Bye-Bye Cellulite

Standing in the shower, scrubbing my skin with lemon and oatmeal soap, and letting the warm water pour down my thighs, I discovered something missing—cellulite. Gone. The cottage-cheese-rippled legs that have been so familiar these last six years have changed into firm smooth thighs from my sexier past.

Cellulite is excess fat stored in the body in ugly dimpled patterns. Skinny women that gain weight over a short period of time tend to have cellulite more often than their heavier sisters. We, well plumper ladies, tend not to get bumpy legs until enough weight gained makes us obese, adding that extra nastiness around the legs and buttocks—like a pair of shorts made out of bubble wrap. I wore that layer myself.

I am sure there is a wealth of pills, herbs, creams, exercise regimes, and literature covering the elimination of cellulite. I have not looked for any of them. From the start, my goal has been to lose weight to become a healthy kidney donor for my husband.

After meeting my weight goal in November, I decided to continue dieting to reach my ideal body mass index BMI by June 2011. For me the side benefits of continuing the raw food diet for the last three months included smooth skin, no pimples, stronger fingernails, and the elimination of cellulite. That’s quite a laundry list of perks for eating better and exercising once in a while.

Keeping in mind that I am still thirty pounds overweight, it should be exciting to find out what other benefits are waiting for me in the near future.

Diabetes

My God-daughter called me today with a bit of a scare. She had been tested for diabetes at the tender age of twenty-seven about the same age that Paul was when he found out he had diabetes. The tests for her were negative. Yea! However the reality of diabetes looms on the horizon not just for Brandy but for many more in the United States.

Your diet can trigger health issues like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer or it can be utilized to promote health, strong bones, and a beautiful complexion. The choice is a matter of what you put into your mouth. You could eat nine hundred calories a day and lose weight. It really doesn’t matter what calories you consume. Four and a half candy bars are about nine hundred calories. So are four salads, one banana, one slice of sprouted bread with peanut butter, cup of herb tea, ten glasses of water, an apple, six ounces of lemon sole fish, three pieces of California roll with soy sauce. Now which option—the candy or the food—would be the better health choice for dieting? Yet advertisement after advertisement shows skinny people eating “diet” candy bars or getting energy from a peanut caramel bar. No wonder we are confused.

Whole, fresh, and mostly raw foods offer the solution to hereditary—and I use that term as loosely as the AMA does—illnesses like hypertension and diabetes. Americans must give up fast, processed, and comfort foods to live healthy. Don’t take my word for it. Research magazines like “Diabetes Management” or books like “The Cure.” Please look at the statistics below. The source is American Diabetes Association http://www.diabetes.org/.

Data from the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet (released Jan. 26, 2011)
Total prevalence of diabetes
Total: 25.8 million children and adults in the United States—8.3% of the population—have diabetes.
Diagnosed: 18.8 million people
Undiagnosed: 7.0 million people
Prediabetes: 79 million people*
New Cases: 1.9 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older in 2010.
* In contrast to the 2007 National Diabetes Fact Sheet, which used fasting glucose data to estimate undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes, the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet uses both fasting glucose and A1C levels to derive estimates for undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes. These tests were chosen because they are most frequently used in clinical practice.

Under 20 years of age
• 215,000, or 0.26% of all people in this age group have diabetes
• About 1 in every 400 children and adolescents has type 1 diabetes
Age 20 years or older
• 25.6 million, or 11.3% of all people in this age group have diabetes
Morbidity and Mortality
• In 2007, diabetes was listed as the underlying cause on 71,382 death certificates and was listed as a contributing factor on an additional 160,022 death certificates. This means that diabetes contributed to a total of 231,404 deaths.

Brandy is changing her life by changing her diet. I hope you will do the same.

Broccoli

We spent three hours of the afternoon with the homecare nurse. She changed Paul's foot wound dressings and coached me while I administered his first round of Vancomyicin at the house. I am proud to say I made it through without killing my husband or fainting. A small accomplishment for a Monday.

I made a run to the pharmacy for my hubby then stopped at my favorite local health food store which carried Ultimate Flora Critical Care probiotics—recommended by my friend Pam Medeiros to counteract some of the side effects Paul’s home injections of Vancomyicin. Moose still recovering from two surgeries requested chicken soup for dinner. Born in 1964, my husband is a product of television marketing, preferring Snapple to sun tea, Jiffy peanut butter or organic ground, and Campbell’s Chicken and Stars to about any other chicken soup other than my homemade. So not run to two grocery stores, I also picked up organic graham crackers and saltines at the health food store. Too pooped to go on one more stop, I purchased the…gasp…healthy soup.

After walking the dog, watching All My Children on SoapNet, bouncing on my trampoline, and cleaning the bathrooms, I set about dinner. I decided if Paul wanted chicken soup and crackers, I would go for steamed turnips and broccoli. Understand I don’t like either turnips or broccoli or at least I didn’t. Farm Fresh to You has been delivering organic fruits and vegetables every other week to our home for three months now. And WOW. Organics taste different than the food offered in the grocery stores. Organic broccoli does not taste like broccoli. The flavor is milder and fresh. It’s the difference between the flavor and texture of roasted corn on the cob and canned corn. Not the same food.

I plopped two pans on the stove starting the soup in one and flipping the steamer in the other. Poindexter got fed cheeseburger flavored canned dog food. I chopped the turnips and broccoli and tossed them into the pan. Of course I hummed Dana Carvey’s classic song, “Chopping Broccoli” while doing so. Paul and I talked about the Croatian episode of House Hunters International he watched while I cooked.

Something was burning. I looked at the soup then the veggies—steamed poured from both. I poured his soup out into a bowl and set it on the table. The metallic-burning smell filled the kitchen and the dog started sneezing. Pulling the lid off of the veggies, I found the edges of the broccoli black. I had “steamed” the veggies for seven minutes with no water—burning the pan and the contents. Amazed that I did not set fire to the kitchen, I poured water over the grate and shut off the burner.

Paul took one taste of his organic soup and crushed eight saltines into it before taking another bite. I had one bite of blackened broccoli and threw it away. I had an orange instead. Not our best dinner.

I lost five pounds this month.

Fresh Pickle Recipe (No Salt)

Looking to reduce salt in your diet? Here's a great pickle recipe with crunchy freshness. This pickle recipe takes ten minutes to prepare and one day to cold cure are a delicious alternative to the current briny store offerings. Start with a clean kosher pickle jar. You can buy new or clean a used jar by washing it in the long-hot cycle of your dishwasher.

1 cup Light-colored Vinegar – your favorite rice, wine, or apple. I use raw apple cider vinegar.
16 oz Persian Cucumbers or English Cucumbers—cut length wise, enough to fill jar
2 Tbsp Pickling Spices
1 Tsp Peppercorn Whole (optional)
2-3 Tbsp Agave Syrup or Honey—pickles move from dill to sweet as you increase syrup
1 Sprig Fresh Dill

Optional Flavors use 1-3 Tsp to taste:
Red Pepper Flakes
Fresh Garlic sliced thin
Fresh Jalapeño sliced thin
Fresh Bell Peppers
Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Sliced Celery if you really miss the salt

Mix syrup, vinegar, and spices in a bowl and set aside. Cut up your vegetables. Pack your jar with the cut cucumbers, dill and optional flavorings. Stir the bowl of liquids and pour into the jar to fill. Scrape in any leftover spices. If the jar is not completely filled, add water. Close the jar with a lid. Rock the jar back and forth to insure the ingredients blend. IMPORTANT—Use a marker and put the date you made the pickles on the jar. Move immediately to the refrigerator. It takes twenty-four hours for the cucumbers to turn into pickles.

Don’t get discourage if the pickles are not perfect the first time. It takes a few tries to the flavor exactly the way you like them.

Pickles will last about three weeks in the refrigerator. In our house the pickles are usually eaten in a week. Make sure you throw away uneaten at the end of three weeks.

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

  Can you hear the choir of angels? I broke the barrier. Yes. I have lost forty-one pounds. I am now at my lowest weight since I turned thirty-nine. I am thrilled.
  My blog started June 29th and planned to end on November 6th—at the time, the date seemed far off. Now, not so much. So I am revising my schedule. I will stick to my modified raw diet until Thanksgiving. My cousin is serving me her homemade pumpkin soup. I wouldn’t miss that for the world. After Thanksgiving, I’ll see if I want to start the raw again.
  Absolutely, the American diet of meat three times a day, carbs with every meal, candy, and snacks that have no nutritional value, is out of my system forever. With the inexpensive home delivery of farm organic produce, I am learning to eat seasonally which is better for me and greens the planet by buying local not imported food. On my current diet, I feel less depressed, more energetic, and free of headaches—sinus or otherwise.
  I miss having a hot meal once and a while. Now that we are creeping up on soup season, I can’t imagine going through a winter without beef stew or chicken with dumpling soup. But now that I am within nineteen twenty-nine pounds of my ideal weight goal, this is a good time to keep the regimen going. Don’t you think? So I will stick it out a little longer and plan on having beef stew on Christmas Eve.
  Oh, and P.S. to my darling husband, Paul…Thanks for your support.

We Talked About Food

I met with a young woman at Church on Sunday. She sat with her six-year-old and her twin babies of just three months. Slowly, she gave up the story of her also young husband that has contracted a near-fatal heart condition causing him to quit work and go on disability. His illness is so severe that he cannot pick up his newborn sons.

The wife now has three children and a extremely sick husband to care for full-time. Her concern? What to fix for supper. The husband is limited to red meat twice per month, fish and chicken once a week, no packaged or processed foods, with the elimination of fats, eggs, and sugars. We talked about food.

Our angel-of-a-Parish Assistant organized volunteers to bring vegetarian meals to their home. She looked for someone to help do a few chores.

I promised to bring recipes. I dug out my copies of Dr. Timothy Brantly’s book The Cure and Ann Wigmore’s The Hippocrates Diet to give to the young family. Wigmore’s book covers the basics of eating healthy, the curative powers of juicing, and provides some recipes, The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen also made it into the box. Though not wholly vegetarian, the cookbook offers excellent food choices and a wide variety of flavors. The couple stated they liked all types of food.

I decided to give them a starter pack of things I found valuable in my diet. From the health food store I included—powdered wheatgrass juice, mung beans for sprouting, and organic veggies. From Trader Joes—Daily Bread brand sprouted wheat-bread, organic peanut butter, soy butter, almond milk, raw milk cheese, Pure Maple Syrup, Agave Syrup, and Brewers’ Yeast. She said she had sea-salt at home otherwise I would have included it.

The items get dropped off tomorrow. Please pray for the family.

Oh and I lost a pound this week.

Amazed

June 29th I held a weight of 260 pounds, obese, and wearing a size 20W. Today, September 6, I am 226 pounds – one pound short of my transplant weight goal – feeling healthy and wearing size 16 pants. Thirty-four pounds in ten weeks. 3.4 pounds per week average. Has anyone else ever experienced a diet like this?

FIVE POUNDS TO TRANSPLANT WEIGHT GOAL!

Four pounds lost this week. Yea! I upped my exercise a tad with the help of an overactive puppy and ate close to the outlined diet. What I’ve been eating of late: a homemade version of V-8 juice, steamed veggies like kale, carrots, green beans, spinach, and mushrooms, soft-boiled eggs, seared tuna salad with balsamic dressing, tacos made of lettuce, raw-milk goat cheese, homemade salsa verde and seared beef, many salads, fresh fruit, fruit, and more fruit gleaned from our awesome overproducing backyard trees.

My latest experiment attempted Japanese cuisine. I picked up seaweed wraps at the local grocery store, grabbed fresh crab meat, raw ahi tuna, avocado, and veg for California rolls. Following the easy instructions for sushi on the seaweed package, I made two California rolls and two tuna rolls for Mom and Paul. Each roll breaks down to eight pieces of cut sushi. Then I ground up sprouted sunflower seeds and lentils into a paste to replace the rice portion of the recipe and made the same type rolls for myself. I served up salads with ginger dressing, edamame, and hot sake. This was a necessary break from the rut I created with the raw diet. The Asian recipes far exceed most European and American faire in variety of flavor and fresh ingredients.

I am still only two weeks from my last three-day fast so I will start my one-day fast next Wednesday, September 1st. For those who think fasting destroys the muscle, I talked with a health professional who says you must fast forty days before destroying muscle tissue. One day ain’t going to hurt and I know my digestive track can use the break – not to mention what it is doing for the food budget.

July 2010

August 2010

Down the Rabbit Hole

When I started this diet I had no idea what new worlds I would find. Did you know that fruitarians exist? They eat only fruit. This is new information to me but part of an amazing labyrinth of raw-vegetarians juicing wheatgrass, dehydrating sprouted seeds to make raw breads, composting, and organically growing – refugees from the communes I read about in the Sixties that became successful all-natural entrepreneurs. Since this quest started, I have found organic wheatgrass farms in New Zealand and a Californian raw “baker” that ships overnight just about any healthy food craving you may have. “Curiouser and curiouser!”

The really bizarre stuff is found in the last half of each book. Just check the chapters on cleansing. You will find page after page detailing the joys of a clean and healthy bowel. How do you obtain such a thing? Glad you asked. The answer is by fasting, enemas, and high colonics. The detailed pages usually include sketches of someone on a slant board inserting a bulb into the underside of well you know. After flushing out the offending items from your system, you are to insert wheatgrass juice to hold for twenty minutes or so then expel. Apparently, this is the key to curing disease.

Now if one book mentioned it in passing… Ha! Sorry. If one book mentioned these procedures, I could have ignored it but all the books including The Cure talks about clearing the intestines. I visualized Steve Martin and Sarah Jessica Parker leaving the colonic spa in LA Story, Parker jumping up and down, reenergized and Martin walking funny, violated.

I am trying to be enthusiastic about juicing and have successfully sprouted lentils and sunflower seeds. But try as I might the idea of someone else or me, for that matter, inserting a green-water-filled bulb in my fanny is repulsive at best. Don’t let this scare you away from some really good health tips and information. The Hippocrates Diet states that specific cleanses are needed for those who are ill. Perhaps if I had colon cancer, colitis, or ulcers, maybe my desire – scratch that – my need could overcome the repulsion. I’m only seeking a lighter weight body through good nutrition...

 "and it really was a diet, after all."

No Plateau – Five Pounds Lighter

Yes indeedie. I lost five pounds this week. This is the forty-first day of the diet including the first week I just added water to my daily routine. With a total loss of twenty-seven pounds, I am averaging – are you ready – 0.65 or three-fifths of a pound per day. That is better than my average weekly loss with Tops, Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, South Beach, or any other program I have done and I have done many.

This past week I included a lemon-water fast followed by a two-day watermelon cleanse. According to “The Cure,” by Dr. Tim Brantley, you must break your fast with one week for each day fasting. I fasted three days so I cannot fast for three weeks. I remember a woman I worked with at Spartan Shops, San Jose State University – Marilyn Railsback. Every Wednesday, Marilyn sat at lunch sipping on tepid lemon-water, talking with the group, ignoring the mounds of food and desserts we stuffed into our mouths. We all thought she was a little off. Now I know she had much more respect for her body than I ever had. A weekly fast now seems the logical move for my system.

Annette passed along four more books relating to this diet. I finished “The Hippocrates Diet” by Ann Wigmore. Similar to “The Cure,” she discusses the elimination of certain diseases from the body through proper diet. In fact, last three books, including Dr. Tim’s, talked so much about how cancer, heart disease, and diabetes all stem from processed food, I felt guilty for feeding poor Poindexter canned dog food. Many of my friends pets died of cancer, making me ask if that could have been avoided by feeding carnivores raw meat like nature intended.

If we could turn back time, I would join Marilyn in her weekly fast and change my diet and my then-boyfriend’s too. We could have stopped the onset of Paul's diabetes or at the very least lessened its devastation. If we could…

I did it!

One whole day of fasting! I did it. Around 4:00 yesterday, I wasn't sure that I would make it. Drinking lemon water becomes a task rather than a treat after ten hours. I switched to plain water and made it through the day. This morning little hunger and a lot of thrist hit me. I waited an hour before cutting into that beautiful cold watermelon. First juicy bite tasted bitter. I'm not sure if it was bitter or my taste buds are in shock. In a couple hours I will know when I feast again on the melon. Two days of watermelon fasting awaits...

Attempting the Fast

This past month ranks as a practice run for the true diet. Today, I attempt the near-impossible… the fast. My goal is to fast with lemon flavored water today, followed by two days of watermelon to cleanse. The three days of cleansing will, supposedly, jump start my immune system, clean out my urinary tract, and give my half-century old digestive system a much needed holiday. The question is – can I do it?

I prepped. First I visited one of Mom’s friends, Annette, the local sage on raw diets. She graciously invited me into her beautiful home full of handmade crafts so lovely I felt blessed to be there. Her creations included delicately carved emu eggs, woven baskets the size of a robin’s nest, and surprisingly comical beaded pebbles.

She gave me hands-on lessons in sprouting and juicing – two areas in which I am clueless. Annette had stacks of book for me to thumb through and borrow. I picked, The Raw Food Revolution Diet by Cherie Soria, Secrets of Power Juicing, Jack LaLanne, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eating Raw by Mark Reinfeld. Annette's patient instruction in sprouting far surpassed the choppy information found in the Idiot’s Guide. I munched on sprouted sunflower seeds as Annette expounded the virtues of mung bean and hemp seed (legal not the other hemp).

I think sprouting helps your system by increasing helpful enzymes and nutrient intake. Annette says the starch normally found in these seeds change to proteins in the sprouting process -- more digestable and better for you. If it adds a bit of variation in the diet, I will be thrilled. I tire of the same flavors my current faire holds and look forward to some change. Thankfully, the recipes in all three books I read were inspirational. According to these guides you can make most cooked foods in a raw version if you have time, patience, an expensive dehydrator, a good food processor, and money. Okay, I don’t have five of the five but I can see where I can enhance what I am doing with some juices and a few sprouted seeds.

In a way, I feel I have dropped down the rabbit hole. Juicing, fasting, sprouting, dehydrating, raw; all so retro-hippie and not-so-much me but I feel great. I have lost 1.6 pounds this week alone. My stomach muscles are tightening on their own. Honestly, I have never had such daily positive affirmation of a diet change as I do with this one. I find myself dancing for no reason, singing to the dog, and thanking God each time I pick a ripe apple off the backyard tree. I must be doing something right.

One Day Caloric Count = 851

Before my seventy-year-old mom reads this and goes all Ninja on me, let me explain that I have eggs, banana, fish or seared meat about every other day. Today felt like a veggie day so the calorie count came in low. Tomorrow will probably be closer to 1,500 calories. Take a look at the times and you will see I don’t stop eating all day. I am a grazer but now I’m a low calorie grazer. Moo!
Here’s a typical day of my current modified diet plan for Tuesday July 27th.

• Time  + Calories + Food + Nutrition
• 7AM 60, Nectarine A, C, Calcium, Iron, Sugar, Fiber
• 8AM 15, 1 cup Half-Caff Coffee with ¼ c Almond Milk Calcium, A, D, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Manganese
• 9AM 80, 1 slice, Trader Joe’s Sprouted Cinnamon Raisin Bread Protein, Sugar, Fiber, Fat, Iron
• 9AM 10, 1 ½ tsp Vegan Soy Butter Fat, Sodium
• 9AM 40, 2 tsp Organic Honey Carbs/Sugar
• 9:30AM 35, 1 Apricot A, C, Calcium, Iron, Protein
• 11:30AM 63, Juice: Tomato, Lemon, Carrot, Celery, Bell Pepper,Turmeric, Cayenne Pepper, Sea Salt A, C, Calcium, Iron, Protein, Sugar, Sodium
• 1PM 23, ½ cup Jicama A, C, Calcium, Iron, Sugar, Fiber
• 1PM 20, ½ cup Tomato Salsa w/Onions, Spices, Bell Pepper A, C, Calcium, Iron, Protein, Sugar, Sodium
• 4:15PM 35, 1 Apricot A, C, Calcium, Iron, Protein
• 6PM 40, 2 Raw Almonds Fat, Fiber, Protein, Calcium, Iron, Sugar
• 6:30PM 80, ½ sm Grilled Yam with Soy Butter Protein, Fiber, Carb
• 6:30PM 22, ½ cup Green Beans A, C, Calcium, Iron, Fiber, Protein, Sugar, Sodium
• 6:30PM 4, ½ cup Spinach A, C, Calcium, Iron, Sodium, Fiber, Sugar
• 6:30PM 170, 1.5 oz Whole Milk Hard Cheese Fat, Protein, Sugar, A, Calcium, Iron
• 7PM 74, 9 Cherries Sugar, Fiber, Protein, Fat, A, C, Calcium, Iron
• 10PM 80, 1 tbs Organic Peanut Butter Protein, Fat, Calcium, Iron

Lost 20 pounds in 27 days

     Four pounds down this week. I have been on many diets, my friend, and this is just unbelievable. My energy is up, emotions fairly stable, and old body is shrinking. Yesterday, I took a long walk with my friend Lois and Poindexter, my dog. We pulled the garage sale signs that I posted on Friday plus old signs leftover by those who apparently cannot clean-up after themselves. Poindexter encountered a large wild turkey and a couple cats. I received an excellent aerobic workout keeping a forty pound puppy from flying after the critters. When we finished the sign eradication, I felt up to a second trip around the area. Poor Dex dragged his chunky paws for the last couple of blocks. It was nice to wear out a ten-month old pup.
    Today, I am going to count calories for those asking what my caloric intake is because I haven’t a clue. I am sticking with the modified diet outlined in Dr. Brantley’s “The Cure.” I eat salads, soft boiled eggs, fruit, occasional raw fish or seared meat, and a teaspoon of peanut butter for protein cravings. Nothing beats cold watermelon for hunger-pang emergencies. Steamed dark green veggies and sliced banana every other day is needed to keep up potassium and iron levels. Plus I am still drinking eight-ounces of tepid water every half hour.
    The juicing required for the complete detoxification diet or “level A” is not something I have enjoyed so far. To cleanse requires lots of juice. I do like the combination of carrot and orange juice but have not found any combination of green juices that I like so far. I love V-8 but that is on the no-no list of processed foods.  
Does anyone have juicing ideas for me to try?

I Cheated & I Have Headache…

I cheated on my diet last night. My family celebrated Paul’s forty-sixth birthday at the local Japanese restaurant. I thought my food choices fit the plan with edamame, salad, and a tuna roll. The breakdown:

Good: Vegetables in the salad, raw tuna, avocado, fish roe, seaweed in the roll.
Bad: Processed salad dressing, soy sauce, wasabi, pickled ginger, the rice in the roll, sauce on the roll, cooked edamame, and ice water with dinner. The ice water caused my internal working to play the “1912 Overture” throughout dinner. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mom hadn’t hummed along.

More than likely the meal contained some MSG in the mix.
This morning, I awoke with my head pounding and my sinus swollen – first time since I started this diet. As this is all a learning process, I know I could have done better ordering.

Organic on a Budget

  When you start this program, you are eliminating any processed foods – fast food, canned goods, sauces, dressings, mixes, and all. Next is buying good raw foods for your daily consumption. I tried with carefree abandon to jump into Dr. Brantley’s diet. However, the costs of goods got in my way. Dr. Tim wants organics. I’m pro organics but there is a price tag to be paid with quality fruits, vegs, and for that matter eggs.
  Whole Foods is the iconic grocery store for organics here on the West coast. So off I went to pick up items from the book: organic fruits and vegetables, unrefined sea salt, sprouted bread, whole milk (unpasteurized) products, and flax seeds for sprouting. The price came to more than my weekly budget plus I still had a husband to feed. I compared pricing with Trader Joes that had most items except young coconuts and unpasteurized yogurt. Safeway had only the organic fruits, vegetables, and eggs. Wal-Mart, or Wally World as we call it in our home, did not carry any of the items.
  My brain did the usual running away with itself. I realized that the better-for-you foods were available at the high end markets while the diabetes-cancer-heart-attack foods were readily available in mass quantities at budget-accommodating markets. But before I started soap-boxing about the poor and downtrodden, I decided to find a way to do this diet on a budget like most Americans would.
  First look to your own yard, patio, deck or window box. What can you grow organically? I am lucky to have a home in Sacramento – fertile farm land – with about a quarter of an acre. I have lemons, oranges, apricots, and apples. All organic. I’m hoping to add a small vegetable garden next spring.
  Second what do you need that is organic? The Environmental Working Group has posted on their website that lists the fruits and vegs that carry the most pesticides – “Dirty Dozen” and that carry the least pesticides – “Clean 15.” . I now buy the clean produce on sale at any market and an organic version of the dirty produce when I can. Also try haunting farmer’s markets in the area. Many are organic. This week, Trader Joes has regular and organic blueberries on sale for the same price. Maybe times are changing.
  I am still shopping at Whole Foods for the yogurt and the great deals they have on organic bulk. To stay in budget, I must be selective. Shopping at multiple stores is a pain but it is worth it to get the food I need to stay healthy and lose weight.

Diet Week Two Done – 2 ½ lbs loss

Two and one-half pounds gone! I started this blog at 260 pounds. That is seventy pounds over my healthy weight goal. To be a kidney donor for my husband, I need to weigh-in at 225 or less. Today my weight is 244, a loss of sixteen pounds, since June 29th and currently, within nineteen pounds of my donor goal. I am absolutely amazed.
First, I feel wonderful. No aches or pains. No stress headaches. Second, I can see the inches dropping. My stomach and midsection are shrinking. My clothes are fitting and I have oodles of energy. On the flip side, I am still hungry but now just every two hours.
This week Oprah, Martha Stewart, and the Sacramento Bee, all ran features on raw diets and cleansing. I must be very main stream. As you may have notice from my description of my food intake the other day, I have not attained total raw in my diet. Nor have I given up coffee. Even though, I drink half-caff coffee is the last thing I can give up.
Also I have not done a cleansing of my system yet. Cleansing is a way through eating and drinking specific raw fruits and vegetables to detoxify your body. Mostly it involves green sludge looking drinks for breakfast. The book, “The Cure” and the Mayo Clinic both say to start with the cleansing. I have tried a couple of the green sludgies so far and well… let’s say I am not eager to cleanse. I am saving this excitement for when I hit my weight plateau.
In the meantime, I am slowly replacing animal protein with vegetable protein, increasing my physical activity, and eating six small portions of food all day long. I have completed two of my eighteen week plan to lose weight. I am doing great. Please let me know how you are doing in the comments.
Other books recommended by my friend, Vicki: Dr. Neal Barnard's book on Reversing Diabetes and “Eat to Live” by Dr. Joel Furhman.

Skinny Ankles and Wearing Smaller Size

I couldn’t wait until my Tuesday morning weigh-in to give some news about this amazing diet adventure. My ankles have shrunk two inches and I put on a formerly too-small, raw-silk slack outfit I purchased three years ago. These are major events in a dieter’s life.
There is more. I have not had a headache in two weeks. I did take some Advil after using a chainsaw on a couple of branches on the shade tree out back. I expected a few aches and pains.
The most amazing thing so far is the lack of sugar-withdrawal shakes and nervousness. Do you have that when you diet? That drop in blood sugar that can happen about two hours after you have a donut, dessert, or candy item? Then there is the long period of shaking as the chocolate and sugar leave your system. Other than an occasional starving feeling in my stomach, which can be abated with a glass of water, I have none of those sugar drops at all. I am eating sweets in the form of watermelon, grapes, apples, honey, agave syrup, strawberries, blackberries, and the sweetest of all ripe peaches. Yum. I have not touched baked goods or processed food.
The only temptation that has happened in the sweets category occurred as my husband and I were about to leave the theatre, having just seen “Inception.” The movie ran two hours. I missed lunch spending my time with the chainsaw on the aforementioned tree. Paul handed me his box of Skittles to hold while he pushed his wheelchair.
I came unglued. “You don’t hand a junkie dope or give an alcoholic a bottle of whiskey.”
Paul apologized and so did I after he took the candy back.
Today’s breakfast: two soft boiled eggs with sea salt and soy butter. Coffee with soy milk.
Snack: one slice sprouted flax bread lightly toasted with soy butter and honey.
Lunch: Salmon, pea pods, carrots, mushrooms, and Mrs. Dash, steamed until warm and crunchy. Sprinkled with whole milk hard cheese shavings.
Snack: eight grapes
Dinner: Sliced Jicama to dip in homemade guacamole and salsa. Salad, lettuce, tomato, cucumber.
Snack: ½ cup whole milk yogurt, handful of strawberries, drizzle of honey.

Start with Water

Thank you for your well wishes and comments about my blog. Many of you have asked how to start the diet. First, let me say I am NOT a doctor, nutritionist, dietitian, or other medical professional. Second, I think you should start by reading “The Cure” by Dr. Timothy Brantley or visit his website is http://www.brantleycure.com/. This will give you information on the value of water, evils of pasteurization, dangers of table salt, and a myriad of food options.
For one week, I started with water. I did not change anything except what I drank. By substituting tepid filtered water for diet sodas and increasing my water intake from one or two glasses a day to one cup every half hour, I dropped weight and felt better immediately.
My friend, shy Mrs. RT, suggested the following:

“Hi Pam, Congratulations on starting a new eating plan! Six pounds in six days sounds fast, though. Are you sure you are eating enough and that you're getting all the nutrients you need? Maybe you should run this by your doctor so he can keep a watch on your health.
I'm right there with you trying to lose weight. This is my second or third week. My strategy isn't as complicated. I'm trying to stick to a fixed number of calories per day (for me, right now, 1500), making sure most of them are healthy. I'm taking the focus off the diet and just telling myself that I have to eat somewhere around that many calories. In time, my bodyweight should come down to normal (I hope.). I don't know how long this will take and I don't really care. Slow and steady. That is what I'm hoping for. So far, so good, but we all know how that goes. I must say it feels good not worrying about a 'diet'. Having been on diets so often, I can pretty much tell you the calories in anything. That makes this very easy for me. I'm rooting for you. Stay in good health, though.
Have a doctor or dietitian check your diet out.”

So start with the book or website, water, and check-up with your doctor.

Diet Week One Done July 13th - 6 lbs lost

I absolutely hate my new diet. I have lost six pounds in six days and two inches off my mid-section. You would think I would be thrilled. Not so much. At one time, I thought a modified vegetarian diet had challenges but nothing compares to the rare tribulation of eating a raw diet.
Today, I had a banana, a slice of sprouted wheat and flax bread toasted with soy butter, salad with lettuce, tomato, and squash, homemade olive oil and unfiltered apple vinegar dressing, grapes, watermelon, peach, cherries, slice of whole milk cheese, steamed leaks with pea pods, celery, seasoned with unrefined sea salt and a gallon of water. I am hungry. Hungry doesn’t quite describe it. I WANT FOOD!
I stayed home today so I could graze whenever I wanted. Yesterday, I left the safety of home and ended up at Jack-in-the-Box sucking down a strawberry smoothie because Jamba Juice was two blocks too far for me to go for sustenance. I am hungry.

Eve walked in the Garden of Eden past the Tree of Knowledge and that devilish snake. She stopped. “What is that heavenly scent?” she asked the serpent.

“Oh that,” he hissed. “Just my breath.”

“Really? It smells good.”

“I just had some brownies.”

“Brownies? What are brownies.”

“Oh just something you can whip up in the kitchen with the proper recipe.”

“Kitchen? Recipe?” Eve looked confused but intrigued.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t bring it up. This information you can find only from the Tree of Knowledge. I won’t mention it again.”

Eve’s face reddened. “I hope you won’t,” she said and stomped off into the Garden.

The next day Eve walked the exact same trail she had walked the previous morning.

“Good day, Eve,” said the serpent.

“Oh,” Eve stopped and drew in her breath. “Hello. I didn’t see you there.

What,” she paused, “What is that scent?”

“That? French onion soup with bread and Swiss cheese melted over the top.”

Eve did not what most those words meant – not melted, soup, bread, cheese, Swiss or French. She really didn’t care so much for the words but the smell wafting her direction. She bent down. Her nose sniffed close to the serpent’s tongue. Her mouth watered for no discernable reason. She felt well excited like the first time she had touched something cold.

“Tomorrow? Will you be here tomorrow?” she asked.

“No, sorry, I must be on the other side of the Garden tomorrow. A reptile meeting.”

Eve looked around as if she could see some way to hold the creature. She could not think of one single thing to do.

Then the serpent said, “I will be gone tomorrow but the Tree of Knowledge will be here all day. Eat the fruit and you will know what I know.” Having said all that was needed to be said the serpent left Eve alone.

As I said, I am hungry. I know that I feel better than I felt for months. My clothes are fitting. I have learned that eating meat with starches causes indigestion and gas, water can shed pounds, and it is possible to give up sugars without craving them. Knowing all that I miss food. I am sticking with the program for my husband’s health and mine. Wish me luck!

God Bless You!