A New Direction, A Transformed Me – Part I

Chapter 1: Getting Me Healthy

Last week, I added a new way of eating to the exercise schedule that James and I have been keeping since January. It’s Perricone’s Acne Prescription, which is so many ways (sermon excluded!) it’s a synthesis of so much of what I’ve learned any tried on my body the past few years. And MY GOD, it WORKS! (Even with Mardi Gras sugar madness in the meantime!) My skin was HORRIBLE a week ago – had been gradually becoming more so since I went off the pill last August, and losing the pregnancy in January simply exacerbated it beyond belief. It was the worst ever and I felt powerless to do anything about it, being that nothing was working.

Now, one week later, my skin is at least Eighty-five Percent Clearer than it was last week. All my lesions have healed – they’re still there, just not crusty and gross anymore – and I look better without makeup than I did with makeup. As of last week. SERIOUSLY!!!

Plus, the scale finally says I’m losing weight, after staying steady for some time (I’ve built a lot of muscle these past 6 weeks!!) Additionally, I’ve started learning a little yoga via DVD on the mornings we’re not at TJ exercising, to hasten a return to health (25 years overdue). Already, I have a lot more stamina during the day, and my moods are evening out noticeably.

Chapter 2: I Don’t Sleep, I Dream

I had an incredible, vivid dream the other day, in which a fictional character who represents authority, strength, knowledge, and doing-the-right-thing came to me and told me that it is time I did something important with my life. He was speaking directly to me, by name. In fact, he had a career ready for me – he strongly encouraged me to become a doctor. Referring to my real-life experiences and education, he told me that my talents and gifts are perfectly suited to being a doctor. “It’s not too late to go back to school,” he said, and he was speaking to me in my present, 29-year-old post-graduate form. I left his office with my mind reeling, looking for James so I could share this experience with him, and we could determine what to do! I woke up just as I found him.

For two days, I thought about this dream – what did it mean? I'm not about to go to medical school, it's just not me. But it felt like I was being directly addressed, as a heads up, that something else is possible for me besides what I’m already doing. I have recently seriously considered becoming an architect because it suits my skill set, but I’m not passionate about it. But I am passionate about health and nutrition – a topic I have become increasingly consumed by over the past several years. In fact, I knew it would take some great external influence to get me over the hump and finally get me healthy, and it happened in losing my first pregnancy.

But my efforts had seriously slowed down, because few people I know take seriously the research I have done and its learnings. When I start to speak to people earnestly about the role of saturated fat in the diet and how dangerous a low-fat-and-processed diet is, their eyes glaze over and they stop listening like Pavlov’s dogs in response to the trainings of the American Heart Association and the USFDA. What I’ve learned challenges much of what those institutes have to say, so I thought to myself, how can I make a difference by getting people to listen to me? By becoming a respected member of the medical community. How do I do that? Become a nutritionist??

So I started googling training and certification coursework for nutritionists, which requires a 4 year degree, and only part of which applies to me and what I want to do. I need the degree so I can be heard. Then last night, I stumbled upon a program that is a culmination of everything I’ve been looking for, hoping existed somewhere out there in the real world: the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

I found CCT’s website one night while doing a similar kind of online soul searching, and had resolved to be a grad student the next day. Getting in came easy to me, graduating with distinction was an inevitability, and it remains one of the best things I have ever done -- even if I didn’t ultimately pursue technology policy as a career. I can still use a hell of a lot of what I learned in my current venture (gift shop owner/artist), and in this new one.

Coincidence?