healthy eating

As a child I always had stomach ache's ALL the time!  I was 10 and the doctor's would tell my mom that I was making it up to get out of school.  They would say there is no way that a 10 year old could have ulcers or stress stomach aches.  Well, when I was 15 I finally found a doctor that believed there could really be something wrong.  I had an endoscopy and my wonderful doctor found that I had severe acid reflux disease (GERD) and erosive esophogitis (EE) pretty severely.  Along with that they also discovered that I was allergic to the protein in milk, AKA whey (or casein).  This started my long journey to getting healthy.  They started me on a medication that would help heal my throat and would help with my reflux.  Plus, I had to eliminate dairy from my diet completely.  After about a year, I had another endoscopy and they found that it had really helped my throat, but the reflux was still there.  I continued on my medication and worked to change my diet to help my reflux.  I had always LOVED milk and cheese and ice cream and pizza and mac and cheese and anything dairy.  It was hard to adjust to living without dairy but I worked hard.  At the time, I only drank soda, no water, which was something else I was told to cut back on. 

More recently, I had started to see an acupuncturist.  Not only was I still having stomach problems after all this time, but I was also having trouble with my hormones.  Going to the acupuncturist really helped because she was also a nutritionist.  She was really helpful in understanding how food changes in the body.  She gave me a general guideline and lots of books to read.  I stopped seeing her awhile back, because it was WAY too expensive, but I think it definitely helped overall.  The main thing I learned is too eliminate dairy, which was easy since I already have committed to that.  Then she got me to stop drinking soda, which was a huge accomplishment, since I've never been able to.  The last thing that I never thought I would ever be able to do, was stop eating meat.  I didn't completely stop ever, but I try to keep it to a minimum, and instead focus on eating mostly veggies.

The bad thing is that once we moved and were overcome with all the chaos that is building a house, I have found that I rarely follow my diet!  I am back to at least one soda a day, sometimes two.  I also find it very difficult to cook at this house.  I don't have all of my kitchen stuff, and it's super small and unorganized.  Plus, I have to wash all the dishes by hand, which I have NEVER in my life had to do.  It is a very hard adjustment.  All of these things have contributed to not following my diet.  My goal is to get back on track.

Week one:  eliminate dairy (this should be very easy)
Week two:  cut back on meats (again this should be pretty easy)
Week three:  eliminate soda (this will be the most difficult)
Week four:  work on switching to gluten free
Week five:  cut back on sugars
Week six:  less processed foods (should be fairly easy)

Other things I want to make sure I'm doing along the ways are...

working out 3 times a week (I go to Zumba twice a week, so just have to find one other activity)
take my herbs 3 times daily

I am going to be rereading "The Kind Diet" as a way to help keep me on track.