The road to wellness isn't straight, clear, or predictable. It's a path you forge yourself.
Showing posts with label Pictures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pictures. Show all posts

Thursday, March 4, 2010

My Blood

This is what my blood looked like about 5 months ago.  I visited a "Functional Medicine Practitioner".   (More on this visit coming soon!)  They put a drop of my blood under a microscope, then showed it to me on a computer screen.  This is a photo of the print-out they sent me home with: 
As you can see, my blood is relatively healthy.  The only problem is that some of the cells are not quite perfectly round.  Can you see the slightly misshapen ones?  Dr. Cooper says that blood cells function more efficiently when they are perfectly round and that taking fish oil is one thing that can help with this.

The globby-looking things are white-blood cells (except for in the bottom right picture).  I could actually see them moving!  The really bright thing is something that a white blood cell sends out to help fight disease.  (I forget what she said this was called.  Cyto-something or other?  Can a medical friend help me out here?)  This is all what it's supposed to do. 

In the picture on the bottom left, there are two cells that are misshapen  because they are running into something dark.  Do you see this?  I was told that this is yeast!  (You can see a smaller piece on the right of the pic as well.)  The poor cells were trying to do their job even though the yeast was getting in their way.  I kinda felt sorry for them.  I have to say, if you need motivation to eat right, have someone show you your blood cells.  Just seeing them makes you want to give them what they need!

Below is a slightly clearer picture: 
 

The bottom two rows are additional pictures which were taken in negative. They did this because you can see the yeast more easily. The yeast looks similar to the white blood cells in these pictures, but if you saw them live on the screen you can totally tell the difference. The white blood cells move and change shape. The yeast is darker and it floats around without changing shape.  What  you see in these negative images is yeast.  


Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Pictures of Progress

Here are some pictures of me which help to show my progress so far.

June 2009 - At my heaviest (195 lbs.):


November 14, 2009 - 175 lbs:        Today, (March 2, 2010) - 168 lbs:



As you can see, I've still got a long way to go but it's a start.  For my height (5'3"), I should be around 130 or so.  I did fall off the wagon around Christmas and ate wheat, dairy, and sugar so that did slow down my progress.  However, I'm back on now with a vengeance!