Living With MS- Week One Victories!

Week one off my meds and a new way of eating is in the books. The first few days off my anxiety and allergy meds were a bit of a challenge. I took a very small dose of anxiety medication to help me with my night time restless brain that sometimes comes with MS. You may be absolutely exhausted but your brain doesn’t shut down at all. When I added my ten minute evening yoga routine and a cup of chamomile tea to my mix, I didn’t have any issues. Allergies. Well I was a drippy mess for the first four days. I read this article about natural ways to help with allergies. One of which was to have a teaspoon of local honey twice a day, and of course use saline nasal drops. The other was to change your diet which I had already done and add apple cider vinegar to a glass of water in the morning. Gross right? Add the honey you have to take anyway with 8 ounces of water and its life changing. So last week I gave up pasta, breads that weren’t high fiber, sugar, and soda, dairy for the most part, read meat and cut down to one glass of wine a week. This week no alcohol, cutting down to one cup of coffee and adding more tea therapy into my mix. I made a big pitcher of ginger lemon with probiotic tea which I drink a ten ounce glass on my way into work. I have a cup of green tea with my breakfast when I get to work and ice green tea with my lunch and iced peppermint herbal tea after lunch and chamomile tea before bed. The great thing about these teas they are actually good for you and aid in digestion and flushing out all the bad stuff. In this eight days I have lost three pounds. I still feel a little bloated from some of the meds but that will take longer than three days to clear out of my system. I am having some issues with my hands since I have been off my meds but that could be because of the warmer weather, MS tends to get bad when your body overheats. As much as I love to be outside when the sun is out I have to make sure I am not over doing it in the heat. Soon I will have to move my walks into the gym on the dreamill to stay regulated on really warm days. But today was a great to walk at lunch. I have incorporated a thirty minute lunch time walk into my day. And another thirty minutes in the evening if weather permits, if not I do my yoga for an hour. I have to make sure I stay active and focused. I have been religious about using MyFitness pal for more than three years to track my eating and exercise, I have been using more of the tools available lately like tracking my sleep. Sleep is the most important to wellbeing. My dying FitBit tracks my sleep as well. I have really been mindful that I get between 7-8 hours at least per night. I also have been mindful about how much TV I am watching. I was getting really bad about binge watching everything. Even though I was working out at least 30 minutes a day, I was sitting for way to long in the evening and on the weekends. I stopped turning the TV on at all on the weekends during the day last weekend. I listened to music instead which actually got me motivated to start my days activities earlier than normal. This Sunday before 8:30 am I had already made a pot of soup, had made my breakfasts and lunches for the week and started laundry. I didn’t sit back down that day until after 4 pm. Got in way over 15,000 steps yesterday. I have set my new goal at 12,000 per day that way I know I am getting up enough. If I need a little more motivation, I got my pool pass yesterday and I have to shop for a bathing suit this weekend. So week two started yesterday and hopefully it will bring on great new changes!