Exercising, Drinking Green Smoothies and Juices Paid Off

As I just had my visit to the doctor today for a follow-up, I decided to talk about health and what was my attitude to it until I decided to change my lifestyle and food habits.

In this post, I do not suggest that you avoid medical treatment for some natural healing, but that doing both can help accelerate recovery.

Exercising, Drinking Green Smoothies and Juices Paid Off!

I am very grateful not to have had any serious illness in my life.

Three to four years ago I had a mild pain in my foot and I went to see a doctor at the hospital. I thought I had hurt my foot while running a bit in the park, but the doctor asked me if I ever had gout. I had never heard about it at the time and he suggested I get my blood tested, which I declined. He gave me then some cream for my foot and some meds for the inflammation and I went home.

That's only a few months later that I had my first gout attack and it was excruciating. It happened at night and I counted the minutes until morning so I could go to the hospital. I just couldn't walk and go down the stairs. I had to sit on the stairs and use my butt to get to the ground floor, one step at a time, and then crawl to the sofa.

If you don't know what gout is look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gout 

I had never taken good care of my health in terms of exercising and food. I was eating very badly, too much meat, especially chicken and very few vegetables. Gout is the results of eating too much of some sort of food, bad lifestyle and alcohol. I don't drink alcohol, and if I did it could have been worse.

I had then my blood tested and was given a very common treatment, which is Allopurinal and Colchicine for a month. When I returned a month later, the doctor said that my uric acid level was back to normal and that the incident was finished. I was glad, but he also insisted that I continue to take the pill and that it will be for life.

I was shocked and being about 48, I was not ready to accept the fact that I had to take a daily medication for the rest of my life. Before I visit him, I had studied about gout and I wanted to deal with it naturally, so I declined and he was not happy. He said that my metabolism would not allow to have a reasonable uric acid level.

I said, OK, I'm going to manage it with my alimentation and in one month we do another blood test to see how it's going. He gave me the appointment and I didn't go back.

Instead, I ordered some herbal supplements and a device to check my uric acid level at home, so I can follow my progress. When I received the supplements I also started a special diet for 10 days where I lost 6 or 7 kilograms, and I looked good. I was then very careful to balance my meal more and I started to eat much less meat.

I went like that for 3 years having one gout attack a year and each time I had that gout attack it was because I was weaker and given antibiotics to treat something else. I realize now that I should have stopped eating any meat while taking antibiotics, but I was just eating as usual.

Nine months ago I had enough of trying to eat better and still having gout attacks, so I went to see a gout specialist. He ordered blood tests and in addition of the uric acid level being high, I had some issues with my liver and cholesterol. I had quite a few more pills to take now.

If you don't know what a fatty liver is, see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_liver 

A month later I went back to my initial doctor and decided not to be stubborn anymore and just take the damn pills.

The uric acid went back to normal and I am still taking the pill today.

My liver was tested again for hepatitis A, B and C, which I didn't have. I had an ultrasound and they found that I had a fatty liver. A disease that is caused by alcoholism, and again I do not drink. I was prescribed 2 more pills to take daily and advised not to eat fat and exercise.

That's what motivated me to start exercising daily as you can see in my posts here:

• Fitness Challenge - November Report
• Fitness Challenge - December Report
• Fitness Challenge - January Report

And also to drink fruit smoothies:

• My Sunday Fruit Smoothie!
• A Delicious Fruit Smoothie Recipe!

But what really made a difference this past month is this:

• A Green Smoothie Recipe for Weight Loss!
• Saturday Walk, Fitness and Green Juice!

Starting to consume vegetable juices with some fruits in them and the weight loss smoothies really made a difference and I felt it in my body. Before I go for the follow-up today, I was sure it was going to help, and when the results came back, the doctor said that everything for the liver is back to normal. He was a bit surprised as 2 months ago there was no real progress. The fatty liver is gone now and we dropped one pill.

This is really motivating to see that my efforts have paid off and now I intend to continue what I'm doing with exercising, the smoothies and juicing. I may even go a bit deeper into juicing because it is working.

I also intend to continue to take the pills my doctor is giving me and let him decide when it's time to reduce the dosage or stop them after receiving the results of future blood tests.

I was seeing my doctor as my enemy before and I see him as a partner in health now.

I was scared of the needle for my blood test and I am not anymore. 

I didn't like exercising and now I do.

Green smoothies and juices were disgusting and they are becoming now more and more tasty.

In conclusion to this post, I see now that there are many possibilities to heal your body with a change of lifestyle and food, and that this complement a medical treatment and accelerate recovery. 

I hope that you enjoyed this post and that it will encourage you to seek better health with exercise and that you will be keen to try green juices and smoothies. Also, I hope you will not be stubborn as I was with your doctor.

Would you please help @jerrybanfield become a top 20 witness because you can help funding projects to build Steem as explained here? Vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses. Read the 5 reasons why I'm voting for Jerry Banfield as a witness and how to vote in my post.

Michel Gerard

www.michelgerardonline.com