July 2009

The detox is over and so is my insomnia, thank goodness! Now I seem to be in “catching up on sleep” mode. I slept 10 hours last night which shocked me. I went to bed EXTREMELY early last night, too. Heck, it wasn’t even officially ‘nighttime’ when I went to bed. It’s been a while since I’ve done that. And I’m tired today. All I managed to do was my yoga.

Honestly, I still don’t have my old energy and good frame of mind back. So, I feel it’s time to go back to my previous high-raw fruitarian lifestyle. Cooked vegan food is not cutting it for me. It just doesn’t make me feel as GOOD as I felt on fruit. Also, the more ‘cooked’ food I eat, the more I want. It’s not extremely satiating like the raw stuff.

So I’m going back. I figure that I’ve been off dairy long enough that it won’t be too hard. Cheese cravings have died down, thank goodness!

So as of tomorrow, it’s back to me having mostly fruit through the day, plus other raw foods as needed, and dinner will be half raw/half cooked. I ordered a few delicious fresh-made (not at all processed) exotic salads and noodle/veggie ‘meals-for-one’ from one of my favorite online organic companies. This might sound crazy, but since I cook for one (me), I find it hard to only cook one serving of something. I end up making too much, and consequently, eat too much. I’m referring mostly to pasta and rice dishes, by the way.

And… drumroll please… I finally broke down and ordered a Vita-mix blender, which should hopefully arrive next week sometime. I CAN’T WAIT!!! It will be SO much easier to be a raw vegan with that blender. I will be able to start having green smoothies again – and this time they will be actually be BLENDED properly. I will turn into a blending fool. I’ll also be able to make cold fruit/veggie soups and stuff.

Anyway, that’s all for now! Here’s hoping that my energy returns in the next couple of days! Usually only one day on the fruit plan makes me filled with extreme energy again. And dammit, I want my euphoria back! I’m PMS’ing and bitchy right now. (Well, only sort of on that last part).

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I can’t help but be amused at people’s reactions to my “dairy detox” claim. Yeah, it sounds insane, but I’m not the only one whose ever gone through this. (Search “dairy detox withdrawal” on Google, you’ll see.) My sisters think I’m crazy and I’ve gotten some comments on here from people thinking I have either whacked-out hormones, the flu, or low electrolytes.

And to most of those claims I say: Nope. It’s dairy detox. Been through it enough times to know. I’ve had low electrolytes back in my low carb past and this is nothing like it. No fever or cough, no flu. If my hormones are out of whack it could be from all the dairy hormones getting flushed out of my system? It’s well known that dairy (except organic) is chock-full of hormones, antibiotics, and other bad stuff. When your body is flushing chemicals out, they have to enter your blood stream to be processed by the liver. So perhaps that comment was on target.

I know it’s hard to grasp that dairy is “bad” because we’ve become SO programmed to the dairy industry’s influence. Me too! I spent all my life programmed that way! But now I’m unlearning the programming.

As far as I’m concerned, the proof is in the pudding. Your body doesn’t “withdraw” or “detox” from the GOOD stuff when you cut it out. When I cut fruit, veggies, nuts or seeds, I never go through one iota of detox. But stopping refined sugar and bad processed foods (with artificial flavors, color, chemicals, etc) caused me withdrawal. Cutting out meat several months ago caused me to “lose” several pounds of material that was being stored in my intestines or colon. (Sorry, I know, TMI, but it’s true). And you all know by now about the dairy.

But once I got through the unpleasant symptoms of the withdrawals from these foods, I felt better than ever. Better than I had when I was still eating them!

Yesterday, I was so extremely tempted to go buy some cheese. But I didn’t. AND I was right in the dairy aisle at the store (picking up more hummus). The cheese section smelled rank and like bad body odor and rotting milk.

Anyway, I feel a LOT better today! It’s hard to explain. I feel lighter, cleaner inside, more alert, at peace emotionally again (finally!!!) and my previous energy is finally returning. Granted, this is how I was feeling for the most part over the past few months while doing the fruitarian thing, but it had left about a week ago. Now it’s back with a slight difference: a feeling of lightness. How do I describe it? I can’t.

The scale is down .6 pounds this morning, which is another thing to be happy about. I am only .4 pounds away from an official 25-pound loss from my highest weight!

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I still feel like crap. Finally got to sleep at about 10am but slept pretty fitfully. The spasm below my left breastbone turned VERY painful early this morning. We are talking a shooting, stabbing pain. I’d go to the doctors but honestly I just don’t feel like it. So I’ve taken some ibuprofen which dulls the pain.

The good news is, I just got on the scale and I’m back down to the lowest weight I’ve seen on this weight loss journey so far, which is amazing considering the fact that I ate quite a bit of calories and fat yesterday! So of course that makes me happy.

I know, I’ve been complaining about ailments a lot in my last few posts. Sorry if it’s off-putting to anyone out there. I am however noticing benefits as well… I have no doubt that I’ll come out on the other side of this feeling and looking 1000% better!

Anyway, I’ll update more later.

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It’s 4am. I’m still wide awake but tired. Insomnia is rearing its ugly head. I have muscle relaxers and Benadryl here – both of which would likely put me out – but I just can’t bring myself to take either. I haven’t had anything stronger than an Advil in a LONG time. If I took a Benadryl now I’d probably be asleep until tomorrow night!

My body is still expelling dairy toxins and mucus. It hasn’t been fun tonight but I’m grateful for it. I’ve developed another couple of symptoms that aren’t very fun. One is a weird spasm occurring high on the left side of my stomach. (Right under where my heart is). I got this the last 2 times I gave up dairy for any extended period of time. I wonder what it is? It doesn’t really hurt but it’s uncomfortable. It spasms sporadically on and off. It seems the detox symptoms get worse late at night (after midnight). Of course, I’m also craving cheese terribly right now. Visions of sharp cheddar and cheese-enchiladas are dancing in my head. The good news is that the cravings allegedly go away within 3 weeks.

Dairy supposedly takes a full 6 weeks, however, to be completely removed from the body. In my case it might be quicker since I had cut way back in the past several months. I used to eat 3-5 servings per day pretty much all my life.

Funnily enough, through this, my good mood has finally returned. I’m feeling better on some level. (Which level, I can’t really figure out yet). I took a good look at my face in the mirror tonight and despite feeling crappy, I look better. My skin – which was kind of ‘bad’ looking earlier this week – has cleared up again. The face/chin puffiness that I mentioned a couple of days ago has also gone away seemingly overnight.

OK, enough whining for now… time to go back to bed and toss and turn for a few more hours! (Or read, which is what I’ll probably end up doing).

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I’ve been eating too much frozen “all-natural” packaged food lately. Granted, the ingredients are mostly organic vegetables and nuts/seeds, but still… that packaged food has way too much salt in it. It’s not as good as freshly-made food. Since I no longer use my microwave and use the oven, it takes forever to cook! And I’ll be honest – I’ve noticed a little facial bloating come back since incorporating so much more sodium into my diet. Not good. For the past few months I’ve been on a very low-sodium diet. (Except the days I cheated with Mexican food).

While the frozen stuff (Mostly Amy’s) is really delicious, it just doesn’t “feel” right to be eating so much frozen packaged food.

So, I remedied the situation today by taking a trip to my local Whole Foods. I spent some time reading labels and going around the store picking out new items. Most importantly, I’ve decided to give pasta another try. This time, however, I will limit myself to one serving at a time and include veggies with them. Some of you may remember that pasta and other grains were making me break out in a rash on my hands last month when I ate them along with a high-fruit diet. However, I’ve been having grains (even gluten) in the past week or so and the rash hasn’t returned. So I’m going to cautiously add back in some pasta and see what happens.

I picked up some of the following items today: a fresh mango-red pepper salsa (made in their deli); some green onion hummus; baby spinach; a couple of lemons and limes (for seasoning); 100% sprouted grain bread; 100% sprouted corn wraps; veganaise (a vegan alternative to mayo – supposedly it’s good!); more romaine lettuce; some fruit and some berries; and a couple varieties of pasta – one brown rice pasta, and one regular whole wheat pasta. I already have some homemade guacamole that I prepared earlier today. I also already have organic beans and various raw nuts, seeds and spices.

I believe that I can make some nutritious meals out of these items. I see plenty of fruit, salads, veggie sandwiches, pasta and wraps in my future!

Confession: I’ve become a little impatient with the scale lately. Despite looser clothing, weight loss compliments and smaller sizes, I’ve been fluctuating in a 4-pound range for the past couple of months and it’s getting really old! This is one reason I’ve been keeping a closer eye on my calories lately. I’m seriously considering writing up a menu to stick to this week. When I’ve done menus for myself in the past, it works out really well – I stick to them and end up losing weight. The only thing is that it’s a bit obsessive (IMHO) to write plan out every meal. But it works… so I may start doing it again.

In other news, M and I haven’t been hanging out as much lately. He’s been really busy.

I am dying to take a walk, but it’s so hot and humid out that there is just no way. So it looks like it’s yoga and stairs for me… I already did a quick Airdyne bike workout earlier today.

I’ve managed to continue resisting my dairy temptation. Today it isn’t bothering me at all. I’ve been a little irritable the past few days (possible PMS? Not sure). Since when we ingest dairy, we are ingesting small amounts of morphine that is made in the cow’s liver, perhaps I’m going through morphine withdrawal. LOL. Who knows? I did eat an awful lot of food with cheese in/on it when I was on my road trip.

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Man… tonight, I swear I have never craved cheese so much in my life. Ever. EVER.

Cheese pizza. Sharp cheddar straight off the block (a personal favorite). Cheese enchiladas. Cheese… anything. Lots of delicious images dancing around in my mind.

This might sound crazy to non ‘cheeseaholics’. But frankly, I’ve been addicted to cheese since my childhood. As an adult, it only got worse. So it’s no wonder I feel this way now after having given it up last week for hopefully the final time.

I haven’t given in and don’t plan to. In fact, I am finding it somewhat amusing how much I’m craving the stuff. Especially since I know how bad it is for me. After all, casein protein (found in all dairy products) is also used as glue. And there are opiates in cheese, which explains why me and so many others are addicted. Seriously – check out this article if you don’t believe me. There is a lot of research available to explain why certain people are so damn addicted to dairy.

Ah well…

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Wow… exercise and appetite go hand in hand! Yesterday I got a LOT of exercise – for some reason I was full of energy and just felt like working out, so I did: 50-minute power walk, 14 flights of stairs, yoga, Airdyne bike. (Not all at once). I also was hungry all day and night so I ate every three hours or so. Each time I ate it was a smallish meal consisting of no more than 300-400 calories, though.

However, I woke up weighing about 1.5 pounds less on the scale this morning. So perhaps my metabolism is suddenly fired up? I certainly don’t mind, but I hate eating as much as I did yesterday. I also woke up ravenous today but managed to assuage my hunger with less than 250 calories worth of food.

For some reason when I start feeling really hungry and eating a lot – but break it up into small meals through the day – I end up starting to lose weight. This isn’t my preferred method of losing weight though. But I’ll take it! I’m going to keep doing it and see what happens.

So the past several days, I’ve been eating lots of veggies (LOTS – they are in everything I eat practically), plus fruit, grains, legumes (beans), and nuts/seeds. I’ve added a few more ‘minimally processed’ foods to my diet. For example, ‘Nature’s Path Organic Cornflakes’ which are made with: organic corn meal, organic grape/pear juice, and sea salt. Nothing like the million and one ingredients listed on most regular cereal boxes.

I’ve also been eating more of Amy’s organic frozen foods, like the bean/rice burritos and the black bean burritos. I no longer use my microwave (it’s been sitting there untouched for months!) and cook everything in the oven, and it always comes out 1000X better that way.

AND of course I’m still including either raw fruits or veggies of some type in most meals. I have cut back on my fruit consumption though. Not intentionally, but for now it’s OK. I’ve upped my vegetable intake considerably so I don’t feel ‘guilty’.

Last night and today, I think a lot of my ‘dairy mucus’ is/was coming out… I have had lots of sinus drainage down the back of my throat. (Yuck). This happened the other few times I cut dairy out too.

All of that said, I really miss my fruitarian euphoria. My mood hasn’t been anywhere near as light and happy as it was while I was doing high fruit. I wonder why?

Anyway, I will be doing this cooked vegan diet thing for either 30 days or until every last thought of dairy is out of my mind. (I won’t lie – I still think about it sometimes. I was addicted!) Then I will begin re-incorporating mostly fruit and raw foods back into my diet.

My ultimate dietary goal is still – even after my recent dietary adjustments – to be 100% low fat raw vegan. I will get there some day.

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