Last month I embarked on a Self-Care Challenge and invited you to join me. You can join at any time by reading the posts, contributing feedback in our Glass Half Full Facebook group, and using the Health Storylines online tool.

I’ve been practicing Self Care for years without even realizing it. Years ago, before I was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disease, I began to experiment with my diet. I didn’t necessarily have a bad diet but I often felt bloated, experienced abdominal cramps, and probably had what we now know to be irritable bowel syndrome.

I can’t recall what the impetus was but it happened over 30 years ago. I gave up eating beef. Within a year or two I was no longer eating any animal flesh and called myself a lacto-ovo vegetarian (plant-based diet with dairy/eggs). My bloating disappeared. My cramps were intermittent but I still had that occasional nervous stomach.

A diet is really a dynamic concept. It shouldn’t be fixed, i.e. eating the same foods every day. The seasons change and there are different foods to be consumed aligned with the season. Our bodies change. We continue to learn more about food, how food is prepared, nutrients and micronutrients. As I’ve learned more about food and nutrition over the years, I continue to tweak my diet.

Little changes can have a huge impact. When I started going for acupuncture treatments, 15 or so years ago, I was asked about my diet by the practitioner. No Western-trained physician had ever spent much time talking with me about my diet. Even when I complained of GI problems. I won’t even attempt to claim any real knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) but there is a long history of food = medicine. The first change I made during my course of TCM treatments was giving up that big glass of orange juice I started each day with. That cold sugar hit was not welcomed by my belly.

I’ve learned so much about food over the years and if I shared it, this would become the longest blog post in history. But, that’s not what I want to do. My diet & nutrition journey is likely different from yours. Becoming a vegetarian has helped me, yet it’s not the only way to eat a well-balanced diet. There are plenty of vegetarians that eat poorly and plenty of omnivores that eat well.

In the next month I will post in the Facebook group…mostly factoids from various nutrition newsletters I read. Here’s the Self-Care Challenge for YOU:

• Become aware of what you’re eating, how much of it, and how often. The best way to do this is with a Food Diary. Using the online Health Storylines tool, you can keep track of your daily intake using the Food Diary feature.
• Knowing what you already know about good foods and beverages & bad foods and beverages, each week select one bad food to omit for a week. And try to eat a new food — something plant-based. I’ll help you with suggestions.

Remember, small steps in making health behavior changes are the key. Good luck!