Heart Attack

I had a heart attack Wednesday morning, March 30th, hospitalized the same day, had CT Scan, Echo-cardiogram, and angiogram the next, and then released. I am alive.

With a blog about health, fitness, good eating, and “The Cure,” one would probably think discussion of this writer’s heart attack is counter intuitive. I had a stress related incident brought on by years of worry over the health of my husband and not enough cardio exercise. It is my diet that allowed me to leave the hospital in less than forty-eight hours after admission.

 

No burgers = No plaque

 

The doctor, a good physician, believed that my arteries would be clogged with plaque as heart attacks occur as a result of coronary heart disease (CHD). The odds were good that bad stuff filled my veins and after a confirmation from the scheduled angiogram a stint could be placed inside the artery to squish the gooey stuff to the walls allowing blood to flow again.

 

He assumed that I ate a Standard American Diet (SAD).

 

Having been a vegetarian off and on most of my adult life, I thought the stats would be on the side of stress event verses the CHD. The doctor listened to us—my husband and I—and did additional tests to look for any other possibilities.

 

The admitting nurse asked a series of personal questions—religion preference, diet, next of kin, and Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) agreements. When I told her I ate a Raw Vegan diet, she needed more information. She had not heard the term. I explained. She assigned a dietitian to speak to me.

 

It was like checking the box for vegetarian on my airline ticket. The standard rubber-chicken meal got tossed and someone was forced to wash an apple, and throw it into a box just for me. Same here.

 

The hospital dietitian understood vegan, vegetarian, and raw terms. It was the execution of such a diet challenged the capabilities of the hospital’s food system. She knew that my meals needed to be made fresh each day. We compromised on several fronts and came up with the final menu.

 

• Breakfast: Hot Oatmeal, soy milk, grapes, melon, Hot herb tea.
• Lunch: Salad with lettuce, cucumber, mushroom, tomato, canned kidney & garbanzo bean, and Balsamic dressing, Mixed fresh fruit bowl, Apple Juice.
• Dinner: Salad with lettuce, cucumber, mushroom, tomato, canned kidney & garbanzo bean, and Raspberry dressing, Mixed fresh fruit bowl, Orange Juice.
• Late Night Snack: Apple sauce, graham crackers

 

Understand this is the menu for every day—a true motivation for healing and going home. If I had stayed any longer than two days, I would have been forced to have food smuggled in to my room.

Please Define Vegan

This weekend I attended a dinner party hosted by a raw-vegan family. The party consisted of a western theme complete with barbeque chicken and pork for the attending meat-eaters. I grazed happily on trays of veggies dipped in fake sour cream, bowls of vegan chili, and baskets of ruby-red strawberries. After my seventh strawberry, I proudly passed on the offered birthday cake. It was a lovely day.

At the end of the party, hostess Jacki offered several books from her personal library. We discussed being raw, vegan, and hungry during the winter months. Jacki admitted with some reserve that she cooked some vegetables. I confessed my passion for mung-bean-thread noodles in mizo soup. We agreed raw was harder in the frosty months.

The discourse made me realize that I had not addressed terms defining diets in my blog. Not because I couldn’t but it’s so varying from one periodical to another—dependent on the personal experience and age of the writer—that I did not want to spend a week or so writing definitions. So I pared down the list a bit and present the info for you.

Vegan: Someone who does not eat any animal products. No cheese, eggs, milk, fish, chicken, pork. Vegans I have met do not wear leather or animal based make-up. If it requires watering, has a root, and grows then probably it’s edible to a vegan. Adam and Eve—vegan. Cain—vegan. Abel—probably not.

Vegetarian: Someone who does not eat or believe in eating meat. This usually includes not eating fish, fowl, or any food derived from animals but not always. Some vegetarians eat eggs but not fish. Pollotarians eat poultry, but not red meat. Pescetarians eat fish or other seafood, but not red meat or earth-bound animals. The term Vegetarian is loosely used in today’s society.

Raw Foodies: are a group that eats only uncooked, unprocessed, and mostly organic foods. Raw foodies typically believe that the greater the percentage of raw food in the diet, the greater the health benefits. Raw foodies are into sprouting grains, fresh organic fruits, tons of vegetables. Mostly they are into vegan but it is not a requirement. Rawism can include consumption of eggs, raw fish, meats, non-pasteurized dairy like raw goat cheese or raw Greek yogurt.

Raw Vegans: exclude all food of animal origin, and all food cooked above 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit). A raw vegan’s kitchen includes a dehydrator instead of an oven and a high end blender—like the one at Jamba Juice—as a tool for everything else like a microwave. Subsets include: fruitarian, juicearian, and sproutarian.

Flexitarians: or Semi-vegetarians eat usually vegetarian and mostly raw diet. But at the dinner party when the vegan declines to eat any meat this person will try the chicken to be polite. Jane Goodall, a famous vegan, said that she does not completely stick to the vegan diet while traveling. Getting a balanced diet on the road is challenging but can be closely followed if well planned. I can see Jane nibbling a piece of cheese but not chowing-down a steak.

Standard American Diet (SAD): more politely called the Western pattern diet, or the Affluent diet, is the one chosen by most Americans and many people in developed countries. This is how we were raised. We treat every day as holiday. We eat meat usually three times a day, sugar in drinks and desserts, high-fat foods, like French fries and dairy, and processed grains. What the SAD diet lacks is water, natural fiber from fresh vegetables, and whole fruits. We love our morning coffee, processed juice, and pop tarts. Can I have a slice of bacon with that?

I started my life as SAD and have dabbled from time to time as flextarian. Given my improved health and weight loss, I am well on my way to being a raw foodie and very possibly a raw vegan.

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.

Figs…

I purchased a dehydrator. I didn’t plan to purchase a dehydrator. It started with a trip to Lodi to pick figs off of Pam and Bob, my friends’ tree—a huge twenty foot farmhouse fig tree. Filling two bags, while stuffing my face with sun-warmed gooey fruit, I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do with all the figs. On the drive home, I thought of sharing my bounty with family and neighbors. Which I did. Also I planned perhaps to find on the internet a few exotic recipes. Did that too. Still I had more figs than I could eat.

Aside from figs. Home-grown tomatoes arrived on my doorstep with alarming regularity. News of my raw diet has spread throughout the community causing an outpouring of free red-ripe and yellow-heirloom fruit offerings. Yes tomatoes are technically fruit. With my gleeful acceptance, the refrigerator now overflowed with tomatoes and the aforementioned figs.

What to do with all that fruit?
I tried drying figs in my brand new gas oven. Unfortunately the settings did not drop to the required 110 degrees so I burnt my first stab at dehydrating. I found myself that day at Fry’s Electronics and, to my surprise, a brand-new dehydrator sat on the shelf between coffee makers and vacuums. Marked down from $59 to $39, it seemed like a deal.

The three trays of skinned-sliced tomatoes and two trays of halved figs took most of two days to dry in the circular heating unit. After cooling the dried fruit, I packed them in plastic-freezer bags and popped them into the freezer where they will keep bug free for up to two years.

Now what do I do with dehydrated tomatoes and figs?
First the tomatoes—Sundried Tomato Pesto. My recipe.
6 ounces sun-dried tomatoes Soaked in water until soft. Set aside water.
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon crushed garlic
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons red wine (optional)
¼ to ½ cup olive oil
Sea-salt to taste
Combine all the ingredients except the oil. Let rest for 1 hour in the refrigerator. Mix thoroughly. Add soaking water if needed. Mix in oil to taste. I like Cayenne Pepper for a little kick. Use on raw veggies. I like to pour over sprouted mung bean and grind hard raw goat cheese over the top. Tastes Italian to me!

Finally the Figs—A Christmas Figgy Pudding

Fig-raisin Pudding
2 cups 2-day sprouted wheat and rye
1-1 1/2 cups black mission figs soaked overnight
1-1 1/2 cups raisins soaked in fig water for 1 hour
Put all ingredients in a blender, and puree until smooth
- by San Francisco's Living Foods Enthusiasts

I lost one pound this week.

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 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.

Wheatgrass

  One Pound Off This Week! August melted eleven pounds for a total of thirty-two lost since I started the diet.
  This week I added wheatgrass powder to strawberry-banana smoothies. If I have not covered wheatgrass, let me do that now. Wheatgrass supplies the body calcium, chlorine, iron, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, sulfur, cobalt, zinc, dripping in chlorophyll that can reduce symptoms in people with obesity, hypertension, pancreatitis, and may inhibit cancer cells. Every raw-diet book, without exception, extols the virtues of wheatgrass. It is the Holy Grail of the plant kingdom.
  Simple to grow, wheat berries – wheatgrass seeds – can be soaked overnight in a jar then drained to sprout within six hours. Cover the sprouts with dirt in a pot six inches or more deep and presto! You have wheatgrass. It takes about three days to have seven inches of harvestable wheatgrass.
  Now here’s the part I didn’t like. Cut and wash the grass then grind it in a device similar to a meat grinder to squeeze out one ounce of wheatgrass juice. OR Go to Jamba Juice and have them do it for you at $1.95 per shot. OR Head down to your local health food store for powdered wheatgrass at $1.50 per ounce. The wheatgrass juice powder only loses ten percent of its potency in powdered form. I did the last two options.
  Oh, I also grew the wheatgrass for my dog, Poindexter. He wanders outside, passes the planter and snips off a few blades munching down the healthy goodness. Dex does not need a meat grinder. He has excellent canines. Cats like it too.

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."

Great Recipe

I found this recipe in Sunset Magazine, August 2010 edition, page 91. Served cold, it is refreshing tasty and low calorie. Enjoy!

Mexican Tomatillo Avocado Soup
Serves 6, 45 minute prep
1 1/4 lbs. tomatilos, husked and rinsed
1 white onion, finely chopped [I only used 1/2 onion and I used a food processor for the dish]
2 1/2 cups of vegetable broth [I changed the chicken broth to vegetable broth]
1 garlic clove, minced
3/4 English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped [I used the cucumber I had in the refrigerator]
2 tblsp lime juice [freshly squeezed]
2 tsp green hot sauce [I increased from tsp to tblsp]
1 1/2 tsp of minced fresh oregano leaves [didn't have this so left it out]
1 avocado chopped [Yum!]
3 tblsp chopped cilantro
1. Chop tomatillos coarsely, Puree half each of the tomatillos, onion, and broth in a blender with garlic. Rub through a fine strainer into a stainless steel bowl; discard contents of strainer. Finely chop remaining tomatillos. Add remaining tomatillos, onion and broth; cucumber, lime juice, hot sauce, and oregano.
to bowl and stir.
2. Nest bowl in ice water; stir often until cold, 15 minutes. Add avocado and cilantro.
Per 1-cup serving 111 calories. 52% (58 cal.) from fat, 3.8 grams protein, 6.5 grams of fat, 12 grams carbo (4.2 grams fiber)58 grams sodium, 10mg cholesterol.

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.