Back in the Land of the Living

I like the serendipitous color combo of this cabbage in the spinner. So -- I'm back! It turns out that my malaise was from a nasty intestinal bug that a grandchild had brought to the crawfish boil. It honestly knocked me down for a week! Thinking about the little one who also suffered, I wondered how he could have lived through it, but then I remembered that I am the one who is immune-compromised and I'd also been recently stressing my system with the extreme diet change. There were two days I consumed nothing but ginger ale (only 2 cans during that time -- that was all I could manage) and I didn't eat much the rest of the week, having no appetite and wanting nothing but sleep. I lost 5 lbs. and am still much weaker than normal. But I feel SO MUCH BETTER!

With this imposed "digestion reboot", I've had a chance to reassess my whole-hog (no pun intended -- Wilbur!) leap into the Wahls Protocol. As motivated as I am to optimize health, I need a more measured approach. I've always been able to read the body's signals in real time, and I need to remember this. I may not be the person who can consume 9 cups of veggies a day along with the amount of animal protein prescribed. I am still the person who craves fresh green juices. I don't have them every day, but they are so delicious and deliver such palpable energy and wellness that I'm not sure I will ever feel motivated to discontinue them. I know juiced veggies are not supposed to count in our 9 cups, but I wonder if my 10 cups of raw veggies which became 3 cups of juice could possibly count for three of the required cups?

It's been about a month since I began "dabbling" in the Wahls Protocol, and a couple of weeks of being completely gluten-free and legume-reduced. Some dramatic changes are apparent in this short time. At first I thought it was my imagination, but now I am sure my skin is less saggy-- more elastic. The dryness of my skin has also gone away -- most noticeably on fingers and toes, which leads me to wonder if the animal protein or the lack of gluten is improving circulation. Finally, I have been losing a lot of hair! I attribute this to the "shock to the system" that a diet change presents. Stress has always manifested in loss of hair for me for some reason. It grows back once things normalize, but these cycles are long, so it is harder to pinpoint cause and effect than with the skin changes.

That's enough note-taking for today. Next post will be about food!