Who am I and why this blog? 10 motives.

I think I am just another person attempting to feel better, have more energy, and lose weight by instituting a healthier lifestyle to my standard routine. But am I?


Actually I am one lucky girl with a most caring and nurturing mom that is always on the lookout for my health, happiness, and protection from harm. Over the Christmas visit back home this year, she gave me a page ripped out of Spry Magazine's December 2009 issue with the article, "Bouncing Back" by Laurie Herr, that she had been saving for me. The article is about Dana LaMonica, a 39-year old Uniontown, OH woman with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), who lost 80 pounds and whose MRI showed clearance of previously existing lesions on her brain after only 6 months of following a diet outlined in the book, The Gold Coast Cure by Andrew Larson, M.D. and his wife, Ivy Ingram Larson (also a woman with MS).


Inspired by the article, I ordered and read The Gold Coast Cure. I also, purchased the supporting cookbook, Whole Foods Diet: 200 Recipes for Optimal Health also by the Larsons. I quickly and pleasantly discovered the foods included many things I already like to eat but just don't have the confidence or knowledge to turn them into a meal in 30-minutes or less.


However, my attempt to institute the Gold Coast Cure as my new healthier lifestyle in 2010 has less to do with the inevitable falling of the apple in Times Square or an obsession for falling of the numbers on the scale than that of most. So here are my motives:
1) I am tired of being tired.

2) I am on prescribed medications for high blood pressure and anxiety. I work in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry and spend every single minute of my work days ensuring safety and quality of medicine. I fully believe in and support use of conventional medicine however, I am fully against band-aid solutions if there is an alternative. I want to challenge the alternatives before accepting conventional medicine as truly necessary and my last resort.

3) I am 30 with the body of a 59-year old post-menopausal woman = my mother. (Love you, Mom, and your body but I want the body you were blessed to enjoy in your 30's during mine. I'll happily take your body with hopefully as much sustained elegance, grace, and beauty as you when my time is due in my 50's. Not now. SWAK!) I am 5'1" and weigh 150+ pounds. To describe my shape, let's just say my due date has been questioned however in reality I am in fact minus a true bun in the oven. At times I am physically uncomfortable bending over to tie my shoes. I am educated enough to know the long term risks and effects of excess abdominal fat.

4) I have no excuse. Having recently ended a 3-year relationship, I am alone. The general routine of what I eat and how I spend my time currently has no direct impact on anyone but me. I can live on trail mix and no wine without disappointing anybody. I can spend 4 hours scouting Whole Foods, Stop-N-Shop, and Russo's without sacrificing quality time with someone. Although I still am socially busy, it would be ridiculous and just plain lazy to not be able to find three 30-minute slots a day to attend to exercise.


5) My left leg went numb for about 6 weeks in October 2004 and I was officially diagnosed with relapsing remitting MS in August 2005 following a second clinical episode (numb left toes) confirmed by a large lesion on my cervical MRI. I was 25. I began treatment with a daily self-injection of a conventional medicine, Copaxone, in September 2005 and have been on it ever since. So 4.5 years of compliance later, only missing a dose less than five times I can recall, I developed only 1 small lesion on the brain in the first year and have experienced minimal clinical symptoms overall. But the anxiety...another 20 bucks! It has taken me 5 years of no progression to finally believe that I actually may be lucky - lucky enough to have an extremely mild case or very effective medicine or both. (Note that I still say "may" because of my instinctual type-A skepticism. Why is it so hard to just have faith? Why do I attach ignorance to disappointment because I "should have known better" to set my expectations lower from the get-go? Food for thought for another post sometime...) So, although in the last 5 years I have intermittently been a yogi, a jogger, a Juice-Plus consumer, and a gluten-free advocate among other things, I am for the first time open to the possibility of "both." Both means after achieving positive results from this attempt, taking some time off Copaxone could reveal a mild case in fact or simply an alternative means of controlling progression. Time will tell.


6) I want the evidence documented because if this attempt works, I want a place to direct people to see exactly what I did for their reference. I may provide East Coast Evidence for the Gold Coast Cure.


7) The Gold Coast Cure includes nothing I didn't already know or want in my lifestyle. It is just a matter of making it happen.


8) Like many, I am not lazy but I like convenience and I am tired after work. Cooking a full out dinner is close to the last thing I want to have to do when I get home with the minimal energy I have left. I actually feel the Gold Coast Cure offers realistic eating habits with foods I already like. As a true lifestyle change, the only commitment required is learning new recipes and preparing some things in advance so that healthy is convenient.


9) Only I have the ability and responsibility to apply to my life Ivy Ingram Larson's statement, "You only have one life. Make it a good one."


10) I have nothing to lose but a belly. :-)