Thursday, August 8, 2013

Green Salads and Sickle Cell

In addition to having lost a lot of weight, I haven’t felt very well physically. I’ve felt exceptionally tired, had zero energy, I’ve been mentally cloudy, and have generally felt listless. To put it simply, I’ve felt like a zombie for many months.

Talking with my nutty nutritionally obsessed brother—I love you Chuck—he suggested a few things. Actually, he suggested about 10,000 things; but I was able to absorb only some of the tidal wave of information he gave me.

He told me to eat a salad every single day. In the salad he told me to put: kale, bok choy, spinach, and Romaine lettuce; basically any kind of green leafy lettuce. So for the past week, that’s what I’ve been doing. I mix all those together, add an entire avocado, crotons, bacon bits, tomatoes, cucumbers and some salad dressing. Sometimes I make a smoothie instead—I’ve found tons of recipes online.

Within three days I began noticing a difference in how I felt. A week of doing it, I felt AMAZINGLY better. I felt alert, energetic, and more mentally clear than I have in a long time. Sunday and Tuesday of this week I failed to eat my daily salad. With each day I began to feel more tired than I did the day before. When I began eating my salads again, surprise, I began to feel better again.

I’m trying to put forth the effort educate myself about nutrition. Doing just the little bit that I have has really had a positive difference in how I physically and mentally feel. I can’t help but wonder...if eating a salad and avocado a day can make the HUGE difference that I’ve experienced, what can more significant changes do for me?

I’ve always knows eating balanced meals has impacted my health. But beyond that, I never really thought much about nutrition. But I am now. And if you haven’t, perhaps you should.

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