My spouse inspires me every day, but this year, it was her diligence to radically change our eating habits, walking every day despite the Minnesota weather extremes, and finding new recipes that made us feel nourished that was especially inspiring to me.
In May 2024, Amy was diagnosed with an auto-immune condition called Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) that causes severe stiffness and soreness in her arms, shoulders, hips, and legs. The stiffness and pain were constant and only relieved temporarily when she was asleep. She jokingly referred to her arm span as “T-Rex arms,” given the short distance she could extend her arms without severe pain. We now know that her PMR was triggered by a bout of COVID-19 contracted in October 2023. The condition is typically triggered by a virus and most often goes into remission after a few years of bombarding it with some hard-hitting medication.
In the six months we were waiting for a diagnosis, Amy started removing refined sugar and carbohydrates from our diet in an attempt to reduce the inflammation in her body. We immediately started to feel better mentally, experienced less stiffness in our joints (albeit marginally for Amy as the autoimmune condition raged on), and we both started to lose a few pounds. After her diagnosis in March, Amy was put on a very high dose of prednisone, which calmed down the autoimmune condition but came with a warning from her rheumatologist that a typical side effect of that much prednisone was a forty-pound weight gain. Amy doubled down on our diet, and we became full-blown keto dieters on March 15, 2024.
As Amy began to radically change our diet, she began searching for keto recipes that would ensure we were ingesting 20 carbs or less per day, the majority of those coming from vegetables. The race was on. She researched keto recipes online, bought keto cookbooks, and watched YouTube cooking videos. From March through July, Amy made a new recipe for dinner every day and started to assemble a massive ring binder of “keepers.” I willingly ate all the new meals and offered a thumbs up/thumbs down rating system with the thumbs up recipes printed out and filed in the growing ring binder. Amy spent an average of four hours each day seeking out recipes, purchasing and prepping food, and planning meals. This diligence to try a new recipe for 150 consecutive days resulted in an expansive repertoire of new go-to recipes.
As the months progressed and the weight continued to fall off our bodies, Amy was unable to reduce the amount of prednisone she was taking without a flare; however, despite taking a high dose of prednisone, she continued to lose weight. Her rheumatologist was amazed and actually flagged her medical chart so he could follow her progress. He said he had always wondered if someone could avoid the typical weight gain associated with long-term, high-dosage prednisone use by eating a keto diet. We have now lost 100 pounds each in the nine months since going “all out keto.” If you had told me a year ago that I would lose one hundred pounds in 2024, I would have never believed you. Amy’s ability to take adversity and turn it into something healthy and new is my inspiration for this year. It is also the basis for my personal well-being goal for 2025, which is to lose another forty to fifty pounds.
I am sharing a recipe for Fathead Pizza dough, which is a low-carb pizza crust made from mozzarella cheese and almond flour. This is one of our favorite low-carb pizza crusts and a recipe that Amy has taught many of our friends how to make. It is nice not to be missing out on great pizza just because we’re trying to change our diet for the better.
I recognize that I am incredibly fortunate to have a spouse who is also my personal chef and who loves cooking and the challenge of trying out new recipes. Those activities do not come naturally to me. To balance the workload, I gladly and willingly wash every dish, pan, pot, and utensil in the house, and there has been a mountain of them this year.
Amy just began a new drug to combat her condition and, hopefully, reduce the amount of prednisone she requires. We are starting the new year optimistic this drug will be the one that offers her consistent relief and, eventually, remission. Fingers crossed! I know I owe my better health status to my spouse. I have an abundance of energy and mental clarity, as well as many bags of clothing that no longer fit and that we’ve carted off to charity. And if that’s not enough, the results of the blood work and metabolic panel at my recent annual check-up offer concrete proof of the positive results of our radical diet and lifestyle change that began this year.
