Saturday, March 31, 2012

Dr. Daaaaaaaan

so this should be interesting.  after months of pressure from various family members up here, I decided to give the “country doctor” they swear by a chance.  after all, the 1st 2 visits are free.  so to appease my family and so I could say I at least tried it, I went this past week. :)

it was the weirdest doctor’s visit I have ever been to.

but it was so cool all at the same time!!

so before I went, I thought the country doctor’s office was way out in some random field in the middle of nowhere.  I figured he was a crazy, little old man who squints are you through his glasses and talks in a tiny little voice.  at times I thought maybe he even threw “magical” herbal dust over you.

none of that was true, which, I was a little disappointed there was no magical herbal dust to dance in.

a “Country Doctor” is a naturopath doctor, they are all about healing the body naturally by changing diet and taking natural supplements that the body is deficient in.  here’s a definition I found of a naturopathic doctor:

“Naturopathic medicine is based on the belief that the human body has an innate healing ability. Naturopathic doctors (NDs) teach their patients to use diet, exercise, lifestyle changes and cutting edge natural therapies to enhance their bodies’ ability to ward off and combat disease.”

so I go and he does this series of crazy, freak you out tests where you lie down and put your arm straight up in the air and he lightly puts pressure on 1 side of your wrist and you match the pressure by lightly pressing back with your arm.  as he does that, he’s pushing on different areas of your body.  you can match his pressure just fine until he finds an area that needs attention – then it’s a lot harder to push back.  IT’S SO WEIRD!!!!!!!!!!!!

I became a little bit more a believer when, without me telling him, he was adamant I had a problem with milk when he pushed somewhere and my arm’s strength went down by a lot.  I developed a milk allergy when I was really young, like 3 or 4 probably.  and he totally knew it by doing this crazy test!!!!!!

long story short, I’m pretty healthy (SCORE!  BAM!) and the only area I need help with right now is digestion.  apparently, my body has a super whacked out sugar metabolism – which explains why I feel like my sugar levels drop suddenly.

so, for the next 90 days at least, I am supposed to cut out the following from my diet:
-oats (sad, but not too hard)
-wheat (seriously?!  shoot me now)
-corn (random, but not too hard)
-brown and white sugar (another killer) – I can have cane sugar, fruit sugar, and honey though!
-milk (no surprise – easy, I cut that out a long time ago) – I can still have soy milk, though!

meanwhile, I’m supposed to be taking these 2 supplements – Diaplex and Multizyme – that aid in breaking down sugar & carbs, digestion, and I really don’t know what else.

this is Day 3 of the 90.  the first morning I woke up and went to eat breakfast and was having a hard time figuring out what I could eat.  I suddenly had a wave of despair wash over me, feeling like I was going to starve for the next 90 days for sure.  thankfully, Cristine has had to do this before, too, and is brilliant when it comes to substitutions and alternatives.  her and Paul assured me I wouldn’t starve to death.  so after that initial freak out moment on the morning of Day 1, I was doing pretty good Day 1 & 2.  feeling healthier already.  determining to use this to change my eating habits to be healthier and to match it with working out (which will be a lot easier once my ankle heals and I can run again).  not doing too bad.

enter today, Day 3.  hello, killa.  come lunch time, I was seriously contemplating whether it would really be that bad if I went and splurged – got a hamburger and something sweet to eat.  the nectarine I tried to satisfy myself with just didn’t cut it.  I felt like all I could eat was fruits and veggies and I was starving.

thankfully, my intervention team (haha j/k) stepped in before I went off the deep end.  Cristine quick defrosted hamburger and cooked it up for me and I put veggies on it that everyone else had used to have fajitas with.

and now I sit here with a full belly, far from starving.  the world is OK once again.  for now.

did I mention I can still have vitamin water?  made with cane sugar.  BAM!  I win!

and I can eat all the meat I want – Dr. Dan said my body loves meat – it didn’t take a country doctor to tell me THAT.  ;)  show me the steak!!!

I weighed myself today.  I’m interested to see how this 90 days affects my body (inwardly, of course, but also outwardly – pretty sure I’m goin’ for the six-pack abs).

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