Ok, here we go. Day 1... Exhaling...... As I mentioned on the Back to Basics blog, I will be journaling my journey towards the best eating habits for me, without sacrificing taste, the foods I like to eat, instead using these foods to fuel me instead of suppress some type of emotion. It's time for change. And, I am READY for it. I called the last blog Back to Basics, because I grew up in a family where we used food for everything: celebrations, boredom, sadness, over indulging meals, etc.. You catch my drift. Italians love food. I come from an Italian background, mixing in some Brazilian spices, you get: FOOD ADDICT! So, in many ways, Sylwia is the one who is lovingly teaching me to listen to my body. Eat when you are hungry. That is what food is meant for. Eat the right foods for me, the ones that help bring out the best in me (in every sense - mentally, emotionally, physically & physiologically.) It's been a fun first day. Prior to becoming paralyzed, I was a long distance runner. Hooked on the runner's high. Loved it! Miss it! Thank goodness to technology many exercise equipments have been invented to help limited-mobility people to attain their cardio work out and - of course - lose some weight along the way. You see, being paralyzed affects your cardio-pulmonary function, especially when you're a complete para/quad. I'm complete, which means I have no movement or sensation below my level of injury (T4). See picture below for further understanding. I'm very prone to catching colds that can lead to pneumonia, which is the number one cause of death in spinal cord injury survivors. You can see how taking this step towards optimizing my health in every way is very important to me.
Ok, off the tangent.. I was never taught by example to follow any type of food pyramid, in fact I'd pyramid all the food in my plate in one sitting. My teenage years were so very kind to me, I'd eat whatever I wanted and my metabolism was golden.. As I got older and hit my early 20's, I realized I needed to really watch what I put into my body, however, I didn't know how to begin to read labels, cook it the right way or fight against a bigger motion - my family, since I still lived at home then. The easy, very efficient fix... Diet pills! I took them during my early 20's then stopped for about 6 years while I was married and re-started after my divorce. Oh, sweet bliss. No hunger, peaks of high energy to run to the moon and back, and whatever binging I did was counterbalanced by the many hours I didn't eat while I took them. It actually worked well for me. I was able to radicalize my diet to a huge extreme. I must say I learned to cut bad carbs out of my diet and focus mostly on protein and fiber, and most importantly caffeine! I loved the high.
Then, a tree got in the way of my police car, and I got paralyzed. I remember waking up from my 6 week induced coma and I was thin as a stick. Deathly skinny. But, as my hopes for any type of future dissipated, along with friends' betrayals and my physical health deteriorated, I turned to what I knew never disappointed me before - FOOD. Food was my friend, it helped me cope, especially sweets. I gained a lot of weight. Along with gaining a lot of weight, I began to lose my hair. So, I nearly shaved it all off. Here I was, paralyzed, the heaviest I had ever been, and almost bald (ok, not really bald, but my hair was very short.) Food was the only thing that mattered to me.
For the past three years, I have bounced from every fad diet in the books. At first, because I still dreamed of having my old body or something similar to it, as time has passed, however, and Anastasia arrived in my life I have found a deeper truth of why I want to learn to eat. I want to be here for her. I want to see her graduate Elementary, Middle School, High School, go to prom, give her girly advice, send her off after her dreams and hopefully be alive to see her conquer them. I want to be here for her. Deeper than being there as a mom for her, I want to be proud of myself, for once again conquering and taking control of my body. It is important to me to be active and feel good about myself, and I've neglected that part of me for long enough. No matter what happens in our lives, if we are still alive, we still deserve to live the life of our dreams, live it fully and passionately. Food is everything, and I truly believe it has healing powers.
Speaking to Sylwia on Monday night, I learned so much about so much. The pretty cool thing about our conversation, however, which, I didn't even share with her is that I felt that I was just being reminded of all the knowledge she was passing on to me. You know we are born with a wealth of knowledge and if we take the time to listen to our inner selves and our bodies, we can pretty much get any answer to any question we have. I chose Sylwia to be my mentor in this journey, because she and I share a VERY special bond.
So... she asked that I pay attention to everything I ate and how I felt afterwards. She sent me a lot of information on many types of foods and I have been researching food that is compatible to my blood type, which has been such a great treasure to research. I went shopping yesterday to stock up on some goodies and begin to try out others. I'm starting out slowly but I plan to eliminate all red meat from my diet and pursue a vegaquarian diet ultimately. I love fish, and don't want to sacrifice it altogether. I bought lots of leafy greens, eggs, avocados, apples, pears, lime, unsweetened almond milk, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. Although I bought all these things, I ate at Subway. 6" turkey on whole wheat with provolone, no mayo, all veggies, and a bottle of water. Since yesterday doesn't count, I'll start with today. I had a whole wheat English muffin with smart balance butter for breakfast (9am ish), and some acai juice to take my medication (after having my spinal cord injury I take some medication). I felt satisfied and energized. While running errands, I felt a hunger pain about 3 hours after breakfast, had my usual at Subway. I didn't feel as energized as breakfast. I felt a little bit of lethargy. I arrived home about 3 hours later again and had an apple. When dinner time arrived, 5:30ish - 6pm, I ate albacore tuna with some sour cream (not a fan of mayonnaise), 2 corn on the cobs and drank water. For dessert I had about 1 1/2 cups of red seedless grapes. Dinner was actually great. I felt very energetic. 30 minutes after dinner, I had a cup of ginger tea and some ginger snaps (cookies) - notice, how I say some, because i actually lost count, diminishing my sugar intake is one of the goals I would like to accomplish during this re-learning of my eating habits, so there was a little slip up there.. oh well! It's a gradual progress. One thing, I am not proud to admit is that I really have not done one inch of exercise this whole week or the week before; unless you count pushing a wheelchair all over Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure over the weekend. Another major point of accomplishment is WATER INTAKE. Due to the fact that I have to cath (if you don't know what it is, I suggest you research what a pain in the ass it is to go through the process) every 4-6 hours and for me that is still a major production, I had stopped consuming as much water as I should. Well, I'm putting all laziness aside and increasing my water intake even if it means I might have some potty accidents in the process. :pOk.. so here is my first day journal of living my element. If you are interested in even only peeking at what Sylwia does you can go to her site at www.livingyourelement.com.
DISCLAIMER:
The service Sylwia provides is individualized by each client. Our bodies are all different. What works for me might not work for someone else with similar weight, height, gender and even SCI. The blogging of my process is mainly for inspirational and entertainment purposes only for the reader. If I can achieve optimal health in a wheelchair, being a mother and living with some chronic pain (awful trigger points), I believe anyone can do it. I can do it. Instead of keeping my journals between Sylwia and me, I wanted to share, bare all my skeletons out of my closet and liberate myself to live a more balanced life in every sense.
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