Dog Blog 20.0 – Health Dominoes

Today is officially Leap Year Day and the end of the month, so I’m here to check in with my EpiCor update. I’ve now been taking the product for 3 months, which is supposed to mark the time when you begin to notice results. To be honest…I’m still not “externally” sure what my results are (i.e. – I haven’t noticed anything different on the outside), but that’s not to say that it’s been helping with stuff on the inside. Plus, I’m kind of afraid to see what happens if I stopped taking the product! Would my health crumble? Would my digestive system stop working? Would I feel like a pile of junk? Who knows…and I’m not willing to find out!

I can’t really explain why, but every morning when I pop that little brown-looking pill (don’t worry, there is no flavor to it), I feel like I’m doing something good for my health. Maybe it’s because of the ravenous hunger I feel thanks to breastfeeding, or maybe it’s because I have to eat something sweet at least 3 times a day, but I feel like all of the “bad” things I’ve been doing to my body become a little less substantial when I take EpiCor. I know it’s not a cure-all and it doesn’t negate all the horrible things I eat all day, but if I can do one good thing for my body per day, I’ll take it!

Lately I’ve been doing a ton of research on food (both for work and for my own curiosity), and I’m been discovering so much information that I didn’t already know. Of course, I try to maintain a decent diet (minus my sugar binges…I just can’t help it). I avoid fast food, soda, fried up stuff, etc. – but through my research, I’ve found out that things I thought were ok are definitely NOT. For example, I had no idea that the peanut butter I’ve been shoveling down my throat daily (it helps with the intense hunger/sugar cravings) is really, really bad for you. I thought I was doing a good thing (peanuts are high in protein!), but I failed to realize the partially hydrogenated oil included in the ingredients made my “healthy” snack become equivalent to slamming down a bunch of donuts. Whoops. (Which also made me feel great when I remembered that when I was pregnant, I probably finished 2 jars of this particular brand of peanut butter per week. Awesome!)

I’ve been trying to make a conscious effort to read food labels (I even installed a scanner on my phone that tells you when foods have ingredients you should avoid). I’ve come to the conclusion that the fewer ingredients, the better it is for you. It also helps if you know what the ingredients are (does Butylated hydroxytoluene sound like a tasty delight? I did not think so. It’s actually a preservative that can be found in jet fuel. Yum!)

The point I’m trying to make is, my EpiCor experiment has led me to examining other choices I’m making in my life, such as the food I eat and the products I use. I guess it’s a little like “health dominoes” – one good choice leads to another! It’s always been in the back of my mind that I need to clean up my act, but EpiCor gave me the push to take action! I feel like all the good EpiCor can potentially do can only be increased by taking care of other aspects of my health. So here’s to another month of EpiCor, and let’s hope that my “clean-ish” eating experiment will continue as well!