Are you ignoring the signals your body is sending you?
DONNA: Hey there, welcome to another Healthy Conversation. So, we’re not going to open with any smart. . .
JOHN: Smart remarks.
DONNA: Smart *bleep* remarks.
BOTH: *bleep* remarks yes.
DONNA: You know you make smart *bleep* remarks sometimes?
JOHN: Once in a while.
DONNA: Really? A little sarcasm, just a tiny bit?
JOHN: Just a little bit. Keeps life exciting.
DONNA: It does actually. It’s been twenty-six years we’ve known each other come. . .
JOHN: Lots of *bleeps*.
DONNA: That’s not true. Okay look these people are going to think we don’t get along. You’re killing me. No, really, it’s the looks that usually send us into hilarity. So last episode we talked about asking the right questions at the doctor’s office. And I also shared with you that in doing a lot of our research as we were pursuing Donna’s health answers, I reached out to a lot of the hormone experts that I presently work with on our 20/30 Fast Track Plan, but then also extended my arm to even into some other experts and friends that I have.
JOHN: Very much of a blessing too that we’ve got that.
DONNA: Oh amazing. And so, I am very blessed to have lots of pretty cool, pretty knowledgeable friends. I have a friend that follows me from the fitness industry, she’s an exceptional expert in a lot of things and she follows me on Facebook, and she reached out to me when I was making just a couple of comments about asking for pray and things like that. And she said, “What do you think about us talking?” I said, “Awesome.”
Well, she shared something with me that was amazing and when I told John he said, “Oh my gosh that’s incredible. We have to teach that over and over.”
JOHN: We know about but just didn’t have words to it.
DONNA: Because it makes logical sense, right? And its initials are AAE. So, listen closely because the example is a little bit odd, but I know you’re going to get it. When we were teenagers, somebody was smoking a cigarette and we went, “Oh gosh I guess that’s what the cool kids are doing” right? “So, I guess I probably better take that cigarette and smoke it.” So, you took the cigarette, and you smoked it, and your body went [coughs] [coughs].
JOHN: Cough. Cough. Cough. Yeah.
DONNA: That is what’s known as an alarm. That was your body saying to you, “I don’t like this.”
JOHN: Yeah. “Don’t do that again.”
DONNA: “Don’t do that again” “Get that away” “That’s bad for me.” That was your body talking to you. But then maybe you noticed that the kids were continuing to smoke and if you wanted to be cool you decided, “Well I’m going to smoke and I’m going to keep smoking.” After a while your body adapts and no coughing, breathing is easy, no symptoms of any kind.
JOHN: For some years, year.
DONNA: That stage is known as Adaptation. You’re getting away with it, still not good for you. Until finally you reach the level that is “E” – Exhaustion. And exhaustion is when your body finally goes?
JOHN: “Enough is enough.”
DONNA: “I’m done. I told you I didn’t like it. I told you it wasn’t good for me, and I can’t do it anymore.” And that’s when things like horrific coughs takes place.
JOHN: Eczema a, lung cancer, you name it.
DONNA: Emphysema and yellowed skin and wrinkled skin, your body just goes, “I can’t do this anymore” you thought you were getting away with it. Now we’re not endorsing smoking, we’re adamantly against smoking, I used that example because that’s the example she used with me, and it helped me understand and it was the example I brought home to you.
There’s Alarm where you put something in and your body goes, “I don’t like it. I don’t like it.” But you keep doing it and your body adapts and you’re getting with it, it feels like you’re getting away with it. But then you get to Exhaustion where your body goes, “I told you I didn’t like it a long time ago.”
JOHN: Same thing kind of happens with food. That’s kind of an easy one because a lot of times we will eat something, you go out and you have some heavy-duty meal. You have some ribs or something that’s really heavy on your system or you eat some grains that really didn’t agree with you. And maybe you come home at night, and you say, “Oh my gosh, I feel bloated. . .”
DONNA: In most cases this was a long time ago, so it’s not recent, right?
JOHN: Exactly.
DONNA: This was in our teens or our twenties.
JOHN: Right. You kept on doing it and it wasn’t really that big a deal. “Eh, I still don’t feel that great, but it’s not that big a deal until all of a sudden, a few years later you’ve got full blown problems to your intestinal system; acid reflux or colitis or irritable bowel syndrome, something like that. That’s the whole it went past the alarm, you went past the adaptation, now you have full-fledged symptoms that are going on that your body can’t get rid of.
DONNA: So, there’s hope because in alarm we really usually much, much younger when you consumed the ribs let’s say, and you got really bloated or you had diarrhea, or you had some sort of symptom. But gosh you just really liked those ribs, so you kept eating them and your body got used to it, or so it would appear because things seemed fine after you ate the ribs. But the thing is before you go into exhaustion, as you enter into exhaustion and leave adaptation, you’re going to see symptoms. And that’s when you want to pay attention and listen to your body.
JOHN: Exactly. Exactly. I mean there are so many different examples when the body goes into, “That’s enough.” But the good news is if you start doing some of the things that are very positive to rebuild that system, it’s like smoking. I mean minutes after your last cigarette; your body starts repairing itself if you stop smoking.
DONNA: Because we are fearfully and wonderfully made. I just wrote that in one of my prayers for us today that I put on Facebook. So let’s just talk really, really quickly about some of the ways at the end of adaptation and the beginning of exhaustion your body will talk to you. What are some typical symptoms that you are going to see when your body has said, “Enough?”
JOHN: Well, when it comes to food because we’re dealing with all these genetically modified grains; the corn, the soybeans and everything, they cause a lot of inflammation in the body.
DONNA: So that’s pain. Inflammation is when you ache.
JOHN: It’s pain. Okay, another one is anytime you have inflammation, a lot of times you have allergies that pop up. So, you have a lot of irritation which is kind of a form of. . .
DONNA: Headaches, congestion in your sinus, coughing, sneezing – these are symptoms.
JOHN: Bloating. I mean it’s your intestinal system saying, “Hey we can’t do this anymore. This food you’re eating is like poison to us.” Now you stop eating these grains, you stop doing the things you did before, all of a sudden, your body starts healing itself. Maybe you start taking some probiotics, you start taking some digestive enzymes. Your body instantly starts healing itself. That’s the good news.
DONNA: Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing machines that God put together here for us. So Alarm, Adaptation, Exhaustion. Think about what you’re putting into your body. Are there symptoms? This is your body talking to you. You’re at the end of that adaptation and entering into exhaustion and it’s healable. It’s fixable.
JOHN: Your body is talking to you with this exhaustion phase, and you just have to be alert and be very proactive. You know it’s going to involve more than popping a pill, taking a pharmaceutical to get rid of it, you have to get very proactive with your life.
DONNA: We’ll talk to you next episode.
