A Change.

It's 10:20pm. I've been up since 5am. Isaiah likes to get up around that time daily now, and by the time he gets back down the older boys are up. I would be sleeping right now, except Dave took Julian to the ER (because everywhere else was closed) because he's suspect for strep...again. What mom can sleep before she tucks her sick baby into bed? Not me. So up I wait.

I thought I'd use this time to write my thoughts about a kind of big life decision I recently made. Maybe it won't seem like much to some people, but it is to me.

I've decided to live gluten and dairy free.

Now I'm not going to be asking about cross-contamination at restaurants and I'm not going to freak out if they accidentally put whip on my almond milk latte- but for the most part, this is me now. And here's why.

I suffer from frequent migraines, psoriasis, acne, anxiety, and restless sleep. I don't need to go into details about any of that as I feel it's pretty self-explanatory. The worst by far are the migraines, so about a month ago when I got 3 in one week I said *enough* and made the decision.

It's going really well so far! It's only been 3 or so weeks, but I can already tell a difference. My migraines have eased immensely, my psoriasis has calmed, my face is clear, I've been sleeping well and I'm much less anxious. I've also been using magnesium oil spray before bed as I heard that can help with migraines, and it's greatly improved the quality of my sleep. I also feel less bloated and my clothes are fitting me much better (a big deal for this postpartum mama!).

I decided to eliminate gluten and dairy because my functional medicine doctor has recommended in the past that I do so, simply because with my symptoms I obviously have inflammation in my body and those are known inflammatory foods. It's simple really. I'm also choosing to eat much less processed food in general and have been making my own nut milks and butters, as well as salad dressing and ghee. It's actually kind of fun! Add to that I've been exercising and I've just been feeling all around better.

One of my best friends, Erika, adopted this lifestyle about a year and a half ago now and has seen tremendous results. She's been a huge inspiration and motivates me to do my best with all this. I love that I have someone to talk to about it who's gone before me and is well established in this way of living, it makes it so much easier.

I look forward to what's in store on this journey (especially once I start adopting parts of this lifestyle to my boy's diets!).

Until next time,

Lindsay