Mind Xdreamz

My Wellness Blog - Probably More Than You'd Ever Want To Know

From October 2003 thru February 2003 I worked for Jenny Craig. I was a weight loss consultant. At the time I was hired I weighed in at 208 lbs. That was the most I’d ever weighed in my life! It was a huge wake up call for me. I told them when they hired me that if they selected me for the job - I’d be a client. They did and I did. At training they gave each of the trainees a free week’s worth of food. I was in heaven!

Prior to this I had never been in the health or wellness industry. I had been a computer systems trainer, technical writer, and systems analyst/consultant. So, working for Jenny Craig in itself was a humbling experience for me. But since I’d lost a job due to my asthma and allergies this was the place that apparently I needed to be – at least for awhile.

I had always been a fairly thin person, tall and slim, 5’ 7 1/2” between 122 lbs and 140 lbs all of my adult life. When I was a kid people said I was “thin as a rail”. But as I grew older, achieved more in my work, made more money, and traveled due to work (eating out daily), as well as suffering emotional traumas in my life (marriages & divorces) and other factors, my weight went from 140 lbs (gaining 20 lbs a year) to nearly 200 lbs in three years and held steady at that weight for about five years. The added weight triggered my asthma and the medications I’d been prescribed exacerbated my weight gain, or at the least, gave me a reason to “say” that I couldn’t lose weight. After all, everyone knows steroids make you gain weight and I’d been on inhaled steroids for awhile – though my doctor insisted the medication only contained a small amount of steroids (is any amount good for you?).

In the four months I worked at Jenny Craig I lost 30 lbs. I also learned a lot about nutrition and various diets. Since I worked with client’s one- on-one, I could start to get a feel for why people ate, what made them gain and lose weight and what worked for some and didn’t work for others.

I talked with the nutritionists (there were only two) who worked higher up in the Jenny Craig organization. We were able to call them, explain a client’s situation then receive a call back with how to tailor the program to meet that client’s need. The nutritionist would explain enzymes and other factors to me that were over my head at the time. I believed they were on to something though. What they had found was this - the glycemic index. Nutrisystem uses this same principle. No white potatoes, no white sugar, etc. Or if you did have it, you had to eat a very small amount of it at one time so that they body didn’t over produce insulin.

I have continued to apply many of the principles I learned at Jenny Craig to my life. About the only thing I did not like in their program were the “pre-packaged” foods. I loved the fact that I could still buy my own dairy and produce on the plan because I love salads, fruit, and cheese! But the cheese was one thing that they severely restricted. I learned to eat lowfat cottage cheese though and love it! Haha! Everything Jenny Craig sold was either frozen, canned or in a bag/pouch. And we had to take supplements everyday, which I did. Looking back, I am wondering what was in those supplements? I am sure the supplements aided my weight loss. I had clients tell me that they had more energy when they took the supplements and many lifers on the program wouldn’t come in to buy food anymore, just the supplements.

Since I was an employee, I got a discount. I spent about $70 a week on food. The only way I could afford to work the program was that I didn’t have to feed my adult children anymore. I was divorced at that time without a husband to cook for. My kids were working, though living with me, but they were able to provide food for themselves. (They usually ate a lot of fast food, sometimes even bringing pizza home but I was good for the most part and did not partake - even if offered). Since I didn’t have to cook for anyone it helped me stay on the plan. Some of the things I recall doing while I was on the Jenny Craig plan were to:

Limit wine to twice a week, and then only have one to two glasses.

Ate dessert every night usually consisting of fat free whipped topping and sugar free jello. Or have a Weight Watcher frozen treat. Or a Jenny Craig dessert – and they were yummy! No more snacks after dinner/dessert though.

Work out, but no weight training, just walking, mostly at work at the Jenny Craig centre, where I “shopped” for the food, for my clients in centre (we had a large storeroom of food and huge freezers), and walk back and forth down a long hallway - all day - from the front entry/waiting area to my office. I wore a pedometer and some days walked 8,000 to 10,000 steps.

When I quit Jenny Craig to return to work on a graphics contract (sitting at a computer all day) I quickly regained about 3 or 4 lbs in a couple of months.  Once that contract ended I worked for a few weeks at Walgreens. They had me squatting and bending over to stock and clean up the store, as well as standing all day at the register, so that was great! I lost those few pounds and then some and was feeling great again. Except that I started drinking more wine because my - soon to be - husband and I moved in together. The only thing that saved me there was that I had to walk my dogs everyday – twice in fact – since they had no other way to get out of the house. This was in the spring of 2004.

By that summer we’d moved to another area. In this new location I couldn’t walk the dogs as there were too many obstacles.

I was doing fairly well eating on my own until July and August of 2004. That’s when our power went out (once for 5 days) and fresh food supplies were disrupted due to three hurricanes near our area within a six week timeframe. I gained about 12 lbs. It really knocked my motivation and led me to go back to eating tortilla chips (something I had totally given up when I was on Jenny Craig). It also led to me eating a lot of canned foods, loaded with salt. (I had known for years that I’d had sensitivity to salt and had quit putting salt on my food years ago and had not been eating chips because they had salt on them, etc.)

But here I was eating salty foods again.

My husband Richard and I married on February 25, 2005 and between my nearly 15 lbs weight gain and being married and happy, I totally forgot about my weight issues. I started enjoying more dinners out and having more wine and didn’t weigh myself very often. When we did cook, I began getting into more organic and whole foods but I didn’t count my calories. I tried to eat a correct portion, but we snacked more in the evenings and didn’t work out consistently.

July of 2005 I found myself in an utter state of illness. I got some kind of flu bug that lasted in total, about thirty days. At first, (and it came on quick) I had a fever, chills and body aches. I had quit taking my prescribed Advair in June and looking back I'm wondering if my stopping those medications set me up somehow for this terrible flu.

With this flu I was out of work for 6 days straight, not doing much but laying in bed or sitting in my recliner watching TV. I still tried to do some household chores but it tired me out quick. By about the 3^rd day Richard took me to the local emergency room. I saw two different PA’s (Physician Assistants). I had wrongly assumed that the second one was a doctor. I did as I was told. They ordered a urine test because I had described some bleeding when I urinated. After the results for that test came back I was informed I had a UTI (bladder type infection, urinary tract infection to be exact) and prescribed an antibiotic to assist my recovery. They said the antibiotic would help the bladder infection and my “upper respiratory infection”. I insisted that I had the flu but since I was not vomiting they said I had the upper respiratory infection. They also told me “You can’t get the flu in the summer”. (Since then, two nurses have told me, “Yes, you can get the flu anytime”.)

Five days later I went to my asthma doctor because I was coughing so hard that I would lose bladder control. At 43 years of age I felt as though I was in my 70’s and wondered how any older person, or child, could live through this kind of experience. My asthma doctor prescribed a small steroid dosage for about 5 days. After I completed it most of the flu was gone but I continued to cough deeply for the rest of the month. In sum, my symptoms were: Fever, up and down… coughing, sneezing, runny nose, stuffy head, foggy head, eyes hurt, body aches, chills, fatigue. No throwing up and no diarrhea. I had the flu. I might also have had pneumonia and/or pleurisy. Nobody ever ordered a chest X-ray so I will never know. But I won’t forget the feeling I had, or the incredible touch I received from the Holy Spirit.

I vowed to never be sick again! I started looking for natural cures. I opened my mind to accept anything that would help me to get well and improve my immune system.

I went for acupuncture treatments beginning in September. I explained to my acupuncture doctor about my illness in July and sought help and healing for my asthma/allergies and also help with weight loss. My acupuncture doctor told me that I had an underlying issue. She explained that in Chinese medicine they call it “spleen”. She explained that it wasn’t necessarily my spleen organ; I was having problems with, but that spleen in Chinese medicine is more than just the one organ and that I would need to tonify and balance my whole body - especially the spleen system. This could take months. She said I should come in as often as I could, once or twice a week for a few weeks, in order to get a jump on it and more "bang for the buck".

At about this same time, having also complained to my acupuncture doctor that I wasn’t sleeping the whole night through, I started visiting, more frequently, my local health food store. The nutritionist there suggested I begin using a small bit of progesterone cream (only half the recommended dosage on the tube because I have AB blood) before bed to help me sleep all night.

There at the health food store, I started buying up several books on nutrition, diet and natural cures. It was then that I bought a book from TV called “Natural Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About”. Soon after, I bought “Cracking the Metabolic Code”. All of these books and visiting with the nutritionist at the health food store, (along with some tests she’d given me) pointed to my having a yeast imbalance or overgrowth.

So, one of my first purchases at the health food store was a product called Colon Cleanze. I took those capsules for week or so. Also started working out on mini-trampoline and stationary bike 30-40 min x 3-4 times a week. I began eating Ezekiel breads and cereal regularly. Prior to this I had not eaten white bread at all, except once in awhile on burgers or fish sandwiches, but I had always eaten wheat or rye or sourdough bread and of course, homemade bread at the restaurant that my husband and I go where we are “regulars”. Sometimes I would indulge in a flaky biscuit at other restaurants. About the only refined sugar I ate was in the form of chocolate. I even quit the chocolate for a couple months.

After a couple of visits to two different acupuncture doctors I quit taking my prescribed Zyrtec drug - late October, and the bedtime wheezing went away after approximately one week. I was beginning to understand. The drugs had actually been keeping me down! This gave me the courage to quit taking Singulair in December.

At this point I was weighing myself, weekly, clothed, when I was out grocery shopping. A large standing scale said I weighed between 193-195 lbs. I also weighed myself at my chiropractor’s office, and it always agreed with the grocery store scale. This had been my weight for quite a while. The first week of December my husband and I went on a three day cruise. I have no idea how much weight I gained on the cruise or from the holidays but when I got back on the scale after Christmas I weighed 201 lbs. I was depressed. I’d thought I had been “being good” and doing a lot of great things for my health but the weight was coming back on! I could have screamed I was so frustrated!

I then went back to my health food store and got little tests from the nutritionist. She had me test my saliva and take my underarm body temperature first thing in the mornings for three days. My morning body temperature was running around 96 degrees and my saliva showed the overgrowth of yeast. I bought the Candi-Gone yeast cleanse. I followed the cleanse regimen for two weeks beginning a week before Christmas 2005. I didn’t exercise during this time, actually I didn’t work out much in the month of December. After two weeks on the yeast cleanse, upon the nutritionists advice, I had my first colonic. It was really a pleasant experience and though nothing was unusual or surprising, I didn’t lose any weight but I did feel lighter and good that I was making all this effort. I had two more colonics that month.

After the new year, I bought the Tony Little Scale off HSN. I began a routine of therapies starting in November: therapeutic massages even on hot stone massage, cupping (a form of massage that gets toxins out), cranial sacral therapy (two so far), one session of raindrop therapy using essential oils.

The only resolution I made was fully commit to what all I’d started doing. So, though it had been years since I’d taken any kind of exercise class, my massage therapist, Dory kept telling me she taught yoga so I gave it a try. I signed up for the six week classes because I knew if I paid for 6 weeks I’d go for at least part of them. I began working out with Dory Valentine at yoga classes (1 hour x2 per week Tues/Thurs 8-9pm) first week of January 3^rd, 2006.

It was at this same time that I began coughing (not quite as bad as last July when I had been sick but bad enough that I would lose bladder control – less than before though). I began searching out remedies for that. I bought the book called “Healing Oils of the Bible” and began treating myself nightly with olive, grape seed or castor oil along with two drops of each (front and back) of eucalyptus essential oil and tea tree oil (melaleuca). Dory had told me to take grape seed oil and olive leaf oil and mix a couple drops of each in a glass of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and drink once or twice a day. I tried that too. But I was still coughing.

I went back to the nutritionist, Linda Harrison at Sunshine Health foods, and told her what all I was doing. I’d also called my acupuncture doctor as my husband was so upset at this point he wanted to take me to the hospital. My acupuncture physician, Joan Massey, told me to only do the castor oil with tea tree and eucalyptus oils combined with a heating pad at night. Linda told me I was doing too much. And that it was just the yeast that my body had to expel. I was detoxing.

I had a little routine I would perform, just before going to bed, of anointing myself with a combination of essential oils - mostly eucalyptus, tea tree, peppermint, lavender and so forth, some of these I used individually and some, such as one called “sinusitis” are blends. I put the carrier oil on my chest and back first, (either grape seed, olive oil, or castor oil which helped when I was coughing from detoxing – I coughed for about the last two weeks in January) then rub on the essential oils.

When I was detoxing in January and coughing like a fiend it became so bad that I called my acupuncture doctor! She told me to put the eucalyptus and tea tree oil along with castor oil on a warm towel, or a wet towel with plastic wrap between the towel and an electric heating pad, to do this at night before bed. The only problem was that it felt so good I’d fall asleep with the heating pad on and I know that wasn’t good! Eventually, I went to see Linda at the health food store. She told me to take 2-3 garlic capsules to quiet the cough. The garlic worked! I’m sure the oils were working too but the garlic worked immediately!

Specifically, Linda told me to take 2-3 garlic capsules and check to see if that would ease my cough. If two worked, then record the results and time it to see how long I could go without coughing. If I needed three, take three, etc. Well, that worked! I took two capsules first, and didn’t cough for two hours. When I woke up coughing I took 3 more and slept the rest of the night.

I stayed on the garlic capsules for 4-5 days, only taking them at night. The cough did start to calm down in about a week then the second week the cough brought out a lot of mucous. Finally, now I’m taking a thyroid supplement from Linda too. And I’ve lost about 5 lbs in the last month.

It seemed at first I actually gained weight doing what all I was doing to detox, and the colonics did not make me lose any weight contrary to what I’d read.

Not to lose momentum in my endeavor to get healthy and lose weight, even when I was coughing, I started doing an hour of DVD aerobics and incorporated weight training into my regimen (beginning with 2 lbs weights) and working out with “The Biggest Loser” workout DVD Jan. 11^th – the day after my 44th birthday. I feel the yoga really helped me to breathe better as well. Between the oils, the yoga and garlic I could feel, really feel, my lungs get stronger!

I’m also using behavior modification as to eating and to help me focus on goals. I’ve been going back to my old Jenny Craig teachings and keeping a food log of what and why I eat. That helped me before and I think it’s never a bad thing to do even for a few days. It brings a real awareness. As well, I’ve been working through a process called THT which is outlined in the book “Tapping the Healer Within” with much success! As weight loss is about so much more than losing weight. I want to heal my body and repair it and I realize it’s a mind-body thing. Stress and emotions play a crucial role in our health and overall vitality!

I’ve been studying, researching and doing a lot of reading on natural healing in general to point me to all of these things. And I remained open minded when my acupuncture doc would suggest things like the cranial sacral, which I had never heard of before, and the cupping. I’ve spent some money of course doing all of these things but the way I looked at it, if I could get off my asthma medication (happy to say that I’ve been off all of that for over 4 months) and actually heal my body instead of masking the symptoms, well whatever money I spent was worth it and certainly it’s all non invasive and painless.

Here’s a list of the books I highly recommend:  

Oregano Oil (Nature’s Answer to Bacterial, Viral, and Fungal Infection)

Eat Right for your Blood-Type (and corresponding pocket book to show all the foods I am supposed to be eating, and abstaining from.)

The Biggest Loser (The weight-loss program to transform your body) as well as their DVD workout program

The Liver Detox Diet

Several websites aided my research: http://www.healthynewage.com/197502.html

I’m blessed to go to a health food store that provides a free nutritionist counseling program and informative free newsletters. Recently I’ve begun to take the focus off “losing weight” and put the focus on reaching a good healthy target weight. I do still log my food using a website: http://www.calorie-count.com

I’m focusing on living healthy, eating holistically (either utilizing fresh local produce or organic), exercising consistently – doing squats and lunges at work, walking, aerobics dance, jumping on a mini trampoline occasionally, yoga and weight lifting, getting acupuncture treatments, taking Chinese herbs and so on to cure ills and to bring my body, spirit and mind into balance.

May 2007 I learned about bioidentical hormone therapy in a book recommended to me by Lisa Vanlandingham of Rejuvenations. The book is called “Ageless” by Suzanne Somers.

Here is the recap of what started me on this healthy living journey to include my current progress. I share this in case anyone else is chained to these types of medications and need a bit of inspiration in order to get free of them.

I had been taking five asthma / allergy medications for several years and had many reasons for needing and wanting to rid myself of these - hence my quest for wellness began in 2005:

• I quit taking Advair June 2005 – I did tell my asthma doctor that I wanted to quit taking Advair some time prior to this but she told me I was on a low dosage and that it was something I’d have to take forever. I didn’t buy that stock answer as reasonable. I felt that taking Advair an inhaled steroid was making me and keeping me fat
  
  
• July 2005 I was out of work for 6 days straight with the worst flu of my life - in sum total I was sick for a month
  
  
• I went to Parrish ER and two Phys. Asst's saw me. They said I could not have the flu in the summer and that I had an upper respiratory infection and UTI. They gave me an antibiotic. I took that and within 5 days went to Dr. Kodesch (my allergy doc) and she put me on a small steroid dosage for about 5 days. I finished that and most of the flu part was gone however, I coughed very badly (deep cough that would make me lose bladder control) for the better part of a month. My symptoms were: Fever, up and down... coughing, sneezing, runny nose, stuffy head, foggy head, eyes hurt, body aches, chills, fatigue. No throwing up and no diarrhea. I had the flu. Two nurses I've talked with since confirmed I had the flu and possibly pneumonia and/or pleurisy
  
  
• I sought out an acupuncture doctor Sept. 05 for my issues. (asthma/weight loss) I saw two acupuncture doctors, I chose the latter one to continue to work with, Joan Massey of HealthQuest in Titusville
  
  
• I quit taking Zyrtec late Oct. 05 (my night wheezing almost totally went away after approx. one week)
  
  
• I quit taking Singulair Dec. 05
  
  
• Mid Jan '06 I began coughing (not quite as bad as last July). I began searching out remedies and found natural garlic tablets (thanks to Linda Garrison of Sunshine Foods in Titusville), which relieved my congestion and phlegm
  
  
• I bought Healing Oils of the Bible and began treating myself nightly with olive, grape seed or castor oil along with two drops of each (front and back) of eucalyptus essential oil and tea tree oil (melaleuca)
  
  
• I met Nora Ross, LMT Titusville, and began every 2-3 months obtaining Raindrop Therapy using the essential oils. Nora also performs Healing Touch (similar to Therapeutic Touch or "energy work") and though some may dispel that work I believe it has benefited me. During the first session I felt that last bit of asthma totally leave my lungs
  
  
• I regularly do yoga and stretching exercises, especially and at least five minutes of back aligning stretches before going to sleep
  
  
• I walk outside about a half hour a day and jog as well, approx. 2 miles - I prefer doing this in the morning when it's cooler outside
  
  
• I practice some belly dance moves while I dance or do low impact aerobics occasionally, 1-2 times a week. I get bored with a lot of work out routines so I mix it up
  
  
• I always manage to get in about 40 ab crunches at least every other day
  
  
• I lift 30 lbs of free weights for upper body workouts every other day
  
  
• I do hindu squats everyday, somedays only 2 or 3 reps of 10 other days 4 or 5 reps of 10; I do these within a minute or so at work during the day, no one notices and it gets me out of my chair (I sit at a computer all day - which is challenging when you want to be more active)
  
  
• I perform some arm/back stretches at my desk at least once per hour while I'm at work also, which I hope will prevent carpel tunnel from setting in - and this also uplifts my body so that I do not slouch as much
  
  
• I take Juice Plus everyday, eat raw foods from the Wholefood Farmacy, organic produce whenever feasible, eat no processed foods, and continue to limit the amount of meat, and dairy products I consume