Week Twenty Six: 6 months, 12 weeks, 500 kilos…
*** This blog is not to be prescriptive nor give you advice, merely to show you my way of navigating true health in a jungle of advice and pharmaceutical pressure. Please do your own research, ask your own specialists or contact those I have used if you wish to find out more about your personal condition and symptoms. To your very best health. ***
I’ve had a brilliantly mixed week.
And I mean both brilliant and mixed.
At one end, the health industry lost a very influential player on Thursday. Charles Poliquin has revolutionised strength and conditioning training for the fitness industry. He trained Olympians, carved out new training methods and was influential in developing the personal training gym approach to health.The cause of death has been confirmed as a heart attack. He was 57. I never met or did training courses with him, but read his blogs, followed his strident posts and recognised his influence in a very heavily opinionated industry. It’s a stark reminder that despite all best intentions to keep healthy, when it’s our time to go, we go.
At the other end I met a personal fitness goal of my own this week. I was aiming for the end of the year and I nailed it today (29 September) so I am over the moon. It won’t mean much to you if you don’t lift weights, but over in my little oasis that is my weekly Rev5 sessions, I’ve been aiming to be able to leg press the whole weight stack by the end of the year. The whole stack is 500KG (78.73 stone, or half a tonne).
I did it!
Rev5 is about time under load and I pressed that beauty for just shy of 3 minutes.
Apparently Debbie told me that not many people do that (in fact even Mr Strickers can’t do it just yet) so now you know why I could walk Three Peaks without a hill training session under my belt. I do have strong legs, that much is true.
In between all this I’ve been told that I am ‘glowing‘, ‘wasting away‘ and have a ‘5* back‘ – you can see why I feel like it’s been brilliantly mixed!
This week marks 6 months since I started the Auto Immune Protocol (AIP)
It marks 12 weeks on the AIP with blood group diet food plan.
And 7 months post coffee.
Something has shifted this week and I suddenly feel as though I can start to broaden my foods again. I don’t know why, it may have something to do with the Access Consciousness session I had in the week (more on this in another blog later), or it could be that my body has moved on a bit. But I feel less concerned about being quite so anal with regards to sticking to it.
I’ve decided to broaden my spectrum of foods by going back to my blood group diet plan from Dr P D’Adamo in his Live Right For Your Type book. It adds in things like some nuts and seeds, eggs and different fruits and veg. It will be a slow process, but thought I’d see how, and if, it makes any difference.
I know that things have shifted. I am definitely chirpier than I was earlier in the year. I am more active and stronger. My mood is improved with more positive internal chatter than the relentless darkness from January onwards. I also feel calmer and more in control which means I am approaching my work better and making decisions more happily. I really wasn’t making decisions at all earlier this year.
So on that basis let’s see if adding in the odd pumpkin seed or two is going to mess that all up 🙂
Other musings
- I can’t eat dried fruit and not expect it to affect me. Ate prunes on Thursday and they had the completely opposite effect to the one that most people get , and bunged me up. Not doing that again.
- Mr Strickers and I went out for a meal on Friday. We’ve put this off for months as it’s been too tricky for me to find something vaguely on-plan on the menu. But we decided on Eliane in Sunningdale as the quality of food there is fabulous and you know that you’re getting a very high quality, clean combination of foods. I made the decision to have what I wanted and enjoy it rather than trying to fit into a regime. It was fabulous. If you love really fresh, healthy food. I highly recommend it. So worth the visit.
- Previously mentioned symptoms of hair loss, cold extremities, poor sleep, scalloped tongue and dry skin still stay. But that’s OK, it’s not got worse.
- Following on from last week, I’ve still not redone my blood test for the autoimmunity antibodies.
- Had an email from Janie who thought getting my adrenal gland and stress levels check might be a good idea. She’s probably right., but part of me doesn’t want to know if it’s a factor as it will mean changes again and I feel like I am just getting back into a rhythm. Ah well, let’s see.
- Finally, I spoke at an event this week where we all had a positive message postcard at our place. I saw this one and took it. Because you are, we all are and don’t you forget it.
I am going to celebrate my 6 months, 12 week, 500KG successes with a pile of salad, another avocado and some protein of choice. If I go completely mad I may have some coconut chunks too. I know, the excitement is palpable isn’t it?!