1 . Early one Saturday, I headed to a “sugar detox (戒糖)” seminar at my gym.

I was there on ________ orders. Mark Hyman, the medical director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine, had advised a sugar detox for me to ________ visceral (内脏的) fat, which he said “________ a whole range of diseases from cancer to heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.”

As I started my detox, unexpectedly, Hyman advised me to ________ “more fat, because fat makes you feel full and speeds your metabolism (新陈代谢),” which I didn’t know. Then came a second surprise: “Fat ________ helps you burn fat,” he explained, ________ many of the myths I’d grown up with.

For the first several days, frankly, my detoxing was ________. Making certain foods ________ made me want them more. Ice cream. Pasta. Chocolate. Even wine, which contains a ________ amount of sugar. My desire for sugar was intense and seemed never-ending, and if I cheated I felt like a ________. I was easy to get annoyed and moody.

But by day five the ________ had cooled down. I started to lose weight. Before the detox I weighed 166 pounds. Twelve weeks later, I ________ a new low adult weight: 155. My bloodwork looks much better. And as my belly fat has ________, I do feel better and more energetic.

I’m now in my fourth month of a ________ detox—I don’t want to live without wine or some sweets. I know I can’t ________ all added sugars, no matter how alarmed I may be.

Sugar detox is worth trying on the whole.

2 . When I was in school, I took an internship (实习期的工作). This meant that I would spend time with some hospital _________.

On one _________, I carefully entered a dark room to find an elderly man lying in bed. I firstly thought he was sleeping. When I moved closer, _________, I realized he was very much _________, but also very confused. He seemed to be _________something. He wanted to communicate something, but I couldn’t make _________ of what he was saying. He seemed quite weak, and I couldn’t _________if he was in pain, or just frightened. I knew nothing about him, and I feel totally helpless. He clearly didn’t want me to _________ him, but I felt so lost and _________ that I had to leave the room after only a couple of minutes.       

The next time I was at the hospital and saw him again, I was certain that he didn’t __________me at all. But he immediately said, “I remember you. You gave me __________in my darkest hour that evening!” I was so amazed that, __________ , I didn’t know how to __________.

In the __________ moments of my staying there, I did nothing at all. But __________ he found in me something he needed, just because I was there.

I have thought about this __________ often over the past years. It has __________ the way I see life, the way I see myself, and the way I see others. It makes me want to __________ whatever kindness I can to others, and I try to recognize and appreciate the kindness that others __________ with me.

So a stranger in the form of a weak, old man changed the rest of my life with just a few __________.

3 . A few months ago, I was down with a terrible cold which ended in a cough that was hard to get rid of. No matter how many different medicines I tried, I_________couldn’t get rid of the cough. Not only did it_________my teaching but also my life as a whole.

Then one day after class, a student came up to me and_________ traditional Chinese medicine. From description Chinese medicine sounded as if it had magic power that_________. I was_________   because I knew so little about it and have never tried it before. _________ my cough got so much worse that I couldn’t sleep at night, so I decided to give it a_________.The Chinese doctor took my pulse and asked to see my tongue, both of which were’ new experience to me because they are both_________ in Western medicine, where diagnosis relies heavily on_________. Then the doctor gave me a scraping (刮) treatment known as “Gua Sha”. I was a little __________ at first because he used a smooth edged tool to scrape the skin on my neck and shoulders.

A few minutes later, the treatment started to produce a__________effect and my body and mind began to sink deeper into__________. I didn’t feel any improvement in my__________in the first couple of days, but after a few more regular visits to the doctor, my cough started to __________. Then within a matter of weeks, it was completely__________ !