Ten Lessons Learned From One Week of Healthy Eating.

Several months ago I was diagnosed with early onset osteoarthritis (at 24 years old).  The pain began in my back but quickly manifested to my neck and shoulders.  It didn’t take long until my pain bothered me so much that I became quite creative in my attempts to treat it.  I think that many people seek alternative treatments when they have chronic or severe pain.  After all, having pain in your body can make a person become desperate and perhaps do drastic things in order to find relief.  At some point in the last year I suffered a compression fracture in my spine (reason unknown) and I also have a bone spur, pinched nerves, and lots of inflamed muscles.  When I went to the doctor for treatment I was given nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and muscle relaxers.   While these medications helped my pain, I felt that they were also blurring my ability to determine whether or not my pain was improving.  I’m all for treating pain, but at this point in my (young) life I’m not content to just treat it.  I want to learn about it, prevent it, and diminish it as much as I can.  This perspective led me to try physical therapy, massage therapy, chiropractic treatments, etc., and I would have tried acupuncture if it had been covered by my insurance.  I returned to my spine doctor and paid my specialty copay more times than I’d like to admit.  Eventually I reached the point where I felt like the doctor had nothing left to offer me… aside from a steroid injection that had a 50% chance of temporarily reducing my pain. I did eventually try the injection and it kept me awake for 48 hours without any pain reduction.  But as the months went by I realized that I had only been (poorly) managing my pain and not really trying to treat any causes behind it.  So for the first time, Mr. Meena and I considered (gasp!) changing our lifestyle.

(Update 2018: two years after I wrote this I was diagnosed with lupus – which explained all of my symptoms and called the early onset osteoarthritis diagnosis into question.  I now take a great deal of meds to manage my pain and illness but I have left this article mostly intact because it reflects my experience at the time.)

 

Photo by Puno licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

 

I don’t know we waited so long to pursue this course of action for my pain.  For the better part of a year I have only been able to stand up for an hour a day, at most, and have had trouble sleeping without some type of pain medication.  Does that sound acceptable to you?  I reached the point where I was so fed up with my daily pain that I could not take it anymore.  That seems to be the first requirement in order for most people to actually take action.

As fate would have it, we went in for our yearly health screening at Mr. Meena’s job and met a health coach while we were trying to figure out how to change our diet.  She introduced us to a four week program that looked like this: the first week is education about what you should eat and why, the next week is meal planning and preparation, the third week is a seven day fast from caffeine, alcohol, dairy, meat/animal products, sugar, gluten, wheat, flour, rice, and processed foods, and the last week is a gradual reintegration of food groups while paying attention to our bodies and any pain responses.

I have to admit that I wanted to run away from this woman.  You want me to give up caffeine?  I live for my coffee and sweet tea!  But not only that, she wanted me to give up my dearly loved hamburgers, my chocolate candy, and my sweet wine??  I have never been one to have a good grip on self-control when it comes to food, and I told the health coach immediately that I wasn’t giving up coffee for the week (although I actually did manage to do it).  Mr. Meena was pretty much immediately on board and not worried at all about giving up the foods.  We are not exactly two peas in a pod here.  I don’t think I would have gone through with the cleanse week at all if it wasn’t for his confidence.

It was a rough week, with the first three days being the hardest.  My pain got worse before it got better.  At the end of the program we saw some huge benefits in our lifestyles and attitudes, and I wanted to share what we learned here:

I learned that I needed to get out of the house.
There was no way I could sit home at night and not eat things that were bad for me.  My body went kind of crazy with food cravings in the evenings so Mr. Meena and I went out to see a movie, went for bike rides, tried out some health food stores, used our season passes at Carowinds… you get the idea.  I tend to have a bit of agoraphobia (i.e., fear/anxiety about leaving home) so this was definitely a perk.

I learned that I had to eat a higher volume of food.
It is actually challenging to get all of the calories you need when you are primarily eating fruits and vegetables.  I mean, a cup of celery is almost 20 calories and the equivalent amount of ground beef is closer to 150.  Not getting enough calories generally leads to bad food decisions, cravings, and derailing from your diet.  We had to get creative and we found that juicing was a great supplement.

I learned that I can have cravings over just about anything.
This was really bad when we went shopping on day three of our elimination week.  Usually I linger in the ice cream section, but on that trip I was drooling over a bag of pretzels on one aisle and a bottle of blueberry green tea on the next.  What?  That was not normal for me.  Thank goodness for Mr. Meena, who gently guided me through all of those restricted foods that I suddenly wanted.

I learned that giving up something you love is possible.

 

Photo by Rain Rabbit licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

 

Yes, I’m talking about caffeine.  I used to dream about my morning coffee when I went to bed at night, and I often felt like I couldn’t face the day without my comforting drink.  However, when I gave up caffeine for a week, I actually didn’t miss it that much.  My anxiety decreased and I became more stable because there were no highs or lows from caffeine.  Mr. Meena felt that he benefited so much from giving up caffeine that he gave it up for thirty days!  Crazy man.

I learned to embrace new foods and flavors.
I started drinking lemon water solely because my health coach told me to.  I thought fruit flavored waters were terrible creations.  To my surprise, I started to genuinely enjoy the lemon water.

I learned to read about everything I put into my mouth.
Education is a beautiful thing.  We received a lot of emails from our health coach telling us what we should and should not eat, but I was curious and had many questions about why it really mattered.  This curiosity led to me learning much more than I thought I would ever want to know about food and our bodies.  I need to make a disclaimer here though; for every healthy decision you make there will always be a next step.  You have to decide how far to take it for yourself, otherwise you may become overwhelmed by the whole process.  I wanted to switch out cow milk in my morning smoothie to almond milk and I kept finding ways to be more selective and picky about homemade vs. purchased, brands that contained certain synthetic chemicals, raw almonds that may be treated with propylene oxide gas, only purchasing sprouted almonds, and the list goes on.

I learned a great deal about the relationship between inflammation and food.
When I first found out that I had arthritis I did what most people probably do: went home and googled it.  I tried to learn what caused inflammation and I read a lot of conflicting information.  This clash in the available knowledge is partially because people’s bodies just respond differently to things.  However, I stumbled across this rating system and learned that there are as many as 20 nutritional factors that cumulatively determine whether or not foods are inflammatory.  Apparently, many foods are touted online as being anti-inflammatory based on one isolated property.  I have used the inflammation factors site to find powerful anti-inflammatory foods (like ginger and kale) and to find more balance in my diet.

I learned to change the way I think about food.
I was on the verge of poverty for a few years in my life and the habits of buying the cheapest food available really stuck with me.  Eating well is expensive!  But going through this diet and educational experience caused me to really think about what I should spend on food.  When I buy a new appliance or tool I spend a lot of time looking at reviews and making sure I get a quality product that will last for a long time.  Why shouldn’t I be willing, in the same way, to invest money into the food I buy?  After all, this is my body and I want to fill it with good fuel.

I learned why people are so fired up about eating healthy, sustainable food.

 

 

I have been hearing that I should eat local and organic for years; I usually compare these experiences to those people handing out fliers on the sidewalk that I try to avoid.  While I was trying to become more educated about food I started watching documentaries that gave good reasons to change where I shop and what I purchase.  As an example, one thing that really stuck with me was how much water it takes to raise grain fed beef vs. how much it takes to raise grass-fed beef (hint: it’s a lot more).  This mattered to me, partially because in my last job I spent a lot of time analyzing water and learning about our water resources and the water treatment process.  So I found myself driving to our local farmers market for the first time.

I learned some silly things along the way, too.
After several accidental cuts on my fingers, I learned that I am not that good at using a paring knife.  I also learned that eating lots of fruits and vegetables will make your trash stink more intensely and more quickly than I was used to.  We had to take it out more often… and by we, I mean Mr. Meena.  One fun thing that happened was that I did a lot less cooking and cleaning in the kitchen!  That was a relief.

By weeks end, we were happy.
Overall, I think the result that we are most grateful for is that we are enjoying our new healthy eating style.    Sometimes when I want a chocolate bar I chose to reach for applesauce instead, and I am usually happy with my choice.  We still eat out and have occasional indulgences, but we no longer feel that a healthier lifestyle has to be constricting and unsatisfying.  And I learned that red wine can be anti-inflammatory!  That’s a win in my book.

As I reincorporated food groups back into my diet I realized that excess sugar and potatoes tend to make my pain worse.  I still have pain, but I have started a process of paying attention to what my body is telling me.  There are still so many things Mr. Meena and I could do to improve our lifestyle, and I hope that we will be able to accomplish even more.  I hope that you might consider evaluating your life and your food choices; especially if that could result in permanent changes that would add value to your everyday life.

Have you made any health changes that you are grateful for?  Are there any that you want to make?  Please feel free to share in the comments.

 

Photo by Waleed licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, modified by My Meena Life.
Featured photo by Maciej licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.