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01.16.06
First: realized that something was wrong. Other people seemed to be enjoying their daily existence and I wasn’t
Second: noticed what was wrong. Took inventory of complaints: regular sickness, daily headaches, terminal irritability, piles, always tired
Third: discerned patterns. Always sick after holidays, headaches every day after lunch, irritable all the time, always tired, constant back pain
Fourth: recognized constants. Always pigged out on sugary baked goods during holidays. Had Snapple and cookies every day for lunch. Ate pint of ice cream every night before bed.
Fifth: acted on observations. Started to cut out sugar. Got results quickly. Noticed just as quickly that “just a little” was not OK.
Sixth: acquired knowledge. Started asking people about their experiences. Read books + magazines. Listened to radio shows.
Seventh: got in touch with self. Questioned my own attitudes and coping mechanisms. Unloaded baggage. Got brutally honest + candid with self.
Eighth: sought professional help. Back pain led to a holistic chiropractor. Got advice on vitamins + supplements.
Ninth: continued improvement of diet. Going vegan, phasing out refined flours, going organic.
Tenth: excercise. Aerobic and non- aerobic.
Initially used this process to cure sugar ills. Have since used it for thyroid + insomnia. Each time used has resulted in more radical dietary + lifestyle changes. Changes have resulted in better health. Will undoubtedly use process again for something!
What the hell was wrong with me? Why was nothing ever right? Why was it that no matter how good things were going for me I could not enjoy myself? Why was I always so tense and wound up? Why did I suffer terrible headaches every day? Why was I always so pissed off and full of hate? Why was I constantly tired even though I’d sleep more than 10 hours a night? Why was I getting sick 4 or 5 times a year with awful flu- like symptoms?
Specifically, why was all of this misery occurring in a life that should have been wonderful? Why would the free thinking, music loving owner of a successful independent music store be gritting his teeth with anger when his favorite tunes were on the stereo? Why would someone with a permanent case of road fever be barely able to tolerate the rigors of a road trip? Why would a practicing musician view gigs as little more than a hassle?
More specifically still, why did it seem that everyone else was enjoying their daily lives and I was miserable?
I didn’t know, but I wanted to find out. I could remember a time when I was a happy dude, but that seemed long ago. I was sick of being sick and I had to find a solution to my myriad problems.
The first step was acknowledging that something was wrong in the first place; realizing that the crummy way I felt every day was neither normal nor desirable. As I became more aware of my various complaints, I started to notice patterns to their appearance. Every day I would have my lunch of Pepperidge Farm cookies and a Snapple and within 20 minutes I would have a splitting headache. Every night I would chow down on a pint of ice cream before going to bed and sure enough, at 5:00 in the morning I’d be wide awake with insomnia. Not only that, but when I finally dragged my exhausted, sleepless carcass out of bed the next afternoon, my nose would be running like a faucet. Every holiday I’d pig out on cake, candy, sweet rolls, pie, or whatever the holiday called for. Like clockwork, within a week I’d be flat on my back with a sore throat, aching joints, lung congestion, and barely enough energy to roll over in bed. And all of this against a backdrop of terminal irritability.
Another pattern that became apparent was that people started to notice what was going on with me. I was frequently asked questions like “Why are you sick again?” and “What do you mean you’ve had another bad day?”.
At first I would mutter an oath and think to myself “That’s just the way I am. If people don’t like it they can kiss my ass.” But as I began to notice the patterns of my ill feelings, I started to think that maybe I didn’t have to be in the condition I was in.
A major epiphany occurred the night my band opened for Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth are one of my favorite bands ever and I was psyched to share the stage with them. The day of the show was like any other. I had greasy diner food for breakfast, cookies and soda for lunch, and nothing for dinner. By the time my band hit the stage, I had a headache that would split California from the continent. It was hard to move around on stage because I’d developed hemorroids the size of a bunch of grapes (another recent health development that was plaguing me which I thought I’d just have to live with). My stress level was in the red and I wanted to kill everyone on the club- the audience, my bandmates, the staff, passersby outside- everyone! I hated them all and wanted them to die. Some way to enjoy a concert, huh?
The next few days were spent in abject misery. I could neither stand up nor sit down without the pain in my ass driving me to distraction. I was exhausted, angry, achy, and more importantly, fed up with being in such a state. Finally, I just couldn't stand it any more so I literally had a conversation with myself.
"Look", I said to myself, "You just had an experience which should have been wonderful and uplifting and instead it was miserable and depressing. What the hell? Everyone else was happy and having fun. Why not you? Why were you the only guy in the room who just couldn't enjoy himself? It happens all the time and you know what? It's predictable. This time was a little bit different, though. Instead of just getting a headache after your cookie/ Snapple lunch, you totally crashed and ruined what would have been a really groovy night. And now 3 days later you still feel rotten. People around you don't want to deal with your misery anymore and neither do you. Whatcha gonna do about it, smart guy? Go out and get another bag of cookies and Dr. Pepper for lunch? Or how about some fries and iced tea with extra sugar? That's your favorite meal. It's gotten you this far, why not just finish digging the hole and jump in?"
Why not? Because I just didn't want to live like that anymore. I didn't want to be sad when I knew I could be happy. I didn't want to be uptight when I knew I could be easygoing. I didn't want to be sick when I could be well. I didn't have to be satisfied with my unsatisfactory condition. I didn't have to be helpless. I could act and change myself for the better.
Since sugar was a staple of my diet and consuming it always seemed to have an immediate ill effect on my disposition, I started to get rid of it. At the time, I didn't know how refined white sugar affects people. I didn't understand how it upsets the balance of calcium and phosphorus in the body, leading tio headaches and a weakened immune system. I just knew that once I quit, I started to feel a lot better. Not that I quit all at once, mind you. I loved my ice cream and cake too much to ditch it immediately. I also wasn't sure about how to proceed with my new diet. I simply didn't know how to eat well. I was raised on crummy food and really got into eating poorly once I was living on my own. All I knew was what was fun to eat, not what was good to eat.
Luckily, I had some support. My wife at the time had gotten me into full time vegetarianism a few years prior to my big crash and it was a firm foundation on which to build a more healthy diet. I also knew that there were some foods that I enjoyed that weren't completely harmful to my well being. Thus, the peanut butter sandwich entered the picture and helped to save my health. I'd have one (or two!) every day for lunch instead of sugary crap and all of a sudden my headaches ceased. A nice glass of soy milk (chocolate!) made for a great chaser and didn't make my ass swell up like a clump of golf balls. Sweet relief!
I figured if that was good, then maybe tapering off the ice cream before bedtime might work as well. I'd read that dairy caused excess mucus production in the sinuses but I didn't really believe it. Sure enough though, I saw that if I ate half a pint instead of a pint, I'd sleep a little better and my nose would be a tad less runny when I woke up the next morning. Eventually I stopped having ice cream at all and felt much better upon waking, which in turn made me feel better all day.
Of course, I was not totally willing to give up all of the delicious garbage that was ruining my well being. I figured that if I was now behaving so well normally, that when the holidays came, I could reward myself with some Thanksgiving pie. WRONG! After a heaping helping of Kathy's mom's sugary pumpkin pie, I was flat on my back for a week completely drained of energy, coughing up thick green phlegm, nursing a sore throat, and wishing that the pounding in my head would subside. In other words, a little was too much. My system was getting cleaner so it couldn't handle toxic foods in any amount. If I was going to talk the talk, I'd have to walk the walk- every day, all the time.
I still wasn't totally sure about how to proceed, though. Sure, cutting out sugar and having peanut butter sandwiches was a start, but it wasn't enough on which to build a new diet. Even though I was vegetarian, I wasn't aware of all the options that were open to me for replacing my crappy diet. I needed to learn how to eat properly on a daily basis so I'd feel good all the time and my body could sustain itself. When talking to people I would bring up the subject of nutrition and healthy eating and I was amazed at how many folks were concerned about the same things I was. I was also astonished and pleased with all the good information I got and the different directions people pointed me in. People turned me on to all kinds of books, magazines, radio shows, and websites devoted to proper nutrition and healthy living- not just vegetarianism, but also veganism, juicing, raw foods, macrobiotics, and many other topics. As I explored all of these areas I hit upon ideas that appealed to me and seemed to work for me.. I should also mention the local health food stores which I found to be staffed with helpful employees. I was able to learn how the human body functions and why and how the things that were damaging me worked, and also what I needed to consume to repair my body and make it run smoothly.
One of the people who helped me immensely in this regard was my chiropractor. One of my many complaints was constant back pain. I've always had poor posture and years of slouching around were starting to pay off. I could barely walk or sit down without my lower back flaring up. It had been bothering me for years and I finally decided to take care of it. I knew I didn't want to go to a regular doctor, the kind sanctioned by the American Medical Association. Such a physician would probably prescribe pain killers and send me on my way. Maybe the pain killers would make my back stop hurting, but the root cause of the pain would still be there- and would be getting worse as time went on. What I wanted to do was find out why my back was killing me, and fix the problem once and for all.
I was directed to an excellent holistic chiropractor who practiced kinesiology. Kinesiology involves the practitioner's physically repositioning the parts of the patient's body so that they fit together properly and work smoothly. Being holistic, my chiropractor looks at the way my complete organism is functioning, how the behavior of one part affects the body as a whole. Not only did he straighten my back out, but he put me on a vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplement regimen that immensely aided my overall feeling of well being and happiness. It's amazing to feel the difference in mood one can achieve with good nutrition coupled with the right vitamins.
Of course, while all this was going on, I would still crave all of my old poisons and occasionally indulge in some of them- always with disasterous results. After one particular cake binge that laid me out for several days, I finally had to sit down with myself and ask "WHY? Why eat this crap when you know it's no good for you and in fact will make you feel very bad very quickly?"
Well, the inmmediate answers were plain- cookies, ice cream, cake, and soda taste good and are fun to eat! But why consume them knowing that disaster will follow? To answer that question, I had to dig a little deeper. I had to adress all kinds of internal issues, like how eating junk food made me feel comfortable. And how it was an escape from the daily pressures of life. And how I deserved to treat myself every now and then to something frivolous.
Of course, "every now and then" meant three times a day or more! Once I made that realization and I could honestly accept it, everything else fell into place. I finally got to understand that temporary gratification did not outweigh my overall well being. Once I understood that I ate the way I did simply because it made me feel good at the moment, I found the will and discipline to quit entirely. No relapses- not on holidays, not at the movies, not while eating out. Never.
Of course, I was worried that I'd have less fun if I couldn't stuff my face with crud on certain occasions. What would I do when my friends were drinking Slurpees in the park? How could I enjoy a movie without a box of Sno- Caps? What would a night at the diner be without a sundae for dessert?
As time went on and I resisted these temptations, I discovered that I felt better knowing that I wasn't going to be sick as a dog within a few days of lousy eating. And my social life didn't suffer, either. I was still doing the same things with my pals and they didn't mind that I wasn't talking at the table with my mouth full of milkshake. In fact, they seemed to like it better that way!
As time went on, I got more comfortable with my new improved habits. I was also feeling better in so many different ways I was having trouble believing it sometimes. I felt so good that I didn't want to go back to those old habits.I was also learning more and more. The more I learned, the more I wanted to try. For example, I discovered that refined (white) flours and grians are basically non- digestible and offer no nutrition to the body. In fact, they're bad for your health because the body expends a lot of energy to digest them and then gets nothing in return. The result is a tired, lethargic feeling rather than the energized feeling you get from eating nutritious whole grains. Once I found that out, I cut white bread, white pasta, and white rice from my diet. I noticed an immediate inprovement in my post- meal energy levels and noticed that whole grtain breads and whatnot taste a LOT better than their bleached, refined counterparts. In fact, I found that natural, whole foods in general taste great. I could not even imagine trying to eat a half pound bag of M + M's now. The thought of all that overpowering, artificial sweetness is by itself almost enough to make me ill.
A similar epiphany occurred when I learned that dairy products VERY rough on the digestive tract and siphon off a lot more energy from the body than they return. This is because the human digestive tract is designed for a plant based diet. Human intestines are very long as opposed to carniverous animals' intestines which are quite short. This is because plant matter takes longer to digest than animal matter. So any animal based food that enters a person's intestines stays in there longer than it's supposed to and ends up rotting- not only depleting the body's energy but also releasing rotten meat toxins into the bloodstream. This is not to mention cholesteraol, which is only found in animal products.When I went vegan, I noticeed an immediate and dramatic change in my daily stamina. No more food comas! Now when I eat a meal, I finish it full of pep and ready to rock. Sounds corny, but it's true.
The final ingredient I added to my recipe for good health was excercise. I always hated gym class in school but I loved to excercise. Once I learned that a good regimen of aerobic excersise (running or walking) was a great cure for insomnia and stress, I started running. I was delighted to see that thirty minutes a day of good, vigorous excersise a day did indeed make me sleep better and clear my head of mental clutter.
So that's how I got healthy. So far I've been at it for 11 years and I'm still refining my technique. I look at myself now and think back to where I was in 1992 and I can't believe how far I've come. It's true that there are still ups and downs, and some days are still better than others, but overall there a LOT more ups than days and MANY more good days than bad days. What it took was research, discipline, and the ability to listen to what my body was telling me. The payoff has been priceless.
One final word. I achieved everything without the use of Western style allopathic medicine, which is another name for American Medical Association approved, drug based, symptom attacking, cause ignoring, so- called healing. I am a firm believer in treating conditions based on what is causing those conditions, not by going after their symptoms and medicating them with drugs. "Traditional" Western medicine (which has only been around for the last 125 years or so), does have its uses. When I had a recent brush with Lyme disease, I ended up in the intensive care unit pumped full of antibiotics because I let it go for to long. I thought I was treating it aggessively on my own with herbal and nature based remedies, but it wasn't enough. The sad reality is that sometimes "the man's" medicine is appropriate and helpful. The key to knowing when, as with everything else I've mentioned in this article, is to LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. Trust it. If it's telling you that something's wrong, or that you're trying something that it can't handle, LISTEN. And then act accordingly.
