Life before embarking on mycircadianclock journey
Today is a beautiful day in Dakar, very hot and humid yes, but for me it's the first time in months that I can recall waking up feeling so vibrant. Since turning 40 a few months ago I just seem to be going through turbulent waves of emotions and get physically worn out regularly. It is that stage in life where such hormonal changes become more evident though they probably started five years ago. My strategy now is to learn to manoeuvre through these new waters in the next coming ten years though it seems like it is not going to be as calm as the 30s were hormonally and I suppose this is what will make the journey exciting and nerve wrecking at the same time.
I would like to share a bit on my background before we get to my weekly updates that I'll be giving from next week. In 2015, I was here in Dakar, fairly new, about 6 months old. It was exciting to move to a new country and my first time to live in West Africa, in a francophone country and to experience high levels of humidity and heat. I think one of the major challenges I experienced was the change in food. I had come from Cape Town, South Africa where my food choices were wide and the costs reasonable. We like to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits as a family, but here we found that our choices were narrower and different, so it took some getting used to. I had been on supplements for low iron since 2010, this was due to my hormonal cycle which included heavy menses. My gynaecologist in Cape Town had actually put me on contraceptive pills since 2013 to make my then thick uterus lining thinner. At this point things were much better and in July 2015 I was fine and decided I would like us to try for another child.
My preferred weight range has been 62-66 kg whereas my target is 64 kg. So long as I could maintain my weight in that range that was great for me. My height is 162 cm. Parameters like body fat percentage, muscle mass and bone density didn't quite concern me though they are very important. I stayed within this range up till my pregnancy journey began in November 2015.
After my six weeks post-natal check up my gynaecologist cleared me to start exercise. Since I had been alone with my baby whilst my husband and our two other kids had returned to Dakar, I started taking walks for exercise with my little one. Regarding my diet I didn't do anything special, I just ate the types of food I had been having before, only I increased the carbohydrates, proteins and fats a little, and would have extra fruit sometimes since I was exclusively breastfeeding. I made sure I ate all the vegetable servings I needed to, the usual five a day. I returned to Dakar with our new baby at the beginning of October to join the rest of our family. At that point I was very happy to be back home in West Africa and appreciated how being with family is more joyful than being in a very nice place. Not to say Dakar is not nice, it just has a different feel and sometimes I feel helpless because my French is not so good. Anyway we settled in back well at home and with more help around me I was able to exercise more. My weight felt stagnant but I continued to eat responsibly making sure not to starve myself nor did I stuff myself.
In January 2017 when my baby started eating solids, I began to see the change. My average weight that month was 65.9 kg and at the end of the month I was able to fit into my normal pre-pregnancy clothes. At the time I arrived in Dakar, I came across Dr. Jade Teta with his metabolic effect programs, you can read more about what he teaches on metabolism on Dr. Jade Teta. Focusing more on metabolism helped me to have a different perspective on how our human body functions especially with the different female hormones involved. Dr.Teta focuses a lot on female hormones and I think he is one person who has done a tremendous job at researching female hormones and the hormonal cycle and how we can use it to our advantage to lose and maintain our weight within a range which we want to. It's not easy, just like life, but it is possible to live a healthy life even after having all those babies or having being obese before that. From my third pregnancy photo above in November 2015 it may look like I haven't been overweight before. But in the following photo below, from May 2007 when my second born was 9 months old, I was still overweight, or we might even say obese.
It took me three years to remove all the weight I wanted to and I have maintained my weight within my preferable range for the past ten years. I did notice though that as I approached 40, I could not indulge in my favourite desserts as often as I had done below the age of 35. My annual average weights between 2017, 2018 and 2019 were as follows respectively, 63.1 kg, 63.3 kg and 65 kg. So my 39th year was quite challenging, and I learnt that stress management is an addition to the equation as well as rest and restoration. At this current stage in life my experience is that issues can be magnified more depending on the stage of my hormonal cycle than they used to be back then. I also tend to find that if I overindulge on processed carbohydrates my body quickly gains weight or retains more water.
This year has been a challenging year for the whole world with the COVID-19. It does not matter which part of the world one is, you have been affected by this pandemic. We have really been tried and have come to a realization that we do not have control of this life, only our creator does, and our being safe and alive is not of our own doing as much as we try to protect ourselves, it is only by God's grace that we have life to complete his purpose. I am grateful for everyday I wake up in the same home as my loved ones and for the health God grants us.
Between 2010 and 2017 I tried eating everything in moderation (whilst incorporating more red meat and liver hoping it would help alleviate the low iron), high protein low carbohydrates and the ketogenic diet. All these did enable me to keep my weight under control, but I had challenging experiences with some, the worst being the Ketogenic diet. I could not handle the high fat very low-carb. I was nauseous all the time because of too much fat from butter and coconut oil, but I recall some two weeks when my weight had just fallen off into the lower range of my preference due to water loss.
In mid-2017 I did the Daniel Fast for the first time. For me it was for spiritual purposes, and I was amazed at how great I felt after doing this fast for a couple of weeks. During the fast, I only took whole plant based foods with no oils because oil is processed. In November 2017 I did the fast again and I had my lowest weight reading that year at 60.8 kg. It was as though I had discovered the land of milk and honey.
When we went into the new year, I started researching if there was a diet which incorporates eating that mimics the Daniel Fast and I actually found out there is. It is called the whole plant base diet and more information can be obtained from The Plant based diet. Some people call it a vegan diet but it is different in that on a vegan diet one can eat anything so long as it does not have animal products. You could end up becoming obese on a vegan diet if you eat all the processed plant based foods. Anyway, for twelve months I religiously followed a whole plant based diet and my weight reduction was so noticeable. I stayed under 62Kgs until April 2018. For my height I was still in a healthy range on the BMI scale but with some of my clothes hanging a little I decided to include more starchy veggies in my foods. My average weight at the end of 2018 was still great as mentioned before at 63 kg.
I went through roller coasters of emotions whilst working on my food, sleep and exercise. The most challenging time was from March to May 2020 where I turned 40 on 18th May. It was a period of online school for kids, no house help and isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That was it, I weighed myself and saw my weight at almost 68 kg and I decided enough is enough and my very good friend and I decided we will start a health management challenge from June 2020 where we would weigh in once a week and send each other the results for accountability.
It was during that time that I came across the myCircadianClock research app and I enrolled in the research. I have tried to share a bit of background information about where I've come from on my journey. I plan to share more in my subsequent updates. Until then, stay blessed.