Friday, March 22, 2013

Clean

The last few weeks have been pretty awful.  The depression is back, I haven't been sleeping through the night so I'm exhausted during the day and have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, I have some overall body achiness that won't go away, mental confusion, and I've been pretty irritable to say the least.  I haven't been writing because, well, I'm just not really sure what to say at this point.  I haven't been to the gym at all in weeks, and that is hard to admit.  I haven't even been doing yoga.  I have been eating healthy (with the exception of the Dairy Queen blizzard I had last night as a last ditch effort to cheer myself up) so that has kept me on track as far as my weight goes, but I have just been feeling...blah.

I've been reading the book Clean by Alejandro Junger.  I'm not entirely sure if my depression, fatigue, and pain have to do with the foods that I'm eating or nutrients I'm not getting, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try the program.  There's a three day elimination diet which, for me, would only include cutting out a few things that I love (like strawberries, yogurt, and bananas) and then a few weeks of a cleanse which includes protein shakes in the morning and evening, and a healthy lunch and snacks from a list of approved foods.  At this point, I am ready to try anything to feel better.  I checked with my doctor and she approved it, and said that she and her husband actually do the same cleanse once a year!  So, my hopes are high.  I can't take another few weeks of feeling this way.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Change

I finally got a new doctor!  For those who know me, I have been unhappy with my doctor for a while now but was hesitant to change to someone new because I had been going to the same clinic since I was 18 years old.  I started considering changing after the third or fourth visit that left me waiting for almost two hours.  Now, I know my doctor is busy, but two hours just to sit in a waiting room and then talk to a doctor for 15 minutes is ridiculous.  And what's worse is that, since he is so busy, I didn't feel like he ever had the time to sit and actually listen to my concerns.  So, I did some research on healthgrades.com and found a doctor in my neighborhood and made an appointment.  Dr. Tarin is 27 years old, female, specializes in internal medicine, and is a huge fan of clean eating (no preservatives, lots of fruit and vegetables, low sugar/alcohol/dairy/gluten).  I have been looking into clean eating for the past few weeks, so it was pretty awesome when she actually recommended that I read the same book that I had just ordered from Amazon.com the week before!  The best part, though, the icing on the gluten/sugar free cake, was that she spent 45 minutes with me listening to every concern I had and answering every question I could think of.  She ordered every test I asked for, completely understood when I complained about how my last doctor would only ever order a TSH test when I would ask for a full thyroid panel, and listened to me talk about my concerns about getting pregnant.  She assured me that she would work with me to try to get me off of both my cholesterol and anxiety medicine if that's what I wanted.  For now, I am okay taking the meds if that's what my body needs, but I can't take them when I am pregnant, so it's great to know that there is a back up plan! 

I started my clean eating program today.  What's awesome that Josh is on board, too!  It makes it that much easier having only healthy food in the house instead of "my" food and "his" food to tempt me.  He went out yesterday and bought flax seed, hemp hearts, and protein powder to mix in my smoothies since I'm not a big meat eater and need the protein.  I started a supplement regiment that includes flax seed capsules, fish oil, a Multi Vitamin, B12, and Vitamin C.  We got rid of whatever junk we had in the kitchen (which wasn't much) to make sure that there were no temptations.  I also spent three hours yesterday cleaning and decluttering the kitchen.  I felt soooo much better after doing that.  It was amazing to me how much better I felt just having things organized.  We did yoga together yesterday which we haven't done in a while, so my muscles feel better, too.  Hopefully, by the end of this month, I will start seeing some significant changes.