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| Image by kaibara on Flickr |
Over the past several years, I found myself settling back into a routine I thought I had left behind: eating poorly, relying caffeine and sugar as my "fuel" for the daily work grind, and kicking back at night with alcoholic beverages. My daily "ritual" didn't seem to be that much different than that of large sections of my peer group: it was all "normal" ways to stay productive, unwind, and generally "enjoy life."
My body was crap. It felt like crap.
Two months ago, I decided to attend a free "wellness" evaluation at my place of work. Blood test, body mass index, weighing, blood pressure, etc. And what the registered nurse told me shocked me. No, actually it didn't shock me at all. But it was bad:
Basically, my health was the "perfect storm" to get all manner of terrible things happening.
I even had the beginnings of high blood pressure. I never had high blood pressure!
I carried my evaluation form, with all the terribleness neatly filled out for future reference, in dejection as I left the evaluation center.
It was time for me to get "clear" again. Not just clear of alcohol. But coffee, sugar, fat, and stress.
Caffeine was a particular bugaboo of mine. I knew coffee increased cortisol production -- the cortisol signaling to my body that it was under "stress" and "attack" and needed to produce more insulin. As the cortisol consumed my blood sugar at a terrific rate, I ended up feeling more hungry. The cortisol also raised my blood pressure.
My high-caffeine diet was making me fat. And it was also raising my blood pressure.
I've had a "clean" diet before, with amazing results both on the outside -- going down more than 6 dress sizes -- and on the outside, with a drastically lowered cholesterol and triglyceride level.
But instead of implementing it all at once as I did last time, I've decided to do it in stages. No more than one glass of an alcoholic substance a week, for instance. And NO caffeine. None. Just a little decaf to start of work days until such time as I could get off that.
I've stayed on that lifestyle change for about a month-and-a-half now. And it's crazy how much clearer the world is for me. How much more time I have to write. How sharper my intuition is.
Stage two I've dipped my toe into on and off for several weeks, but want to get far more serious about -- regular exercise at a gym. That's something I didn't incorporate the first time around, and I feel it's absolutely necessary now. The more I exercise, the more stamina I have -- the less craving I have for coffee and sugary snacks to "keep me going" at work.
Stage three is to have a mostly all-natural diet -- keeping preservatives, MSG, non-organic products, etc. out. I'm not really convinced that a completely vegetarian diet is right for me -- I feel like my brain chemistry needs the protein animal meat and animal products provide -- but I'm willing to consider it. I also want to keep my histamine levels low by eating only fresh meat and fish, avoiding certain fruits, and, as I've mentioned before, staying away from processed foods in general.
And I think that last stage is crucial; that the amount of toxins and irritants to my body that I (and, I hazard to guess, most of us) encounter in daily life is so extreme that anything we can do to stem the tide will be helpful.
There's one extra stage here I almost forgot to mention -- and that's self-discovery and acceptance. Nothing really happens unless one is addressing that. Addictions to unhealthy living can't be kicked without that ingredient.
I think I need to write an article where I more formally address these different stages -- but right now I'm just using this particular post as like a journal entry -- to more solidify my thoughts on the subject.
I feel like I've made a lot of progress in my quest for Wellness since earlier this year, when I started this blog. I also feel like the process of keeping this blog has helped me stay on my goals, and focus on the positive.
So let's see where this journey continues to take me!
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