8 Weeks with Dr. Weil

I started reading Andrew Weil's 8 Weeks to Optimum Health last weekend and thought I might give the program a try. I'd heard of Dr. Weil before (I already had the canine version of the book, 8 Weeks to a Healthy Dog by Shawn Messonnier, and I've been using some of Dr. Weil's mind-body techniques for a stress-management program at my internship). When I ran across 8 Weeks at Half Price Books, I thought I'd give it a try.

Dr. Weil is my kind of doctor; he went to medical school and learned typical "Western" medicine but he has also studied alternative methods and believes that the best medical interventions are the least invasive ones that work. Plus, he believes that true health involves the mind and spirit as well as the body, and so his program incorporates both mind and body.

This book outlines an 8-week program, with different "projects" for each week. At the end, you are supposed to be much healthier than when you started. My husband is willing to humor me (for the moment, anyway), and so we started with Week 1 on Sunday.

The program starts out with small changes: In the first week, you are supposed to throw out unhealthy foods (those with transfats, any oils besides olive oil, artificial sweeteners, or artificials colors), eat broccoli, eat salmon, take vitamins and antioxidants, start walking 10 minutes a day, and do 5 minutes of meditation each day.

We started out with a trip to Whole Foods for vitamins and supplements. My husband, gazing at the infinite variety of expensive supplements, said, "This must be a health plan for rich people." We selected a variety of different health-inducing supplements and a 6-pack of beer to wash down both the vitamins and the sticker shock.

We have been taking the vitamins, walking, and meditating. We had our weekly serving of salmon, and we have broccoli on the menu twice this week. My husband is not yet willing to give up diet sodas (and I did have a diet Coke with lunch, although my goal is to cut back to one soda a day). We have both started drinking green tea (which isn't on the itinerary until Week 2, but I like tea anyway so I was happy to start early).

We'll see how this goes...