A New Day

I woke up this morning clear headed and completely pain free. I notice that my mornings are getting better and better. I used to take forever to wake up, drag my body out of bed, and would frequently take some kind of Advil, Tylenol, or aspirin first thing. Then, if I didn't have to go anywhere, would sit down and kick back in a recliner until the drugs relieved enough pain that I could get up and get moving. But when the drugs wore off, I had to stop what I was doing and take more. I would do this repeatedly and by the middle of the afternoon, I was pretty much done for the day. I would take a nap around 3 pm and then just sit and watch the news, or whatever the least objectionable thing on TV was, until around 7 pm when I would go find something to eat. By that time I would have a lot of back pain and it would be hard to stand or even walk for longer than 10 minutes.

Going back 8 years, when I was working a very stressful full time job, the story was worse:
I would force myself out of bed, ease my aching body down the steps to the kitchen, pour myself a BIG cup of coffee (with about a half a cup of that artificially sweetened and flavored creamer), pull myself back up the steps and drink my coffee in the shower just to wake up enough to get myself out the door. Then, after I got downtown, I would stop at a Caribou Coffee and pick up a LARGE Caramel High Rise (430 Calories, 170 Fat calories, 19 g Total fat, 75 mg Cholesterol, 49 g Sugar, 200 mg Sodium, 270 mg Caffeine.) I would then go into my office, shut the door, drink my coffee and try to pull myself together enough to get something done. About 10 am I would go get ANOTHER large espresso latte (another 180 mg of caffeine!)....I would try to eliminate the sugar and fat of the whipped cream the second time around, just 2% milk this time, thank you! I would eat a salad for lunch with a hunk of whole grain bread...to eat healthy, of course. Then around 3 or 4pm I had to have another big coffee. I would work until 8 or 9 pm, and then being too tired to cook, would eat out at a restaurant. I would always have to have a couple glasses of wine or 2-3 big margaritas to settle down from all that coffee and the stress of the job. And since I had only had a salad for lunch and no breakfast, I would be really hungry and eat way too much. Then I would go home, take a melatonin to get to sleep along with a fistful of drugs to kill all the pain in my body. I would thrash around in bed until 2 am eating a half a dozen Rolaids to calm my stomach down before I could even get to sleep.

Yes, there is a lot to heal in this body. I have come a long way and it is good to remember where I was. I am very grateful for the life I have now.

Today I ate:
Breakfast: Green smoothie with apple, pear, banana, collards, and parsley.
Lunch: A little leftover zucchini spaghetti with a "cheesey" sauce (macadamia nuts, pine nuts, cashews, lemon juice, garlic, water and nutritional yeast.) I had made it last night for my supper but my husband ate it instead.)
Snack: 2 power balls
Supper: Big green vegetable salad with a lemon juice, agave nectar, Dijon mustard, and olive oil dressing.

Body Flexed again today.