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...