My mother just came back from spending a month in Tuscany and the first thing she said to me was, “You’ve shrunk!”
She had a point. I recently bought a size two skirt and in my incredulity my reaction was to tell the sales lady that I’d have to start frequenting that store as their clothes must run really big.
Because I haven’t been dieting. Nor have I changed my eating habits or my exercise habits in about 2 years.
In fact, as I look back over the last 2 months or so, the only thing I’ve changed has been starting back up on plant-based digestive enzymes.
As we age our bodies ability to produce enzymes slowly diminishes, interfering with complete digestion and putting us at risk for degenerative diseases.
I’ve talked about how incomplete digestion is a major cause of weight gain, and how eating whole foods rather than processed foods encourages complete digestion and can help lose weight and nourish health. Digestive enzymes can help the body break foods down for better absorption of nutrients and more efficient elimination of extra material.
Years ago, my homeopath put me on digestive enzymes to help end the hives and facilitate my quest to get pregnant. At the time, I thought it was a great idea, knowing what I’ve put my gut through in my lifetime.
Beyond the typical alcohol/fast food/terrible eating habits abuse of my intestines, I’ve been infested with various parasites at various points for varying amounts of time, including giardia, cryptosporidium, listeria, cyclospora, blastocystis and others over a period of several decades. In my life, parasites have been a side effect both of traveling through the developing world and camping in the Rockies.
The commonly used anti-parasite medication is Flagyl, which, if you’ve ever done a course, brutally strips your insides as it annihilates both troublesome parasites and beneficial flora and fauna. Usually, by the time someone goes on Flagyl, the instigating parasites have been so brutal that the patient happily accepts the side effects as long as it works.
So I was thrilled to learn about digestive enzymes then to help rebuild my intestinal tract. I don’t remember losing weight that time, but I was a little distracted by other things.
The plant-based digestive enzymes, taken with every meal, are helping me to fully digest my food. Which is leading to weight loss as a bonus. This is the easiest diet I’ve ever done!
Looking for plant-based digestive enzymes for yourself? Here are general plant-based digestive enzymes; to find the right digestive enzymes to address the needs of your body, an Enzyme Urinalysis can determine what’s going on with your specific digestion.
e of making a few salads out of leaves. And then it goes bad so quickly
So I began my search for a new lap desk. I wanted one that wasn’t too expensive (I found many for around $50!), would sit comfortably on my thighs, and wasn’t too big (some are extra-wide for setting on chair arms). What I found even had a non-stick surface so I won’t lose my laptop unexpectedly, a tray to hold pens, and — here’s the best part — a cushy wrist guard for my carpal-tunnel-prone forearms.
pumping your body full of extra calories or artificial ingredients. In my 20s I always kept a pitcher of Crystal Lite in the fridge, but now I wonder if all that aspartame might have contributed to my body breaking down with MS. Aspartame poisoning can mimic some MS symptoms, even though we’ve been sold it as a “safe” sugar substitute.
not suffer the effects of caffeine. Personally, I like to use black tea, even Liptons, but feel free to use your favorite herbal teas as well. The photo on the right shows the jar at the end of the day with fully-brewed tea. Garnished with fresh mint from the garden, sun tea is one of my favorite summertime treats!