Sunday, November 18, 2007

Fear of Feasting Alleviated by Veggie Porn

"And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God,
we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie."
---Edward Winslow writing in Mourt's Relation,
one of only two primary sources for the events of autumn 1621 in Plymouth, MA
We were planning to go to The Pub Waterfront Restaurant, over in Indian Shores, for Thanksgiving dinner...I really did not relish the thought of the whole two-day food-prep rigamarole, for food I wasn't going to eat, anyway. I discovered while either reading Creative Loafing or *tbt that they were serving TD traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings. Knowing that Ossie is all about tradition-- we've had the same things at Thanksgiving Dinner for twenty years, an amalgamation of what my mother (and her mother) made and what his mother made, with a few creations of my own added over time-- I thought, what a wonderful way to preserve my rawtiety and not make the family suffer unduly! With the added bonusii of being waited on, no cleanup, and the certain appropriateness of traveling to a place called Indian Shores on Thanksgiving, I excitedly called for reservations.

Despite all that, we made some last-minute changes to TD dinner plans when Ossie returned from Boston this week. Maybe it was something about being closer to the area the actual first Thanksgiving took place, I don't know. But when he returned, his resolve to go out for TD had waned, and after very little discussion, I agreed. We are going to stay home and cook, again, but a streamlined version of all the other years. Ossie is going to help prepare. He is actually an excellent cook and enjoys it, so we are dividing the duties. I'll handle the veggies, he'll handle the meat, and we'll come together on the dressing. There was some momentary angst, when discussing just purchasing a turkey breast for the whitemeat lover, and a leg for the darkmeat lover (alas, the poor turkey, he loved all of his meat!), and Ossie worried about not having giblets for the gravy or dressing. I reminded him that, he hated giblets, and so did my son, and the only person who ever gobbled them down was...mois. This cheered him up greatly, and the modified plans are in place and widely accepted. They make more sense for everyone, now that I have gotten over my fear of cooking.

It wasn't as if I bothered to make pies for a long time, anyway. Grocery store bakeries do such a good job, more cheaply. Traditional pies at TD never were a huge draw for me... I only suffer the pie to get at the whipped topping, and left up to the other two family members, they don't even want the topping! (You can see on top of having a food addiction, part of my curse was to live in a house filled with non-foodies, with no sweet tooth, who forget to eat on a regular basis---in other words, I've been forced to cohabitate with beings outside my species.) Now, a great treat will be an extra smoothie that day... a fresh cranberry-apple-orange one in the morning, and a watermelon-papaya-pineapple one later in the day. For the actual dinner I can just share the nice big fresh-fruit salad I make for everyone else to enjoy. I look forward to that, because I haven't taken the time since I've been raw to actually cut up fruit and make a mixed salad! I tend to be a mono-eater, one of the reasons I find eating raw food so appealing. That might mainly be due to the fact I simply enjoy eating one food at a time-- sometimes the same food over and over again for weeks until I move onto the next one--or to my extreme laziness when it comes to getting nutrients and fuel into my mouth when it doesn't involve preparing for anyone else.

As Boot Camp has progressed, I've learned more and more, and I'm starting to loosen up about this new way I eat, and live, and think. I was feeling so magnanimous, I made dinner again last night... the previously-dreaded rellenos. It was so alright, I didn't even crave one-- not ONE, I tell you! Part of dinner involved making the pintos from scratch, which I started in the morning, seasoning blind, had hubby taste midday, they were pronounced fine, and I didn't have to worry about them again, except to keep an eye on them just simmering a few more hours. No big whoop with the pintos...my legumitude is, to forego the good but not fantasy-inspiring flavor, I can do without the after effects. I crave them not.
The other part-- a prior subject of fear--- was preparing the actual chile rellenos. They are my absolute favorite dish, ethnic or otherwise, of all time. I was able to avoid a dangerous part of the Relleno Ritual, because they had already been roasted and frozen. After they were half-defrosted, I peeled them and then, it became more like an art project. Since they had come from the tailend of the crop we harvested from our backyard garden this fall, they were so small, the usual Mexican-cheese strips with which I stuff them would not fit. Each chile had to be laid out on a board with the Queso Blanco strip beside. In order to make the chile relleno, or 'stuffed', I then had to carve the exact shape to fit that chile and carefully slide it in. I was partway through this process, when it occurred to me-- I was sculpting little phallic shapes and slipping the little chile condoms over them.

That pretty much did it. Took it right out of the realm of food for me. The rest was a snap. After I finished dipping them into the batter of blended yolks and eggwhites beaten stiff--- oh, no... I won't even go there---and frying them in the hot, melted vegetable grease---which caused me to ponder, how does one render a vegetable in order to extract its fat?---I immediately tidied up, wiping all the ceramic down with my homemade cleaner-- a mixture of a little bit of purple Fabuloso (a wonderful cleaner originally from Mexico, now manufactured by Colgate-Palmolive and pissing off the people at ConsumerReports.org who fear their sweet-smelling and luscious-coloured product may entice small children to drink and die), water, and a bottle of alcohol. I was Suzy-Homemaker for a few moments, again-- even filled (but failed to start, which I discovered this morning) the dishwasher, then walked out to the back landing to do my 57 wall push-ups for a challenge at Rawk Village.

Let me tell you, when it was all over, and I had gone out front for a moment and come back in, I realized it was the first time I had smelled any of the cooking odors! Made me wonder about how deeply I breathe normally. It also dawned on me how much easier it was to stand for all the time it takes to prepare them, and how my back didn't even start to hurt until the very end. That's understandable, since I'm just two pounds from my goal of releasing thirty during this first Boot Camp. What a difference from seven weeks ago when it would start hurting within the first five minutes, standing bent over the countertop, to do any type of food prep. Maybe my body remembering that associated pain was the real reason I dreaded making chile rellenos, after all.

But now...Piece of cuke!

Delusions Revealed and the Princess Pricks Her Consciousness

This Post Also Contains FREE BONUS: HEAVENLY FRUIT TRIFECTA SECRET REVEALED!


I feel I'm entering a season of knuckling down and persistence. The pink cloud/rosy glow is waning, but being supplanted by an even more solid belief in what I am doing with raw food to recover my life. It is obvious now, it is working. Undeniable. It seemed the weight release was slowing, still steady, but slowing, earlier this week. I immediately began Plan B thinking, telling myself I needed to gracefully segue into this phase and adjust my mental approach accordingly. But deep inside, I began thinking, What am I doing wrong? I am pushing myself consistently every day. I am eating what I should be, and haven't broken raw. I'm now playing with how often I eat the fruit, and what kinds of fruit at what time of day, etc. I am up to 41 minutes on the treadmill, on the weightloss program, level 3 in the morning, and an hour of walking 3-3.5 mph in the evening. Yesterday I drank 110 oz water on top of the eating and started adding in the greens.

I realized that, somewhere in the back of my brain-- my Fat Brain? My still-fetal-stage Skinny Brain?-- I felt if I was perfect, if I did everything I could, the weight would continue to drop at a phenomenal rate, despite what everyone in the whole world said. But no---My reality is the same reality that everyone else has to deal with-- it will only come off as fast as it can, and it takes a certain amount of time passing. And, time takes time. Oh, I gave mouth service to the fact I knew it would take at least nine months, if not more, but I secretly believed Maybe it won't for me! Yeah, I'm SO special and different, why, I'll just wish all this weight away, now that I have the proper keys! Hmmph. Looking back, I am very pleased with the results overall, and any disappointment comes as a result of my Magic Magnifying Mind getting ahead of itself.

Then Thursday was serendipity. I got kind of excited, and a little scared at the same time: excited because the scales showed a good release number, BUT scared at how I was thinking all week long, and how quickly a little bit of negative thinking can creep back in without me even realizing it! I didn't even notice that my head was already bowing down mentally, until I saw the loss and was restored! It hit me, the depression that had snuck in without my knowledge, the tiny bit of belief eroding, wasn't that I was losing faith in the raw eating. Rather, I still remain immediately ready to throw myself under the bus. Furthermore, Little Voice--- who I assume has been hiding under a rock since about the first week of HR1, was ready, willing and able to pop right back out again and resume his destructive murmurings. Yeah, raw works, but what if it doesn't work for you? You've always been different, weird... maybe your body will only go so far with this and stop losing...maybe-- SHUT UP ALREADY!!!! What was scary, I didn't even realize he was down there, hissing vitriolic little doubts inside my head!

So, there it is... I've still got a LONNNNNG ways to go. The weight is coming off, the body is healing, but the Fat Brain is lagging behind. I've got a feeling Little Voice will not be exorcised quite so easily, and some remnant may always reside within. But his re-emergence this week has warned me, put me on guard, and I'm tuning up the settings on my nega-dar to HIGH-SENSITIVE... in hopes he wont' escape my immediate notice next time. So now I'm gearing up, full speed ahead, for the next phase, Raw Food Boot Camp, Holiday Rush II, beginning the day after TD, on November 23rd.

Although they are making some improvements in expanding the variety of Boot Camps they are offering, I actually did not even toy with the idea of doing a different version of HR for part II. That might be partially due to the price of stinkin raw walnuts and raw almonds being sky-high, coupled with the fact that in the two-to-three weeks before I started HolidayRush I, I pigged out on avocados... I ate at least one a day, and we have some HUGE ones here in Florida! I actually bought one the other day by accident from an unmarked bin of them at Garden of Eat'n, mistaking it for a Central American papaya, fka "Fruit of the Angels"! Which reminds me, and I'm going to give this to you free of charge: Ever heard of the Heavenly Trifecta of Fruit? That's because I just made it up...the name that is...according to another popular diet, which only allows fruits the first ten days (ah, too soon they stopped), papaya softens body fat, pineapple burns it off, and watermelon flushes it out! But, I digress...back to the ginormous Florida avocado in papaya's clothing---had to give it to my friend when I brought her back from the airport--- it would have made guacamole for eight, and would have rotted at my house with Ossie out of town for a week. I burned myself out on them for the time being. And beans... hooboy! Don't get me started! Can pass on the aftereffects. The thing is, I really believe there is so much of a variety to eat within a 100% LowFat-Raw diet, I just cannot figure out how to rationalize to justify an excuse to slow the release down by adding high-fat things right now.

Maybe it will be more of a struggle with that issue when I've dropped 60 or 80, I cannot predict how I'll feel. I've been very thin before, but I've never become slender after gaining this much weight, so I don't know how I'll think. Now that I find something that works for me, it just seems so counterproductive and wallow-ish to mess with it. For instance, I have found when I crave something crunchy, cutting up fresh veggies and taking the time to blend part of them with some fresh citrus and herbs and garlic, maybe adding a bit of Bragg's Liquid Aminos, and then kind of coating them in the resulting "salsa" does the trick.

But maybe it's just because I want it so badly... "it" being the body I've desecrated for the last two decades... whew...saying that just made me cry. Let me take a moment here.. I'm all verklempt... heah's a tawpic... Corinthian or Ionian architecture? Tawk amongst youahselfs...

Friday, November 9, 2007

LOST: A LOT, this Month-- If Found, Do Not Return

I cannot believe I have not blogged since October 27th. Shame on me. So many things have happened, we had a major holiday, Hallo-go-around-knock-on-complete-strangers'-doors-begging-for-sugar-based-fuel-to-toxify-your-little-bodies-ween, I lost more weight, we had a young adult friend of our son's move out, I lost more weight, the friend moved back in, I lost more weight, the refrigerator went out, I lost more weight, the friend moved back out, I lost more weight. The most consistent thing in my life has been loss... but most of it has been weight, off my body and my mind.

I went back over my daily logs for the past month-- I really enjoyed reviewing them. It picked me up to see, wow, look how far I've come. Seems just a short while, and eons ago, at the same time! I re-lived the ups and downs, and there were mostly ups. Oh, there were the early confrontations with the hubs, one over spaghetti sauce, yes, a matter of grave significance, and who could forget the sequel involving crescent rolls. That incident called for a prompt and scathing email, because I could not trust myself to properly emote at the time. Yes, an email...remember, I just recently picked up the tool of bilateral verbal communication.

The upshot of all that was, as toxins have begun to pour from my body, I seem to have lost some resentments as well. I began to think about his point of view. Subsequently we talked about things (he apologized even). It appears he was just a little clueless about how I’ve really been feeling about the whole food thing. I acknowledge that was possible, since I don’t share my feelings about “food” due to personal shame about the issue. Imagine that. And he said he just gets “excited” about making dinner! It hit me, maybe that is because, for most-- and I mean a major chunk-- of the last 20 years, I have made dinner. I tapered off this past year to maybe only four or five times a week. Then I stopped. When I started this program, I told the family, hey, you want it cooked, there’s the stove.

I had to allow in my construct for the possibility that Ossie truly is excited about providing food that he selected, purchased, and prepared for his family. After all, I would not have done it for so long had I not enjoyed it. However, all those years, all those meals? It was wearing thin. I had become jaded, and saddened, by the slow emptying of our “nest” of the younger family members. Mealtimes changed. What was once a privilege and a joy had gradually evolved into an unfulfilling, sometimes painful, task. Perhaps that even contributed to my overeating, nightly, to deaden the pain of the loss. But for Ossie, it is still a fresh experience, this thing I have come to consider as mundane and a burden. Even so, I lost making dinner and brunches. Maybe I’m just a little…envious…that I cannot share in it, because, one, I no longer feel the same excitement about cooking, and two, I can’t share in the fruits of his labor right now, either. I ended up regretting my outburst. He was actually trying to do good. His exuberance was pure and guileless, not, as I accused him of, callous and calculating.

I am feeling so happy about the growth and the shrinkth that has happened this past month. I also discovered I was trying desperately to keep a secret from myself: I may be ready for another career change. I guess I was convinced for so long that "this was it"... I'd never have to change careers again...I was DONE! Whew, glad I got that career thing taken care of! But all year long there has been a growing awareness I just wasn't being fulfilled the way I used to be. It seems as my body opened up and released some weight, the mind followed suit. I guess some of that sweating action penetrated my brain. I became open to the idea that I might want to change doing what I do to make a living, and I started dealing with the natural fears that come along with that.

So, I'm exploring different options, I'm open. But I've also experienced renewed interest about my current profession. So who knows? The biggest change was just becoming open, realizing I'm not done yet, and I don't have to be ensnared by my fears of change or rejection, I'm not too old or too fat... I can do anything I truly set my mind to! I had always been a strong person and self-confident, but the extra weight had slowly, insidiously eroded that, without me truly being aware of the emotional damage. I had to uncover it first, to be able to repair it. It's like discovering a slow leak inside the wall of your house you didn't know you had. At first you're horrified, then when you get over that, you start tearing out the sheetrock and tackling the leak.

That's what I'm doing now. Down 23.1 pounds, 35.75 overall inches, resting heartrate 60. Month one, 100% raw, lowfat, low-GI frugivore/vegan. And, today, dahlings, I FEEL FAB-oo-luss, and I'm looking better!