Today, for the first time in six years, I went to visit the naturopath. I just wanted confirmation that I'm vibrantly healthy, and to tweak my metabolism a bit. I've only been raw for 4 months now and I feel like I have learned so much about good nutrition in the past few years, but there are moments I find myself doubting that I am getting all the nutrients that I need in my diet overall. Well, I was reassured to find out that yes, I am healthy, and of course we can tweak things a little to get to an even higher level of health. Things that we're hoping to adjust (through homeopathics) over the next couple months include functioning of the pancreas, digestive system/flora of the intestinal track, adrenals... just general maintenance, and because I am looking after my body overall, it's not like we need to do a serious overhaul of anything.
It's funny because here's a list of things that he suggested would be wise for most people to eliminate; and I've already eliminated them all: drugs, alcohol, meat, dairy, wheat, soy, caffeine and other stimulants... and I'd have to agree with him that overhauling your diet towards better nutrition is better for your health than eating whatever and then coming to him and undergoing a periodic cleanse. Really, I've done a lot of the detoxing work by eating vegan and now raw/live vegan. We are what we eat, right.
Overall, my diet does not appear to be lacking in nutrients, with the exception of B12, because I haven't been supplementing regularly and haven't made a conscious effort to include foods with B12, such as algae (E3Live or spirulina, for example), nutritional yeast, seaweeds, or fermented foods like sauerkraut. So I will supplement with a sublingual for the next while and see if that helps. I don't generally take a multivitamin, and I don't see any need to start including one.
One thing that came up was the importance of daily exercise, and confession here: I haven't been committed to it this year. For 18 months I rowed on my concept 2 rowing machine near-daily: an average of 10 kms, 5-6 x a week. I was seriously committed to it; I rowed 330+ kms each month. And then I don't know what happened, but I just sort of needed a break (and then had surgery). But this break has lasted far too long and I really need to exercise my will power now and get back into it daily. I do Tai Chi once a week at least (lately it's been more often than that), but on its own, it's just not enough. And when the children are in their swimming lessons, I swim a kilometer, but again, that's only 1/2 an hour, once a week. I really do need to include more physical exercise. I have always had a body that seemed to need more exercise than the average person and I've always struggled to be active enough to find a balance between calories ingested and calories burned. So I'm off toTai Chi class now.
So that's my check-in today: homeopathics, more B12, more exercise, but generally in great health.
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