Flower grandchildren
Goal Post #13
Earlier in this blog I talked about lemon juice and apple cider vinegar helping control my heartburn and how artificial sweeteners cause my blood sugar to plummet. There is no way for me to know if this is widely true for most people or just true for me. Anecdotal evidence is a story about how something worked for someone and not a replacement for multiple medical studies proving something true for lots of people.
Sorting through stories to figure out what works for you while listening to established medical findings is part of everyone's health journey. After all, I don't want to be paying big pharma any more than is absolutely necessary. I also don't intend to suffer needlessly from an aliment that can be fixed with medical intervention. If changing my diet hadn't helped my digestive issues, I would have gone to a doctor. It's about balance.
Let's travel back to the end of March when I started adding a multi-vitamin to my morning routine. This is hilarious because less than two weeks later a major article was published describing again, how multi-vitamins have no health benefits. This is supported by many respected peer-reviewed studies, all of which have said the same thing for years. We just aren't listening.
Despite all this evidence, I still take a multivitamin, mostly because within weeks of starting this multi-vitamin, (the one from March really was useless) my PMS symptoms disappeared. This was not something I was trying to change because I really didn't get horrible PMS. But now I don't get any cramping, mild headaches or fatigue. So I'm not giving up the miracle pill even if the timing just happened to align with whatever did fix these things.
Books can help sort through this dilemma, especially if they're written by a doctor who is also published in medical journals. Currently, I'm reading Hype by Nina Shapiro with Kristen Loberg. So far, it's easy to follow, explains why we want to believe certain claims while recognizing the validity of unconventional medical treatments.
While acknowledging there can be questionable aspects to natural healing, I think it's a good thing many doctors are expanding their practices to include more natural, holistic remedies as options instead of prescribing drugs right away.
Most medical professionals I've spoken with say they would prefer to put a patient on a healthy diet before prescribing (for example) a blood pressure medicine. Most people simply do not want to change their lifestyle. A doctor's job is to keep us alive. If we are not willing to change our habits for the sake of our health those doctors prescribe pills. For me, if exercise, chiropractors, massage, herbal and/or dietary remedies aren't working, I will take the drugs.
That being said, there are a couple of natural pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory options that I always turn to before traditional drugs like ibuprofen. First, Zyflamend before and after any high-impact day helps reduce muscle and joint pain after. Second, CBD oil makes my knees feel nice and fuzzy. For a person from a family with a long history of knee/hip issues, it provides wonderful relief that hopefully will help me stay active for years.
Speaking of activity, I recently discovered this online tool to figure out how many calories I burn doing activities not listed in my phone's fitness app. After all, cleaning the house, raking leaves, or mowing the lawn isn't exactly the same as taking a walk. Later in the day while watching TV or reading, I tell the app I'm dancing to burn off those extra calories.
Right now I can hear you thinking "Wait, she doesn't have a fitness tracker?" No, I don't use any wearable fitness device. It would be an easier way to sync all of my activities, including scrubbing the tub or unpacking boxes. In the beginning, I was worried a tracker might interfere psychologically with my process - that I might rely too much on the device and not enough on working out. Now my worry is I don't want to fix something that isn't broken or worse, break what is working with a technology change.
This is also part of a long-standing resistance to new personal technology. I'm all for advancing technology as a whole. Bring on better Mars rovers, faster internet, smarter artificial intelligence and realistic virtual reality. For my personal use, I will wait until something causes massive inconvenience before breaking down and getting for example, a smartphone.
When I finally did get a smartphone (May 2015 - no regrets!) I was addicted so quickly that I'm certain it's going to be the same with a fitness tracker. But for right now I'm managing the inconvenience. Just go with the flow, man.
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