la Matriarch

Like most fat chicks, I’ve tried all sorts of crazy ass diets in my life.  I’ve yo-yo’d with the best of em peaking during the Fen-Phen era where I lost enough weight to finally get the ole “you don’t need to lose any more weight or you’ll be too thin”, comment.  Yee Hah!

Fad diets aren’t all bad.  In fact, I credit Adkins for my vegetarianism.  In the late 90’s I finally gave in to the carb free delusions of gradure.  I remember sitting in the cafeteria at work one morning eating a piece of chicken thinking how fucking gross it was to be eating chicken for breakfast.  Before Adkins, I’d never eatin meat 3 meals a day, every day.  Several days later I was sitting in the cafeteria again, eating a piece of gross broiled chicken, again.  And I decided right there in mid-chicken breast that I’d be just fine if I never ate another piece of meat again for the rest of my life.  I ate it very sparingly for the next few months, then cut it out completely.  I’ve never regretted it.

The other day I was purusing the Omega Institute (this awesome wellness place in New York with a focus on eastern philosophies) website and ran across this diet dude who was facilitating a weight loss conference there.  I wanted to go so bad but it was too sort of a notice to get my crap together and too expensive to justify for a single weekend of “fat camp.”  Since I liked the sound of the conference so much I decided to check out the guy leading the conference and discovered he’s got a book (shocker!) So, in keeping with my impulse decision making style, I ran out and bought his book and I’m ready to start diet number 785 come Monday. 

The basis of the UltraSimple diet is that were all full of toxins from the chemicals in the food we eat and the air we breathe.  This toxicity prevents us from being healthy, and losing weight.  What I love about this theory is that it makes it so that I am not required to accept any responsibility for my overweight-ness, and I love that! 

The UltraSimple Diet is 7 days of taking all kinds of supplements in conjunction with eliminating almost anything that could possibly be an allergen.  My guy calls it the “joy free diet.”  No sugar, gluten, trans-fat, dairy, soy, peanuts.  You name it, you can’t eat it. 

Day one (and two and three and so forth…) starts with drinking the juice of a 1/2 lemon with a teaspoon of olive oil in it (YUM) which supposedly helps detox the liver.  Just thinking about it nearly activates my gag reflex. 

The shopping list for this diet is pretty extensive since it’s mostly stuff I don’t buy on a regular basis.  Here’s what I’ve bought so far.  Flax seed, Calcium/Magnesium/Vitamin D, Almond Milk, Lavender oil (for the nightly bath treatment), frozen organic strawberries, fish oil, wild salmon, brown rice, organic green tea, lemons, almond butter.  I still need rice protein, probiotics, mag citrate, vitamin C powder, and the veggies to make the Ultra broth. 

So, Saturday and Sunday I’ll be trying to get mentally prepared for a week of misery starting on Monday morning.  Care to join me?  I’ll be Plurking (ginag) and Twittering (gina_g) about my experience so feel free to follow my progress there.

I had lunch and a spa treatment today with my good friend Laura who’s in town visiting from San Francisco.  She had a facial and I had a Swedish massage.  The only thing I have to say about the Swedish massage is that it ought to come with an hour nap immediately following.  To spend 60 minutes getting me in a highly relaxed state only send me abruptly back to the noisy stressful streets of Chicago is brutal!

For about the first half of the massage I reminisced about my first  visit to a spa which took place last year when my good friend Erin and I took a weekend trip to Napa to visit Laura.  On the recommendation of Laura, Erin and I both signed up for the mud bath.  Have you ever had a mud bath?  It’s fucking freaky and I’m never doing it again.

First off I love Erin but she is cute and skinny and curvy and the thought of changing clothes in the room with her made me feel like Gilbert Grape’s mother.  The mud baths are made for 2 people. The tubs are really deep, L-shaped and connected like a sectional couch so that it’s possible to be completely separated with one person on opposite ends.  The bath tub assistant had to give a tutorial about how to enter the tub.  The mud is so thick that you actually just lay on top of the mud then wiggle yourself down into it while the bath tub assistant is warning you not to go too deep because you’ll get burned from the heaters on the bottom. 

Once you’re deep enough in the mud, the bath tub assistant rakes the mud up around your boobs and neck (because you can’t do it yourself on the count of the mud is so thick that it basically traps you in it), throws cucumbers on your eyes and jets for about 10 minutes. 

The 10 minutes felt like 10 hours.  I was horrified. 

Relax and visualize the toxins being sucked out by the power of the mud

What if there are body parts in here?  This shit is so dark and thick there could totally be body parts in here and I’d never know it!

Stop being a freak, it’s meant to relax you.  Breathe slowly and try to get your heart rate back down to normal otherwise this is just a huge waste of money.

What if the building caught on fire?  This shit is so thick that I would not be able to get myself out of here without help.  I wonder what the bath tub assistant will do in the event of a fire? 

Mud is from the earth and has been used for a bazillion years for all sorts of magical stuff.  Right this very moment its probably healing me from all sorts of badness.

I wonder if Erin is as freaked out as I am?  I think I’m about to have a full blown panic attack and I’ll just embarrass myself and Erin when I start screaming for somebody to HELP! HELP! PLEASE GET ME OUT OF THIS SHIT!

What if the heaters malfunction and the mud starts boiling and cooks me?  How long does it take to cook a woman of my size in boiling mud?

Wonder if this is special mud bath mud or if they just go out back and dig it right outta the yard? Wonder if there are (were) any worms in this mud…

Wonder how often they change this?  How many other butt cracks has this exact same mud been in?

After 10 minutes the bath tub assistant came back in and asked who’d like to get out first.  Not even giving poor Erin a chance, I blurted out ME ME! I’M READY! 

To get out of the scary mud bath, you start scraping the mud off your legs until one is free enough to hurl over the side of the tub.  Then you do the same with the other.  After we were out and showered (mud in very bad places my oh my) we were sent to sit in a junior sized jacuzzi that I’m pretty sure was meant for a couple of lovers, not a couple of friends like us.  Either way, I was just so happy to be out of there that I would have gone just about anywhere. 

I glanced over at Erin a couple of times during my mud panic and she was sitting there, eyes closed, slight smile, looking blissfully happy and relaxed.  I wish I wasn’t such a freak so I could enjoy cool stuff like mud baths.

This is my actual tongue

In Chinese Medicine, health and well being isn’t complex machinery like in Western Medicine, it is simply the perfect balance of Yin and Yang.  When either is off, it is manifest in physical or emotional illness.  So, to treat illness, practitioners of Chinese Medicine simply work to bring the Yin and Yang back in balance. 

In Chinese Medicine, examining the tongue is one of the best  ways to diagnose illness.  Different sections of the tongue represent different vital organs. 

The photo above represents 2 weeks of acupuncture/herb treatment.  From what I understand, my spleen is all jacked up.  I’ve also got Blood, Kidney and Liver problems.  Should I get my will in order and start working on my bucket list? 

This diagram on the right shows what goes where on the tongue. 

Once you’ve figured out what goes where on your tongue then you can take a look at the table attached here to see if you can assess your Yin your Yang and your Qi. 

My List 

Qi Stagnation of the Liver - emotional problems.  Want to know more about Qi Stagnation?

Yin Vacuity of the Kidney - dampness. More about Yin Vacuity. 

Qi Vacuity of the Spleen and Blood - dampness.  More about Qi Vacuity.

I took the tongue pic this past Saturday because I wanted to see for myself what it is that my acupuncturist is using to diagnose me and to see if I’ve noticed that my tongue looks any less sickly.  I sure wish I had taken a photo on day-one because, although I feel like my tongue looks different, I have no proof and it’s possible I could be trying to justify the acupuncture expense.

So what do you say, check out your tongue then come back and tell us what you saw!

This blog post is an entry in the  “Killer Titles” contest at problogger.net.  Be sure to visit Darren to check out all the entries.

I had my second acupuncture treatment on Saturday.  Alejandro is off on Saturday so Rebecca (the other acupuncturist) did my treatment.  I was pretty skeptical about this but it turned out to be really cool.  Rebecca asked if I’d be interested in trying “Ear Seeds” and when she told me there was no additional charge for that treatment I agreed to give it a shot.

The ear seeds used in acupuncture come from the Vaccaria plant and they are attached using flesh colored tape to accupuncture pressure points on the ear that correspond to the treatment the patient needs.  In acupuncture, the ear represents the entire body.  Imagine that the entire body is overlayed onto the ear with the head down by the earlobe and the feet at the top. 

I have 3 seeds placed on my right ear.  One is for depression (I’m still suffering some symptoms from the stoppage of the anti-depressants), one for anxiety and one for sleep.  I did not notice an improvement in my sleep last night.  In fact, it was worse than the prior 3 night.  I think this was more related to our extreme sugar rush from the ice cream we had immediately prior to bed.  He had a huge sundae which I’m convinced made him snore which always wakes me up.  However, I have noticed a marked overall improvement in the withdrawal symptoms from the antidepressants beginning the day after my first treatment.  I woke feeling refreshed and my head was clear.  I also saw a huge improvement in the fluid retention I’ve been experiencing over the past 2 years. 

I have 2 more treatments scheduled for next week, then we reassess. 

image from acupuncturedoc.com

Before my appointment at the acupuncture clinic last night I was questioning my decision to go there.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I over-analyze everything.  Is this a waste of money?  Will he give me some herbs that will have a bad reaction with my Synthroid?  Can I even afford this?

“Oh my God! I remember you!  How have you been?” Alejandro said as he gave me a big warm hug. 

We had a long talk where he asked me lots of really gross questions about my periods and I was surprised to see that I seemed much more grossed out than he did.  He also looked at my tongue a lot and felt my pulse and came up with a plan for me.  4 acupuncture treatments over the next 2 weeks then we’ll reassess.  He gave me Chinese herbs called Shine that he says will help with the terrible withdrawal symptoms I’m having from the antidepressants. 

Alejandro explained to me that western medicine pumps women my age with hormones to make them artificially produce eggs rather than taking them time to make sure the woman is in the best health possible before trying to conceive.  “It will take us 3-4 months to get you ready” he explained.  It felt like where I was supposed to be. 

image from michellewu.com

image from straightfromthedoc.com

Tonight I’m seeing this ultra cool acupuncture slash qigong holistic medicine man dude for a consultation.  I met him back in 2003 when I’d just been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and panic stricken.  Have you ever met someone who just makes you feel good when you are in their space?  That’s how Alejandro is. 

Why am I seeing him?  Well, this is all part of my get-in-good-shape-just-in-case-you-wanna-get-knocked-up plan.  I’ve read lots of great stories about how acupuncture has played a role in fertility and since im *gasp* forty, I figure I should do everything in my power to boost fertility. 

I plan to discuss weight loss, pregnancy and antidepressant withdrawal with the great Alejandro. 

Anybody out there have any awesome acupuncture stories? I’d love to hear them.  I could really use some inspiration right about now.