This will be my last posting. Any doubts about what I was getting into in March with the Five Stones program have been erased by the numbers six months later: 213 pounds to 192; total cholesterol down from 229 to 217, with no medication; triglycerides down from 184 to 140; HDL (the good cholesterol) up from 59 to 63; LDL (the bad stuff) down from 133 to 126. All within the normal range, but always waiting to flash back to the danger zone. Which means I need to be vigilant in my eating, exercise, supplements and, especially, finding a balance in my life.

I’ve learned to drink more water, cook more of my own meals, find ways to reduce stress (so much of it is the result of my imagination, I find now), get quality sleep, stay in motion and eat mindfully, which means to question the origins and the ramifications of what I’m about to consume.

And I learned never trust those who ask you to trust them, particularly if someone else is paying the bills. The Food and Drug Administration (quite the symbiotic cause-and-effect coupling if you think about it) and the American Dietetic Association position themselves as protectors, when in reality they are promoting what lobbyists and corporations are feeding them. A 2,000-calorie-a-day diet heavy on whole grains and light on leafy greens? Sounds great, if you can nap a lot. But I, for one, am not buying it. Not any more, anyway.

Things are changing all around us, for the better. Natural food and health food stores have been with us since the 1970s, but only now is the general population discovering the benefits of shopping there. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s are bringing new-to-us, tried-and-true food items from around the world that add variety to our diets as well as wholesome nutrition. (Now if I could just get a source of mangosteins, which I fell in love with in Australia.)

The fact that Wal-Mart now has an organic section for food is heartening, but better still is the idea that farmers markets and roadside stands are proliferating, bringing truly fresh, locally-raised foods to the neighborhood.

I was only vaguely aware of the importance of any of this before my immersion in Five Stones. Now I’m trained to spot the B.S., and believe me, it’s everywhere.

I thank Beth Eckhaus, for teaching me to “play with my food” and the creative ways of taking care of myself. Thanks to Chris Brindley, for the bruise-inducing deep tissue massages (in an effort to alleviate chronic pain in my right arm). And thank you, George King, for keeping all the appointments straight, as well as the encouragement.

Thanks to Dr. Martha Calihan, for her guidance and concern, and thanks to trainer Melody Shipp, who promised me in March they’d turn me into Gumby (you got to have goals, right?). And thanks to my main trainer, Chris Mattice, for pushing my body to the limits during workouts sometimes three times a week. The guy is a sly genius. We didn’t quite develop that cool bulging vein on my biceps (chalk it up to heredity) but we did get me on my feet and back on the rugby field after three years of what seemed to be a lost cause.

I’ll miss those professionals, but even though I’m on my own, I know I have their support when I need it.
Here’s the website for the Integrative Family Medicine Center in Leesburg to get started on your own Five Stones program.

In good health,

Buzz McClain

My nutrition counselor, Beth Eckhaus, has started a wellness “meet up group” in Northern Virginia. So far, nine people have signed up to meet in Leesburg to talk about everything I’ve just been going through for going on eight months (see below if you missed it). Click this sentence to get the details about Beth’s group.

When I signed up for the Five Stones program at the Integrative Family Medicine Center in Leesburg in, what was it, March?, I had little idea of what I was getting into. I knew I’d be working with a physician, a nutrition counselor, a massage therapist and a personal trainer, but I really didn’t know exactly what was going to go on – or how I was supposed to behave.

I was also fearful that I wouldn’t have the discipline to go through with whatever it was all these professionals were going to tell me I had to do. I’d signed up for the six-month program, and six months is a very long time to commit to anything.

And now it’s almost Christmas – I began before Easter – and I can’t believe how the time has flown by (this blog started in May to coincide with the introduction to it in the print publication). I also can’t believe the breadth and depth of the Five Stones program, and as I’ve tried to describe my experience over these last six months on these electronic pages, I find that the only thing I’ve failed in is adequately explaining what goes on. And if you’re new to this blog, I encourage you to start at the beginning on this page.

As I page through my descriptions of my workouts with Chris Mattice, I realize that I haven’t even detailed the entirety of even ONE of our hour-long sessions. I’ve mentioned various things we’ve done – the stretches, the rubber tubes, the yellow straps, the kettle bells, the weight machine – but if you put all those entries together you still don’t get an idea of how intense an hour with Chris is.

Did I mention the running up a hill with a parachute on my back? When it was 95 degrees? After not being able to run for two years? Did I mention running up the same hill with a kettle bell in my hand over my head? Did I mention the countless lunges I did with a rubber band around my ankles? Did I mention how he has this thing he calls a “super set” in which he brings my entire muscular system – from my legs to my hands – to absolutely fatiguing failure – and it feels so good?

Chris’ idea of “taking a rest” is to pedal on a stationary bike for two minutes while he resets the weight machine. He’ll take it easier on you if you like, but I love it.

And did I mention my workout with Melody Shipp, who subbed for Chris one day? Any thoughts of having an easy day because I was working out with a woman went out the window in the first minute of stretching. A half an hour later I thought I was going to cry after she had me do push ups in four directions one after the other, in between lifting weights.

I think I mentioned Chris Brindley, the massage therapist, only twice, which is a gross oversight. I only skimmed the surface of my twice-monthly conversations with Beth Eckhaus, the holistic counselor who showed me how to live not just healthier but better than before – and I thought I had it made before. I’m looking at reams of printouts she’s handed me over the last months, many of which hung on my desk-side bulletin board before moving to the stack – that way I’d see them each time I walked past, and I’d take a few seconds to re-read them so as to better remember them.

My favorite is entitled “Be Bad.” It gives me permission to every now and again break a rule – it relieves stress, believe it or not. It’s still on my board four months later, reminding me to occasionally be bad (it doesn’t say what to do if you’re caught). Every conversation with Beth ended with action items to incorporate that very day to start seeing immediate improvements, and the way she posed things made you want to not disappoint her.

And what can I say about Dr. Martha Calihan? She’s a longtime family physician in Leesburg who would rather recommend an herbal supplement than write a prescription. She pushes dark leafy greens instead of white pills. If, as in my case, your arm hurts and she can’t determine what’s causing the pain, she’ll perform acupuncture on the spot to see if that helps.

She asked me what kind of vitamins I took, and when I told her the brand she handed me a brand made with organic ingredients derived from plants. “We like our vitamins to come from food,” she said, and those words have resonated with me since spring.

Imagine that. Instead of putting potentially toxic chemicals into your body, she tries to fix ailments with touch and food and wisdom.

And finally, there’s George King, the kind soul behind the reception counter who does all the scheduling for all these appointments – and the re-scheduling for them because invariably some get missed. But beyond that, George is the voice of encouragement, and no matter what you look like the day you drag yourself into the (gorgeously expanded) office, he tells you how great you look, and he usually follows it up with an email.

So what do I have to show for my six months climbing the Five Stones? I’ll sum up later this week.

The photo on the left is at 213, with total cholesterol at 229, high enough for many a physician to put me on a statin (they’ve done it before). The photo on the right is six months later at 192, with the cholesterol at 217, with just fish oil and exercise — and a smarter way of living in general. I’ll detail my entire experience in the Five Stones program next week in a final blog entry. (Photo by Jonathan Timmes/Northern Virginia Magazine)

It took six months of eating right, working out and reducing fat-clinging stress with massage therapy, but here you go: From 213 to 192. (Jonathan Timmes/Northern Virginia Magazine)

The new issue of Northern Virginia Magazine is out and it has my “before” and “after” photos in it. See page 20.

There’s a change coming. A big change. One you will be caught up in at some point.

In the time I began this blog a few months ago, my local Giant grocery store has DOUBLED the size of its organic section. Before, where there was no agave nectar, there are now TWO brands, right next to the stevia, which I’ve been using in my green tea since Beth Eckhaus suggested I give it a try instead of refined sugar.

That’s not all: I was delighted to read in a recent copy of Esquire that quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) was in style. Quinoa? I’m familiar with it – have been for the last week. Beth “made” me get some and eat it. It’s not bad, but I’d rather have couscous – except that’s wheat, and I’m cutting out wheat.

And why am I cutting out wheat? To see if it’s the cause of inflammation. I have point of inflammation throughout my body, not just in one big area – most of us do – and it’s thought that low-grade allergies to food and environmental elements can cause those flare ups. So I’m cleansing myself of wheat to give my liver a break and to see if, when I begin consuming wheat again, if I notice the inflammations.

Wheat, I have come to learn, is the enemy. It’s plentiful, cheap to grow and has a long shelf life, but the human body is ill equipped to digest it. This message is just beginning to filter into our collective knowledge – but too slowly to really make a difference at this point, if you ask me. Otherwise, why does Giant still have that enormous aisle of wheat products known as the bakery aisle, while offering very little that is gluten-free?

Beth Eckhaus has had me turn off the email alerts on my computer. I deactivated both the icon in the tray at the bottom of the screen that pops up when a new email arrives and I’ve turned off the sound that accompanies it.

This isn’t because Beth wants me to stop getting emails. When she asked me how often I check for new ones I was at a loss for an answer. “All the time,” I said. “Maybe once or twice an hour.”

What a lot of hooey. When I got home after our counseling session I checked to see how often I was switching screens to see if new emails had arrived. It was every five minutes. Sometimes more.

And again whenever I passed by the office door on my way down the hall to somewhere else, even if it was urgent.

The stress of being a slave to arriving emails is somewhat invisible because in your heart you want them to arrive – that’s how I get work done, after all. But to compulsively check and check and check is wearying, without even knowing it.

So I’ve turned off the alerts. Now I check emails when it’s convenient or when I think to do it. And guess what? It’s more satisfying and easier to deal with to see several of them at a time at one glance rather than one by one over the course of an hour.

Try it, you’ll like it.

The page opposite the Morning Intentions in the Integrative Nutrition journal is called Evening Reflections. The top is a checklist of things that characterize how the day went for me, followed by blanks I’m to fill in regarding details of the day’s events and how I accepted them.

Each night I make my entries before turning the light out, probably a little too swiftly for any truly thoughtful insights to emerge, but I do it anyway.

A few of the items remind me to do things that don’t always come naturally. “Loving work,” is one, and it doesn’t mean to love my work, it means to do work that reflects love. I usually check off that box because each day I do things for my family that are odious and time-consuming, but I do them anyway for the comfort of my wife and kids. Taking out the trash, emptying the dishwasher, fixing a broken chair, moving laundry from the dryer to the baskets. I’m happy to do it, so it must be loving work.

There also are boxes to check for “tongue scraper” and “hot towel scrub.” These are reminders to use that tongue scraper that Beth Eckhaus gave me and to spend a few minutes before bed giving myself a hot towel scrub, which is exactly as it says. I wet a towel with hot water and slowly, methodically wash off the day with the towel. It’s better than a shower because you are deliberately doing this for yourself, and it feels good to spend the time bringing yourself to the brink of relaxation.

If you have trouble sleeping, try this before you go to bed. Conversely, if you have trouble waking up, try a hot towel scrub. It has the opposite effect when you do it in the morning.

I’m in the process of doing a stool exam. You want to hear about this?
If not, switch now to the SWAG blog.

Dr. Calihan has presented me with a kit that, when I get home and open it, I find contains three plastic buckets, wooden sticks, plastic jars with preservative chemicals and various address labels and envelopes.
The idea is to “collect” my output in the bucket, scrape off several samples of it, smear that into a jar, shake it up and send it to the lab, postage paid.

Three times.

And not just poke at “it” and put it in a jar but carefully find different regions of “it” and put it in a jar. Which means I have to actually LOOK at it kind of closely.

Three times.

This better be important.

Of course it is. A test of my digestive system shows significant inability to digest certain nutrients. The test will determine what and how much and how to correct it. When my digestion is working at optimum ability, all this beautiful fresh food I’ve been devouring will truly be put to use inside me.

My first experience at “collecting” my output goes like this  . . .  wait, I’m going to switch to the SWAG blog for a minute  . . .