Day 13 - Disease

Oh yes I did! Went swimming at the Y for about 20 minutes, preceeded by about 10 minutes in the SAUNA! The sauna is a great place to be on a cold winter's day, it really it is.

The aches and pains are at typical levels, being relatively low but still present, and elbows are still irritated, but generally, things feel ok. Perhaps the ginger tea is helping.

In the interest of being useful, I will delineate the dietary steps I'm taking to reduce inflammation (which I identify through the pain in my joints and body). Primarily, I'm trying to avoid all refined or processed sugar, which isn't too hard for me since I don't have a huge sweet tooth. Secondly, I'm not eating almost any meat, but really digging into fresh vegetables and fruit. I used to eat bags and bags of chips and crunchy snacks - and in fact, it occurred to me the rate of chip consumption seemed unsustainable (don't ask how I was trying to measure that). Now, instead of chips, I cut up celery, carrots, and other crunchy vegetables when I need my crunch fix. I think I've identified the need to crunch as being related somehow to anxiety. Really low-grade, barely identifiable anxiety. It primarily comes up when I'm trying to do something that requires I settle in and concentrate or focus in on one task. The other antidote to the crunch jones is liquids. Sometimes it's herbal tea, and sometimes it's salty water. I have more of a salt tooth than anything.

I'm also going in on the Vitamins C, E and Selenium, plus Vit. D and Calcium. Also, I am drinking a bit more green tea and ginger tea.

It's interesting how when fighting a scary possible disease, doing things like exercising and eating right feel like rewards in and of themselves. I came out of my swim feeling proud of myself for taking disease head-on, and didn't feel any need to reward myself further. You know how that happens - you exercise, and then you reward yourself with a big, fat smoothie loaded with sugar and other things of questionable nutritional value. Or you reward yourself by buying something you don't need...

So today, I'm grateful for my body screaming bloody murder at me - telling me in no uncertain terms that it's had it, I've f*cked up enough, and should I really like to push the envelope, I'll get arthritis, limited motion, and buckets of pain for my trouble. Thanks, body.

On another note, I heard that a girl who used to work where I worked and lived in this area died recently, possibly in Pakistan. She was younger than me and also had symptoms of some weird disease that started up while living here. I'm not making any connections, but I certainly don't take it lightly.