Sunday, November 1, 2009

Nov 01, 2009 - Encouraging news

Sure, it's natural to be skeptical about genuine, proven healing methods when it challenges our beloved lifestyle, no matter how disabling our lifestyle might be. The first thing that enters our mind is "If I have to give up this or that, there is no way I'm doing this new thing". Apply it to anything - the physical or spiritual - it makes no difference. I hear it all the time even when the words are not spoken. We shoot down possible paradigm shifts, not because we know them to be false (because we really haven't explored them at all), but because we are afraid we'll have to give up some harmful practice that we have grown to love. It could be the burger joint across the street, the morning latte, the porterhouse, the bacon and eggs or the alcohol. We are convinced our quality of life will be drastically reduced if we give up these things because we have grown to love these things - they have become our comfort and our best friend.

I submit to you that life gets better when we make the decision to swap our unhealthy living for the things that are better by design – it then becomes just a learning curve. For those in reasonable health, there is no need to make a big noisy production of it - just make small changes, measure the benefits, and go forward to the next step. You'll get results. If your health is compromised, and even if you choose a traditional path for treatment, plunge right in headfirst, the water's fine - I'm right there swimming with you!

For those who are facing difficult decisions in the face of rapidly declining health, I offer this: When we come to the end of ourselves, and we are backed into the proverbial corner, these strange, new choices can become VERY appealing, because for the first time, we accept the fact that the current way of living and popular methods of treatment just don't prove out upon closer examination of the mortality tables, and we deserve better than that. And quite frankly, we want to live and we'll do most anything to do it!

But sometimes it's too late by then. We wait too long and we're finished. Now if we can take a small step forward into the unfamiliar and open our minds to truth, we always find in retrospect that these new choices were the best we've made. I do not regret this path I'm on. In all ways, I am better off.

Just as I have never regretted becoming a Christian 18 years ago, giving up the harmful things as I have come to know them as harmful (I'm still learning and growing), I find that the truth-proven choices I have adopted have done nothing but improve my life, and have helped me to release my death grip on those things that drag me to the grave. And the longer I practice, the easier it gets - new challenges become ever easier to tackle and the things that appear to be difficult just don't have the same weight they used to have. But I, like everyone else, have hung on to the wrong things in life for far longer than I should have. It's only by the grace of God that I'm living today.

We have been led to believe that traditional allopathic medicine is the only answer. As I have said before, in the case of chronic illness, it many times offers no permanent relief at all. Does the doctor, when he prescribes cholesterol meds, ever say to you, "Take these for a year then you'll be cured"? The reality is, you're in the system for life, all other factors remaining the same. Go off the drugs, the problem will return, because it never left. We should take every step to remove the cause of the disease and let the body heal itself - it has been designed beautifully to do just that. That's where the real magic is!

But we should not wait too long - there can be, short of immediate and direct Divine intervention, a point of no return. But the real beauty is, no matter what your current state of health, or how many treatments or surgeries you've had, or how many prescriptions you are taking, correct eating and lifestyle change begins having immediate and lasting benefits.

Keep searching for the truth, settle for nothing less, question everything. Become convinced. There is no reason to fade into the darkness, clinging to the things that mean nothing, and having no hope.

Today...

....is day seven here at the center. I am still drinking broth and a very watery vegetable juice - about 100 total calories total. I'll begin water fasting in earnest Monday afternoon. I would have started this morning but I need to make a trip to Sacramento tomorrow morning (Monday) and I can't leave while water fasting. It is house policy and a very wise one. Blood pressure could change suddenly after standing up too quickly and the next thing you know you awake on the pavement clutching a big bump on your noggin faintly pleading to passerbys, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!". So a little caloric intake can prevent this from happening.

Even with this modest caloric intake, I experience some pretty typical fasting symptoms - I occasionally feel light headed when I stand up too quickly and I have experienced feeling a pounding pulse in what seems like every cell in my body - it's very strange. This last symptom can be attributed to two things, one a possible cause and the other a sensation. The cause being, according to the doctors, the result of the usual stress the body experiences when detoxifying, very similar to the increased pulse rate and pounding I would experience in the middle of the night after drinking one too many margaritas. Good reason to quit drinking, would you not agree? The sensation, in the case of fasting, I attribute to the low body fat, which makes it seem like the larger vessels are right on the surface, especially in the abdominal area. Last night the sensation was minimal, but the night before it was going on pretty strong for most of the night. Drinking water eases the symptom considerably.

I have continued to steadily lose weight. I came in last week at 148 lbs and I'm at 139.6 today, about the same weight as when I graduated high school in 1977, believe it or not. I had already done much work in real diet correction in the month before coming to the center, dropping from 162 lbs, so I am that much closer to getting the results I want.

I'm right on track for some real housecleaning, and it has begun in earnest. I have been off all blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medications for three days and my total cholesterol is now 120 (with 20 mg of simvistatin and the new diet it was 115), and while my blood pressure has been a bit scattered across the board, this morning it was 114/70. This is the lowest it has been in my life. Ever.

Some of this drop can be attributed to the slight dehydration and salt loss that occurs in all fasts, but over time, a steady baseline will be revealed. With diet and lifestyle change, ninety percent of all patients never need blood pressure meds again in their entire life. I am thinking 110/70 by the time I leave in a month. I saw this number in my head this morning and I expect the best.

3 comments:

  1. i BELIEVE IN YOU BROTHER! Looks like you are headed toward your goals. Hope you broght you bible. Keep reading and praying. You can go on Baysideonline.com and listen to some awesome sermons preaching the new testament through.

    Keep the faith!

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  2. I did and I do! Thanks, Doug - you inspirer, you!!

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  3. "We should take every step to remove the cause of the disease and let the body heal itself - it has been designed beautifully to do just that!"
    Amen and amen! :)
    I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 1999 (from a blood transfusion in 1972 when I was a child, they had no test for it back then), and have had to take "matters" into my own hands regarding my health outlook. God has richly blessed my efforts, though I still have a ways to go.
    God's rich blessing to you today, Roy. Warm greetings to Julie too.

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