yourself then you will be hooked!!

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margueriteweston

Jan 16, 20194 min read

Prepping for the Elimination Diet

As with any "diet" or "lifestyle change" the key is prep. We don't fail when we have all our meals prepped, our fruits and veggies ready to go in the fridge, our healthy snacks on deck. We fail when we are too busy to eat lunch, get home from work, have to feed the kids and we are STARVING!! We have nothing ready and those chicken nuggets are looking pretty tempting!!

Ways to prepare:

~Be ready to actually prep!! This means taking time Sunday or whenever and cut and cut and chop and dice. No one likes this...if they say they do they have no children! I suppose I don't mind when I can gave a glass of wine next to me and my music in the background or the latest podcast to listen to...but no wine on elimination diet and I have two kids so my background music is them playing school or having a dance party (or ever so rarely fighting...sarcasm)!

~Plan your meals and snacks for the week! Write them down. Try to pick meals with overlapping ingredients to save money and time.

~Don't allow yourself to become HANGRY!! Don't skip meals, have snacks with you. We carry them for our toddlers why can't we have a stash for ourselves?

~Cut what you can ahead of time. I also like to cook my meat ahead of time. I can cook chicken, turkey beforehand and even freeze it until I'm ready to use.

~Have a meal or two in the freezer ready to be eaten for those days that life just gets in the way. Chili or soups are great for this.

~You have to prepare your mind! THIS IS FOR ANY DIET NOT JUST THIS ONE. (and by the way I'm not sure why it is the elimination DIET, makes it seem as though weight loss is the intended goal however it is usually a medical issue like bloating, rashes, headaches, IBS, fatigue, weight gain, brain fog that we are trying to solve. But that being said most people do lose weight on it). Seriously the mindset is HUGE!! WHAT IS YOUR WHY?!?! Honestly weight loss is usually not a good enough reason for motivation for a diet. It just isn't. BE SPECIFIC...I want to be able to get down and play with my kids, I'm sick of feeling like crap, I don't want to take medicine. My hubby and I are doing a 21 day fast with our church #Rockcity, in Columbus, Ohio. We do it every year in January. Some people fast social media, some certain foods, some all solid foods, whatever you want. I am fasting to remind myself to stay engaged in my quiet time of prayer and reading. Our fast is the elimination diet. That is a bigger why. I will not cheat because of my why. So write down your why, know it, put up post its with it. If my why were, I'd like to get tone I can 100% guarantee you I would have eaten pizza day #3 : )

~Prepare your house. Get rid of any temptations you can. For some reason cleaning my fridge helped me. (see pic below...the A and R are still there from our pesky elf who put stickers all over the fridge in December!)

~Tell your family and friends...you need support!! You need the kind of support that says..."what? You don't need that cookie...demon be gone!!" Not the "its only one, you've done so well this far, reward yourself". Oh you know the friends who will do this!!

~If you fall off the wagon...no biggie!!! Hop back on it!! No one is perfect...remember my mantra PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION. And just because you eat 3 donuts at breakfast please don't continue the downward spiral all day long. This is very common for us ladies!!

~Expect it to be uncomfortable at first. This is a change. Most of us are addicted to carbs and sugar. Seriously it is like crack to your mind (science backs this!). You may have caffeine headaches (buffered vitamin C is the cure!). You may want to decrease your caffeine a few days ahead of time.

~Drink plenty of water! I absolutely positively stink at this myself. I mean awful. There are days I drink less than 20 oz, I'm trying people! I'm getting better!! Goal is an once per kilogram of body weight. So take your weight in pounds and divide by 2.2. This is your kilogram weight (sounds a lot better than your weight in pounds huh??). This is the number of ounces you can aim for.

~I'll try to post some recipes as well!! Feel free to share what you love too or requests if you have any!

This is a tough but definitely an attainable diet! We are currently on day #14 of #21 then we will slowly reintroduce foods back. I have to say I was a little hungry the first few days but overall I have felt great!! For me the biggest change has been no bloating! I still miss my favorite guilty pleasures, but I actually feel pretty good. This is a good "reset" for us. To remind us that we like healthy foods and that we CAN change our cravings!! Amazing when you cut sugar, suddenly fruit is so sweet!! You stop craving it as much...seriously I promise!!

Stay tuned at reviveyourhealthcolumbus.com

And remember this is for education purposes and should not replace advice from your physician. Make sure you talk to your health care provider before embarking on any "diets".

2 Comments

margueriteweston

Jan 17, 2019

@duffnsun yes definitely... in the next few days I will break it down by foods so it’s straight forward. As I go let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for reading

duffnsun

Jan 17, 2019

Can you go into detail on your fast? What are you doing, not doing etc.?

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Columbus, Ohio

drweston@reviveyourhealthcolumbus.com

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REVIVE YOUR HEALTH

Progress not Perfection

Marguerite Weston, MD