August 1, 2023 | Leave a comment When it wasn’t Candida in the first place. When you learn how to label assault for what it is. When you unlearn habits that don’t serve you anymore. And when you chuck it all in one long-ass rant. a gynecologist may not link yeast infections to brain fog. they’ll send you on your way with an antifungal and never consider your gut health. i went into office visits expecting doctors to connect all the dots, but part of being an advocate for yourself means being educated about how your body works, using that information to push for the care you deserve, and speaking to your doctors frankly about what is—and is not—working for you. —lo bosworth, love yourself well Monthly Mood: Heal 30 july 2023 Today is Day 2000. Holy hell. I want to heal. Seven months of having space, stability, books, and probing introspection allowed me to better recognize how much I have been through since 1996. It’s easy to belittle your own story because other people like to tell you how lucky you are without knowing you. But the body keeps the score. And my health is important to me. I recognize that I changed my blog from Vivian Alive to Chasing Calories almost two years ago. I was very excited to create vegan adaptations of staple dishes from around the world, share recipes and tricks for delectable smoothies and balls and bars, and dish out stories of odd, noteworthy street foods that no one ever talks about—at least not in English. bánh căn, nha trang Right around that time, I got a bad infection of the intestines. For months I just couldn’t get rid of it. I tried so many doctors and antibiotics and walked away with worse IBS than ever before. Ever since the end of 2021, I can no longer eat what the other travelers eat—what I used to eat—without breaking out into bad acne and having loose bowels. Hiking in Nepal was painful. Everything on the trekking lodge menus was processed, refined, and a great source of emulsifiers. The meal that once invigorated my body, that saves the most money, that nourishes the body the best, that contains no animal products by default, named daal bhat, destroyed me. I suspect it was the oil. relevant read: never trust an egg sandwich Returning to Vietnam and regaining access to all my favorite Vietnamese and East Asian favorites was painful. Living in a hostel with shaky bunks and shared toilets was painful. relevant read: the two-week chronicle of a hungry girl and her vietnamese street food Only after I found my own high-quality place and nested into a smaller beach city in 2023, bought my own high-speed blender and stocked my freezer with enough smoothie ingredients to get me through fifty lockdowns, could I even start to make the changes that my body had begged so long for. Brutally honest introspection and making lasting changes to one’s lifestyle take a good deal of consistency, time, effort, and $. So. I recognize that I haven’t shared much on calories I’m chasing. The content has rather been on women’s issues and reproductive health. Because this is what I am facing now, after 2000 days of chapters of my 20s. Because dates hurt me. And so does peanut butter. And so does fruit, to be honest. Gynecology has repeatedly let me down. So have some doctors from other departments, like the gastroenterologist who diagnosed me with ‘anxiety disorders’ because I asked her if I should avoid taking metronidazole and avocado at the same time and she said, without looking at me or speaking my language, in a highly offended tone for daring to ask such a question, that I was “thinking too much.” (You shouldn’t take metro and avo together. If you want your metro to work well.) I am given incorrect diagnoses or prescriptions at about four out of five visits. It wasn’t Candida in the first place. After all that. Meltdowns and medication that disrupt a body’s natural microbiome. Products marketed to help your pH that actually destroy your pH. Clothes and foods into the bin. It wasn’t Candida in the first place. A competent doctor finally thought to do a more complete panel on a swab sample and we finally found the bacteria that doesn’t belong. It was an uncommon, mostly asymptomatic STI. I have no idea how long I’ve had it for. Always get tested and disclose everything and never stop. Get pap smears. Ask all the questions until there is zero confusion. If you feel like you’re not being seen and heard, walk outta there. I am not a doctor, but don’t hesitate to ever ask me more about this. Message me @chasingcalories on IG or drop an email to chasingcalories@gmail.com. I immediately told the relevant people about my diagnosis and the risks that come with it, like fertility complications and an increased susceptibility for other infections including HIV. Weeks later one got tested and was negative. Another said, “Do you really think I should get tested?” The rest didn’t reply a word. That breaks my heart. Not for me. For the other men and women out there at risk. I don’t know what we spend our time and money on in life because everyone complains of similar health symptoms. Stuff that won’t kill us, that doesn’t have a single cause, induced by disastrous diet, lifestyle, stress levels, and antibiotics. Yet no one will hold a conversation about the stuff that actually matters—our bowel movements, anxiety, and the health of our vaginal flora. Love Yourself Well and Gut are two books that have really helped me. Taking a probiotic that contains the strains I want (L. rhamunus and L. reteuri) with a high enough CFU helps me feel grounded. Natural suppositories containing boric acid and sepia and more strains of Lactobacillus have also put me on the path to health. Podcasts helped. So has changing the people I surround myself with. And getting out of a relationship where I always found myself crying, disappointed, and tensely anxious. And changing healthcare providers over and over and over. i only restrict restrictions. i eat whatever, whenever, but i’m honest with myself about what it is that i actually want. Now I can sleep for nine hours every night if I choose to. And have daily naps. Now I am eating for team Good Bacteria as I learn that what decides where we store fat, and a big factor of our mood and hormonal balance, are the species that currently make up the two kilograms of yeast, bacteria, viruses, and archaea inside of our intestines. It is key to have a lot of good. Usually they are at war wiping each other out and curating that healthy balance to defend us, to provide us with vitality. Antibiotics create a detrimental power vacuum. (Basically, if you swallow a high-quality probiotic, or stick one in your vagina, which has her own cosmos of microbiotic battles, the goodness goes straight to your brain. Literally.) Now for the first time in my life, when I surf, there is no toxic atmosphere. At all. I stopped fooling myself that I got to use boards for free because we were friends, because he didn’t assault me when he totally did. The boards at my new shop are in good condition. They are well-suited to my progression. I pay to use them. Surfing has helped me heal my health.* Listening to the doctor who told me to stay out of the water for a month did the opposite. *I can’t say this without mentioning that healing my health helped me surf. Everything is interlaced. I’ve changed my approach. I’ve also welcomed YouTube education and bedroom pop ups back into my life. This week I understood the sport better than I did over the span of eight years. I also multiplied how long I think things will take by a factor of ten and have a more realistic perspective of the learning curve. Which is really different from “feel the wave” and “ya just gotta get out there, man.” That’s where bad habits come from. We like to look down. We like to use our knees. We love poo stance. When we’re about to get our ass handed to us by a throttling wall of saltwater, our reflexes make us spread our legs out like the tail feathers on a horny male peacock, grab our rails, and ditch our board. I finally get to try out the first board I ever purchased. There’s no painful reef below me as I try way too hard, hope I don’t regurgitate the contents of my stomach pouch, and somehow snatch a few puny waves and ride for a quarter millisecond. I’m out there in downpour where I can barely bat the raindrops out of my eyes fast enough. I’m out there in glassy conditions at sundown. I plow through a few kilos of salty outfits in a day. Before this excellent week at the end of the month, I got an upper and lower endoscopy and totally freaked out about it and felt really alone. I was officially diagnosed with IBS and GERD. Then I found a general practitioner I really liked and felt a lot better. I sucked it up and changed my priorities and my bloating got manageable and my bowels regulated (without giving up any refined or junk food—I eat dairy, I eat gluten, I eat MSG, I eat cheap ham—but rather genuinely not wanting it that much any more). Then I had motivation for the rest of my life and loves. as a result of being a strong advocate for myself, i now look out for myself. i eat better. i sleep better. i exercise and have more energy than ever. i focus on wellness. good health is beautiful, and i like what i see in the mirror (nearly) every day. —lo bosworth, love yourself well Vivian snorkeled. Vivian made oatmeal raisin cookies for the first time in four years and they were insane. Vivian helped out an aesthetic vegan cafe in Saigon and foamed oat milk and pulled espressos for the first time ever and they were insanely shitty. Vivian learned that juiced diep ca, or fish mint, is really good for women. Vivian appreciated that it’s dragonfruit and avo season in Vietnam. Vivian tried her first grilled egg that probably contained fish sauce. Vivian basked in the bliss of platonic relationships with males who like her for her. Vivian basked in the bliss of living alone. Whenever she has those IDKWTFIMDOINGWITHMYLIFE moments, she simply has to remember red dragonfruitbeginner-friendly beach breakphở red dragonfruitbeginner-friendly beach breakphở red dragonfruitbeginner-friendly beach breakphở obsessions breville barista prooatside barista blendtwix bar @ rawberrypain au chocolatham and cheese croissant @ breadventurenước mía võngour beloved summertteokbokkihaving a gphaving a spanish tutorgarden of life once daily women’s probioticlove wellness flora power vaginal probiotic suppositoriesdiep ca juicecharlie followscoreano vlogsoatmeal raisin cookieshemp beauty barscam ranh surf camplongboardsfunboardspic’s smooth peanut buttertrung nướnghanami lunch sushi setbánh mì ba lẹ ngã 7 thấp cam đặc biệt nhỏpre-surf bánh mì + ca phe sửa đálactobacillusprebiotic foodslivin socal breakfast burritolivin breakfast tacospizza margheritaq-surfcancer council sensitive sunscreenlongboard sessionsshannon ainsliekyrgyz datesthenormal thrift shop currently reading: the sex lives of african women by nana darkoa sekyiamah love yourself well by lo bosworth Previous Monthly Mood: Can’tdida Explore my full archive of Vietnam and Monthly Moods. Learn more about this round-the-world solo trip.