Experimenting
Background: So my sis and brother in law started a wellness/herb business. Logical Herbs (they are like a branch of Pure Herbs). She gets people's info on health issues, meds, diet, exercise, then creates a wellness plan based on scientific research and natural routines and remedies. She sets us up with some food choices, exercise plan, and herbs for a month. Then if we like it and want to continue longer than a month we can order herbs through them. She asked me if I was interested so I volunteered myself and the dog (and kinda volunteered Rob but he seems far less interested). And we started talking last weekend with basics, then touched base again yesterday.
The Rules: Basically, based on my individual health issues, there's a few things I need to stop/reduce a lot and a few things I need to increase/start. So for me, dairy, soy, beef/pork, white carbs, synthetic vitamins are all big baddies. There's some good stuff I've already been working on- increasing veggies, fruit, and eliminating pop. Then stuff to add- more whole wheat, vitamin D in food, smoothies, the herbs, apple cider vinegar, etc... And some specific exercises (starting slow) as well as a... goup (for lack of a better word) to my scalp nightly. That's the gist though. I'm going to skip over the reasons for the rules, but she explained them to me and the how/why it should work.
The Experiment: So I just got the herbs and haven't started them yet. But the other stuff I've been doing for 1 week so far. The exercises, the vinegar drink, different food choices (main goals- only whole wheat carbs, no dairy, red meat 1x/wk). The vinegar is in water but still yucky (I started the vinegar with herbs today and it's even yuckier). But it's only 1 cup of water, I down it like a gigantic shot and move on. It's been an easy routine to start every morning. The exercises are also an easy routine, they only take about 15 min. And I do them sometime between after work and bed. Most of the food choices have been easy, she also provided me with a bunch of groceries to try things out (e.g., "seeds for change" quinoa, milk alternatives- rice, hemp, almond, and coconut, soups, raw honey, blue agave, etc.).
1 Week Challenges: So far, the hardest part has been dairy. Specifically cheese, the milk alt.s are fine. but damn I love cheese. The other hardest part has been finding the time, especially in the morning to prep something for breakfast and lunch. I'm already in a routine where I bring lunch to work with me pretty much daily. But my lunch packing usually has to happen in like 3-5 min. for me to fly out the door. So I'm working on time, but having enough time is also a source of stress (I would assume for lots of people). This is also my MOST stressful and crazy time of the year at work, March/April every year. So to be able to accomplish anything new with this chaos makes me feel like I can really keep up with it as long as I take small steps and stay focused.
Baseline data: 280, 53 around stomach, issues-psoriasis (scalp), obesity, anxiety/stress, type 2 diabetes, pcos, seasonal allergies, and one toenail issues, meds- bydureon (1x/wk), metformin (2/day), formula 3 (2x/day, topical), vitamin D (1x/day), ketoconazole (2-3x/wk, topical), buspar (1/2/day but stopped ~2-3 wk. prior because ran out and didn't feel like it helped)
LJ: I'm hoping that going through all this on lj will keep me focused, serve as a log that I can reference (especially for measurements and when I started/stopped stuff), and also not be too public (like fb).
The Rules: Basically, based on my individual health issues, there's a few things I need to stop/reduce a lot and a few things I need to increase/start. So for me, dairy, soy, beef/pork, white carbs, synthetic vitamins are all big baddies. There's some good stuff I've already been working on- increasing veggies, fruit, and eliminating pop. Then stuff to add- more whole wheat, vitamin D in food, smoothies, the herbs, apple cider vinegar, etc... And some specific exercises (starting slow) as well as a... goup (for lack of a better word) to my scalp nightly. That's the gist though. I'm going to skip over the reasons for the rules, but she explained them to me and the how/why it should work.
The Experiment: So I just got the herbs and haven't started them yet. But the other stuff I've been doing for 1 week so far. The exercises, the vinegar drink, different food choices (main goals- only whole wheat carbs, no dairy, red meat 1x/wk). The vinegar is in water but still yucky (I started the vinegar with herbs today and it's even yuckier). But it's only 1 cup of water, I down it like a gigantic shot and move on. It's been an easy routine to start every morning. The exercises are also an easy routine, they only take about 15 min. And I do them sometime between after work and bed. Most of the food choices have been easy, she also provided me with a bunch of groceries to try things out (e.g., "seeds for change" quinoa, milk alternatives- rice, hemp, almond, and coconut, soups, raw honey, blue agave, etc.).
1 Week Challenges: So far, the hardest part has been dairy. Specifically cheese, the milk alt.s are fine. but damn I love cheese. The other hardest part has been finding the time, especially in the morning to prep something for breakfast and lunch. I'm already in a routine where I bring lunch to work with me pretty much daily. But my lunch packing usually has to happen in like 3-5 min. for me to fly out the door. So I'm working on time, but having enough time is also a source of stress (I would assume for lots of people). This is also my MOST stressful and crazy time of the year at work, March/April every year. So to be able to accomplish anything new with this chaos makes me feel like I can really keep up with it as long as I take small steps and stay focused.
Baseline data: 280, 53 around stomach, issues-psoriasis (scalp), obesity, anxiety/stress, type 2 diabetes, pcos, seasonal allergies, and one toenail issues, meds- bydureon (1x/wk), metformin (2/day), formula 3 (2x/day, topical), vitamin D (1x/day), ketoconazole (2-3x/wk, topical), buspar (1/2/day but stopped ~2-3 wk. prior because ran out and didn't feel like it helped)
LJ: I'm hoping that going through all this on lj will keep me focused, serve as a log that I can reference (especially for measurements and when I started/stopped stuff), and also not be too public (like fb).