Osyters, Yams and Honey...Oh My!

Well it happened….I turned 29. Turns out, it wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be. In fact, it wasn’t horrible at all. Yesterday, my birthday, was such a great day and I felt better then I have in a long time. If this is what getting older feels like, bring it on. Not to get all “spiritual” on you but my husband and I went to church yesterday and during the mass, Father Tim went around and sprinkled holy water on everyone. As a drop hit my forehead, I immediately felt like I had been “cleansed” of everything in my past. This was a new beginning and I was going to take it. With that, today was the first day of the rest of my life. I am no longer going to live my life wishing for something that may or may not be. I was born on April 11, 1981 with all systems “a go”. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health and I had nothing standing in my way of having a normal healthy life. What has happened in between then and now can be fixed and I am working on fixing it. A baby would be the cherry on my dairy, hormone free, soy sundae but from this day forward, I will be enjoying the things I do have instead of pining for the things I don’t have. Yesterday made me realize how truly lucky I am to have a great man who loves me, great family, great friends, two adorable Chihuahuas who make me laugh and how many other blessings I have in my life. I feel guilty for not appreciating it all in the past. Until recently, I don’t think I ever really fully appreciated anything, especially my body. I took everything my body does for me for granted just taking and never giving back. I was feeding it the items that were easiest to get my hands on never really looking at the nutritional value or hormone levels. Back in 1981, my body and I started a relationship and until recently it has only been one sided. My body is tired of giving all the time and me only taking. Since changing my diet, the difference in the way I feel is amazing. My energy levels have doubled, I have no problem sleeping, and I feel more positive like I can do anything. Something kind of strange, I have been told by a bunch of people that my eyes look lighter?? Also, I have been really cold even when standing outside in 70 degree weather. My mother has recently decided to change her eating habits and is currently reading a book “21 pounds in 21 days”. This book is about going on a cleansing diet and juicing, eating fruits and veggies for breakfast and lunch (raw) and then eating hormone free meat with cooked veggies for dinner. This is along the same lines as the diet suggestions in “Crazy Sexy Cancer”. “21 pounds in 21 days” explains some of the side effects you will have when you first change your eating habits. To my surprise, when I told my mom some of the side effects I was experiencing she said that her book mentions that both the eyes changing and being cold. The book states that as you rid your body of all the harmful products, your eyes will clear up and you will experience brief periods of time (like hot flashes) where you are extremely cold. Along with the change in my eyes and getting cold, I have noticed that I have no problem sleeping and don’t even wake up in the middle of the night unless I have to use the rest room, even then I can easily go back to sleep. This is a huge relief. Since going off the pill, I have experience many nights laying awake or waking up at 2:00 AM with hot flashes which cause my mind to start racing and me to think “Oh no, a hot flash! I must be going through menopause.” The new diet has put my inner drama queen to rest for at least 8 hours a night. I also have a large amount of CM every day and have noticed that my skin is glowing. I have a spot on my face where there are some tiny broken blood vessels which I have been meaning to get lasered. I noticed the last few days that I have been twitching on my face in the exact spot where the broken blood vessels are! All of these side effects and the information my mom gave to me tells me that I must never revert back to my old evil eating ways again. I feel to good to do that. For my birthday, my family gave me some great gifts some of them were…a gift card to a local natural grocery store and a beautiful Coach bag. A girl can never have too many Coach bags and the gift card will be used as soon as I am excused from kickboxing tonight. My family on my husband’s side gave me some cute clothes, a few items for my garden and….a juicer! I think I found out what the Zoltar fortune meant when it said I was going to have a new love in my life….Mr.Juicer. Even though we started our relationship this morning at 5:30 when I made my first glass of juice, I feel that we will be friends forever. As I pushed through broccoli, sprouts, spinach, carrots and some fruit, I cringed as I imagined what the juice was going to taste like. I pictured it tasting like grass mixed with black liquorice. As the juicer’s blade came to a halt, I picked up the glass and gave it a little sniff. To my surprise it smelled fruity and delicious so I decided to test the waters and sip it and….it was good! There was a faint taste of wheatgrass in it but other then that it was a sweet delicious blend of things green, leefy and fruity… basically good health in a glass. I felt empowered as I pushed all of the produce and fruit into the juicer and felt even better after I finished the glass of juice. For the first time in a long time…or even in my whole life, I am giving back to my body and it feels amazing. That is the word of the day “amazing”. I am going to use it again because I have a truly inspiring story from an amazing woman. A very good friend of mine Stephanie, (who I have mentioned before) went off birth control about a year ago. After a few months of not getting a period, her husband and her went to see a fertility specialist who diagnosed her with PCOS and her husband with sperm problems. The specialist gave them a 0% chance of conceiving on their own and told them IUI was their only option. Around August 2009, Stephanie emailed me having heard from a mutual friend that I was having fertility issues. I immediately called her and after speaking to her for over an hour, told her I was going to send her two books that I had read after my acupuncturist recommended them, “Inconceivable” and “The Infertility Cure”. I also told her to read “Making Babies” and for both her and her husband to start following the diet recommendations immediately and for her to start getting acupuncture treatments. That was in October 2009. Since October 2009, Stephanie has seen some improvements. She had two periods and some of her symptoms such as skin issues and hot flashes have gone away. Last Saturday, April 10, 2010, Stephanie called to thank me for everything and tell me that she is 11 weeks pregnant. They had given themselves three months to get pregnant and after that, they had decided that they were going to try IUI. The day before Stephanie was to start the fertility drugs, she took a home pregnancy test to be sure she wasn’t pregnant since the drugs are not good to take when pregnant. Stephanie said she took the test fully expecting it to be negative (she hadn’t had a period for two months). To her surprise it was positive. She took three more tests just to be sure and they were all positive. Not bad for a couple who were given a 0% chance huh? As I hung up the phone with Stephanie, I felt motivated and a voice inside me asked “when are we going to beat our statistic?” I wish I knew the answer but I will continue to work on my health and hope for the cherry to put on top of my sundae. I almost forgot…..I decided to schedule a colonic. Yes, it’s true this Friday, I am going to be paying someone to clean out my colon. Most of the fertility books recommend it and I have two other reasons for getting it done. One, my grandfather passed away at the age of 52 from colon cancer and two, I ate gluten/flour for over 20 years not knowing I was allergic to it. That means there could be 20 years of pasta and bread my body was unable to properly process that stuck in my colon. I am both excited and horrified at the thought of having this done but let’s face it, giving birth can also be pretty horrifying (from what I have heard) so I will ready for that when it happens. This could be the one thing keeping my body from functioning properly so I have to do this even though the thought of having it done makes me want to wear a mask into the office when I go to my appointment. Celebrities actually get colonics done when they have special events and want to shed some weight…sick right? Why don’t they just stop eating food that is bad for them? While doing some juicing research, I stumbled upon some new fertility super foods I didn’t know about and wanted to share them. Oysters are not only aphrodisiacs they are also a fertility super food. They are shown to help regulate a woman’s monthly cycle but please be careful about where you get your raw oysters from. One bad oyster can cause you to get violently ill. Keep it fresh people! Yams are also a fertility super food. According to everydayhealth.com, populations shown to eat a lot of yams have a higher rate of twins. This makes me want to eat yams out the “yin yam”..get it.. instead of yin yang?? Well, I think I’m funny! Honey has also been used throughout history to enhance fertility and is a key ingredient in the fertility supplement Royal Jelly which is suggested by Randine Lewis in “The Infertility Cure.” So get out to the natural grocery store and by them up! I think I will have a yam for breakfast (in liquid form), a yam for lunch and yams and oysters for dinner! Just kidding….or am I?