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Thursday, October 7, 2010

I WILL Get Healthy

It is safe to say that the past couple years have challenged me mentally and physically. Death, other family tragedies and sudden change have all tested my ability to continue afloat, and unfortunately these years of stress, poor nutrition and poor choices, have all been put in the spotlight after being diagnosed with a health problem within the past month.

My initial reaction lasted up until a few hours ago honestly- sheer terror. After loosing my Mom 3 years ago to cancer, anything medical related makes me freeze. Granted, it's not a walk in the park for anyone, but the pain my Mom and family went through is still entirely too fresh in my mind.

I was alone when a physicians assistant told me what was going on in my body, and I wanted to run/ deny it. One bad fact and my brain runs rampant with worry. Luckily, I have an amazing support group of people who know my gun-shyness and took it upon themselves to do research and help calm my fears. One act of support lead my boyfriend, Carl, to talking to one of his best friends. At first, I was a little nervous having my private business spread further than just my immediate family and chosen few friends, but I was very lucky that he did. Turns out his friend's lady has had a relatable experience and she wanted to help.

Being super shy, and a somewhat private person, I didn't immediately jump on the opportunity to talk to her. I was still processing my emotions, I didn't even know what questions I would ask her! Today she reached out. We chatted on Facebook for about an hour about her experiences, some resources that she respects, and made it comfortable for me to ask any questions/ air out concerns.

She told me more or less of the following: Get healthy and don't worry. My eyes darted over to the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie batter that was staring at me with an angelic glow from my kitchen- damn.

A few months ago my Dad came down to visit and he then critiqued the condition of my house. The problem in that is that my home is who I am, if you walk into my house you are more or less getting an insight into who I am. It's a very personal space! After he left, I realized that my home, and body, have become an extremely messy situation. I decided it is time to take care of myself. Step one was to clean my house, step two go to the doctor, which is what has lead me here. Already on the "Let's get better!" kick, i took well to some of the ideas that she gave me.

One of these ideas was alkalization. I Googled it and found an article asking "Are you an acidic person?" I immediately thought of those online surveys helping you to determine if you were a romantic or a cat lady. Luckily, the article was far more informative and broke down the aspects of alkalization, and let me tell you, it makes sense! It is all about the Ph of ones body, and food contributes to this. Certain foods have higher Ph levels and if the body becomes over saturated, causing an acidic body, which can cause health problems. Ah ha! Therefore, lower Ph foods/alkalizing foods will lead to a healthier functioning body as well as reducing the acid in the body. Hello, I'm Catie and I have an acidic body.

Not 15 minutes after I said goodbye to my very inspiring friend, I grabbed my purse and ran to the grocery store.

Walking through the doors of Kroger I felt confident, I now hold the key to being able to control the happenings in my body a little more. I felt like I had a secret that no one else knew, food can make you healthy! (Shhh!) Well, the only problem with that is that I have picky-eater tendencies. Very picky. As a child I think I was nothing short of a nightmare with a taste for bread. Dating a vegetarian, i've been slowly trying to let go of these immature taste buds and upgrading for, I dont know... green things?

This past behavior has left some marks. My confidence subsided when I walked to the middle of the veggie department and though, "huh, what do I do now?" Luckily I had armed myself with a list of acceptable fruits and veggies and went from there. I felt highly out of place. I passed by shoppers wondering, are they looking at me? Do they know that i'm a rookie? At the check out one of the ladies asked me what I was making, taking note of all the veggies she was shoving into bags. "Nothing! I'm getting healthy. Today is the initial stock up." "You go girl!"

Feeling less run-over, and more empowered i'm currently drinking a gallon of water with lemon and have an avocado turkey wrap in the makes.

I WILL get healthy, I have to.
I will keep you all updated on my progress and adventures in healthy food.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey there! I've been reading your blog for a while and this post made me want to let you know... I don't know why. Anyway, I like your optimism and hope you will get better :p

(Forgive my english if there's anything wrong, I'm from Spain..so...)

xx

Catie May said...

Thank you so much! :)

Anonymous said...

curious as to what the health problem is?