Hello blog world :)

Hey there :) I'm Bailey. A health conscious and fitness oriented gal. When I'm not working or working out, I'm normally found in the kitchen. Cooking, experimenting, and tasting. I grew up in a small town but now I live with one of my very dear friends, Lauren, and her handsome puppy, Winston. Growing up it was always just my mom and I so she and I have a very strong relationship. I have a puppy named Molly whom I love but unfortunately can't live with me. She is too big for our condo and even a diet couldn't bring her down to the 35 lb weight limit. She stays with my mom for the time being.

I've always been a healthy eater but my true interest for fitness and nutrition developed during my junior year of highschool. I was diagnosed with inflammatory arthritis and also battled a handful of other autoimmune disorders. My joints eventually became so inflamed that I could no longer bend my fingers, move my wrists or even stand to pick up my back pack. It took months to figure out what was going wrong in my body so in the pass time I took steroids to ease the inflamation. It was a functional temporary fix but I realized the medication was just masking my symptoms, not fixing them. Along with my stiff joints came digestive problems, inflamed and irritated eyes, poor blood circulation, keloids, hair loss, skin out breaks, and the list goes on. After a while on the steroids my mood became angry and I began to gain weight.

I learned that I could alleviate some of my symptoms by changing my diet and exercise. I began by cutting out wheat and gluten. I also cut out dairy and refined and processed foods as well as night shade plants (also known as peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and a few other things notorious for feeding the fire for arthritus). In the beginning of my diet change I was a lot more strict until I started to get things under control. I am now gluten free and try to stear clear of processed foods. I do however have a very large sweet tooth so I don't take to well to no sugar. All good things in moderation though, right?

Upon changing my diet, I also invested in a gym membership. Exercise completely changed my outlook on life and helps me to continue to feel great. Though things such as weather and lack of sleep and stress can trigger my immune system to go haywire, I find that staying active keeps everything balanced in a sense. Diet and exercise have made it possible to get off and stay off of medication and I plan to keep it that way!

This blog will be a journey through my experiments, documenting my healthy lifestyle with infusions of fun and fashion along the way. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or Instagram. No facebook as of now and/or maybe ever. We'll see. ;)