I'm Back!

Hi Folks,

I'm grateful to be in a place where I feel like writing at PURE RAW JOY again :-))

It's been a very trying period for me. It all started more than a year ago with a catering job for 200 that was so stressful, the wear began to show in the unraveling of my 3.5 year raw diet. (Actually, a desire to 'lose weight faster' prompted my desire to start eating cooked beans, again, and from there the entire raw diet unraveled, and over the span of a year, I added 100+ lbs to my body. Whether the binge eating and weight gain was all emotionally based or chemically based, i don't even have a full determination on, i just know, it was what it was.) Also, during this last year, my mom was in the hospital and in rehab for a total of 8 months, and i cared for her daily during that time, and i moved back home to rehab her further after she was discharged. And, Cliff's mom died, a month ago.

It's been a very difficult year.

Finally I feel like i am getting my head above water to breath.

I've had a good few days and I feel renewed and hopeful, again. Thank God.

I've gained over 100 lbs, and the shame of that crushed me, until i changed my attitude about it. With my friends at Arnold's Way supporting me, I'm working on feeling gratitude for everything in my life, even my huge gain. The idea is: It could have been much worse. The fact of the matter is, that everytime i feel BAD about myself, i end up gaining even more.

The answer is self-love. I've come to that realization before and i'm back there. Self hatred gets you nowhere but into bigger and bigger binges, fatter and more depressed. I'm choosing to erase the guilt, the shame and the remorse and just simply, move on. I don't want to talk about gaining weight anymore. I'm consciously loving myself and accepting my big gorgeous self today. Amen.

Arnold is also instilling in me a new sense of responsibility. He gave me a new nickname, "THE GENERAL," and I call him "MY CAPTAIN," and he tells me that MILLIONS of people are relying on me to be a success, that i'm not only responsible for myself, but for the raw future of millions, so I'd better get on the ball! The new sense of responsibility feels empowering! My new name gives me a sense of power and strength. I'm not the raw failure. I'm "the GENERAL!"

And today is my 3rd day raw. How many times i fell off of raw before is now irrelevent. My mind is on my goal and nowhere else. "But you've failed so many times before..." the head says. But today i know that all i have is today. All i need to do is focus on what i WANT. And the law of attraction will set it all in motion. When i constantly dwell on failure, depression and hopelessness, i get more and more and more of that.

I'm not eating cooked food today, but I don't know where this will go. I don't think cooked food is evil or bad or the outright CAUSE of my binge eaing, but i'm back here for today since i finally came to the conclusion that my 3.5 year imperfect raw diet worked a hell of alot better than what i've been doing the majority of the last year, while gaining back 100 lbs. Remember all of those blog entries lamenting gaining 20 lbs after departing from 811 and binging on gourmet raw? i'd give my RIGHT ARM to be back THERE today. That imperfect raw diet seems a HELL OF A SIGHT better than wearing these additional 100 lbs. I should have just been GRATEFUL for what i had...and, uh, exercised more or something.

So, I'm working my life one day at a time right now, but i have my eye and heart set on a goal of staying raw, or mostly raw, and re-gaining my health and fitness again. I can't believe how weak and fat I got.

Denial is SOOO powerful. There was this TV ad for STOP SMOKING that brought home that message the most. Have you seen the commercial? The guy walks into the convenience store to buy a pack of smokes and says to the guy at the register, "This is my last pack. i'm quitting." And then proceeds to buy pack after pack after pack after pack and say the same thing each time. I so related to that commercial. When the pull of something is greater than even your own desires to change, you come to realize this thing may be more powerful than you and you can finally make peace and say, "you know what? i'm done with this. it's had a hold on me long enough."

Cliff and I visited a raw healer because i wanted to go raw again, who reminded us about the power of food combining, so we've been working on that.

What we didn't expect was that she allowed us to begin a transition diet including fish and all cooked carbs. Wow! If i could have stayed on that, i coulda been happy!!!

This food combining diet has proven to offer fantastic results! Over the past month on almost exclusively strict food combining, Cliff has lost 12 lbs, lost his reflux, postnasal drip, pains in his side and stomach, the burning of arthritis in his ankles and joints, and has much improved energy - just by following food combining. AMAZING. He finally sees some light at the end of the tunnel for his health. And, slowly but surely, he is working himself out of mourning the loss of his mother. He and we loved her dearly and will miss her.

Foodwise, this is what food combining has looked like.

FOOD COMBINING

• Melon for pre-breakfast is optimal. Since it's not really melon season, i'll often have a few tangerines or we'll just do the smoothie.
• Fruit smoothie combined properly for breakfast. We've been advised not to do green smoothies as our healer says they don't combine properly, so...that's the scoop.
• Snack of apples or pears if i'm hungry and am hungry for lunch.
• Lunch of cooked gluten free carbs, like baked potato, or gluten free pasta, cooked vegetables, avocado and salad.
• Snack of apples or pears.
• Dinner of fish (or chickpeas or millet or quinoa or or nuts or raw goat cheese or cliff eats chicken) with cooked vegetables and salad with "protein" style dressing. i make one frequently out of tahini or chick peas.
  

The idea with food combining is to separate your fruits, your proteins and your carbs.

There are some rules not mentioned. No vinegar. Salt is a no-no, but our healer said we could use it as long as we needed to, tomatoes don't mix with carbs - that means no tomato sauce on the gluten free pasta, and no mixing acid fruits with sweet fruits. Lunch is not supposed to be eaten before noon, so just fruit until noon to aid in the "fast" every night. No eating after dinner at all. And drink water between meals, not with meals so as not to dilute the digestive acids. It's optimal to not mix proteins such as chickpeas AND goat cheese for dinner, or mix starches for lunch like corn AND brown rice, but after reading the healer's cookbook, which mixed carbs with carbs and protein with protein liberally, we did, too.

We test our urine with PH Test strips and daggone it, the urine tests "green" and "blue" - meaning ALKELINE - on this food combining plan!

The healer promised i would experience less cravings and would absorb more nutrition (diminishing binge eating) with food combining. The first two weeks worked like a charm, but the last 2 weeks, i lost it, and landed into binge land. Were the binges emotionally based? Or just habit? Or driven by a slip that i beat myself up over? Or cries for attention when Cliff was mourning and showed little recognition that i even walked the planet?

All i know is, I never failed during those 2 last troublesome weeks on our new plan to wake up and have my fruit and fruit smoothie for breakfast, with Cliff, every day. That breakfast at least felt like a lifeline, something to grab onto to steer myself back on track every day. During the last 2 weeks, i feel off the horse daily, but kept getting right back up with a smoothie every morning no fail.

But i kept falling off. I'd have triple the serving of rice as Cliff. And then feel remorseful and guilty and it would start a binge. Eventually, I just got tired of fucking up and something in me just clicked and said, "Michelle, quit trying to moderate the rice and pasta and fish. It's too hard to just have a little. Just go back to raw. It helped you control yourself before, and you were able to manage your weight on it." The truth is, the raw healer's food combining diet was meant as a transition to an almost identical to 811 diet (Natural hygiene). So, wanting to go raw was not incompatible with her plan. It was just my way of breaking away from the cooked. Instead of SLOWLY, i just made a clean break. i don't know, maybe i'll reestablish the practice of eating cooked, but from a new more controlled place? I'm open. I'm taking it one day at a time.

But, the last 3 days, i decided to return again to what worked for me before, Raw, but with a new awareness at food combining. Maybe the food combining idea will work to help cut down my cravings and compulsive desires, which still existed on raw, since i'll be absorbing more nutrition?

The fact is, that i lost my initial 140 lbs doing food combining at the raw retreat, OHI. I'd neglected to consider that in all of this searching for a cure to what ails me.

Nevertheless, for emotional, i'm back to working the "Secret," focusing newly on GRATITUDE. I'm grateful to weigh what i weigh today. I'm grateful to have a roof over my head and a great job with friends who care about me. I'm grateful to have a fiance' who loves me and cares for me. Filling myself with gratitude every minute of the day may just end up killing the binge bug after all. Maybe the binge eating has NOTHING to do with raw or cooked. Maybe it's just a disordered spiritual state?

*There will be a SECRET meeting starting Friday eves at Arnold's Way beginning next Friday Feb 11th if you are local and would like to join us.

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But i feel excited to be back focusing on raw, whether it will cure me or not. And i had an awesome salad tonight I wanted to tell you about. If you make it, let me know! It was so yummy!

FABULOUS MIDDLE EASTERN SALAD

Dressing

in a vitamix, blenderize:
1 rounded Tbsp raw tahini

1 cup water

1/2 cup sunflower seeds (soaked if desired)

celtic or himalayan salt to taste

small squirt of agave

juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp garlic powder

black pepper

3 Tbsp nutritional yeast

Salad
Big bowl baby romaine

cherry tomatoes

purple onion

big slices of button mushroom

sliced celery

Dress the salad, toss, and enjoy. I ended up eating all of the dressing, but if you are of the normal ilk and are not driven to excess as i am, you can use what you want and refrigerate the rest. My salad, on the other hand, was shamelessly and liberally soaked in dressing, and i thoroughly enjoyed every bite of it!!!

PS. This was my protein meal. I did not have a carb meal today, and don't know how i will make a raw carb meal. I guess use corn? But when i have had a salad at work, i've included no nuts (protein), but beets and carrots (starchy veggies), and use avocado to dress it, since avocado, we newly learned, combines with carbs, but does not combine well with proteins.

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FOOD TODAY, Saturday, February 5, 2011

Br: 1 bag of tangerines

Ln: Smoothie - 5 bananas, ice, 3 round tsps of raw carob powder, a tiny squirt of agave

Dn: my middle eastern salad

Sn: ....it would be good if i could eat nothing else!!

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How are you all? Say HI please and let me know how YOU'RE doing. Let's keep in touch.

xoxo michelle joy