The Poisoned Well: On Being Slowly Guided to Disease
The Poisoned Well:
On Being Slowly Guided Towards Disease
First, let me say this blog acts as a sequel to a blog from January 2019 titled “Mind, Body, and Toll” - and you can read that blog at this link if you haven’t already:www.joshsimonds.com/blog-1/mindbodyandtoll
Second, please know that the experience I am about to relay here should not serve as medical advice. I am not a medical provider or health professional and I cannot offer medical advice. I am sharing my experience here in hopes that it may lead others to health.
Back in January, I became a vegan. As you can see in the blog above, I had put it out to the Universe to lead me to something that would answer my questions about my health, and more importantly my weight gain.
Towards the end of February, I was suffering from lightheadedness. Doing my best to get protein from plant sources like peanuts, cashews, and beans, I decided to add eggs back into my diet. I made the decision to begin my day with a big egg scramble, full of delicious vegetables and made with what I considered nature’s perfect protein.
It took me about two weeks of eating like this to go from an Extra Large to a Double Extra Large.
To say that I had reached the end of my rope was an understatement. I can’t really put into words how frustrated I was - not only did I put it out to the Universe (that I trusted!!) to provide me with an answer, but that answer ended up being the cause of further slide into weight gain. I had put it out to the Universe to help me figure out my physical body and how to take care of it so I could work on greater things; a certain amount of my energy goes into eating well and taking care of myself, and an even greater amount of energy has gone into trying to figure out exactly how to do that well.
Having gone through such dramatic body changes in such a short amount of time scared me - I didn’t know what to do, and I was so frustrated - it felt like NOTHING I ate was good for me. I have had limited success with Low Carb, Atkins, Paleo, Keto diets, but have always bounced back and worse for some reason.
I am not a nutritionist and don’t fully understand metabolism, but I knew something was wrong. I know it’s not a case of “calories in vs. calories out” - there are too many people who eat the same way, are active in the same way, and have different reactions to the food they eat. When I went the Vegan route in January, so did my husband, and he’s loved it since. His body has reacted very well to it, whereas mine did not.
Back when I first began to offer readings professionally, I gave a reading to a man who had similar frustrations, physically. He told me about a clinic in southern Vermont that took a holistic approach to weight loss. I remembered the name of the clinic and never did anything about it, thinking I could figure out this weight stuff by myself.
Gaining weight as I did in such a short amount of time made me reconsider this option.
The clinic this man went to is the Vreeland Clinic, in Norwich, VT. First, let me tell you that in no way did the clinic reimburse me for this blog. The results I’m about to share with you can be achieved through some rigid elimination diets, or by other clinics or health facilities of this nature, in your part of the country.
The Vreeland Clinic is a chiropractic clinic, but the food testing they did to me didn’t consist of muscle testing. When I called them and explained my frustrations, I sounded all too familiar to them. Having discussed their testings and procedures, I made an appointment.
During the appointment, they took my blood and urine. They checked my thyroid, my metabolism, my liver function, my protein levels, all sorts of tests to see how my body was functioning. Then they sent my blood away to a lab to be scanned for food sensitivities to corn, wheat, soy, lectins, eggs, and other miscellaneous foods. At the first appointment, they told me I was protein deficient - that a man my size should have 150 grams of protein a day and I was getting maybe 20. I began to eat chicken that day, immediately after the appointment.
My tests came back about a month later and the results have helped make sense of all my food and weight struggles. Apparently, my thyroid, metabolism, liver function, blood sugar, is all fine. When it comes to food sensitivities, the tests checked for antibodies produced by my immune system from any foods.
As far as I understand it, we eat foods that cause an immune response, and that response can affect weight, and cause inflammation that causes all sorts of diseases from cancer to arthritis to dementia. Again, remember that I am not a medical provider or health professional, but there is plenty of scientific data to attest to the above. Inflammation can cause all sorts of problems within the body, least of all hormonal problems.
The foods that cause my immune system to react include all dairy, eggs, and lectins. Lectins are the plant protein found in the skin of beans and many other grains. I shouldn’t eat peanuts, cashews, peaches, tomatoes, mushrooms, peas, cranberries, and a few other foods including scallops, which is the only seafood that causes in me a reaction. They all set off an immune response that sets my body into inflammation.
There’s a lot of science around lectins and what they do to gut health. Apparently, my system hates them, and that explains so much. When I was on a vegetarian diet, I had to swear off falafel - while I love it, it caused in me such incredibly painful indigestion that I couldn’t eat it again. The reason why: full of beans and lectins.
On the vegetarian diet, I would eat a pea-protein pasta, with tomato sauce and cut-up veggie burgers made of beans. I would get my other protein from peanut butter, cashew butter, peanuts, and cashews. I was eating eggs.
My diet was essentially made up of all the things that my body was reacting negatively to. And I thought I was eating well!
And what’s even more frustrating is that if I were to go by USDA Food Pyramid guidelines and conventional wisdom, I would be poisoning myself.
Out of all the eating methods I’ve tried - Paleo, Keto, Intermittent Fasting, etc. - there was one diet that made sense to me, though conventional science pretty much poo-poo’s it:
The Blood Type Diet
Remember, not a medical professional!!
The Blood Type Diet pretty much states that for every blood type that exists, there’s a different way people should eat. It’s because of how we metabolize foods...especially lectins.
I don’t believe in coincidences, but the facts are the facts: the diet recommended for Type O Negative people like myself lines up PERFECTLY with the test results I got back. No dairy, no eggs, no legumes, no lectins, no nightshades (especially tomatoes!), few grains, and lots of meat. Fruits and berries. Vegetables like asparagus and sweet potatoes.
Essentially, the idea of the Type O Negative diet is that Type O Negative is native to Europe, and that people with that blood shouldn’t eat anything that doesn’t come from Europe. It’s mind-blowing to think of all the dairy, eggs, peanut butter, cashews, peas, tomatoes, and all the other inflammatory foods I’ve eaten my entire life. It’s mind-blowing to think that so many ailments and diseases in people could come from just eating the wrong food. And it’s amazing that government guidelines and conventional wisdom give us information that harms us - how many servings of grains and dairy should I have, according to them? And how many ailments that I’ve suffered from might come from these food sensitivities?
About two weeks after my appointment to get my blood drawn at the Vreeland Clinic, I decided to eat by blood type. I’ve been fascinated by my blood, my heritage, my DNA, and it’s been said that Type O Negative people are more likely to be psychics and intuitives. I know it contributes to what I do, so why wouldn’t my blood type affect what I’m eating?
And wouldn’t that explain why different people react differently to different types of food?
Veganism worked out well for my husband...but it should, for someone with Type A Blood.
Remember, my results are not meant to guide you. If you make any changes to your diet, please do so with the help of medical professionals. I’m just blown away (and frankly, relieved and liberated beyond measure) by my results; it’s very freeing knowing what I should eat and what I should avoid.
And having avoided eggs, dairy, legumes, and lectins, I’m feeling great. Not so many digestive issues, not swearing off any foods because they make me so uncomfortable (I still miss you, Falafel!) I have muscles in my back that are chronically aching, and thankfully I haven’t noticed them in days. My energy levels are great.
A few takeaways for me through this journey:
First, sometimes when we ask the Universe to provide something, they often show us the way by showing us what we shouldn’t have in our life. Spirit lead me down a frustrating path of weight gain and discomfort, but it ultimately led me to the answers I needed.
Second, conventional wisdom might not have all the wisdom that leads you to health. While the chiropractic clinic that is Vreeland takes a more holistic approach, those food sensitivities really helped free me, and understand my body better. The correlation between my test results and what is suggested by the Type O Negative blood diet can’t be denied.
As a Psychic Medium, I work with spirit and energies often. Fundamentally, it’s true that we are spiritual beings having a human (physical, mental, and emotional) experience. It’s so important for all of us to take care of our bodies, and to learn what works best with them. How can we have the best and brightest experience we can while on Earth if we’re not as healthy as we can be?
Mind, body, and spirit are so inextricably entwined - imbalances and deficiencies in one lead to imbalances and deficiencies in the other. Again, my journey isn’t meant to guide you but hopefully inspire you. Research, dig into articles, reach out to different health facilities if you’re able. The tests taken by the Vreeland Clinic could have been determined by some diligent food elimination diets, but I was too frustrated and impatient to go through all of that. Imagine trying to figure out that I shouldn’t eat tomatoes AND eggs at the same time?
If you’ve ever experienced frustration over weight gain and body ailments, consider broadening your horizons around conventional wisdom.
It’s worked out for me. And I'm so, so grateful that I don't ever have to eat another tomato in my life.