And the winner is…

Last week, I met a woman named Marie. She lost one hundred and ten pounds during the period January through July 2010 – that’s about four pounds a week. Modifying Weight Watchers diet, she cut carbs and fats then ate sensibly a diet full of raw vegetables, limited fruits, and barbecue lean meats. Marie is doing tons more exercise than I am.

My friend Cindy B. is raw-canning cauliflower, beans, and cucumber with jalapeño peppers and garlic. Hot but oh so good. A new acquaintance discussed the value of sprouting seeds. Another friend, Jacki, sent me a link to a raw restaurant here in Sacramento http://www.thegreenboheme.com/ and one to a raw support group. The cover of the gardening section in Friday’s newspaper presented the trend toward more home organic gardens. It seems I am far from alone in this diet revolution.

Today, I met my transplant weight goal of two hundred and twenty five pounds. I could not have completed this goal without going raw. Over and over I have failed attaining more modest goals on the most popular diets ranging from Atkins to Grapefruit to South Beach to Weight Watchers and so many more. All diets talk about life style changes but until you stop baking, microwaving, boiling, fast-fooding, and frying that change cannot happen. Now a dietary cheat for me is a pasteurized all fruit smoothie instead of a homemade fresh one. French fries, candies, cookies, and baked goods are not tempting – an extra fig before bedtime is. That is a real change in my tastes.

Yesterday, I plowed through my closets and drawers trying on every piece of clothing I own. There is massive satisfaction in throwing garment after garment in to a pile intended for the Goodwill. The stack of over-sized rejects grew to my height approximately five-foot ten-inches high – a lovely sight that promptly fell over and covered the floor. It made me giggle.

Shopping at Eco-Thrift, a local used clothing outlet, I am purchasing smaller and smaller pants for ninety-nine cents apiece. This will do until I settle on a permanent size sometime after the holidays and the kidney transplant. My new goal for November 6th is to lose thirty-five more pounds and hit my healthy weight of one hundred and ninety pounds.

So, now I call University of California, San Francisco’s transplant nurse to let her know I have achieved the required weight. We will try to set our double surgeries for sometime in January 2011. Soon, Paul and I will have a healthy new life together. The winners are us!

Fasting Failure

I started this Wednesday fast with optimism and faith. Up at 5:15 A.M – dawn, my usual time – I started with house cleaning followed by a delivery of forty-eight boxes from Baxter, the supplier of needed items for my husband’s peritoneal dialysis. After rearranging a few things for the nice delivery guy, I set about dusting and moving furniture around for the new living room chair we purchased Labor Day. A very cute chair, by the way, bought actually the day after the holiday. Mom took us down to the outlet to see the chair she almost bought the day before but had hesitated. I feel in love with it and handed the salesman my American Express while she hymned-and-hawed over the retro mid-century piece. But I digress.

Paul and I headed to the podiatrist after Baxter left. He has an ongoing foot wound from the end of May that keeps reopening. He decided to pick up his insulin and needles at the hospital pharmacy next door. There is a long ramp from where we were located to get to the pharmacy which required Paul to pull on the wheelchair while I pushed. To make a very long story short, we waited two hours and ten minutes to get his $100 bottle of insulin, receiving it only after I demanded to speak to the person in charge. The store ran out of diabetic needles. True. We left with only the insulin.

Five hours after we left home, we got to the parking lot. We were tired, hungry, and frustrated. The car keys were not in my purse. I checked again and again. Leaving Paul in his chair, I dashed back to the pharmacy retracing our steps looking for the keys. I asked each of the nine cashiers at the counter, all of the pharmacists including the supervisor I had slammed earlier and the handful of patrons still left in the place. None had seen the keys. Paul sat patiently by the car. We went through my purse together. I kept sticking my hands in the front pockets of my jeans like the keys would magically appear.

Out of lack of any other option, I called Mom and asked her to come pick us up. If she got us home, I was pretty sure there was a spare key in my junk drawer. Mom had a spare house key. The only other car key was in Paul’s backpack locked in the trunk of the car. Rather than wait, I retraced our steps one more time – a good hike under normal circumstances. Failing to find anything, I returned to the car. As I stepped toward, Paul my hand slipped into my back pocket and found the keys. I showed Paul. He laughed. He said that it has been a long time since I was able to put my hand in my jean’s back pocket. He was right.

After calling Mom and cancelling the emergency pick up, we decided that maybe I should get something to eat. I bought lunch at Mel’s Diner. Paul had a bacon burger and fries. I had a steak, blood-rare.

Fasting Wednesday

It’s the first of September and I’m starting my fasting Wednesdays. The fast is not as easy as I remembered it. The mind plays cruel tricks sometimes. I did okay until eleven o’clock, when I tried to convince myself that a banana smoothie somehow fit a fasting Wednesday. Keeping occupied has helped move my thoughts away from food.

I now know how my skinny co-workers had so many new clothes. They spent money on themselves and not on food. Image if you didn’t eat once a week what that could do for your budget. What if your husband or housemate didn’t eat one day either? Could you afford a new blouse this month? Kids and pets don’t fast so drop that fantasy.

The cost of food for this diet has been for items I never had in the house – powdered wheatgrass, brewer’s yeast, seeds for sprouting, and containers for sprouting. The almond milk, kale, and coconut just replace other less nutritious items in the weekly shopping. What I normal spend on food for myself has dropped by at least half. In the long term, decreasing costs will probably continue.

For example, I ran out of lettuce a few days back. Rather than drive to the store, I used some sprouted sunflower seeds as a base and made my salad. The next day I used the sprouted lentils with a different mix of vegetables. I sprouted mung beans overnight for a wonderful new luncheon faire. I love the change in flavors and textures. The sprouted seeds cost pennies where the organic lettuce cost dollars.

Oh, I made my own pickles. Yes. Using a mandolin slicer, I trimmed up some cucumber, stuffed them into a clean used pickle jar – appropriate – added garlic cloves, pickling spices, and organic vinegar. Left it in the refrigerator for three days. Now I have raw organic pickles. Yum!

How did I get on food? So eight more hours till bedtime then sleep then breakfast. I think I’ll have that banana smoothie.

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

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.