On my way to a Healthier me.

As you know, I started a Comprehensive Elimination Diet on November 4th 2010.  At first I didn't know what to expect, or what to eat for that matter.  After being on the diet for a week and a half, I felt so much better that I stopped taking my pain pills and muscle relaxers, they weren't working anyway.  I've not had to take them since.  I lost 42 lbs, which felt so good. I started sleeping all night again too.  I was able to do more than I was used to doing and everyone around me kept saying don't over do it, slow down, take it easy.  Do you have any idea how long it's been since someone told me to slow down?  Years.  Even my grandchildren were having a hard time keeping up with me because they were used to having to go slow for Grandma. Well not any more.  I felt free and alive again. 

It took me almost 2 years to add foods back into my diet as I was afraid the pain from my Fibromyalgia would come back.  I started adding foods back in sometime in September 2012, since then I have learned that I am VERY sensitive to peanuts, Soy, Gluten and Eggs.  I have found so many great recipes and created some of my own, however I have gained almost all of the weight back that I lost.  I found that all grains cause weight gain so take it easy on the grains.  You should also go Gluten free for at least 1 month before you try any of the gluten free grains, like Quinoa, Millet, Buckwheat and others, as you can develop sensitivities to the Gluten free grains as well.  Dr. David Clark suggests that you might have leaky gut syndrome and you should correct that before adding in the Gluten Free grains.  I am trying to loose the weight again and have found some very interesting books that I think will help me do just that.  If you know me, you know that I am not one who gets lost in books, however I have been trying to change our eating habits and trying to get both of us healthier, just because I want to keep Steve around a lot longer to torture him, and so he can enjoy the grandchildren as they grow.  Steve has Dementia on both sides of his family and I am hoping I can lessen the effects on Steve so that he can enjoy more of his life. Whether he wants to or not.

In reading the following books, I see how you can reverse most illnesses just by changing your eating habits.  The more fruits and vegetables we add back into our diets the healthier we will be.  Over the last 50 years we have been eating so many prepackaged foods that are literally killing us. So many grains have been Genetically modified to be a more dense, low growing crop to make it easier to harvest and make the harvest more bountiful and more disease resistant.  They didn't worry about long term effects on us.  I was watching a YouTube Video on how to make Gluten Free Baking powder biscuits the other day and they were talking about wheat originally had 14 

Chromosomes and now it has 42.

Dr. Daniel Amen has a book called Change your Brain Change your Body, which I am reading.

• The Craving Solution — Use Your Brain to Increase Your Willpower and Calm the Urges That Prevent You From Achieving Your Goals
• The Weight Solution — Use Your Brain to Achieve Your Optimal Weight
• The Nutrition Solution — Feed Your Brain to Look and Feel Younger
• The Focus and Energy Solution — Boost Your Energy to Stay on Track toward Your Goals
• The Stress Solution — Relax Your Brain to Reduce Your Wrinkles and Improve Your Immune System
• The Heart Solution — Use Your Brain to Strengthen and Soothe Your Heart

Dr. Amen also wrote Change your Brain Change your Age. 

• Boost your memory, mood, attention, and energy
• Decrease your risk for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia
• Eat to live longer
• Reduce the outward signs of aging and make your skin more beautiful
• Promote the healing of brain damage due to injury, strokes, substance abuse, and toxic exposure
• Dramatically increase your chances of living longer and looking younger
• And much more.

Steve's cousin suggested a book by Dr. Fuhrman called Eat To Live. The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss.  

Dr. Fuhrman suggests that you eat; 

2-5 servings of raw & cooked vegetables a day, 

3-5 servings of fruit, 

1-2 servings of beans,

1-3 servings of nuts & seeds,

1-3 servings Whole grain products/Potatoes

Only 2-4 servings per week of Animal products, which includes white meat foul, fish, eggs and low fat dairy. Absolutely NO processed meats, cured meats, barbecued meat or full fat dairy.

1200 mg or less of sodium per day.

1-2 Tablespoons Fats/Oils, olive oil or acceptable substitute. Includes;non dairy spreads without trans or hydrogenated fats. 

In his book he talks about the value of nutrient dense foods. And has created a ANDI food scoring guide.  So I purchased both, Eat to Live and the Nutritarian handbook.  I purchased all the books that I have mentioned on Amazon since they were less expensive than on both Dr's websites.

I am happy to say that I have finished the Nutritarian Handbook and am about half way through Eat to live.  They are very interesting to me and I am learning a lot.  I am planning on planting lots of green leafy vegetables in my garden soon, using what I have learned from these books. 

I've started eating a lot more green leafy vegetables and more fruit.  I know that I am not up to his minimums yet but hopefully soon and then to see the results.  I will try to keep up posting on the progress and hopefully I will start to see results very soon.  

If you are reading the same books or have found other great books on the subject and are trying to get healthier I would love to hear from you on your progress.

Happy Scrappin',

Janice