I have lots and lots to update you all on what I've been up to over the last few weeks, but in a nut shell there's been lots of activity and not sitting still. Again. Hmm.
I've been exercising still, but in the last few months I've noticed my energy wasn't as great as has been (I'm falling asleep on the couch by 8pm) and my hormonal mood swings at that time of the month have been shocking. As any female will declare about themselves, normally I'm not that bad.
My friend was going to visit his naturopath for a live blood analysis and a check up, and had invited me along. I thought, why not, let's see how bad this body really is. I admit I was definitely expecting the worst. I have a long history of bad eating, and a few years ago was drinking nearly every night.
As it turned out, I'm actually doing pretty decently! I'm dehydrated (knew that before going in, my lips were dry), have a little bit of free radical activity, minor symptoms of leaky gut (that sounds way more gross than it is) but otherwise the only thing I really need to be conscious of is my liver. My blood was showing a little bit of liver damage, so the call was made to start me on a liver detox.
As soon as I heard the word “detox” I had visions of only being allowed to drink juices for 48 hours, intense headaches and the mental desire for death to come soon. Then she plonked some tablets down and said “have one a day”.
Oh. That sounds easy.
Overall my diet that I'm on is pretty decent, and I massively have to thank Mario for that. He makes my lunch and my dinner, and I'm so very lucky for that. I've just recently cut out bread again since I always feel so bloated after eating it, and other than my 52 in 52 to cut out sugars, I'm not really focusing on my diet any more than that. I typically have meat & veg for dinner, and 75% of the time my lunch is a salad of some description (the other 25% it's usually leftovers from the night before).
With regards to my breakfast, I'll be swapping my oats back to a protein shake again. For example, this morning I've now just had a protein shake made up of:
- Protein powder
- Omega-3 fish oil
- An egg
- Half a cup skim milk
We're picking up some frozen berries when we go shopping next and I'll throw them in too. It doesn't taste too shabby, and since I'm not a big fan of being in the kitchen a quick and easy breakfast suits me just fine! While I'm drinking the protein shake I also have my multi-vitamin, a magnesium tablet, and the liver detox tablet. All in all my breakfast is over and done with after 5-10mins, giving me more time in the morning to do other things (like this blog right now).
The plan is to visit the naturopath again in a month (although I do need to drop off a urine sample earlier so she can test for pH etc) and see the difference. I'm predicting a bit of weight loss as a result, which I certainly won't get upset by! I've also got another physical event coming up in 3 weeks, an ocean swim, which I'm training for so will see some results from that too.
Has anyone else visited a naturopath before? Had any good results?