By Kara McCartney
Posted February 22, 2017
In April of 2014, Primal Palate interviewed Meg Doll—a holistic nutritionist and self-love advocate—for a Paleo success story. Meg became our first success story post about someone who tried to gain weight on Paleo. Today, you’ll meet the second.
Almost three years after I wrote that original post on Meg, I met her for the first time. The day I met Meg was the day she moved in with me. For the past month, she’s lived in my apartment as we photograph her upcoming book, Keto Freedom.
One week into the project, one of Meg’s former clients flew across the country to spend the day with us. The girl who walked into my apartment was gorgeous, talkative, smiling, and ready to pitch in. She was tall and didn’t appear to have an ounce of fat on her body. When she proudly said, “Since I started working with Meg, I’ve gained thirty pounds,” I almost dropped my camera. (We asked, and Meg is accepting new clients. You can get in touch with her here: Megtherhn@gmail.com – Bill & Hayley)
You are about to meet Liz—my one-day photography assistant and the next success story at Primal Palate. Liz was diagnosed with Lupus and Celiac Disease in college, causing rapid weight loss from 130 to 90 pounds. She would remain severely underweight for the remainder of college.
Keep reading for Liz’s story, the social stigma she went through for being falsely labeled as anorexic, and the changes she made to finally get better.
Let’s start at the beginning. When did your health story start?
In high school, I was the picture of good health. I don’t say that to sound conceited. I never got sick, did well in school, didn’t sleep much, was a two-sport varsity athlete—I felt invincible.
Toward the end of high school I got a very bad rash on my cheek. I thought it was from sun exposure over spring break. When it didn’t go away, I went to the doctor. Immediately upon seeing it, he said, “That’s a Lupus rash."
I was diagnosed several weeks into my freshman year of college at Notre Dame—mainly because I waited so long to go see a doctor. I didn’t feel bad or even know what Lupus was. I didn’t see what the big deal was when my doctor asked me if I “wanted to talk about it.”
The doctors put me on a couple medications and a steroid. Hypothetically, I would take the pills three times a day for the rest of my life. That is when the problems started. The drugs made me feel AWFUL. I had a ton of nausea, causing total food aversion. I could not stomach the thought of putting food in my mouth.
Things got really bad in the fall of sophomore year. In those first four months, I lost forty pounds. I went from 130 to 90 by Christmas break. Every doctor I went to thought I was anorexic. One after another, I told them, “I swear, this has nothing to do with me wanting to look or feel this way. I feel awful.”
I stopped taking the medications, but could not gain a pound. Not one pound! The weight loss got so bad, I started eating everything I could possibly eat. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. My family lives in South Bend, and my mom brought me food and took me to doctor appointments. Things got a little better, but I still didn’t feel well.
Somehow during all of this, I convinced my parents to let me spend the summer studying abroad in Ghana. I was so desperate for a sliver of normalcy. To my shock, they let me.
At the end of that trip, I was so sick I was almost forced to fly home twenty-four hours earlier. I thought I was going to die. Doctors ran a few simple blood tests and discovered I had Celiac Disease. Months before, I tried going gluten-free and dairy-free to help with the nausea. I requested that test much earlier, but everyone just told me I had was anorexic. While I was in Ghana, I ate so much white bread it nearly killed me.
When did you transition from gluten-free to Paleo?
The fall semester of my junior year—right after returning from Ghana—I was going to study abroad in Rome. I didn’t think gluten-free would be enough. The doctors were like, “There is no way you should be taking that trip,” but one suggested I try Paleo. One week before Rome, I stopped all medication and went on the GAPS diet.
It is truly remarkable that I didn’t get sick on that trip. No medication, and here I was—feeling a million times better. But when I came back home, I was still so tiny. I hadn’t gained a single pound.
That spring semester was really stressful. I had to load-up on classes to make up for my semester abroad. My way of coping was to say, “I’m not going to eat anything that isn’t GAPS-friendly.” I wanted to get better so badly it became an obsession. I started losing more weight because I was so stressed-out over eating the “right” foods. Eventually, I had this come-to-Jesus moment when I said, “Something is not working.” By that time, my white blood count had dropped to 0.2.
So, at this point you tried gluten-free, dairy-free, Paleo, and GAPS and you still couldn’t gain weight. What changed?
By my senior year of college—2015—I was running out of ideas. Lupus causes your body to attack healthy cells, and my number one impact was just sheer exhaustion. I had zero energy. I was losing my hair. I was diagnosed with PCOS that year, and all I could think was, “Great. Just add one more to my list.”
