Health is Wealth

My Mom had a friend who was a brilliant woman and a gifted architect. She was the only female in her graduating class in India. She worked hard and finally immigrated to the US. However her health was not always the best. Sometimes she’d be the picture of health and at other times she was terribly ill. She finally died a short while after immigrating back to India.

A person’s quality of life is severely diminished by bad health. Health is indeed a type of wealth.

When I was a young child I was very skinny, painfully skinny, as my mother would certainly say. Then I hit puberty and along with a drastic change in eating habits (brought on by a change in living arrangements; it’s complicated) I blossomed into a chubby teenager. That little extra weight felt like a huge burden during those years of teenage hell. I never lost those few extra pounds even as an adult. In fact I gained a few more.

In 2003, shortly after my grandmother passed away from a massive heart attack, I decided that my family medical history was reason enough for me to make the commitment to lead a healthier life. So I bought a pilates VHS tape and began exercising a couple days a week. I slowly began changing my dietary habits to include more fruits, vegetables and less chocolate. Slowly, very slowly I dropped a couple of pounds. I felt like a new person. I felt ALIVE!

I did a mixture of pilates, weights, hiking and biking for most of 2003, it tapered off in 2004 and by the end of 2004 I was officially not working out again.

In January of 2005 I started Tae kwon do (TKD). What a wonderful life changing experience! By this time I was in graduate school and in need of a stress relieving activity. This new sport was a perfect mix of self defense training, cardio, and traditional martial arts. My life now consisted of three things: my parents, my work/school and TKD. I used to be in the dojang for about 8-10 hours a week. I lost weight, but then I realized I gained weight too! But of course muscle weighs more than fat so I was losing fat but I was also building muscle. At the peak of my training I could, using the correct technique of course, lift and roll my 250lb black belt teacher off me during a ground fight while he was doing everything in his power to pin me to the ground while stabbing at me with a training knife. I was on my way to a black belt.

But it was now December of 2006. I was engaged to be married and I was still working on my master’s thesis. I needed to focus on school. So with a heavy heart I left TKD to complete my degree. From 2007 to 2008 I spent a great deal of time sitting down, reading background literature and writing my thesis. I gained weight.

My brother-in-law was going to get married in June of 2009, so around February of that year I “hired” my husband as my personal trainer and nutritionist because he’s good at that sort of thing. With a combination of diet and exercise I was in good, not great, but good shape by June. I felt ALIVE again. My body remembered how to move quickly and with power and strength. I even went back to TKD for a while. (Which was a disaster by the way, because I couldn’t remember anything beyond the most basic forms.)

We then moved to Phoenix and bought a year’s membership to Gold’s Gym … which we never used. And then came the weight. Slowly, creeping back into my life. Making me feel sore and old and like I have one foot in the grave. Now I am at the heaviest I have ever been and I feel AWFUL. I don’t think I can adequately describe how awful I feel, so you’ll just have to imagine.

The other day I came across this blog: Girl Gone Primal. I have heard of the Paleo diet before but was never inclined to try it. My reason? I’m addicted to carbs. And chocolate. I don’t even want to know what my blood sugar looks like after I eat a lot of carbs and/or chocolate. I shudder to think. Of late my diet has consisted mainly of TV dinners for both lunch and dinner. Breakfast is more carbs in the form of bread or cereal. I know I’m going to live a horrible existence and die a miserable death if I keep on this way.

I have decided to give this paleo diet a shot. Now considering the carb maniac that I am, I’m taking it slow in weaning myself away from carbohydrates. I don’t drink a lot of milk except for a little in my tea so I’m not too worried about diary. But it’s more than going on a “fad” diet. I really want to change how I nourish my body and mind! It’s a lifestyle change. And I don’t think I’m ready to make the change, but I know I must and I’m going to start making little changes TODAY! I started by planning out a menu of real food, going to the grocery store and actually eating a “real” meal for dinner.

Part of the reason why I’m stuck in an unhealthy habit rut is because I’m unemployed right now and it’s been really stressful. Stress as most of you know is bad for the body. Your adrenal glands that sit on top of your kidneys release cotisol into the bloodstream. Cortisol is the human hormone that helps us combat stressful situations and one way it does that is to promote the deposition of fat. For our ancestors this was a wonderful survival mechanism and helped them through times of famine. However in our current society this can lead to excess fat since fatty foods are so readily available and being a woman I crave fatty/sweet foods when I’m stressed. You see the lovely cycle? Get stressed- eat chocolate- step on scale/don’t fit in jeans- get stressed- eat chocolate.

I’m trying to break that cycle. I want to respect my body by not filling it with junk! One of the worst offenders is pasteurized milk which is essentially: crap in a jug. But until I’m employed again I can’t afford raw milk. (I may have a post on the evils of pasteurized milk one of these days.) So I will try and keep you updated on how my health progresses while I move towards a paleo diet. I’m not on a schedule at the moment; I’m just trying to get the wheel turning, which seems to be the hardest part. Here I go!