I broke the fast on Tuesday, Nov 17, due to the refeeding schedule required before they'd leave me with their blessing. Of course, I could leave any time, but going through this proven program as it is works so I don't mind the schedule.
My weight was at 123 lbs, the same weight I wrestled at in high scool as a sophomore. Now that I'm at my fighting weight again, I'd like to show that 16 year old whipper snapper from 1976 a thing or two in the ring in my fancy red full-length santa tights with the white diapers....until he immediately takes me down, pummels me into next year (which will take about ten seconds) and hands my head to coach on a silver platter. I wouldn't have a chance - and back then I wasn't that good!
Tuesday was day 15(?) and was the hardest day I've had, physically and mentally. I had a tough day one other time around day 8, but this one was a real drainer, which usually indicates the body is working especially hard doing what it needs to do. Amazingly, these days last about a day so by the time you wake the next morning, it has run its' course. In the body that packs an abundance of toxins, there will be more rough days, but it always pays huge dividends when you stay the course, don't give up, and see it through to the end.
I started on veg/fruit drinks Wednesday morning and tolerated the first drink. Barely. Most people do well on the mix, I'd had enough in the days preparing for the fast. It was so unpleasureable to me that I instead asked for a stalk of celery and some watermelon (which was in the drink) and eating these as whole foods made all the difference in the world. It wasn't much volume or calories, but there;s enough sugar to effectively switch the fasting body from fat burning to carb burning in very short order. And, of course, the sleeping giant of digestion must be awakened gently.
Yesterday there was a coup in the kitchen. My Israeli roommate had had enough of the blandness and invited himself into the kitchen and cooked up a bunch of hummus with all the appliances and I don't think the chef was pleased.
The result was tasty and I nursed a little at a time so by the end of the day I had taken in two teasponfuls, chewing deliberately and slowly, mixing with plenty of saliva. But he used what seemed like alot of raw garlic, and though it went down well, pretty much chemically roasted the lining of my mouth, which I did not feel until evening. I still feel it a day later. Now it's more of just a garlic-y aftertaste that masks the true flavors of just about everything I eat. It's very, very mild, no real damage, but obnoxious. It should be gone tomorrow. Because of the fast, your senses are so alive that the smallest amount of hot makes a huge impact. I tasted two, count them, two, specs of red pepper in the mix.
The last time this happened was on the fourth evening following a ten day fast, except this time is was garlic and peppers in a tomato paste based lettuce wrap. It seemed like just a little bit. Delicious! Within twenty minutes my whole body burned all the way to my fingertips and stayed burning for three days. And no wonder, I had just about no protective mucous lining built up in my intestinal tract to act as buffer. My mouth actually molted. I couldn't taste anything! Before that meal, I could tastes every molecule.
Now in a couple of months I'll be able to enjoy these types of hot, but I think I'm backing off of the raw hot for good. Who doesn't like roasted peppers? Sweetens them right up!
I was concerned about getting the full beneft of the garlic into my bloodstream, but research indicates that if the clove is crushed or sliced and left to sit on the cutting board for just ten minutes, you can start cooking with it and retain 70% of the good stuff. That will work for me.
Ahhhhh...fun with fasting.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Nov 16, 2009 - Fun with 3's and 6's
Omega 6 and Omega 3 Fatty acids:
They're both essential fatty acids, meaning they cannot be manufactured in the body - you absolutely need to bring them in through diet. Skirting the chemistry, they are best known in the food industry by their ability to remain stable (or not). Omega-6’s are very stable, omega-3’s are not. Omega-6’s coagulate, 3’s tend to be very fluid. Omega-6’s are used in the body as part of the inflammatory process and Omega-3’s are called upon to halt the inflammatory process when the healing is finished. They work together and must be in balance for good health. When 6’s are too high, you get inflammation that will not stop – In the joints, arteries, anywhere in the body.
From the food industry standpoint, Omega-3 oils are difficult to process and expensive to market – but you can find them in health food stores in the refrigerated section in a very dark container with a very tightly sealed lid. They are highly reactive to the environment and go rancid quickly.
Both types of fatty acids are polyunsaturates, but because 6's are more stable in the environment (less affected, by heat, light, and oxygen) before going rancid, manufacturers dump truckloads of it into every packaged product in the form of preservatives to increase shelf life. If the omega-3s in the product are difficult or too costly to remove, more 6’s are dumped on in the hope of slowing the onset of rancidity. Omega-3 fatty acids are the bane of the industry and there is an ongoing search to extract them out of every product to our detriment.
Not only are they adding these 6’s, they pursue relentlessly new ways of removing 3’s from the source by genetically modifying or hybridizing the plants that go into our everyday products. This applies especially to the oils found on the shelf – a more favorable ratio of 6’s to 3’s found by testing five years ago will not be the same as what you’ll find in the same oil today – I wouldn’t depend on a study done as recently as six months ago!
So are 6’s bad? Certainly not! They’re just horribly out of proportion in our diet. They are both absolutely necessary, but we are getting PLENTY of 6’s and not near enough 3’s. Our ratio currently is probably close to 100:1 when it should be ideally 4:1. When it’s 4:1, our body does it’s magic and provides our cells with a perfect 1:1 ratio. See – I’m skipping chemistry class again!
Here’s an important fact about 6s and 3s: They don’t share, they compete. If you take in too high a ratio of 6’s, they win for a place in your body. You take in 3’s, they win. So you can’t take in six tablespoons of oil and expect the bowlful of salad that it is buried under to balance or counter the 6’s in the oil. It just doesn’t work that way in the body. You want more 3’s, leave the oil on the shelf at the store. No, not even those fancy salad spritzers. Read the label.
Now here’s a little background on nature’s use of 6’s and 3’s that will make the rest of the text easier to digest. Both acids are found abundantly in nature. You could safely say there are more 3’s than 6’s far a wide margin. Where are they most found in the food supply? You’ll find the most 3’s in green plants (they are required for photosynthesis) and the most 6’s in seeds (stored food supply for the plant).
Let’s take the cuddly marmots of Montana for example. When studying the diets of marmots and their hibernation triggers, researchers observed that these little varmints sought out the densest foods they could find – seeds and nuts. So they’re becoming loaded with proportionately high omega-6 fats (Now they’re ready for the winter – one can sleep REALLY well on the slow moving omega-6 fats). They awake in spring when the reserves are spent and if conditions are favorable, low and behold, what’s for dinner? All those high-6 seeds have miraculously sprouted into high-3 greens! Now they are loading up primarily on 3’s. Since 3’s are nice and slick, metabolism picks up, brain activity increases, fat burns faster and mating starts to sound pretty good…oh, and if one needs to compete for a mate and is loaded with 6’s and hasn’t been eating the greens like all the other studs, fuhgetaboutit! It’ll be another cold, lonely winter because you got handed your cute little tail on a platter!
So why is this important to us? There are a number of reasons why we should increase plant consumption while reducing meat and fat consumption, but let’s focus on these two fats.
As another example: Take the early Eskimos, eating nothing but cold water fish meat and whale products with all the delicious innards - heavy on the fat, please. High cholesterol - clear arteries, no disease. Cholesterol numbers meant nothing to their actual health. But please get yours checked, you don’t eat like this, I can bet. Why were they so healthy? The omega-3 fatty acids are incredibly abundant in cold-water fish and in the proper ratio to 6’s, so much so that nosebleeds once a week were common – that’s the nature of 3’s – keeps body fluids very, well, fluid.
Where did the fish get all the omega-3s? They either ate the sea plants that are incredibly high in 3’s or they ate the creatures that ate the sea plants. This all changed, of course, once Wallyworld moved north and introduced them to the typical products that kill the rest of us. Now they die for the same reasons and at the same rate as we do – they’re still eating the fish and whale, but they’re dying from all the rest.
So let’s look at the ratios of 6’s to 3’s in common oils. Bear in mind, I don’t know when these ratios were established, but you can bet they are going to favor the 6’s more as time goes on as better science removes more of the 3s. Also remember, all oils and fats are saturated to varying degrees. Saturated fats and trans fats are no good for the body. ALSO keep in mind - if you cook with them, all bets are off (all fats are affected by heat, light, and oxygen), you’re dealing with poison at the point. Last but not least, fat has 9 calories per gram, and the body only needs 3% of that energy to transfer this fat directly to storage. Anyone plan to be hibernating this winter?
Flaxseed or linseed 0.2:1
Canola 2:1
Canola (for light frying) 3:1
Walnut 5:1
Soybean 7:1
Wheat germ 8:1
Butter 9:1
Lard 10:1
Olive 12:1
Hydrogenated soybean 13:1
High oleic sunflower 19:1
Corn 46:1
Palm 137:1
Less than 60% linoleic sunflower 200:1
Cottonseed 259:1
And the winner is (drum roll please):
Safflower oil infinity:1 (there are no 3’s)
Read the labels and you’ll see ‘heart-healthy’ everywhere. Don’t believe it. Wild animals don’t need it, our animals don’t need it and we don’t need it. My brother and stepdad hunt and I bet they’ve never seen a fat-choked heart in any wild animal they’ve ever taken. Leave the oil on the shelf and stir-fry with vegetable broth. Tastes just as good, maybe just not as slick, it takes 30 seconds of the first meal to get over that.
I realize I’ve just made enemies with every Mediterranean diet lover on the planet. Want a little history on how this diet was determined to be so healthy? A study was done in 1950 (post-WWII) on the island of Crete (maybe because researchers noticed they looked so darned healthy and lived a long time compared to the rest of the region), after years of nazi-blockade in WWII. The researchers focused entirely on the diet. Now, nothing was imported or exported. So the locals worked with what they had to survive. They walked for miles up hills every day tending livestock, growing produce the old fashioned way and scraping by. Life was hard. So the diet was very simple, and it included a small amount of olive oil - all out of caloric necessity.
So someone decided this was the greatest diet on earth, completing forsaking the lifestyle as equally important, and started writing cookbooks to make a fast buck and thus began the mania to tout olive oil as the life-saving panacea that it never was. This caught on the world over. The fact is, the people from this island were healthy, not because of the omega-6’s in the oil or the oil itself, but because they ate sparingly of a diet of vegetables and a small amount of meat and were compelled by necessity to hump hills rain or shine, and had no access to the dietary sins of the world. They were healthy in spite of the omega-6 oil, not because of it.
Go there now and find the landscape in stark contrast. My, how it has changed – they are suffering just like the rest of us and taking in more oil than ever, just like the rest of us, convinced by the media that the oil is a dietary salvation that will remedy and counter their sedentary lifestyle and nutritionally bankrupt food choices. And this is not just happening in Crete, but in all countries. We rave about it here, and make a loose adaptation of it once a month, merely adding it to the rest of the month’s junk thinking it should cancel out last night’s six-pack while we reach for the meds on the nightstand after dinner. That’s no way to live.
So what should we do about this dilemma? One sentence – slam the greens at every opportunity and dump the oil. Eat the greens raw, steam them, put them in soup, casseroles, and use every variety you can find. Try something new and eat all kinds of vegetables.
If you’re already a vegan, you can try these steps:
They're both essential fatty acids, meaning they cannot be manufactured in the body - you absolutely need to bring them in through diet. Skirting the chemistry, they are best known in the food industry by their ability to remain stable (or not). Omega-6’s are very stable, omega-3’s are not. Omega-6’s coagulate, 3’s tend to be very fluid. Omega-6’s are used in the body as part of the inflammatory process and Omega-3’s are called upon to halt the inflammatory process when the healing is finished. They work together and must be in balance for good health. When 6’s are too high, you get inflammation that will not stop – In the joints, arteries, anywhere in the body.
From the food industry standpoint, Omega-3 oils are difficult to process and expensive to market – but you can find them in health food stores in the refrigerated section in a very dark container with a very tightly sealed lid. They are highly reactive to the environment and go rancid quickly.
Both types of fatty acids are polyunsaturates, but because 6's are more stable in the environment (less affected, by heat, light, and oxygen) before going rancid, manufacturers dump truckloads of it into every packaged product in the form of preservatives to increase shelf life. If the omega-3s in the product are difficult or too costly to remove, more 6’s are dumped on in the hope of slowing the onset of rancidity. Omega-3 fatty acids are the bane of the industry and there is an ongoing search to extract them out of every product to our detriment.
Not only are they adding these 6’s, they pursue relentlessly new ways of removing 3’s from the source by genetically modifying or hybridizing the plants that go into our everyday products. This applies especially to the oils found on the shelf – a more favorable ratio of 6’s to 3’s found by testing five years ago will not be the same as what you’ll find in the same oil today – I wouldn’t depend on a study done as recently as six months ago!
So are 6’s bad? Certainly not! They’re just horribly out of proportion in our diet. They are both absolutely necessary, but we are getting PLENTY of 6’s and not near enough 3’s. Our ratio currently is probably close to 100:1 when it should be ideally 4:1. When it’s 4:1, our body does it’s magic and provides our cells with a perfect 1:1 ratio. See – I’m skipping chemistry class again!
Here’s an important fact about 6s and 3s: They don’t share, they compete. If you take in too high a ratio of 6’s, they win for a place in your body. You take in 3’s, they win. So you can’t take in six tablespoons of oil and expect the bowlful of salad that it is buried under to balance or counter the 6’s in the oil. It just doesn’t work that way in the body. You want more 3’s, leave the oil on the shelf at the store. No, not even those fancy salad spritzers. Read the label.
Now here’s a little background on nature’s use of 6’s and 3’s that will make the rest of the text easier to digest. Both acids are found abundantly in nature. You could safely say there are more 3’s than 6’s far a wide margin. Where are they most found in the food supply? You’ll find the most 3’s in green plants (they are required for photosynthesis) and the most 6’s in seeds (stored food supply for the plant).
Let’s take the cuddly marmots of Montana for example. When studying the diets of marmots and their hibernation triggers, researchers observed that these little varmints sought out the densest foods they could find – seeds and nuts. So they’re becoming loaded with proportionately high omega-6 fats (Now they’re ready for the winter – one can sleep REALLY well on the slow moving omega-6 fats). They awake in spring when the reserves are spent and if conditions are favorable, low and behold, what’s for dinner? All those high-6 seeds have miraculously sprouted into high-3 greens! Now they are loading up primarily on 3’s. Since 3’s are nice and slick, metabolism picks up, brain activity increases, fat burns faster and mating starts to sound pretty good…oh, and if one needs to compete for a mate and is loaded with 6’s and hasn’t been eating the greens like all the other studs, fuhgetaboutit! It’ll be another cold, lonely winter because you got handed your cute little tail on a platter!
So why is this important to us? There are a number of reasons why we should increase plant consumption while reducing meat and fat consumption, but let’s focus on these two fats.
As another example: Take the early Eskimos, eating nothing but cold water fish meat and whale products with all the delicious innards - heavy on the fat, please. High cholesterol - clear arteries, no disease. Cholesterol numbers meant nothing to their actual health. But please get yours checked, you don’t eat like this, I can bet. Why were they so healthy? The omega-3 fatty acids are incredibly abundant in cold-water fish and in the proper ratio to 6’s, so much so that nosebleeds once a week were common – that’s the nature of 3’s – keeps body fluids very, well, fluid.
Where did the fish get all the omega-3s? They either ate the sea plants that are incredibly high in 3’s or they ate the creatures that ate the sea plants. This all changed, of course, once Wallyworld moved north and introduced them to the typical products that kill the rest of us. Now they die for the same reasons and at the same rate as we do – they’re still eating the fish and whale, but they’re dying from all the rest.
So let’s look at the ratios of 6’s to 3’s in common oils. Bear in mind, I don’t know when these ratios were established, but you can bet they are going to favor the 6’s more as time goes on as better science removes more of the 3s. Also remember, all oils and fats are saturated to varying degrees. Saturated fats and trans fats are no good for the body. ALSO keep in mind - if you cook with them, all bets are off (all fats are affected by heat, light, and oxygen), you’re dealing with poison at the point. Last but not least, fat has 9 calories per gram, and the body only needs 3% of that energy to transfer this fat directly to storage. Anyone plan to be hibernating this winter?
Flaxseed or linseed 0.2:1
Canola 2:1
Canola (for light frying) 3:1
Walnut 5:1
Soybean 7:1
Wheat germ 8:1
Butter 9:1
Lard 10:1
Olive 12:1
Hydrogenated soybean 13:1
High oleic sunflower 19:1
Corn 46:1
Palm 137:1
Less than 60% linoleic sunflower 200:1
Cottonseed 259:1
And the winner is (drum roll please):
Safflower oil infinity:1 (there are no 3’s)
Read the labels and you’ll see ‘heart-healthy’ everywhere. Don’t believe it. Wild animals don’t need it, our animals don’t need it and we don’t need it. My brother and stepdad hunt and I bet they’ve never seen a fat-choked heart in any wild animal they’ve ever taken. Leave the oil on the shelf and stir-fry with vegetable broth. Tastes just as good, maybe just not as slick, it takes 30 seconds of the first meal to get over that.
I realize I’ve just made enemies with every Mediterranean diet lover on the planet. Want a little history on how this diet was determined to be so healthy? A study was done in 1950 (post-WWII) on the island of Crete (maybe because researchers noticed they looked so darned healthy and lived a long time compared to the rest of the region), after years of nazi-blockade in WWII. The researchers focused entirely on the diet. Now, nothing was imported or exported. So the locals worked with what they had to survive. They walked for miles up hills every day tending livestock, growing produce the old fashioned way and scraping by. Life was hard. So the diet was very simple, and it included a small amount of olive oil - all out of caloric necessity.
So someone decided this was the greatest diet on earth, completing forsaking the lifestyle as equally important, and started writing cookbooks to make a fast buck and thus began the mania to tout olive oil as the life-saving panacea that it never was. This caught on the world over. The fact is, the people from this island were healthy, not because of the omega-6’s in the oil or the oil itself, but because they ate sparingly of a diet of vegetables and a small amount of meat and were compelled by necessity to hump hills rain or shine, and had no access to the dietary sins of the world. They were healthy in spite of the omega-6 oil, not because of it.
Go there now and find the landscape in stark contrast. My, how it has changed – they are suffering just like the rest of us and taking in more oil than ever, just like the rest of us, convinced by the media that the oil is a dietary salvation that will remedy and counter their sedentary lifestyle and nutritionally bankrupt food choices. And this is not just happening in Crete, but in all countries. We rave about it here, and make a loose adaptation of it once a month, merely adding it to the rest of the month’s junk thinking it should cancel out last night’s six-pack while we reach for the meds on the nightstand after dinner. That’s no way to live.
So what should we do about this dilemma? One sentence – slam the greens at every opportunity and dump the oil. Eat the greens raw, steam them, put them in soup, casseroles, and use every variety you can find. Try something new and eat all kinds of vegetables.
If you’re already a vegan, you can try these steps:
- Back off on the nuts, eat some rice or potatoes or some quinoa instead as your filler. Remember, as an unsprouted nut or seed, omega-6 is loaded in the seed to protect the building blocks of life until conditions are right, which could be years – even centuries for some seeds. It has a purpose, but not as a major food source for people who don’t hibernate and never get enough omega-3’s. Here’s a thought: It seems reasonable to me to assume that you could sprout the seeds and change the ratio. Maybe not to the level of the plant itself, but the ratio should be greatly improved. I’d love to see a study on this.
- Add some ground flax seed twice a day to your meals. I doubt you’ll get so much your nose will bleed like the Eskimos of a generation ago, but it sounds like a good idea. I understand, however, that increasing flax to a high level can inhibit the absorption of some vitamin B6, and I don’t know if eating lots and lots of greens like we do makes this a moot point or not. It’s something to look into, but the 3’s are definitely there in flax.
If you like your meats and can’t give them up, you can still make healthful changes that won’t hurt a bit.
- First and foremost, cut back on your portion size. Meat is meat, and will always be top heavy in omega-6s. It is proven we don’t need as much protein as the FDA used to say we do. The amount posted is dropping steadily with time, and someday we’ll see amounts closer to the actual number proven over 50 years ago, only to discover we were getting plenty in the plants we were eating.
- Eat wild game. They eat right from the earth and as a result, their meat is naturally higher in omega-3s. And this applies to all meats - don’t fry, bake. Doctor it up a bit if you have to, but bake it.
- Eat grass-fed beef, no steroids, no antibiotics. But don’t they eat corn and oats in the feedlots? Yes, and what are these two products? Seeds! Very high is omega-6s. It quickly fattens up the meat just like 6’s are designed to do (along with all the other things added to it) for a higher market sale and meat marbleizing. Problem is, it marbleizes your muscle tissue and arteries exactly the same way. You feed a cow too long on this diet and their meat will be rancid on the hoof and you’ll know it upon your first bite. You’ll think the butcher switched cows on you!
- Eat cold-water fish. Baked wild salmon is a good choice. Sardines are a good choice and are even lower on the food chain. If you can’t get fresh, then packed in water or tomato sauce is far better than oil-packed. Of course, the start of all food chains on earth is always the plant, so why not skip the middleman and go to the source as often as you can? And avoid tuna, it can contain high levels of mercury, and that toxin tends to build up in the tissues.
- Eggs can actually be ok, if the chickens are free range on your neighbor’s farm and can scratch around for grasses and bugs every day and are rarely fed scratch, which is primarily corn. It changes the ratio of 6’s to 3’s in the yolk dramatically. Cholesterol in your body is not an issue when the ratio is right, but it must be right in your entire diet, not just for breakfast, otherwise all bets are off. The store shelves are looking promising as now, for a little more money, you can buy eggs with a higher omega-3 content - but they must clearly say this on the package. Otherwise, it will just be a plain old egg with a fancy label. Saying organic means nothing in this case. The question I have is, how much is it improved and how are they doing it??
- Chicken can be improved the same way, it’s all in the feed.
- Fish oil can be helpful. Just be sure it’s purified from a cold-water fish and contains no omega-6 fillers designed to keep the product stable or any other oils in it whatsoever. And if you take it in the form of gel-caps, open the first one you pull out and smell it, if it smells rancid, it is – take it back to the store, get your money back and try a different brand.
You can find all this information and more in a great book titled, “The Queen of Fats”, by Susan Allport. Fascinating read.
Much of the concepts are substantiated by Anthony Coppolo in his book, “The Great Cholesterol Con”. But even after reading it, I'd certainly not stop all medical treatment for a condition I already have and continue to pay close attention to the numbers if I were eating the typical American diet. Then I would take dietary steps to reduce the numbers - adhering closely to a plant-based diet. From personal experience I know this approach works. Be diligent and patient and you'll see the same results.
Having high cholesterol numbers and clear arteries is not possible in this country except in the case of great, great Uncle Silas who lived off bear tallow and hominy grits back in the Ozarks and lived to be 110. It would preposterous and presumptous to assume even for a second that we can depend on any perceived genetic predisposition in the hope that it will carry us into a ripe old age in good health with the foods we’re eating and the lifestyles we are leading. Our supermarket food sources just aren’t that great and just flat out ouf shape. Our supermarket choices are designed to taste good, not necessarily to be good for you. If it is good for you, it’s a happy accident.
Remember, though - all sales are market driven and most sellers want to fill the needs of the marketplace. If we demand changes in our food supply and honesty from our suppliers (that's a tall order), the marketplace can change to meet this demand.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Nov 13, 2009 - Salad, dressing and hummus recipes
Just a few recipes I saw demonstrated that looked delicious! Using a food processor and a blender gets a salad with dressing on the table in mere minutes! Give these a try:
Chopped salad
Ingredients
· 1 cup baby spinach
· 1 raw zucchini
· 1 celery stalk
· ¼ red bell pepper
· ¼ avacodo
· (optional) Cilantro, garlic, lemon juice
· (optional) try with rice paper and butter leaf lettuce leaves for salad wraps
Chop all ingredients in a food processor with the ‘S’ blade to desired consistency.
Here’s a great dressing:
Ingredients
· Firm tofu
· Celery
· Garlic
· Dill
· Water
Blend together in vitamix or blender
Hummus
Ingredients
· Garbanzo beans (or any beans, for that matter)
· Cashews – small amount – it doesn’t take much
· Lime or lemon
· Celery
· (optional) roasted garlic, roasted eggplant, roasted red pepper
Blend in vitamix or a blender for a creamier texture or food processor for a more granulated texture
Taco Salad
Ingredients
· Lettuce
· Tomato
· Carrots
· Avocado
· Chili beans (or beans cooked with tomato paste, celery, onion and red pepper)
· Crushed corn tortillas (bake on open oven rack on both sides until brown - watch carefully!)
· Salad dressing
Chop / shred salad ingredients to desired consistency and mix in chili beans, crushed corn tortillas and use hummus as dressing, if desired.
Raw Kale Salad
Ingredients
· 1 bunch raw kale
· 1 red onion
· 1 bell pepper
· 1 bunch dill
· 1 tomato
· 2 ears of corn (raw, cut off cob)
· Juice from 1 lemon
· 2 cloves pressed garlic
· 1-2 avocados
Chop salad ingredients by hand or in food processor, add raw corn and avocado then mix together with your hands until flavors have all blended together.
You can beef up any salad by adding rice, beans, and corn tortilla chips.
Chopped salad
Ingredients
· 1 cup baby spinach
· 1 raw zucchini
· 1 celery stalk
· ¼ red bell pepper
· ¼ avacodo
· (optional) Cilantro, garlic, lemon juice
· (optional) try with rice paper and butter leaf lettuce leaves for salad wraps
Chop all ingredients in a food processor with the ‘S’ blade to desired consistency.
Here’s a great dressing:
Ingredients
· Firm tofu
· Celery
· Garlic
· Dill
· Water
Blend together in vitamix or blender
Hummus
Ingredients
· Garbanzo beans (or any beans, for that matter)
· Cashews – small amount – it doesn’t take much
· Lime or lemon
· Celery
· (optional) roasted garlic, roasted eggplant, roasted red pepper
Blend in vitamix or a blender for a creamier texture or food processor for a more granulated texture
Taco Salad
Ingredients
· Lettuce
· Tomato
· Carrots
· Avocado
· Chili beans (or beans cooked with tomato paste, celery, onion and red pepper)
· Crushed corn tortillas (bake on open oven rack on both sides until brown - watch carefully!)
· Salad dressing
Chop / shred salad ingredients to desired consistency and mix in chili beans, crushed corn tortillas and use hummus as dressing, if desired.
Raw Kale Salad
Ingredients
· 1 bunch raw kale
· 1 red onion
· 1 bell pepper
· 1 bunch dill
· 1 tomato
· 2 ears of corn (raw, cut off cob)
· Juice from 1 lemon
· 2 cloves pressed garlic
· 1-2 avocados
Chop salad ingredients by hand or in food processor, add raw corn and avocado then mix together with your hands until flavors have all blended together.
You can beef up any salad by adding rice, beans, and corn tortilla chips.
Nov 13, 2009 - Counting days and laying low
It looks like my last day of water-only will be Nov 20, since back to work I go Nov 30. This should be enough time to really put a dent in the arterial blockage and get more blood flow. I am continuing to experience improvement in blood pressure and heart rate. The improvements are slow, but promising. I am optimistic.
It's still a bit monotonous, day in and day out, but doable. I really have no appetite, but I look forward to eating really good food when the time comes - I'm building my catalogue of favorite recipes. I look at my boredom, discomfort and sometimes long days this way: If a person with cancer can endure weeks of chemo and radiation, accompanied by the usual nausea and associated sickness, get poked and prodded, lose all their hair, get body parts cut out, get so weak and miserable they can't stand up, AND afterwards live with a compromised immune system with chemo residue AND cancer still lurking in the body, I can put up with this mild discomfort. It's all perspective, so I've got it easy.
So here's where I am today:
Weight: 126.8
BP: 140/90
Temp: 96.9
Pulse: 60-68 (depending on the day)
To put this weight in perspective, I wrestled in the 123 pound weight class as a sophomore in high school and I think I might have been an inch shorter. Funny, I sure felt stronger back then for some reason!
The rate at which I am losing weight seems to be slowing, so I doubt I'll blow away with the first fall breeze. I do find it difficult to stay at a comfortable temperature. A temperature difference of 5 degrees has a much more pronounced effect on a fasting body that has an internal temp of 97 degrees. I am the most comfortable just lying in bed under the down comforter - now that's perfect!
I walk 10-12 laps daily in the small courtyard here. It'll make you dizzy if you walk too fast - not because you're fasting, but because the inner court is small and surrounded by two levels of apartments, so the view is essentially the same on four sides. It would be great if True North was plopped out into the middle of a nice country farm setting surrounded by some of those farsical 'happy' cows of California I hear so much about on tv, away from the bustling noise of town, where you could really unwind the mind as well as the body. The center is doing well, but a change in venue would make for an irresistable retreat.
But it serves the purpose where it is located. People come in, heal, and leave changed. You can't beat that. Many get off their meds, and return to a drug-free life. Some reduce their meds substantially. All return home empowered with life-saving information so they can maintain a lifestyle that, Lord willing, will carry them healthily into their last days, whenever that is, juxtaposed to the likelihood that they may wither slowly between periods of illnesses, existing in quiet anxiety and fear, lying awake at night wondering when the next bout of this or that will strike (and hoping they have enough insurance to cover it), and whether or not they'll survive it. Sadness.
One must be pro-active and pursue good health. Basic principles of proper nutrition and lifestyle have been forgotten and overidden by the bombardment of advertisements for so-called food products that are designed solely to stimulate the senses rather than to satisfy. They have no interest in satisfying you - profit lies in that percentage of over-consumption that begins just above the satisfaction level. That, to me, sounds like the very foundation of gluttony. When the chip maker says, "Bet you can't eat just one", they are absolutely right - it's the perfect seduction. Who can resist, but the one who knows the truth and avoids that first chip altogether. One hundred eighty degrees is the only direction you can turn.
It's still a bit monotonous, day in and day out, but doable. I really have no appetite, but I look forward to eating really good food when the time comes - I'm building my catalogue of favorite recipes. I look at my boredom, discomfort and sometimes long days this way: If a person with cancer can endure weeks of chemo and radiation, accompanied by the usual nausea and associated sickness, get poked and prodded, lose all their hair, get body parts cut out, get so weak and miserable they can't stand up, AND afterwards live with a compromised immune system with chemo residue AND cancer still lurking in the body, I can put up with this mild discomfort. It's all perspective, so I've got it easy.
So here's where I am today:
Weight: 126.8
BP: 140/90
Temp: 96.9
Pulse: 60-68 (depending on the day)
To put this weight in perspective, I wrestled in the 123 pound weight class as a sophomore in high school and I think I might have been an inch shorter. Funny, I sure felt stronger back then for some reason!
The rate at which I am losing weight seems to be slowing, so I doubt I'll blow away with the first fall breeze. I do find it difficult to stay at a comfortable temperature. A temperature difference of 5 degrees has a much more pronounced effect on a fasting body that has an internal temp of 97 degrees. I am the most comfortable just lying in bed under the down comforter - now that's perfect!
I walk 10-12 laps daily in the small courtyard here. It'll make you dizzy if you walk too fast - not because you're fasting, but because the inner court is small and surrounded by two levels of apartments, so the view is essentially the same on four sides. It would be great if True North was plopped out into the middle of a nice country farm setting surrounded by some of those farsical 'happy' cows of California I hear so much about on tv, away from the bustling noise of town, where you could really unwind the mind as well as the body. The center is doing well, but a change in venue would make for an irresistable retreat.
But it serves the purpose where it is located. People come in, heal, and leave changed. You can't beat that. Many get off their meds, and return to a drug-free life. Some reduce their meds substantially. All return home empowered with life-saving information so they can maintain a lifestyle that, Lord willing, will carry them healthily into their last days, whenever that is, juxtaposed to the likelihood that they may wither slowly between periods of illnesses, existing in quiet anxiety and fear, lying awake at night wondering when the next bout of this or that will strike (and hoping they have enough insurance to cover it), and whether or not they'll survive it. Sadness.
One must be pro-active and pursue good health. Basic principles of proper nutrition and lifestyle have been forgotten and overidden by the bombardment of advertisements for so-called food products that are designed solely to stimulate the senses rather than to satisfy. They have no interest in satisfying you - profit lies in that percentage of over-consumption that begins just above the satisfaction level. That, to me, sounds like the very foundation of gluttony. When the chip maker says, "Bet you can't eat just one", they are absolutely right - it's the perfect seduction. Who can resist, but the one who knows the truth and avoids that first chip altogether. One hundred eighty degrees is the only direction you can turn.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Nov 08, 2009 - Thoughts on Food
Not that I'm hungry or anything, even as my weight has plummeted to 130 pounds (my appetite was suppressed a week ago), I really needed to refine my understanding of how to choose the right foods, prepare them so they are tasty, get full at mealtime, maximize nutrition, continue to reverse my condition, and protect my health. Yes, all that! This is what I have learned.
I was very excited about raw foods when I discovered this way of eating two years ago. It goes down easy and tastes great, and if you can stick to it faithfully, you'll receive great benefit. But it is a discipline ALL THE TIME. The proper ratio of fats, fruits and leafy greens is important. Invariably, to get enough to eat, you tend to drift to the fats like avacodos, oils, and certain nuts. Or you eat more fruits, which presents it's own set of issues. Salads just don't have the calories. The high fat dressing might, but the salad just does not. You should be able to eat anything raw, but the high fats just did not work for me - something was missing.
I know a few raw foodists who are overweight because they live off the fat of the land, but most who follow the principles get really thin at first then tend to plump up and even out after a couple of years. Good for them! I love seeing someone being successful.
Eating raw foods can become quite dogmatic adversely affecting your quest for the right foods if you become serious about it, at least until you can develop enough meal plans and can actually find a good variety of these foods locally. Soak and sprout. Don't eat this, can't eat that. You start feeling a bit like a primitive cave dweller who, after breakfast has just been eaten, immediately begins in earnest looking for enough food for the next meal. Forget about chasing down that gazelle, they're too fast - you could try, but if you miss, there goes lunch. And if you ran long and hard enough, you return from the failed hunt too darned tired to stay awake for dinner, which isn't the worse thing, since you already know it's going to be leftovers.
But I still enjoy most raw foods. The nutrition is high, the taste is great, and they have the potential to be very health-restorative. I have two issues with this lifestyle, however - high fats and low calories.
High fats and oils put me right where I am, among other things I'm sure, even though I was not considered overweight. Low calories of the non-fat foods caused me to gravitate to the fats and oils. I needed to get full and if I was to stay within the parameters of the raw food diet (as I knew it), I'd have to rely on fats and oils, which only partially solves the problem - I just couldn't eat a great deal of these type of products - way too rich. I needed to get full. This desire to get full is biological in nature.
Just as a caution, if you are diabetic or know someone who is, you already know that diet is critical and knowing the glycemic load of foods is vitally important to understanding how to maintain a consistent blood sugar level. You can't just rush into a diet change without careful research. I would not suggest plunging into the lifestyle I am advocating or what anybody else advocates without seeing the facts and proven results for yourself -there's not a great margin for error.
But allow me to offer these words of encouragement. Dr. Gabriel Cousens produced a video in which he invited diabetics, type I and type II, of all races from every part of the US and invited them to his center in Patagonia, Arizona to show them how raw foods could stabilize their blood sugar and dramatically reduce their need for insulin or remove the need altogether in thirty days or less. For most people, this happened in half the time. For those who stuck it out for the duration, they went home insulin free, lighter, and healthier with real empowerment over their disease just by making better food choices. One person, a young alcoholic, continued to drink heavily (much to the chagrin of those around him) throughout his time there, and still, his insulin needs dropped to almost nothing by the end of the period. The video is titled, 'Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days'. Get it on Amazon. Or, ask me and I'll loan it to you. It is inspiring. Food is powerful medicine.
The stomach is designed to feel satiated and believe it or not, it's entirely based on how much you eat, that is, volume, and not on what you eat. Too little volume, you'll want to eat more. Too much and you'll get pain. You can fight the low volume for a little while. This is called dieting - aka, caloric restriction. Doesn't it suck?? Pick most diet plans marketed today - all based on the same principle of calorie restriction. Or they use fiber (wood? cellulose? bran? styrofoam??) to fill the stomach, or some other unnatural trick to make the brain think it has received all the nutrition and food volume it needs. Most people can't do this forever, it usually lasts until that special food gets put on the table and starts calling irresistably. Then the swing back to meeting the biological need to feel satiated returns with a vengeance and keeps on coming and coming until all the weight, and more, has returned. And don't get me started on the sugar high if that special something is chocolate cake! Calorie restriction does not work - it lasts as long as willpower lasts (which is like fighting the black knight with a rubber knife), is miserable to endure and is doomed to failure. We aren't designed to do that at all.
So what do we really want? Good old fashioned, unprocessed, natural complex carbohydrates. Not bread or ground wheat products or 5 minute reconstituted rice, but high starch vegetables right out of the ground like brown rice, potatoes, turnips, rudebegas, carrots, squash, etc. I thought this was odd at first, but it makes sense now. This now will replace the meat as the center of the meal and doesn't need ketchup, steak sauce, or barbecue sauce. Spices (except salt) come in real handy here. Get to know them. No fats or oils needed. Use fresh ground flax seed to get the omega-3 fatty acids which corporations insist you can only get from their processed oils. Pure bunk.
You could fill the stomach with potatoes and you'll take in only 500 calories. Potatoes are not fat food. Butter and sour cream on the potatoes are the fat foods. Eat all you want. Boiled preferred, or sauteed quickly in vegetable broth with onions and other veggies sounds good, too. I just ordered a potato cookbook from Amazon so I can really learn how to make this vegetable a centerpiece.
Interesting facts about how the body stores reserves. It requires 30 percent of the energy in carbohydrates to convert this fuel source to fat. The body really doesn't want to do that - too expensive. It will make every effort to burn this food as fuel, which is to our benefit. Fat, on the other hand, requires only 3% or less of it's energy to move (notice I didn't say convert) itself to storage. It is effortless and painless - and worthless for all but the anorexic. As a matter of fact, you could take a core sample through any stored fat section of your body and easily determine exactly which type of fat was stored! Polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, satured - makes no difference - fat does not get converted, it just gets moved. This process was designed to get us through some tough winters when there was no food, but honestly, when was the last time that happened to you or me? If a famine hits, keep a bottle of rancid olive oil handy and see how long you last.
I still love my salads and fruits, which I'll be eating in abundance, just not as the center of my meal - these foods are important and taste fantastic, but I will be adding suateed (NOT in oil), steamed and boiled vegetables to my diet to meet my caloric needs. No more pushing away from the table before I'm fully satisfied. There's no need when the food is right. I'll still keep all animal products from my diet and refrain from fats and oils, except those found in the vegetables naturally, and limit the foods that are exceptionally high in fat like avocados and certain nuts. This sounds entirely sensible to me.
Just a note on cooking - Steam or boil all that you can. The temp never gets over 212 degrees. Maybe I said this already, but it bears repeating. When the food gets cooked to the higher degrees, bad compounds form, most of which is concentrated on the outer layers of the food exposed directly to the heat but found in abundance throughout the food. Put a lid on this type of cooking as much as possible.
Even so, once a year I plan to break the rules and make an oversized pot of my famous seafood gumbo for our friends and family who are willing to make the trip up the hill. Instead of having three bowls, though, I'll cut back to one, and eat more salad. I'm thinking mid-July.
If you're interested, there's a sign-up sheet in the breakroom.
I was very excited about raw foods when I discovered this way of eating two years ago. It goes down easy and tastes great, and if you can stick to it faithfully, you'll receive great benefit. But it is a discipline ALL THE TIME. The proper ratio of fats, fruits and leafy greens is important. Invariably, to get enough to eat, you tend to drift to the fats like avacodos, oils, and certain nuts. Or you eat more fruits, which presents it's own set of issues. Salads just don't have the calories. The high fat dressing might, but the salad just does not. You should be able to eat anything raw, but the high fats just did not work for me - something was missing.
I know a few raw foodists who are overweight because they live off the fat of the land, but most who follow the principles get really thin at first then tend to plump up and even out after a couple of years. Good for them! I love seeing someone being successful.
Eating raw foods can become quite dogmatic adversely affecting your quest for the right foods if you become serious about it, at least until you can develop enough meal plans and can actually find a good variety of these foods locally. Soak and sprout. Don't eat this, can't eat that. You start feeling a bit like a primitive cave dweller who, after breakfast has just been eaten, immediately begins in earnest looking for enough food for the next meal. Forget about chasing down that gazelle, they're too fast - you could try, but if you miss, there goes lunch. And if you ran long and hard enough, you return from the failed hunt too darned tired to stay awake for dinner, which isn't the worse thing, since you already know it's going to be leftovers.
But I still enjoy most raw foods. The nutrition is high, the taste is great, and they have the potential to be very health-restorative. I have two issues with this lifestyle, however - high fats and low calories.
High fats and oils put me right where I am, among other things I'm sure, even though I was not considered overweight. Low calories of the non-fat foods caused me to gravitate to the fats and oils. I needed to get full and if I was to stay within the parameters of the raw food diet (as I knew it), I'd have to rely on fats and oils, which only partially solves the problem - I just couldn't eat a great deal of these type of products - way too rich. I needed to get full. This desire to get full is biological in nature.
Just as a caution, if you are diabetic or know someone who is, you already know that diet is critical and knowing the glycemic load of foods is vitally important to understanding how to maintain a consistent blood sugar level. You can't just rush into a diet change without careful research. I would not suggest plunging into the lifestyle I am advocating or what anybody else advocates without seeing the facts and proven results for yourself -there's not a great margin for error.
But allow me to offer these words of encouragement. Dr. Gabriel Cousens produced a video in which he invited diabetics, type I and type II, of all races from every part of the US and invited them to his center in Patagonia, Arizona to show them how raw foods could stabilize their blood sugar and dramatically reduce their need for insulin or remove the need altogether in thirty days or less. For most people, this happened in half the time. For those who stuck it out for the duration, they went home insulin free, lighter, and healthier with real empowerment over their disease just by making better food choices. One person, a young alcoholic, continued to drink heavily (much to the chagrin of those around him) throughout his time there, and still, his insulin needs dropped to almost nothing by the end of the period. The video is titled, 'Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days'. Get it on Amazon. Or, ask me and I'll loan it to you. It is inspiring. Food is powerful medicine.
The stomach is designed to feel satiated and believe it or not, it's entirely based on how much you eat, that is, volume, and not on what you eat. Too little volume, you'll want to eat more. Too much and you'll get pain. You can fight the low volume for a little while. This is called dieting - aka, caloric restriction. Doesn't it suck?? Pick most diet plans marketed today - all based on the same principle of calorie restriction. Or they use fiber (wood? cellulose? bran? styrofoam??) to fill the stomach, or some other unnatural trick to make the brain think it has received all the nutrition and food volume it needs. Most people can't do this forever, it usually lasts until that special food gets put on the table and starts calling irresistably. Then the swing back to meeting the biological need to feel satiated returns with a vengeance and keeps on coming and coming until all the weight, and more, has returned. And don't get me started on the sugar high if that special something is chocolate cake! Calorie restriction does not work - it lasts as long as willpower lasts (which is like fighting the black knight with a rubber knife), is miserable to endure and is doomed to failure. We aren't designed to do that at all.
So what do we really want? Good old fashioned, unprocessed, natural complex carbohydrates. Not bread or ground wheat products or 5 minute reconstituted rice, but high starch vegetables right out of the ground like brown rice, potatoes, turnips, rudebegas, carrots, squash, etc. I thought this was odd at first, but it makes sense now. This now will replace the meat as the center of the meal and doesn't need ketchup, steak sauce, or barbecue sauce. Spices (except salt) come in real handy here. Get to know them. No fats or oils needed. Use fresh ground flax seed to get the omega-3 fatty acids which corporations insist you can only get from their processed oils. Pure bunk.
You could fill the stomach with potatoes and you'll take in only 500 calories. Potatoes are not fat food. Butter and sour cream on the potatoes are the fat foods. Eat all you want. Boiled preferred, or sauteed quickly in vegetable broth with onions and other veggies sounds good, too. I just ordered a potato cookbook from Amazon so I can really learn how to make this vegetable a centerpiece.
Interesting facts about how the body stores reserves. It requires 30 percent of the energy in carbohydrates to convert this fuel source to fat. The body really doesn't want to do that - too expensive. It will make every effort to burn this food as fuel, which is to our benefit. Fat, on the other hand, requires only 3% or less of it's energy to move (notice I didn't say convert) itself to storage. It is effortless and painless - and worthless for all but the anorexic. As a matter of fact, you could take a core sample through any stored fat section of your body and easily determine exactly which type of fat was stored! Polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, satured - makes no difference - fat does not get converted, it just gets moved. This process was designed to get us through some tough winters when there was no food, but honestly, when was the last time that happened to you or me? If a famine hits, keep a bottle of rancid olive oil handy and see how long you last.
I still love my salads and fruits, which I'll be eating in abundance, just not as the center of my meal - these foods are important and taste fantastic, but I will be adding suateed (NOT in oil), steamed and boiled vegetables to my diet to meet my caloric needs. No more pushing away from the table before I'm fully satisfied. There's no need when the food is right. I'll still keep all animal products from my diet and refrain from fats and oils, except those found in the vegetables naturally, and limit the foods that are exceptionally high in fat like avocados and certain nuts. This sounds entirely sensible to me.
Just a note on cooking - Steam or boil all that you can. The temp never gets over 212 degrees. Maybe I said this already, but it bears repeating. When the food gets cooked to the higher degrees, bad compounds form, most of which is concentrated on the outer layers of the food exposed directly to the heat but found in abundance throughout the food. Put a lid on this type of cooking as much as possible.
Even so, once a year I plan to break the rules and make an oversized pot of my famous seafood gumbo for our friends and family who are willing to make the trip up the hill. Instead of having three bowls, though, I'll cut back to one, and eat more salad. I'm thinking mid-July.
If you're interested, there's a sign-up sheet in the breakroom.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Nov 04, 2009 - Day 10 (day 3 water only)
I made it to Sacramento Monday on 6 ounces of vegetable broth and 6 small chunks of watermelon then I shut down the digestive system for the duration. So I'm counting Monday as day 1 of my water fast due to the next to no calories I took in. This was validated by a ketone measurement of my urine sample the next morning which was a +3 on a scale of 1 to 3. So I've been in full ketosis for some time.
And I can now say I am happily done with this particular brand of broth for awhile - it's very saturating when it's essentially all you take in after a few days. It's main benefit is to supply a relatively high amount of minerals which is important, but knowing I was leaving this liquid behind made even water-only fasting that much more appealing. Am I still tasting that stuff?
My weight loss rate has not changed. I'm continuing to lose the same amount of weight on water as I was on broth and the weak veggie juice - 1.2 pounds per day. I came in 10 days ago at 150 pounds and I am now at 134.8. I don't know if that works out to exactly 1.2 pounds per day but it has amounted to as much since I recognized the trend a few days ago. But I get checked every morning and night and I'm still feeling very vital, just a bit weaker.
My blood pressure has increased to 158/96 since going all water, which is a little higher than what it was when I arrived 10 days ago on bp drugs. I enjoyed a week of really low pressure (as low as 110/70) which was great, not that I could tell outwardly. This is very common for most fasters as the body detoxifies in earnest. It will drop steadily once the crisis is past, but estimating how long that will take is impossible.
I know another patient here who had been fasting for 14 days without effort and no change to his normal blood pressure. His higher percentage of bodyfat was being readily used for fuel so he had a 14 day buffer - and a reprieve. But now he's getting to the good stuff as evidenced by his increase in blood pressure and general disposition. I did not have a lot of body fat coming in so when I cut the broth, my body seemed to go right to work. Based on my bp readings this afternoon, it must be working pretty hard.
Water only fasting began producing some different symptoms relative to the measly one hundred calorie diet I was consuming. I experience a small knot in my stomach, no hunger at all, and I get light heartburn and a sour stomach in the evening, fortunately unlike some folks who experience nasty nausea from the increased bile (most likely), as a result of peeling back and processing years of nasty toxins. You just never know how much toxic waste you have stored over your lifetime or what your constitution is for extended fasting, but I have many days to go, so maybe my day is yet to come. I could sure do without the vomiting. The only other symptom is lightheadedness upon standing too quicky, so I take my time to avoid this condition.
I try to keep the day from dragging on too long by taking classes and attending lectures. The class this morning was a cooking class, though it was mostly raw food. When you have the raw incredients handy, you can throw together some really tasty dishes in less than five minutes. Our instructor showed us fresh-cut baked hash browns, a no bake cake with a ground date/pecan crust (very rich), a no mayo waldorf salad (she used small cut banana pieces to hold it all together), variations for oatmeal, a fruit salad and even ice cream which was essentially all frozen fruit and a few frozen cashews to add some creaminess and then run through a champion juicer. It looked very tasty, though the only thing I wanted were those hash browns. I'll definitely be building a repertoire of my personal favorites so we can eat even better when I get home.
The lecture addressed some misconceptions on a couple of current dietary trends (raw vs. cooked, and food combining) based on an understanding of how the body actually processes food. Essentially, a good variety of raw foods (like salads) and lightly steamed and boiled starch-type foods is about all your body needs for a robust and long life. Except for vitamin B12, your body figures it all out just fine - you'll stay healthy, disease free, and maintain your correct weight.
As B-12 goes, we can't get the B12 as vegans because our vegetable and fruit sources are much more hygenic as a rule than they were back in the day, when the bugs and worms were one with the crop. There is research on plant sources of B-12, but these sources are likely to be unavailable to the human body so don't bank on them. One thousand mcg of methylcobalimum (my choice) every couple of days seems to work just fine to keep the levels high.
It takes three years or so to deplete B12 reserves, so it stays in the body quite a long time and you don't need much of it, but it is essential. Even a yearly 8 ounce slab of organic calf's liver would do the job just fine, so I'm told, but I know that's a big EEWWWW!! for most people, but I used to really enjoy fried liver and onions when I was younger, just ask my mom.
Hmmm, come to think of it, I don't remember turning down anything mom made, experimental or otherwise.
Otherwise, you don't need meat. You don't need oils or added fats and just limited amounts of vegetable fats, like avacodos and walnuts. Eliminate sugars entirely, don't use fruit as a main course, and back off the bread. Alcohol is a destroyer always, regardless of what the wine industry says, and antibiotics really deplete the good bacteria in the intestine allowing the bad bacteria (they're always there, just kept in check) to get a foothold and proliferate once the course of drugs is finished, opening up a whole host of disease opportunities if left unchecked. In this case, three weeks of live probiotics appears to be a great start to getting the intestinal flora quickly back on track and in proper balance, along with a proper diet.
The big rule for healthy cooking is to avoid frying and baking - the temp just gets too high and changes the molecular structure of the food in a way that promotes the formation of an enormous quantity of carcinogenic and poisonous compounds that just aren't found in the uncooked food, especially in the darkened outer layers (think baked potato skins). Not to say there aren't any harmful compounds in the raw food, but they are more easily and readily dispatched by the body due to the much lower amounts and types of compounds.
Your body has to fight these compounds to keep you alive. White blood cells to the rescue! If they were fighting something else in the body, they must retreat and rush to deal with the more immediate threat, which is unfortunately the food. This explains why my cat hid itself in a quiet corner and refused to eat while healing from an abcess, just as every animal but man instinctively knows to do. Food and healing, most of the time, just don't mix - unless you're healing from starvation. My unscientific explanation is over simplified as usual, but you get the idea. If you cook, lightly steam. Otherwise, stick to no higher than 212 degress (boiling) and you can keep the body humming along just like our Creator designed it to do.
This day is wrapping up quite nicely so I can put another big, fat 'X' on the calender as I countdown my days of water fasting to the 18th, unless the doctors pull the plug first.
So reduce the size of that rib-eye and instead enjoy a double serving of those delicious purple potatoes with a side of steamed broccoli. Bon appetit!
And I can now say I am happily done with this particular brand of broth for awhile - it's very saturating when it's essentially all you take in after a few days. It's main benefit is to supply a relatively high amount of minerals which is important, but knowing I was leaving this liquid behind made even water-only fasting that much more appealing. Am I still tasting that stuff?
My weight loss rate has not changed. I'm continuing to lose the same amount of weight on water as I was on broth and the weak veggie juice - 1.2 pounds per day. I came in 10 days ago at 150 pounds and I am now at 134.8. I don't know if that works out to exactly 1.2 pounds per day but it has amounted to as much since I recognized the trend a few days ago. But I get checked every morning and night and I'm still feeling very vital, just a bit weaker.
My blood pressure has increased to 158/96 since going all water, which is a little higher than what it was when I arrived 10 days ago on bp drugs. I enjoyed a week of really low pressure (as low as 110/70) which was great, not that I could tell outwardly. This is very common for most fasters as the body detoxifies in earnest. It will drop steadily once the crisis is past, but estimating how long that will take is impossible.
I know another patient here who had been fasting for 14 days without effort and no change to his normal blood pressure. His higher percentage of bodyfat was being readily used for fuel so he had a 14 day buffer - and a reprieve. But now he's getting to the good stuff as evidenced by his increase in blood pressure and general disposition. I did not have a lot of body fat coming in so when I cut the broth, my body seemed to go right to work. Based on my bp readings this afternoon, it must be working pretty hard.
Water only fasting began producing some different symptoms relative to the measly one hundred calorie diet I was consuming. I experience a small knot in my stomach, no hunger at all, and I get light heartburn and a sour stomach in the evening, fortunately unlike some folks who experience nasty nausea from the increased bile (most likely), as a result of peeling back and processing years of nasty toxins. You just never know how much toxic waste you have stored over your lifetime or what your constitution is for extended fasting, but I have many days to go, so maybe my day is yet to come. I could sure do without the vomiting. The only other symptom is lightheadedness upon standing too quicky, so I take my time to avoid this condition.
I try to keep the day from dragging on too long by taking classes and attending lectures. The class this morning was a cooking class, though it was mostly raw food. When you have the raw incredients handy, you can throw together some really tasty dishes in less than five minutes. Our instructor showed us fresh-cut baked hash browns, a no bake cake with a ground date/pecan crust (very rich), a no mayo waldorf salad (she used small cut banana pieces to hold it all together), variations for oatmeal, a fruit salad and even ice cream which was essentially all frozen fruit and a few frozen cashews to add some creaminess and then run through a champion juicer. It looked very tasty, though the only thing I wanted were those hash browns. I'll definitely be building a repertoire of my personal favorites so we can eat even better when I get home.
The lecture addressed some misconceptions on a couple of current dietary trends (raw vs. cooked, and food combining) based on an understanding of how the body actually processes food. Essentially, a good variety of raw foods (like salads) and lightly steamed and boiled starch-type foods is about all your body needs for a robust and long life. Except for vitamin B12, your body figures it all out just fine - you'll stay healthy, disease free, and maintain your correct weight.
As B-12 goes, we can't get the B12 as vegans because our vegetable and fruit sources are much more hygenic as a rule than they were back in the day, when the bugs and worms were one with the crop. There is research on plant sources of B-12, but these sources are likely to be unavailable to the human body so don't bank on them. One thousand mcg of methylcobalimum (my choice) every couple of days seems to work just fine to keep the levels high.
It takes three years or so to deplete B12 reserves, so it stays in the body quite a long time and you don't need much of it, but it is essential. Even a yearly 8 ounce slab of organic calf's liver would do the job just fine, so I'm told, but I know that's a big EEWWWW!! for most people, but I used to really enjoy fried liver and onions when I was younger, just ask my mom.
Hmmm, come to think of it, I don't remember turning down anything mom made, experimental or otherwise.
Otherwise, you don't need meat. You don't need oils or added fats and just limited amounts of vegetable fats, like avacodos and walnuts. Eliminate sugars entirely, don't use fruit as a main course, and back off the bread. Alcohol is a destroyer always, regardless of what the wine industry says, and antibiotics really deplete the good bacteria in the intestine allowing the bad bacteria (they're always there, just kept in check) to get a foothold and proliferate once the course of drugs is finished, opening up a whole host of disease opportunities if left unchecked. In this case, three weeks of live probiotics appears to be a great start to getting the intestinal flora quickly back on track and in proper balance, along with a proper diet.
The big rule for healthy cooking is to avoid frying and baking - the temp just gets too high and changes the molecular structure of the food in a way that promotes the formation of an enormous quantity of carcinogenic and poisonous compounds that just aren't found in the uncooked food, especially in the darkened outer layers (think baked potato skins). Not to say there aren't any harmful compounds in the raw food, but they are more easily and readily dispatched by the body due to the much lower amounts and types of compounds.
Your body has to fight these compounds to keep you alive. White blood cells to the rescue! If they were fighting something else in the body, they must retreat and rush to deal with the more immediate threat, which is unfortunately the food. This explains why my cat hid itself in a quiet corner and refused to eat while healing from an abcess, just as every animal but man instinctively knows to do. Food and healing, most of the time, just don't mix - unless you're healing from starvation. My unscientific explanation is over simplified as usual, but you get the idea. If you cook, lightly steam. Otherwise, stick to no higher than 212 degress (boiling) and you can keep the body humming along just like our Creator designed it to do.
This day is wrapping up quite nicely so I can put another big, fat 'X' on the calender as I countdown my days of water fasting to the 18th, unless the doctors pull the plug first.
So reduce the size of that rib-eye and instead enjoy a double serving of those delicious purple potatoes with a side of steamed broccoli. Bon appetit!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Nov 01, 2009 - Encouraging news
Sure, it's natural to be skeptical about genuine, proven healing methods when it challenges our beloved lifestyle, no matter how disabling our lifestyle might be. The first thing that enters our mind is "If I have to give up this or that, there is no way I'm doing this new thing". Apply it to anything - the physical or spiritual - it makes no difference. I hear it all the time even when the words are not spoken. We shoot down possible paradigm shifts, not because we know them to be false (because we really haven't explored them at all), but because we are afraid we'll have to give up some harmful practice that we have grown to love. It could be the burger joint across the street, the morning latte, the porterhouse, the bacon and eggs or the alcohol. We are convinced our quality of life will be drastically reduced if we give up these things because we have grown to love these things - they have become our comfort and our best friend.
I submit to you that life gets better when we make the decision to swap our unhealthy living for the things that are better by design – it then becomes just a learning curve. For those in reasonable health, there is no need to make a big noisy production of it - just make small changes, measure the benefits, and go forward to the next step. You'll get results. If your health is compromised, and even if you choose a traditional path for treatment, plunge right in headfirst, the water's fine - I'm right there swimming with you!
For those who are facing difficult decisions in the face of rapidly declining health, I offer this: When we come to the end of ourselves, and we are backed into the proverbial corner, these strange, new choices can become VERY appealing, because for the first time, we accept the fact that the current way of living and popular methods of treatment just don't prove out upon closer examination of the mortality tables, and we deserve better than that. And quite frankly, we want to live and we'll do most anything to do it!
But sometimes it's too late by then. We wait too long and we're finished. Now if we can take a small step forward into the unfamiliar and open our minds to truth, we always find in retrospect that these new choices were the best we've made. I do not regret this path I'm on. In all ways, I am better off.
Just as I have never regretted becoming a Christian 18 years ago, giving up the harmful things as I have come to know them as harmful (I'm still learning and growing), I find that the truth-proven choices I have adopted have done nothing but improve my life, and have helped me to release my death grip on those things that drag me to the grave. And the longer I practice, the easier it gets - new challenges become ever easier to tackle and the things that appear to be difficult just don't have the same weight they used to have. But I, like everyone else, have hung on to the wrong things in life for far longer than I should have. It's only by the grace of God that I'm living today.
We have been led to believe that traditional allopathic medicine is the only answer. As I have said before, in the case of chronic illness, it many times offers no permanent relief at all. Does the doctor, when he prescribes cholesterol meds, ever say to you, "Take these for a year then you'll be cured"? The reality is, you're in the system for life, all other factors remaining the same. Go off the drugs, the problem will return, because it never left. We should take every step to remove the cause of the disease and let the body heal itself - it has been designed beautifully to do just that. That's where the real magic is!
But we should not wait too long - there can be, short of immediate and direct Divine intervention, a point of no return. But the real beauty is, no matter what your current state of health, or how many treatments or surgeries you've had, or how many prescriptions you are taking, correct eating and lifestyle change begins having immediate and lasting benefits.
Keep searching for the truth, settle for nothing less, question everything. Become convinced. There is no reason to fade into the darkness, clinging to the things that mean nothing, and having no hope.
Today...
....is day seven here at the center. I am still drinking broth and a very watery vegetable juice - about 100 total calories total. I'll begin water fasting in earnest Monday afternoon. I would have started this morning but I need to make a trip to Sacramento tomorrow morning (Monday) and I can't leave while water fasting. It is house policy and a very wise one. Blood pressure could change suddenly after standing up too quickly and the next thing you know you awake on the pavement clutching a big bump on your noggin faintly pleading to passerbys, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!". So a little caloric intake can prevent this from happening.
Even with this modest caloric intake, I experience some pretty typical fasting symptoms - I occasionally feel light headed when I stand up too quickly and I have experienced feeling a pounding pulse in what seems like every cell in my body - it's very strange. This last symptom can be attributed to two things, one a possible cause and the other a sensation. The cause being, according to the doctors, the result of the usual stress the body experiences when detoxifying, very similar to the increased pulse rate and pounding I would experience in the middle of the night after drinking one too many margaritas. Good reason to quit drinking, would you not agree? The sensation, in the case of fasting, I attribute to the low body fat, which makes it seem like the larger vessels are right on the surface, especially in the abdominal area. Last night the sensation was minimal, but the night before it was going on pretty strong for most of the night. Drinking water eases the symptom considerably.
I have continued to steadily lose weight. I came in last week at 148 lbs and I'm at 139.6 today, about the same weight as when I graduated high school in 1977, believe it or not. I had already done much work in real diet correction in the month before coming to the center, dropping from 162 lbs, so I am that much closer to getting the results I want.
I'm right on track for some real housecleaning, and it has begun in earnest. I have been off all blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medications for three days and my total cholesterol is now 120 (with 20 mg of simvistatin and the new diet it was 115), and while my blood pressure has been a bit scattered across the board, this morning it was 114/70. This is the lowest it has been in my life. Ever.
Some of this drop can be attributed to the slight dehydration and salt loss that occurs in all fasts, but over time, a steady baseline will be revealed. With diet and lifestyle change, ninety percent of all patients never need blood pressure meds again in their entire life. I am thinking 110/70 by the time I leave in a month. I saw this number in my head this morning and I expect the best.
I submit to you that life gets better when we make the decision to swap our unhealthy living for the things that are better by design – it then becomes just a learning curve. For those in reasonable health, there is no need to make a big noisy production of it - just make small changes, measure the benefits, and go forward to the next step. You'll get results. If your health is compromised, and even if you choose a traditional path for treatment, plunge right in headfirst, the water's fine - I'm right there swimming with you!
For those who are facing difficult decisions in the face of rapidly declining health, I offer this: When we come to the end of ourselves, and we are backed into the proverbial corner, these strange, new choices can become VERY appealing, because for the first time, we accept the fact that the current way of living and popular methods of treatment just don't prove out upon closer examination of the mortality tables, and we deserve better than that. And quite frankly, we want to live and we'll do most anything to do it!
But sometimes it's too late by then. We wait too long and we're finished. Now if we can take a small step forward into the unfamiliar and open our minds to truth, we always find in retrospect that these new choices were the best we've made. I do not regret this path I'm on. In all ways, I am better off.
Just as I have never regretted becoming a Christian 18 years ago, giving up the harmful things as I have come to know them as harmful (I'm still learning and growing), I find that the truth-proven choices I have adopted have done nothing but improve my life, and have helped me to release my death grip on those things that drag me to the grave. And the longer I practice, the easier it gets - new challenges become ever easier to tackle and the things that appear to be difficult just don't have the same weight they used to have. But I, like everyone else, have hung on to the wrong things in life for far longer than I should have. It's only by the grace of God that I'm living today.
We have been led to believe that traditional allopathic medicine is the only answer. As I have said before, in the case of chronic illness, it many times offers no permanent relief at all. Does the doctor, when he prescribes cholesterol meds, ever say to you, "Take these for a year then you'll be cured"? The reality is, you're in the system for life, all other factors remaining the same. Go off the drugs, the problem will return, because it never left. We should take every step to remove the cause of the disease and let the body heal itself - it has been designed beautifully to do just that. That's where the real magic is!
But we should not wait too long - there can be, short of immediate and direct Divine intervention, a point of no return. But the real beauty is, no matter what your current state of health, or how many treatments or surgeries you've had, or how many prescriptions you are taking, correct eating and lifestyle change begins having immediate and lasting benefits.
Keep searching for the truth, settle for nothing less, question everything. Become convinced. There is no reason to fade into the darkness, clinging to the things that mean nothing, and having no hope.
Today...
....is day seven here at the center. I am still drinking broth and a very watery vegetable juice - about 100 total calories total. I'll begin water fasting in earnest Monday afternoon. I would have started this morning but I need to make a trip to Sacramento tomorrow morning (Monday) and I can't leave while water fasting. It is house policy and a very wise one. Blood pressure could change suddenly after standing up too quickly and the next thing you know you awake on the pavement clutching a big bump on your noggin faintly pleading to passerbys, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!". So a little caloric intake can prevent this from happening.
Even with this modest caloric intake, I experience some pretty typical fasting symptoms - I occasionally feel light headed when I stand up too quickly and I have experienced feeling a pounding pulse in what seems like every cell in my body - it's very strange. This last symptom can be attributed to two things, one a possible cause and the other a sensation. The cause being, according to the doctors, the result of the usual stress the body experiences when detoxifying, very similar to the increased pulse rate and pounding I would experience in the middle of the night after drinking one too many margaritas. Good reason to quit drinking, would you not agree? The sensation, in the case of fasting, I attribute to the low body fat, which makes it seem like the larger vessels are right on the surface, especially in the abdominal area. Last night the sensation was minimal, but the night before it was going on pretty strong for most of the night. Drinking water eases the symptom considerably.
I have continued to steadily lose weight. I came in last week at 148 lbs and I'm at 139.6 today, about the same weight as when I graduated high school in 1977, believe it or not. I had already done much work in real diet correction in the month before coming to the center, dropping from 162 lbs, so I am that much closer to getting the results I want.
I'm right on track for some real housecleaning, and it has begun in earnest. I have been off all blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medications for three days and my total cholesterol is now 120 (with 20 mg of simvistatin and the new diet it was 115), and while my blood pressure has been a bit scattered across the board, this morning it was 114/70. This is the lowest it has been in my life. Ever.
Some of this drop can be attributed to the slight dehydration and salt loss that occurs in all fasts, but over time, a steady baseline will be revealed. With diet and lifestyle change, ninety percent of all patients never need blood pressure meds again in their entire life. I am thinking 110/70 by the time I leave in a month. I saw this number in my head this morning and I expect the best.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)