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.
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