I was getting migraines – that much we knew. To get me off the merry-go-round of constant pain and sickness, I took the medicine the doctor prescribed. But taking medicine certainly wasn’t cool as a kid. Medicine was for old people, not me. Plus it made my already out-of-sorts tweenage body feel even more unfamiliar to me.

I liked the idea that I could somehow “fix” the migraines with food. But where to begin?

As soon as I felt a migraine coming on, the laundry list of things I did and foods I ate in the last day would run through my aching head.

I quickly realized that the best thing to do was to keep a diary. This diary, however, was very different from my sparkle heart diary with the small lock attached to secure the secrets of my latest crushes and girl talk. This was a food diary and listed everything that I put in my mouth – from food to gum and lollipops to beverages.

Little by little, mistake by mistake, puke by puke, I started to learn.

It was a consuming process but I didn’t want to draw attention to it because it would make me appear different from my friends. Instead, I kept it as my little secret.

I just needed to understand (without the constant presence of Mom or Dad) which foods and drinks my body – or more so my head – could handle.

Here’s what my food diary initially taught me …

• I had to drink water or Sprite at the cheerleading pep rallies – not the additive-filled orange drink or even the caffeinated cola drinks like the other girls on the squad.
• When I selected a cereal at the grocery store after church on Sundays, I had to walk past the brightly colored, “fun” cereals because that color came from scary things like Red 40, Yellow 6 and Blue 1.
• I had to ask for a jelly-only sandwich when I had lunch at a friend’s house because the peanut butter in the all-American PB&J sandwiches would make my head go bananas. And speaking of bananas, add them to the list too – I could only eat about a half of one at a time.

These “normal” foods would be fine for other kids, but I quickly realized, one kid’s food could be kid’s poison.

And so my path to finding out the power of food continued. (As for all the other tweenage changes going on with my body … well that deserves a blog in and of itself!)

Join me on this journey, “What Nourishes You” as I blog about what I’ve learned both personally and professionally of the profound effects food and lifestyle have on our energy, attitude toward life and of course our overall health