IG Live: My IBD Journey, Strengths, & Challenges with Lily Ross | Herbal Goodness
This week we were blessed with the absolutely amazing IBD warrior goddess Lilly Ross IBD survivor. She came to join us on our Instagram Live to tell her story and share tips and advice to our wonderful viewers. If you were unlucky enough to miss the interview no stress, we’ve got your back, you can get a summary of the interview right here.
Who is Lilly Ross?
Lily Ross is an incredible young woman who has overcome the debilitating Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) through the hard work and research she and her mom have undertaken. She now works to inspire and educate others in the field of healthy living and is an Instagram influencer under the handle @_intuitivelivingwithlil.
What is IBD?
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is used to describe disorders that involve chronic inflammation of your digestive tract such as ulcerative colitis.
Ulcerative colitis, an auto-immune disease that involves inflammation and sores (ulcers) along the superficial lining of your large intestine (colon) and rectum.
[ Mayo Clinic 2020 ]
Lily’s Fascinating Story
Lily told us how she was a stressed-out kid growing up, always on the go, doing everything for herself, and never letting on how the stress would affect her. Her high pace life caused her anxiety, miss independent was never asking for a helping hand. But on the surface she was a regular American kid, eating junk food, snacking on candy bars every day.
“I mean it was just like so crazy how it happened”
It started gradually, she was 15 and she started to feel nauseous with stomach cramps, and a need to go to the bathroom frequently, where she would find blood in her stools. For a few months, she ignored it, hoping it would disappear as a regular bug would. But it only got worse over time. Too embarrassed to show her mom, she confided in two of her best friends and showed them what was coming out when she went to the bathroom. Her friends were shocked and said to her:
‘That’s not normal, you should go see a doctor, you should tell your mom’.
So first thing after telling her mom she went to the doctor’s and sure enough, she was diagnosed immediately with a pretty severe case of ulcerative colitis.
That’s when the medication started, but nothing really improved for nearly two years the symptoms were kept at bay but nothing was resolved. One morning, after a MacDonald brekky on the way to school she had a severe flare-up.
“I couldn’t get off the bathroom floor I was just like curled up by the toilet. I knew that something was not right.”
She was hospitalized for two months three weeks with a proliferated large intestine, going to the bathroom 20 times a day. Pumped with drugs and steroids so much so she can hardly remember the experience.
“Like I literally had to ask my mom before this some of the details because I don’t remember a lot of it because I was so out of it.”
Eventually, they concluded that the only option was to remove the colon and use an ostomy bag for a few months while the healing took place, all during her senior year of high school.
It was only after that that the real healing process began, she and her mom researched and ended up with a Naturopath who restricted plenty of things in her diet until they could eliminate the food groups that caused the most inflammation to her gut. She completely cut sugar and made the changes, she has never had another infection again.
“I didn’t wanna do this, but I did it, and Thank Gosh because now I feel so much better than I ever did.”
Changing her diet was a complete game-changer, she could sleep more, which meant less anxiety, more energy, and clean living began to be the focus of her world.
“I could probably have done like, a lot different if I had discovered holistic health before this happened.”
Food is medicine
“You cannot out-exercise a bad diet.”
Lily spoke about how although she is not entirely plant-based, she eats mainly plants, and when she eats animal or fish produce she chooses organic and ethically sourced, and she eats mainly gluten-free. But her best advice was to cut out the poisonous candy crack-better known as sugar!
“One of the biggest things you can do for your health is cutting out sugar-it is literally inflammatory in nature it inflames your body.”
She spoke about the difficulties of going from a sugar addict to cutting it out pretty much altogether. But how literally every area of her life improved when she made the changes to her diet.
She spoke about how an important thing to remember is that it doesn’t matter how you look on the outside, it’s how the organs work on the inside. It’s important to eat a balanced diet, there is a place for all food.
“Sugar is Sugar-it does the same thing in your body whatever the source. If you have an inflammatory state in your body eating sugar will only feed the inflammation.”
There are plenty of sugar alternatives, Lily spoke about how she uses Monk Fruit sweetener in her baked goods and how it’s great because it isn’t artificial but it is also so much sweeter than even sugar.
“I believe that all food fits.”
The role of Supplements in a healing diet
“Supplements have been huge in my healing process.”
Lily spoke about how supplements have such an important part in our diet and are great ways to get all the extra vitamins we need to function at an optimal level. High quality and naturally sourced supplements are so important and she was happy when she found Herbal Goodness and the quality of the products sold. Lily has been taking Herbal Goodness products for nearly three years now and has no intention of ever stopping.
These are the supplements that have changed her life:
Pro-Biotics
Multi-Vitamins
Papaya Leaf Extract
Bamboo Leaf Extract
“What you are eating literally determines your health.”
Looking for a quick fix?
One thing that Lily also touched on and likes to refer to on her Instagram is being in touch with nature. Being in direct contact with the earth can improve your health, this act is called Earthing or Grounding. The planet has an excessive number of electrons, floating about, going spare, just for the taking. And all you have to do is be in contact with the earth, take your shoes and socks off, and get connected.
“The Earth is essentially an electron bank.”
We have become so disconnected from our bodies and from the earth. Connecting again can help to reduce inflammation, anxiety, add all those anti-oxidants back into your body. And the best thing? It’s free!
We are so removed from our original natural state. Walking barefoot, eating only
food that the earth produced. Living in times where such diseases like IBD didn’t
even exist. So if you want to get back to your best self, your original state;
Go back to nature.
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Originally published at https://www.herbalgoodnessco.com.
