It’s January, and I can’t take it anymore.
I saw this graphic and my head nearly exploded in a puff of toxic fumes. (You’ll probably want to click on it to see it larger.)
Apparently I, and every other person I know, is a walking cesspool of toxic doom and it’s a miracle any of us are still alive.
Then I see a post on Facebook touting that two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water is “The Natural Cure for Obesity!”
That’s all? That’s ALL I ever had to do — drink some vinegar water every day — and I’d be thin as a rail. WHO KNEW?
Then I get a message about Shakeology, and then another person is contacting me often about buying some super-expensive supplements that have so many ingredients, they scare me. They all promise to cleanse me from those lethal toxins I accumulated by wearing makeup, driving in Atlanta, and brushing my teeth.
Oh, the horror.
Someone in my extended family insists that my only problem is that I’m eaten up with candida, or yeast. Another takes more herbal supplement pills per day than most people swallow in a month.
The trouble with all these theories and all these “solutions” is that there’s a large enough smidgen of truth in them to make believers. And then people cling to these beliefs like a religion, regardless of whether actual science backs up their claims or not.
Most of the time, they’re not backed up by any real science. Check out this article: The Detox Delusion
Here’s the deal, y’all. I want to get healthier. I really do. I don’t want to fight these awful lupus flares anymore. Truly.
But there ain’t none of y’all selling anything that’s going to “fix”me.
My focus for 2015 — and beyond — is a whole foods diet. Some call it real foods. It’s basically cutting all the processed garbage, white flour, sugar, etc. and returning back to how God designed our bodies to eat.
Lean protein. Lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. Some whole grains. Healthy fats. Food closest to its natural form. (Without going all crazy raw vegan or anything like that.)
Gentle exercise when my body lets me do it. More when my strength increases.
And that’s it. I’m not against all herbal supplements — I think some of them make sense and are useful. I think certain vitamin supplements provide a little dose of insurance that all nutritional needs are being met.
But I’m just pretty much sold on the belief that God gave us what we needed for health when he created this world, and we’d do ourselves a favor to get back to basics. And for me that doesn’t mean a line up of herbal pill bottles, gagging down an overpriced chalky shake every day, or going for a colonic.
(I think our government could use a good enema, but that’s another post for another day.)