My life has been changing at a rapid rate for the last several months.  I’ve been on a private journey that has been inspiring, motivating, uplifting, frustrating, hard, and incredibly rewarding. 

For those who know me, most don’t know that I’ve had some physical issues for the past ten years or so.  I won’t call them health issues, although they could very well fall into that category too.   It started many years ago when I was in my early thirties.  I began to gain weight, a lot of weight.  I’d say that in my thirties I went from a size 8 to a size 18.  I don’t have any excuses as to how it happened.  I gained it like most people do….I ate too much.  As time went on I started to have physical pain.  It started as a few aches and pains. 

I remember all too well the first “incident” I had that started me on a journey of aches, pain and major discomfort.  It was around 2002.  I went to bed one evening after having a very stressful day at work.  I sat down on my bed and felt the most painful feeling I’d ever had in my life (aside from childbirth).  I felt this incredible aching, burning sensation going down my right leg that started in my hip and ended in my heel.  I didn’t sleep that night.   The next morning I went to urgent care.  I was told that I pulled my sciatic nerve in my right leg.  The doctor said it would take time to heal and gave me three prescriptions, one for pain, one to relax me and the other for inflammation.  I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say that I was in dire pain for almost year before any relief came about.  I just had to wait it out, so I thought.

Unfortunately, that was just the beginning.  From that point forward I continued to have pain throughout my body.  Most of the time I felt as though I had a sore muscle in every nook and cranny of my body.  If I tried to exercise, I was out of commission for at least a week.  It seemed the more I focused on losing weight the more weight I gained.   I just couldn’t lose it.  And to top it off I developed severe acne on my face.  Not just a pimple here and there, but really big painful ones.   My cholesterol went through the roof to 212.  The doctor said that i had borderline high blood pressure. 

Fast forward many long painful years.  In early 2008 I made a decision to remove all meat from my diet.  This included fish.  The reason why I chose to be vegetarian actually had nothing to do with my health at the time, but that is another story for another time.   But it did start me thinking that this could be a great way to lose the weight once and for all. 

The good news is that the acne went away and I no longer had severe PMS two weeks before my period.   The bad news?  I didn’t lose any weight.  What?  How is that possible?   Oh, and to make things worse, in January of 2009 I woke up one morning and my lower back hurt so bad I could barely walk.  It wasn’t the sciatica but it felt just as bad if not worse.   A sneeze or cough would literally bring me to my knees in tears.   It continued to get worse and worse.  I was so miserable.   I paid a visit to my family doctor who prescribed more pain pills and muscle relaxers.  So I took them for a week or so, but I didn’t like the way they made me feel so I switched to motrin.  For most of 2009, I popped at least eight motrin a day.  I know, not good at all.   Unfortunately, the pain was always present, it just lessened for a few hours after I took the motrin. 

Finally, in April I went to my chiropractor, Dr. Hatch.  I’d avoided going because he didn’t take my medical insurance and his office visits were expensive.  I finally decided that if I didn’t find some relief, I’d go insane.   The moment he walked in to see me, I broke down in tears and told him that I just couldn’t take the pain any longer.  So, on that day, we started a very long process that led to recovery, finally.   

I knew for many years that I had an issue with inflammation, but on that day, I realized that is controlled my life and if I didn’t do something about it now,  I may end up with a life threatening situation some day.

So why am I telling you this story?  Because I believe that it will make a difference for at least one person reading this.  In fact, I’m sure this is going to help lots of people reading this.   I’m not going to go in to the details of what happened the next six months.  I want to start with what happened just a few months ago. 

In early October I made an appointment for myself and my daughter, Spencer.  She had hurt her back while practicing for cheer.  This was the first time that Dr. Hatch had seen Spencer.  He asked her a bunch of questions and did his usual thing testing her muscles while he touched certain areas and asked questions.  He gave a diagnosis that she had candida (too much yeast).  It all made sense.  She had been having stomach problems since she was a little girl.  Another symptom was her neck pain and allergies.  She would get all stopped up for no reason for months.  So, Dr. Hatch recommended that we put her on a detox diet and while taking several supplements to help. 

When it was my turn to see him I told him that I felt worse than usual (hard to imagine, but yes, I felt worse than ever).  I told him that my body felt sludgy.  I told him it felt as though black tar was running through my veins.  I wasn’t sleeping well, couldn’t remember what I did five minutes ago, had zero energy and  was craving sugar like an alcoholic craves alcohol.  He suggested that I also give the detox diet a try. 

Spencer started a week earlier than me because I had to be at a conference for a week and I knew there was no way I could stick to a diet away from home.  And this was not any ole diet.  This one was very strict and to top it off, we made it even more difficult since we were vegetarian.  No meat, no dairy, no caffeine, no yeast, no fungus (mushrooms), no sugar, no fruit, nothing processed, no peanuts, and no tea.  I also had a feeling that Spencer had a gluten issue, so we took everything out of the diet that had gluten (which is in just about everything).   You’re probably wondering what in the world was left to eat.  Basically, if it didn’t come out of the ground we didn’t eat it.  You’d be amazed what you find when you read food labels.  Very enlightening indeed!

So, what were the results?  Spencer lost 12 pounds.  She dropped a bra size, which was a very big deal for her.  She stopped eating Tums like candy.  Her stomach didn’t bulge out every time she ate a meal.  She didn’t crave sweets any longer and she stopped being so darned cranky (hard to believe for a 16 year old). 

For me, an amazing thing happened.  Yes, I lost close to 18 pounds in four short weeks.  But most importantly, the pain disappeared. Yes, it was gone.  Of course, all of these months of going to Dr. Hatch and receiving treatments had definitely made an improvement in my situation but it wasn’t until I completed this program that I was finally pain free.  How am I so sure about this?

At the end of the four weeks I began to reintroduce certain foods back into my diet.  The first week was fine.  I found out that I have an allergy to apples. :-(   I also discovered that anytime I had a food that contained gluten my throat would get really achy and sore for a few hours.   Sometimes, depending on what it was I ate, I would get that achy fluey feeling in my body I had before going on the program.  This was great!  I was excited to find out what made me feel bad.   And, I just had my blood work done and found out that my cholesterol went from 212 to 153. Woohoo!  And here’s how I know that the food I eat is directly related to the pain I feel – the pain returned about a week after I started to reintroduce certain foods.  

I’m still experimenting with different food and what is working and what’s not.  Unfortunately, many of the foods I used to eat are causing me great discomfort.  I have to make a choice now.  Continue to eat fresh, whole foods and feel incredible or eat mediocre foods and feel like doo doo.  I know this seems like it should be an easy choice every time I eat.  But in reality it has been a difficult road.  I’ve come to realize that each time I put food in my mouth I have to ask “is my body going to react to this as if it’s medicine or as if it’s poison?”   

I’m just about ready to return to the discipline of the original diet.  I haven’t lost any more weight.  I realize that I’ll need to continue with the original diet in order to continue losing the weight.   Once I hit my goal weight (approximately 50 more pounds) I can start to reintroduce other things again.  

Here are some important things I’ve learned that may help you or someone you know:

• It’s a mindset thing.  If you don’t want it badly enough, you can’t stick with it.  It has to be something that is very important to you.  For me, it’s about the relief from pain first and the weight loss second.
• It’s hard only if you choose for it to be hard.  Yes, in the beginning I didn’t know if I could do it.  Every time I crossed off a day on my calendar, it became easier and easier.
• Setting small goals increases your chances for success .
• Food is either poison or medicine, I get to choose which one I put in my mouth.
• Some people really aren’t interested in eating better to feel better.   They look at me like I’m growing horns or something when I tell them how they can feel better.  I guess it’s just easier to pop a pill.
• Exercise is awesome!
• It takes work to get back on the bus once you fall off, but it is possible – if you want it badly enough.
• Vega is a life saver.

There’s a lot more that I’d like to share with you.  Eventually I’ll get the detox program posted for you to see.  It’s a list of the items to avoid and a list of items to enjoy.  I’ll provide you with the supplements used but they can only be obtained by seeing a doctor who carries these products.   And I’ll keep you posted on my progress.  I have a goal to lose nine pounds by the end of 2009 which is only four weeks away.  I’d like to begin weight lifting here in the next few weeks too.   

Let me leave you with this:  If you made a choice to eat whole foods and to remove the toxic processed foods from your diet, you’d see a huge difference in how you feel and look.   And, you’d make an investment in your future that no amount of money could ever buy.

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