I've been sneaking in cat naps at work, usually in the morning after I bring the two older girls to school and the three-year-old is occupied with a movie or computer game back at the house. I refuse to self medicate with caffeine. When I lived in NYC, everyone walked around with a coffee, looking zombified and pale. I just don't want to sign up for that. I did the Starbucks venti latte thing for a month this winter and I was immediately hooked. I loved it. The taste, the smell, the warmth, the thing to look forward to in the morning, and it's cocaine-like effect. But it drained my face of it's natural rosy hue and I would have energy crashes in the late afternoon. I don't miss it now, even when going through a tired spell.
I gained ten pounds this month too, incidentally the same amount of weight I lost while on my ten day juice fast last month. It might be time for another juice fast, but I want to enjoy the harvest of all the local farms in Southern RI beforehand. Afterward, I can still make juice with local produce, but for now I want to enjoy spaghetti squash, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes. I also bought some local buckwheat honey and another strain of honey from some rare flower that blows my mind, it's so good. I add it to my morning decaf green tea (a super cleanser). And I bought local maple syrup and gluten-free pancake mix. I want to experiment with pear sauce, eat my self-jarred cabbage (probiotic enzyme salad) and finish my leftover cabbage soup in the fridge, and enjoy maybe one more ice cream cone before the local dairy shop in town closes for the season. I had my favorite Thai meal last night, Tofu green curry extra spicy four pepper hot as hell (that is how I literally order it), and I dined alone, took pictures of my food and my sweaty face with running nose, and felt cleared of some constipation this morning. There's nothing quite like spicy food - especially in a Thai dish that uses sweet coconut cream. You get the sweet, salty, creamy and spicy all together. Lot's of vegetables. Brown rice on the side. And since there's no dairy or meat (the two top cancer causing foods), it's just fantastic, orgasmic, guiltless pleasure. Every bite is an experience, and I savor every second it's in my mouth.
I've been really enjoying dinnertime ever since learning, like most things in my life, that I've been misinformed. The food pyramid they teach you in school is bullshit. And breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. It's actually the most expendable meal of the day. Your body cleanses itself overnight, and your empty belly physiologically craves fruit in the morning. Just fruit alone. Anything else consumed with the fruit makes the fruit spoil. So I eat a banana or make a juice. Or both. And fruit digests very quickly - thirty minutes - so you need to consume it when your stomach is empty (in the morning) so that you don't cause a traffic jam. If you have cereal or toast and fruit, well, the fruit ends up behind the more dense food spoiling while the dense food takes a couple hours to digest. Have the fruit first. Wait a half hour. Then have something else if you need to.
One nice thing about being a babysitter is that I can bring my juicer to work. The little three-year-old gets a step stool and stands up to push the button and watch the juice fill the cups. She likes the apple juice but no other concoctions. She laughs at everything. I don't get what's so funny. But I enjoy her good humor. She's a very easy kid.
But I need to prepare for a thirty day juice fast. Before I know it, there will be Halloween candy, Thanksgiving dinner, and Christmas cookies. Maybe the best time to start a thirty day juice fast will be mid-October. I can do without the candy, and Thanksgiving is November 22nd. That gives me plenty of time to squeeze in thirty days before the doom of winter and it's fattening agents take effect.
I should also mention, in case anyone reads this, that juicing is horrible the first few days. You'll literally feel like you are dying, as your body suffers withdrawal from all the various drugs (processed food) you've been eating. You will have headaches, fatigue, depression, anxiety, and nauseousness. It's best to ween yourself off bad habits here and there before doing any kind of fast. I buy some gluten free snacks and bread occasionally, but haven't made the entire shift. I eat meat and dairy occasionally, but very rarely compared to just a couple years ago. I gave up caffeine, although it never was a long-term habit. I cut down on alcohol a lot. I used to have a drink or two (or more) most days of the week, since I lived with an alcoholic boyfriend, but now on my own, I forget to even think about alcohol most days. But if you want to know what self-taught and world-traveled nutritionists say about alcohol, they say that vodka is the least bad liquor, dark beer is the least bad beer, and red organic wine with no sulfates added is the best wine. I tried "no sulfates detected" organic red wine once and it was horrible. I stick to cold white wine and cosmopolitans, and if I want a beer, which is rare, I order a Guinness. It's like a meal in itself, and the froth is thick and creamy.
I have such an all-or-nothing personality that it's hard dieting. I can't tell you how many times I read a book or had a fat day and said "No More ___________ (fill in the blank, I've said it at least a hundred times)". But old wisdom is important. "Everything in moderation," is my new outlook. And my most important rule now is this: fruit in the morning, and nothing else. Your body uses energy to digest food, so the less energy you spend digesting a big morning meal, the more energy you have saved up for your day. Most of this extra energy is beautifying. Your inner cell walls cleanse themselves, and the sludge built up inside your intestinal lining gets broken down. If you have a lot of sludge, this sludge will have to pass through your bloodstream and may make you look ugly for the first few days, but after a few amazing bathroom experiences, you will feel and look like a new person. Fruit. Alone. In the morning. Try it. Have a banana. Eat half an avocado as a mid-morning snack. Incorporate a salad into your lunch. Before you know it, you'll be full by dinnertime and you can enjoy virtually anything you want at night because you will be full of fiber and won't be able to overeat anyhow. Chemically too, your belly will be alkalized and ready to take on any kind of acidifying crap. I prefer somewhat healthy crap, or small portions of super crappy food (like buffalo chicken pizza and blue cheese dressing - yum!), but you get my drift. Enjoy dinner. Your body will have all night to digest it, and you'll re-cleanse with fruit in the morning.
I recently started drinking a sea vegetable powdered drink mix called "Boku," and it has definitely stirred up some sludge in my body that my juicing has missed. My face looks aged and I've been constipated. But this is part of my ongoing effort to teach my body to use new foods. I think people give up on diets because they want immediate results and often it's one step back before the two steps forward.
I'm getting blood work done to test my thyroid, as soon as I save up a million dollars to pay for it since I don't have insurance, but I'm excited to experiment with healing my body naturally. I have a severely under-active thyroid, and my dosage is very high (.125 mg). The doctor had to raise the levels three times to get me normal. People with hypothyroidism often become obese and can qualify for all kinds of weight loss surgery. This scares me, but I grew up without the thyroid diagnosis and without the meds. Any normal person doing the exercise and healthful eating I do would weigh 100 lbs. I weigh close to 140. After I get my blood-work done, which will probably show my levels are dangerously low again, I'll go on a natural thyroid drug (they sell lots of them in the health food store, more than any kind of natural drug), and then I'll retest my thyroid levels and see if it makes a difference. So exciting!
It's so important we don't rely heavily on prescription medications. With my one med, Synthroid, I risked my thyroid becoming completely inactive someday (as it relies on the medication, and doesn't have to do it's own work, be it very crappy work it was doing in the first place, at least it was doing something). Thyroid problems run rampant in my family genes, and it would be nice to break the cycle. God forbid, the thyroid meds aren't available someday and I die from having an inactive, drug-dependent thyroid. There needs to be a safer way to self-treat. Going off the Synthroid has led to some weight-gain, increased hunger, and fatigue, but at least my body if forced to rely on itself.
Let me recommend a documentary to view. It's called "Forks Over Knives" - available on Hulu to watch for free. It's a documentary about The China Study. What you will learn about meat and dairy will help you cut down on it easily! At least for the most part. Parents should not be feeding their children cow's milk, nor any animal protein. Vegetables have sufficient protein, and too much calcium actually CAUSES bone disease such as osteoporosis. There is no animal cruelty stuff in this documentary, just pure science of what animal protein (casein) does to you. Told by two dairy farmers who studied medicine and became doctors who actually studied nutrition in their own free time. They had to completely let go of everything they'd believed in when they looked at the research about meat and dairy food. The government very deliberately propagated the need for meat and milk after WWII and with the boom of processed food, the government took over our health. And now they make money off the crappy genetically modified (non) food and the meat and dairy industry which gets us sick, on meds, and in need of surgery. As long as we're alive and feeling like crap, the government makes money. We can't avoid all the toxins in the atmosphere and water, and we can't avoid germs. I'm not talking about a Howie Mandel lifestyle. Just cutting back on foods that the government has lied to us about in order to make money.
Go grow a vegetable garden and make friends with some farmers and Amish people. You'll live longer and be happier. As long as you don't get struck by lightning or get run over by a car. That can always happen too, which is why I think a lot of people don't even care to try when it comes to being healthy. But regardless, just watch the film. You'll see.
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