I have always been tormented by several ailments, but not the kinds that involve fever.  I seldom get fever or flu.  Those that really plague me are problems of the digestive system, the circulatory system and the excretory system.  My usual problem is my ulcer.

For years that have passed, I have learned to train myself with abstaining from the food and habits to avoid.  By far, the list of food/drinks to avoid is growing slowly, as my health gets better.  I started out with losing the addiction to softdrinks or any carbonated liquid.  Next to that, I quit on taking alcoholic drinks.  Its almost 7 years now of abstinence.  If you have ulcer, consider this your initial list of items to avoid:

  • coffee - sorry, you really have to cut down on this one especially if your ulcers are severe
  • milk - when you have ulcer, more often than not, you could already be lactose intolerant, check with your doctor
  • carbonated drinks - just stop drinking carbonated drinks, it'll help you regulate blood sugar too
  • minty items - these could be in any form, like mentos. hehe..
  • spicy items - chances are, you don't need to be told of this.  you'd feel the pain if you eat too spicy food.. depends on how severe your ulcer is
  • smoking - this decreases your antibodies, and so your body needs to exert more effort to protect itself, thereby producing more than normal levels of acid
  • staying up too late
  • getting too stressed out
These list have helped me survived without having to undergo surgery and/or laser treatment to remove the H bacteria.  But of course, this is not enough.  The real trouble happens everyday.  Even the food combination for every meal you take could actually affect your health, did you know?  I'm slowly becoming a health buff (I workout even while sitting), but I think its for the better.

My former boss, who cared so much for their employees, even gave me an article to read about how food could be transformed to energy or to poison.  I have put it in safe keeping.  I even had to go through the details of Henry Bieler's Food is your Best Medicine.  I love this book, as I have learned much about how to find good food that is beneficial for your body while considering its palatability.  Often, in our daily lives, we just get food that are readily available to us without considering its effect on our bodies for short term, medium term and long term.  I don't have to stress this out, but everyday counts to your health for a day in about 2-3years' time.

In a gist, what I really practice from what I learned is that, in general, it is not healthy to eat rice with red meat.  Don't scream yet, don't react violently.  :P  Its true.  The reason behind this is that, the starch in the rice doesn't do well in helping your digestive fluids digest the red meat.  When this happens, your digestive system feels like it hasn't done a lot in digesting the food, and so exerts double or triple its original effort.  When this takes place, there will be a lot of excess acid left in your stomach that could cause pain.  In that light, it might even be better to grab a burger than eat a steak meal with rice.  Mashed potato could even be a better option than getting yourself a cup of rice.

I've been quite successful with the struggle to beat my ulcer (except when I'm stubborn and sometimes pass one meal, or when I stay up too late at night, or even when I get too stressed).  But then, I'm having troubles with my bladder now.  I seem to have gallstones that are quite stubborn even after a good cleansing procedure.  My first one was a success.  I could immediately feel the difference!  Truly, a clean liver and bladder could regain you energy that you never thought you had.  After this cleansing, I supported my recuperation with a good diet low on fat and high on fiber.  I had lots of salad indulgence.  I was happy with this, and glad to share my experience.  For me, here is the order of best salads:

  • Kenny Roger's Roasters' fruit and vegetable salad - I like its combination of grated cheese, corn and leafy vegetables.  Oh, and I definitely won't forget the fruits!
  • Pancake House salads - I was able to try the Western salad and Chef salad and they were both good!  Well, they're just more expensive than Kenny's. ;)
  • Shakey's chef salad - I would have wanted to stick with this order, but I usually end up choosing either of the first two.  Also, I had a bad experience with Shakey's (Ruby Road Branch).
Well, a good controlled diet made me lose almost two inches off my waist! LOL.  I sound like a common marketing liar, but hey, I'm not.  Its a true experience!  I tried to lose wait so that I could fit in my gown. :P

So much for a good happy ending.. after two short months, I was able to feel some gallstone attacks again, and I thought to myself, surely these troubles were caused by something and could be remedied by something other than drugs.  I do believe in the power of natural food.  Its one of the main reason why I try to avoid drug intake as much as I can.  Well, to appease my troubled mind, I got myself this book (which was quite expensive but definitely worth it):

Its a short 80 paged book with big type fonts and lots of tables, no images (by far I've read up to page 53).  I'm an AB type, and I strongly believe food can help me fix my troubles and ailments, and so I sit in that fast food restaurant earlier today and read away the waiting time.  By the time I got my order, I resented it. :P  By then, I already learned a lot.  It was very easy to read and understand.  The hard part would be how to implement it strictly.  Discipline and perseverance is the key.

In a weird kind of way, I finally understood why I felt weird whenever I ate something.  Somehow, I also get an understanding of why I dislike some items and prefer others in a very biased way.  Its freaky, but I think it will really help me, must like it can help you.  Right now, I'm planning to get another copy of this book for Blood Type A--for my honey.  This will really help me prepare the right food to keep us both healthy but lean. ;)

Whew!  What a health buff! :D