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.

Slowing Down

Usually I don’t think about weighing-in. I do it once a week as a benchmark of the positive things I am doing for my body. This week was different. The scale called to me daily. Ignoring the beast, I tried to concentrate on life at hand. Why I am all-of-sudden obsessed with finding out my weight? It is because I am close to breaking the two hundred twenty pound barrier—the first time in a decade.

When you focus on something bad nothing good can happen. I lost only a half of a pound and did not hit the mark.

Spending all day waiting for special VW spark plugs to be delivered for my tune-up did not help. I sat all morning working on my book at Carl’s Jr. However, CJ’s idea of a health menu is offering orange juice with a fried egg, cheese and sausage sandwich—doomed before I started. I would have done better walking two miles to Mom’s house and eating a salad—a good thought in retrospect. Of course, I would not have written all morning.

Life is a trade off.

This week will be about prayer, exercise and raw foods. Only good can come focusing on good things.

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.

I blame Church

This week resulted in a weight loss of a little more than a half of a pound. I blame Church.

You see this past Sunday was the third in six new-member classes each held after the last service of Church. The evangelism committee provides lunch to the group ranging from six to twelve people including Pastor Michael Murphy, a gentleman of Irish descent. As it was my turn to provide a meal, I put together Pastor Mike’s favorite meal—Shepherd’s pie, Irish soda bread, salad, and dessert. Shepherd’s pie is simple faire, made with ground meat (beef, turkey, or lamb), cooked in butter with onions, peas and carrots, and baked in a casserole with a delicious layer of mashed-buttery potatoes. Not low calorie. Not raw food. Comfort food.

I managed to get through the three hours of cooking without incident and held together as I transported the hot dishes from my house to Church in a closed car smelling of meat pie and soda bread—mmm the caraway seeds. Even setting out the food and serving, gave me little upset. The undoing, at last, was the drive home. The scent became so strong in the warm car—heated by the afternoon sun. I drove like a woman possessed from Church to my driveway.

It took no time at all to unload the boxes and serve up my still-ill husband the leftover meal.

Somehow bits of raisin-ladened soda bread slipped into my mouth as well as spoonful after spoonful of Shepherd’s pie. Poindexter, the dog, witnessed my transgressions and had to be silenced with his own plate of the home-made goodness. I felt guilty in the bribe but Poindexter gobbled up the offering with no apparent judgment on my sin. But now… my weight loss has slowed.

I pray I can get back to my successful raw diet.