How I came to be on an all beef diet: Part 2

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Even though the Ulcerative Colitis was thankfully in remission I still had a host of other symptoms such as brain fog, fatigue, weak arms, loss of sensation in hands et al. Originally I thought that all the problems associated with lack of circulation, numbness and weakness in my arms were due to the diagnosis of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS) I had received from the head of the Vascular Surgery department at the University of Rochester hospital when I was 22. That had to do with a compression of the nerve and artery bundles that run under the clavicle and symptoms would occur when I would play the violin. (All that is quite another story indeed.) But I noticed that my arms would get floppy and weak at times even if I hadn’t played the violin at all, and symptoms would occur or intensify suddenly. Plus the brain fog would usually accompany it and that certainly wasn’t related to what could have been TOS.

I had a lot of other symptoms as well at this time, but then as now one of my chief concerns was how to play the violin without a fuzzy brain, debilitating pain and muscle weakness, so I paid special attention to when these symptoms were happening. I concluded that they did not result entirely from putting stress on my body while playing the violin.

A wonderfully knowledgeable and skilled chiropractor in town believed my symptoms in part were due to food sensitivities so she sent me to get blood work done. The results were actually not surprising considering the dysfunction of my health, but this concrete piece of information was to be the next single greatest game changer in my health. The blood work revealed that I was sensitive to some degree of ALL but 3 of the 120 plus foods and moderately to highly sensitive to half of them. The only 3 foods I had zero sensitivity to were BEEF, broccoli and cherries.

I was obviously advised to eliminate all highly sensitive food and to eat sparingly the moderately sensitive foods and rotate the low sensitive foods. But if I wanted to have a great violin rehearsal and performance, guess what I ate? Beef. During this period in my life my health was pretty poor and I wasn’t playing the violin nearly as much as now, but as my health improved so did the quantity of my rehearsals and performances. This year I found I was eating beef as much as 4-5 times a week to give me the optimal performance I needed.

Staying away from the foods I was highly sensitive to wildly increased the quality of my life. Not only did I feel better physically, but psychologically I didn’t need to battle the constant humility and despair of having repeated rehearsal and performance disasters where I was totally incapacitated by a “hijacked” brain (a couple times I remember being so disoriented the only thing I could focus on was trying to move my bow in the same direction as everyone else) or a body too weak, slow or numb that it could not physically execute the passages. Even though I still struggle with slow fine motor skills and weakness the degree is no where near as debilitating as it once was, and that’s saying a lot.

Even though I believe that my tolerance to many of the sensitive foods has increased I still feel by far the most energized in my body and the most focused in my brain when I eat beef, plus it’s reliable with no surprises. The worst is when I’m all geared up to do a rehearsal and then I go out to eat and ingest something that clouds my thinking and makes my arms like gumby. It’s disheartening. I rarely take that chance anymore. Who needs that? So if there’s gonna be music, there’s gonna be beef.