Day 20: wow, I can’t believe how many
positive comments I’ve gotten on the blog so far. I’m so used to keeping my
true feelings bottled up behind an emotional wall that it can be difficult for
me to admit the things I’ve freely admitted in my blog posts about my struggle
against food addiction. As I’m learning, though, just because something is
difficult does not mean that I shouldn’t do it. Thank you, dear reader, for your support. It means more to me than I'll ever be able to convey here.
This morning I experienced a pretty sweet non-scale victory.
You need those when the scale isn’t moving, right? Mentally, for as long as I’ve
been losing and gaining weight, whenever I slim down to a 36-inch waist, I
think I’m really doing something right. I’ve never actually worn pants smaller
than that, because this is the point where I tend to slide back into my old
eating habits and pack the pounds back on, with interest. I must have done that
seven or eight different times in my life – but then, that’s the subject of
another blog post…
This morning, though, I noticed when I put on my 36/34 Old
Navy jeans that I had quite a bit of room to spare. I mean, pull the waistband
and see down the leg. That much room. There was no way I was going to be able
to tighten my belt around all that extra denim, so I ended up folding it over
and tightening my belt around what seemed to me to be about three extra inches
of waistband. Take that, scale!
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| This is what I felt like after my first extended juice fast. |
I’ve also been thinking seriously about that transitional
phase between the juice fast and eating solids normally again. After my first
extended fast this past November, my eyes were far bigger than my stomach. I
ate too many solid meals a day, too soon, and my body couldn’t handle the
nutrient bombs I was lobbing its way after a month of juice. My go-to recipes were Simple Veganista's mashed chickpea salad, Nutrition Stripped's vegan cashew cheeze, Oh She Glows' lentil taco meat (for our family's Taco Tuesday), the Engine 2 sweet potato lasagna, and all kinds of hummus for days. Mostly, cashew cheeze and hummus, and lots of it. The end result was
that I gained back ten pounds the first week of December. The story ends well,
though, because the next week I reigned in my eating habits (eating many, many more fresh veggies and fruits, in that order) and lost fifteen! I
hope that is encouragement for anyone who thinks that just because they gain a
few pounds the first week they’re back on solids that this whole thing doesn’t
work, and that they should go back to eating the way that made their taste buds
happy – and the rest of them, miserable – before juicing.
The one answer that keeps popping up in my head and on my
browser is eating raw vegan. Remember that at the end of Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, Joe Cross transitioned back to solids by eating fruits and veggies
exclusively for the next six months. I haven’t really done a whole lot of
research on the matter, so let me just say that I definitely do NOT recommend
eating raw vegan for anyone else. Mainly because everyone has their own set of
problems, and how we all eat has to make sense in our own lives.
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| This stuff is of the devil. Never, ever eat it. And by "never," I mean, "always" - unless you are dealing with hypothyroidism. Then, only "sometimes." |
I was reminded of this fact very gently in one of my
Facebook groups this week. Someone had posted one of the many articles that
have been going around lately, about how kale is actually terrible for you. Several articles have come out debunking the study on which the original article is based, and the idea that a vegetable can be harmful for you, but you can imagine how this news got many in the group all a-flutter when it first hit the interwebs. Especially since kale forms the backbone of a great many essential juices, not the least of which is the Mean Green - the juice that made Joe Cross famous.
A
few of the group members are currently dealing with hypothyroidism, and
apparently an overconsumption of kale can in fact be harmful to people with
underactive thyroids. I had no idea about this before people who had already
experienced truly adverse reactions to increased kale consumption started
posting about what they’ve gone through. From now on, unless I’ve done a
thorough amount of research, I’m sticking to sharing personal experiences – not
giving other people advice on what they should do to lose weight and get
healthy! I love the idea of eating a whole food, plant-based diet for the rest
of my long, healthy days, but…you know what? If you’re dying to have an
In-N-Out Burger, Animal Style, as your “cheat” meal, and you’re truly healthy –
who can stop you? Ultimately, this journey is about listening to your OWN body,
and doing what it says. If your body tells you to eat meat, go ahead. If it
tells you not to, don’t! Once again, and I don’t think I can over-emphasize
this, my body tells me I shouldn’t. More on that part of my journey in another
post!
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| You want this? Go get one. (No, thanks.) But stay healthy...! |
I want to make an important distinction here. When I say
that you should listen to your body and do what it says, I don’t mean that you
should listen to your Fat Body and do what it says (which is mainly just “Eat!
Eat! Eat! More! More! More!”). When you’re on an extended juice fast, you start
to hear what your body is really telling you, if you don’t cut it off too
early. And the more you resist the urges of your almighty Taste Buds to EAT
THAT THING!, you come to an important realization about yourself. Ya know what?
You DON’T have to give in to that craving! You’re NOT starving! You’re probably
just thirsty, rather than hungry! And other cues that your body will give you
over the course of your fast. I’m just giving you a few of the ones I’ve heard
from my own body, lately and before. You start to archive those positive
experiences with victory over your addiction in your memory banks, and you may
just be able to access them in the heat of battle one day further on down the
road, when temptation inevitably comes beating back at your door.
This is much different, I think, than trying to modify any
healthy way of eating with the occasional unhealthy food. In my mind,
especially as I have categorized such behavior as indicative of my food
addiction, this sort of modification is kinda like a drug addict modifying a
detox program with the occasional hit of heroin. I mean, it is conceivable that
the aforementioned addict will eventually kick his habit, but it is much more
difficult to do if you don’t cut yourself off from the source of your anguish!
Okay – that’s it for now. Juice On, my friends!!
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