I hope I don’t bore too many of you loyal readers. I have decided to start a new “water only” diet. And I intend to post my results from time to time here.

First, I hate the word diet, because I’m actually not going to alter my diet at all. This is all based off my longtime belief that drinking more water can “cure” nearly any ailment or problem us humans have. I’ve been very quick to say it, but not very good at living it.

A while back I saw the following book at Barnes & Noble called “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water” which has the interesting subtitle of “You are not sick, You are thristy! Don’t treat thirst with medications!”. It has the feel of one of those books that would never have been written if it weren’t for the availability of cheap publishing. At first, I thought it was going to be one of those extremist books written by some quack, even though I kind of agreed with the underlying theme.

I was very surprised to find out how readable and interesting it was. It was written by a Dr. F. Batmanghelidj from Iran. It turns out he spent almost three years in prison after the 1979 kidnapping of the Shaw treating over 3,000 patients with severe ulcers with nothing but water. He then began a lifelong journey to demonstrate that we are all more dehydrated than we think.

Now, this may be nothing new to you, but most of the information in the book will certainly be. You can get a glimpse of it at Dr. Batmanghelidj’s website (he is now deceased) at http://www.watercure.com. It will take you about 20 minutes to read most of the meat at that site. It will have you thinking strongly about your own lack of water intake.

Why am I doing this? Some people might chastise me for not adopting a full workout routine. I’m certainly not opposed to this and in the past have been a big fan of Bill Phillip’s Body for Life program. I’ve not sucessfully done the full 12 weeks though - and I only blame myself for that. However, for anyone that can start working out today, I’d highly recommend it over and above most other programs.

First, I’ve always strongly believed that you shouldn’t start a program in which the proponent of the program (in this case Bill and his brother Shawn Phillips) doesn’t look like what you want to end up looking like. There are too many programs out there in which the all-wise nutritionist or fitness guru simply is healthy or not fat. Some aren’t even in very good shape - and here I’m thinking particularly of Dr. Phil who has a book called “The Ultimate Weight Solution”. Who is he kidding? Does any man want to look like Dr. Phil? Or act like him? I hope not.

But, I’ve gotten severly out of shape in the past few years. I could sit around and blame a bunch of life events on it, but I won’t bore you with that. Lately, I get headaches more often, my back hurts (although my garbage chair might be partially to blame here), my joints hurt, and I’m stressed more often. All of which a few good 8-mile runs might cure - if I could actually run them.

I’d like to be more active to do stuff with my children as they get more involved with sports, plus I’d like to simply feel better. And I know I’m not eating right as often as I should. But, baby steps, baby steps, as they say. So, I’m going to tackle this water-only thing first and be succesful with this. Let me tell you a bit about my health.

I’m almost 37 years old. I look quite young for my age - so people tell me, but I think it is my children that keep my young. But my family also looks young in general. My mom is pushing 60 and looks 40. My dad is over 60 and looks 50. My grandparents have all lived quite long. And in general, we Salberg’s are usually in pretty good health when compared to the population. Must be the Norweigan blood line.

Personally, I’ve started experiencing higher-than-normal blood pressure, something known as pre-hyper tension. I was keeping some charts of it in Excel, but they were based on my visits to machines at Walmart or Walgreens. So, I’ll get my own blood-pressure machine for home. It’s not only a good idea for me, but will help with this experiment.

Before starting, I’ll post my weight and blood pressure. I’ll also post symptoms or anything unusual. I’ll also post more details about Dr. Batmanghelidj’s program as I read them. Essentially, it is very simple: drink lots of water, don’t drink stuff bad for you (soft drinks, coffee, etc).

I’m very confident that this will be a fruitful experiment. I’ve long believed that anyone’s woes can be cured by eating and drinking the right stuff, along with some regular exercise. But to isolate this, I’m going to start with only water. I never feel like exercising these days anyway - worse than that normal feeling of not wanting to exercise. I’m hoping that after a few weeks, I feel more energetic, less sluggish, and I’ll feel up to a round or two with the old dumbbells. But, I’m not doing this to speak about exercise. Just go listen to Bill Phillips and read his books. I want to demonstrate to myself as much as my readers that water alone nearly solves every malady.

My health history otherwise is good. I have no known allergies. I wear glasses (no contacts). My favorite personal activities are racquetball, which I haven’t played in years (and would love to start again) and cycling (which is rare). I couldn’t run a mile to save my life right now and I used to be on the high-school cross country team. I intend for that to change by year-end.

About five years ago, I was diagnosed as having a kidney stone and taken to the hospital by ambulance. They never found the stone - they said it passed somehow - but at the time I had been drinking two or three big gulps a day of Mountain Dew and Iced Tea to such extremes you would have thought I was British. After that, I started drinking lots of water and didn’t drink any caffeine. Mostly water with lemon. I probably lost about 10 pounds immediately after cutting out soda.

Since then, I’ve gained more weight, and I do drink probably one coke a day on average (no more Mountain Dew). I hardly ever drink water right now. I think the last actual glass of water I had was about 1 cup worth two days ago - warm from the tap - yuck! I feel restless, distracted, stressed quite a bit. A more recent weird symptom I’ve started having is my hand or foot feeling like it is going numb - not asleep, although sometimes that happens - but just numb where I feel like I have to shake it.

I could probably ignore all this stuff like the tough guy I am (ha ha) and live another 20 years before I started having migraines or whatever. My dad has severe migraines and is an avid coffee drinker - meaning he doesn’t function without it. Arthritis runs in my family and I’ve been told to “expect” it, although I rebuke this thought. However, in my current shape, I’m really not at liberty to think that way. I’m heading for trouble if I don’t “shape up”. If not arthritis, probably a stroke or heart failure or some other thing.

I’ll post again later with some details about how this program will run, along with some numbers so those of you playing at home can follow along.

Technorati : fitness, health, water

Posted in: Health