Whatever Works! Cleaning up our Eating Habits

Earl and I have never been ones to go to the doctor unless we felt it really necessary.  His main health issue has been high blood pressure.  He has kept it under control with medication and never thought much about diet.  It seemed to be a pretty easy fix to just take these pills every day.

Although I have a strong family history of Diabetes, my only health issue has been arthritis.  At age 58, I was under the care of a Rheumatologist in the Houston area.  I was on Prednisone, Methotrexate, and Enbrel, just to keep functioning.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with those drugs, they are all some pretty powerful stuff.  In the fall of 2008, I broke out in Shingles.  They became so severe, and my immunity was so low because of the drugs, that I was hospitalized and put in isolation.  I came home after about a week, with an IV, and under home health care.  One of my nurses casually suggested some reading material, which led me to study about other options for my RA treatment.  Meanwhile, the Rheumatologist instructed me to resume the medication after I had completed the IV treatment.  After a couple of weeks, I found myself back in his office with a fungal skin infection.  I was told that if it didn’t clear up after finishing up a prescription, I would need to go back into the hospital.  I went straight home and read on the net that people had died from this infection while on some of these drugs. I decided to change doctors!

I sought out a doctor who was experienced in using a more natural approach.  I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, and began diligently following a Gluten Free diet.  I’ve been pretty content with this regimen for several years now.  I am confident that gluten had definitely been a contributing factor to inflammation that caused the arthritic pain. In looking back, when I was at my worst, I was living on gluten rich foods.    But this summer when my doctor suggested bumping it up to the Paleo diet, I was not very accepting.  I had already given up so much to be gluten free!  She was very adamant that she felt it would be beneficial, but I was not readily accepting to jump on that band wagon. 

All of this has had an influence on decisions of how we began a new lifestyle in our daily eating.  Earl decided he really wanted to avoid salt and build up his good cholesterol & reduce his bad cholesterol.  I decided to avoid all grain, including my old staples of rice and corn that had been a part of my gluten free diet.  We both wanted to eliminate sugar.  This sounds very restrictive, but we decided to enjoy what we could eat rather than what we were missing by changing our diet.

When asked what we have done to lose weight, I like to say that we are just eating “cleaner”.  Fresh fruit and vegetables are our best friends!  I am cooking a lot of fresh or frozen veggies.  I have gone from using “a stick of butter and a cup of sugar” in my veggies to cooking them in a little olive oil seasoned with garlic.  They don’t even need salt!

Earl has cut his blood pressure meds in half!  I have eliminated 3 pills a day that I was taking for arthritis.  “Whatever Works!” – We’re taking less medication! These pics were taken on our 5 month anniversary of eating cleaner.  My weight loss is 43 pounds, and Earl's is 75.  It's working!