Gentle Reader,
Since I last wrote, three of you have commented on the low glycemic diet with your own dietary tools for keeping pain at bay. Anne wrote, "January and February were very difficult months for me. I couldn't get out of pain, especially in my right hip joint. I took prednisone, strong pain killers and still had to stay fairly quiet (no beach walks, no Zumba, no weight/strength training)... I could barely put pressure on my right leg and I hurt all over!
"With green juicing, raw food diet, and acupuncture twice a week I have worked my way back to just taking Aleve at night, and normal activities including gentle yoga and aqua aerobics. It still seems that a hip replacement is in my future, but I'm postponing that with the hope that I can heal the damage in my hip."
Joanne, who has suffered horrible pain at a young age, because of multiple accidents, writes "Since I do not eat much of anything that I don't prepare, I can attest to the pain-producing effects of processed foods because it happens within an hour of my eating someone else's uncareful cooking. I have to load up on fresh greens to counteract. ...... [when} I will be eating with others, their cooking. I will try to build up on the cleansing foods as I have done today. I have to remember to drink fresh fruit/veggie smoothies. ..... No preservatives, including salt for me, raw as often as possible, and exercise all help to make me feel healthy and pain-free."
These comments inspired me to keep going with no grains or dairy (I did have breakfast out and loved every mouth full of a fresh crab Benedict substituting a crab cake for the ham. And I still have a late night snack of plain low fat organic yogurt with Shaklee's Physique stirred into it once or twice a week.) I can't believe how little I have suffered this week from joint pain. The arthritis is still there and I still take the recommended dose of Shaklee's Pain Relief herbal Complex, 3 daily.
A side benefit is that I have lost 3 pounds! I have to admit to feeling hungry and have resorted to carrots, beets, huge mounds of green salad, almonds, asparagus in portions large enough to feed most families of 4. Microwaved yams and roasted potatoes give solace and fill me up. But no severe pain.
I did a little research into the highly touted Paleo Diet. If you care to go more deeply into this, click here and read the studies for yourself.
Here is the abstract of a major study which attempts to put to rest the idea that these lean people (non-Westerners for the most part) are genetically different, letting us off the hook.
Abstract: It is increasingly recognized that certain fundamental changes in diet and lifestyle
that occurred after the Neolithic Revolution, and especially after the Industrial Revolution and
the Modern Age, are too recent, on an evolutionary time scale, for the human genome to have
completely adapted. This mismatch between our ancient physiology and the western diet and
lifestyle underlies many so-called diseases of civilization, including coronary heart disease,
obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, epithelial cell cancers, autoimmune disease, and osteoporosis, which are rare or virtually absent in hunter–gatherers and other non-westernized populations. It is therefore proposed that the adoption of diet and lifestyle that mimic the beneficial
characteristics of the preagricultural environment is an effective strategy to reduce the risk of
chronic degenerative diseases.
We know this already, don't we? Those ethnic groups and outdoor types in the West, who have grown up eating lean and moving constantly, will suffer the chronic diseases states we have the minute they change their life style.
The Paleo research article goes on to say: "Indeed, two different individuals when exposed to the
same modern environment (eg, western diet, physical inactivity, insufficient and inadequate sleep, chronic psychological stress, insufficient or excessive sun exposure, use of recreational drugs, smoking, pollution) will probably express a suboptimal phenotype."
"Suboptimal phenotype." that's what we are, for heaven's sake. Can we stand the strain of standing out as different eaters? I plan to stick with this for a while longer, maybe indefinitely. I'll have to make a choice this weekend when eating burgers and brats with the family. My task it to carry the vegetables to the feast and get the massive servings I need to stay healthy.
Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving!
Betsy
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BetsyBell'sHealth4U
www.HiHoHealth.com
206 933 1889
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