(DISCLAIMER: do not make any changes to your medical treatments or diet without consulting your health care provider! This is my story, for general informational purposes. )

I’ve been doing a lot of self improvement lately.

First and foremost is my inductive Bible study – this is the only area of my life that is exempt from the topic of the blog.

My major transformations have been in the area of my health – both mental and physical.

I have been purging the excess in my home. I am trying to downsize – my house is large, and we will be living here for a while. I am throwing out anything that is unused, expired, etc. I want the minimal of “stuff” inside the house, so it can be a place of peace, calm, and contentment.

This is difficult for me when I am in a depressive fugue. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to clean. As the funk continues in my mind, my immediate surroundings become more cluttered. Which leads to anxiety and depression. Which leads to paralysis. The cycle continues, ad infinitum.

I would love to go the easy route and hire someone to come in and clean this house, but I want a deep clean that is maintainable by me. I am making small, daily attainable goals, and as I successfully reach them, I feel a sense of accomplishment, which in turn helps me feel better emotionally.

The solution is hard to start, but it is helping me feel better and better.

As I cleaned the bathroom today, I threw out all expired medications in linen closet. This was revelatory, as I threw out bottle after bottle of anti-inflammatory medications and potions for my chronic back and arthritis pain.

Contrary to what I feel like, moving and exercising is helping me feel much better. I have had back pain so debilitating, I had to use a cane to get out of bed and up and down from furniture. I had the steroid shots, the radio frequency ablation, and every pill that declared itself a muscle relaxer. I also have osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia symptoms for decades.

I had a decades long battle on and off with heel spurs and plantar fasciitis. Contrary to current and lucrative treatment protocols, I didn’t get the shots. Buy the boot. Get the surgery.

Instead, I walked barefoot inside, and used minimalist shoes outdoors, with the goal of retraining my gait. My chronic heel striking had caused the issues, so I retrained myself to walk as nature intended me. The wear pattern on the running shoes my local running store fitted me in to correct the final deviation, pronation, tells the story of how I’ve moved to a better gait. So does the lack of heel and foot pain, as well as my better posture, head to toe.

Since I started my health journey and have become a regular exerciser, I don’t need any of those medications or treatments. I don’t have nearly as much nerve pain, and my range of motion is normal.

I still have stiffness when I get up, but I attribute that to my age.

Yoga three times a week, regular walking and running, and core strengthening exercises – these are the ways I have obtained tangible results. What I felt like felt like not moving. I did not feel like exercising- it was not easy at first. It’s contrary to what seems logical – you hurt, you stay still. This seems logical, but contrary to that, it’s the moving that got me better.

My dietary changes have been the most radical. Over the course of my shifting diagnosis from type 2 (wrong) to type 1 diabetes, I’ve gone from low carb, to keto, to paleo, and finally – since June 1 – a whole food, plant based diet.

Being insulin dependent, it doesn’t make sense to me to eat hundreds of carbs a day. Eating a whole food, plant based, no oil diet has been nothing less than transformative. (“Mastering Diabetes” is my reference book).

Instead of using more insulin, I’m using 50% less. Instead of the blood sugar roller coaster, my blood sugar is much more stable.

Due to the superfoods and natural anti-inflammatory foods and herbs I am now regularly consuming, my systemic pain is a mere fraction of what it used to be. My chronic headaches have disappeared. My debilitating exhaustion has been held at bay for the vast majority of the time.

I work in medicine, and I have seen much good come out of modern medicine – I’m grateful for it.

For me, though, the move away from medicine and a move toward healthy, whole food and seeing exercise as a treatment instead of a punishment has been a journey that has taken me to a healthier state of being – both physically and emotionally.

I may have insulin dependent diabetes, but it doesn’t have me.

I fully intend on living as healthy as I can – regardless of how contrary the “treatments” seem to lead me down a path to true and sustained health.