"Oh God! How boring! I'll take a pass on this one..."
Yes, yes. If you know a middle-aged person, or if you happen to BE one like me, personal health issues seem to be the only thing we talk about. The latest plane crash? The most recent government scandal? Celebrity divorce? Mystery serial murderer turns out to be that nice, quiet guy? Latest popular singer's release? The meaning of life? Forget it. It all gets trumped by our fixation on ourselves and our onset of arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, or hypertension. Men in particular seem to compare notes on their age-50 colonscopies. Why you ask? It's 'cause it's new to us. The elderly have been suffering and in pain and just suck it up and take their drugs like good boys and girls. We, on the other hand, have at least a good seven years to bellyache to everyone who will listen, and that's usually each other.
The advice I've gotten from any doctor I've been to for any ailment since getting past 40 has always been the same. "You know Vince, it would sure help if lost about 40 pounds." I'm convinced this must be in the client guidelines of what they must tell patients that they get from their malpractice insurers since the practice is so universal. "Throw responsibility back on the patient by giving them an impossible task and we're all good on our side." So it all comes down to diet and exercise. Bleah.
So, I've been placed on a restricted diet by my OMD (doctor of oriental medicine) for the treatment of joint pain and I have followed it religiously for a month. It's interesting to list it in terms of what you may not eat:
No wheat or gluten
No corn
No soy
No potatoes or tomatoes
No peppers (green, red, hot)
No eggs
No beef, pork, or cured meats
No alcohol
No animal milks or their products
No shellfish
No hormone fed poultry
No oranges
No juices or speads with added sugars
No white or brown sugar, nor cane sugar, or corn syrup, molasses,
glucose, fructose, sucrrose, dextrose
No extracts like vanilla or almond
No peanuts
No oil derived from any of the above, no palm oil, butter, margarine, hydrogenated oils
No mayonnaise or salad dressings with gluten or sugars or dairy
No sodas, flavored waters, energy drinks, drink mixes
The idea is that once you've been cleansed of this stuff for a month, you'll feel a lot better (I do, I also lost 15 pounds) you eat a big dose of each one all by itself and record how your body reacts within a day. If negative symptoms return, knock that food off your grocery list, forever. No reaction? Add it back in. Go to the next...
I'm no stranger to this process. I've done it twice before. It's how I found I cannot tolerate dairy products.
Anyway, today, July 21, 2013, I am adding sugar back in. Just ate a bowl of oat flakes in sweetened almond milk and now I'm enjoying a cup of tea with a cube of sugar in it. After being off sugar for a month, these things are almost unbearably sweet. Doesn't take your body long to adjust. Which means it'll be easy to go back to eating LOT of sugar--but I intend not to. I've been taking my blood pressure. Prior to this diet I was coming at an average of about 125/80; now it's more like 115/72.
So, I think I'll use this blog as a way to personally track this food sensitivity progress. Sorry if I am boring you. I"ll write about other things too.
Love,
Pops
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