Benefits of a Diet Change

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Benefits of Diet ChangeThe Time to Play Philosophy is that you have to be happy, healthy, have money and a work life balance.

As far as health, as a person who has worked in healthcare over these last almost 30 years observing the increase of “sick and sad” in our society, I think the “healthy” part is most important.  If you are not feeling 100%, it’s hard to enjoy life.  If something is not 100%, I believe it is so important to be your own best advocate to find a solution that works for you.

Over my lifetime, I’ve become a detective of sorts.  For so many years I have lived with crampiness and bloating which impacted many areas of my life.  Again and again I learn about food reactions and our body’s “rejection” of what we are eating and “reacting” in ways that do not benefit us.  But, this is not top of mind for many healthcare practitioners – again, it is important to be your own best advocate to get to a root cause of what ails you.

My husband and I recently modified our diet significantly by implementing “the blood sugar solution” through Dr. Mark Hyman’s 10-Day Diet Detox.  OK…  so, “Detox” is historically a bad word.  I agree.  So many “detox” programs out there are super strict or are yucky shakes or expensive programs.  This lifestyle change is not that.  It’s more of a paleo lifestyle, but modified a little more to exclude foods that can convert to sugar and spike insulin.

So, through research and trial and error, I have eliminated foods that we eat that may spike insulin after consuming.  The primary reason we started was to help my husband decrease his risk for conversion to type 2 diabetes.  When we started our lifestyle modification, his A1c was a 7.  The results since our lifestyle change have been astounding.  Within one month his A1c went down to a 6.5 and his triglycerides went down 170 points.  Now, approximately 47 days later, he’s down almost 40 pounds.  Today he put on a size XL shirt for the first time in years.  It’s been pretty impressive and a great experience overall!

Change is hard.  Throughout my career, I have observed people with lung disease continue to smoke, people with diabetes continue to eat fried foods and sweets, people with potentially reversible health issues triggered by gluten allergies continue to eat the gluten, and more…

I am not judging.

I am not preaching.

I totally get it.

It’s not easy to make a life change.  My husband had been struggling with his weight over the last 33 years I’ve known him, and we tried so many things that did not work.  It gets discouraging.

I know in the scheme of things, we need to weigh the “benefits of” continuing to do what we do or adopting something that can make a shift to a place where we can better enjoy life.  We need to keep trying even when we feel we can’t try anymore.  It’s up to us to become detectives in our lives – to find the right path so we can become more happy, more healthy, have more money and have a work life balance. It’s up to us to learn what we need to know and weigh if the “benefits of” something outweigh what we are doing in our lives.

Personally, at 50 years old, I’m game to try anything that can make my life as good as it can be for as long as it can be.

As I wrote in my book, “If I Knew Then What I Know Now”, I wish I knew what I know now so many years ago.  I truly believe my quality of life would have been improved by implementing our current diet.  I spent many, many days feeling poorly.

The benefits of my lifestyle eating program change definitely outweigh the way I lived for almost 50 years.  Becoming a detective to determine the food that was making me feel poorly instead of just popping pills to counter my stomach issues is definitely a benefit that I cannot dispute.  As an extra bonus, the way I look and the way I feel has also dramatically improved.

Easy?

Nope.

A lot of work to plan, food shop and prepare our own meals?

Yup.

But, I’ll take the “benefits of” the extra work to prepare our meals over feeling poorly any day.

Sometimes it’s necessary for us to stop and reevaluate what we are doing to make a shift that can give us significant benefits so we can enjoy our life:  whether it is a relationship issue, a job issue, a health issue or a quality of life issue.

It’s always our choice.

After all, it is time to enjoy life. It is Time to Play.

Love, Doreen

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Doreen Guma, MA, FACHE, CPC, CLC is a board certified healthcare executive, a certified professional life coach, the founder of the Time to Play Foundation, a 501c3 not for profit corporation inspiring everyone to enjoy life and author of If I Knew Then What I Know Now, Our Quest for Quality of Life.  The concept behind time to Play and the Time to Play Foundation was absolutely created out of LOVE. Please see http://timetoplay.com/ for more information.

Photo Credit: www.prosperhomecare.com/healthy-food-plan/

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