Last day in Adelaide

This morning, I headed back to Michelle at the naturopath to see my progress. She did the same tests as the first time that I went to see her. We talked for a bit about how things were going for me on the diet. I told her it was all going really well although I was glad to finish the green drink last night!!

She took me through the results of the tests. I had lost 2 kg since the first time I saw her two weeks ago but I guess this is not surprising considering I had cut out all sugar and wasn't really eating too much. My toxin levels had decreased and she was really pleased with this. She had expected them to be higher than last time as the toxins come out of my organs into my body but apparently my liver and kidneys have been doing a good job eliminating them - I was pretty happy with that! My water levels were also looking better - as they should since I'm drinking 3L a day!

So she gave me a tablet to help support my kidneys to get rid of the rest of the toxins (this replaces the drink). She also gave me all the information on how to order more supplements if needed. We said we would keep in touch by email and that I could email or call her anytime. So overall it was a great experience. I really do feel healthy and I definitely have more energy.

After I got home, I picked up Dad and we drove to Wayville showgrounds to go and have a look at the Home Show. It was $12 to get in and neither of us had enough money to cover both tickets! Dad paid for his ($9 for pensioners :-)) while I waited for him to get money from the ATM. Anyway, we finally got in and walked around. Lots of water tanks and solar panels - and not much else! So much for a home show! It was a complete rip off - we ended up paying $21 + $6 for parking for nothing!!

So we left in disgust and drove into town. We parked at Harris Scarfes and then walked to the Central Markets for some lunch. It is always so nice to be in amongst all the hustle and bustle and great food! After lunch, we walked back to the car and headed home.

I packed up my suitcases and panicked a bit about being over my luggage allowance so I had to leave one of the sets of sheets that I bought behind for Dad to bring up with him to Brisbane. I had a bit of time to finish reading Mao's Last Dancer so I could leave it behind for Dad.

About 5.30, we drove over to the Marryatville Hotel for dinner with Stan, Kate, Josh and Luke. We arrived a bit early and had a drink at the bar before Stan arrived straight from work. We joined him at the table and before long Kate and the boys arrived also. We enjoyed a great dinner. It was so nice just chatting with good friends. It was nice to see Josh again too. We hardly saw Luke as they had free video games - which was where he spent most of his time.

We left about 9.30 and headed home so I could get to bed to have some sleep before tomorrow's early start!

Today's photo is actually a photo from yesterday of Dad driving his new car off the lot!

A really good day in Adelaide

This morning I went back to the naturopath to find out the results of my iridology analysis. When Michelle brought up the photos of my eyes I was struck again by how beautiful the human eye really is. She took me through the images and pointed out brown splotches which indicated a build up of toxins in certain areas in my body. She also pointed out a whitish area which indicated that my kidneys were irritated and the top of my iris above the pupil was a bit murky indicating problems with digestion.

She also mentioned that the shape of my pupils indicated that I have problems with my shoulders - but she did say that she was no pupil expert! So we talked through these things and also the questionaire I filled out relating to stress and anxiety. She asked me to stay on the detox diet for one more week and prescribed two other herbal supplements - one general one that will work on shifting the toxins and aid my digestion and the other one that helps relieve tension and anxiety. I booked in to see her one more time before I leave where we will do all the tests again to see if there has been an improvement in two weeks.

Once I got home, Dad and I were both ready for lunch. We walked down and around the lakes before going to the cafe for lunch. Dad had brought his paperwork for the pension with him so we could go through it.

After we walked home, we got in the car to do a few errands. First we stopped at Sam's Warehouse where I bought Dad a 35mm slide scanner so that he can transfer all his slides into a digital format. Next, we drove down to Enfield to go to Centerlink so that Dad could submit his paperwork.

While Dad went there, I walked around the shops and bought some neat placemats and table runners as well as a spiral peeler which makes long strands of vegetables such as zucchinis, carrots or cucumbers. I had heard about these things before and my friend Elyse has one and makes "pasta" out of peeled zucchini - yum!

I met Dad again in the coffee shop and we drove into town to go to the museum. We wandered around the exhibits and I was particularly interested in the minerals exhibit - just beautiful! We left the museum at closing time and walked back to Rundle Street to have a look at the shops and then go to see a movie.

I bought a pair of earrings in one of my favourite boutiques. At the cinemas, we decided to go and see Inglourious Basterds (yes, that is how it is spelt :-)). We bought our tickets and then went to the Stag Hotel to have something to eat and drink. The naturopath told me I could drink things that weren't sweet like vodka, lime and soda so I had one of those and we ordered some hot chips to tide us over.

Back at the movies and we both really enjoyed Inglourious Basterds. You could definitely tell it was directed by Quentin Tarantino. It was a dark subject (Nazi occupied France during WWII) but in true Tarantino style, the quirky characters, over the top violence and comedic plot made it a great movie. Brad Pitt was really good and it was suprising to see Mike Myers in a serious, albiet small, role.

We had a quick coffee at Scoozi before heading home. A great day in Adelaide and I think the weather is finally warming up! (Or maybe I am finally getting used to it!).

A new way of looking at health

This morning Dad and I got up and walked around Northgate Lake. Despite the cold it was good to be outside walking. As we walked around the lake we saw that a lot of the water birds had been breeding as there were chicks in amongst the rushes around the edge of the lake. We walked back through the housing estate and ended up at the shopping center. I popped into the chemist and picked up some cream to help stop the scarring on my leg and then we went to the cafe for a coffee.

Back at home we pottered about before Dad headed off to have lunch with a few work mates. I spent the afternoon on the couch with my blanket and my book. Dad came home about 2.30 and we drove up to St Agnes Shopping Center in time for my appointment at the Naturopath.

It was the first time I had been to a naturopath. My friend Kate had said that her friend had had a really good experience with this lady, Michelle, at St Agnes so I thought I would give it a go. To start with, Michelle's assistant took me through a few tests. She measured my weight and height, my body mass and muscle proportions and then did a test with some electrodes attached to my feet and hands.

From there, Michelle met me and we went into have my irises scanned for iridology analysis. It was amazing to see the photos of the iris - beautiful really! Although mine did not fit on her screen. She explained that the irises are believed to have nerve endings that connect to various organs in the body and through looking at the iris, you can pinpoint problem areas and areas of weakness. I guess the idea is similar to foot reflexology. She said for someone like me with no obvious symptoms, iridology can help identify areas that are weak and that could potentially create problems at a later date. This way, you can address these issues before they become problems. This is the main philosophy of naturopathy; to identify and treat the root causes of problems rather than addressing merely the symptoms.

After this was done we went into her office where she asked me a lot about my past health history. Then we went through the test results. She said that for my height, the body composition test was fine. Despite the fact that it showed that I needed to lose weight, she said that it wasn't very accurate for tall women and she was happy with my weight. She said that my muscle composition was also very good; a lot better than most people she sees. She said that most people are 2kg under their ideal muscle composition weight. She said if I really wanted to I could work on putting on half a kg more but I was in a good range. This was good to hear as it meant the weight training that I had been doing was paying off.

The last tests measured the health of my cells. She was a bit suprised to see that my cell quality was poor and my cell toxin levels were slightly in the positive range. She asked me a lot of questions about my use of antibiotics and explained that using antibiotics can leave a lot of toxins in the body and that in women these tend to accumulate in the uterus and abdomen area. One of the tests also measured my intracellular water level. My reading came up as 51.8%. She explained to me that ideally a well hydrated cell should contain 60% water and that a cell containing 50% was dehydrated so she recommended that I up my water intake from 2L to 2.5L+ per day.

She also recommended that I go on a week long detox program with includes a sugar, yeast and malt free diet as well as taking a detox supplement drink that helps to flush the kidneys and support the gastrointestinal system. So basically I have to cut out all sugars including fruit and fruit juice, anything with yeast in it and no alcohol. It really isn't too bad seeing as I can eat meat, chicken, fish, pasta, brown rice, yoghurt and fresh vegetables. I also have to limit my intake of dairy.

We also talked a little bit about the affect of stress on the body and she explained that the body uses up Magnesium as a result of stress so she also placed me on a Magnesium supplement. I will go back and see her next week after the week of detox.

I walked out of there feeling great. It was a really interesting way to look at your overall health and it was nice to have a medical practitioner looking at your health in the long term rather than simply plying you with drugs when something is really wrong. So I am interested to see how it goes. I will have two more appointments with her before I leave.

Back at home, we didn’t do too much. I made spinach pasta with a vegetable tomato based sauce for dinner and chucked in the leftover lamb from last night. We watched a DVD but I was too tired before long so I headed to bed.