REBECCA RASMUS

BEFORE: March 2006 AFTER: February 2007
Rebecca is Brad's wife. Gorgeous isn't she? ;o) Both she and I have discovered a lot about our bodies in the last 7 years together. Hope you enjoyed Rebecca's story as her case represents a lot of women.

FEBRUARY 2008

"Being raised by a very health-conscious mother, there were a lot of bad eating habits that I escaped as a kid. I never drank soda or ate white bread, and didn’t visit fast food restaurants often enough to develop an “addiction”. I always considered myself a generally healthy eater because of this and as I grew into adolescence and adulthood, I followed all the current diet fads, which through the 80’s and 90’s mainly centered on never snacking between meals and always eating low-fat and non-fat products.

However, I remember from a young age always feeling bloated and overstuffed after meals and having a lot of gas, which when you’re young, doesn’t bother you much. My friends and I would see how far we could stick out our bloated stomachs, and laugh as they teased me for being the farter. We half-jokingly attributed my foul-smelling farts to me being half-Mexican and I think in time, I came to believe it. Growing up in Arizona, we ate tons of Mexican food anyway; lots of corn and flour tortillas, rice, and the easiest culprit – beans. It was also common for me to suddenly notice that I’d gained about 10 lbs. and then go on a fad diet until I lost it again. All the women I knew were usually yo-yoing with their weight as well, so this seemed normal.

As a child I was allergic to all the beautiful desert nature and to the hay at the horse stables. I was used to dealing with itchy eyes, stuffy nose and sinus pressure, so it seemed logical that I also often suffered from headaches and sinus infections. I became an expert at all the types of headache medicines, and got used to all the names of antibiotics that the doctor would casually prescribe me every time I came in with another sinus infection. After I became sexually active, these sinus infections were replaced with bladder infections. I was one of those “unlucky” girls who got urinary tract infections all the time, so I repeatedly doused my system in cranberry juice and more antibiotics. This was especially prevalent when I was backpacking in Asia and able to obtain antibiotics without a prescription. At this point, I was taking these drugs constantly, one brand after another, as nothing seemed to 'cure' my urinary tract infections anymore.

After traveling in Southeast Asia for 5 months, I arrived in Australia at my chubbiest ever. Looking for the next fad diet to shed the weight, I discovered the first thing that changed my body and health forever - Bill Phillip's Body-for-Life book which advocated eating 5-6 small meals a day. Three larger meals a day had always left me overstuffed, yet hungry soon after, so I was thrilled to discover this new way of eating. It took awhile to get into the habit of planning my meals, but soon I was eating a small meal every 3-4 hours. At the same time, I learned about the glycemic index and focused on eating only unrefined carbohydrates with a low to medium GI. With both of these changes, the weight fell off and stayed off for good and best of all, I felt satisfied and energetic.

I never again had to think about my weight, but my health still kept me guessing. I now had many symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)– indigestion, cramping, diarrhea, constipation and those smelly farts. Yet again, I learned to live with my symptoms, as they seemed common in a lot of people and I thought that just like getting colds and flu, IBS was something I had no control over. As it's so easy to do, I believed that I was simply a victim of chance.

In the past two years, that thinking has changed drastically. When I've taken the time to learn and understand more about how the body works, I can't believe that for most of my life, I have let its wellbeing fall to chance. I gobbled up any pills ever prescribed to me, and every new low-fat, low-calorie, high-fiber, low-carb product that was sold to me, never questioning what was in it or how it got to be something so far removed from nature. Somehow I forgot - in this world of artificial flavors, corporate rule and slick marketing - that the reason we eat nature's food is for health and survival. Now when I look around me and see an epidemic of mental and physical disorders, syndromes, and cancers, I know that we are not eating for health and survival. We are not eating nature's food. How can we feel alive and stay alive if our food is dead?

So I took responsibility for the fact that my past antibiotic abuse had killed all the healthy, living digestive bacteria in my gut, and started recolonizing my body with these bacteria found in nature (using plain organic yoghurt and Inliven Probiotic). I stopped killing my food by radiating it with microwaves. I stopped eating food that has been poisoned with artificial sweeteners, colours, flavours, fertilizers, pesticides and chemicals. Lastly, I reflected on my travels and remembered that the world's people all eat differently depending on which of nature's food are available to them. I too needed to realize my metabolic type (using the Metabolic Typing Diet book) and eat foods that were right for me. In my case, this meant eating very few grains and much more animal meat and fat, two things I had greatly denied myself in the past.

Since I decided to stop being a victim and start taking responsibility for my own health, I rarely suffer from indigestion, diarrhea, constipation, weight gain or smelly farts. I no longer get colds, flu, headaches, sinus problems, allergies, urinary tract infections, or even pre-menstrual syndrome. I no longer feel tired or moody. Admittedly, 30 years of thought programming is hard to change, and there are times when I consume dead, unnatural food and drinks that I have grown to desire, like alcohol. My body immediately responds with a headache, bloating and/or diarrhea and I am reminded that it is I who is in control."

REBECCA RASMUS