“In October 2019, I began my food addiction recovery and weight loss journey with Joy, and after recently rereading the post that I wrote for her website in May 2021, I was overwhelmed with gratitude.”
“I continue to be in remission of food addiction and disordered eating and have maintained a weight loss of well over 100 pounds. As well, improvements in the symptoms of both depression and ADHD have been sustained.
In order to remain in remission, I avoid foods that are addictive for me, including all sugar and flour products. I have found it important to eliminate all “cheat days” so that I do not return to my addiction.
Each day, I eat nutritious, satisfying, and enjoyable food based on the Meal Plan that Joy designed for me, and updated as my weight normalized.
A decade ago, I could never have imagined eating this way. I can honestly say that my favourite foods are steak, squash, and Brussels sprouts with butter. I have no desire to return to eating the sugary and processed foods that I binged on in the past.
Joy has been an invaluable support on my health journey. She is incredibly thorough, knowledgeable, and caring.
I recently returned to work with Joy due to some health concerns I had been facing and she advocated for me to return to my doctor to undergo more comprehensive thyroid testing. Finally, after many years of confusing symptoms and doctors’ appointments, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism.
Once I was diagnosed, Joy adjusted and tailored my Meal Plan to my hypothyroidism and history of obesity and food addiction. I am very grateful for Joy’s knowledge and insight.
I truly have been profoundly blessed.
One of the most important first steps I took in 2019 was reaching out to Joy, as well as to a clinical counselor, and a food addiction support group.
I hope my story continues to provide hope to anyone who is wondering if it is possible to be free from their addiction to food.“
~J.H., October 10, 2024
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Today I buried my mom.
My dad is buried beside my mom and visiting his grave reminded me in a fresh way that his death was related to him having Alzheimer’s disease, and that he had type 2 diabetes for the last 40 years of his life. While my elevated blood sugar is a side-effect of the thyroid hormone medication that I have to take, taking Metformin and continuing to eat a low carb diet and exercising only makes sense. His death has changed how I will live. 
I planned to go to the gym for the first time this past Wednesday, but make sure there was nothing slowing me down to “showing up”, my gym bag was already packed, and by the front door. 
I knew something was wrong, and for several months, I assumed my feeling exhausted and having joint and muscle pain was a carry-over effect from having had Covid. But a cell phone picture of myself taken just before the wedding told me it had to be something else. Gradually, over several months, I went from looking as I had been the previous two years after losing 55 pounds to looking like I had regained everything. I later found out, it wasn’t fat but an accumulation of mucin in the skin that is one of the hallmark signs of myxedema. You can read more about myxedema and the skin changes associated with hypothyroidism 
This weekend was my second son’s wedding, and the difference between how I felt in June and now is incredible! Instead of wearing medical compression stockings and orthopedic shoes so I could walk, I wore regular nylons and dress pumps.
As a clinician, I felt similarly when I lost half my hair in September of 2022. I wondered if others would consider me a “failure” for not having been able to prevent it.
It has been recommend that to reverse significant hair loss due to telogen effluvium to maintain serum ferritin at levels of >157 pmol/L (70 ng/dL) [4].
Food sources of selenium include Brazil nuts, with 2 Brazil nuts meeting the daily requirement of 200 mcg of selenium. Other good sources of selenium are mushrooms, eggs, fish such as cod and halibut, chicken and eggs. 
Eating foods rich is zinc is the safest way to ensure adequate intake and good sources of zinc include red meat, poultry, seafood such as oysters, crab and lobster, as well a nuts. 
In addition to dairy foods that are fortified with Vitamin D, foods that are naturally good sources of Vitamin D include fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel and tuna.
The blood tests confirm that I have both thyroperoxidase antibodies (TPO-Ab) and thyroglobulin antibodies (TG-Ab), which along with my symptoms, confirms my diagnosis of Hashimoto’s disease, but thankfully my blood test results indicate that neither are elevated.
This past Monday, I went to the lab to have blood tests to measure my thyroid hormones, anti-thyroid antibodies, and an iron panel. When I had met with my doctor last week, I learned that I would need to pay for the free T3 test because the British Columbia guidelines and protocols for ordering thyroid tests state that a free T3 test is only covered to rule out suspected cases of hyperthyroidism [1]. As I wrote 
How many people would be willing to order dinner at a restaurant that did not post the price of its menu items until after they ordered?
“A Dietitian’s Journey” (Part I) was my personal weight-loss and health-recovery journey that began on March 5, 2017 when I decided to make dietary and lifestyle changes so that I could reclaim my health. At that time, I was obese, had type 2 diabetes for the previous 8 years, and extremely high blood pressure. 
The next symptom that I became aware of was swelling in my ankles. It wasn’t just a little bit of swelling, but significant enough that I needed to wear compression stockings all day.
It is easy to see from the above photo that in less than 3 months on thyroid medication treatment, my face has lost its puffy, “inflated” look yet amidst the positive improvements of decreased edema and looking more like myself in some respects is the reality that I have lost ~1/2 of my hair due to telogen effluvium that often occurs with sustained hypothyroidism. You can read more different causes for hair loss 
Telogen effluvium – is the most common form of diffuse hair loss [7]. It usually occurs after a profound stress, shock or traumatic event including after childbirth, as the result of a thyroid disorder, as well as rapid weight loss. It has been reported after a sudden and significant calorie restriction diet (“crash dieting”) [8], and has also been reported associated with the popularized ‘keto’ diet [9,10], but I am in agreement with Dr. Stephen Phinney of Virta Health that it should not occur in a well-designed keto diet [11]. 
In telogen effluvium, hair often comes out in clumps in the shower, or in a brush [6]. Loss is usually from all over the scalp, but may occur more on the temples, the part and the crown of the head [7]. Once the cause telogen effluvium is removed, regrowth will usually begin within two to six months [6].
He had no idea that I was hiking in North Vancouver and Golden Ears Provincial Park for several hours at a time last summer. I knew that it was abnormal for me to feel so exhausted and for my muscles to feel so weak, and one look in the mirror told me something was very wrong.
Two years ago, in the summer of 2019, I was feeling fantastic and was in remission of type 2 diabetes and hypertension and was celebrating my “
Approximately two years ago, I reached my highest weight of 250 pounds and decided to make one more attempt to lose weight, and began researching low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets. Through this research, I discovered books, articles, and podcasts about food addiction. As I read and listened, I became certain that I qualified as a food- and sugar addict. I learned that sugar and flour are addictive substances and decided to remove them from my diet. I searched the internet for a dietitian who could help me to formulate a meal plan that eliminated the foods that I found addictive. I discovered Joy’s website and contacted her to schedule a Complete Assessment Package. Joy developed a meal plan for me that excluded the foods that were addictive for me and which allowed me to feel satisfied and energized, while losing weight. For the first time, weight loss did not feel like work.
I have lost well over a 100 pounds, and am a normal body weight and a waist circumference. I am so thankful for my weight loss, and my improved physical health. Even more importantly however, my depression has been significantly better, and I am truly enjoying life. In addition, my ADHD symptoms have greatly decreased, and my mental capacity has significantly improved. For the first time in my life, I can complete my work with little procrastinating.
In April 2019, Karen private messaged me on social media and sent me a photo of herself, after she had lost 150 pounds. It was both delightful and very rewarding to receive this from a client and to see that she had continued to apply what she had learned, and was doing exactly what she set out to do. She gave me permission to share it on social media with only her first name and initial of her last name, which I did. All people knew is that this was what one client had accomplished in a year.
Last week instead of private messaging me an update, Karen decided to post a compilation photo of herself under one I had posted of myself on Facebook. Even though I had not spoken to her in over a year, there was her picture for everyone, including me, to see! Wow!! Karen had lost more than 200 pounds, and had every reason to be proud of her accomplishment! 
“I started keto on my own in January 2018, but it really stressed me out. There is so much information ‘out there’, and everything contradicted itself. It didn’t make sense to me. Macros, IF, fat bombs…..even in my coffee. Seriously, don’t mess with my coffee.
Leading up the appointment was nerve racking for me. As a morbidly obese person, you get used to being told how far gone you are and how your health is at jeopardy. Just asking for help sometimes is scary as you don’t know how judged you are going to be. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask, and was just hoping I’d really be “heard”.
I am from a family of people that always ‘battled with their weight’.
When I became overweight and then obese, and developed type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, I justified that I was at high risk since both of my parents had the same. I realize now that the “high risk” was our shared diet and lifestyle, more than genetics. Our shared comorbidities were adopted.
What was true about food was also true for beverages.
Once again, my palate returned to coffee, but finding a decently roasted coffee in Vancouver BC was harder than I thought. Given that this was the “West Coast”, I was discouraged how difficult it was to find good quality Arabica beans that weren’t over roasted. I stumbled across a few small roasters that did an excellent job, but in time they modified their roasts for “local tastes”, so once again, I was back looking for a new roaster. On a few occasions, I ordered from La Vieille Europe in Montreal because in the 40 or 50 years they have been in business, they never lost their passion for properly roasted, single origin coffee.
Over the 20 years I have lived in Vancouver, I discovered the world of quality tea that is largely unknown to most non-Asian born Chinese. There was one excellent tea importer in the Chinatown that I knew of and one that is still in the Richmond Public market that have single origin estate teas that rival the diversity of the best coffee roaster. Over the past 20 years, I’ve explored different types of tea from China and have come to like a few; my favourite of which is a fermented tea known as Pu-ehr.
At the beginning of this year, I began to explore green teas from Japan when I discovered Hibiki-An, an online tea importer from Uji region of Kyoto. My culinary world expanded once again.
For the purpose of “cooling” the water to just the right temperature, there is a yuzamashi — which is a small ceramic cup with a spout that the boiled water gets poured into to cool momentarily before being poured into the kyuzu; a special tea pot with a single handle, built in mesh filter and large opening for the water (see photo, above).
The colour was a bright jade green and the taste had no hint of bitterness whatsoever!
