Psst Need Some Inspiration?

Photo Credit - One Good Bumblebee

Hi guys!

I'm happy to report that my laundry pile (and my piled up email) is slowly but surely on its way back to health this week! I still have some other stuff to catch up on, but hope to get back to the blogging world shortly. Thank you for sticking with me (if indeed, you are!) :-) I miss you all and hope to catch up soon!

I wanted to tell you about a great opportunity! My good friend Bethany told me today that she's selling a bunch of her hygienic health materials (books, CDs, etc) at 50% off. This is not because she doesn't think they're worthy of her love anymore (she still applies these principles in her life and considers these to be very valuable resources), but because she needs the money.

Let me just say that the list she sends me made my brain drool and I already have my eyes on a couple of the items. :D

If anyone is interested, email her at bethanymeira at pathofhealth dot org and she will send you the list!

So how is everyone doing anyway? Drop me a note and tell me what you're up to!

I Can't Keep Up Anymore!

Huff puff...okay let me attempt to gracefully land on the ground, take my supergirl cape off for a minute here to be honest and say,

I can't keep up anymore!

With frequent posting on this blog, that is. I have so many ideas and so much inspiration for posts, that for awhile there I just wanted to get them all out asap.

The problem is, my life sneaked up and totally got in the way of blogging! My husband, my children, my friends, my house, my little quirky fitness habits, my gardening dream, my urgent need to be outside as much as possible, my piano gigs, my dogs, my LAUNDRY...can you believe the nerve of my life to intrude on my blogging like that!

I did some serious thinking over the weekend, friends... and I came to the conclusion, that I really think I could do it all, if a day consisted of 40 hours instead of 24. I really do believe I could!

But lets talk reality here. My reality, anyway. I like to write rambling, in-depth, long, informational posts. But they do take me awhile to plan and write, and I just wasn't finding enough time in a day to do everything I wanted to, and blog too. And here is the result:


Let me take a minute to share here what my favorite thing about blogging has been so far. Sure - it's been fun to share and express my thoughts in a creative way. But mostly, what I've gotten most out of blogging, has been my conversations with all of you.

Conversation in the comments section, conversations on email, on your blogs, and on various other forums - they have all been enriching, growing experiences for me and I have learned more from YOUR thoughts and YOUR experiences than you would imagine.

I have loved writing back, and answering every comment and email that comes my way. I haved loved discovering new blogs and reading about your lives. It makes blogging what blogging is for me. It would be so very boring if I was writing just to hear myself speak.

(This means, if you lurk, please consider delurking, at least occasionally! I'd love to hear from you.)

But when I am posting often, I simply don't have time to be as personal as I would like to be. So I'm hoping that by posting less often, I will be able to have more conversations with all of you. Yes - this means if you wrote me an email, you should be hearing back from me soon.

And hopefully fewer posts will mean higher quality too - but one never knows with me. :D

So please bear with me as I attempt to transition gracefully to a less hectic posting schedule. I haven't decided firmly what that will look like yet, except that it won't be 4-5 times a week. At least not before my kids grow up and leave me. Wahhh! And, my 7 yr olds just told me last week that they want to live with me forever, so THAT may just never happen.

I hope that you will all be patient and stick with me! I promise I'm still here even if I'm knee deep in piles of clothes, and I'll be sure to wave when I get to the top of my laundry mountain!

If you have enjoyed my blog, first of all - thank you, and second of all, please consider subscribing via email or RSS (links on my sidebar) so you do get an update whenever I post!

Have a happy Monday, everyone. :-)

8 Reasons Not To Go On A Raw Vegan Diet.

The following are 8 reasons not to touch the raw vegan diet with a 10-foot pole.

Photo Credit - Douglas.Earl

1. You like your bladder just the way it is.
For those of you who are particularly grossed out by public bathrooms, it would probably be best not to pursue a lifestyle that would increase and improve your bladder function because lemme tell you, you're going to have to see the inside of a great many public bathrooms.

This can majorly detract from your quality of life when you're out and about.

(Plus, your pee will become boring and clear instead of entertaining you each time with different shades of yellow.)

Photo Credit - Oddsock

2. Being a couch potato is really more your kind of thing.
Raw vegans eventually seem to end up becoming nature buffs if they weren't already. After awhile, they all generally have urges to become nekkid sunbathers and outdoorsy, sweaty people.

If being outside for more than 10 minutes at a time with dirt, bugs and other perils of nature is not your idea of fun, then I highly suggest you do not ever explore the raw vegan diet.

Photo Credit - Diabolic Preacher

3. Soda is your best friend.
If soft drinks really hit the spot for you, if you are proud to call yourself a loyal and true Coke or Pepsi fan...

If your entire house is decorated in mugs, banners, blankets, antique signs and various other paraphernalia with soft drink logos and mottos on them...

And if your mental health depends on jump starting each day with a good 12 oz jolt, then forget this diet, it will make you crazy.

Photo Credit - Thejbird

4. You NEED your quality bathroom time.
What's there not to like about being constipated? It gives you a whole lot of bathroom reading time. When you go on a fruit diet, it's in and out quite literally. In seconds.

This has seriously cut into my reading time, people. So if your bathroom break is your designated reading and relaxing time, then this diet is definitely the wrong one for you.

Photo Credit - Piez

5. You don't want to offend any of your friends and family, ever.
No matter how quiet and polite you are about your diet, you will inevitably have some people in your life feeling like you're judging them.

These people will take it very personally that you are choosing a fruit diet and may possibly berate, insult, avoid or make fun of you.

Thankfully, MOST people are very cool about it. But if you don't want to offend anybody, EVER, and you cannot stand being made fun of or being different, then stay far away from the raw vegan world.

Photo Credit - Donna Cymek

6. Happy people disturb you.
If you're quite happy with your current quality of life, and being able to eat whatever you want, then please, do not attempt the raw vegan diet. Why even go there?

Because - mark my words - you will seriously mess your lifestyle up and you will quite possibly end up feeling all peaceful and vibrant and sparkly in your soul, which could get very annoying, because people who are constantly happy really bug the crap out of you.

Photo Credit - Autumn Welles

7. Compliments are not your thing.
Do you get all mortified, self conscious or simply irritated when people tell you how good you're looking, or how they can't believe you're not (insert age about 5-10 years than you really are)?

Because if so, you better not even THINK about changing your lifestyle because eventually people will start noticing how good you look and feel most of the time, and they WILL point it out and ask you lots of questions about it.

Photo Credit - Christi Nielsen

8. You're obsessed with your bath and body products and you don't leave the house without makeup, thank you very much.
Here's the deal - most people go into this whole raw lifestyle just by dipping their toes in cautiously. But sooner or later, most of us fall into a deep abyss of no return.

And pretty soon, it's not surprising to hear of someone else giving up their shampoo. And then it spreads to the demise of the fruity-floral body washes. And then facial cleansers go down the drain. And then...dare I say it...bye bye deodorant. (And of course, the razor and makeup got lost somewhere along the way.)

So if the George or Jane of the Jungle look horrifies your senses, better move on now before you get any closer to that dark abyss.

Your turn to play.
I only touched the tip of the iceberg, so c'mon, I know y'all have tons more great reasons for me. Bring it on! Just play nice okay? :)

*Disclaimer - This is a totally silly tongue-in-cheek post, friends. I hope it is received as such. No offense meant to anybody, whatever you choose to eat. :-)

Can Stress Really Make You Sick?

Monday night when my husband hauled me like the big baby that I am into the house and up the stairs to bed because I was sicker than a gangrenous wart, my sister who was babysitting for us completely freaked out.

Photo Credit - Orbitgal

My sister is a busy bee these days and is getting ready to make some major cool transitions in her life. She's also had more sick days this year than she usually does, and I'm not sure whose face was greener when she saw me all limp and soggy like - mine or hers.

Why? Because she said she was terrified that if I had somehow managed to get some kind of weird stomach virus, that it would no doubt descend upon her too, since she's temporarily staying with us and drinking the same water and breathing the same germy air that we are and everything. And she DOES NOT HAVE TIME TO GET SICK RIGHT NOW!

(And yes, of course she was concerned for me too.)

Worrywarts and sickness.
I will personally admit, I have always had a (natural?) tendency to be a worrywart and struggle with negative thoughts from when I was little.

I've worked on it over the years and I've learned to let a lot of things go especially after being married to Mr. Eternal Sunshine Optimist for 9 years. But like a weed, worry and negativity still pops up in my life every now and then and I have to stop and pull them out by the roots.

Now - I have often heard about the connection between stress and ill health. I've even heard it in the media - on news articles and on TV. And we all know that everything you hear on TV is the truth.

But to be honest, and please don't hit me, I never really believed it.

I understood that there are instances where people have made themselves sick over negative thoughts - however, in my mind I attributed it to hypochondria, like maybe their sickness was all in their heads.

Maybe this is because my own husband used to tease me that my motion sickness problems (I tend to get motion sick more easily than others) were all in my head. At least until Monday night on the drive home. He shut up Big Time then.

Photo Credit - mastrobiggo

I never believed it, until...
Recently, I learned something that hit me between the eyes and helped me make a connection to things that have happened to me in real life.

I was watching a video by Professor Rozi Graham (Dr. Graham's wife). She is an excellent speaker and teacher, and she said something in a way that I'd never quite understood before:

She said:

Physiologically, the two processes that require the most energy from your body are:

a) Emoting

b) Digesting.

Wow! Really?! I thought it was GIVING BIRTH! Or at least long distance running...or mountain climbing...or something more of that nature, you know?

As Rozi's words continued to unfurl it made more and more sense to my personal life. She said that that this is precisely why many of us have trouble transitioning to a healthier diet.

You see, it is almost impossible to process your emotions when you're eating a dense heavy meal that is going to take hours/days to digest. And likewise, if your body is busy pouring all your energy into working out your emotions, usually one of two things happen:

Either you lose your appetite (because your body needs to emote) OR if you cannot or do not want to deal with your emotions right then, you stuff them up temporarily by eating foods that are difficult to digest. Because when you're digesting, your emotions are pretty much numb.

A couple of years ago, something really difficult happened to my family. I was in pure shock for 3 days straight, and my emotions were so strong and invasive that I could not eat or sleep for the entire duration. The thought of eating made me want to gag. And if you know me, you know this is a violent abberration of my very nature.

NOW I KNOW WHY!!! My body did not have the resources to deal with both those strong emotions AND digest food at the same time, so it completely shut my desire for food down until I had worked through my shock.

There have been other times when I have had unpleasant emotions to deal with to a lesser degree, (you know, things like, I got a speeding ticket and Kevin's never gonna let me live this down, ever) and I notice that those are the times I still harbor a tendency to want to stuff my stress down with lots of food.

Photo Credit - Programwitch

What I told my sister.
After learning just how much energy emotions require to process, I began to fully grasp that if you chronically allow negative thoughts to squeeze you tight in its smelly, slimy clutches, as your energy is drained you WILL be robbed of your health, and sometimes very quickly.

I have made an even bigger effort since then to learn different, healthier ways of handling my emotional needs and letting things (and sometimes even people) go, when I need to. I don't mean that I dismiss my feelings or ignore them. It is usually healthiest to address them head on, I have found.

So what did I tell my sister? I told her first of all not to worry her little head, that I didn't have a deadly contagious virus, but that even if I did, that her freaking out and worrying about getting sick would do nothing but ENSURE that she would get sick.

In other words, I told her to CHILL OUT. (Of course, I told her all this the next morning, since that night I couldn't walk, let alone talk, as every time I opened my mouth I was afraid that I might lose internal body parts from it.)

Stress in your life.
Have you noticed a connection between negative emotions and ill health, either in your life or in the lives of your friends and loved ones? Have you ever used food to numb your emotions or is lose-your-appetite-and-get-skinny more your style?

What have you found to be helpful in processing negative emotions in a positive way so that you don't get caught up in the vicious cycle of negative emotion, digestion and sickness?

When Heat Was Not My Friend

*Warning - This post contains Way! Too! Much! Info. If you're easily grossed out I suggest passing this one by.

So - I had something more informational planned for today's post, but then life happened and you'll see in a minute why I can't think straight enough today to write anything worth reading.

Photo Credit - thesidewinder

The baseball game from hell
Yesterday my husband was given 2 free box tickets to the Rangers-Yankees baseball game by a business associate.

Neither of us are huge baseball fans, but it sounded like a fun date, so when he begged me to go I rolled my eyes and said, sure, fine.

A decision both of us sorely regretted by the end of the night.

It actually turned out to be a pretty fun experience if not for the THING that happened to me. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about baseball. Plus we got to sit with some friends and it was good to chat with them too. I had a nice time and would totally want to go back someday. Like the next time I'm feeling brave.

But it was 98 degrees out there the entire time. And even though the sun wasn't shining on our section, I began to develop a headache over the next couple of hours.

I brought a gallon of water with me because I carry one every day, it's my trademark fashion statement, one that makes me the butt of many jokes. I drank quite a bit of water over the course of the game, but I just began to feel sicker and sicker.

Finally, it got to the point where I had to tell Kevin that if we didn't leave pretty soon I might just hurl myself over the balcony to make my point.

So we left.

The problem is that the ballpark we were at is the size of the moon, at least. And not being major baseball fans, neither of us had been there very often. In fact, it was my first time ever.

And while the ballpark itself is the size of the moon, the parking lot is the size of the entire galaxy on growth hormone pills. Or at least that's what it felt like last night as we were walking around like idiots trying to find Parking Lot M, where our car was located.

We of course went out the wrong exit, so we pretty much had to walk all the way around the galaxy.

As we kept walking I continued to get dizzier and it became harder to breathe. My skin was cold and clammy to touch, and I was having a hard time not falling on every step. I really wanted to just sit there and wait for Kevin to get the car, but by that time it was dark outside and there was some drunk guys acting really crazy around us and it made me nervous.

I had no idea what was happening to me and I was pretty scared. Finally we found a group of valets who seemed to be the only people around there who weren't drunk and cussing, so I sat down by them and waited for Kevin to get the car.

By the time Kevin got to me, I was lightheaded and having trouble standing up. I almost passed out right there on the sidewalk. I was shocked when I got in and saw the time - it had taken us 45 freaking minutes after we left the game, to find the car!!!

Kevin drove me home as fast as he could - it was about a 25 minute drive, the longest drive of my life. And when we pulled into the driveway, I turned to him and whispered, "You're gonna have to carry me to bed. I can't walk."

Here comes the gross part and don't say I didn't warn you.
He carried me upstairs, and the second he put me on the bed, I lost it and totally puked everywhere.

The (only) good thing about puke when you eat a fruitarian diet, is that something like watermelon isn't nearly as gross coming up as when you're eating, say - fried chicken and ice cream. It is also infinitely more colorful. (Just trying to be positive here.)

And can I just give Kevin some kudos? He's the best when I'm sick. I'm sure he did not like being puked on, but he was a trooper and cleaned everything up as quickly and quietly as he could, and brought me anything I thought I might need. He even steam cleaned the carpet where I'd messed on. That's true love, people.

This is the first time I've been this sick, in a LONG TIME. I was surprised at how panicked I got. I've become so used to feeling great most of the time. I remember thinking last night that I might really be dying, and wouldn't that be so horrible for my kids? Go ahead, call me drama queen. Nausea brings out the histrionics in me, that's for sure.

I lay in bed for many hours last night, still feeling miserable and afraid to move a millimeter. I woke up this morning feeling MUCH better, but rather like I have a weird hangover, and I'm still having trouble thinking straight, so just to warn you, don't hold me responsible for anything I say or do today.

Photo Credit - OrangeSmell

Heat Exhaustion, anyone?
I figured that I probably got a nice little dose of heat exhaustion, so today I looked up the symptoms for it, and I had almost every single one of the symptoms listed.

• heavy sweating - Not really.
  
  
• paleness - CHECK.
  
  
• muscle cramps - Not really.
  
  
• tiredness - CHECK.
  
  
• weakness - CHECK.
  
  
• dizziness - CHECK.
  
  
• headache - CHECK.
  
  
• nausea or vomiting - CHECK CHECK CHECK.
  
  
• fainting - CHECK.
  
  
• Cool and moist skin - CHECK.
  
  
• Fast and weak pulse rate - CHECK.
  
  
• Fast and shallow breathing - CHECK.

Photo Credit - Kirill Tropin

Here is what the CDC Prevention Guide recommends if you have the symptoms of heat exhaustion:

• cool, non-alcoholic beverages, as directed by your physician
  
  
• rest
  
  
• cool shower, bath, or sponge bath
  
  
• an air-conditioned environment
  
  
• Lightweight clothing

Please watch for these symptoms as you stay active this summer!
I didn't use to be aware of heat exhaustion. Normally I love the heat and I've even run in 90 degree weather quite a few times. But being out there in the crowds and noise in 98 degree weather for several hours really got to me. I could see how this could be really dangerous for kids especially.

Have you or anyone you know ever gotten heat exhaustion? How have you dealt with it and how long did it take for you to get back to normal?

This Chick And Her Chickadees Went To Chick-Fil-A.

That's right.... after all the hoo-ha from last week over McDonald's, we ended up going to a different place!

(I made some new friends from swim class and they really wanted to go to lunch with the kids at McD's, and I was worried because my children have never been there.)

Chick-Fil-A was also a place that my kids had never been to, but hey, at least I can STILL say they've never been to McD's, right?

Photo Credit - sheriffmitchell

Here's how everything went down.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, after blogging about my dilemma, we went to swim class. Miss Margaret had just wrapped up the previous class and was at the side of her house, switching out some water hoses for her sprinklers or something like that.

When she saw us, (remember - my 3 yr old was the favorite kid of the year) - she said, "Do you want to come help me with the water hoses, Miss T?" And my daughter happily went off with her into the unknown.

I left them and went inside with my boys and we got in the pool.

Finally, my dd walks out of the house with Miss Margaret, and she's holding something in her hand. Something bright, orange, florescent and puffy...

Yep... a Cheeto.

(She's never had a Cheeto in her life...all my kids are dairy free).

Oops.

I immediately said, "Uh Oh Miss Margaret!!! She can't have those..."
Miss Margaret immediately put her hand out in front of my dd's mouth and lo and behold, my dd spits a second Cheeto out into Miss Margaret's hand with relief. Looked like she'd been holding it in her mouth because she had no idea what to do with it!

So unfortunately, that is how Miss Margaret found out we are fussy eaters. :-)

Now, less anyone get indignant on my behalf - I have to say that in this culture, and perhaps especially in my state, it is so normal to eat those kinds of foods that I understand why a swim teacher who liked my daughter so much and wanted to spend some special time with her would have offered her a little treat - and wouldn't have wondered if Cheetos were acceptable.

I was not offended or upset about this. I was more flattered that the swim teacher was so fond of my kid. I feel it was a good learning experience for me as a parent, and since I'm not a striving perfectionist, and health is not just about diet, I don't think that this one experience will ruin my dd for life.

Photo Credit - Oslo in the Summertime

Wednesday
The other mother, Patsy and I decided to take the kids to a park on Wednesday. My suggestion. It was just us and our kids.

I had started gently breaking Patsy in about my diet the day before, and she was so super cool about it, I was grateful and relieved. We brought plenty of fruit and healthy food to share, and she brought their own food, but also brought some fruit and raisins to share with us! That was so sweet of her.

Having picnics at parks is a great idea when you're meeting new friends and are worried about their acceptance of your diet, because the kids go from acting like frail starving waifs in the car to completely losing their appetites as soon as the park looms into sight.

So I might as well not have brought anything, 'cos all the kids pecked reluctantly at their food for 3 minutes and then played the rest of the time anyway.

Photo Credit - Slice

Friday
It was a sad day on Friday, because we all knew we wouldn't have swim lessons again until next spring. (Yes, I'm sooo going back! I'm addicted and counting down the months to next June.)

We went extra long that day, and I had so much FUN swimming different strokes back and forth the length of the pool. I felt like a completely different person than I was just 7 weeks ago. I feel like I'm half fish now and I am really eager to evolve into full fish!

Afterwards, all the parents began leaving, but Patsy and I hung around as we usually do because we're just like that.

Miss Margaret came up to us and quietly said, "So...lunch? The three of us?" And we were like, "Yeah!!!"

After everyone else had left, we discussed where we were going to go. My guess is, Patsy might have filled Miss Margaret in about my diet, because she didn't even bat an eye when I said that I'd prefer a place where there was a play area because my kids were on a "special" diet. Or maybe the Cheeto incident clued her in sufficiently. :)

First we talked about the park again, but that was quickly vetoed as temps were rising quickly into the 100's. So we decided on Chick-Fil-A as the local McD's did not actually have a play structure.

So people, the rest of the story is short because basically, we went to Chick-Fil-A, and NOBODY LOOKED AT OUR FOOD, ASKED ABOUT OUR FOOD OR CARED ABOUT OUR FOOD, as is usually my experience when I'm with my friends, without my kids.

Sheesh, I'm such a worry wart! For nothing!

(I snuck in some of our own food, plus I ordered 3 side salads for me and the twins, and we painstakingly and quietly picked the cheese off.) (It was a lot of work for 3 bites of salad, lemme tell ya!)

The kids had a GREAT time playing in the play area, and us 3 adults had a nice time sitting and having some adult conversation. I am SO glad I went and worked through all the stuff in my head. And really, it WAS all in my head. I did not give my friends enough credit. Shame on me!

Got any more stories for me?
First, I really appreciate every piece of advice y'all gave me about this little experience. So many of your tips and suggestions helped me this time and also for future outings!

It's interesting for me as my kids get older and become more social, because I'm very comfortable being social on a special diet, when I'm flying solo now. But I'm not as confident when I'm bringing my family with me since they have some dietary restrictions too and I just feel more conspicuous about it when they're all with me.

If you have kids on healthier/special diets and have had similar encounters, please share a story with me today! If you don't have kids, I'd love to hear the last social experience you had where you were on a different diet from the rest of your friends. Reading others' experiences is fascinating to me, for some reason!

Have I lost My mind (Yet)?

No seriously...if any of you start thinking I've gone loopy, I reeeeeally want you to tell me.

Lennie's great interview yesterday gave me lots to think about during my run this morning and I can only hope you're all as addicted to my thoughts as I am because like it or not....here ya go:

Wait! But first! A Big Fat Disclaimer!
This post is NOT meant to be advice for aspiring or new raw vegans out there. It is merely a summary of my experiences so far. Remember, I'm kind of a newbie myself, with only 1.5 years of this diet behind me. So if you're wanting real advice, choose your experts carefully. :)

Okay, now we can move on.
I have great appreciation and respect for Dr. D, Lennie and the folks in the 80/10/10 and Natural Hygiene camp. After floundering for awhile in the big overwhelming world of raw nutrition, I finally felt like I had come home when I found them.

It just made so much sense to me to generally stick to a low fat diet, and to eat fruit as a staple fuel and biologically appropriate food, supplemented by greens and veggies.

I set out to try this diet, and what can I say? I feel that it's worked very well for me so far. I sure haven't done the whole lifestyle perfectly, but who's looking for perfection here? Not I. I'm just happy to have found some sound health principles to improve the quality of my time on earth.

I know I still have some things to work out but I find that I'm less and less of a perfectionist and more and more patient and observing with myself over time. And then I get everything down better because it just comes naturally with time.

Photo Credit - Trinity

An unexpected twist
What I didn't expect, was that over time, my desire for greens would go down.

This has surprised me, because growing up, I certainly was taught to like my veggies. If you'll remember in this post, I shared how my Mom instilled in me a love for crisp fresh vegetable eating.

To be honest, while I still like many types of greens and veggies and I eat them in large amounts whenever I want, I've certainly not cumulatively gotten close to the 1 lb/day average that Dr. D recommends in his book. Unless you count tomatoes, because I can easily eat 4 lbs of tomatoes in a sitting, 365 days a year.

I go weeks sometimes without eating greens.

Here are the only veggies and greens I ever eat lately:
Almost every day
Tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, okra in big amounts.

Maybe once every month...or two
romaine or iceberg lettuce, and celery.

A few times a year, but increasingly less and less
Tougher veggies such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower

Never
I never eat dark leafy greens (such as collards, kale, etc) because a) they taste icky to me personally and b) I refuse to eat anything that tastes icky to me. :)

When I eat lettuce or celery, I can and do eat 1-2 lbs at a time, easy. But I find that I just don't gravitate toward them much anymore. JUST GIMME SUGAR. Plus, sometimes the lettuce or celery is bitter and then I don't want it at all.

More often than not, I will buy greens and stick them in the fridge, only to throw them out a few weeks later because I never felt like eating them.

Photo Credit - Liqueur Felix

Growing toward simple, instinctual life.
When I first started out, I counted my calories almost every day, and sometimes painstakingly measured food to make sure I was doing it halfway "right". I do think this is a good and educational thing to do when you're transitioning to a fruit and greens diet from a regular cooked food diet.

But I like my life simple and after I felt that I had basically gotten the hang of how much food to eat and what foods made me feel best, I quit doing all that. Partly because I am lazy and partly because I felt it was counter productive to the simplicity I was seeking.

As time goes on, I'm slowly relearning to hear what my body is telling me. I'm regaining some of the senses and natural instincts I had numbed down and in some cases, lost altogether on a lifetime of a cooked diet.

(I still do things often that go against my better judgment, because I'm human after all. For example, about 6 months ago, I had some green onion after not having any onion at all months. It made me so sick that I kicked myself for doing it and have not even been tempted to touch it since then.)

Photo Credit - Aviator Dave

So. About those greens.
I have no idea if my desire for greens will fluctuate and come back with a vengeance over the next several years. On this issue, here is where I stand at this moment, and before you read the next paragraph, please do yourself a big favor and scroll back up to the top and read my Big Fat Disclaimer again first. :)

I am grateful for people who have blazed the trail on this path. If they did not set out to educate the world and share their amazing experiences, I would not be writing this today.

Dr. D's greens and veggies recommendation on the 80/10/10 high fruit/low fat diet makes perfect sense to me intellectually. How could I disagree with it?

And yet, although I LIKE greens and veggies and find them very tasty when I want them and eat them, I have a growing preference for the sweet stuff and if I was to be honest with myself, as my body has started healing and changing, I seem to want them less, not more.

I tend to take my instincts very seriously. More and more so. Should I be making myself eat tons more greens despite my lack of desire right now? I don't know.

And then, we have people like Anne, who have eaten a fruit only diet for 17 years AND have raised 2 children on it. She's one of the most intelligent people I know.

How do I reconcile the two? I cannot discount one set of experiences and observations over the other.

So for now, I concentrate on forging on ahead with healing my life, and becoming more and more in tune with the needs of my body and soul. I am not interested in micromanaging my diet (nobody I know recommends that anyway, certainly not Lennie or Dr. D!).

I keep all warnings of exclusive fruitarians (fruit only) who lose their teeth and their minds, in the back of my head. I like Dr. D's teachings because they're a breath of fresh air in this world, and I take things that he and others that he works with say, seriously.

(But, it would be helpful if I was able to find real life accounts of this, since I haven't been able to dig any up yet, and I'm guessing that Lennie and Dr. D are careful about confidentiality matters with their clients and acquaintances, as they should be.)

What's your verdict?
So I'll be getting back to you about this issue again and again over the next few years as I learn and grow, I'm sure. But now I want to know about you.

Do you take a particular stance on the greens vs. fruit issue? Do you set out to eat greens, and how much? Do they appeal to you, and have they always? Do you think I've lost my mind? Would you tell me if you thought I had? :) I sure hope so.

Yes, lots of questions, but I'm very curious! Please share if you can.