More About Running

Today I watched a video of a running coach explaining how to get started running if you're a beginner. I'm definitely a beginner. He recommended starting with 20 minutes of slow, easy jogging every other day. Well, I've already established that I am not able to run for 20 minutes (more like four to five minutes). But I am going to start running three days per week...every week...even if I don't want to...like today. Since I can't leave my arms out of the exercise fun, after a couple of weeks I will start doing a little weightlifting on my non-running days. Excuse me, I have to go run NOW. :)

Running!

My health has been a challenge for a long time. I've been able to finally start feeling stronger over the past six months or so, for which I am extremely grateful. After years of not being able to run due to health problems (knees hurting/giving out and lung issues: I would start coughing really hard & couldn't breathe when I started running), I finally feel strong enough to run, although it is going to be a very gradual process to get in shape. My goal is to eventually be able to do a half-marathon. It's a big goal. I officially started running last week. I ran (okay, very slowly jogged) about 1/3 mile. I didn't die, and I didn't even have any coughing fits! It was glorious. Once this week, after watching "Biggest Loser" and realizing that even extremely overweight people who hadn't been exercising regularly could run further than I can, I started feeling a bit sheepish about my ability (or lack thereof) to run. I wondered if I am just completely insane to think I can ever even run a mile, much less a half-marathon. I thought that 1/3 mile or 1/4 mile is nothing. But this is my goal, my health, and my progress. It is good enough for me.

I am Grateful!

Sometimes I just stop & think (& sometimes write) of the wonderful gifts in my life: my son, my life, the ability to read & write, family, friends, food, a bed, a garden, weather-appropriate clothing - heck, just having clothes! - sunsets, rain, sunshine, chickens, walnuts...there are at least a billion more. Anytime I find myself whining or complaining, a good dose of gratitude goes a long way to snap me out of self-ptiy and into joy!

Consolidation!

I've decided to move all my blogs here & combine them into one. You see, I have blogged about various parts of my life in various places, but I am really just one person with one life and I may as well talk about it all in one place. Welcome to my world. :)

One of the blogs I had was sort of a food journal, which I find interesting & useful to keep track of from time to time, partly because I tend to get stuck in a rut with my food choices, and it's nice to be reminded of other things I like to eat.

This morning for breakfast, I ate about 1/4 pound of home-made sausage (natural ground beef + RealSalt + fresh garlic + herbs) and drank a pint of goat milk. Man, that goat milk is satisfying!

Just now (11 am) I snacked on a few raw barbecue chips (I added about a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar to her recipe) and then drank a can of coconut milk with vanilla flavored stevia drops mixed in.

Hi, I'm Back :)

Wow, I can't believe my last post here was a year ago. Wait, yes I can. I'm a mom, and I've had a few things to do. :) It's interesting to read the last post, because my diet has changed yet again, and it's again because of continually high blood sugar and feeling not-so-good eating carbs. I'm eating what I feel drawn to, which is currently high-fat (some of which need to come from animal sources) and no carbs except the fiber in my veggies and the lactose in the goat milk I am guzzling like crazy. That's an interesting thing: I hadn't had goat milk in years, but I bought some the other day because it sounded good when a friend mentioned it. I drank some right away, and something about it felt so wonderfully nourishing that I found myself exclaiming aloud: "NO WONDER I always wanted more milk when I was a kid!" Interesting, because I had been thinking of that childhood desire for milk a lot over the past year or so. It went like this: Every day I asked my mother for more milk - I particularly remember I always wanted some in mid-afternoon - but there wasn't enough for me to just drink it whenever I wanted it. I really felt that I missed out on something I needed, and I felt there was something important I needed to learn from the memory - a reason it has kept coming up. We had goats for several years, and we got fresh cow's milk from a neighbor when we didn't have goats. I hadn't realized that it was during our goat-keeping time that I had constantly craved the milk, but when I drank it this week, it was familiar on a level beyond my conscious memory. I have embraced the cravings, the memory, the knowing this is good for me even though I'm not completely sure why...and I am drinking goat milk as often as I want it. YUM on all levels!

My "New" Diet

I am a type 1 diabetic & have been raw most of the last 4 1/2 years. I have had a lot of problems with insulin resistance (which isn't normally a type 1 issue) & other health challenges in those years (although some of the health issues existed before that, too). Not only have I had health problems, but in the last year and a half (since I was hospitalized for complications of diabetes), I have put on almost as much weight as I lost in the first three months of eating raw. Weird. Anyhow, I recently experimented with eating more cooked foods as I wasn't feeling great eating raw & thought maybe I was missing something. In August (while continuing to eat lots of cooked whole foods as they made me feel better than my raw diet had), I started using herbs, supplements and some amazing essential oils, which helped a lot in how I felt, and my insulin sensitivity has been gradually improving since then. I still hadn't lost weight, though. In fact, I was only three pounds away from my highest weight ever - which was pre-raw. I found Dave the Raw Food Trucker on Youtube, and watching him I felt like maybe I should get back to raw, but do a low-glycemic raw diet, since my body wasn't processing high-glycemic carbs well (I would eat a piece of fruit & get really irritable & crash & have to sleep for an hour). I recognized that I'd been drawn to low-glycemic cooked foods, so I wondered if maybe low-glycemic was the key I needed. I went to eating a low-glycemic raw diet, and I drank loads of fresh green vegetable juice for two or three days. I have never felt good/healthy being vegan long-term, but I felt that there was an element of truth/power for in Gabriel Cousens's eating plan, so I was planning to stick with the low-glycemic raw vegan diet for 6 months to see how I felt. Well, after six days, I felt a shift - that I didn't need to do it any more because I had reset the body-mind connection and now wanted to eat just what was best for my body, so I didn't need the rules any more. I added some grass-fed beef and a few more carbs into my diet & continued to feel better. At some point in this self-discovery process, I remembered a discussion about agave (months ago) in which I became aware that most of my crazy blood sugar issues started at the same time I started using agave. I dismissed it at the time, but it came back to me this past week. I use muscle-response testing (kinesiology) in my practice as a holistic health coach, so I decided to muscle-test myself to find out if there was/is a certain diet I need to follow, or if I can just eat intuitively, etc. I tested specifics of my ideal diet, based on the thoughts & intuition I'd had, and I discovered something amazing, which shouldn't have surprised me one bit! The diet my body wants is the exact diet I was following the first six months: when I lost weight, had more energy & experienced lots of health improvements (including better insulin sensitivity). One of the main things about this diet is NO AGAVE. I am eating plenty of carbs again, I have energy instead of crashing afterward, I get more energy every time I eat...in short, I feel better from my food than I have in the last four years since I started using agave. I have also finally started losing weight - seven pounds in the last two weeks since I got back to "my diet" - mainly raw but with no agave.

Whatever, Whenever

I was reading a raw website recently, which talked about people eating 100% raw amd being able to eat whatever they want, whenever they want and be completely healthy. I was reminded that in the past, when I have eaten a certain way, I can eat as much of whatever I want, whenever I want (within those parameters), and I continue to get healthier & maintain a healthy weight. The diet for me has consisted almost entirely of raw plant foods, with a little cooked meat/eggs (grass-fed or wild-caught) and raw cheese. The website I read said that the "whatever, whenever" principle goes away when cooked food is part of the diet. For me, that is true EXCEPT in the case of cooked meat/eggs. Anyway, I don't know if it's because these foods are a magic combination for my body as far as how the food is digested/used, or if it's because eating this way enables me to be more in tune with what my body needs (so that what I want is what my body needs)...or maybe this is the diet I'm drawn to BECAUSE I'm wanting to eat what my body needs...However it works, there it is. Of course, I suppose that could change tomorrow & I'll be saying I feel healthiest eating cooked grains & beans &... :)