There’s got to be a way to manage this with diet and exercise, I just haven’t hit the right combo yet, so my next step is going raw. I hear all of these great things from the raw foodies on how incredible raw makes you feel. Sure, that’s all anecdotal and everything, but some of these folks have lived through chronic fatigue to find that raw, while no miracle cure, improved their quality of life.  I don’t believe in miracle cures and snake oils, so I’m going into this thing with a very experimental attitude. 

One thing I want to cut out of my life is soy. I usually consume lots of this because I love the phytoestrogens. But I can get those from herbs and teas. I don’t need soy. I’ve noticed a slight increase in energy from time to time when I skip the soy… even though the hot flashes are more intense. lol.

Here’s a preliminary list of foods for starting out raw, feel free to make suggestions!

raw hemp seed and hemp seed oil –  this will replace soy and a foundational protein in my diet

kefir – not vegan, but alive nonetheless.  Good calcium and B/12 support

sprouted kamut essene bread — kamut is an ancient grain related to semolina wheat. it’s less taxing on gluten sensitivities.

raw cashew milk  –  this totally kicks butt.

5 or more servings of raw fruit and vegetables/salad  – self explanatory

I’m going to stick at 900 calories a day to start with. I think it’s a good start for a raw beginner.  I’m really excited to get back into making essene bread and shunning all commercial breads and non-sprouted grains!

Anyhow… I’m not terribly enamoured with the medical industry in the USA. When I was super-fat I got the same “you’re fat” medical treatment, er.. or should I say “non-treatment.” Being fat is like being a smoker, it doesn’t matter what is wrong with you it’s always the fat or the smoking causing it. Which is really just on-the-job laziness by these M.D. Gods. But I digress.

I quit smoking 9 months ago in a bid to feel better. Well, I can breath better. I can exercise…. when I’m not falling into a state of catatonic fatigue, that is. I’m looking at making some changes? Yes. Maybe. Well, yes, I am, in fact, I just threw $30 at a vintage, non plastic, food dehydrator… yep… I’m going to attempt to go raw to save my life.  And it’s my understanding that one must be at least %75 percent raw to start getting benefits from it.  I still need to be allowed my occaisonal martini, and once a week beer and “lite” popcorn movie night. lol. I know, I know, talk of martinis is likely to make these raw gurus shudder in pain.  lol. 

I’m really excited about this dehydrator because last summer, when I was baking essene bread out in the hot sun, and not eating any grain unless it was sprouted, I really felt a lot better.  It’s inconvient to only be able to do this on hot summer days, so I’m counting on this dehydrator being the bomb!

Yes, you are going to lose weight if you are restricting your calories and hopping around on this thing for an hour everyday.

Hate exercise? Don’t we all? The Needak Rebounder literally changed my life. I didn’t start shedding weight until I started using this because I simply could not exercise or find the time to exercise.

You’ll find yourself randomly hopping on this thing throughout the day if you put it in your office like I do.

I’m calling a fail whale on this one.

It seems counter productive to do this, no? If you want your fat and smoking employees to get healthy, I don’t know… it makes more sense to give the bigger discount to the employees that need it the most? Call me crazy, but this %20 for fatties and %30 for the beautiful people seems more like “punishment” rather than a genuine concern with getting people healthy.

As we all know, “punishment” does not work. The fatty or smoker employed at Whole Foods will be less likely to shop in store if the discount can’t match what they can find at a less expensive venue.  We all know that the food that is the worst for you, is the cheapest.

Brown rice breakfast:

1 cup of cooked brown rice w/ tea leaves

1/2 cup of lowfat milk or vegan milk like soy or almond

1 teaspoon of unwashed cane sugar, or honey or stevia, or whatever sweetener works best for you

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

sprinkle some butter buds on top or a small sliver of real butter

My solution to this was two-fold: Take the party to a restaurant when you can -or- if you have to cook at home for guests, cook the good and healthy stuff! Roasted turkey instead of “fried,” baked sweet potatoes instead of that marshmallow brown sugar nightmare found on most holiday tables, low sugar, highly spiced fruit crisp with minimal crust, and so on… If you don’t present it as “healthy” foods, but instead present it as “gourmet” or “something different and yummy” people are not going to moan and groan about it. This year, we took the party outside. Restaurants were the answer. My kitchen was left in its’ immaculate state with twigs and barks intact and ready for me when I came home!

The restaurants were not a fail whale for me at all. You see, since I have been on this very low calorie diet based in high levels of nutrient intake, my appetite isn’t much to write home about. I was not at all tempted to order the banana split sundae. The thought of that made me think about hurling. It did!  I had salmon. I had vegetables. I had a bite of someone elses tiramisu.  I was satisfied, not tempted, not suffering, not in pain and best of all, I did not have to deal with the digestive consequences of breaking my diet.

This fatty did not take off the holidays. I trudged right on through. Ok, I did get drunk on pear-in-the-bottle brandy. lol. The rest of the time I stuck with vodka and grapefruit juice.

I love this soup, and I’m making a big pot of it today. It is full of nutrition and medicinal value!

One important ingredient in the soup is the oyster mushroom. The oyster mushroom contains the cholesterol lowering drug, lovastatin.

Here’s the recipe for you to try. This recipe was created by me for my own health needs, you may adjust for taste and your health needs, of course!

1 Qt of Organic Chicken Broth

1 tbs of corn starch

fresh ginger slices (as many as you like)

1 tbs of mirin

fresh oyster mushrooms, a cup or two depending on your tastes

1/3 cup of egg replacer (rediegg, eggbeaters or organic egg whites)

Set aside one cup of broth and add the cornstarch, blend well. Slowly heat the chicken broth with the ginger slices and mirin until almost a boil. Add the oyster mushrooms and cook for 3-5 minutes.  Now add the cup of broth with the cornstarch. Let the cornstarch do its trick to thicken the broth a bit. Now, slowly dribble in the egg until strings form, don’t stir until egg is cooked and stringy.

This entire quart of soup is about 100 calories, which is why I call it the almost zero calorie chinese soup! You can easily fill up on this soup without making much of a calorie impact in your diet. Down the whole quart if you like!

The first thing to do of course when this happens is to stop and think about it. You are hungry as hell… why?  You get plenty of nutrients, have a well balanced diet, but yet you suffer through moments of ravishing hunger. It’s not very comfortable. And anyone reading this blog knows that I am all about making losing weight as comfortable for yourself as possible. I don’t believe in suffering. Why should I put myself through that… yet, with all of my efforts to make losing weight as comfortable as possible for myself, sometimes it really sucks and I am really uncomfortable. Rare, but it happens. It happened last night. So what did I do?

I gave in to relieve the pain. lol. No I did not run up to the bagel shop and buy a dozen with cream cheese. No I did not run out and get fried Chinese take-out. And since my kitchen has been transformed into a health and wellness center, there’s really nothing here to seriously pig-out on.

My daily calorie limit is around 900 calories a day, roughly anywhere between 800-1000 calories a day. I’m certain that I must have had 1200 yesterday after giving in. But, the giving in totally relieved my suffering and didn’t cost me a lot in terms of calories. We are talking 2 small slices of whole wheat bread with a smidgen of butter and apricot preserves w/ a cup of milk. WOW was that satisfying. I felt better afterwards and certainly did not feel crazy like after eating a whole box of pastries from the Afghani bakery down the street. lol.

This is what I love about being on a very low calorie diet, suffering is minimized, all around. The problem with so much of weight-loss philosophy is that it seems to be based in some sort of “punishment.” The fat person needs to be “punished” for being fat. Just like the smoker needs to be “punished” for smoking. It’s sick! Who has the right to judge anyone like that? Yet, it’s a common thread in our society when it comes to fatties and smokers. “Only punishment will help you get healthy.”  BULL HOCKEY STIX.

I’m smoke-free for almost 6 months now… and I did not do it by punishing myself. I did it with electronic cigs. What I needed to stop smoking was to set myself up for success, not failure. The e-cig did that for me.

Same thing with my weight loss, and I fully expect to be a size 10 or 12 by the time spring rolls around, people. That’s a big improvement from the size 20-22 I was packing before I started my weight loss program. I applied the same logic from quitting smoking to my diet regime:  I always set myself up for success, not failure.

Success works like this:  On this very low calorie diet, it’s certainly not every day or even every other day that I have an extreme hunger attack.. This week it was one day out of 6. It’s been one day out of 14 before. The thing I like about my diet plan is that now that I have transformed my kitchen, if I do have a hunger attack, I’m only going to go about 300 calories over my 900.  Before the kitchen transformation, I HAD to sit here and SUFFER THROUGH HELL just to stick to my diet.. and frankly, I’m no longer willing to play the “pain to gain” game. I don’t want pain! Pain sets you up for failure!

1200 calories yesterday was not a failure. I feel better today and a bit less hungry. My 900 will be easy and pain-free today.

And how is your day going? 

Check out this article that was on CNN this week:

Extreme Diets: Life on 800 calories a day

“Extreme Diets.”  LOL.  800 calories is not extreme for sedentary people that are obese. This is why almost every obese person that walks through the doors of these popular “Diet Centers” comes out with a thin wallet and an obese body. Every “diet program” out there serves those who are obese too many calories. This is another set up for failure. Weoght Watchers for example (And I’ve actually tried and failed Weight Watchers several times) will start someone at my size on 1500 calories a day. This just extends the misery! They start you high and you gradually decrease calories as your body decreases in weight. I’ve found out that this is completely backwards for the person with obesity. You increase calories little by little as weight drops and exercise increases.

800 calories a day, consumed in the form of highly concentrated nutrients and whole foods is NOT a starvation diet.  It’s not a “lose weight fast” diet either. The problem is that you do have a lot of people out there that are nutritionally ignorant and/or have a McDonalds problem and try to stick to a very low caltorie diet, and select all the wrong stuff to eat, feel sick, tired, etc. At 250lbs I had no problem at all from day one starting out at 800 calories a day in the form of highly nutritious foods, feeling less tired, less hungry and less sick that I did gorging myself at the trough.

You see, the more these “Diet Centers” and plans that recommend these higher calorie diets and people will spend years with them shelling out money to keep trying to lose weight.  You’ve got their proponents publishing and saying things to scare people away from the very low calorie diet, and it’s just not based in scientific data. Very low calorie diets that are highly nourishing have set me up for the success that keeps me going every day!

But if you are like me, you have an awful aversion to the hellacious amounts of water some of the more popular diets like Weight Watchers recommends. I do a glass or two of iced lemon water and keep myself hydrated with lots of miso broth, unsweetened teas, coffee (although coffee can be a bit dehydrating). HFC free and aspartame/saccharine free drinks, homemade kombucha, and fizzy mineral water. Almost everyday I have a warm pot of miso broth I dip my cup into several times a day until it is gone. I would say that unsweetened teas of all types are the foundation of my liquid intake.  But, I really do feel better if I can choke down at least one glass of plain ice water a day.

I think that this “6-8″ glasses of plain water really sets up a fatty for failure. I’ve failed every eating plan/diet where this was a requirement to “change your lifestyle” and chug down 8 glasses a day. I have better luck with flavored liquids and feel less hungry just doing the water I can be succesful at doing, and doing the rest with high quality, no-calorie liquids.

Of course, if you love all that water, I’d say go for it! But, in my corner of the world, I’m very weary of diets setting people up for failure with this; so much of losing weight is psychological and you should set up as many opportunities for success instead of failure for yourself as you can.