Day 21: Oops, I did it again!

Can't seem to manage to get to three weeks on this diet without taking a stumble. I really set myself up for it in a way though, but I'm alright with it too. Here's what happened ...

Yesterday I spent all day cooking a lovely three-course meal of Indian food for some family members visiting from the East Coast and Colombia: saag paneer (spinach cheese), channa masala (spiced chickpeas), aloo gobhi (potato cauliflower), chapatis (flatbread), and rice. Everything homemade. I actually like making fancy meals like this every now and then. For my dinner I had a guacamole with avocado, cilantro, tomato and corn, and scooped it/wrapped it up in bok choy. It was pretty good, and I ate until I couldn't eat any more; in fact, I couldn't even finish it. My dad had brought some wine over, which I love, but, since I've been avoiding that kind of thing lately, I didn't have any with dinner.

Then an hour or so after everyone left I was feeling hungry a bit but didn't pay much heed since it was getting late-ish. But that wine sure looked good, so I poured myself a glass: my undoing! No sooner had I downed a glass of wine than I was straight into those leftovers which looked so appealing. Then I had some more wine while watching TV.

I wouldn't call any of this a binge per se, because it wasn't. I just ate/drank some things not on my list of preferred foods. But you know what? I'm actually OK with it. I don't want to make huge excuses for myself, but it is Christmas, and I've been doing really well. If I stumble a bit it's not the end of the world. I'm seeing and feeling progress, and, while I love all the festivities at this time of year, for dietary reasons I'm looking forward to getting past them, going into the new year with a reaffirmed commitment to this lifestyle. Now that I know that it's working for me, I can't help but continue to transition into it more fully.

(By the way, my pulse is, quite frequently, racing at about 85-95 bpm, which probably means my thyroid medication is TOO HIGH: WHOO HOO! Did I tell you that already? Anywho, I go for my blood draw later this week. Cross your fingers!)

Truly, there's a reason why everyone picks New Year's Day as the day to start all those resolutions, especially of the weight-loss variety. There's nothing, zilch, nada going on for about 6 weeks (Valentine's Day, if one celebrates that), and it's almost a straight shot through until summer when it's time to get out the swimsuits.

So if I fall a little because I'm not yet a Hardcore, Professional Fruitarian, eh ... whatever! I'm human, and I'm learning to give myself a break for that. I do, however, feel more committed to doing this for the long haul than I did a couple months ago, and I think that's why my stumbles don't frighten me so much now. I also think there is great value in presenting to the world my "imperfections" while transitioning to this lifestyle. It's the most ascetic thing I've ever done in my life, and I want people to know that if you stumble a little bit, all is not lost. It's the overall direction I'm going, not how perfect I am every second of every single day. If I can do it, so can other mere mortals out there, and that's the moral of the story.

Today so far I've had just orange juice, and am thinking that it would be nice to (some time soon, not necessarily today) just drink orange juice for a few days. That's the closest I'm going to get to fasting for the moment.

I went to a yoga class today (which didn't feel so perfect after imbibing last night, but I survived). I'm definitely feeling a lot stronger in my yoga practice. My muscles are still complaining a lot due to lactic acid buildup, but it seems I'm actually getting stronger at a faster rate than usual. I'm feeling quite sturdy, and my balance is improved. Flexibility is noticeably enhanced.

I may not blog for the next week or so, as Gary is off work this week and I don't want to spend my days on the computer. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (or whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year).

Too lazy to input all my food into Nutridiary. I'll pick up on that in the new year.

Day 19: Whistling while I work

Housecleaning can be fun
I think that quantum leap in health that so many people speak of with this diet is just around the bend. In fact, is that energy I'm feeling? I hardly recognize the sensation anymore, it's been so long. But here's what I got up to today: Woke up early, but tried as hard as I could to sleep in, finally emerging at around 7 or 7:30. My man has returned, so he was entertaining the children downstairs while I attempted to get my beauty sleep, which was not forthcoming. Gave up, got up, and immediately decided to clean the entire upstairs, where we have our bedroom and a bathroom. That took until noon.

I have to interject here to explain that one of the symptoms of a thyroid problem (and mothering young children) is a perpetually dirty house. I have not had the entire house clean all at once EVER, not since we moved here in 2003. I have desperately wanted to clear out and clean out for YEARS, but even keeping my head above water with the regular daily tasks has been an almost insurmountable challenge ever since I got sick. Another symptom of a thyroid problem is depression, and sitting around devoid of energy in a messy house does not help the situation one iota. Today, I FINALLY had the energy to start changing that.

I cleaned that upstairs top to bottom, removing all the cobwebs, dust and grime, washing all the bedding (yes, I have actually done that since 2003!), putting things away, going through things, reorganizing, until it was all so spic and span that I actually smiled inside. I have decided that all I want for Christmas is a clean house, and the energy to make it so!

I cleaned and I cleaned, and when I was finished cleaning upstairs, I came downstairs and cleaned some more, but I ran out of time because I had to get to my high-intensity Bikram yoga class. Darn!

Went to yoga, did every single pose without sitting down to catch my breath once -- and I haven't done that in over a year, probably. Additionally, I was more flexible in this class than I was the last class I took, which was about three weeks ago. How does that happen???? This diet is the Super Boring Incredible Diet. It truly appears to be beginning to work wonders, and just in time for my yoga competition in two weeks!

Eating fruit in the snow
About that vacation: Four days in the snow eating fruit, very strange indeed. But I made it through. There were times that I did not eat enough, namely the one day I took my son skiing. I brought some dates and a few bananas, but I didn't want to have to pee too much, so didn't bring enough bananas. I got a headache early on that day, which built up and built up. What really was the final straw was deciding to do a longer ski run with my sister, which set in some motion sickness for some reason too. In fact, it was so excruciating that I took a couple Tylenols in the car on the way back to the condo, but when I got in the house I immediately threw them up. So I'd call it sort of cheating. :-) I had a headache all the next day too. I do think some of it was altitude, plus I think I really started to detox pretty heavy, probably somewhat from ingesting less. I've had a pretty bad taste in my mouth since then, but today, man, my energy is amazing!

Following is my food since I last blogged. I did eat one avocado each of the three evenings I was away, and I think this was a good idea. Although it brought my fat intake to higher than 10% for those days (as high as 19%), it also helped me feel much more satiated when I was surrounded by a whole lot of yummy looking cooked stuff (pizza again!) on all sides. I intend to eat lower fat for then next couple days to bring it back into balance. I think the higher-fat strategy when I knew I was in a proverbial lion's den was a good move which helped me emotionally to survive the temptation; it felt like I was getting a "treat" too.

Day 19
Food:
5 cups orange juice
6 bananas, blended with 1 romaine heart
10 blended tangerines
2 stalks celery, 3 persimmons
Calories: 1559
Calonutrient ratio: 91/5/4

Day 18
Food:
6 bananas blended with 3 stalks celery
15 dates
3 bananas
5 cups orange juice
Smoothie of 6 red bananas and 1 romaine heart
Calories: 2024
Calonutrient ratio: 92/5/3

Day 17 (small headache still today)
Food:
4 persimmons, 1 mango, smoothie of 11 clementines
3 bananas
4 cups orange juice
6 bananas blended with 1 romaine heart, 1 avocado, 4 persimmons
Calories: 2235
Calonutrient ratio: 82/5/13

Day 16 (the really bad headache day!)
Food:
2 bananas, 2 mangoes
2 bananas, 10 dates
1 avocado, smoothie of 3 bananas and 1 romaine heart
Calories: 1314
Calonutrient ratio: 77/4/19

Day 15
Food:
4 cups orange juice
7 bananas
10 dates
1 avocado, 4 persimmons
Calories: 1601
Calonutrient ratio: 80/4/16

Day 15: Into the wild

I'll be out of the blogosphere for a few days while I go attempt to rest and recuperate in Lake Tahoe with my family. It should be fun, although I won't have the spousal support in dealing with the little guys (he's still in Texas: Sarah, would you guys stop using so much water so he can come home??). The kids will get to see real snow for the first time (I think), and I'm looking forward to that.

I'm getting my food all packed. Went to Berkeley Bowl yesterday and bought about half the red bananas on the shelf, plus I noticed they were selling "cut stem" yellow bananas for $.49/lb, so I bought a bunch of those too. I wonder what people think as I go through checkout with 80 bananas!

This will, I hope anyway, be one of my first successful escapades in traveling while raw. In the past, with my love of travel and restaurants, I have always, ALWAYS, without fail, failed to continue a raw food diet while traveling. This will be uncharted territory.

I haven't always been eating as much at meals lately, and have had some cravings as a result, but haven't really been fully tempted by them. I've just sometimes felt, "I wish I didn't have to do this," but never the thought, "Let's do something different!" It's not always comfortable, but I don't feel threatened at all. As to why I haven't been eating as much, it's partially boredom, and partially the fact that the need for bathrooms makes me have to plan ahead, so sometimes I stall eating longer than I should.

Marjorie posted an explanation from Dr. D to the peeing phenomenon on my comments the other day: "Basically, you are losing brine from all of those years of eating salt. AND as you lose fat, you'll also lose the water that was stored in your adipose tissue. And the diet is high water content, too. So, the answer is, you won't pee like a racehorse forever, but you will pee more than the average dehydrated SAD [standard American diet] eater." Great! I could eat cardboard all day and already do that. Hopefully it will settle down soon. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the explanation, Marjorie! :-)

Yesterday I got invited to a Friday evening dinner on January 4th, pre-yoga-competition on the 5th. At first I declined, but then had second thoughts. My studio is going to pay for a hotel room for me down there, and I really think it will be a fun opportunity to meet others who are really into this yoga thing I love. I thought about it awhile, then called back to confirm. I don't want to miss out on life opportunities because I have this super strict diet. The dinner is supposed to be a buffet. Hopefully they will have a salad I can eat. I'll eat in advance and bring an avocado and hope for the best. I may try to get contact info and call down there to get more details next week.

It's things such as this where I find this diet super annoying, but I'm not sure what to do about that except just try to work around it as best I can. I was speaking to my friend Ela yesterday and she said that truthfully it's not about what you do on one occasion, but what you do every day, that counts, and I think that's true. But unfortunately at this point I can't "just have one meal" because that would turn into another 6 months of indulgence and put me back at square one. At least that's what previous experience tells me. So for now I have to stick to the straight and narrow as best I can. Especially the night before a competition after a month on low fat raw food, I bet my body would rebel something fierce if I tried to go too crazy. Yet still, I don't know what the outcome of that night will be, but I wanted to take the risk, because the payoff seemed good enough. If anyone else out there has experience with this type of thing -- how the heck do YOU deal with it??? -- I'd be happy to hear.

Many blessings over the next few days!

Weekly Numbers:
Weight: 111.4 (-7.6)
Body Fat % (according to the Tanita scale): 21.7% (-1.8%)
Hydration (according to the scale): 53.6% (+.9%)

Day 14

Food:
4 cups orange juice (12 oranges)
2 blended oranges (didn't like that very much -- too bitter)
4 red bananas with 18 oz raspberries
1 cup cherries
3/4 romaine heart, juice of 1 orange as dressing, 1 avocado


Calories: 1659
Calonutrient ratio: 77/6/17

Day 13: A minor success

Just wanted to blog a bit about the experience I had last night. My sister invited me down to her workplace where they were having this amazing Christmas party for kids. They had a giant bouncy slide, another bouncy thing, ornament decorating, face painting, caricature drawing, a "shootout" game, a toy grabber game, this giant bungie jumping thing, bumper cars, Santa Clause, Santa's "sleigh ride" (wagon with horses), and a whole bunch of food. It was quite a production, and I was really impressed. The owners of the company, to save money, were making all the food themselves, which I thought was quite cool actually. It's a family operation, and the whole family was back there cooking hot dogs and tri-tip steak for all the employees, which I found quite impressive, even if I'm not into that kind of food.

In addition to that they also had boxes of Domino's pizza, which I could have so easily sank my teeth into. I know, if I'm going to eat pizza, it really shouldn't be Domino's, and I wasn't about to fall off the wagon. But I can't say that it wasn't a nails-on-the-chalkboard moment. I had planned ahead and brought my banana/hemp smoothie with me, which I guzzled in the car before going into the party. Didn't seem to help one iota. Still wanted the pizza. They had salad too, but it wasn't quite up to my snobby purist standards (vinegar, etc.), so I just let the kids eat and then we went to play some more.

But you know what the BEAUTIFUL thing was??? (I'm so excited about this!) When I walked away from that table, it was out-of-mind. And when I drove home (a two-hour drive) I was hungry, but I was not overwhelmed by thoughts of how much I wanted pizza. I just wanted to go to bed, and it was NO BIG DEAL!

The best analogy I could come up with while I was driving is this: When you are overwhelmed by food cravings you feel like a vacuum cleaner that's turned on, but you're not getting anything. You just feel a vacuum that is really uncomfortable. Last night I definitely had the sense that the switch had been flipped off. While it's still no fun necessarily to be in the presence of something, it wasn't an issue once the immediacy of that situation was over, and I felt quite satisfied and at peace.

The event was a minor success, but what it suggests about inner chemical changes is potentially huge.

Someone asked recently about before and after pics. I do have some before pics, in all their unfinished glory (i.e. no makeup, close-up shots). But I’ve only started this journey, so unfortunately, I’m not too far from that stage, and am not yet comfortable posting them for this reason. I’m quite self-conscious about how poor my skin is these days (to me anyway). It actually is better than it was: I’m not getting boils anymore. But it’s still very dry and makes me mad. Give me some time and I’ll post pics once I have some progress to show. My assumption is that my skin will sort itself out at some point, but since it’s one of the last eliminative organs, that may not happen totally for a little while. Plus, I’ve still got the adrenal business to deal with. Hang tight, and I’ll post when I’m far enough away from my “before” pic that I’m not embarrassed.

Food:
4 cups orange juice (12 oranges)
6 red bananas
7 red bananas
1-1/2 cups orange juice
10 blended tangerines, 4 persimmons, 1 asian pear, 1.5 cups roma tomatoes, 2 stalks celery (I think??)

Calories: 2408
Calonutrient ratio: 91/5/4

Day 12: Are racehorses fruitarians too?

'Cause man, this diet makes me pee a lot! Sorry to be so blunt, but it's true. Ok, I admit it: I already pee more than your average Joe, and now I'm even worse than that. I can't even tell you how much, but I can say it's more than I choose to count, if that gives an idea. I'm wondering if it's simply that I'm eating higher-water-content foods, or if this is part of the detox process (please let it be the latter, because it's super annoying!). Any ideas out there in wwwville?

Food:

• 5 cups orange juice (ok, that would make average Joe pee too, but not all day long!)
• Smoothie: 6 bananas, 1/4 cup hemp seeds, handful of lettuce from the garden
• 4 fuyu persimmons, 1 asian pear
• Smoothie: 6 bananas, 1/4 cup hemp seeds, handful of lettuce from the garden

Calories: 1863
Calonutrient ratio: 88/6/6

Day 11: I'm an orange juice junkie!

Strange days .... On the one hand I’ve been on a total upper, feeling so motivated by this life replete with possibilities. On the other hand, I’ve been in a cranky mood, irritable, impatient. I suppose that’s nothing to do with 24/7 childcare for the last 10 days without so much as a 15-minute veg-out session (does blogging count??).

I feel like I’m over the worst of the initial-craving clean out, like I’ve settled into this way of eating quite easily this time. Yet, lest someone out there is reading this who is bruising their feet on the sharp stones of this narrow ascetic path, let me remind you that it’s taken me years to get to this point, years, and I never thought I could ever get here, and I can’t say what happens after now, this very moment in time.

Especially when there are homemade cheese tamales in my oven! My son goes to a bilingual Spanish/English preschool, and every year they have a tamale sale as a fundraiser at Christmastime. You have to buy at least six. It’s just about killing me, folks. Well, I could have donated more than what they were selling the tamales for, and maybe I should have, but I didn’t realize they were arriving today, when it’s only me at home with the kids. It’s Satan at work, I tell you! Mmmmm! They SMELL SO GOOD! Alas, the struggles of a fruitarian housewife!

But I did make a welcome discovery last night: Banana + hemp seed + lettuce + VitaMix blender = smiling kids and a filling, satisfying meal. My older child wanted it for breakfast today, as well as dinner (after I had already put those tamales in the oven). It’s a hit! I’m off for three days next week to Lake Tahoe with family, and I think I’m going to make this smoothie a staple, so as to not go insane with everyone else’s food around. It’s a bit higher fat than I usually have, but it’s not off the charts, so it’s fine for once or twice a day. I’m glad to have a really filling, long-lasting meal discovery just in time for the holidays.

I keep forgetting to post my exercise. I’ve really only been getting back into the groove the last couple days, but I’ve been jogging now two times this week (about a mile each). Plus I’ve done my physical therapy several days this week. Day before yesterday I did a full Bikram yoga session, and yesterday I did a quick half session. Today I’m still a bit sore, so I just did the poses that I’m going to have to do in front of a million people (ugh!) on January 5. I did notice that today during my jog my pace had come up slightly from when I first started jogging six weeks or so ago.

On the fitness note: Today I registered for the Fruitarian Fitness 90-day Body Transformation Challenge, and I’m really looking forward to it. I want to prove that the weight bench in our attic is not the stupidest thing I ever bought! Seriously, if you’re interested, I’ve posted my short- and long-term goals on that site. Join the competition yourself! I need all the positive stress I can get. :-)

I am such an orange juice junkie these days. I swear, I should have just kept up my cigarette habit! :-) Naw, those oranges are costing me about $2.50 a day, mas o menos. I buy them from the orange dealer guy who hangs out on the corner of Cutting and Harbour Way in Richmond. It all feels very clandestine. He sells bags that are roughly 6 pounds for $3 each, or two for $5, and they’re really good oranges, plus, I get to practice my Spanish with him. I could maybe get cheaper oranges somewhere else, but I like supporting the little guy on the corner. I think my morning orange juice is my favorite part of this lifestyle (although I do suffer some bladder repercussions from it later in the morning, which I’m working on improving).

Other than my morning orange juice, I have to be honest and say this diet doesn’t much excite me. As a matter of fact, it’s forced me to totally stop looking at food as a sorce of excitement. I do actually find it quite boring, palate-wise. But in a sense, I see that as part of the point of it: It’s an interesting and beneficial experience to use food as nourishment and only as nourishment. That means you’re truly eating simply. Can’t say I’ve ever really done that for any stretch of time until now. What I’ve found, now that I’m past the initial stage, is that I’ve simply found other things to focus on. There’s a lot more to life than food, and this diet heightens your awareness of everything else in life.

Food:

• 5 cups orange juice (12 oranges)
• About 5 bananas, ¼ cup hemp seed, 1 bunch of lettuce from my garden, blended
• 2 persimmons and a few bites of asian pear
• 2 bunches of lettuce from my garden (really bitter), 5 kiwis (tasted bitter too, so maybe it’s me today)

Calories: 1836
Calonutrient ratio: 88/6/6
Exercise: Jog 1-1/5 mile, 10 push ups, some ankle exercises, yoga competition poses

Day 10

Food:

• 4 cups orange juice (12 oranges)
• 8 red bananas
• 2 cups grape tomatoes, ½ asian pear, 1 mango
• 2 red bananas (hungry a bit just before taking the kids to the park)
• Smoothie: big handful of romaine, ¼ cup hemp seeds, 7 yellow bananas

Calories: 1991
Calonutrient ratio: 89/6/5

Day 9: Get out yer popcorn ... ehm ... bananas, 'cause it's showtime!

I had a flash realization last night that I have had this thing ALL WRONG! I said earlier that my goal was to get off of thyroid medication. After watching a bunch of raw inspiration videos on YouTube I saw clearly what a really dumb goal that is. To live free of the evil tyranny of Big Pharma is my goal in life? It's my birthright! Not the goal of my life! So that is no longer a goal for me. It is a milestone that I want to reach while on the way to my ultimate goal of a wondrous life of my own creation.

So what, indeed, is my goal with this health and fitness fanaticism? The biggest inspiration who spawned this mental gear turning is my new hero, Tim VanOrden, who is "attempting to make an Olympic team and break world records at the age of forty, as a raw vegan." He's the reigning stair-climbing champion in the US. He only began this crusade a few years ago. He gave up on competitive sports years ago due to multiple injuries, but then, after a year of being a raw vegan, he found he had abundant energy and was able to start training again, so he set himself the mission of seeing what was possible. Do check out his website, where there are a lot of clips: www.runningraw.com. Here's one clip I really enjoyed:


Goals Redefined
So he got me thinking, what if I decide to train for the London Marathon or something? I'm still thinking about that one, but I did come up with a couple goals I'm sure about:

• Compete in the regional 2007 Bishnu Charan Ghosh Yoga Asana Competition on January 5 in San Jose. I'll be there, so if you're anywhere nearby, come cheer for me! No, I won't win in the traditional sense of the word, not with a mere few weeks of "hard training" under my belt. But I decided that even if I fell out of every single pose it would be a triumph for me, because I would be conquering my fears and my illness. I went to the yoga studio and registered for the competition today.
  
• Do an aeriel cartwheel again (that's a cartwheel with no hands). The last time I suceeded at it was about 15 years ago (I'm in my mid-thirties, folks).
• Here's an even bigger goal: To be able to do a back handspring. Haven't done this since I was 21, maybe.
• And I wasn't half joking about that marathon idea!

Here's another inspiring video, from Richard Blackman (F1, aka Fruitarian One), another great inspiration to me. Blogger Sarah's husband Kevin already posted this clip on his blog, but it's such a great clip that I think it's worth repeating. Sorry to steal your idea, Kevin! :-)


Food:

• Juice of 3 oranges (1.5 cups), 2 mangoes
• Smoothie: 6 yellow bananas, 6 oz kale
• Large salad: Not totally sure of the amounts of the greens, but it was about 6 oz of romaine and 1/2 bunch of spinach, with 1 cup grape tomatoes, 2 stalks celery, and a dressing of blended mango.

Calories: 1378
Calonutrient ratio: 89/7/4

I see so many possibilities in front of me now. I'm feeling better already, and I'm only on Day 9, for Pete's sake! What will the future hold??

Gratitude of the day goes to Tim VanOrden and Richard Blackman, for inspiring me to trek on with a big grin.

"See ya!" to hachiyas

I have had it up to here -- quite literally -- with hachiya persimmons. They have taken over my entire living room, and, quite frankly, they're irritating. Can you believe I'm still waiting for some of those to ripen that I blogged about almost a month ago??? Now, I'm sorry, but that's wearing out your welcome!

Hachiyas, when I met my first group of persimmons a few years ago, were my definite favorites. I must have had a string of good luck with them though, because this year is another story entirely. I went to Berkeley Bowl the other day to get a bunch of bananas (my staple of late), and saw that they had boxes of five ripe hachiyas on sale for $.49. I bought four boxes, and came home thinking I got a killer deal. Opened an entire box up the other night and they all -- every single one -- was overripe and disgusting, although they looked and felt perfect on the outside. I basically threw out all but about three persimmons out of 20. I give up on that fruit!

How I'm feeling after a week of really solid 80/10/10
Energy: The first six days I was sooooo tired in the evenings, going to bed no later than 8:30, or 8:45, with the kids. Meanwhile, my energy during the day kept getting better and better, and more and more constant. During my 811rv hiatus, I was needing naps in the afternoon, and it's not natural for me to nap (even as a very young child, I boycotted naps). But this week, I don't think I had even one nap.

The other thing that absolutely delights me is that I have WAY more energy for my kids. I took them to a park the other day and we actually raced across a baseball field, back and forth, and back and forth, and rolled in the grass; then I chased them up and down this play structure until my 4-year-old got tired and bumped his head on something (Game Over). We were all breathing really hard, and I could have played more. Back in my supposedly-hormonally-normalized-but-not-feeling-normal days it was hard enough just to get to the park, let alone chase them around, so this is a milestone for me, and I didn't feel this good last week.

Last night I actually felt like staying up past the kids' bedtime, for the first time in a week. I put them to bed, ran myself a nice hot bath, sank into it ... aaaaah! ... then, seven minutes later "Waaaaa, waaaaaa, waaaaaaaa!" coming from upstairs. I think my two-year-old had a nightmare or something. So much for that bath! So I ended up going to bed fairly early anyway (9:30), but later than I had all week.

Appetite and Cravings: Over this last week I have had a very few bouts of cravings, but they have been very short-lived, and I've made sure to eat something large as soon as they have hit. To say this lack of cravings is highly unusual for me is a major understatement. I have really, really tried to eat as much as possible, heeding Doug Graham's advice, and have diligently tried to stretch my stomach a bit, and I think it has really helped. I think I've managed to get an extra 200-300 calories a day over what I was getting a few weeks back through this attention to detail. It may not sound like much, but that's about 10-15% more than what I was eating, and it's made all the difference. It also helps that I'm alone this week (Gary not here cooking all kinds of yummy smelling things) so I have remained very focused on my own path.

Detox Symptoms:

• Besides the tiredness, I had a few headaches in the late afternoons. The first one, on day three, was the killer one that required Big Pharma's help (due to childcare considerations). Besides that one I think I've had two minor ones that were barely something I noticed.
• My skin, although maybe not overly noticeable to anyone but me, is definitely a bit redder, rougher, and changing every day.
• My tongue has a bit of white coating on it, and my mouth tastes slightly bad sometimes between meals.

Digestion: well, it had totally sorted itself out, and I was completely regular, and now I might be becoming a bit too regular (5x per day!), which is fine with me since it may indicate hyperthyroidism, which necessitates a drop in dosage. I'm not overly comfortable talking about this aspect, but I think it's important to report for all those with thyroid issues. I know I certainly have been unable to find much information about the long process of getting of thyroid medication, for the main reason that very few people go succeed at it, especially when it comes to longstanding Hashimoto's thyroiditis. All I can do is cross my fingers at this point, and hope that someday I will be totally off the meds.

Sensation of Temperature: This is a weird thing. Even when I was supposedly more on the hyperthyroid side a few weeks ago, my feet and hands were freezing (ok, we were in stormy, rainy Portland for a few days) all the time. And they are still pretty cold, although not freezing. So this is one thing I can't really make any sense of. Hypothyroidism makes your extremities cold. Why are mine still cold when I'm not hypo anymore? No clue. Just something I've noticed.

Indications that I'm going in the right direction

• Energy, when I do have it, is WAY up (like 50% increase).
• Energy levels stabilizing, rather than the roller coaster AWAKE ... tired ... AWAKE ... tired thing.
  
• Waking up earlier and earlier (5:30 today with no alarm: That definitely ain't normal for me).
• Wanting to exercise (but not really getting a huge chance, with the kids. I have done a few strength training exercises each day, but very little cardio this week).
• Feeling very satiated most of the time.
• Marked decrease in cravings.

Weight: 113.8 (-5.2)
Body fat: 23.6% (+.1)
Hydration level: (-.3)

Note: Those numbers seem very strange to me, but judging by how good I feel I can only conclude that my body knows what it's doing, in the order it wants to do it. :-)

Food:

• 4 cups orange juice (10 oranges)
• 8 red bananas
• 6 red bananas
• 2 mangoes, 2 stupid hachiya persimmons
• 6 blended clementines, which I drank and also used for salad dressing on my salad of 1 romaine heart, 2/3 roma tomato, 2/3 red bell pepper

Calories: 2281
Calonutrient ratio: 91/5/4

Day 7: Strangely hungry much of the day

Food:

• 4 cups orange juice (10 oranges)
• 7 red bananas
• Smoothie with some citrus leftovers from the kids: 1.5 kiwis, 5.5 tangerines, 2.5 cups strawberries
• Smoothie: 6 red bananas, 1.5 cups red grapes
• Salad: 11 oz romaine (2 romaine hearts), 1/2 sliced avocado (2 oz), 1 ear white corn; dressing of 1 small avocado (4 oz), 1 cup grape tomatoes, 5 honey dates, juice of 1/2 a lemon (a bit too much lemon).

Calories: 2466
Calonutrient ratio: 81/6/13

Day 6: Getting used to this

Food:

• 4 cups orange juice (12 oranges)
• 4 arbutis berries (not sure if there's another name for them; they're from my parents' yard); smoothie of 10 red bananas and 1 romaine heart
• 4 stalks celery
• 2 cups orange juice (6 oranges) blended with 12 oz strawberries
• A few bites overripe hachiya persimmon, 1 mango, 1.5 cups red grapes (I was not hungry even at the beginning of this meal, and probably should have heeded the call and not eaten, but I wanted to try to get my full calories for the day, so I did anyway.)

Calories: 1786
Calonutirent ratio: 90/6/4

Day 5: Bless Me, Dr. D, for I have sinned ...

... it's been 41 hours since my last pain killer! (That's a jab at the 80/10/10 -- not the Catholic -- church!) Yes, it's true. I regret to inform you that karma came a-knockin' the other day, just after I told you how I was in so little pain and the detox was going just fabulously. Whoom! Huge headache of migraine-like proportions. I knew if I didn't take a pain killer (or two! :-) ) I was not going to be able to pick up my child from preschool without turning my car into a vomitorium. I was not partial to the vomitorium option, so I had two choices: Eat a bunch of pizza and drink some coffee or take some little blue pills and watch the pain go bye-bye. I opted for least fun of the two options, the second, which I think was the one that allowed my detox to continue in some fashion.

Today the skin on my forehead is really rough and my nose looks red (rosecea-like issues going on). My energy is not so great yet, but I can really tell I'm in cleansing mode, more so than when I was doing my halfway approach to this diet.

I have been doing a lot of visualization recently, seeing myself as energetic and healed. It's helping to keep my spirits up. I think the most difficult part of this whole journey is just the first step. Not even the first action, but the thoughts that precede the action: Just believing that it's possible to heal, and countering all the negativity that is dumped on you by the medical establishment, which feels like a latrine of 100 elephants.

Food:

• Juice of 7 oranges (3.5 cups)
• Smoothie: 4 red bananas, 6 oz blueberries, 3 pears (a couple varieties -- not sure which -- from a bag of bargain produce)
• Watery smoothie of 2 red bananas, 4 honey dates, with a handful of common mallow (malva neglecta) from my back yard (I was doing the weeding and found some edibles!). If you don't know what this is, check out the link, because you probably have some of these free greens in your yard too! 1.5 Hayden mangoes on the side.
• 4 stalks celery - I was kind of craving this.
• 2 fuyu persimmons, 1/2 small hachiya persimmon, 1 burro banana. I never had one of these before. I don't think it was ripe enough. 4 oz avocado, 1.5 cups red grapes, 1 red bell pepper.

Calories: 2000
Calonutrient ratio: 86/4/10

Day 4: Craving uprising

I'm posting this on Day 5, but here's a summary of yesterday:

I struggled with some horrendous thoughts of devouring the cheese Gary bought that's still in the fridge, as well as some of the cooked stuff the kids had, but I managed to not focus on it. I just noted the momentary sinking feeling and moved on, although I did note I was more irritable than usual.

I was very, very tired in the evening, and forced everyone to bed at 8:00. Had a bit of a yelling match with the two-year-old who jabbered in bed for an hour, talking about "night night" and "a-muls" (animals). Under normal circumstances this would have been cute, but I was not in the mood. I badly needed sleep, and he was extremely reluctant to give it to me! I finally went to sleep a bit after 9:00.

Food:

• 5 cups orange juice (10 oranges)
• 8 red bananas, 4.4 oz box of blueberries, 2 sticks celery, blended
• 3 fuyu persimmons
• 1 box 4.4 oz blueberries
• 1 romaine heart, 1/2 cup broccoli, 1 large carrot (trying to use these up - I had a whole bunch in the fridge from my juicing days), dressing of 1.5 roma tomatoes, 1/2 avocado (2 oz), 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 ear yellow corn
  

Calories: 1931
Calonutrient ratio: 88/5/7

Day 3: Nightmares can be a good omen!

I officially entered the detox portion of this journey last night. I was wondering, too, because I felt almost too good for days one and two. Didn't get around to posting since Gary went out of town (Ft. Worth – Sarah,
he’s programming/starting up
your new water treatment plant!) and I'm on the childcare/juggle-your-life/24-7 thing. (I did manage to track my food, see below.) Yet I can tell you with certainty that something has shifted within me. The last few weeks of struggle have turned out to be a watershed moment in my life, separating the wheat from the chaff.

I have been on such an emotional upswing it's almost unbelievable. I fully, one hundred percent, believe in myself, and believe that I can heal from this. I also believe that I have the focus and clarity now that it will take in order to achieve it, and that's what I needed to take some time honing. It's a hard thing to do: Not only what no one else will do, but what many people are appalled that you even want to try, and to do it with conviction and certainty, is a difficult thing. I have acknowledged that for myself.

Let me tell you about my daydream yesterday (and then I'll tell you about that nightmare). I was thinking about that moment when I know that I have finally overcome this thing, who I would like to thank as I throw out that last bottle of levothyroxine: My parents, who have supported me emotionally during this journey; my husband, who's really seen the worst in me and stuck by me nonetheless; Paramahansa Yogananda, my guru, who has taught me to believe in the wonder of myself; Jesus Christ, who taught that love is the greatest gift of all; Bikram Chodhury, who would never take no crap from no one, including me, when I think I can't do it; and my kids who are so precious to me, who gave me a beautiful reason to try to reclaim myself and who teach me that I am worthy of love. Those are a few, and I'm going to keep thanking people (there are a million more) as my healing progresses. So if I didn't mention you, I'm thinking of you. Just wanted to get the gratitude juices flowing.

I think it really helped me tremendously on an emotional level to literally throw out my higher, 112 mcg, dosage, which I happily did on Friday morning. I thought for a nanosecond about keeping it, just in case, but I thought how stupid that would be, because I don't intend to ever need it again. And keeping things like that laying around in a houseful of kids is a health risk, besides. ;-)

I was listening to KPFA radio here in Berkeley yesterday and Frances Moore Lappe was on, author of the groundbreaking ,1971 (?) bestseller Diet for a Small Planet. She said one thing that really made my ears perk up: "What is power? It is simply our capacity to act." And I realized that she hit the nail on the head of what I am experiencing right now. It is when I learn to believe in myself, when I learn that it doesn't matter what someone else's "prognosis" is for me, that I learn that I have power over this thing called illness. I have the capacity to act, and acting I am ...

... and then there's detox. Ai-yai-yai! It really ain't so fun. But it's not so bad this time 'round either. Just groggy ... didn't want to get out of bed. Only a very slight headache though, thankfully. So all in all I have to say it's rather painless. But I did dream last night of drinking a giant cup of coffee with cream while I munched maniacally through a Snickers bar and a packet of Skittles. Sent me into a mental tailspin in this dream too, feeling no hope, feeling controlled by the world around me, etc., etc. And then I woke up from that nightmare and, behold, it was very good. :-) My life was still in my hands! And I realized that I must be -- finally -- growing, because I know that once a fear reaches nightmare proportions, I have immense power to turn my back on it. And I can only get better from here.

Food:

• Juice of 10 oranges (5 cups)
• 8 fuyu persimmons
• 8 red bananas blended with 2 stalks celery
• 4 stalks celery, 3 small zebra tomatoes (last of my garden crop), 1 romaine heart, 1/2 avocado (2 oz); 8 blended tangerines

Calonutrient ratio: 89/5/6

Day 2: Stats

Food:

• Juice of 9 oranges
• 3 manila mangoes, 5 fuyu persimmons
• 8 bananas blended with 2 stalks celery and 1 cup strawberries (by the way, if anyone reading has a two-year-old, a big stack of strawberry baskets can keep one of those kids occupied for hours!)
• 3 stalks celery
• 8 blended tangerines, 1 romaine heart (am I getting enough greens, you veterans??)

Calories: 2081
Calonutrient ratio: 91/5/4

Day 1: Stats

Food:

• 2.5 cups orange juice (6 oranges)
• 7.75 red bananas blended with 1 stick celery (tastes much better this way, easy on the celery)
• 4 fuyu persimmons, 2 manilla mangoes, a few bites of an unripe Hayden mango that I had to throw out, 2 stalks celery
• 6 red bananas blended with 1 stalk celery
• Juice of 4 oranges, 1 romaine heart

Calories: 2155 (yeah!)
Calonutrient ratio: 92/4/3
Weight: 119.0
Body Fat % (according to the Tanita scale): 23.5%
Hydration (according to the scale): 52.7% (seems I should be dead! :-))

Into the deep end, completely at peace

Today is the day my life begins to change for the better. I am actually very glad that I didn't try to get right back on 811 right after Thanksgiving, because I now see that I had a lot of emotional work to do, and I (cross my fingers) think I've done it. Not like the process is probably ever over, but I feel that I have done what I needed to do to get myself fully motivated to take the plunge off the edge of the universe, which is sometimes what this feels like to me. (That's my son relaxing in the pool, by the way.)

Today, emotionally, I feel totally at peace with this decision -- and I have made the decision. I'm not looking back, come hell or high water (which I am 99% certain will not happen). I have informed those around me who I needed to inform about my decision. Now it's time to begin my healing escapade.

My goal with this diet, my first goal anyway, is to fully recover from Hashimoto's thyroiditis and its consequent thyroid failure, as well as to restore my adrenal function. Endocrine balance, period. I doubt there's a doctor out there who would think it possible. My doctor said, quite frankly, he thinks I'm past the stage where my body can deal with it, or something along those lines; that I'm past the point of recovery.

I don't believe that. I believe I can and will recover.

New Rules
Screw my previous attempts at making up my own rules. The new rules are the old rules. Very strict 80/10/10 raw vegan to the freakin' letter. I will also (try) to tell you what I'm eating, for those who want to learn about this. While I may eat more than one food at a time, I will endeavor to have no more than four. I will not have coffee, juice (except oj), salt, oil, seasoning: Nada, but will hopefully receive the blessings of the entire universe in exchange.

A new life begins ... NOW! :-)