QUOTE BY THOMAS A. EDISON | IMAGE BY SEIDENPERLE

With all the health data, research, and technological advancements that are available to us, life expectancy should be increasing, but it’s not. At the time of writing this message, in Canada and in the United States, life expectancy is decreasing. Cancer and heart disease are said to be the leading causes.

We are born into this life with one body. For those of us of a spiritual nature we may know it more importantly as the vessel that harbors our soul. We do not get to trade in for a new body at any point in our life, and so it is vitally important, and makes sense, that we take care of the one we have.

For as long as I can remember I have been interested in the pursuit of optimum health. I have a mantra that I have always carried around with me, which is that I would like “to grow old gracefully”” I have no idea when this mantra attached itself to me, but I am inclined to believe that my soul carries it within its essence.

I participated in a workshop recently called “Soul Nourishment”. One of the facilitators, David Wallace shared in his opening comments, “It’s our stories that help the healing. In these difficult times we need one another and one another’s joys and strengths; as well as the commitment to be together wholly, and holy.”

My own personal life-to-date health journey is a long one and it is in no way complete; but I have learned a lot, reflected a lot, and healed a lot, and with certainty I can say that I am on to something worth sharing. Within my story may some of you find connection through shared experience, nourishment for your soul, and perhaps even healing for your body.

QUOTE BY HIPPOCRATES | IMAGE BY DUNGTHUYVUNGUYEN

In my late teens, a roommate shared a book with me called Fit for Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. Some of you will remember that book. It was a guide to eating healthy through what the authors promoted as proper food combining. I read it from cover to cover and although it was not a diet that I stuck with for any length of time, it was significant as it marked the beginning of my thirty-plus year journey in healing through food.

Through my twenties I continued to read about and explore health and nutrition. I had a sense that my body was not functioning the same as other people. My energy levels seemed to be crashing at unpredictable times; and even when I was sleeping well, I would experience periods throughout the day of feeling sluggish, tired, and what I could only describe then as being “zoned out”.

I wondered if diet could be the cause and tried various types of diets including vegetarian, whole foods, and anti-candida. I tried juice cleaning, herbal cleansing, and the popular lemon juice and maple syrup Master Cleanse. During off-work periods I travelled to retreat centers like the Optimum Health Institute and Hippocrates, to experience and learn about the benefits of raw food, fasting, and colon cleansing. Some of these diets did give me relief from my symptoms and fatigue, and made me feel better, but not in any significant way. They were very hard to stick to, and over longer periods of time I lost unhealthy and often unattractive amounts of weight.

It is worth mentioning that the one time I did see impressive results from a diet that alleviated a lot of my symptoms—and even some I did not know I had—was when I tried rotational eating. I followed a program for three months, which was designed by Sondra K. Lewis and detailed in her book Allergy and Candida Cooking Made Easy. Over the course of a four-day period the program would rotate through different food groups, giving the body a three-day rest from each group.

At the end of the three months, I could feel some very positive shifts in my overall health, which was exciting. However, the program was devastating for my social life. The meals required insane amounts of food preparation as you could only eat from a food group every four days; and the meals often tasted bland and boring because you were also rotating spices. I was never able to eat out anywhere, and I lost a lot of weight to the point where my rib bones were showing throughout my chest area. The man I was dating at the time was convinced I was anorexic, even after I showed him the book. He told my friends that he thought I was anorexic, and then informed me he could no longer date me, and I needed help. That was the end of that diet.

Regardless of all the failed trials, through my experimenting, I still had a very deep-rooted sense that what ailed me was related to food. I’m not entirely sure how I knew that, but I trusted my “gut feeling”.

QUOTE BY DAVID WALLACE | IMAGE BY SEIDENPERLE

As I approached thirty, I started to experience long periods of fatigue that would sometimes last three to four weeks. Along with the fatigue some of the key symptoms that I suffered from were severe constipation, gas, bloating, and the abdominal discomfort that accompanies those things. Mood swings, skin problems, bladder infections, frequent yeast infections, brain fog, and an inability to keep weight on were also top of the list.

I started cancelling work opportunities and eventually had to walk away from my career. I was working as a fashion model, and had just signed up with Wilhelmina Models, one of the top agencies in New York City. I spent the next seven years living at the mercy of my dis-ease. There were days when going to the post office to mail a package felt like a lot, and other days where I had an abundance of energy—which made my day-to-day life very hard to navigate. Struggling with all of this led to periodic bouts of despair, which would arise out of feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, frustration, embarrassment, isolation, and loneliness.

I didn’t talk to anyone about my symptoms partially because I felt self-conscious; but mostly because I had no idea what being in a healthy and properly functioning body felt like. Maybe all of this was normal. In my routine medical checkups, I was told that everything looked great. So I learned, as all humans do, to adapt to my circumstances and function in my life as best I could. I found that sticking to a “healthier” diet—a cocktail of all that I had learned—helped me function at somewhat normal levels.

In my mid-thirties I went back to school to study interior design. However, the intensity of the program, and the readily available cafeteria food made it very difficult to be disciplined about food prep. At the end of the first semester, it took me an entire three weeks to recuperate; at the end of the first year, it took me six weeks; and at the end of the second year, I had to suspend my studies.

QUOTE BY JAMES HILLMAN | IMAGE BY PECH FRANTISEK

The year that followed was easily one of the most difficult years of my life. I knew that something was wrong with my health, but my general practitioner assured me that it was all stress related; all my test results were perfectly normal. At that point, I became concerned about my future, especially how I was going to support myself financially. I was struggling to work a forty-hour work week, which most interior design firms required; and so, I took a calculated risk and started my own interior design business. At least that way I would be able to control the hours that I worked.

Around this time, a woman that I knew from school, told me she was working with a Naturopath on some health issues. She had a very positive experience. I was reluctant to spend the money, but I was feeling desperate enough to try. Through a series of events, I connected with a woman who was considered one of the top Naturopathic doctors in Toronto, Canada. In our very first meeting she had me start a diet diary, and the first thing we did was monitor what I was eating and how it made me feel. Through many follow up visits and discussions we decided to submit some samples to a lab in the USA. The report came back indicating that I had a very high intolerance to gluten, with additional sensitivities to dairy and sugar cane. Keep in mind that at the turn of the millennia gluten intolerance was not a common diagnosis.

Shortly after this discovery I started a cleanse eliminating everything from my diet that contained these three foods. I committed to staying on this program for three months to see if there was a change in any of my symptoms. I had my answer within three weeks when my bowel movements noticeably improved. Around the two months mark I did a test to confirm if dairy was really an issue for me. I ate a big bowl of yogurt and then paid attention for the next 24 hours writing down everything that I felt; and I felt fine until the next day, 14 hours later, when I noticed that I was in a really cranky mood. I repeated this test three weeks later and I experienced the exact same results. I was quite fascinated by how strong this reaction was, and how ignorant I was to the dairy-mood connection prior to this cleanse.

After six months of “strictly” eliminating sugar cane, dairy, and gluten from my diet I would describe how I felt as “born again”. For the first time in my life, I had a “joie de vivre” for lack of a better word, that I had never experienced before. This led me to believe that I had been repressed since childhood. I continued with this diet for the next four years; not as strictly with the elimination of sugar but ingesting little to no dairy or gluten. Every six months I noticed new shifts in my energy and overall health, which afforded me the ability to do more things without sacrificing time for making meals. Not all my symptoms disappeared completely, but I was well enough to build and run a full-time residential design business.

QUOTE BY WILLIAM SHAKESPHEARE | IMAGE BY SEIDENPERLE

During this four-year healing period I chose to remain single. I focused my energy on my health, sticking as closely as I could to my diet. I also had to overcome some deeply rooted psychological limitations. Until then I had adapted my life to fit my circumstances and there were a lot of things I did not believe, or even knew that I could do. Overcoming those limitations and limiting beliefs gave me the courage to start dating again. It also gave me the discernment to make better choices in romantic partners, and at the age of 46 I met my husband.

In a new relationship, and running a successful and demanding business, I once again found it incredibly hard to prepare food the way I had done when I was single. I was also eating new foods that I had rarely if ever included in my diet, because of my new relationship. As I drifted away from the healthy lifestyle I had so carefully maintained, my energy levels shifted, and some of my earlier symptoms returned along with new aches and pains I had never experienced before. An ultrasound concluded that I had bursitis in my hips and the prevailing solution was to manage the discomfort with anti-inflammatory meds.

In April of 2019 my now fiancé and I moved into our recently purchased home. For the next two years we adjusted to living together under the stress of the worldwide pandemic, and the multiple cancellations of our wedding. You can read about that adventure in My Wedding Story. It was an incredibly stressful time, as it was for most people, but one of the many blessings that came out of forced isolation was the opportunity to reflect on what is truly important, and make the adjustments needed to change course.

I turned my attention back towards my lifelong pursuit of optimum health. I could hear my soul whispering to me that mantra about growing old gracefully. This time it was about deepening the practice and discipline of self-care no matter what life throws at you. My husband was a great mirror for what I had to work on. When he filled our kitchen pantry with foods that were my greatest weakness, and I tried to blame him for my declining health, he threw it back at me and said it had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with my lack of will.

Some might say that he was being cruel, but on a soul level I knew that there was truth in what he said. There was always going to be something “out there” that would tempt me to fail, and hold me back from living my best life, if I was willing to let it. If I truly recognize the sacredness of the vessel that carries my soul through this lifetime, then I might also recognize the importance of its specific care; and that not caring for it is an act of self-sabotage.

QUOTE BY STEVEN R. GUNDRY | IMAGE BY SILVIARITA

With a renewed commitment, I turned my attention to a growing body of research by Dr. Steven Gundry about the effects of Lectins on our health. While flipping through images on social media one evening, one of Gundry’s marketing videos caught my attention. Many of the things he talked about seemed to run parallel with my own personal health experiences. I was intrigued enough to purchase his book The Plant Paradox.

In quick summary, Gundry “reveals that gluten is just one variety of a common highly toxic, plant-based protein called Lectin.” Lectins are found in many of the foods we eat every day. “Once ingested, they incite a kind of chemical warfare on our bodies, causing inflammatory reactions.” Gundry also talks extensively about the harmful effects of sugar, reveals why so many people may have dairy intolerances, and overall brings it back to the importance of gut health.

Fast forward to the winter of 2024 when I am writing this message. I am currently anywhere from eighty to one hundred percent on Dr. Gundry’s program—depending on what stresses life is throwing my way. I can confidently say, after all that I have been through, that for anyone struggling with less than stellar health, The Plant Paradox is a program and lifestyle worth investigating. The previously diagnosed Bursitis has disappeared, and all but a few minor symptoms remain, which are always aggravated when I stray from the program. With time and perseverance, I see steady improvements, always feeling and looking incrementally better. I am now working on a Lectin Free cookbook so that my meat-and-potato loving husband and I can enjoy the foods I prepare together. He is my taste test; if a meal does not get his approval, it does not go into the book.

I am not one to put my faith in things that I do not see, feel, and experience for myself. Based solely on a lifetime of trial and observation I suspect, in the not-too-distant future, Lectin’s will become the new gluten. I have had zero connection with Dr. Steven Gundry outside of following his program and purchasing some of his supplements. I am genuinely sharing this health journey with the world in the service of a healthy thriving human population, personal growth, and knowing the feelings of love, joy, and freedom that expand with optimum health. I am neither a doctor nor a scientist, but a master of my own health.

My journey will resonate with some and not with others; but keep in mind that The Plant Paradox program, in my opinion, is a wonderful combination of many diets and can be adapted to Keto, Raw and Vegan. Diets that did not work so well for me may prove to be instrumental in another person’s journey. Always trust your own inner guide as to whether you would like to pursue a shift in your daily practice of life; and always pay acute attention to whether something benefits you. As for me, my “growing old gracefully” mantra continues to live loudly in my soul’s essence; and I will continue to stay open to, and experiment with, new advances in healing through food.

QUOTE BY JIM ROHN | IMAGE BY SEIDENPERLE

It is a very powerful choice to exercise discipline and do the work of caring for your physical body so that it can support you through your life’s adventures; but it is also a very difficult one. I cannot speak for the world, but our current North American culture does not support REAL, LIFE AFFIRMING, VIBRANT HEALTH. We consume an overwhelming amount of food geared primarily at providing a source of distraction, comfort, and entertainment (sugar, drugs, alcohol ultra processed meals, and snack foods); rather than our source of nourishment and support. We think nothing of feeding our body with the lowest quality, mass produced, cheaply made, and highly marketed empty and health-destroying fillers that occupy much of the grocery store shelving.

People are willing to put the responsibility for their health entirely in the hands of the prevailing medical system, and the Covid 19 pandemic shone a massive floodlight on this phenomenon. In Canada during the pandemic, there was a two-year period where we rotated through multiple lockdowns. These were extreme measures enforced to protect the vulnerable and to protect people’s health. Yet, not once in the two-year period did I personally hear any health professionals on main stream media talk about the importance of caring for our body and strengthening our immune system through natural means such as diet and exercise.

Discussion and/or debate about things like adequate sleep, physical activity, healthy foods, and taking supplements, did not seem top of mind collectively, and showed how irresponsible we have become. No one was encouraged to minimize sugar intake, avoid alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and stress. In some jurisdictions gyms were mandated to shut down, people were encouraged not to visit public parks, and retailers of liquor and marijuana (recently legalized in Canada) were allowed to stay open because they were considered essential.

To land-and-lock-in my point above, very few people questioned this, or even batted an eyelash. Our disconnect from our personal response-ability is profound.

I do believe humans are in a severe health crisis. We have ignorantly traded in our intuitive knowing that nourishing foods are our primary means of vital-life-force, believing instead that our doctors and the drugs they prescribe are our primary means of vital-life-support—treating the symptoms alone and not the cause. Modern and conventional medicine has a very important place in our overall health and comfort. It is a blessing in so many ways and not to be discredited; but its place is in the background of our health journey, not in the foreground.

Prioritizing our health is a responsibility we owe ourselves, our loved ones, and our community. Taking the time to nourish our body nourishes our soul and ensures that we are better equipped to lead purpose-filled, creative, and meaningful lives, that align with our originally intended divine blueprint.

All of the written content for Nuith|NewEarth comes directly from the consciousness of humans, and mostly from the consciousness of Celia Alida Rutte. No artificial intelligence has been employed to write these messages. The writers work and creative struggle was real. Credit to the author noted above is deserved and greatly appreciated.