Anonymous

With so many middle aged people having serious diseases and even dying of them, we tend to scrutinize each other carefully for signs of health or illness when we meet and really mean it when we ask, "How are you doing?" After a year of macrobiotic eating, I now look younger, much trimmer, and more fit instead of showing signs of aging another year, so people really want to know what I'm doing. Just in the last week, three acquaintances who hadn't seen me for a year quizzed me in detail and then promptly made commitments to change their diets. They've known me for years and seeing the changes in me convinced them.

What are the changes? The improvements range from outward physical ones to emotional to internal ones. Since the 80s I had obvious digestive problems which included Candida. After trying various approaches, including acupuncture and one very strict diet that seemed to be half supplements, I had tried the also very strict high protein, almost no carbohydrate diet, again with many supplements, for over a year. I took Diflucan, as I had on and off for some years because other medications had not worked very well, not that Diflucan really resolved the problem, either. I was really against taking drugs to solve my problems, but the Candida symptoms were so burdensome and Diflucan did give me some relief. Two years ago, I quit the drug and added into the mix oral chelators with a new supplement regime which did make a big difference. But I was still tired and still had bouts with Candida, just less often. I was also beginning to have sudden incapacitating abdominal pain that lasted a few minutes. Whew, I would think when it passed, I wonder what that was. Well, I guess that'll never happen again! The trouble was, the episodes were happening with increasing frequency.

Along with the Candida and digestive problems had come a whole host of unpleasantness–allergies to more and more things, sugar cravings, irritability and other unsavory emotional reactions, aches and pains, sinus infections, constant viral illnesses. I also had had a chronic pain situation develop after some dental work five years ago, which added to the digestive problems because of difficulty chewing and disrupted sleep.

So I did more and more meditation to deal with the pain and loss of sleep, more acupuncture, more yoga, more supplements, more food restrictions. My Candida did improve, I learned to tolerate more and more pain, and I learned a lot of yoga. However, it was as if I were bailing out the boat, but the leak was still there and the water kept pouring back in.

Then in the November, 2001, I luckily caught a digestive tract flu–luckily, because I had to quit taking all those supplements and also pretty much quit eating for awhile. That's when I realized how much my gut hurt and how the supplements were adding to the problem. Though supplements have benefits, they were also somehow irritating to my gut. When I was getting better, I went back to yoga class and found out that my yoga teacher's recent transformation, of which I had been envious, was due to her eating macrobiotically. She gave me Ginny Harper's phone number and I called her right away. After my first appointment, I called my partner and announced (notice, I didn't ask!) I was going to eat macrobiotic food. I was lucky again, because he said, "Great!" Then he said, "But it takes a lot of work."

I didn't have any idea at all what that meant. It turned out to mean taking cooking techniques classes, going to cooking demonstrations, cooking three meals a day (that means no prepared food), scouring discount stores for kitchen supplies, reading books on the subject, and going to macrobiotic potluck meals. Yes, it was a lot of work. But immediately, macrobiotic eating and lifestyle changes gave me enough energy to make it happen. And it didn't mean all those supplements, going out to eat a lot, feeling exhausted all the time and a whole host of other negatives.

I had long gotten to the point where I hated the whole process of eating–buying the food, cooking, eating and cleaning up–because afterwards I felt bad because of what I ate and was left with cravings I "shouldn't" have for sweets, coffee and chocolate. I had eaten organic foods, including organic sugar and organic chocolate, for years. But once I switched to eating macrobiotically, I immediately felt better after I ate. And this good feeling just kept improving.

I threw out all the acupuncture and massage, quit taking most of the supplements, and dropped back on my yoga practice to make room for my new way of eating. I kept a daily meditation routine but dropped it back to two hours (I dropped most of the yoga poses portion), did the at least daily body scrubs, and after a few months, got regular shiatsu massages from Ginny. I did ginger compresses on my abdomen for around six months. My yoga practice improved much more than when I practiced daily since my gut loosened up and allowed my muscles to relax. I had one mild bout with Candida and then none at all, and no more doubling-over gut pain. One residual dental problem was fixed the month after starting macrobiotic eating, and my problems with my teeth have been slowly resolving. I had been diagnosed with generally low mineral levels in 2001, a problem that has taken some time to overcome, in part because I was too busy addressing other ones. My sleep improved right away, in spite of the continued dental problems.

Since my gut no longer felt unsettled and basically bad, I felt better about myself–all without the help of self-esteem seminars or anything else but eating food that suited my innards. I get along with myself much better, and those around me benefit. I'm less irritated about things because my gut is less irritated, so I can be much more the tolerant, loving and compassionate person I want to be.

My partner of many years also has benefited from eating well. His cholesterol had been too high for years, in spite of eating along the popular guidelines of what should reduce the levels. After one year of macrobiotic eating, it dropped too. Before macrobiotics it was 288 and after starting macrobiotics it dropped to 142! I'll let him speak for himself about changes in his personality. I can tell you that during the first year of eating this way, when people who hadn't seen him for many months ran into him, they barely recognized him and wanted to know what he was doing. In addition, his energy levels have improved a lot and he catches viral illnesses less frequently. When he does catch them, he's sick for a much shorter time than in the past.

It happened that I had saliva tests done the month before and seven months after starting macrobiotic eating, and the results give a quantitative view of my improvements. All I did in between the tests was the following: macrobiotic eating, following the healing diet very rigorously, with a "normal" dessert about once a month (then I quit sugar altogether). A dental problem that was causing constant pain was resolved after one month on macrobiotics. I'd been getting shiatsu massages for four months. I went to yoga classes about twice a week, and I was doing the daily body scrubs and some ginger compresses on my abdomen.

Beyond changing what I ate, I noticed that as I added in these things, I experienced a noticeable shift for the better : joining a Community Sponsored Agriculture group from which I got local biodynamic produce weekly, getting the shiatsu massages, doing the ginger compresses in a concerted manner (four days in a row, three days off, for about two months, then tapering off), doing the body scrubs. In addition, Michio Kushi made some additional recommendations. The daily meditation has continued to be a vital part of my healing, and I use several techniques including alternate nostril breathing. I also use various macrobiotic remedies on and off.

So many aspects of my life benefit from eating well and thus feeling better and having energy again–I'd gotten very disorganized and now I'm able to address that. I had been a person who enjoyed doing a lot of activities but they had been piling up around me. Now I am catching up on the overdue ones and sorting through what I want to do and am more able to let go of the rest. The idea I had that these problems had emotional origins and therefore, emotion-based solutions, seems mistaken to me now. It seems to me that once I got my body muddled up with an acidic, caustic diet, the only way to really get out of the behavior patterns was by changing my diet. Then I could actually work on the rest.

Don't get me wrong, I'm far from perfect and my list of faults is long. However, the difference in me, pre-macrobiotic eating and post-, is enormous. What I feel inside and what I am able to do is vastly improved, and that is what the three people who recently decided to eat macrobiotically saw.