How Did I Not Love Me? Let me count the ways...

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep...

~~Robert Frost

Reading Lynn Bering's Weightloss Blog...she puts it exactly how I feel/felt/found, and I'm going to paraphrase her:

"I’ve done this before, this little dance of denial, and I’ve always gotten back on course. But when I’m in the midst of stress and that irrational voice tells me I’ll find comfort in [a bite of c*******, a spoonful of rice, a few c**** or some evil salt], it’s hard to hear that rational voice that says, 'STOP! Go meditate, walk, brush your teeth, chew gum, eat a Tic Tac…something other than eat that which you did not PLAN.' I’m one of the most stubborn people I know and still I have a hard time telling myself “no” when I need to hear it most of all. I get there eventually, but not without sincere self-discipline, sitting myself down and asking myself what’s really wrong, what’s causing me to eat instead of cope."

I figure today the scale will be up...I'll go check later this morning when I can get to the gym... but I know I can feel it in my stomach. It's the last place it comes off, and the first to go back on. Anyway, I woke up at 3am, after going to bed about 11:30, and could not get back to sleep...too much on my mind...and I knew I had to have a long talk with myself and jerk myself back into reality again. I knew I had to commit to re-commitment and quit beating myself up about having to constantly re-commit. I mean, isn't that just life? I knew I had to quit waiting for someone to call me on the phone and shock me back to my senses. To quit using backpain as an excuse for not sitting down in front of the computer after I'm done working and getting to the forum more and revealing myself to my support group. I knew I had to get up and just return to all the things I've done for months which have carried me this far... to fitday-ing everything so I can see what I’ve eaten in print, and share it with others. I knew I had to pull myself back in, hand over hand, to my lifeline to shore, my peeps on the forum where I post with other women trying to lose large amounts of weight eating healthily, and mainly raw vegan.

No more being seduced by the seemingly innocent woods, no more temptation to just rest for awhile, to quit pressing forward... if I give in, I run the very real risk of being covered by my blanket of denial, and slowly, slowly slipping into caloric unconsciousness, then death. No more denial. I committed again to choosing to listen to the re-programmed Skinny Brain, and not to Little Voice, whom I've discussed before in this blog. I’ll get up, get out, and walk, even if it is the third time in a day...this means keeping my athletic shoes on, all the time! Or I'll tackle one of several projects I've thought up to help get my asthmatic mortgage business revived. It worked for me, maybe it will breathe life back into it!

It feels good to at least feel back in control. It feels good to have made some decisions about what I plan to do with the rest of my life--- well, for this week anyway. I’ll knock whatever I gained back off in no time, probably on the Five-Day All-raw Cruise. And I feel safe and hopeful again, because I know I’m doing all I can to stop those pounds from inviting their friends for a party inside my skin... I'm the ONLY one who'll be doing that! Before I'm done, surely, I'll be more seductive than some old snow-laden grove of trees.

Are there Fireworks in Heaven? and other Random Thoughts from tonight's walk

Not every day raw is marked by profound revelations or progressions. Some days are just...days. It doesn't prevent me from wanting to fulfill my commitment to myself to blog more this year. Some of my favorites started out as a collection of musings and ended up having a point, after a fashion. This post will probably fall into that category.

When I ate mainly cooked food, I noticed I was usually starving in the morning or at least thought I was. Believing that I needed to eat was so strong, that I have no remembrance of actually feeling hungry, for, oh, I don't know how long. When I started eating raw, I started noticing that when I get up, my first thoughts are not of food. All of us BREAK fast at different times... and I continue to lose weight and get healthier and healthier, and upon occasion am not truly hungry until noon, or even early afternoon! Also the longer I eat raw definitely is having an impact upon my becoming increasingly attuned to my body and learning from it. When I was eating all cooked food and low-nutrient/high-fat/high sugar food, I seemed to be totally out of touch with my body.

Yesterday I let the day get away from me before getting to the gym to exercise before it closed, and it was chilly and rainy all day, and my precious baywalk was closed for this year's Gasparilla Extravaganza Children's Parade. So tonight I was especially determined to get outside to walk. I get down to the seawall, and it turns out they had closed Bayshore Drive again from Patriot's Corner where I usually stow my car while I do my run, northward, so I head south to my old starting point, El Prado. I begin a walk south towards Ballast Point, 3.6 miles roundtrip. The concrete walk along the seawall narrows toward the end of Bayshore, continuing alongside brick-paved streets gently winding to mimic the unseen curve of the shore just the other side of the townhomes on the east, ending up at Ballast Point Park.

As is always true after missing a day of exercise for any reason, I spend the first five minutes allowing Fat Brain and Skinny Brain to duke it out about who is driving Body, and whether or not we're going to "turn this body around and take it right home!"...Skinny Brain, as always, wins, even though Fat Brain had Faceskin and Fingers on his side, and Shrinking Torso was undecided. Then I start opening my mind to various and sundry thoughts to see what would come, and this is what I ended up with tonight:

• I'm so glad I have all my extremities still with me to be able to feel anything, including cold. No matter how I might feel about war as a philosophy or in general, God bless you, co-citizens of this country, who have ended up losing any part of your body in the line of militaristic duty to which you felt called or honor-bound to perform you believed to be in the pursuit of freedom for your countrymen and countrywomen.


• Pushing myself to complete the daily efforts to reach my goals is part of it... it never stops and I can never quit, unless I want to stop trying to reach goals.


• After the first five or ten minutes, it's a moot point anyway--- I'm going to finish at that point.


• Even if you're half-frozen, always take time to stop for a surprise fireworks exhibition...you never know if it will be the last one you ever see.


• I've never seen fireworks dropped by planes flying in tandem before! The Red Baron Squadron's aerobatic performance was an amazing sight, especially the sparkly contrails...but watching them caused a tension within which detracts a bit from my unabashed enjoyment, because they fly too close to each other and I'm afraid of some tragic occurrence...


• Are there fireworks in Heaven continuously? That's probably thinking too small...from what I've been told....I love fireworks.
• Why does watching fireworks make you want to drink alcoholic beverages and light up a cigar and swing your hips around in hulahoop fashion and cry WooHOOO! Or is that just me?


• Why are most of the shooting sparkles the colors of Christmas? Does magenta and hot pink and chartreuse cost more? Are our city coffers a bit constrained--like my own--- in the fireworks-display budget right now?


• It is marginally more fun to watch fireworks displays--- especially when I'm experiencing physical discomfort--- with someone than without...but it's alright alone, too. Alone in a crowd.


• It's tremendously cold for the Floridian species...47 degrees windchill back at the house, probably colder down here at the bay.


• My tailbone hurts, perched on one of the concrete seats curving bayside at intervals along the seawall, and my hands form cloth-clad stumps inside the ends of each sleeve and are plunged inside the pouch at the front of my red and black hoodie. But if I leave now, I won't get to see the big finale...they always have a big finale... it is a battle of will to stick it out, especially as others begin to give up and move off towards the assured warmth of their respective rides or homes.


• I want to see the big finale.

The evening walk ends up being a metaphor of my weightloss experience-- I tend to turn everything into a metaphor of my weightloss experience--- but it really was: if I can endure the momentary discomfort, I'll get to experience the pleasure of the Big Finale! And after I started to walk on to my car, after the big, wonderful, unusually explosive ending, a minute or so elapsed, and they had one more encore! Which I related in my mind to maintenance... more reward for continued effort.

Sitting in queue at the railroad tracks, it occurred to me the day ended up being a feast for the senses...face-deadening, finger-stiffening cold, startlingly awesome pyrotechnic display, delicious new fruit to taste, the sound of fireworks exploding, both shooting up and being dropped from planes into the night skies, the loud blare of the locomotive I had to wait for on the way home, the heater air slowly warming my toes, while the cold air above kept my nose and cheeks numb... of all the days there've ever been, this certainly has been one!

So, I'm thinking, I can't wait to see what kind of days this journey will bring me in the months ahead, and I want to stay...until the end, and beyond!

What I Learned at Raw Food Boot Camp

All ten of us who read this blog may have noticed my absence the past, oh, let's just call it six weeks and be done.

Well, my goal was certainly to blog more often, and one of my new year's resolutions was to blog nearly daily, but a funny thing happens on the way to the resolution forum every year. I start early in late November-- to get the jump on the rest of the hoi polloi, you see-- but I suspect I have a hidden agenda about that, as well. I believe that the part of my brain (Fat Brain) where Little Voice dwells, lurking behind some algae-covered synapse, has subscribed to the RSS-feed--- I'm not exactly even sure what that is but I know it has something to do with instant notification of updated information--- of the other side of my brain (the side where Glenda the Good Witch stays when she comes to visit), and goes into overdrive to immediately counter-attack any planned positive changes. Therefore, the jumpstart on new year's resolutions serves as a counter-counter response to any insurgency on the part of Fat Brain, which results in said resolutions actually taking effect about...the first week or two of January, same as everybody else.

Then there is the whole maddening December thing my head goes on a tirade about, on any given year, ever since I lost both my parents and a favored dachshund during that season several years back. A few Decembers since 2000, I have absolutely had all I could do to function for the entire month. Much less make the journey, alone, into that head of mine, a necessary evil of the blogging process. And this year, I also had to deal with the contemplation of the end of a career path, continuing the raw food path, etc, etc, waaaah-waaaah, ad nauseum... there are my excuses, and I'm sticking to it!

Now we've got that out of the way, I had taken some time to reflect upon what the Raw Food Boot Camp experience had done for me after it ended November 21st, besides help me lose about 28 pounds. Fortunately, dear reader, I made a few notes and saved them in a text file for future reference for when I wrote my report, What I have learned as a Result of Boot Camp.

Three major things come to mind: getting back "in touch" with ME; uncovering and tackling some inner "work" that needed doing I didnt' know was there; and how to open up lines of communication with my husband, the benefit to the latter of which being re-evaluated on a daily basis. The biggest thing I took away was the realization it can be done, and it can be done by me. I had pretty much given up on getting below the number on the scales the ginormous amount of weight I managed to accumulate inside my skin afforded me. But I proved to myself I was about to give up right before the change. Now, I know it is possible. Now, I know that I can lose the weight--- it takes determination and sticking to the plan but I can do it. I am starting to see the old me, that I imagine I was at some point whether that has any bearing upon the actual truth or not, start to shine through. Now I am taking the excitement of knowing there is something that absolutely does work and converting it to action to shed the pounds! I really am so thankful for this experience!

I have also learned to incorporate exercise and keep it a priority in my life, because I have come to believe and admit that exercise is key to any successful weightloss program, and to keeping it off once you've lost it... and that harder isn't always the best if its the pounds you're really looking to lose. I've learned that I really can set goals and follow through. I've also learned that exercise is good and can elevate my mood more than ice cream ever could, or, as Dr. Stephen Gullo says, exercise keeps my moods out of my foods. I've also learned that all fruit is the best, most efficient way to lose weight, for me, for right now-- fruit always tastes delicious, it's portable, it delivers live nutrients at a moment's notice, it's beautiful to behold and it fills me up..... physically and emotionally.

Oh, a couple more aphorisms... after enduring a particularly difficult December:

It is better to be thinner and miserable, than fat and miserable.

There is no value high enough to be placed upon friends, cyber and flesh alike, who help you keep an attitude of gratitude....SPEAKING OF WHICH, please be good to yourself today and visit an AMAZING SITE that belongs to my new cyber-friend, Christy Murphy. She has tapped into something that is one of the major cures for depression, and has almost become a lost art in our society today...expressing thanks.

And if you are reading this, thank you.

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!

If Monkees Can Die From Bananas...Why Can't I?

I read in an article written by Frederic Patenaude about a sign he read while in Costa Rica, that stated, "Contrary to the stereotype, bananas are not the preferred food of monkeys in the wild. Bananas, especially those containing pesticides can be upsetting to the monkeys' delicate digestive system and cause serious dental problems that can lead to eventual death."

Anyone who has read more than a few pages about Frederic knows he is absolutely devoted to dental hygiene. In fact, I'd say he could more closely be classified as a fanatic about healthy teeth and gums. And not without good cause. He is one of raw food's leading gurus, and he acknowledges the "weak link" in the raw foodist diet is basically a very serious possible side effect, dental decay and oral problems. The entire article is--- personal product plugs notwithstanding-- pretty informative and does offer condensed solutions, which is all I'm looking for, and I found it under the October 13th post on his blog.

Back to the mortal threat of bananas to the bononos...supposedly their inability to brush their teeth would make them more at risk, and only because the sugar content would be feeding the elevated bacteria population of their mouths and leading to dental disease, from which infection can more quickly enter the bloodstream, get to the brain, and quicker than you can say "Zoom! Darkening" the monkey keels over and assumes ground temperature... which leads me to my all-time favorite riddle:

Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?

Because it was dead.

The first time I read that joke, it struck me just right, and sent me into gales of laughter. When I retold the joke, and discovered a much lower percentage of my audience was able to find the humour in it than I, I have since learned to take enjoyment from the blank looks on faces, and the fact that something I found amusing others often find annoying, and the very dichotomy sends me into paroxysms of gaiety all over again.

Which leads me to another point...I really don't find dead monkeys amusing. Nor dead animals of any sort. Their respective demises all cause me pain. Even so, I would like to see the study that led to the posting of the sign in Costa Rica, apparently in an attempt to dissuade its readers from handing out bananas willy-nilly to wayfaring monkeys which might be encountered in the wilds of Costa Rica, that gives empirical evidence wild monkeys have "delicate" systems. That's all I'd like to know.

Wild monkey deaths and rampant tooth decay aside, this is my eleventh day as a 100% raw foodist. It seems to suit me well, so far, as a lifestyle... I am actually quite pleased with it... and I've yet to experience any nasty cravings...yet. I won't be a Pollyanna and think that day will never come... but by and large I am so pleased with how I feel: re-energized, more alert, no CRAVINGS... my sinuses have cleared, my snoring is lessening... I had been waking up with dry eyes the past couple of months and that is gone... I don't know what all that means, or what it portends... all I know is, coincidentally, these things have happened in my life and body after I began consuming only raw fruits and some vegetables.

But I am considering cutting back on the bananas...

The Worst Thing About My First Day Raw

The worst thing about my first day raw with RFBC was the hour leading up to the time I had set for myself, in my head, to exercise...w-w-w-w-a-a-a-a-lk. How do I hate thee, walking? Let me count the ways... to the depth of shame I feel walking down my favorite walk by the bay as I pass the multitudes of other walker/skater/bikers, all thinner than I. To the heighth of my body which does not seem to be stretched to its full heighth as I walk, but instead, to be sinking, vertebrae by vertebrae into the back of my pelvis, compacting what coccyx I have left into a Necco-sized wafer. To the breadth of my, well, breadth, as my almost-normal sized ankles attempt to balance an entire additional person inside the skin we call my body and totter both beings along the sidewalk at a 3mph clip for 60 minutes.

Right up until I bent forward, squishing a goodly part of me between my chest and my upper thighs as I perched on the sofa, to tie my shoes, stood up and walked right out the front door, my tuchas rushing behind to catch up, no doubt wondering where the feet were going at this hour... right up until then I was not 100% sure I could count on myself to do it. But, I did.

And not without many arguments with Little Voice (not exactly sure, but I think it is the spirit of a long-deceased Native American, apparently bent upon my destruction, I picked up while living in the desert a decade ago), which periodically hissed suggestions I turn back because my large left toe had begun to hurt. Then the blister I got a few days ago on my Achilles tendon flared up, then the back thing kicked in... and it was dark and there were too many thin people to pass, their attractive visages filling and tormenting my view... and on and on... thank God and Drill Sergeant Carlene I got sick of listening to Little Voice's whining this time, and began to distract myself instead with the beautiful surroundings, and to be thankful I could get up and walk at all, and began to notice instead the breeze blowing off the bay helping to drybrush the sweat from my skin.

No nausea today, feeling clean and healthy, and ever so grateful for having taken the walk.

Seeking Rawtiety

Today is the day I begin the Raw Food Boot Camp I mentioned in an earlier post. I am very excited and quite ready... I'm ready to see if I can actually follow through with a commitment, 100%, without cheating and what it will do for me, spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

I'm looking forward to meeting all the other women who are involved... and I'll be journaling here to let anyone who wants to follow along know what it is like to go from an omnivorous, cooking-loving, foodie to a raw foodist from one day to the next. Oh, I have slowed down on meats the last few weeks, and actually overall for quite a while, preferring chicken and fish, and eating a great deal of veggies. But this program is radically different. I've thought about it for a long time...about two years... I've toyed with raw before, and I like it.

There are more than eating issues, however, associated with going raw. There are a lot of emotional issues and first-family re-programming issues... that I have only begun to explore in my mind. In a way, I'm looking forward to getting this journey underway so I can get on with actually encountering the obstacles, because the suspense about how I'm going to react is killing me.

Not to mention all the extra weight I'm carrying...