UPDATE - COOKED VEGAN & BOOKS 22Dec11

I love this PETA card from some years ago.

An update.  I am on combined cooked & raw vegan - trying to stay low fat - & so, so happy!  Even going into the Christmas holiday without gaining, staying on this program (in the New Year, perhaps the first of January, hope I will embark on something that will help me shed that last 15-20 pounds).

During the day I generally have just tea (oh, but it’s Genmai - a green tea with roasted rice & I put agave syrup & Silk coffee whitener in it), juice (orange, sometimes with pomegranate, & always with powdered greens - just a cup of in a.m.) & a huge smoothie thru the day (VitaMix full, with powdered superfoods, fruits, agave syrup & a many greens as I can stuff in there - about 6-8 cups' worth) - then I have a simple but filling meal in evening, usually rice with a bean mix I make (about 6-8 sauteed onions, a package of sliced mushrooms also sauteed, perhaps add a whole sweet pepper, & lots & lots of tomatoes - added last because of all the juice - sauté until juice is evaporated - then throw in 3 cans of Amy's vegan baked beans - oh yum!  The hubby loves this mix also - we have it for days, weeks on end - by itself or with rice).

I am also making soups - bean, rice, tofu, etc. to share with a friend who is very sickly but does not fix food for himself - make a huge pot & share with him.

& I am doing very well!  my urine remains alkaline - I think because of the smoothie - & I am maintaining my weight - I do want to lose more, but at least I'm not gaining back what I lost.

I went to our yearly Christmas vegan dineout - spectacular!  & found I ate what I wanted & the next day followed my routine of liquids during the day, especially the smoothie - & have not gained.

Also went to the Denman Island vegan solstice potluck - oh, god, so fantastic!  Held in a big wooden hall, a wood-burning stove, rough-hewn tables & a great wooden table, bedecked in huge wooden candelabra, evergreen bows & so filled with homemade vegan foods of every kind. 

I'm at this rather lovely - & perhaps a bit strange place - in which I so love my cooked vegan food & without guilt.  Amazingly, I have a bit of dessert & am happy to do with one helping (not the old me!) - & I have no cravings for those dairy-laden baked goods (bads!) from the grocery stores which I would buy compulsively & devour in the secrecy of my car in a parking lot. 

Another very important thing is that I was trying so hard not to eat in the evening when I watch videos - that has always been my weak spot.  Somewhere along the line, I have succeeded.  As soon as I have my very filling supper of rice & beans or soup - I brush my teeth to get the taste of food out of my mouth.  If I am tempted to pick at something, I think about getting bits in my teeth & that helps.  Over time of not eating after supper is over, I am hoping that I will just be in the habit of not eating once supper is done.  That makes a huge difference to me.  Part of it, also, is being satisfied & full - & the cooked vegan is helping with that.

I am reading Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet - which is also helping me (got thru the library) - she advocates cooked whole grains & beans in the diet - a bit macrobiotic - i.e. going with the seasons, gently seasoned, eating grains & not eating exotic fruits that have to travel far (not that I am going to resist those fruits when they are in the grocery stores - ripe & tempting) - but to think about being on a mainly fruit diet in this (cold) weather simply doesn't appeal & perhaps that's why I went off my 'diet' so drastically in the past.

There are gazillions of terrific books out there right now that advocate low-fat cooked vegan.  This is working for me - I am so happy right now!  I look forward to the dineouts that are coming up & when I go to a vegan buffet or potluck, I enjoy it fully - guilt-free compared to my anguished self-chastisement of the past while trying to be 100% raw.

(Victoria Boutenko is bringing out a book in January that apparently justifies (rationalizes?) some cooked food.  I've ordered it - tho I am expecting that it might advocate only steamed greens....  I am a huge fan of Boutenko - she is brilliant & has contributed crucially to our present understanding of nutrition & the introduction of greens, along with smoothies, is world-shaking.)

Here are some other books I am reading (& loving) right now:

Flying Apron Gluten-Free & Vegan Baking Book by Jennifer Katzinger, as well as her Gluten-Free and Vegan Holidays (gorgeous, gorgeous, innovative books full of pictures);

Healing Foods Cookbook: The Vegan Way to Wellness by Jane Sen (some of these books, apparently outdated already, are available very reasonably thru Chapters bookstore);

KANSHA: Celebrating Japan's Vegan and Vegetarian Tradition by Elizabeth Andoh - wow, what a book this is!  hardcover, big & so full of information & expertise.  I love this approach - simple, appreciative of spare flavourings, concerned with the whole notion of conscious, careful & loving preparation of food (I have always been drawn to the whole ethos of Japanese cuisine).  She has so put me onto pickles!  quick, easy ones full of probiotics & freshness, to eat with every meal (forgot to say, before I eat my cooked food, I try to eat a 1/2 to one full cup of pickles & or sauerkraut).  Andover points out how a Japanese tradition is to have pickles, soup & rice for breakfast...hmmm.

Which put me onto another book:  Quick Pickles: Easy Recipes with Big Flavor by Chris Schlesinger, John Willoughby and Dan George.  Lovely, lovely, lovely.  The whole world of pickles, quick & with every meal;

The Veg-Feasting Cookbook: Favourite Recipes from Local Restaurants and Leading Chefs in the Pacific Northwest by the organization Vegetarians of Washington.  Oh this book is marvelous!  All vegan after all (I don't bother with ‘vegetarian’ books that contain cheese, dairy, eggs, etc) - fabulous recipes (many raw) that are really good, simple, traditional meals by all kinds of chefs (including our own Bryanna Clark Grogan of Denman Island).  This is one of my favourite books - I love to buy such specialty books because I know they have traditional, tried & true recipes & also that they are collector's items & will not always be available;

Another specialty, traditional fare, collector's book is The Veganopolis Cookbook by David Stoweell & George Black.  From the Veganopolis Cafeteria restaurant in Portland Oregan (from 2003-2008) - now closed.  Wonderful, wonderful book - sumptuous recipes that are so easy.  Another of my favourites;

And finally - tho I do have other books piled beside my bed & browse thru them with love & drool - Bryanna Clark Grogan's World Vegan Feast - just out & I don't think there is quite anyone else who does such research on international favourite dishes & replicates them so amazingly into vegan food.  No one.  Grogan is a tireless, avid researcher.

Whew!  Pat, quit!  Perhaps here I am still obsessively focussed on food - but, the reading (even while salivating) is not the same as eating wildly & compulsively.

cheers & holiday greetings,  

DAY 100. Afterwards. Update. Hernia(s). 137.6lbs.

I'm still counting, not sure what.  Definitely not a juice feast - more smoothies than juices.  Smoothies are so much easier & faster - & I always seem to be flying out the house &  just don't have time to do a juice.  (Tho I am generally doing a hand-pressed orange juice with some powdered greens in it first thing upon arising.)

Love the juice when I do it - but a juice definitely takes the best part of an hour to do, counting the essential cleanup.  When I do finally decide to do a juice, it makes more sense to make a lot - hence more vegetable prep; if I did a small one, I still have to clean the juicer.  Anyway - I end up doing a huge smoothie most days, 7 or 8 cups for me to sip thru the day & 2 cups for the hubby (he refuses to drink more than that, as if he's saying no to chocolate layer cake).

I am still keeping my log book - everything that goes in & comes out.  Feelings, physical ailments, changes, time I get up, get mobile & go to bed.  Perhaps this is why I am still counting.  Keeping a log book imposes a kind of order, organization, mindfulness on my life.

Oh yeah, I am eating cooked food - every day!  when I swore I would just do it once a week.  That alone makes it feel like failure. 

BUT! so far the cooked is pretty moderate - vegan, low fat.  I have been making large soups & pass along some to a friend who does not eat well, should be eating well, & who loves my soups.

Amazingly I am doing quite well, even with the cooked food.  I am able to eat a cracker or a slice of bread with nothing on it; a gift of this whole business seems to be that I am able to enjoy one food at at time, on its own - revel in the flavour without 'gussying' it up.

I am maintaining my weight so far.  I do need to lose more - about another 20 pounds.  So, not losing, but not gaining.  I am weighing myself every single day because it is the first couple of pounds that can break me - send me reeling off onto a flat-out bender.

BUT!  I am experiencing the effects of cooked foods nonetheless: encrusted nose, tiredness, waking up & feeling I have to sleep more, rather than waking up & feeling ready to rock.

Continuing to count the days & keeping up the log book are helping so far.  I'm not off the path yet; every day is the possibility of keeping on track.  Actually, I do just great during the day - it is, as always, the evenings that are a challenge - when my cravings to devour devour me.  

One other benefit of my 92 days of - whatever I am going to call my journey - is that I am able to have my supper, albeit later than it should be (I'd love to not eat beyond 6 p.m. - that will be mastery!) - & once my supper is done, I am able to watch a DVD movie - which I do pretty well every night - without eating anything else.  THAT is mastery for me at this stage.  I suppose in common with many people, my cravings are worst at night.  So, I've accomplished a small victory when I can have my supper, brush my teeth, & that is it till next day.

Hernia(s)

I think I got caught up in the exciting notion that once I got rid of my psychic 'shit' the other real stuff would follow - that it was mind over matter.  That my hernia, as representing my psychic 'shit' extruding & intruding into my life, was more about my emotional healing; that the physical represents the emotional rather than its own reality.

Well, whatever, my hernia is here, real & hurting whenever I am on my feet for a while.  Not only that, but it seems that a second one is beginning on the other side of my groin!  In my imagination, I see my ruptured stomach muscles extending right across my belly - my guts spilling out willy-nilly!

I finally went to a doctor - who noticed right away that 'something is going on' on the left side of my groin as well as the right.  He recommended me to a surgeon who has - I hope - got me on a wait list for surgery.  It will probably take at least two months to receive surgery - so in that time I can heal or change my mind more easily than beg to be put on a wait list once I am immobilized from pain.  The waiting gives me opportunity to think & to change my mind while at the same time presenting a possible solution of the medical kind.

By the doctor's recommendation I went to a home medical store to be fitted for a truss that should help to keep the hernia in.  I met with a lovely woman who was helpful in many ways.  I was expecting to have to get naked to try the truss on - the beginning of indignities I will have to endure - but this woman tried it over my outer pants; she did not even feel the hernia.  In about a minute the truss was deemed a lucky fit.  She suggested that surgery for hernia is major & if possible to be avoided - to learn to live with the hernia,  She told me I will have to 'change my life' - never lift anything heavy again (!!!!!!!!).  The truss apparently cannot be put on by myself!  I need to have someone adjust it for me from the back!  (Yegads, could it not be designed to have all the adjustments on the front?)  I have to accept feebleness?  I cannot live on my own?  I cannot carry my groceries anymore?  Bring on the walker & the nursing home! 

(By the by, this bit written after I took the truss home & finally tried it on myself over my underpants - to see if I could manage it myself.  I realized this truss is not going to work.  It needs to curve over my belly because the hernia extrudes right over my pubic bone & right in the crease where my thigh joins my body.  $100 I paid for it.  I knew the policy is that underwear cannot be returned for fear of germs, disease, whatever.  Then I realized the fitting had been way too quick & incomplete.  Nonetheless, I phoned the store back, spoke to the woman.  She confirmed that she could not take my word that the thing had not yet touched my naked body - that the truss is mine, whether or not it fits.  Wasted money.)

I lay around for a couple of days thinking about accepting a state of feebleness.  To go from a very active, self-sufficient, independent lifestyle - someone who has looked after Great Danes for 35 years, walking miles every day, lifting & carrying everything, snorting with the ridiculousness of it every time a cashier asks if I need help with a little bag of groceries just because my hair is white & I am obviously over 50 years old.

I still have not resolved this - still thinking on it (there is an appealing component to this of being forced to lay abed most of the time - then I might finally get the writing done full time - have my beleaguered hubby bring me tea & biscuits in bed... Oops, make that herbal tea & smoothies.).

I have been talking to people & have discovered that hernias are very, very common - & they occur in people of all ages, though mostly men (& boys).  I thought my excess weight & even my age were components - & they might be - but a number of people I have been talking to have been children & are not overweight.  (The woman in the home medical store told me hernias are caused by lifting heavy things from the ground without bending at the knees.  My husband, who has done all manner of heavy construction over his 72 years & never had a hernia, verifies this.)

I am for sure carrying around baggage/shit from my childhood (who isn't?) - but I accept that putting that harness with the rubber handle on the back end of, first, my 165-lb Spanish Mastiff for a couple of months & then, shortly after, on my 150-lb Great Dane for 5 months & hoisting them up from sitting positions & from inaccessible corners into which they had slid, was enough brute lifting (not to mention devoid of bent knees) to give anyone a hernia, perhaps two.

And surgery?  so far everyone I have spoken to has had surgery - not that that necessarily defines the best path.  Several surgeries have not 'worked' the first time - perhaps because of older methods of surgery, putting strain on the stomach muscles too soon, or perhaps not being healthy enough to heal within the 'normal' parameters.  One young guy, who had his first of two hernias at 10 years old, told me that surgery has come a long way - that nowadays a very small incision is made & a piece of gauze placed over the ruptured hole in the muscle.  He figures it is "a piece of cake".

One woman pointed out to me that hernias were even so common in the time of Pythagoras that he invented the surgery for them.

She also said she did not know of anyone who had self-healed, although we both know of a couple of people who have slight hernias that they are able to live with, one being a woman who has one around her belly button that she says was caused by giving birth.  This woman told me it's no big deal, she just shoves it back in when it comes out.

My hernia is almost live-able-with.  It is just that when I'm on my feet for too long (& that time seems to be getting shorter) it hurts like hell & I have to sit or lie down.  I'm grateful that sitting down seems sufficient.  I have got myself a small secretarial chair with good wheels on it so I can do stuff around the kitchen, sitting down, & wheeling myself about.  Not a perfect solution - kitchen activities involve so much standing & moving around!

So, apart from keeping up my logbook, this hernia is further incentive to be mindful of what I consume.  I'm sure that keeping my colon functioning & as clean as I can is necessary for keeping the hernia at bay.  As well, eating a healing diet with lots of fruits, greens & superfoods will give my body what it needs to heal itself - just don't know if I'm going to be patient enough to wait for healing rather than take the "quick" fix of surgery.

I would love to be doing regular colon hydrotherapy sessions - but just can't afford it.  I must get over my reluctance to do enemas (silly, silly, I know!) - that would be something positive to do.