Those of you that know me well, know I prefer to go with Holistic or alternative medication. Holistic is an alternative medicine practice that focuses on the body as a whole.
This may be a weird way to describe holistic therapy but to me it’s like when a car has a part that goes bad and it has to be replaced, and after you replace it, you do your regular maintenance on your car, and it continues to run well. So does the body. I think of it as “THE NECK BONE’s CONNECTED TO THE LEG BONE”. I used to question, “what is so beneficially important about Yoga or Meditation?” and then I remember the bone song. And I thought well, the brain is the main part that sends the signals thru nerves throughout your body so it’s pretty important that relaxation be crucial for this function because we all know”stress is a silent killer” The job of the cellular health effects our auto-immune system in a positive or negative way (and again, I relate it to the car battery) and like a car, if we feed it poor oil it runs poorly right? so nutrition is essential to our wellness. I spoke to my mom today, she is not feeling good and she’s at the point in her life where she just loses interest in things like exercise and eating as much. But I told her “if you don’t use it you lose it” you need to keep the flexibility on your bones just like a car needs lubrication to work that steering wheel or brakes :). When I was a young girl my dear aunt (being thin and me being very thin) would say to me “We need to make a trip to the gas station to fill up :). Well Titi, you’ll be happy to know I’m going to the whole foods stores and getting my fill up on healthier choices in foods. I’m no longer skinny but I have other worries now.
I’ve mentioned before in a recent story I’ve been diagnosed with an Auto-Immune Disease. I went to my Doctor the other day and I told him the good news that since I changed my diet the symptoms are much better and sometimes gone. I’m staying away from the gluten and diaries as much as I can also. He was very happy about that.
But I still take my medication and vitamins just as I have been doing all along and hopefully I won’t need them if I continue to feel well, I hope. Anyway, of course, he said “keep up with the healthy diet.
My husband and I were talking about the side effects that I’m experiencing like losing hair (Thank God I have a lot of hair) and I get tired and sluggish, so I wish I could stop taking my medication and he said well, you need to decide ” Do you want to live longer or look better” “HMMM, I want to live healthier so I can continue to take vacations with my family, keep making memories, spend time with my kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids So, I want both but I don’t want to be a slave to the meds if I don’t have to be.
Sometimes I do miss all that delicious junk food eating like danishes and chips, Ice cream, candy, etc, “that I now call cheating foods”. I am eating things like spinach, kale, asparagus and celery, peppers, etc, I mean you should see my salads, sometimes they’re more like the entire meal rather than a regular side salad dish 🙂 I’m sure many of you have no problem eating these healthy foods but I just never liked them and now they are things I have to get used to because I took my health for granted, thinking I was so skinny I could eat junk food and not have to worry about weight. Well, I got a reality check because eating poorly does mean I will be a good candidate for diabetes and unfortunately for me, diabetes runs in my family.
So I didn’t gain weight with my poor eating but I messed with the quality of my health. I see many women my age that still is in their prime and healthy too, so where there’s a will there’s a way and medicine is usually just to control the symptoms, there’s no cure for Autoimmune Disorders. “Dr. Terry Wahls Protocol” ( excellent book) says we’re going to spend the money in medicine why not the healthy foods?…., HUMMM. That makes sense. I called my health insurance and told them this healthy eating is expensive and my case worker tells me there’s a program that can help. Speak to your health care provider, you can get a discount with your veggies, as well as your vitamins and there are many other things you can qualify for. It’s great to know there is help out there to keep us healthy but we do have to look for it.