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.

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.

Lost one pound - 34lbs to second goal

After reaching my primary weight goal set by University of California, San Francisco, I called the transplant nurse. The poor thing seemed rather confused. She thought I had hypertension. I don’t. She said I took medications. I don’t. She stated I should lose should lose fifty more pounds. I don't. That is when I raised my voice. A few more words back and forth, she realized she read the wrong chart.

Although I know that none of that conversation had anything to do with my reality, it depressed me for a few days. Possibly the let down came from the feeling that my weight-loss achievement could be put in a negative context by an outsider that already has too much control on my husband and my future. My expectations had been to have an intelligent and information-gathering conversation with my personal transplant nurse. That did not happen. Matter-of-fact, the lady called back to apologize but left the message on my husband’s cell phone not mine.

Transplant drama, notwithstanding, I managed to stay on track with the diet and eat sensibly. I did have a peanut butter craving that did not stop until I consumed three tablespoons, 140 calories, of the sticky stuff. All other days went smoothly.

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!