The Spinal Touch therapy continues to help & sessions keep getting farther apart & my back has been feeling quite good lately. I had some neck tension a week and a half ago, but it dissipated, my body finally starting to realign & let go. It's interesting to experience these delayed reactions in my body-- one session Judy does a bit of this & that, the dominoes begin to fall, I get weird sensations in random areas of the body, until finally, I feel great all over. I haven't gone for a regular massage in many weeks, & the one chiropractic visit I did made me feel worse instead of better. So for now, I'm giving the Spinal Touch a thumbs up, 2 of them. I especially love all the tidbits of interesting & enlightening information I get from Judy at every visit. It's amazing how much she knows about the human body.
Anyhoo, on to the next experiment: body scans. Some of you may know, I've been frustrated with fat loss efforts during the past year. This frustration led me to a clinic that specializes in women's issues, hormones, thyroid, etc etc. My doc was a lovely Irish lady named Esme, & she was wonderful. She even had the answer for those weird sharp-stabbing pains I had had a year previously that the Instacare docs were clueless on, sending me home still in pain with no answers. Luckily the episodes began to lessen in frequency & then quit altogether, but Esme knew right away that it had been my gall bladder dealing with my sudden dietary changes. Though GOOD changes, they were still taxing on poor ol' gall bladder, but as it adjusted, the stabbing pains disappeared. Esme wrote me up a whole slew of blood tests she wanted me to get done, everything from thyroid to vit D levels to iron levels to cholesterol. If memory serves me right, it was about 29 tests.
So I scheduled the lab work. Drove 30 minutes away to make sure I was at a lab my insurance would cover. Sat in the chair while the phlebotomist filled out all the required computer "paper" work. It took a long time, what with there being 29 tests. I was fasting, so I was hoping to hurry and get this done so I could enjoy my morning oatmeal. She finally looked up from her data inputting & announced that it would cost (and here, my memory is sketchy) $3900. How would I like to pay?
What the wha?? I had made the (obviously silly) assumption that an in-network lab meant covered expenses. She informed me that insurance would not pay for all these, maybe some of the basic ones & maybe a percentage of some of the others. I had to call the billing dept, write down the codes of all 29 tests, then call my insurance company & go down the list and ask about coverage for each test separately. Did I still want to have my blood drawn today?
Umm, no. I had intended on going through with the hassle, but then life got busy, & finally I decided I'd just experiment with supplements & try to figure it out on my own. I started with iron, merely because I've been anemic in the past & eat no red meat. Later, I added extra vit D, in addition to the extra vit C, multivitamin, & L-Glutamine I already take.
Despite these changes, I still couldn't really shed fat. So I shifted my focus from my physique to my strength & abilities. I ran. And I ran & I ran. I spent time working on my mental health & embracing my healthy body, despite the fact that the # on the scale kept creeping up. After losing all the baby weight after my last-born, I vowed to never again get higher than 120s. But now, here I was, a marathoner, a fitness instructor, a sugar-free, clean eater, and I had hit 130. Then 131, 132 . . . one day, I hit 136. I blamed some of this on muscle, which I can put on fairly easily, but it was clear my body fat % was also going up.
On February 1st, I began a new eating plan that incorporates carb-cycling. Finally, I've been losing fat, slowly but surely. I dropped from 135 to 131.6 in 9 days. And then my grandma passed away. And after 1 day of eating Philly cheesesteak, Jersey sub sandwich, funeral desserts, & Tastykakes, I went back up to 134. BAM! Luckily, it seems to be coming back off this week, but how did I gain in 1 day (okay 2 days, because on the 12th I enjoyed a sushi night with friends, and it was all-you-can-eat fresh-made sushi!) what took 9 days to lose?
So . . . this very long back story leads me to my sweet friend Jackie, who specializes in all things holistic & is a friend in fitness & in so many other ways, and was offering free body scans for fellow employees. This service typically costs $85, still much cheaper than all the bloodwork I had wanted to get done, so I was especially fortunate to get this service free. Of course, if it works, Jackie knows I'll be sending everyone I know her way ;)
So what is a body scan? Well, I wasn't quite sure when I first sat down with her, but I had heard a bit about it from another friend & was extremely curious. Apparently, there are different machines out there, but Jackie's is an Asyra. Here's how one website describes it: http://www.asyra.co.uk/technology
So without much ado, Jackie had me hold the brass handles while an electric current ran through my body and gathered information. It probably took 1 minute. The machine plugged into her laptop, and she showed me the results it gathered. Listed on the screen were all areas of the body, and then they were color-coded. Green meant everything was a-okay; red meant the organ/area was stressed; and yellow meant it was already in trouble. Not surprisingly, most of me was a-okay. But there were a few red & yellow areas. Specifically of concern for me was 1.) eustachian tubes. That made sense-- ever since my flight home from Philly & because I have a slight cold, my ears have been clogged. I was fascinated that it detected that. 2.) my gall bladder. Hello? How could that machine have known my past issues? Even I had forgotten about them. Apparently, my gall bladder has not. 3.) Joints & connective tissue. This makes sense, too. Any endurance runner knows how demanding all that mileage is on the joints and connective tissues. Over the past few years, I've had a variety of issues, all due to overuse. But when you love something, (and runners get it), you run anyway. You foam roll & ice bath & constantly buy new shoes all for the sake of the sport you love. 4.) Emotional issues. Clearly, I'm struggling with the loss of my grandma, so I thought that one, too, made sense, but when she pointed out which emotional issues specifically, it had to do with something even more obtuse, unapparent to me. I've always considered myself an optimist, happy-go-lucky, giving, loving. But my issues tended toward the opposite of all those. I struggled to think of how these emotions could even apply to me. And then it dawned on me. This. This frustration. That I've tried to overcome, quell, or ignore. It must still be boiling in the depths of me. Or perhaps I'm just fishing . . . 5.) Parathyroid gland. Not sure about this one. Perhaps this explains my sluggish metabolism. 6.) Barium in my system. We were both puzzled about this one. Jackie asked if I'd recently undergone x-ray or MRI, but I haven't, not in many years, & even then, I don't recall being shot up with barium. I wondered if it's in tap water, because I drink a gallon of that stuff a day! Indeed, when we set my water bottle on the detector-thingy, it did not approve. (But that doesn't guarantee that's where I'm getting barium from. This is a mystery I hope to solve.) It did approve of my multi-vitamins, vit C, & D, but not the iron. Apparently, I misdiagnosed myself.
Whatever the case may be, I'm willing to try the remedies & recommendations she gave me to help my body, physically & emotionally, find balance. First, the machine reported a list of foods my body doesn't like, i.e. suffers inflammation from. These aren't necessarily unhealthy foods-- in fact, most of mine were good, heart-healthy foods. Among them that most shocked & saddened me: salmon, almonds, blueberries, yams, sunflower seeds, & canteloupe. Which ones I had already figured out: cow's milk, preservatives, brown sugar, & soda pop. Which ones I will never miss: lima beans, radishes, olives, corn starch, prunes, & hydrogenated oils. Those I might forget to avoid: parsley, ricotta cheese, rosemary, paprika, & mustard. Those I plan to forget to avoid: wine ;)
Unfortunately for me, I have a freezer full of salmon, a fresh pint of blueberries, & a Costco bag of raw almonds . . . I'm willing to make substitutions, though, for the next 6 weeks, and just see. Curiosity prevails. She also prepared a special concoction just for me that I will try-- just 10 drops under the tongue twice a day, no eating or drinking for 15 minutes.
I know, I know-- anything outside of Western medicine makes the average American roll his eyes. But I am of the belief system that we ARE what we eat, that food heals, & that I'd first rather alter my diet than pop pills. I already feel great overall, & I'm curious if I can feel even better. I'm especially curious if my metabolism will improve at all. Time will tell . . . I really wish I could afford that bloodwork, so I could compare results. That would make this experiment much more scientific!
I'll keep you posted . . .
