Day 42 (Wednesday): Good Day!

This will be brief, as I'm running out the door to catch a train ... but today was great in that I started it off well with a mineral-packed green juice (very little carrot, as I'm minimizing those and beets for a while). In the late morning I had two "raw" bars (all kinds of nuts, seeds and some raw cacao).

This afternoon I had my weekly colonic (second in a series of approximately 10) and that was no pleasure. However, just knowing the cleansing effect it is having on my overall physical body is encouraging and makes me realize just how serious I finally am about getting back the body I want -- both inside and out. I'm sorta seeing myself as the masterpiece that lies "within" the block of exquisite marble that the master sculptor chips away to reveal. The beauty isn't revealed until that which is not needed is removed. With my inner eye I am seeing the beauty already.

Tonight I'll have a large salad and perhaps some broiled fish ... haven't decided yet; but I'll have some cooked food, as it'll actually aid in my body detoxing better. Sounds contradictory, but it has to do with not letting the body be too "shocked" by an over abundance of living, raw food when it has not been accustomed to processing so much of it. Moderation is key, so I'm learning.

Off to the train.

Day 41 (Tuesday): You Learn Something New Every Day!

You know, just when you think you've "got the answer" (no matter what the category of life) be prepared to have the rug pulled out from under you somewhere along the way. The good thing is that often the 'fall' lands you closer to the truth than before.

I've been aware that for the last 40 days, I've been eating about five times the amount of fruit I once ate (and that's a conservative estimate), and all the while I thought it was the healthiest thing I could be doing. But I came across something today that resonated with me in a most unexpected way that has changed my mind. It dawned on me as I listened to the audio talk on fruit (linked below) by the head of the Hippocrates Institute, Dr. Brian Clement.

Ever since reading the 80/10/10 Diet book by the monofruit guy (even though I was shocked at the massive amounts of fruit he was recommending, and inately thought he must be way off base), I figured that eating mainly fruits in the mornings and early afternoons (in a much lesser volume than he) was the best way to go for me. But as I listened to Dr. Clement today, I realized that fruit -- being fructose laden, i.e., sugar laden -- isn't the best thing at all for me to be eating (in the volume that I have been eating it)!

Talk about another course correction! Well, I did know this was going to be an experiment so I shouldn't be too surprised that my "apple" cart has been flipped upside down. If one considers inventors ... specifically, Thomas Edison, it's easy to see that it takes a LOT of "experimenting" to get it right.

Anyway, the audio clip below says it all. The real amazing thing I learned was that about 80 percent of the kinds of fruits we have today didn't even exist a hundred years ago. THAT should tell us something in itself! Another astounding thing I learned was that it is hybridization practices that account for a 30-percent increase in the sweetness of fruits today over what they were just a hundred years ago. In other words, man has tampered with fruits such that they are pumping 30 times more sugar into our systems than what Nature designed our bodies to handle!

Learning this is pretty shocking. When I decided to go "mainly raw" I looked forward to eating "as much fruit as I liked" thinking it would diminish or eliminate entirely any "cravings" for sweets/desserts. Now I discover that is not to be. Onward I press. To optimum health for moi! (I love how when we want the truth, it unfolds in simple ways when we are ready to receive it. It's always just waitin' on US. Things just come together perfectly. I received my first "e-zine" from the Fresh Network this morning, and voila ... there was Dr. Clement's lecture. Delivered right to me.)

So I shall correct course once again. More greens and less fruits (less sweets). My body will LOVE it.

Fruit, Weakness and Disease

At any rate, today I ate one banana before arriving at work; during the morning I ate 3/4 of a large cantelope. Then I heard the lecture on the effects of too much fruit eating! In the late afternoon, I had a large salad. In the evening at home, I had a small salad with a side portion of soba noodle/peanut salad.

Day 40 (Monday): "Ever grateful for the gifts of health..."

I got today's entry mainly from Jinjee (a beautiful mother of four all-vegan children). She has a hippie heart if I ever saw one ... loves nature, plays several musical instruments and has a truth-seeker's spirit. (I've read her journals for a couple of years now). Here's what she wrote today:

"I was reading this month's issue of Pear Magazine in which Scott Jackson shares how he lost 110 lbs. on the raw diet. He said that you need to create a really big "why", a reason for going raw or for losing weight that will really motivate you and keep you focused. Once you have the "why" the "how" sort of takes care of itself. Desire is the key. I really want to take my diet to a higher level, cut out all cheating, do more green juices and green smoothies, and cut down on the amount of food I eat. I know it will give me more energy as I've experienced this many times over the years for weeks or months at a time. So I have been thinking about creating a really big "why" to help me to move along my path in this direction towards ever increasing health. Yesterday I was inspired to write this below piece, called "When you are truly healthy...." and I think I'm going to use this as my "why"!

(Until I sit down and write out my own BIG WHY, I'm using hers for now, as it covers things that mean a lot to me as well. I've printed it out and will be reading it each morning as I walk. I left her exclamation points in just as she wrote them).

"When you are truly healthy, you are magnetic! When you are truly healthy you radiate! When you are truly healthy you attract your dreams to you! When you are truly healthy you have so much energy to give, share, and live an amazing life! You attract your mission. You are poised and ready to do the unique work you were meant for! You move forward at the speed of light! You are accelerated! You are living at the speed of life!!! When you are truly healthy you feel so good, look so good, and love the feeling of moving in your body.

The real you is able to come out, to shine, your light is shining so bright it is like a gift to the world. You are relaxed and stress-free, your thoughts are positive and loving, your personality is balanced. You are at peace. You are a tool of the angels. You are enjoying each and every moment. You are truly alive!!! You are truly grateful for each thing, person, place, breath, experience, and moment that comes your way. When you are truly healthy, every moment is a prayer, connected.

When you are truly healthy, your presence becomes a healing force. When you are truly healthy your eyes sparkle, shine, glow and dance! When you are truly healthy your family life is harmonious, your relationships are vibrant and exciting. Your mind is clear, your ability to make decisions is sure, you are confident, you are filled with grace. You are a channel for the well-being and joy and magic of the Universe to flow through you! All is well within you and without. You are tapped in to the perfection in all things.

And how can we be truly healthy? Do everything that you already know how to do to be healthy. Eat the highest way you know of, and do the other things that you know contribute to health. You’ll become more in tune and you’ll get more knowledge, messages and guidance of how to take your health to higher and higher levels. Be sincere in your seeking of health. But do not be hard on yourself. Seek to be true. Be ever more true. Be ever more solid in your resolve. Be ever stronger in your ability to resist going off your path. Be ever more grateful for the gifts of health. Be ever more protective and safeguarding of these gifts of health. Use your health to give back, to share, to give to someone, to give energy to your children, to create something of beauty. And you’ll be given greater health yet."

Today has been going very well; I had a buttered roll this morning (ran out of my fruit stash!) For lunch I had a large salad, 90% raw veggies, with a bit of pasta salad, chick peas and a few roasted vegges. I'll be stopping on the way home at the juicer's and getting a power scrub veggie juice to sip on the train ride home (just feel I NEED some concentrated greens) and for dinner I'll have a strawberry/banana smoothie. Yum. It'll be like having dessert for dinner. And it'll be light too.

... "ever grateful for the gifts of health" ... I'm off to the juicers.

Day 39 (Sunday): From the Deep Forest to Canal Street ... from peace to chaos!

Sunday was a day of contrasts. My morning started out great ... got to connect with a good friend unexpectedly; as soon as that conversation was over, I headed into the City on a mission. My dear friend's son was injured by a gang of thuggy kids the night before, and we had to pick him up from a friend's home. (Thankfully, her son is okay, given a release by the emergency room doc. He had some bad bruising and a mild concussion.) I drove my friend so as to give her a chance to "decompress" a bit. The contrast of where we live -- on a beautiful park-like piece of property complete with weeping willow and babbling stream -- to Canal Street in lower Manhattan where we ended up at the end of the day is stark, to say the least. Just driving in lower Manhattan can add gray hairs to one's head. There must have been a gazillion "shoppers" out and about, and the traffic was bumper to bumper. Oy vay, as my buddy would say!

I managed to eat fairly well, despite the weird flow of the day. Had a banana and a tangerine in the morning and some brown-rice California nori roll for lunch. For dinner I had my old stand-by, summer squash "angel hair pasta" w/ pesto sauce made with fresh basil and pignoli nuts (pinenuts). All in all, a good day.

Day 38 (Saturday): Mt. Sinai Medical Center Study - Cooked Food Affects Health

It was a beautiful spring day and the morning and early afternoon was spent reading and sunning on the deck munching a delicious cantelope. Even Keely the dog enjoyed some slices of the juicy fruit. Had zuccini "pasta" with marinara sauce for lunch and can't remember what I ate for dinner (I'm writing this on Monday afternoon). :-)
That zuccini angel-hair "pasta" is becoming my meal of choice, I've noticed. It's easy to make, filling, tastes good and is super loaded with all those enzymes, etc.

Below is an exerpt from (and the link to) an interesting article I came across recently, entitled "Study Shows Food Preparation May Play a Bigger Role in Chronic Disdease Than Was Previously Thought."

How your food is cooked may be as important to your health as the food itself. Researchers now know more about a new class of toxins that might soon become as important a risk factor for heart disease and metabolic disorders as trans fats.

This class of toxins, called advanced glycation end products (AGEs), are absorbed into the body through the consumption of grilled, fried, or broiled animal products, such as meats and cheeses. AGEs, which are also produced when food products are sterilized and pasteurized, have been linked to inflammation, insulin resistance, diabetes, vascular and kidney disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.

A new study at Mount Sinai School of Medicine reveals that AGE levels are elevated in the blood of healthy people, and even more so in older individuals than in younger people. Of particular interest was the finding that a major determinant of the blood levels of AGEs is the amount of AGEs in the diet, not dietary calories, sugar, or fat. The study, which was done in collaboration with, and supported by, the National Institute on Aging (NIA), is published in the April issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.

"AGEs are quite deceptive, since they also give our food desirable tastes and smells," says Helen Vlassara, MD, senior study author, Director of the Division of Experimental Diabetes and Aging, and Professor of Medicine and Geriatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "So, consuming high amounts of grilled, broiled, or fried food means consuming significant amounts of AGEs, and AGEs in excess are toxic. People should be given information about their AGE intake and be advised to consider their intake in the same way they would think about their trans fats and salt intake. They should be warned about their AGE levels the way they are about their cholesterol levels or cigarette smoking."

Full article here:

Mt. Sinai Study

On Cancer and a Vegetarian Diet

Day 37 (Friday): Love Thyself ... no matter what!

Well, I can see why a 40-day fast is so significant. If one can make it 40 days doing ANYTHING consistentely "right" it's quite the accomplishment. Well, I didn't. As this log is about being honest with myself (and accountable and committed), I have to write a little about yesterday afternoon.

I don't know if it was the colonic (stirring up and releasing toxins and thus kicking in an extreme craving for white flour and sugar), if it was because I had a good deal of cooked food the night before, or if it was just a weak moment due to not having eaten very much earlier in the day, but yesterday afternoon at work I went to the cafeteria about 2:30 p.m., and proceeded to have the following:

a large portion of pasta salad,
one large chocolate chip cookie,
two small butter cookies,
an apricot croissant, and
a cup of coffee (very strong) :-(

I felt like a woman possessed (as they say)!

It's all I'll say about my "deviant" behavior. I'm back on track today, and since I'm living in the NOW, being back on track is the best place I could possibly be, eh?

Today, I had some strawberries and an orange and banana for breakfast; for lunch I had a simple romaine lettuce salad w/ tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms and slightly steamed cauliflower and a side of a 3-grain dish w/ roasted veggies mixed in. I'm about to head out of the office for the weekend and plan to have my favorite zuccini/summer squash "pasta" w/ marinara sauce for dinner.

Tomorrow I have a wedding to attend and it'll be interesting to see what my body feels like it wants to eat while there. I decided at the outset of this to approach all special occasions as just that (such as Easter) and enjoy small portions of whatever my body feels it would like to eat. If this becomes drudgery or burdensome, it wouldn't be worth it. The trick is to keep "special occasions" limited ... so they stay "special" ... and stay honest with myself about what I choose.

When I'm feeling as though the food available to me is limited, I'll take a peak at this list of "All Raw Foods" (which I just found on Karen Knowler's website) and have a chuckle. How could one ever feel deprived?

1. Fresh fruits
2. Vegetables
3. Salad vegetables
4. Leafy green vegetables
5. Herbs
6. Wild greens
7. Nuts
8. Dried fruits
9. Beans, pulses and legumes (sprouted)
10. Grains (sprouted)
11. Seeds
12. Sprouting seeds
13. Indoor greens
14. Vegetable seeds (brocolli, mustard, cress etc.)
15. Edible flowers
16. Mushrooms
17. Sea vegetables
18. Algaes
19. Oils
20. Stimulants (onion, garlic, cayenne pepper etc.)
21. Spices
22. Flavourings and sweeteners (cacao, agave nectar, mesquite meal etc.)
23. Superfoods
24. Other handy additions (nut butters, seed butters, flax crackers etc.)

Here's to an active and "light" weekend!

Days 35 and 36: Unexpected Advice and Yummy Yams

Day 35 (Wednesday): I started the day with an avocado in the morning (just felt like having one), and didn't eat anything more until about 3:30 p.m. when I began to eat the cut-up fruit I'd brought from home (a red pear, a green apple, a juicy orange and half of a mango). I "feasted" on those throughout the afternoon.

The reason I had such a long break between meals is that this afternoon I had my first of six hydro sessions (euphemism for you know what). I received some unexpected advice from my 'hydrodoc' (who is stunningly beautiful, btw -- so healthy looking it's scary, white-white-WHITEs surround her sparkling hazel eyes, her skin is flawless and she's slender as a reed. Her disposition is upbeat to the max, ever encouraging and positive (without being obnoxious). The advice was that I was eating too MUCH uncooked food for just starting out! She said I'd see faster results (in terms of cleaning out my system, increased energy, weight loss, etc.) if I introduced some cooked food in the evenings, mainly vegetables. In other words, to do the raw thing more gradually.

She said my body was a bit in shock due to the drastic change in foods, and the body will tend to go into survival mode then, SLOWING down in metabolism, as well as detox, weight loss, etc. She likened it to putting too much soap into a dirty load of laundry without adding adequate water to MIX with the cleanser and disperse it better to all the 'clothes' ... said that all the live food was the "soap" but that when a system is toxic -- and anyone eating the SAD diet has a toxic body -- one needs to keep eating some cooked foods, along with the larger amount of raw, to keep the bod from going into this near "shock" and slowdown. (I remember hearing in one of my lectures that this was crucial in transitioning, but somehow in my zeal, I'd forgotten it. Another bump in the road, but at least it's corrected.)

So in the evening, she recommended I have some steamed or roasted veggies (she highly recommended yams) and a piece of fish if I wanted it. That's exactly what I ended up having: an assortment of roasted veggies mixed with some orzo (which was really good) and a slice of poached fish over mesclun greens with some grape tomatoes. I got it in the evening caff here at work (many work-a-holic lawyers here often eat breakfast/lunch/dinner at work; sad really). After eating all that fruit in the late afternoon, I couldn't finish the dinner, so I had the rest later at home.

It was great to connect with Joyce (my hydrotherapist) again. She remembered me from about a year and a half ago, but didn't recognize me when I walked in the door. I cut and colored my hair since then and had some necessary (but lovely) dental work done -- which was why I'd discontinued going to her in the first place ... I couldn't afford both). She is very excited about my transitioning to healthier eating/living and told me I could call her anytime I had questions, etc. I'll be seeing her weekly for the next six weeks. (It's what is recommended if one is going to make this transition on a fast-track, which is what I want to do, because going too gradually will be a stumbling block for me. If I ease into this too slowly, I don't think I'll stay as focused and committed as I want to stay. This is true for me. Every person is unique and people have to figure out what's best for their own bodies.

Day 36 (Thursday): Early in the morning at home I made a banana-blueberry smoothie with a splash of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and brought an assortment of fruits to nibble on throughout the day (pear, green apple, a 1/2 pint of blueberries). Feel like going light today so won't have a salad until late this afternoon. Feeling a bit full (maybe from eating the volume of cooked food I did last night)? Actually, as of about 11:30 (when this entry is being made), I haven't eaten much of the fruit.

So all in all, I'm pleased with how yesterday went and how today is going.

Check out the new video clips on the right -- Fast Food Nation trailer and behind-the-scenes making of the movie. I'm going to see about getting the DVD for my ever-growing "Go-Raw Library."