I picked up my side of beef a couple weeks ago and made a video of the cuts. The butcher skins the steer and removes the organs, head, and feet and then weighs a side. They charge the per-pound fee based on hanging weight. My side weighed 330 pounds. After cutting and packaging, the usable portion was 245 pounds. The rest was waste.

Below the video are a couple pictures of the herd from which my steer was selected. These are Piedmontese cattle, known for their lean meat rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

Unlike their grain-eating counterparts, these cattle lived a life of leisure, free from predation and fed year round from the grasses and hay that grew on this land. They consumed no grain, which is given to cattle to fatten them and provide the marbling that we’ve been convinced is so desirable. They received no antibiotics or vaccinations, because they never needed them. They had only one bad day in their lives. (Well, perhaps the steers had two bad days, if you get my meaning.)

Anybody hungry? Dinner’s on me! Here’s what half a cow looks like:

Additional reading:

Shopping Local Farms for Pasture-raised Lamb, Pork, Beef, Poultry, and Eggs
Illegal Federal Raids on Food Co-ops Should Make Us All Ill

I just heard about a six-figure Consumer Alliance between the Coca-Cola Company and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

The Consumer Alliance is a program that allows corporate partners like The Coca-Cola Company to work with the AAFP to educate consumers about the role their products can play in a healthy, active lifestyle. As part of this partnership, The Coca-Cola Company is providing a grant to the AAFP to develop consumer education content on beverages and sweeteners for FamilyDoctor.org, an award-winning consumer health and wellness resource.

You’ve got to be kidding me? The scary part is the term “award-winning.” Who’s passing out the awards?

For those of you who don’t know this, Coca-Cola is not a food! It’s a chemical concoction full of HFCS and caffeine that is highly addicting and contributes to obesity and disease.

Its high calorie content also displaces nutrients in food. In other words, if you drink 600 calories a day of Coke, then that’s a potential 600 calories of nutrient-dense food you won’t be eating. Additionally, converting the sugar to usable energy takes up vitamins and minerals from your reserves, so it’s an anti-nutrient.

Yes, it tastes good, but chemists could make my cat’s crap taste good by adding flavor chemicals.

Dr. Rhona Applebaum, vice president and chief scientific and regulatory officer at The Coca-Cola Company, said:

Our partnership will help provide Americans with credible information on beverages and enable consumers to make informed decisions about what they drink based on individual need.

Credible information? At least reading this article is good for my health because it makes me laugh, which makes my nervous and immune systems happy.

But what happens when an organization receives funding from another organization? Well, it doesn’t want to risk offending its contributor by posting negative information and the information it does post is largely informed by the one with the money. You know, like politics and lobby groups.

A Harvard University nutrition expert, Dr. Walter Willett, wrote in an email:

Coca-Cola, like other sodas, causes enormous suffering and premature death by increasing the risks of obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, gout, and cavities… [the academy] should be a loud critic of these products and practices, but by signing with Coke their voice has almost surely been muzzled.

(Where’s Frederick Stare when you need him? He was the former head of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and was dubbed “The Sugar King” because of his support of the sugar industry. Maybe there’s hope yet for Harvard.)

In response, AAFC CEO Dr. Douglas Henley said that the deal won’t influence the group’s public health messages, and that the company will have no control over editorial content. He said the new online information will include research linking soft drinks with obesity and will focus on sugar-free alternatives.

HFCS or Aspartame? Pick your poison, folks. Of course, everyone just knows there’s nothing wrong with Aspartame, right?

The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company, refreshing consumers with nearly 500 sparkling and still brands.

“Refreshing” is not the word I would use.

Hey, do you like soft drinks? Why settle for the run-of-the-mill, artificial, mass-produced, chemical concoctions. Here’s a great video I saw on the different soft drinks available to consumers. If I hadn’t given up sugar, I’d happily try some of these for a rare treat. Now this guy knows his soda! Check it out:

References:
American Academy of Family Physicians Launches Consumer Alliance With First Partner: The Coca-Cola Company

Family doctors group loses members over Coke deal

This video is a continuation of the conversation I had (Part 1) with Geoff and Jim about Jim’s spiritual journey through a recent illness.

We discuss out of body experiences, chakras, sobriety, heightened states of love, and other spiritual experiences we’ve all had on our paths.

The day my friend Geoff was leaving for California, he dropped by with his friend Jim who has been having health problems. Jim generously shared his experiences with his spiritual life and how it has affected his health.

We are more than just the body with a thinking brain, and when our spirits or souls are suffering, our bodies can suffer as well, and vice versa. I hope you enjoy this impromptu discussion.

Continue to Part 2.

I decided it was time to get my hair colored and cut. In this video you’ll meet my stylist, Autumn, and hear about what can go wrong when you stop eating animals but still eat typical American foods.

Please let me know if you have any trouble viewing the video. This is my first video shot with an HD camera and edited in Final Express 4.

Does the medical model work? Is it helpful going to the doctor? Can the doctor’s advice improve your health? Here are recent experiences I had where I was invited to join the popular paradigm but declined the invitation.

Gynecologist Recommends Hormone Replacement Therapy

Two years ago I menstruated heavily for a month after not menstruating for two months. I went to see a gynecologist. She performed a pap smear and had my blood tested for vitamin D and anemia. I was deficient in D and anemic. She prescribed 50,000 iU D2, which I took because I didn’t know any better (vitamin D3 is better), and I also sunbathed every day. I ate iron-rich food. I’m very grateful to her for checking my vitamin D, because supplementing made a world of difference, and I do appreciate diagnostic tests.

However, she also suggested I go on hormone replacement therapy to regulate my menstrual cycle. I declined. I believe the hormonal system is a highly regulated, sensitive and precise dance, and if I introduce one hormone I throw off the dance. If I am deficient in any hormone, I must first address it nutritionally and emotionally. If that fails, then I will consider resorting to hormone replacement.

I also trust my body. If it bled for a month, then it needed to bleed for a month. Prior to and during this menstrual cycle I was getting surges of blood in my face, neck and chest along with heat. My whole face would turn beet red. This has not recurred after I shed the blood and improved my nutritional status.

I’m glad I didn’t follow my gynecologist’s advice and take hormones, because from what I’ve read they’ve caused a lot of problems for women. (My menstrual cycle has normalized since supplementing and increasing my protein intake.)

Life in a New Balance © courtesy of Duquesa Mercedes

Doctor Suggests Drug for Benign Positional Vertigo

A few months ago I went to the hospital because I was having several dizzy spells that became quite frightening. The doctor ordered a CAT scan and a blood panel. No tumors, no abnormalities in the blood. The doctor said I had benign positional vertigo (fancy name, eh?), something about a condition where calcium deposits in the inner ear break free and cause imbalance. He said he was going to prescribe a drug for me that I could take every day that would minimize the dizzy spells.

More U.S. adults are taking prescription drugs than ever before, fueling $12 billion in additional spending during 2006 alone. The number of people with at least one prescription increased from 67% to 74% between 2000 and 2006, according to a new Geographic Variation in Prescription Utilization study by pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts. The number of prescriptions per person rose to 14.3 from 10.8 in 2000–a 32 percent jump. — Reuters, February 13, 2008

Drugs mask symptoms. They don’t cure. And I didn’t want to mask my symptoms or “find relief” or take a poison every day. I wanted a cure. There was something wrong with my body, and I needed to do something about it.

This doctor basically ruled out various disorders from his cornucopia of potential diseases and guessed what was wrong with me, expecting me to trust him and take a drug based on that guess for the rest of my life. (And they say people like me giving out free “unqualified” advice are dangerous!)

Well, it turns out that the mochas I was drinking at Starbucks were causing the vertigo. When I cut back, the dizzy spells stopped. If I’d been like most people, I’d still be drinking too many mochas and popping pills every day to avoid dizzy spells.

Nearly 2.7 billion retail prescriptions were dispensed in 1999, amounting to $110 billion in sales.
In 1997, 44 percent of the prescriptions dispensed were refills.
Almost two-thirds of Americans currently use medicines: 49 percent use prescription drugs and 30 percent use nonprescription medications.
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) may be the fourth-to-sixth leading cause of death. Serious ADRs occur in 6.7 percent of hospitalized patients.
32 million Americans are taking three or more medications daily.
Almost 29 percent of Americans stop taking their medicine before it runs out.
22 percent of Americans take less of the medication than is prescribed on the label.
12 percent of Americans don’t fill their prescription at all.
12 percent of Americans don’t take medication at all after they buy the prescription.
The No.1 problem in treating illness today is patients’ failure to take prescription medications correctly, regardless of patient age.
10 percent of all hospital admissions are the result of patients failing to take prescription medications correctly.
23 percent of all nursing home admissions are due to patients failing to take prescription medications accurately.
At any given time, regardless of age group, up to 59 percent of those on five or more medications are taking them improperly.
The average length of stay in hospitals due to medication noncompliance is 4.2 days.
More than half of all Americans with chronic diseases don’t follow their physician’s medication and lifestyle guidance.
Two-thirds of all Americans fail to take any or all of their prescription medicines. –Statistics You Need to Know, AHA

Doctor Wants to Put Me on Statins

A couple months ago I went to have blood work done so I could check my vitamin D levels and track my cholesterol and triglycerides to compare later after being on a paleolithic diet for several months. My vitamin D was lower than I like, so I have increased my daily intake to 5,000 iU.

My cholesterol came in high at around 260. Despite my telling the hospital that I wanted to deal with my health nutritionally, they wanted to put me on statins to lower my cholesterol. I declined. I’ve been reading about the science behind the lipid hypothesis and find it wanting.

It seems cholesterol isn’t the big problem the doctors say it is. But statins are definitely a problem. I was just looking yesterday at some side effects of statins. No thanks! I’ve also learned that triglycerides are what you need to watch for. As for LDL, there are two types, only one of which is harmful, but the hospitals don’t differentiate between the two or test to determine their composition.

Muscle pain and muscle weakness are two of the main side effects of statin drugs. While muscle pain and muscle weakness sound ordinary enough, due to the manner in which statin side effects can act in the body they are potentially dangerous side effects of statin use. Another is memory loss. Anyone who is taking statin drugs for any reason should be aware of these side effects and their symptoms. The medical establishment recommends that anyone who suspects they are experiencing any of the possible statin side effects consult with their medical professional. –Major Side Effects of Statins

The Wide Path to Destruction

In the past two years I’ve been given the opportunity to take hormone replacements, a drug for vertigo, and statins. If I followed the advice of my doctors, I would now be taking three drugs a day–forever!

These drugs would have allowed me to continue harmful habits without consequences. But I would have been reducing my vitality and creating a host of negative side effects.

Oh, and if I’d been like most people I would have gone to the doctor last year for the pain in my right hip. The doctor would have diagnosed arthritis and prescribed an anti-inflammatory for me. That would total FOUR PRESCRIPTIONS.

And, if the doctors knew of the stress and depression I was struggling under as I lost my business and home, I’m sure an antidepressant would have been in order as well for a total of FIVE PRESCRIPTIONS.

Then there’s the time I slipped on my porch and landed on my back. OUCH! That would have been good for a prescription of muscle relaxers and an anti-inflammatory. I healed just fine on my own, thanks.

Wait, how about my injured Achilles heel that has bothered me for six months but is almost healed. Just a little twinge. I would have gotten a drug for that, no doubt.

All this would have made the pharmaceutical companies very happy and me very sick. I would have been counted among the “typical middle-aged Americans” on multiple pharmaceuticals.

I have not taken a drug in over five years. Not even aspirin. The only thing that concerns me right now is my thyroid. I am taking an iodine supplement and intend to take a thyroid blood panel when I recheck my cholesterol. If I cannot improve my thyroid with nutrition, then I will consider taking a thyroid hormone. But only as a last resort.

None of what I write is to imply that I am immune from disease. I could drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow. I abused my body for years with cigarettes, coffee, alcohol and bad food. But I believe that I will live longer and healthier by managing my own health.

Cutting the Cost of Health Care

If more people were proactive about their health, if they were more knowledgeable about nutrition and addressing cause, if they understood the rudiments of natural hygiene, they would have more confidence in their own ability to manage their health instead of handing it over to the care of a physician or drugging away their discomforts.

Marketing and drug education by pharmaceutical companies drives medical diagnostics. Treatment is typically aimed at symptom suppression via pharmaceutical intervention while the underlying disease process progresses. We are all guinea pigs unless we take charge of our bodies. I can’t stress this enough.

Additional reading:

How Your Paradigms Determine Your Beliefs
The Power of the Mind for Illness and Health
What’s Wrong with Pharmaceuticals

Book recommendations:

Human Life Its Philosophy and Laws by Herbert Shelton
The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo
Reclaiming Our Health by John Robbins

Here are some steps you can begin to incorporate into your lifestyle to improve your health and increase your risk of avoiding disease. Now, you don’t have to go hog wild. Take one step at a time until a new habit is created. Then take the next step.

Please bear in mind this is for educational purposes only. I am not a doctor and I do not treat disease. If you are on medications, you should work closely with a qualified health care provider, preferably one who wants to help you get off the meds. Your body is your own and its care is your responsibility.

Eat Whole Foods

Whole foods are those grown by nature. They require no to minimal processing. Examples of whole foods include lettuce, broccoli, blueberries, fish, eggs, a nice, rare sirloin. Example of fractionated (not whole) foods include pickles, macaroni and cheese, pasta, soft drinks. These foods are highly processed and contain chemicals introduced during their preparation. They are not designed with your health in mind, but for maximum profit and long shelf life.

The Stairway © courtesy of pareeerica

Eat Whole Foods Minimally Processed

A rare steak is better than well done. Slightly raw salmon is better than cooked through and flaky. Steamed broccoli is better than broccoli and mayonnaise salad. Raw milk and cheeses are better than pasteurized versions.

Buy Healthy Versions of Your Favorite Food

Do you like beef? Buy pasture-raised. Eggs? Same thing. Go organic if possible. Buy fruit in season, not year round. Choose heirloom vegetables over hybridized. Drink milk? Drink from organic, pasture-raised cows. Learn to make your own cheese. Books abound in food preparation knowledge!

Drink Water

I’m not a fan of drinking 8 glasses of water a day, but I do believe many are chronically dehydrated from consuming water-poor foods and drinking caffeinated beverages. So have a couple glasses. And don’t drink with your meals. It dilutes digestive juices.

Get Some Sunshine

The sun is life to all it touches. Be moderate in your exposure. Don’t overdo it and make up for the excess exposure with sunscreen. Avoid sunscreen whenever possible. But a little sun worship never hurt anybody.

Take a Walk

Walking is very healthy. You can walk slow. You can walk fast. You can even do a little trot. But get moving. If you can walk in nature, so much the better. We came from nature, and we are diminished when separated.

Lift and Carry Heavy Things

Bones are built upon demand. If you don’t place demand on them, the body won’t build strong ones. And I’m sure you’d like to remain strong into your elder years. Heavy lifting involves the whole body. Just don’t overdo it. Pace yourself.

Get Plenty of Sleep

Adequate sleep is absolutely necessary for the human body to regenerate itself. Chronic sleep deprivation is harmful to your immune system. Take naps. If you have noise in your environment, get some white noise CDs of nature sounds. And be sure to ventilate the room you sleep in. You don’t want to be breathing in your own carbon dioxide.

Breathe Deep

Start paying attention to your breathing pattern. Many of us breathe too shallowly. Start taking deep breaths. This increases oxygen in your body and decreases acids through carbon dioxide exhalation.

Make Some Friends

Turn off the TV, get off your butt, and go make some friends. Do things together. Talk. Go for a cup of java. Make love. Laugh together. Cry together. Get involved in the community.

Give Up Grains for a Season

Go without grains for a couple months just to see how your body reacts. You’d be surprised how many people are sensitive to gluten and don’t even know it, wondering why their body aches and they have inflammation. That means no pizza, bread, cookies, cakes, oatmeal, rice. Additionally, grains contain phytates that bind with healthy minerals and prevent their absorption. Our species has been eating grains only 10,000 years, and they’re proving very harmful to our health and our planet.

Give Up Vegetable Oils

Let’s face it, corn oil doesn’t grow on trees. Neither does canola or sunflower oil. Seed oils are omega 6 polyunsaturates, and contrary to corporate interests, excess omega 6 polyunsaturates are not so good for the body. Our ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is about 20:1, where it should be 1:1. Stick with fruit oils, like olive and coconut. Use animal fats, like lard and butter. That’s what we used before we started dropping dead from heart attacks and cancer. That’s what grandma used, and she had 13 babies and died at 90.

Quit Drinking Sodas and Flavored Waters

Coke is not a food. Mountain Dew is not a food. Gatorade is not a food. Fruit juice is not a food. These are all liquids flavored with high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors, and various toxic colorings. And don’t forget the caffeine they put in them to addict you, as if the HFCS wasn’t enough! Same thing goes for coffee. Yes, it’s yummy. But it’s a stimulant that masks your true, exhausted state of health. Wean yourself off and save it for special occasions.

Shun High-Fructose Corn Syrup

HFCS is an ubiquitous ingredient in processed foods. It’s how food manufacturers make overprocessed, tasteless food palatable to the tongue. It spikes blood sugar and carries no nutrient value but the stimulation it provides is addicting. It’s just rotten stuff.

Avoid Boxed, Canned, and Packaged Foods

Again, most whole foods are not found in boxes, cans or bags. Frozen foods are the least damaged of all packaged foods. If you don’t recognize the ingredients on the label, pass. Shop the outer edges of the store.

Aisle of Delight © courtesy of Temporary Transfer

Get Your Vitamin D Levels Tested

We are chronically deficient in vitamin D. I think this supplement is one of the easiest things we can add to our diet that will have major and lasting impact on our good health and mental outlook. And it’s so cheap. Buy vitamin D3 in gelcap form. Current recommendations are 5,000 iU daily until sufficient serum levels are reached, but everyone is different and you should know your serum levels prior to supplementation. Also, make sure you have a source of iodine for your thyroid.

Add a Fish Oil Supplement to Your Diet

Fish oils contain important EPA and DHA omega 3 fatty acids, which are necessary for controlling inflammation. The body can create these fatty acids from the essential omega 3 fatty acid alpha linoleic acid (ALA, such as that found in flax oil), but only poorly, and most people are deficient in ALA anyway. That’s where pasture-raised meat and vegetables come into play. Mankind has often settled around waterways and harvested their bounty.

When Stressed, Breathe!

Stress is a killer. And stress happens when you let your mind run amok. Tame the mind. Control your thoughts. Breathe when you feel your body tense. Remember that last horrible thing you thought you wouldn’t survive, and yet here you are.

Live Simply and Stay out of Debt

Debt is servitude. Freedom from anxiety is better than a boat with a loan payment. A small house with peace of mind is better than a big house with a heartbreaking mortgage.

Find Your Song and Sing It

We all came here for a reason. We all have gifts to contribute. Don’t let poor health and lack of energy keep you from playing your part. Each step you take to improve your health will improve your energy level and mental outlook so that you can pursue your dreams. Me, I’m going to produce a television show.

Recommended reading:

The Real Food Revival by Sherri Brooks Vinton and Ann Clark Espuelas

I was on a discussion board where the question “Is Health Care a Right?” was asked, and someone responded with

Is it a “Right” for our children to have a K/12 education??

Is it a “Right” for the fireman to come when your house is burning down??

Is is a “Right” to have police protection??

Well, I felt a rant coming on, so I thought I’d share it with you. Now, I haven’t been following the news or Obama’s plan or anything. Why bother? I know it will ultimately provide yet more taxation and funnel this money to pharmaceutical companies and corporate interests. That is the function of entrenched government paid for by those interests.

The entire medical model is so deeply flawed and corrupt that nothing can fix it. It must be thrown out and rebuilt, and that’s never going to happen. So you have to take charge of your own health and disconnect from this flawed system.

K/12 education is not a right but a requirement by law. The responsibility for educating our children has been taken away from the parents and given to the state. Breaking free of this system requires a lot of work to comply with the state’s requirements. Most parents, I believe, are just too harried to homeschool their children. A stay-at-home mom can’t be taxed, so women were encouraged to join the workforce.

Corporations ensure children are indoctrinated into our system of compliance, conformity and consumerism. It is no education if at the end you do not know how to balance a checkbook, start a business, negotiate a deal, plant and harvest a food item, or know what constitutes food or how helpful a fever is. If you want a good education, you have to pay for it out of your own pocket.

Otherwise, your taxes pay to create nonthinking drones for the system, hopped up on food additives and high-fructose corn syrup, their cognitive development damaged by excessive media multitasking.

People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found. –Science Daily

Most children will go on to work for someone else, filling their employers’ pockets while they go into debt buying fancy toys to distract them from their emptiness because the song that sings inside them is silenced. Would-be artists settle.

Firemen only protect houses that are accessible and clear of fire debris. They will let houses burn that do not meet minimum requirements. Homeowners are responsible for caring for their property to ensure minimal risk of fire and making sure it is accessible to fire trucks. You don’t care for the property, you lose the home.

Police protect those who obey the laws. Again, there is an agreement that you abide by laws in exchange for their protection paid for by your tax dollars. If you flaunt the law, if you break it and are caught, you are fined or jailed. This money helps pay for the protection of those who obey the laws.

Same should hold true for people’s bodies. People abuse their bodies with poor diet, lack of exercise and sunshine, and too much stress, among other things. They buy cheap food and expensive TVs. They can spend hours in front of the TV but can’t be bothered to read a book on nutrition. Any little discomfort and they run for a drug to suppress it. They consistently work against the body and then expect doctors to fix them all up when the body finally breaks down.

Supersizeme © photo courtesy of Xhanatos

I pay a premium for meat direct from the farmer, but my taxes pay for the grain subsidies so others can eat their cheap meat from the grocery store. I buy organic produce when I can, but my taxes are given as incentives to farmers to grow conventional grain crops that I don’t even eat.

I educate myself on health matters and make changes to address cause instead of merely suppressing symptoms, but my taxes go into a system of Medicare that I don’t use and hope to never use. (I don’t mind helping others; I just don’t want to be taxed into poverty.)

I could go to the VA hospital for statins to lower my cholesterol, but I don’t believe the cholesterol theory of heart disease and choose to purchase my own supplements and eat healthy food to care for my heart. And I try to find and express the song inside me.

I am being taxed to death for services I don’t use and then paying a premium for items I do use.

The whole system is corrupt and designed to benefit the banking industry and corporate interests. Corporations control the government and enact laws to their benefit.

The dietary advice given by those we trust is deeply flawed. Nay, it is deadly and designed to produce customers for the medical and pharmaceutical industries. And most people are just too tired and confused to give a shit.

The low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet that’s been pushed on us since the 1980s isn’t working! Avoiding the sun is folly. Spending half an hour on a treadmill is deadly to the psyche. How boring can enjoying the body be? We’re fatter than ever. Half of us are depressed and on pharmaceuticals.

But we don’t have to be. You have power to change your health and your life and live the dream you desire. It just takes a bit of common sense. You don’t need to read scientific studies to understand the simplicity involved. My next post will discuss some of the things you can do to improve your health.

Additional reading:

The War on Terror Is a Fraud
Shopping Local Farms for Pasture-raised Lamb, Pork, Beef, Poultry and Eggs
Symptom Suppression Does Not Equal Healing or Cure

I’ve made quite a few changes in my diet this year and thought I’d write about the many benefits I’ve experienced in my body.

Changes in Diet

• Eliminate grains, particularly wheat
• Increase meat and fat consumption
• Reduce carbohydrate consumption
• No vegetable oils. Use olive oil, butter and coconut oil for cooking
• Reduce fruit consumption

Changes in My Body

The biggest change is that a longstanding pain in my right hip that I thought might be arthritis is gone. It began in Oregon about a year and a half ago and became very painful this past winter.

I use to have trouble walking after being off my feet for a while. Every morning I would have to move slowly because my ankles were sore and stiff. Same thing if I’d been sitting for awhile. Now I bound out of bed or my chair without any soreness at all.

It’s an odd thing about chronic pain. You come to live with it and sometimes don’t even notice that it’s gone until a memory of pain surfaces. I’d completely forgotten that I used to hobble. A friend of mine who has also removed grain from his diet and increased his meat and fat consumption told me he noticed the same thing with his ankles.

My hair and fingernails are growing faster and stronger.

My concentration and recall have improved.

Low back pain has lessened considerably. I can walk longer and farther without experiencing any back pain whereas before my low back would get very tight and ache.

My back also hurts less in the morning upon waking but the pain and tightness are not completely gone yet. Perhaps a dairy intolerance? Definitely an inflammatory process, and I will get to the bottom of it. Pain is a message that should be heeded, not drugged away.

I can also walk long distances without foot pain, but I think that has more to do with ditching my tennis shoes and wearing very flexible shoes with minimal padding. I’ve changed how I walk and land on my feet. This is a post for another day.

When I went to the VA hospital in Roseburg in July 2007, I weighed 194 pounds and was considered obese. I had quit smoking the year before and packed on a lot of weight.

I had a heavy period that lasted a month leaving me anemic, which is why I went to the VA. I found out I was also deficient in vitamin D, which explained my falling into walls. I refused to diet and just tried to make better food choices. I now weigh 157 pounds (13 pounds lost since moving to Erie last November) and have 20 pounds to go.

I’ve begun to desire and enjoy more physical activity. My body is getting stronger and more flexible.

I am indeed growing younger.

The Camera Doesn’t Lie

I’ll tell you one thing. When I was young and went from 138 to 155, I felt like a fat slug and hated my body. And when in middle age I went from 155 to 194, I felt demoralized, gross and over the hill. But now that this same body has reduced from 194 to 155, I feel sexy and healthy.

I just pulled a picture into Photoshop that someone took of me last week in a bathing suit intending to post it. The mirror may lie, but the camera doesn’t. Damn, those are big thighs! So I ain’t postin’ no picture of me in a bathing suit. When I get to my desired weight of 138, I’ll post befores and afters. You won’t believe them.

Supplements Recently Added

• 5,000 iU vitamin D every day
• 1/2 teaspoon fermented high vitamin butter/cod liver oil
• Seaweed with iodine

Last time I had my serum vitamin D tested was May 2009, and it was 35.5 ng/mL. This is a vast improvement since July 2007 where it was 13.1 ng/mL, which is very deficient. I’d like to get my D levels up to at least 70 ng/mL.

I’ve added the butter/cod liver oil for the EPA and DHA fatty acids and vitamins A, D and K.

I only recently learned that iodine deficiency is common among those avoiding salt or switching to celtic sea salt, since it is not supplemented with iodine. I think this has a lot to do with my previous weight gain, course hair, lethargy, and various symptoms of low thyroid. The thyroid needs iodine to function.

I’ll report on what these supplements have done for me in a couple months. Right now I’m very excited about the improvements I’ve noticed and look forward to increasingly better health, vibrancy, and cognitiion.

Now that I’m eating meat, I’m having fun cooking again and trying new recipes. A couple nights ago I cooked Tarragon Chicken.

In this recipe I was introduced to the delightful taste of shallots and tarragon in white wine, and I used crème fraîshe for the first time. I have to say that tarragon is such a sweet and delicious herb, and I’m saddened that it took almost 50 years to experience its loveliness.

This recipe was quick and easy and oh so delicious. It took about 15 minutes to prepare. But I find chicken breast doesn’t do much for me. It seems dry and tough and just doesn’t soak up the yummy juices. (I’ve always preferred dark meat.) A friend told me he cooks his for over an hour to soften the meat.

My friend Tom tells me that shallots and tarragon are also great with scrambled eggs, so I’ll have to try that too.

Here’s a picture of my dinner: