Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted in this series and a while since I’ve posted on the blog (almost a week). There are many reasons, but the most recent one is a back spasm (I assume) that has set up residence in my lower back.

Last week I was innocently doing my twice yearly vacuuming and felt a twinge in my back. The next thing I now I’m lucky if I can move. I could lay down and I could stand, but getting from one to the other was suddenly agony. Thanks Body, dear. As if five years of chronic muscle pain isn’t enough, now I was once again stuck sitting still and doing nothing (I do not fare well under these conditions — I think the technical term is “bitchy, much?”).

The pain didn’t abate the next day (or the next for that matter) and I didn’t particularly want to go sit in Emergency or a walk-in clinic for five hours just to be prescribed drugs that don’t work (doctors are afraid to prescribe other drugs because they assume you are drug seeking). So I hauled out Pain Free, a book that I had used for other problems like this. After half an hour of stretches for back pain, I could at least sit down and get up. The stretches are simple and easy (mostly relaxing in certain positions for a prescribed amount of time … so if you’re laying around with back pain anyway they’re worth a shot).

Don’t misundertand. I’m not saying “ooh, I did a stretch or two and I’m cured!” I do the stretches every day and I’m almost pain free for a few hours and then it gradually comes back although it is slowly improving. What I am saying is that the book is definitely worthwhile and does produce results even though the exercises look ridiculously simple … too simple to work (and yet they do).

So I’m going to keep doing the stretches until I improve to the point where I can move onto the maintenance exercises.

And then I’ll go on to my favourite belly dancing book. Or maybe not.

Ow.

Apparently, I don’t get out enough–at least that’s my conclusion after trying to do one of the first steps from The Power of Who: You Already Know Everyone You Need to Know (reviewed here). The first task is to make a list of 100 people that you know. They don’t have to be in the field that you work in; they just have to be people that you know and who know you. Easy, right? Well, if you’re an extrovert it may be easy. I’m not. Not even a little bit.

I make long lasting friendships, but I don’t tend to cultivate acquaintances. When I sat down to make my list I had a hard time thinking of 100 people. I put down friends, old co-workers I keep in touch with, instructors that I know, family that I keep in touch with, friends of friends and friends of family that know me. I wrote down all the names and came up with a grand total of 24 people. As I said, I don’t get out enough.

The things is that I am perfectly happy with my social circle (well, there are certain people that I wish lived closer to me, but other than that I’m happy). I see the social life of some people I know and it gives me hives. It works for them, but I would be a basket case if I had to do that much socializing.

So what to do about this list of 100 people? Well, as Bob Beaudine points out in The Power of Who the number 100 isn’t the important. Making the list is the important thing. It’s amazing who you remember that you know when you sit down to make a list. In my case I’ll have to let it percolate for a bit. I find that I’m remembering more people the longer I think about it (not enough to make me seem like less of a hermit, unfortunately).

I’m not sure that I know enough people to do away with traditional networking. I get the feeling that people with a larger pool of people to pull from will benefit more from their “Power of Who” network than I will (although I have had job leads from unexpected sources that support Beaudine’s thesis that it doesn’t matter if the people you know are in the business you want to be in or not).

So what to do to expand my network? Well, that’s not really the point of The Power of Who since the thesis is “you already know who you need to know”. I have been following discussions about networking on some of The Society for Technical Communication e-mail lists (available to members only, sorry) about networking since many technical writers are contract/freelance. One of the discussions has been about networking sites and LinkedIn seems to be the site of choice as far as that type of networking goes so I will check that out.

In the meantime, I curious as to how many people you would have to put on a networking list. Is 100 people a reasonable number for most people?

I didn’t post last week because there wasn’t anything to report and there’s only so much whining I can do about the restoration diet. I’m not adding any new books to this challenge until I finish working through the four I’m committed to at the moment (yes, four and no, I’m not sure how that happened–they just kind of snuck up on me):

Review to come.	Review to come.	See my review	See my review

So the question today is what, if anything, have I learned so far? Mostly I’ve learned that trying to replace bad habits with new ones is an uphill battle because bad habits are so ingrained as to be automatic. That’s hardly a newsflash for anyone who’s tried to make any kind of change in their life.

I’m still on the restoration diet (more or less, what with being human and all) from Total Renewal. I’m going to start the stricter elimination diet soon because I still have some issues (e.g. dark circles under my eyes) that are commonly food allergy related. That means I have to cut out nightshade vegetables from my diet (I don’t eat the other things on the Elimination diet though it does cover more than nightshade). In case you’re not familiar with the nightshade family it includes tomato, potato, eggplant and peppers.

So far we’ve found out that the other half has a mild gluten intolerance so gluten-free baking is now on my list of things to learn. We’ve also found out that I can’t tolerate ripened cheese even if it’s not cow’s cheese (I looooove cheese, darnit). So much for cheating using goat’s mozarella on gluten-free pizza.

I have started reading The Writing Diet but I haven’t managed to be very diligent in applying it. The first habit you’re supposed to cultivate is to write several pages about how you are feeling when you wake up in the morning. It’s intended to be a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing so you don’t need to use good grammar or complete sentences (or even complete thoughts). It’s a tool for accessing what you’re really thinking. I’ve done this before in writing classes and it does work well IF you do it diligently, which I haven’t been. I think I’ll wait until I manage to the morning writings regularly before I add anything else to my routine from this book.

I haven’t started doing the yoga routines from Yoga for Computer Users yet (I have lots of good intentions and no good excuses). I also haven’t started making a list of who I know for The Power of Who (You’re supposed to make a list of 100 people you already know who can help you get your dream job … I’ll be lucky if I can come up with 100 people that I keep in touch with, period). I have received leads on jobs these past two weeks from some unexpected people without even asking them so it does lend some credence to Bob Beaudine’s premise that you should rely on people who know you but may not be in the industry you want rather than people who don’t know you from a hole in the wall but are in the right industry.

I’ll try to stick to single book in subsequent updates so they won’t be as long and will maybe be more useful. And I swear I will try yoga this week. Really.

Well, this week was a “win-some-lose-some” kinda week (and I’m not talking pounds). I went a little off the restoration diet from Total Renewal (chapter 3, see this post to refresh your memory). And by a little I mean Tuesday through Friday. I didn’t go off by a lot, but I’ve discovered that it’s a slippery slope. Oddly enough, I found my journal from the last time I did this and the same thing happened around the same time (one week in). Part of the problem with doing this Restoration Diet is that it is so different from our usual menu that I can’t always think of something to make, so it takes a while to get into a comfortable place where you don’t have to think too hard about what to make yet you’re not always starving for lack of diet-compliant eats.

I’m starting to develop a list of recipes I can use, so I’m going to keep going. In part because I want to be able to say that I’ve finally managed to do this, but also because both of us have noticed changes for the better (though the other half isn’t so much doing the restoration diet as eating whatever I make for lunch and dinner). Food allergies/sensitivities cause low-levels of inflammation in the body and that kind of inflammation is linked to cancer and cardiovascular disease so that’s another motivating factor.

To update the goals I set for myself from chapter two, we had the gas company in yesterday to check our furnace. I couldn’t convince the other half that a pilot light should be blue and he couldn’t convince me that the pilot light should be yellow so the gas company broke the “tie” (blue won). So for the first time in years the furnace is adjusted properly (yippee!).

I’ve fallen a little behind in the once-a-week dusting I was going to do (I blame this on iCal not reminding me though I did set it to), but I’m keeping at it. So far only the bedroom is getting the royal treatment. My office is still too cluttered to withstand the monsoon winds of a vacuum cleaner (next week).

After three weeks, my Polar pulse monitor watch and I have finally come to an agreement that I am neither an invalid nor an athlete so sticking to the treadmill sessions is getting easier (which helps me sleep better though I’m not managing to stick to a regular sleep schedule because my tendency is to sync with the night owl I live with). It also helped that my mother sent me DVDs for Christmas (Due South and Gilligan’s Island) so I have something to watch while on the treadmill. Also House, M.D. and Bones are back to new episodes so I try to make a point of getting on the treadmill when they are on.

Today I started a new book, courtesy of Penguin Canada, by Julia Cameron called The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size. It looks promising so I’m working through that book as of today. I think I mentioned Yoga for Computer Users last Friday as one I was going to start. I’ll put my review of that one up on Wednesday, which will explain why I haven’t started practicing it yet.

And now I need to think of something to make for dinner and the question is: Should I restart the restoration diet tonight or tomorrow morning? Decisions, decisions.

The point of the restoration diet is not in fact torture, will power, or masochism (those were my guesses after taking a look). According to the author, Frank Lipman, the point is to give your body a break from all the crap you throw at it the rest of the year and do this restoration diet in the Fall and Spring. The first time you do it the point is to see if you’re allergic or sensitive to any foods by removing the most common allergens or sensitizers from your diet. Here’s the list of foods I have to avoid for three weeks:

• Refined sugars
• Gluten products (that’s wheat, spelt, kamut, oats, rye, and barley which pretty much eliminates bread, pasta, crackers, etc.)
• Dairy products (except limited goat dairy)
• Corn (includes any corn derivatives: starch, syrup, etc.)
• Canned and processed foods (I eat vegetarian most days … so much for convenient canned beans)
• Alcohol (finally something I don’t care about)
• Caffeine (what?! oh well, Coke was already eliminated by refined sugars and coffee was eliminated by dairy products)
• Food additives (Yeah, I react to a whole bunch of these so I really shouldn’t be eating them what with the face breaking out and the possible anaphylaxis)
• Partially hydrogenated oils and processed vegetable oils (Ah, the evil trans fats. I was already avoiding these … or so I thought. Went to buy some ground cinnamon and guess what’s in ground cinnamon? Go on, guess. No? Hydrogenated palm kernel oil. No joke. Went to health food store to get unadultarated stuff since I eat it on my (rice) cereal every morning)

So I started this on Monday–after eating all the banned foods in the fridge over the weekend. Aside from the revelation about some brands of ground cinnamon, I also found out that salt and vinegar potato chips have lactose (dairy) in them and salt and pepper chips have whey (dairy). Lightly salted chips, however, are unadulterated. This is probably something that I shouldn’t have bothered to figure out. And I have to keep reminding myself that soy sauce has wheat in it (I’ve been trying to track down the wheat-free stuff but the places that used to carry it no longer do).

I’m finding out that I’m hungry a lot since a lot of what I like either has gluten or dairy in it. And I’m a bit of a Coke addict so I’m an unhappy camper in withdrawal. The other half, on the other hand, is thrilled to be able to leave the house and, upon his return, find that not only is there Coke left in the bottle, but it’s the same amount as when he left (I have been known to drink more than my share or, you know, Coke that isn’t actually mine to drink).

The only upside to this restoration diet so far is that I can actually inhale through my nose these days. I’m usually stuffed up 365 days of the year, which allergist after allergist has blamed on my dust allergy since I tested negative for food allergies. And yet, I can breathe better now so me thinks the tests are wrong.

This phase of the book will take me several weeks, so I have some other books that I’ve been reading that I’ll talk about next week: Yoga for Computer Users by Sandy Blaine and The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron.

• Environmental
• Drugs
• Allergies
• Diet
• Low-Grade Infections
• Nutritional Deficiencies
• Metabolic Imbalances
• Physical
• Work
• Psycho-Emotional
• Social
• Spiritual
• Lack of Sleep
• Lack of Exercise
• Temperature/Climactic Extremes

Yeah, no problem. I’ll get right on that list. Obviously the only way to do this successfully is to pick and choose and do a few at a time depending on what’s affecting you most. I’ve picked four to get started on for next week: sleep, exercise, housecleaning and pilot light (the last two show up under environmental in the list).

The author, Lipman, says combustion appliances can affect your health if they’re not working properly. I’ve experienced this (looong story), so I don’t argue with that. However, my other half inists that a yellow pilot light is normal while I (and Lipman and, let’s see, every other source on the Internet) says that pilot lights should be blue. So first on the list is to convince dearest to clean the furnace or get it serviced.

And while we’re cleaning things, keeping dust and mold down falls under reducing the burden on your body, especially if you’re allergic (and I am). So I will make a point of dusting (weekly though the book insists twice a week). I will now pause so that everyone that I know in real life can have a moment to laugh themselves silly at the thought of me dusting more than once every three months. Waiting … waiting … waiting … okay, it wasn’t that funny, Mom.

The biggest issue I’m tackling this year is sleep (I get maybe 2 or 3 hours at a time). So I’ll try to stick to a regular sleep schedule this week, as well as starting regular exercise (helps me sleep). That’s about all I can take on this week. The elimination diet of death is chapter three and next week.

Chapter two also introduced the Neti pot, which I am apparently a candidate for (I will spare you the drippy-mucus details of why I’m a candidate–I’ve said too much already, haven’t I?). I bought a Neti pot this summer at the pharmacy on one of my braver days. I carefully unpacked it, checked out the bits and pieces, read the instructions, and decided to do it tomorrow. The next day I decided I would wait a day. Six months later I still haven’t convinced myself that it’s a good idea to pour salt water up my nose.

Maybe tomorrow.

Total Renewal, 7 Key Steps to: Resilience, Vitality & Long-Term Health by Frank Lipman is a book I’ve had for a while now. Those Oprah viewers with a good memory will remember that Lipman was one of Oprah’s favourite medical gurus before Dr. Ozh came along. Don’t let that put you off the book. I checked Total Renewal out of the library before buying it (I’ve learned not to trust Oprah’s judgment on books) and found that it looked reasonable enough. I have since managed to get to step 3 several times where I end up faltering. This time I’ll be blogging the steps to make sure I don’t get off track. The seven steps of the title are:

1. Take responsibility for your health and well-being.
2. Remove toxins and decrease your total load.
3. Recognize your unique diet.
4. Replenish nutrients and balance hormones.
5. Release tension and relieve stress.
6. Revitalize with a detox.
7. Reconnect to yourself, others, and nature.

Step 3 is one of those elimination diets, which is why I tend to falter on that one. I do have a number of allergies though so I’m pretty sure it would benefit me if I could just get through it. But before getting to step 3 there is step 1, which is what I’m looking at today.

According to Lipman, taking responsibility for your health means a number of things but mostly being a good consumer of health advice and treatment:

• Inform yourself about health.
• Don’t trust doctors implicitly.
• Question prescribed treatments.
• Do your own research.
• Accept that you are the expert on your own body.
• Accept that you are responsible for following through on your health and well-being.

Mmm, okay. Not a hard sell for me. I already do most of this, though not always as consistently as I should depending on how I’m feeling in the moment. I’ll try most things provided that they are a) safe, b) reasonable (or at least sound that way), c) not too pricey, and d) have a possibility of working according to what my humble consumer research turns up. Just to give you an idea of what sorts of things I’m open to: I’ve been to M.D.s and N.D.s (that’s a naturopath), I’ve tried supplements, herbs, oils, therapeutic massage, chiropractors, physiotherapists, IMS, drugs (legal, sheesh, I’m not that open to things), and a number of questionable contraptions for exercise/physio that I’m not particularly proud to admit to being suckered into.

Lipman provides a checklist of questions to ask your doctor before agreeing to a treatment or course of drugs that cover all the important issues including the ones that I invariably forget to ask about in the moment. I think I’ll photocopy the list, cut it out, and put it in my wallet so I have it when I need it (find pg 29 on Amazon’s Search Inside feature to get the list–I’m not sure I could legally reproduce the whole thing here).

The last part of step 1 is a four-part questionnaire to determine whether you need to go through the steps and whether you are ready to go through the steps. I am keeping a detailed copy of my answers for myself so that I can go back and check to see if all of this made a difference several months from now (I’ll let you know  the result).

Just about anyone is going to fail Part I (all it takes is one ‘yes’ answer in your health assessment) and in so doing find themselves informed that yes, they do need to do these steps and this book (well, that’s a shocker–can’t sell books otherwise). Part II is about whether you believe you can change, Part III is about whether you’re willing to do what it takes, and Part IV is looking at Parts I-III and deciding whether to go forward. Some parts of the questionnaire are more things to ponder rather than a list of questions to answer and score. Here are my results in brief: Yes I do (Part I); Yes I do (Part II); Yes I am (Part III); Onwards and upwards (Part IV).

Now that I’ve done my mental exercise for the week in completing step 1, I am (apparently) ready for step 2 of removing toxins from my environment. I am one of those people who is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to reacting to chemicals in the environment. I’m not the sickest canary in the coal mine, but I’m worse than most people I know so we’ll see what’s involved in step 2 next week.

Has anyone actually worked through this book? I’d love to know about it (heck, I’d love company if anyone wants to try this one with me). Want to join the challenge with your own book? Let me know in the comments. Think I’m nuts for trying this? It’s certainly possible. Anything else you want to add?