Ina’s health repair protocol
Today’s post is written from the perspective of someone who knew they had a problem with their diet at 9 years old, was told I was talking rubbish and was first identified as potentially depressive at the same age by my family GP, who was also trained in homeopathy and who was a great loss when he retired in 1987.
In reality, my sadness is usually rational, as such is not really depression. Depression is irrational sadness. When I am sad, I usually have a good reason for it, even if it does go on for rather a long time. I use it in my work, so it is not necessarily a bad thing, apart from being kind of time consuming.
The bad part of this is that I do not think about myself very much, would do almost anything to avoid it, and end up in a state of self-neglect from time to time. This time, as previously outlined, I was taking care of my disabled and very elderly mother 24 hours a day, was-broken-hearted over some dude I have never even met being a bit shitty, when an ex-boyfriend turned up, ostensibly thinking he was cheering me up by saying “hey, I’m dying, I love eating, cook for me.”
This of course gave me an excuse to completely ignore myself, try not to think about the appalling man I was in love with, and look after my ex-boyfriend’s needs rather than mine. Any excuse to ignore myself, since there was no point in applying my relentless optimism to actually solving the problem of Wolfe not wanting to talk to me.
Anyway, for depressed and overweight people everywhere, here is my self repair protocol – gathered from years of losing the same 150lb over and over again as a result of similar situations and not caring about myself very much. You are not helpless, and you are worth it, especially if you don’t actually want to die of ignoring yourself.
1. Elbow unpleasant people out of the way. Notice I do not say negative people, as I regard them as useful. I mean unpleasant people, who pour scorn on what you are doing or think they know what you need better than you do. Don’t just sit and watch them – get rid of them. If you are unable to do this for any reason, watch their behaviour carefully and do not tell them what you are doing. Do not, at this point, take up exercise as people will notice and you will put undue pressure on yourself. I will tell you when this is appropriate later in the post.
2. Before you do anything in terms of diet and exercise, start taking at least two probiotics and start cutting carbs and stimulants out of your diet. That means no sugar, flour, potatoes, rice, starchy vegetables, fruit (except berries) tea and coffee. Do this until you do not feel you are missing out on anything. (may take months, depending on how radical you are finding this so far) Get a really good mineral water if you can afford it, or failing that make sure you have a lot of ice, as ice is quite luxurious and makes you feel a bit more spoilt. Invest in some bicarbonate of soda, some apple cider vinegar and some lemon, as you will be making a drink out of it in the morning once you feel you are ready. At this point you are on a low-carb diet and are giving up stimulants. Again, it may take a month or two for you to get used to it if you haven’t done it before, but you are training yourself for life, so take your time.
3. Start increasing the vegetables in your diet to ten per day, including berries. Use the bicarb, lemon and apple cider vinegar in the morning to make a small shot sized drink. Research herbal alternatives to solve your inevitable health problems and try to drink 3-4 litres of water per day. Drinking at least 1.5 litres before you eat in the morning is very good for you and cuts your appetite considerably, especially as it takes over an hour (it does me anyway.) Don’t completely rule out meat and fish as yet, as long as you are still eating this you can get through your life without anybody noticing, so make sure you are feeling well enough to make firm decisions in the face of opposition before you start reducing those. If you have got to this point, you should be feeling well enough to start cutting out dairy products. Once you have managed that, move on to step 4.
4. If you have made it this far, you ought to be feeling a lot better, especially if you have focused on green leafy vegetables. Your research should have shown you several highly nutritious alternative superfoods to a conventional diet. if you want to purchase these you will find they actually work out cheaper and healthier than your normal diet. You should be gradually investing in possible remedies throughout this process, as you probably have a lot of gut problems and irritating health niggles to sort out. Investigate candida albicans, for example, if your health issues include brain fog and yeast infections. There are many ways of pinpointing what your issues are – my most recent favourite is Dr Berg’s quiz, which is very helpful for identifying adrenal or lymphatic issues. Go check this out. If you are feeling well enough, sneak out for a short walk a couple of times a day to help your system function at a better speed than it has been doing. You may wish to stop here if this is all you wanted to do or have no further weight problem.
5. If you still have a weight problem, once you have got your nutrition sorted out, you will no longer want to eat unfeasible amounts of crap food. In fact you may feel well enough to fast for a while. Personally, I am not a fan of doing this for more than five days, as the last thing I need is to slow my metabolism. Miraculously, even after spending a considerable portion of my life dieting, I have no issues of this kind so can still manage to shift a lot of weight relatively quickly. Intersperse periods of fasting with periods of intensive nutrition so that your body gets the best possible chance of resolving its issues. Green leafy vegetables, again, are very important so that you do not damage your fatty liver. Annoyingly, non alcoholic fatty liver disease is actually acquired via dieting, not overeating, and the only way of reversing or avoiding it is to consume a lot of bitter greens, so tune into making very nice green smoothies sweetened with stevia. Personally, I am a fan of mineralising with raw chocolate to make my bitter smoothie taste good, and a great deal of ginger in case any of my other problems have decided to form a tumour again.
6. Repeat and continue for as long as necessary. If you want to give up meat and fish altogether, do so as you are better off without it. Remember that fats are always better for you than sugar, and your brain loves ketosis rather than a conventional diet, so particularly if you have depressive periods, stick to this plan. Increase your exercise and taking time for yourself until you are at a sustainable level. Do not forget how bad you used to feel before you did it, and pamper yourself by doing something nice for yourself at least once per week, regardless of what anybody else says or does.
Enjoy your new appearance and improved self-confidence.
I have an alternative protocol for people who have been starved by a hospital or are otherwise nutritionally depleted, hence the title of this post.