Diet Experiment Day 11: Proper Prior Planning...

It was a bit of a weird day.

I realized this morning that there wasn’t a whole lot of food in the fridge. I had a mild panic as to what the heck I was going to eat. There I was, all ready to check to see what food would be good for me today only to find that it was actually more of a question of what food was there to eat at all. What made it even more exciting was, with back to back 90 minute clients, the earliest I would get to eat lunch was around 2:00pm.

Okay. So, it didn’t matter whether or not the eggs and rye bread are what I needed or not, they were what was available. They were also quite filling, and I knew that would be needed. There was a banana available, but it was on it’s last legs, and I didn’t even know if it would still be a solid by the time I got to work.

I also decided that, if I actually got time to eat, I should probably have something prepared. A scan of the cupboards produced some Tasty Bite Indian curry style stuff. (As an emergency, they aren’t too bad. The ingredients on the package are actual ingredients that you can find in your average kitchen, without the hassle of having to cook it.) The chickpea one looked good, so I had that. Then I needed some rice. I cooked up some rice, heated up the beans, put them together and pronounced it lunch. Another look through the fridge turned up some salad I didn’t finish and some beets. Perfect. 

I don’t know why I worried. I only had, maybe 5 bites of the curry and rice and 4 bites of the salad between clients.

Note to self: It would probably be a good idea to have some fairly healthy emergency type food available in case you forget to go shopping. It kind of defeats the purpose of a diet experiment if you don’t have the types of food you are trying to experiment with. Although it does bring up a good point. You can’t always be prepared. Sometimes life just gets on top you and you do something human, like forget to go shopping. I figure, as long as I don’t make that a habit and it is the exception rather than the rule, I should do okay.

Otherwise, weight stayed the same, I got out of bed okay and was fine about facing the day, so not too bad. 

Diet Experiment Day 10: The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown

I’ve been given another challenge.

I have been sent menu plans and recipes for Super Immunity from the nutritional counsellor running the group I am in. I have had a look at the menu plan and there isn’t one bit of animal protein on there. Not only that, the percentage of raw to cooked food is probably around 60-40 or even 70-30 in favor of raw. Essentially the opposite to what I have been doing and not recommended by either of the approaches, one saying that I need animal protein in my diet for optimal health and wellness, including immunity, and the other, just too much raw food. Not to mention that I am 4 days away from finishing this experiment and I’m basically being asked to pony up for 2 more weeks. It also looks, at first glance, like quite a lot of work preparing the meals.

How do I balance this? How can I incorporate 3 different approaches to nutrition that all  have stacks of research or thousands of years of clinical trials as well as my personal experience that validate their efficacy?

Probably, the first thing to do is look to see where they all overlap in terms of specific fruits, veggies and grains that are recommended. At first glance, there is actually quite a lot of overlap (which says a lot in itself if the same foods keep coming up over and over again as foods that are considered healthy across party lines.) Things like cruciferous veg, certain berries and other fruits, certain beans and one or two grains appear on all three lists. If there are any in the meal plan that are considered avoids on both of the others, they won’t be included. If something is on the meal plan and one of the other lists, I’ll muscle test it to see if I should include it.

Then I will adjust some of the immunity recipes to add some animal protein, but try and keep that to a minimum at maybe one meal per day. There are soups, stews and other cooked food included in the meal plan, so I may move them around a little bit so that some of the days that are mostly raw or cold meals are more balanced. That will probably be determined by muscle testing to see what would work best for the day

So, effectively, I’m going to do the best blend of the three that I can manage that maintains their general integrity, ask my body what it thinks, and then see what happens. However, probably won’t start it until I finish with my current experiment. It looks like I will need the weekend to study ingredient lists, get my pantry in order and come up with a plan to execute the plan!

So, I accept the challenge. Sort of.

Diet Experiment Day 9: Whole Foods Hi Jinks

Who knew you could have so much fun grocery shopping! 

Let me set the stage. In order for Steve to muscle/energy test my Spleen/Pancreas, I had to hold my arm down at my side, palm facing backwards so my thumb is touching my leg, with me holding what I want to test in the other hand. Steve then reaches in between my arm and side at the wrist and pulls, while I try to hold my thumb against my leg. If my arm comes away easily, (tests weak) then that food would interfere with the health of my Spleen/Pancreas. If there is good resistance, or he can’t budge it, (tests strong) my body says it’s okay.

The first thing I wanted to do was get a reading for something that has continually tested negatively to work as a control, so we know what it feels like in order to compare it to other things. (It’s not supposed to be a competition to determine who’s stronger, Steve or me, rather if I am strong or weak compared to myself.) Well, I tried to test with some bread in one of those hard plastic containers, but it gave a positive reading. That confused me, so I grabbed some cheese that had a light plastic covering. Steve lightly tugged my arm and my whole body was knocked off balance so I had to take a step or fall over! So that’s a “no”. (I’m assuming that the plastic around the bread was too thick for my body to get a reading.) So, we had a baseline, and then just went about the store, as we usually do, looking at what’s there and seeing what we we would like to eat, except that instead of just putting in the basket, I held the food and he tugged my arm.

I can only imagine what it must have looked like to other people seeing me being tugged around Whole Foods with food in my hands! I have to say it turned something that could be considered drudgery into a really fun game! So we bought food that seemed to agree with me and had a nice, but (because of me) simple dinner. 

I woke up less groggy than yesterday, but not better than the previous days. What was different was my digestion. It had calmed down more than it had been since I started this experiment. Now, that could have been because of a lot of reasons, one being that I have been cleaning out my system for 9+ days. I just find it interesting that it hadn’t happened, say, a couple of days ago. I did lose a pound from yesterday though, so that’s good.

I decided that it was a success, so I wanted to test what to eat for breakfast and lunch today. Unfortunately, Steve leaves very early in the morning, so I had to do it a different way. Luckily, Donna Eden has a method of self testing! Actually, she has several, but I used the one where I am effectively a pendulum. This, obviously, has the same issues as testing with a partner in that you could sabotage it easily. I did my control test again, and my “yes” and “no” were different from hers, but were consistent with me, so I went with that.

I have to say, some things surprised me. My body chose eggs (I was expecting oatmeal or some leftovers) with some rye bread with coconut butter (both chosen last night as food that would work, and both only have like 5 ingredients apiece) and some steak from last night’s dinner, but not the peas or potato, or other leftovers in the fridge. So I try other veggies in the fridge and get negatives. I need a vegetable! Then I spied the kale and grabbed that. I got a yes! Then I start preparing to cook it, when a thought pops into my head: test cooked or raw. My body said that it wanted it raw. Kale?? Raw?? While I was flailing about, my eye caught sight of the avocado that we got that had tested strong. I held them both together and got a “yes”. Well, that’s a little better. That should smooth out some of those rough edges. Because I was having so much fun, I also tested whether or not to have oil and vinegar with it, and then which kinds! The banana tested strong so I brought that too!

So, with a combination of intuition and muscle testing, I am determining my diet. I’m curious to see if there are any improvements, if things stay the same or go backwards.

Diet Experiment Day 8: Further Explorations

I woke up a bit groggy this morning, cause unknown, but it may have had something to do with waking up rather early, around 5:30, deciding that was much earlier than the 6:30 that I had planned and went back to sleep. I finally decided (as it happened, just past 6:30) that the bizarre dream I was having really wasn’t entertaining me enough and decided to get up, albeit a bit more slowly than I have been of late. I’m sure the gloominess of the morning didn’t help either.

My weight stayed the same as yesterday, so improvement numbers are pretty low today, probably no higher than a 2.

Now, my body could still be adjusting itself, cleaning out the old rubbish and getting used to this slightly different nutritional situation, but what if it isn’t? What if this is an indication that it needs something a little different? As you can see, my brain is bored. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it also wrong. So, how do I get them to work together, because I want to do what’s right for my body? How do I find out if there is something I can do that is more beneficial than what I am currently doing?

I guess I’ll have to ask my body. I can almost hear you now. “How are you going to do that?”

Well, I think the most straightforward way is through muscle testing, also known as applied kinesiology. Basically by testing a muscle’s strength or weakness, you can determine the health or lack of health to corresponding organs. It was originally developed my Dr. George Dearheart and was further refined to include acupuncture meridians.(http://www.icak.com/, http://www.kinesiology.net/) So by testing various muscles, you can determine if an energy pathway is blocked or not. By testing different foods at different times, you can determine whether or not any particular food, drink or whatever is harmful or helpful.

What this means to me is effectively giving your body a voice. As my actual voice is pretty much in the control of my mind, it’s nice to have a way for me to determine what my body (which can’t speak my mind’s language) has to say.

Although it sounds simple, it’s not really easy. The actual how-to of testing is quite simple, and usually done with two people; the tester and the one being tested. The one being tested extends an arm out parallel to the ground and the tester pushes down on the wrist with two fingers and the says “resist”. Because we are dealing with subtle energies, thoughts (which are subtle energies) can influence the outcome. If you are not really adept at it, you could be engaging more that the one muscle being tested, you could unconsciously be affecting the outcome with preconceptions, and if your body is really out of whack, you could get a false positive, like caffeine testing helpful because your body is exhausted and needs a boost.

However, I’m not going to let that stop me! This is an experiment, and you have to learn somehow!  So, this evening, as Steve and I have to do some food shopping, I’m going to muscle test the foods we buy to see what is beneficial. I’ll also try and muscle test whether or not to have them cooked or raw.The test I’m going to use is one I got out of Energy Medicine by Donna Eden. She has one for Spleen/Pancreas, which is the one linked to digestion in Chinese Medicine. It is also a lot less obvious than me sticking my arm out in the middle of Whole Foods and Steve pushing my wrist! (I have also had this done to me years ago, so I actually have a basic understanding of what I am looking for. If you would like to try it, you may want to either check out Donna Eden's Energy Medicine info http://www.energymed.org/)

Diet Experiment Day 7: How Do I Think I Have Done?

I am one week in now. It seems like much longer than that!

I managed to circumnavigate another temptation. This time it was homemade birthday cake and Kimball’s ice cream! One of my nephew’s had his 15th birthday party yesterday, and it really was all I could do to not have any. I don’t even have a sweet tooth! It was one of those unfortunate timing issues, because if I was at full strength, you could be sure that I would have had some of each! Birthday celebrations don’t happen every day. Hopefully that is it for the temptations for this week.

Because I am feeling a bit feistier, I am going to add a little bit of raw veg today. Not a huge amount, just some broccoli to snack on in case I get hungry. I figure that I have enough cooked stuff to balance it out.

I also switched my energy/aura work back to the morning. I was feeling so good the last 3 or 4 days that I decided to see if I would fall back to sleep or not. Good news! I didn’t fall back to sleep. I was still quite relaxed, though, and thought briefly about the fact that I haven’t really had a day off yet, but really wasn’t so tired or resentful that I couldn’t get out of bed with relative ease. I’ll call that a 3. I also lost a pound since yesterday. I’ll also call that a 3. Overall, I’ve lost about 1.5 pounds in a week. I may need to bump up my exercise.

So, improvement ratings for the first week:

Not feel crappy: 6

Have more energy; 6

Be more motivated: 5

Boost Immunity: ?

Lose some weight: 2

I’m going to have a bit more of a look regarding immunity. I haven’t really addressed it, mostly because I haven’t been sick, but maybe I need to talk about how different methods approach the subject of immunity. That will have to be another day as I need to do some reading up on that. 

Diet Experiment Day 6: Temptation Strikes

I think I have made some great progress. My energy levels seem to be improving. I woke up on my own just before 7, checked in and realized that I was rested enough to not be able to go back to sleep. One week ago, I could (and probably did) go back to sleep for another couple of hours. I was even on the Nordic Track before 8 am on a Sunday, and upped my workout from 25 to 30 minutes because I felt ok. No tiredness, no cobwebs and a balanced attitude to the work I need to do today.

Even though my weight remains the same, I have noticed some changes in the way I look and feel. I am not suffering as much from Dunlop’s Disease, (Where my belly “dun lop” over my belt!) and my trousers don’t fit quite so snugly. This could be attributed to the fact that I am holding myself a little differently rather than a huge loss of fat. I am actively using my abdominals during the day to keep my back in better alignment, so my stomach isn’t protruding as much, so it all looks (to me at any rate) and feels like I am making great strides forward. What is the most amazing thing for me is that it has only been a week!

Warning! Tread very carefully because here be dragons!

So, I think I have come to the point in this experiment when I can be tempted to start drifting away from it. Earlier in the week, the temptation was in the form of frustration, to just give it all up as a bad idea because nothing was really happening and I couldn’t see an immediate payoff. Now, I’m feeling much better and this has opened the door to temptation of a different sort. Now, the temptation is a bit more insidious.

One of the things I have noticed is the constant battle I am fighting between my intellect,  my mind (as separate from knowledge and intellectual understanding) and my body. It’s like this strange 3 way tug of war. Intellectually I know that taking care of my body is important and I can read about all these different ways in which I can accomplish that. My mind is telling me that I’ve improved quite a bit, maybe even enough to allow some slack. My body is telling me that it knows what it needs and if I just listen to it, I will find the balance I require. The problem is, when I was feeling awful, my body was screaming loud enough to overcome my mind, and my intellect said “I know what you need!”. Luckily, the intellect and the body were pulling in the same general direction, so they could, in fact, pull me out of the mire.

So, it was Saturday evening. All week I had no desire or craving for any wine or beer with dinner. (I don’t have a sweet tooth, but a wine and beer tooth!) The tug from the body didn’t feel nearly as strong, and my mind decided to throw me a curve ball: I wanted a glass of wine. My intellect knows that it has only been a week and that my body really hasn’t had the opportunity to get it’s full strength back and I am in the middle of an experiment. My body is also telling me the same thing. Unfortunately, my mind is telling me that I am probably stronger than I think if I could bounce back so quickly, so why not have a glass of wine tonight as it’s not a work night? You can go back to abstaining the rest of the week. Not really an issue if it’s 2 against 1 and the intellect and body are on the same side, however, the intellect started to pull more in the direction of the mind and told me that there are studies supporting me having a glass for health reasons. Even Live Right For Your Type said that if you must, you can have red wine, although avoiding alcohol was advocated.

Now, many would argue that this is when you use your will power and force yourself to abstain. I don’t think the way out is through force. I really don’t think it’s a question of mind over matter, because quite honestly, I would rather not expend that amount of energy fighting myself, not to mention that force is limited and burns itself out. I would rather spend that energy finding out about myself by dialoging myself about what my various motivations are, acknowledging how I feel about them and coming to a better understanding about myself. Basically, show some compassion.

Luckily I didn’t have to dialogue with just myself. Steve and I discussed it, and when he saw me really torn between doing what I wanted for my health and doing what I wanted in having some wine, he asked me how I would feel about myself if I had some wine. When I said I would feel disappointed, the discussion was over.

No wine. And I didn’t have to pretend (lie) that I still didn’t want some and I didn’t have to ignore (negate) myself by forcing myself to not want some. I could say “yes, I want some wine, but what I want more is to feel better, keep my promises to myself and others and not abandon the worthy task I set for myself.”

Diet Experiment Day 5: Improvement

Just a quick check in for today.

I haven’t made any adjustments to the diet, I’m still cooking most of the food with some raw vegetables, avoiding the foods/drinks that don’t help and putting a sort-of exercise plan together to maintain my vigorous workouts. I’m trying to eat my meals seated (Live Right For Your Type suggested that for my blood type as well as putting the fork down between bites so I’m not rushing.) and reducing the amount I eat at each meal and increasing the number of meals. This seems to be working for me, so I’ll hang here for a couple more days while I research other stuff.

For the check in. I didn’t lose any weight, but didn’t gain any either. What was probably the most notable improvement was my energy level. 

I had to get up earlier than I like (about 6:30) because I had an early morning meeting. My other half was going to wake me up as he is usually up before then, even on weekends. Well, I woke up on my own this morning, (no Steve and no alarm clock) looked at the clock and it was 6:45. Not only that, I felt rested, ready to go and, although I didn’t leap out of bed, I got up with no drama! I am NEVER ready to go before 7 am! It was the weirdest thing!

I can't say if this is more cumulative or if I have passed some sort of hurdle, but quite honestly, I don't care. It keeps me motivated to stick with it to see how much further I can go. Who knows, I may even be able to eat raw foods!

So, weight loss: 0, energy and motivation: 7.

Diet Experiment Day 4: Minor Adjustments

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

Some of you may know from my personal FB page that my ankle has been locked up since the beginning of the week. I happen to know a really great place to get acupuncture Acupuncture Connections, (I only worked out of that clinic for 5 years!) so I thought I would get that seen to, as well as check in to see if my diagnosis was in the right direction. Well, pulse readings confirmed what I had managed to deduce from what my body was screaming at me. I got my ankle released (thanks Robert!) and a bit of Spleen chi support.

This was probably a good idea because of what I had in store for after.

As part of this experiment, I have been looking at other ways of how to get the most out of your life through the lens of nutrition. Another approach I know of is through blood type. I was introduced to this concept about 10 years ago when a holistic therapist asked me if I had heard of Eat Right For Your Type by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo. I hadn’t, so went to have a look and found Live Right For Your Type, which according to the back cover, “...shows how living according to blood type can help you achieve total physical and emotional well-being.” How could I say no? Especially since on the dedication page it says “For Martha”??

What’s really interesting is that the foods that Dr. D’Adamo suggests are similar to the ones suggested by TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Both say absolutely no wheat, dairy, alcohol or caffeine, very limited legumes and fruit, a reasonable amount of lean meats and lots of vegetables. (Quite a few of the specific legumes, fruits, vegetables and meats overlap and only a handful of glaring differences.) Although both cite one of the causes as heightened sensitivity and response to stress (in TCM Spleen is depleted by worrying, in LR4YT, the adrenal response in Fight or Flight) Live Right For Your Type recommends 45-60 minutes of aerobic exercise 3-4 times per week. If you can change it up with weight training, even better.

Hmm. I have been having trouble getting to sleep due to mind spinning and worrying. Maybe one of the ways I keep from being depleted, ironically, may be through vigorous exercise.

So, I took a Ballet Barre class quickly followed by a Belly Dancing class at my new favorite dance/health/fitness studio, Diosa Dance Fitness. (Just as an aside, if you really want to improve your strength, tone and aerobic capability and have fun at the same time, do that combo for awhile!)

The shocking thing was, I wasn’t exhausted after I finished. My quads felt a little wobbly and I had that post workout dazed kind of feeling but I didn’t feel like a wrung out old dishrag. The brain did eventually shut off, but it took some reading and Yoga Nidra. I didn’t get to sleep as early as I would have liked, but once got there, there was no turning back! Even better, not much stiffness in my legs or arms today.

The other thing I like about LR4YT is that it he gives you serving sizes and number of servings per week for each type of food rather than calories. To be honest, I had no idea what a reasonable portion is or how much is a reasonable amount per day/week for normal metabolism. (I have left the Food Pyramid far behind...) And, quite honestly, counting calories is a pain in the butt, but portions are much easier to keep track of.

Even though I didn’t lose any weight since yesterday and woke up a little groggy (probably due to some really deep sleep), I generally feel more motivated rather than depressed at the huge amount of work I have ahead of me in the next few weeks. So, overall, I would probably rate my improvement as a 4.

Diet Experiment Day 3: Frustration Sets In

I may need to rethink my strategy a bit.

After less than 3 days, I have run into obstacles with this diet/nutrition/lifestyle change. It didn’t take long, but already I am running into resistance in the form of work taking precedence, general time constraints and logistics. I’m a busy lady with a (hopefully) growing business, a significant other, friends, family and maybe even more schooling. It’s also very challenging because I am the only one in the house making these changes (or needing to make these changes) so having the right food, preparing it and not getting bored with a limited variety of foods is already beginning to pall. (You can tell I am not a natural cook.) Then a little voice says, “pushing yourself and your physical needs to the backseat was what helped get you here in the first place.”

I guess the big question is, how much do I bend either way in order to find balance?

 A large part of me knows that this is just mental resistance to change, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I think part of my trouble is that there is no set daily plan for me to mindlessly follow, telling me what to do, so I can focus on “more important things”.  I am constantly having to check in with how I feel and making changes on the fly - a very time consuming thing to someone who does not have very much available in the first place. 

Maybe that’s the key. Intellectually I know that balance in life means taking care of my body because I can’t do or enjoy anything on this Earth without it, but maybe that’s just lip service. Maybe, there is a part of me that doesn’t believe it and doesn’t want to give it the time of day. Which is effectively what I am saying when I want to focus on “more important things”. If I could truly “embody” the knowledge that my physical wellbeing is as important as my intellectual wellbeing and may even help improve it, maybe this resistance might be turned into motivation. 

So, I guess that means planning. So, I’ll make a list of the foods that will help support me in my slightly weakened state, come up with some meals for the next couple of days that might be tasty that don’t mean I have to spend hours cooking every day, go shopping and then get cooking. 

It might also be a good idea to start looking at other diet approaches to see how I might tweak things a bit in a few days. Hopefully by then, I will have a plan in place so that I’m not flailing about and coming up with lame excuses as to why I can’t do it!

P.S. - I haven’t gone off the wagon! I am still keeping to my diet. I didn’t get exhausted at all yesterday after exercising, I woke up a bit more awake this morning, and lost a little over a pound from yesterday. So overall, I’d give my improvement a 4.

Diet Experiment Day 2: Observations

Lets just say that my lifestyle doesn’t appear to be very conducive to eating regular meals or exercising to a set schedule. I had intended to have my snack yesterday, go to a fitness class for an abdominal workout, then a light meal. Well, I didn’t get a chance to eat my snack or get a workout because work ran late and didn’t get home until after 8, and because I didn’t want to eat too close to going to sleep, I just had a bowl of soup. 

So, how did I feel this morning? I’m not feeling crappy! I’m not fantastic, but no abdominal pain, only mild intestinal distress, but I now I seem to be having some mild heartburn. I’ll put this down as a 3 level of improvement.

How’s my motivation? Well, the first time I woke up this morning, I didn’t feel too bad. I Didn’t feel very tired and was in a fairly decent mood about getting up. (Basically not dreading it.) I’d probably rate the improvement at about a 3. Then I did my usual morning energy work routine, which consists of some Reiki and aura work. That sent me back with the fairies for awhile! Unfortunately, I was so relaxed when I woke back up that I really did not want to get out of bed. Hmm. Methinks I may need to change the routine a bit. It’s interesting to me, because I have been doing the morning Reiki for some time and it usually helps motivate me out of bed, however, maybe not at the moment. It’s amazing the things you find out about yourself when you pay attention!

How much do I weigh?? I’ll be completely honest here. I actually did my first weigh in on Monday, 2 days ago. (No, I’m not going to give you the number! Some things will remain a mystery.) It was not pretty. What was worse was that I apparently gained 1.5 pounds in the 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday and then lost a pound between yesterday morning and this morning. I’m going to assume water weight redistribution and just try and keep myself better hydrated so I can get a truer reading. So that is going down as a 2.

As I didn’t get to exercise as I had planned yesterday, that was on this morning’s agenda. 20 minutes on the Nordic Track (no arms, just legs) and I feel pretty good. I feel like I have worked out and a bit on the tired side, but not feeling exhausted. Compared to what I felt like after a 4 mile walk on Sunday (I was exhausted and in a daze all day), I would consider that probably around the level 4 mark.

As to what changes I need to make to the food, the biggest is going to have to be breakfast. That oatmeal with the blueberries lasted about 2 hours, tops! Steve, my other half, suggested I throw some nuts in there to add some protein, so that’s what I did today.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t seemed to last much more than that. Possibly due to the exercise. So something a bit more substantial for breakfast in general and if I am planning on doing any kind of aerobic or physically stressing workout, something even more substantial.

I’m going to push the boat out a bit today. I’m going to have some raw veg today. I’m having some roast chicken with arugula. It may be a bit early to add the raw food, but hey, that’s what an experiment is for, right?

Diet Experiment: Day 1

So where do I start? I guess I’ll start with what my goals are and what I would like to accomplish. Currently my goals in priority order are:

1.  Not feel crappy - no intestinal distress, difficulty or pain
2.  Have more energy
3.  Be more motivated
4.  Boost immunity
5.  Lose some weight (maybe 15 lbs.)

Okay, so the first three are easy to gauge whether or not I am improving at all. I’ll have no abdominal pain or irregularity, I will feel like I have worked out after exercise but not feel exhausted, and be able to leap out of bed excited for the day. The last one will also be easy to gauge, especially as I have for the first time in my life bought a scale! So I will hope to lose weight, but if I feel fantastic, energized, and motivated and have only lost 10 lbs., then that’s fine. Determining whether or not my immunity has improved will be a bit trickier because, as I was told many years ago, logically you can’t prove a negative. Obviously if I don’t get sick, especially during flu season, or come down with a debilitating disease that can be clearly seen or felt, then I can assume good immunity. However, I don’t know a way to test that subjectively or objectively during this trial in the absence of sickness. (If you do, please let me know.)

I’ll measure my first three goals on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being no improvement up to 10 being a miraculous improvement. The 5th goal will be getting on the scale measuring body weight and noting down any changes. I will wait and see for my 4th goal.

Now what? What direction do I go in? Well I’m going to start with looking at any nutritional methods or approaches that I have done in the past that were helpful. Luckily, I have tried a few, so I have a decent base from which to go forward from. 

About 10 years ago I worked with a Naturopath to help steer my diet to something that would help me be healthier. She used kinesiology to test what foods and vitamin supplements that my body had an aversion to, would thrive on, or was lacking. Not only did I physically feel better, but I also lost weight, even though I wasn’t trying to. Foods that she tested that my body had an aversion to or did not thrive on; wheat and cow’s milk. She also said to get rid of the caffeine. (I wasn’t drinking alcohol at the time, so no need to get rid of that, but if I had been, that would have been on the list as well.) She then put me on a diet of lean proteins, vegetables, some fruit with a decent amount of fats. I was encouraged to have as many as six meals a day, most of them being about the size of a snack.

About 6 years ago, I was working with a Chinese herbalist to help clear up a skin issue I had. The TCM diagnosis as to what was causing my skin issue was Damp Heat. It’s a complicated system, but effectively one of the main organs responsible for effective digestion, the Spleen, was completely depleted, and could no longer help me digest and assimilate food properly or keep in balance with other organs causing them to act out. I was put on a serious of herbal formulas, but he also gave me foods to avoid that cause dampness and foods to have that drain dampness. I bet you can guess which were the foods to avoid! No caffeine, no alcohol, no wheat, no dairy and no sweets. I was even limited in the amount of fruit I could eat because of the natural sugars. If I wanted dessert, it was going to be fruit. The only raw food was the fruit, everything else had to be cooked. Soups, stews and root vegetables were favorite. The other interesting thing he talked about was the mental/emotional component.  He told me that worrying also depleted Spleen chi, and recommended I get a Yoga Nidra cd, which is a guided meditation that helps you get deep relaxation.

So fast forward to now. What are my symptoms? My digestion is off, no energy or motivation and weight gain. So what might be some contributing factors to this? The stress of running and growing a business, teaching, going to school and moving offices. During that time, not much exercise and eating foods that were not ideally suited to me, especially as I was under a lot of pressure, and too much caffeine and alcohol. This must have depleted my system enough so when I introduced a lot of raw food to my diet, it couldn’t cope and got worse instead of better.

Now, I’m not advocating self diagnosis, especially if you haven’t worked with specialists who do, in fact, know what they are talking about. What I’m trying to do is see a pattern. What I notice about this is that generally, I have a decent diet and exercise regime that keeps me fit and healthy. However, when I start piling on the work and stress, instead of taking better care of myself than I usually do, I let the wheels fall off.

With this information, I am going to start with a diet that supports the Spleen. (So much for no self diagnosis!) No wheat, no dairy, no alcohol and I eat cooked rather than raw food. I’m not chucking out caffeine, mostly because I have a hard enough time in the morning as it is, however, I will resist the urge to have more than my 2 mugs of tea in the morning. Now, how do I know what foods, specifically, are more helpful for Spleen. For that, I will need to consult “Healing with Whole Foods” by Paul Pitchford. (There are many others, but it is loaded with info and happens to be the one I have on hand.) Not the easiest reference to get around, but does have a lot of information. Foods that are helpful in supporting Spleen and draining damp, in no particular order: oats, carrots, parsnip, black beans, peas, garbanzo beans, kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, beets, celery, potato, lettuce, pumpkin, scallion, alfalfa, turnip, rye, aduki beans and corn. Foods to avoid: broccoli, spinach, lentil, kidney bean. 

Meditation

Breakfast: oatmeal made with rice milk, topped with  blueberries (not sure if blueberries are okay, but they will make it tasty!)

Snack: Foh. (Basically a broth with rice noodles and veg) The one I have is a beef broth base with scallions, snow peas, bean sprouts and a small amount of beef.

Lunch: Roast chicken with roast potatoes and peas.

Snack: Pumpkin and Sunflower seeds (I checked, they are both okay according to Pitchford)

Dinner: Unknown at this time

Well, here goes...

You Are What You Eat

For the past 9 or 10 months I have been struggling on and off with my diet. You would think that with the number of specialists I have worked with, including Naturopaths, Traditional Chinese herbalists, Personal Trainers, a father with a PhD in Food Science as well as reading all sorts of nutritionally related books over the past 10 years, I would be right on top of this. Well, all it takes, apparently, is a couple of months of not making nutrition and exercise a priority, a continuous bending of the guidelines, putting yourself under an immense amount of pressure or some combination of all of them. For me, it was the combination. 

So, after I finished school, I decided to do something drastic. I would radically change my diet to a higher amount of vegetables and vegetable proteins than I was eating and far less animal protein, keeping wheat and dairy pretty much out of the diet as well. I figured that as it was summer, I wouldn't cook the vegetables but eat them raw, predominantly in salads. I would also be a bit more disciplined with my exercise and try and do Nordic Track 3 - 4 days a week for at least 20 minutes, some core work at home as well as starting a Belly Dancing class. That should do it.

Unfortunately, as the summer progressed, I got tired more easily, had less energy and even less motivation and my clothes were fitting the same, which is to say I could barely get into them.

So, here I am, about 15-20 lbs. over my ideal fighting weight. But more than that, my digestion is off, sometimes to the point of extreme discomfort and sometimes pain. I am constantly tired, and getting out of bed in the morning is a battle. Ironically I am also frustrated and impatient with this situation, but I struggle to maintain any positive changes that I make. Or worse, make what I think are positive changes but there is no change physically either with losing weight or how I feel.

I decided to get some nutritional counseling. I had recently signed up for a health package where I do dance fitness. What caused me to sign up was unlimited yoga and dance fitness classes for a very low monthly fee, but it also included biweekly group nutrition counseling sessions. Sometimes it helps to be lucky rather than good!

The first class I attended (I missed the actual first class) was about how food and good nutrition helps your immunity, but not just from colds and flu, but from serious illness and disease. I won’t bore you with the science behind it, but effectively, if you want to get the most out of your food, it needs to be sourced fairly close to home in order to prevent spending too long being transported, and then it can’t hang around in stores losing vitality. You also need to eat it raw, because even lightly cooked or steamed food can cause vital nutrients to be lost. Even more, some of the best immunity boosters are fruits, which can only be grown in New England for a very short period of time. 

How does this help me? Too much raw food has been making me feel worse! Yes, of course I would like to do what I can to help prevent serious illness and disease and, yes, I would be really pleased to get rid of a few pounds. But what I really want is to not feel crappy, tired and unmotivated to live my life!

This caused me to wonder how, with all the information I currently have and all the new information and research that is going on, do I find that balance? How do I negotiate this minefield of information to determine the way, not just to my optimum health, but to that most elusive of qualities; wellness? How does anyone? I decided to experiment on myself! I figure, you are what you eat, and as you have to start somewhere to be well, you might as well start with something as basic and all pervasive as food. 

For the next few weeks, I’ll be trying out various methods and approaches to diet and exercise to determine what might be appropriate for me as well as my thought process as to why I chose them. I’ll let you know the types of foods I’ll be eating, generally how I will be preparing them and report back how I feel both physically and mentally. I’m kind of making this up as I go along, so I have no idea where this will take me, but it should be interesting!