Flame Thrower: Top 10 Natural Ways to Reduce Inflammation

Recently by Mark Sisson: Flame Thrower: Top 10 Natural Ways to Reduce Inflammation

It's time for another healthy dose of inspiration from Mark's Daily Apple readers that took control of their health and turned their lives around. Many thanks to Jason, Marti and Dan for sharing their stories with the community. If you have your own story and pics to share shoot me a line here.

Hey there Mark!!!

Well for me it starts around Christmas of 2009. I was topping the scales at 339 lbs, I had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a few years earlier and taking several medications to help control it. Despite eating like the dieticians recommended I kept putting on more weight. I stayed sick constantly, never felt like doing anything and was just in generally bad health and I was only 36. I was so disgusted with myself when my mom gave me some money at Christmas to buy some clothes and I couldn't find anything in my size.

I was talking to a friend from work that had been losing weight for about a year and asked him what he was doing. He turned me onto MDA and I started my Primal journey. Despite the fact that it went against everything we have been taught since childhood it made sense to me and decided to take the challenge.

I dropped 20 lbs in the first month!!!! I have since been steadily dropping pounds and gaining lean mass and getting stronger.

As of today's weigh in I am down from 339 to 238. I went from a 48 inch waist and a 3-4x shirt size to a 36 inch waist and a large shirt size (haven't been in either since high school!) I have beaten the diabetes and haven't taken any medications for it in 6 months. My doctor was floored when I walked in for my last A1C bloodwork, he was amazed and asked me how I did it.

I still have 40 or 50 lbs to go and the weight is coming off slower but I continue to be vigilant and follow the Primal laws, although I tend to lift weights more often than recommended (but hey, I enjoy it !!!). I have attached a pic of me from Christmas day 2009, and a few from this past weekend 10-10-10.

Going Primal saved my life. No, I wasn't actually dying, but I surely was not living. I existed in a world of pain and frustration. I refused to believe that the best I could expect from modern medicine was to control my symptoms. I went searching for answers and found the Primal Blueprint, and the rest as they say is history…

The downward spiral of my health began in 1993 when I slipped on the ice and seriously injured my neck and lower back. Herniated discs, and later deteriorated discs, prevented me from exercising. Although the Veteran's Administration (VA) doctors wanted to do surgery on me to fuse my neck and lower back, I refused. The VA doctors couldn't guarantee that the surgery would eliminate the pain, but they could guarantee that I would lose most of my mobility. Undergoing surgery to “maybe” fix a problem wasn't a risk I was willing to take. Pain medications became my lifeline.

After I retired from the military in 1995, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia (FM). I suffered from many of the symptoms associated with FM in addition to chronic fatigue and muscle pain. I was also diagnosed with high cholesterol. Following the dietary recommendations of my doctor did not reduce my cholesterol levels, therefore I was given a statin drug. I felt like a walking pharmacy due to the number of pills I had to take to treat the various symptoms I had — and if any medication caused a side effect, I was given another prescription to counter effect the side effect.

Four to five times a year I would get cellulitus infections in my legs. My legs would swell to three times their normal size and the heat in my legs turned them bright red in color. The color of my legs matched the color of the can of Coke I was always drinking! The majority of time it took a least two rounds of antibiotics to get the infection under control, and there were times when I had to be hospitalized and given stronger antibiotics by IV to get rid of the cellulitus. I have developed allergies to three different antibiotics. I always bought the same pair of shoes in two or three sizes because the swelling in my legs, ankles and feet fluctuated so much. Actually I had “kankles” — my ankles were always so swollen you could never see an anklebone. I needed to use a cane just so I could walk.

As my health spiraled downward, the one thing that did go up (besides my pain) was my weight. In 1999, I joined the weight loss support group at the VA. Their prescribed diet followed the pyramid plan — conventional wisdom at it's best! It turned out to be a yo-yo diet. I would lose weight and then gain it back plus more. By 2008, I weighed just shy of 300 pounds. My closet was stocked with clothes in the size of 4X. It was depressing and I tended to avoid mirrors and cameras like the plague.

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November 15, 2010

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