Doing a Complete Diet Overhaul for Better Health - Week 1

My husband, Jim & I are on day 8 of our detox. He said this morning that it might be good to journal a little about what we are going through for people who need to or are going through this for themselves - especially from his perspective, he wants to be the guinea pig for going gluten free. So, I decided that since this is the end of our first week of this detox that I would do a weekly synopsis of what we are doing. I’ll start with a quick background on both of us.

About Jim



Jim was born to a military officer, whose mother died when he was 4. Although there were nannies and cooks, nothing can ever take the place of a mother. Health issues were either ignored or not dealt with as a child so as an adult, they are becoming more prevalent.

Over the years, since I have known Jim, he has had issues with his sinuses and his nervous system. As he’s been getting older, these issues are becoming more of a concern.

For years now, our chiropractor - who specializes in neurological and dietary issues, has been after him to change his diet. Our dr. has told him that his diet is having an impact on his health. Jim has shared that he does have concerns about body pain, brain fog, forgetfulness, and dementia. He has resisted our chiro’s advice since day one, he always said to me, “I won’t believe it until I see documented proof of what he’s saying”.

About Me



I was adopted as an infant and grew up in Chinatown, Honolulu. My mother owned a restaurant and cooked delicious food. Back in those days, cholesterol and fats were not an issue, it was a common lunch for me to eat rice with bacon and have the bacon fat poured over my rice.

In my childhood, I grew up as a fat child - primarily due to diet. In my adult years, I’ve had eczema and hypertension - I always had itchy skin and could never work in high stress conditions.

In 1998, I was instructed to eliminate all wheat from my diet based on the symptoms I was having. I was also told to eliminate refined sugar as that was causing me to have glucose issues.

So far, I have been pretty successful on my gluten free diet. On the rare occasion would I indulge in eating something with gluten in it, but it was usually a food of high caliber.

Jumping to the Future

In late 2009, I went to our chiro for a back issue I was having. After 3 months of treatment, my back was healed. During the course of being treated, the dr. and I would talk about diet and especially about Jim’s diet. Our chiro was studying and learning from Dr. Datis Kharrazian , and was recommending that his patients to read this book. Both the chiro and his wife have done the tests (blood test) and are now following a gluten free diet.

In reading the book, I got very excited as I was reading about myself, or so it seemed, but I just had a lot of the symptoms described in this book.

I came home one day from seeing the chiro and told Jim that I was going to do this test because I wanted to see what was going on with my body. Jim immediately said, “I want to do it too”. Even tho he’s been resistant, deep down, he knew he had to make a change, a change for himself. I was so happy because I’ve wanted him to make this change so can be healthier for himself and for me.

We both took the test and we found out that Jim does have high cholesterol and glucose issues, and I have high cholesterol issues - something needed to be changed. Basically, Jim needs to be on an English diet: grass fed meats and eliminate all wheat and carbs. I need to be on a high protein, good fats diet, and continue being gluten free. We are starting off with this detox program using Clearvite-SF - http://www.clearvite.info/ and it’s been a week since we’ve been on it.

Everyday, Jim tests his blood sugar before breakfast and before dinner (his choice), and it’s been interesting to note that his blood sugar has been consistently high in the morning and low in the evening. Breakfast was a huge concern for both of us. In the past, his breakfast consisted of about 2 bowls of frosted mini wheats and 2% milk. He was very hesitant in giving up his mini wheats. Well, we found Barbaras Bakery Brown Rice Crisps Cereal, and he hesitantly decided to try it - well, it turns out he likes it. We went shopping yesterday, and couldn’t find it, so he decided to try Glutino Apple and Cinnamon Rings, , it’s made with corn and he doesn’t like it.

We take the Clearvite, a powder mixed w/water, twice a day: at 10am and around 3:30pm - it needs to be taken 2 hours before eating to be effective. The flavor did take some getting used to - Jim spit out his first taste, we now use vanilla flavored coconut milk for him and he is getting used to the flavor. I just take half a dose because of my body size and I take mine with water. There are some days where my stomach doesn’t like it - it makes me feel full even 2 hours later when I’m supposed to eat a meal.

Even though we’ve been eating pretty well in the past, there is a greater awareness on what we are eating and where we are buy it from. Jim’s snacking habits have dramatically changed, he is more conscious of what he eats. Our grocery bill is a little higher from buy better quality food, but in the end it will be worth it.

So, that’s the long story short on our complete diet overhaul. I’ll report on likes and dislikes regarding gluten free products we’ll try in the coming weeks. Jim is the real tester or the guinea pig, as he says, because “if it don’t got flavor, I won’t eat it!”.

Stay tuned for week 2 of our detox/diet overhaul.