Today I went on a lovely and very rigorous hike.

I haven’t gone hiking for ages. I used to join a group of women regularly for hikes when living in Beit Shemesh but it’s been five years since I’ve had that opportunity.

As much as I enjoyed hiking, as time has gone on my desire to participate has gone down quite a bit. Until a year ago, I was experiencing pain in my right hip, left knee and plantar fasciitis on the sole of my left foot that was getting worse as time went on. I didn’t know what made it hurt but I knew that walking any distance made the pain more likely and staying off my feet kept it at bay. So I managed my pain by avoiding triggers.

Additionally, sometimes without any warning my right leg would go out from under me. It’s as if it didn’t catch when I would stand up or take a step. Just for a moment, not enough to cause me to fall, but enough to cause discomfort. It was very unnerving.

In January last year I began eating a zero carb/carnivore diet, and these pains completely disappeared. The hip pain has sometimes briefly returned when I don’t adhere to zero carb guidelines, and a couple of times in the last year my leg hasn’t ‘caught’. I’ve never had the knee pain or plantar fasciitis return even a smidge.

When I heard about the trip, I didn’t think about not going because pain isn’t part of my considerations any more. Until I was on the middle of the hike I didn’t think of how I used to feel not so long ago.

The hike was surprisingly rigorous, with a lot of steep and narrow paths. In one place we needed to use hands and feet to climb up, going almost on all fours with hardly room to place a foot. And at the end was a very steep extended section of a mountain that we climbed.

I did it all easily, staying at the front of the group the entire time, and not feeling any need to pause or rest at any point. It wasn’t until someone mentioned her walking stick helps her compensate for her knee pain that I was reminded that this is a hike I wouldn’t have been able to participate in.

After the first serious ascent, I looked down the way we had come and reflected that I never would have made it this far if I hadn’t changed my diet. If I had joined the hike, I would have gotten stuck at the ascension point and had to return on my own without completing the hike. I don’t think I physically could have ascended the paths that I did today, even if I was willing to suffer a lot of pain. I could just picture my dread seeing the climb ahead of and realizing that I wouldn’t be able to do it. (I took my dog with me, and even he had a hard time with the ascent.)

Today I was climbing without strain, without pain and with agility; there was no point I felt even a twinge of discomfort. I didn’t even feel sore or strained from the exertion afterward.

I feel very grateful to be enjoying a level of health and wellness that I thought was behind me, and to have turned back the hands of time. It feels like aging in reverse.

Avivah