I DID go to the hospital!

It all went so smoothly.
There was one person ahead of me in the waiting room at the local emergency room.
The ER itself was quiet.
Everyone was pleasant.
The bathroom where I had to give a urine sample to prove I wasn't pregnant
smelled like pee and had hairs on the floor, the woman who wheeled me to radiology was grumpy, the ER doc was curt but those are such minor complaints.
I'm not really bugged.

They took six different views of my knee (x-ray)
to rule out a fracture.
Diagnosis?
No fracture.
Most likely a sprain
and definitely arthritis (because of all my extra weight, said the doc).
Doc gave me a referral to an orthopedist and off I went.

Now what?
I could go and spend money I don't have to get an MRI and see exactly what kind of damage I did to my soft tissue or cartilage back in April. Unless my knee gets worse instead of better, I think I'll postpone that till I have insurance or am in a better financial position.

Am I saying my knee is better?
Yes.
It has improved.

How do I know?
In an attempt to make my knee aggravated and swollen for my trip to the ER I walked around this morning. I carried a heavy load of garbage to the dumpster out back.
I returned my wheelchair to the medical supply store (it was a rental) and walked around the Rite Aid looking for organic dark chocolate. I found Lindt on sale.

How'd I do?
My leg was a little sore with some acute pain.
The pain faded without my having to take any pills.
In the ER my leg was not at all swollen.
The doc palpated the area (fancy word for 'felt')
and there was no pain.

The only pain I felt in the hospital was in radiology.
Some of the positions (keeping my leg flat and straight or turning my knee inward)
hurt badly, but the pain did not linger.

Right now my knee is just plain numb.

My dilemma's include: how to get from my car to my classroom on Monday (it's a far walk down the serpentine hallways within the building...my knee aches just thinking about it) and how to treat my arthritis.

I may use my new $150 Made in China wheelchair that I bought off of eBay to get to class.
I may try to walk it using a cane.
I'll test drive the knee over the weekend to help me make my decision.

As far as fixing the knee permanently?
I've done some research and found the information I need on the Weston A. Price Foundation website - a non-profit organization the disseminates scientific facts regarding nutrition without interference from commercial interests.

Dr. Tom Cowan, MD recommends the following:

"...foundation of the therapy:
a diet rich in good fats
with only about 70 grams (less than 1/2 cup)
of carbohydrate food per day,
similar to that suggested in
Nourishing Traditions
and The Schwarzbein Principle.
If possible, include raw cream and butter
as they contain an anti-stiffness factor
that is destroyed by pasteurization.
Use Betacol from Standard Process, 1 tablet,
three times per day as an extra source of this anti-stiffness factor.
Then use herbal extracts both internally
and topically that have a warming effect.
The best is Boswellia complex from Mediherb
which contains ginger,
tumeric,
celery root
and the wonderful remedy called Boswellia.
Boswellia is actually a resin,
used in Ayurvedic medicine
and known to Westerners through its appearance
in the story of the birth of the Christ child as Frankincense.
This herbal resin (the oily part of the plant)
was given by the wise men to symbolize
the bringing of the warmth of the child
in the depths of the cold winter.
Its intent was literally to drive out the cold
from painful and stiff joints
and replace it with the feeling of warmth,
movement and flexibility.
Numerous scientific studies have confirmed
the remarkable "antiinflammatory" effect
of Boswellia extracts.
Initially, I use 1 tablet three times per day.
And finally, I use Saligesic,
a willow bark extract from Mediherb 1 tablet,
two or three times per day as long as there is pain."
- Tom Cowan, MD

Now to work on finding the best method of physical therapy to restore my legs.
I will motivate myself by asking myself "Do you want to roll around in a wheelchair for the remainder of your life?"
No.
Not really.

Then I'll ask "Do you EVER want to walk again? Dance? Run? Move freely?"

If I answer YES then I better get moving.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
What about the "lose weight" portion of healing my knee?
My plan is to get healthy to lose weight.
NOT lose weight to get healthy.
Listen to Dr. Schwarzbein.
click here or click below

angry stomach

"In 1908 the French chemist Loius Pasteur
invented the process of heating milk
to absurd temperatures to kill off bacteria
to help prevent the spread of TB,
botulism and other diseases
that were rampant at the time.
Not only did heating the milk
to temps up to 192 degrees kill of harmful pathogens,
it also killed off all the naturally occurring enzymes
(like lactase, galactace, and phosphatase)
in the milk that actually help our body digest it,
the heat also destroys all the important vitamins and minerals
found in milk.
So, without naturally occurring enzymes,
good bacteria, vitamins and minerals
whats the point of drinking the stuff?
Milk now becomes a nutrient-less,
foreign substance that our body
doesnt know what to do with."

- The Naked Dish in
The Truth About Dairy

"The pharmaceutical industry gets rich making drugs
that “manage” rather than “heal” disease.
But a licensed M.D. had astounding success
with real healing using a simple food substance
from nature: Grass-fed Raw Milk.
He wrote a book about his work.
Another man, a nutritionist,
healed himself using the milk diet
and went on to build upon
and modify it."
- The Milk Diet:
A Physician's Experience
with Real Healing

I'm sipping raw colostrum but
I'm starving over here.
I'm binge-y and crave-y and want to eat everything in sight.
All I want to do is eat, sleep and watch TV (while eating).
You know how we say "This too shall pass?"
This shit better pass.

I'm taking little bites of real food to keep my inner snack-monster from making a tub of popcorn and devouring it like Ms. Pacman devouring dots.

I'm keeping the protein high and the starchy carbs as non-existent as possible.
Sugar?
I eat fruit and Edy's fruit bars. Still, sugar.
I'm eating a few bites of meat every time I eat something sweet to keep things even, but even sweets with meat can spike insulin so I have to be careful...

"Of course combining a carbohydrate with a protein

lowers the overall glycemic index!
That’s because most protein foods have a low glycemic index.
Newsflash … diluting scotch with water
lowers the overall alcohol percentage, too.
If the choice is between a large plate of pasta
or a small portion of pasta and some meat,
the pasta-meat combo will have a lower glyemic index.
But here’s a better option:
skip the pasta and eat your meat
with a salad or some green vegetables.
Then you won’t have to worry about
the glycemic index."
-Tom Naughton in More Bologna About Carbs

I know that with adrenal fatigue there are cravings for sweets, salts and carbs.
I recognize that in me but it doesn't make the cravings go away.
Combine cravings with lack of caffeine and I'm just a delight to be around.
I'll either want to fall asleep or eat your face.

I dread going to the emergency room tomorrow.
I dread getting on a scale.
I dread being told that my knee would do better if I lost weight.
Maybe I'll just tape a big sign to my belly that says,
"I KNOW I COULD LOSE WEIGHT DR. OBVIOUS!"

omg my stomach is actually growling.
I just ate 3 raw peppers, 2 slices of Amish bologna (yes it makes a difference that it's Amish. Grass-fed meat is a nourishing food. click here), two tablespoons of organic peanut butter and a pear over the past 2 hours.
How can I be hungry??

Didn't I pay thousands and thousands of dollars to have a f$cking gastric bypass so I wouldn't have to experience this??

My angry stomach demon wants to resurrect.
Oh Lord, please help me keep it tamed, please.

Hopefully this getting-well thing will work.
My hormones will even out.
My adrenals will heal.
My metabolism will run smoothly.
My appetite will be normal.
I'll have energy
and zest for life.

But for right now?
I'm hungry, tired, bitchy and feeling extra fat,
like my belly is resting in my lap with a vengeance.

Let me get my mind off things by focusing on something else.

I have a lovely former student visiting me tonight to do a healing oils treatment on me.
I'll clean the apartment and get ready for company.
Moving and looking forward to something will change my mood.

I'll heat up some bone broth to quiet my stomach.
and take a few sips of raw colostrum to soothe my innards.

Healing requires action.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Hormones are not just for our reproductive years.
We need hormones to function, to metabolize food, to build tissue, to focus and feel.
Dr. Erika talks about giving up wheat, gluten, caffeine, artificial sweeteners, over-drinking and staying up all night.
She talks about sleeping, eating right and MOVING!
I want to move without fear of breaking.
She talks sense.
click here or click below

sins of the mother

"We grow primarily through our challenges,
especially those life-changing moments when we begin to recognize
aspects of our nature that make us different from the family
and culture in which we have been raised."
~ Caroline Myss ~

I have such a frikken headache it's not even funny.
omg
Ouch.
Between the caffeine withdrawals and killing off all the yeast in my system (click here for more on the Herheimer effect that occurs when you kill off yeast and parasites in your gut)
I'm a detox mess!
But detox means new birth at the end of it all, so I'll tough it out.

I've made a decision.
Friday I'm going to the emergency room to get care for my knee.
This sh*t is serious now.
The pain and weakness is radiating down to my ankle and up to my hip
and not in an itchy-healing kinda way, in a things-are-getting-worse kinda way.

When I walk on my right knee I feel this bloody, burning, grinding feeling like it's a fresh wound.
Since I've been "off" it since late May I'm going to have to assume it's not healing...or not healing properly.

My mother keeps telling me that she lives with pain every day and hints that I should just tolerate all this.
Her arthritis is so bad it's deformed her leg. The bones are so fused together she can hardly walk. She crawls from room to room when she's home.

She went to the doctor once for her leg.
He told her she'd need surgery.
She never went back.
Her reasons?
"I'm fine. I can get around.
I'm too old.
I don't feel like going through that.
I can't be in the hospital and trust your father alone at home. He'll burn down the house!
What do I need surgery for? I'm old! As long as I can drive I don't need to walk."

My mother is famous for making my father and me feel like "big babies" when we are sick or in pain. She wants us to just tough it out and suffer like she does. She tells me that there's no such thing as a pain free life.

Well, I don't believe her.
I choose to get help.
She CHOSE to ignore her arthritis.
She chose to allow herself to be crippled.
I don't owe it to my mother to do the same.

I know misery loves company but not like this.

We live in a country where it's illegal to refuse anyone medical treatment.
That means I can go to an emergency room and AT LEAST get an exray and some care.

If my knee was healing well, I'd just wait it out, but it's not.
I need to acknowledge the seriousness of my condition.

Maybe the knee happened to teach me that I'm worth the inconvenience and money.
My being able to walk is more important than staying out of medical debt.
Yeah, it was a great relief to file bankruptcy last year and unload all those years of medical bills (to the tune of $84,000).
I wanted to keep the slate clean.
I wanted to pay off my student loans.
I wanted to just get well without any expensive complications.

Well, f*ck me, that ain't how it's going to happen I guess.

The lesson of this knee may not be to test my faith to see if faith-alone can heal me.
Maybe the lesson of this knee is to combine faith and science together.

Oils and prayer on one hand, exray and MRI on the other.

And not ending up like my mother.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
I don't sell Young Living oils but I buy and use them.
I can swear by the Di-Gize that I rub on my belly to aid in digestion.
The Pan-Away helps the pain in my knees and keeps the inflammation down.
I rub the Gratitude oil on my heart.
They're a little pricey but they're worth it.
If you want my friend's distributor number so you can order from their site, email me at BelovedIdeas@yahoo.com
click here or click below

Win! Contest to win awesome food!

Zukay keeps coming up with more ways to help us incorporate healthy foods into our lives - first they created fermented salsas and relishes, and now they’ve added salad dressings, too!

For a little refresher about why fermented foods are so nutritious, check out my post on the Zukay salsas.

Zukay Life Foods, is giving away a FREE CASE of these new fermented salad dressings!

Click Here for details on how to win.

Thanks to Kelly The Kitchen Kop!

no hot dog work

My head is my enemy.
My head is my friend.
What's real and what's in my head??

Well, with my degrees in Philosophy, Religion and Counseling I know
the answer.
It's ALL in my head.
But just cuz it's in my head doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like it's real.

I'm pursuing charity care at a good local hospital.
If I have to relent and get this knee treated by mainstream medicine I will.
I've been walking on it a bit but it flares up so painfully that I don't know if it's something that can heal without some medical help.

I'm so tired and draggy it feels like I'll never see the light.

Just when I was about to give up and cry today I got a message from my nutritionist/trainer.
The hormone test has arrived at his office.
He'll be sending it to me this week.
Once we know what I need help with I can start getting into balance.

In the meantime I'm feeling like a fat blob of crap, but part of me knows that "fat blob of crap" is not the truth about me.
I have to yank my mind into a new perspective.

Sometimes the enemy in my head tries to tell me I'm a loser.
It echoes what that horrible blog troll said about me when she said I hadn't changed,
that I was still fat,
still driving my crappy undergrad car,
still in my same apartment
and still a compulsive over eater.

I can't let that be the voice that wins.
That can't be true about me.
So I look for evidence to the contrary.

I'm over 100 pounds lighter than I was in 2006 when I had the bypass.
I no longer eat tons of crap food.
My binge eating disorder is healed down to a murmur.
I've learned so much about nutrition and what MY body needs.

......
Just as I'm typing this Sallie Mae calls about my delinquent student loans.
How am I supposed to stay positive when shit like that happens??

Well what option do I have?
I can give in to the enemy and be miserable and depressed,
call myself a failure
admit defeat
and crawl back into a hole of despondency.
Nnnnnno.
Not likely.

The enemy will not win.

I will think and act myself out of this.
I'm already doing it.

After all I'm not slinging hot dogs any more.
Cuz that's what I did in my early 20s when I was at a rock bottom place in my life.
I was not making enough money to support myself at my full time job so I took on a part time job at Giants Stadium at the concession stand selling hot dogs.

It was hellish.
I felt like one of the grey fish that Marlin runs into in Finding Nemo when he thinks his son is dead.

They all looked the same.
They were all despondent.

That's what it was like working in food service at Giants Stadium back in 1988.
We were an army of food workers punching a clock.
Every concession stand the same as the next.
Every uniform the same as the next person's.
Same tie back apron smelling of grease.
Grey assembly line misery.

But that's all the work I could find at the time.
I wasn't qualified to do much else.
Retail and food work.
Those were my options.

I've come a long way from being forced to do food service work.
Now I can teach.
Twenty years later I can teach.

What's changed since 2oo6 when I had the bypass?
I'm well enough to work at three different schools.
Sure
sure
sure
I'm doing it from a wheelchair with a mysterious knee condition
but
I'M WORKING!

I have two master's degrees.
I have options.
And according to my students, I have talent.

So what's to mope about?
Life will always have problems.
I'll handle them as best I can.

I may be part time but I'm still a college professor.
I'm moving forward toward my goals.
No apron required.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
This is a meditation about releasing hopelessness - choosing to be worthy of Hope, feeling Hopeful and experiencing Hope. For best results, read the meditation out loud while applying the WHEE technique (Wholistic Hybrid derived from EMDR and EFT coined by Dr. Daniel J. Benor, MD www.paintap.com) The WHEE technique is a simple tapping method:Crossing the arms, allowing the palms of the hands to rest on the opposite biceps, begin to tap alternately on the arms in a rhythm that is comfortable. www.paintap.com
click here or click below

fat and all

Happy to be part of Fight Back Fridays!
(click here)

"In the WAPF scheme of things,
it is the epidemic rates of
heart disease,
asthma,
allergies,
Crohn’s,
obesity,
and diabetes
that are the biggest public health problems.
To see government authorities
sending undercover agents
to collect evidence against raw milk dairies,
and harass them
with questionable listeria tests,
in that context seems
ridiculous."

- David E. Gumpert in "The Complete Patient"

"To be completely honest,
part of me really wanted to dismiss
Sally Fallon and Dr. Weston A Price’s ideas
because they seemed so radical.
But to hear those same ideas
coming out of someone as mainstream
as Michael Pollan was kinda shocking
in its own way.
When Pollan talked about Price’s research
in this book,
my first reaction was
'Oh wow, this all might actually be true. SHIT!'
Actually, Pollan himself has had
a pretty big impact on my life.
It was the Omnivore’s Dilemma
that convinced me to bring meat back into my life
after spending 8 years as a vegetarian. "

- Book Review of In Defense of Food in
The New Home Economics

My little camera is busted or I'd show you how I look right now.
Yesterday a dear friend told me my skin looked really good.
Someone else told me I looked radiant.
I feel and look rested,
probably because I've been resting!
Resting and eating right.

I only have 7 more classes to teach and I'm off for the rest of August!
Yippee!!
Not that I don't love my students.
I do love them.
I just need some down time.
I want to sleep late (past 5am)
nap much
and function with no pressure for a few weeks.

Although I am getting up to teach at 5am I am still conserving my energy and building up my health.
I've been napping in the afternoons, diligently staying off the caffeine and taking my supplements.
Twice or three times per day I apply essential oils to my legs and call them to healing.
It's paying off.

I'm able to walk from room to room a bit more.
I walked outside without the crutches today.

It was a matter of urgency.
There was a stray cat crying at me pathetically.
I gave him wet food, dry food AND a dish of farm milk.
After he ate he meowed a bit as I contemplated what to do about him.
As I was deciding whether to grab him and take him to the vet he trotted off on important cat business.
I napped big time after that feat.

I am so grateful to work in such a way as to be able to take naps!

I am also grateful to have healing foods in my life.
After all the suffering, starvation dieting and misery I've brought on myself in hopes of being thin and acceptable, I'm finally learning to feed myself for the sake of nourishment.

I actually held my belly today and thought how lucky I am to have a body with so much character. Instead of wishing for a flat, uncomplicated landscape of an abdomen I held my heavy, fallen abs and thought of them as a sign of having lived through hard times. I did not have to fight off the usual barrage of mental shame. No one needs to approve of my body. I'm less interested in any one's approval of my shape.

If you dont' like my body then don't look!

After this summer of trials maybe I'm finally getting my priorities straight.

Now let me go sip some raw colostrum.
It's a healing food, fat and all.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
The goal of Love Your Body Day is to promote healthy body images for women of all ages and to combat the negative portrayals of women and girls in mainstream entertainment, fashion, cosmetics, media and advertising. Krista D'Angelo reports.
click here or click below

deep heartfelt Blah

I miss caffeine.
I miss the "energy" and I put energy in quotes for a reason.
Caffeinated energy is not real energy.
It's an over stimulated state that leads to depletion.
It's tricks-y and false.
But it's sooooo easy.

Right now I just want to go back to bed.
My hot cup of decaffeinated herbal tea is not fooling me into being awake.
Add lack of enthusiasm to my exhaustion and it makes a nice dark summer depression - that familiar lull before the autumn mania...if the blessed mania ever returns.

I'm wondering how much of what we experience in life has to do with our physiology rather than anything else.
States of depression,
mood swings,
anger,
rage,
anxiety,
profound sadness,
hypo-manic elation,
all
require certain chemical reactions from our bodies in order to exist...right?

I just don't know how much of this is will and how much of this is biology.
I feel like I DO have the will to live or I wouldn't be trying so hard to get well.
It's got to be physical.

I remember reading Oprah's latest testimony about her hormonal imbalance.
She said she had lost her enthusiasm for life.
Nothing really lit her up any more.
She felt half alive.
This is OPRAH we're talking about here!
If anyone has something to get up for in the morning for it's her!
But without a balanced, thriving physiology she just felt Blah.
She didn't feel a mere physical Blah it was a deep heartfelt Blah.

I can relate.

At this point in my recovery I'm running on past enthusiasms.
I'm remembering a time when I cared.
I'm recalling things that got me excited,
remembering things I've written,
looking back at what used to excite me.
I'm keeping myself alive in HOPE that I'll feel good again in this lifetime.

Love is the last thing left that I can really feel.
Love and sadness.
The rest is kinda bland.

Effort is depressing rather than rewarding.
I don't want to do much of anything.

But I have faith.
Okay, I guess I can feel love, sadness and faith.
Hope too.

I'm eating, breathing, and moving toward restoration.
I have hope that I will heal.

I believe my passion will return.
I believe I'll have enthusiasm for life
but THIS TIME I won't need the caffeine and stimulants to keep me going.

This time around it will be stoked from a healthy, hot-burning inner furnace.
My unblocked life force will burn hotter and brighter day by day.
At least that's the plan.

God help me with my plan.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Cravings.
Tired all the time.
Dragging.
Asthma.
Anxiety.
Foggy Thinking.
Depression.
Could it be ADRENAL FATIGUE?
Here's a great news piece on adrenal fatigue from New Zealand (enjoy the accent).
click here or click below

low carb

What I know from experience:
when I start my day with a breakfast of
fats and protein
I'm less hungry
have less cravings
feel more clear headed
and have even blood sugar.
Maybe nature doesn't really want us to start the day
with cereal.
Hmmm?

"Starch is just sugar
by another name.
Starchy diets are what turned us into
a nation of diabetics."
- Tom Naughton
click here or click below

taking the Whoop out of Whoopie

"If you are constantly
craving sweets,
you are likely not eating the correct balance
of protein,
fats
and carbohydrates
for your metabolic type."
- Dr. Joseph Mercola in
"We Are Making Progress"

"According to many sources that address adrenal fatigue,
when the adrenal glands are working at sub-normal (low) levels,
the body may crave more foods
containing
salt
and
sugar
because these substances
will raise blood pressure
and energy levels,
when the adrenal glands
have diminished ability to do so.
The body begins to seek ways
to replace the missing energy
that is usually supplied in more adequate levels
by the adrenal glands."
-How To Recognize if You Have Adrenal Fatigue:
Signs and Symptoms of Sub-Clinical Adrenal Hypofunction

What if we've been wrong about emotional eating?
What if we've been blaming our emotions for a biological phenomenon?

Cuz if I were really a food addict I'd be eating a box of Devil Dogs right now (America's processed version of the Amish Whoopie Pie).
Instead I'm eating an Edy's Lime Fruit Bar.
Still sweet, but definitely not a Devil Dog.

If I'm such a carb addict, why didn't I make a big bowl of popcorn last night?
I had company over.
That's my new rule. I let myself have popcorn when company's here.
But I didn't make the popcorn.
I ate organic string beans instead.

I had lunch with my mother today (Lebanese food at Sultan in Paterson...yum!)
and brought most of it home in a to-go container.
I didn't even touch the pita or the rice.

If I'm such an emotional binge eater or a hopeless carb addict,
why have I been eating so moderately?

Cake has been crossing my mind a lot lately.
Yet I haven't acted on my cravings.
The urge to eat carby sugary things comes and goes but is definitely less urgent.
I'm actually happy to eat a nice bowl of Jersey cherries for dessert rather than cake.

So what's the deal?

I'm convinced that a nourished, balanced body has less cravings.
I think binge eating is a BIOLOGICAL disorder rather than a psychological disorder.
I think a gut full of candida (click here) makes a person crave sweet, carby things.
Kill off the candida yeast and it can't make the host body (us) crave the sweet things that keeps it alive.

I've been killing off my yeast with a mixture of Bentonite clay, ground Psyllium seed, Oregano oil and Black Walnut Hull mixed into a nasty tasting shake. Nasty as it tastes, it thoroughly kills yeasts and parasites in the gut.

Less yeast, less cravings.

More nutrition for me, less cravings for starchy, crappy, carby foods that give quick, but nutritionally bereft, energy.

I've also helped myself by "legalizing" formerly forbidden foods and indulging in them every once in a while.
Take the stigma of forbidden-ness off a fried Oreo and it will be enough to eat just one or two once a year. For real. I've had enough for 2009.

Stop depriving yourself of those delightful Amish Whoopee Pies and enjoy one with a nice glass of real milk.

BUT and everyone loves a big BUTT.........
if we're craving these foods on a daily basis it could mean we're suffering from an imbalance either in our
gut flora
or hormones
or metabolic approach to our diet (our carb to fat to protein ratio).

It's not a weakness of character that makes us over eat.
It isn't just a craving for the pleasure rush that makes us want to eat this stuff all the time.
If we want certain foods all the time then maybe its a sign that we're undernourished somehow.

Maybe it's time to eat for optimal nourishment and be done with the cravings for good.

The more I get my lifestyle in balance, the less I crave the crap.
That's a fact.

*Lisa's Video Clip of the Day*

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http://www.price-pottenger.org For decades the Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation has been sharing the work of Dr. Weston Price and Dr. Francis Marion Pottenger and other nutritional pioneers. Dr. Price talks about "disturbed biochemistry" leading to disease and disorders.
Thanks to Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness!
click here or click below

Praise addict

"Your diet should make you feel good,
satisfied
and happy.
Are you eating the
right food
for you Metabolic Type?

Wrong Diet

• Constant Hunger
  

• Foggy Thinking
  

• Inability to Lose Weight
  

• Fatigue
  

• Cravings for Sweets
  

• Cravings for Carbohydrates
  

• Bloating
  

• Insomnia
  

• Mood Swings

Right Diet

• Energetic
  

• Satisfied After Eating
  

• Easy to Lose Weight
  

• Diminished Cravings
  

• Improved Digestion
  

• Improved Sleep
  

• Clear Thinking
  

• Enhanced Athletic Performance
  

In search for optimum health
and well being,
I've been my own diet guinea pig!
I've tried everything from Atkins
to adopting a vegan diet.
I have to say,
I wish I had heard about Metabolic Typing sooner
as I would have cut this science experiment in half! "
- Erin Huggins,
nutritionist trainer (click here)

I have to laugh when people ask me why I started eating this way (traditional foods, locally grown produce, grass-fed meat and dairy, nourishing fats, etc).
I want to ask them, "Can't you tell??"
Sadly, no.

We're conditioned to believe that being tired all the time is just a part of life.
We're brainwashed to think that being tired is a given when we reach a certain age.
We're taught that cancer is becoming more aggressive and inevitable.
We're led to believe that disease prevention involves invasive tests.
We're told that a good "lifestyle" change involves eliminating the very foods our bodies need most.
We think that taking a store-bought multi-vitamin is enough to make up for our crappy processed diets.

Hey, I believed all of it.
Look back in this blog and you'll see me railing against fats.
I patted myself on the back for eating less than 5% of my total daily intake from fats.
I staved off my cravings with sugar free ice pops and jello, never once considering the side effects of all that artificial sweetener.
My milk was skim and pasteurized and then I switched to dreaded soy.
My yogurt was fat free ...and I was smug about it.

What led me to make such a drastic dietary change??

I HAD NO ENERGY TO LIVE MY LIFE!

That's what.
After about 7 months of 6 day per week massive cardio workouts I was no longer able to lose weight.
Eating a grain heavy fat free diet with super lean protein STILL didn't help me lose weight.
I lost my enthusiasm for life at a biological level.
I was desperately tired.
Even drinking a pot of coffee per day PLUS stimulants wasn't enough to keep me going.

My life force was dwindling.
I had burned my candle at both ends for too long.
There was no wick left.

I went looking for answers.
I found answers.
Are these the RIGHT answers?

Only time will tell.

Right now I'm still tired BUT....and everyone loves a big butt...
I'm off caffeine completely.
Done.

I'm taking nutritionist prescribed supplements.
I'm nourishing myself.

Nourishment never seems to be on people's minds when they're reading labels.
We're taught to look at fat grams,
calories,
carbs,
sugar content,
protein grams,
but no one ever tells us to look for what percent of Vitamin A the food contains.
No one ever instructed me to keep a daily log of my B12 intake.
No health practitioner ever asked me how many units of Vitamin D I was getting per meal.

I always just assumed that one magic vitamin pill would do the trick.
The rest was just a matter of tricking my stomach into being quiet with filling, non-nutritive foods that tasted somewhat good despite their lack of nutritional value.

Folks have judged my nutritional choices based on how much I weigh.
They assumed that if I was smaller I was doing the "right" thing
and if I was gaining I must be eating the "wrong" things.

I told one of my doctors that I was off of caffeine.
You know what he said??
"But having some caffeine can help you lose weight."
Hmph.
And here I was hoping for some encouragement and praise for my fortitude.

That's what I need to get over.
My need for encouragement and praise.
My need for encouragement and praise kept me going to the gym 6 days a week, burning myself out on too much cardio so that I could get smaller and smaller
and get....more encouragement and praise.

My addiction to caffeine was matched only by my addiction to praise.
That's what kept me on the hamster wheel.
My need to be reassured, to be told I was "good enough"
cost me my health.

That's why the universe sends me naysayers (not often, but when they do come they are brutal). It's like my higher self is sending tests.
Will I buckle under the weight of the criticism?

Will my need for approval discourage me from doing the right thing for my health?
Will my habit of people-pleasing dissuade me from following through with my commitments?

Again, only time will tell.

But if I had to wager...

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
The name of this video is "Wean Yourself from the Teat of Approval".
Awesome.
click here or click below

The Village, Well

Proud to be part of Real Food Wednesdays! (click here)

"About six years ago,
largely under the influence of John Robbin's book,
Diet For a New America,
I became a vegetarian.
Soon after, I went vegan,
meaning I abstained from all animal products,
including eggs and dairy....

...I thought this dietary change
would lead me to a paradise of abundant health,
but I was sadly mistaken...

...It was my understanding that since
saturated fat and cholesterol
were the cause of heart disease,
abstaining from both
would grant me a virtual guarantee
of a healthy heart into old age.
Surely a cholesterol-free diet
that was also extremely low in saturated fat
would make me the epitome of health...

..In addition, I ate a considerable amount of soy.
Since the FDA recommended 25 g
of soy protein to reduce the risk of heart disease,
I was yet more confident
that I would maintain life-long,
vibrant health...

...Yet over the first year that I was vegetarian, my health declined. The problems that I had with anxiety since I was an early teen aggravated to the point where I was afraid to eat the food in my house or drive away in my car....

...During this time period,
I was starting to lose my zeal for vegetarianism.
I slowly began to add in wild salmon,
free-range eggs,
and some milk into my diet.
None of these appeared to improve my health a great deal.
That is, until I added red meat...

...Now, I am a new person. My tooth decay has stopped, and my anxiety problems are over. Eating foods rich in quality animal products raised with care has given me more energy, vitality, and well-being than I have ever had!"
- Chris Masterjohn

I just woke up from a nap and I feel refreshed.
That's HUGE!
Usually I feel like going right back to sleep.
I must be doing something right.
Rather, I must be doing some THINGS right.
I don't think it's any one thing that's helping me heal.
It takes a village of things.

Caffeine has been kicked out of my village, successfully.
Talk about a HUGE change!
If you read past blog posts you'll see how much coffee I was drinking.
Add Ritalin (prescribed) and over the counter energy jolts like Red Bull, Rock Star, 5 hour energy, etc and you can see why my poor adrenals gave out.

Also kicked out of my village?
Artificial sweeteners,
soda,
soy,
grains,
breads,
pastas,
rices,
chips,
starchy carbs (although I'll pop some corn and slather it in raw butter on occasion).

Fat has been invited back into my village.
GOOD fats: raw butter, raw dairy, grass-fed meats, saturated fats from grass-fed animals,
organic olive oil, organic coconut oil, high vitamin cod-liver oil but NOT hydrogenated, man-made vegetable oils and certainly not margarine.

Lots of grass fed meat in my village.
Lots of liver (the number one superfood according to Sally Fallon).

I've invited prayers of gratitude into my village.
Chi Gong is a daily practice here.

Wonderful essential oils applied two or three times daily live here, too.
As I rub them on my body I pray "Thank you, God for my healing."
I imagine my body coming together.
Knitting.
Repairing.
Becoming whole.

Deep breathing keeps the village running.

I had lunch with two lovely colleagues yesterday, a physician and an organizational psychologist.
Both are interested in complimentary medicine, nutrition and the mind/body connection.

I reported that I had not lost any weight yet since seeing my nutritionist.
My friend asked, "But how do you FEEL??"

Well, better.
Well.
Better.
I feel better.
Not great, not yet.
But I feel myself healing from within.

The village has to be revitalized before it can be remodeled.
Without a healthy life force the weight loss will only lead to more fatigue and malnourishment.
I've been down that road.
I know better now.

I just made myself some lightly steamed organic locally grown string beans sprinkled with crispy nuts and bathed in raw butter.

I have no doubt that I'm being nourished from within with every bite.

The village begins to thrive.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Saturated fat from pasture-raised animals is not the enemy!
A little snippet of an interview where Chris Masterjohn clarifies the lipid hypothesis and our perspective on cholesterol.
For more information from Chris
go to: http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/
click here or click below

Still Fat...the book!

Between the crutches

and the wheelchair
I'm getting a beefy upper body.
I'm feeling like Trogdor the beefy armed dragon!

"There's more to life than being
really,
really,
really
good looking."
- Zoolander

“When you consider yourself valuable
you will take care of yourself
in all ways that are necessary.”

-M. Scott Peck

"Many people get offended
because of what someone else said.
Our offense comes from
not valuing our own thoughts.
When we get offended
we make everyone else's thoughts
and words more important than our own.
It is our responsiblity
in life to protect our confidence.
But some people just give it away."
- Coach Darren Ventre

This summer has really toughened me up.
Although I feel kinda raw and vulnerable I also feel that I'm getting stronger,
more confident,
like I deserve more respect than I've been giving myself.

After what I've been through with the injury,
teaching in a wheelchair,
my Cassidy-kitten's death,
fighting for my health,
and various personal heartaches,
I feel like I can handle more than I thought I ever could.

I'm also feeling like I have something of value to say right now, no waiting.
What I have to say is not necessarily about
being a perfect representative for the benefits of farm food,
being the thin denizen of weight loss,
the energetic poster girl of motivation
or being completely healed.

It's just my story
as it is, in this stage of the journey.
I've got something to say.
Already, I've said stuff right here in this blog
that needs to be between the covers of a book.

This blog is so big,
so long,
so dense,
it's kinda un-navigable.
If someone came here for the first time wanting to know my story, how would they be able to follow it?
Where would they go to get the highlights?

Recently I've been getting more emails than usual asking me about the weight loss surgeries that I've had. Since I've had both the band (failed) and the gastric bypass (a complicated revision from the gastric band) folks are asking me which one, if any, do I recommend.

That's a tough question.
I don't really recommend either
BUT and everyone loves a big BUttttt
how do I know what's right for someone else?

A small but significant amount of patients do well with weight loss surgeries and keep their weight off with no complications or major regain.
Everyone has a shot at being among the few,
the proud,
the successful
folks of the weight loss surgery world.

Why would I discourage someone from having their shot at success?

What I CAN do
and WILL do
is tell my story.

There are plenty of smiling post ops who have taken off 100+ pounds and blogged about it. They stand there sideways in their "after" pictures, hands on hips, happy to be rid of half their body. They blog about toughing it out day by day, drinking their bariatric shakes, sweating at the gym and doing whatever they're doing to make them slim.

But what about the folks who have a different story to tell?
What about the folks who have regained weight or have developed crazy unforeseen side effects (grand mal seizures, hypo-glycemic spells, malnutrition, hernias, ulcers, etc).

Where are the disillusioned folks who have had these surgeries and realized that they still had addictive issues to deal with?
Where are the folks who are deemed "failures" by the post-op community because they haven't kept their weight off?

What about me?

I'm certainly on a quest for authentic health.
The surgeries were parts of my oddyssey.
I don't regret them but they were not the magic bullets I hoped they'd be.
I think there are people who want to read about that.

Folks who are considering weight loss surgery deserve to hear as many detailed accounts as possible before making a decision for themselves.

It's time to sift through my blog,
pick out the highlights and slap them between two glossy covers.
I'll call my book "Still Fat: ...."
I haven't decided what to put after the colon just yet.

For folks who want to carry a book rather than a laptop,
for folks who want to read just the weight loss surgery story,
for folks who want to hear about life with and after the gastric band,
it's time I self published a book.

Sure, I'll still be writing "Halfway to Skinny" for traditional publication with my friend the organizational psychologist but that's not the same as the blog. That will be the book written especially from a psychological, hypnotherapist's point of view. That will be much different than this blog turned book.

Hey, I've been writing this blog for 3 years solid.
Anyone who wants to read my story has way to much to wade through to get to it.
It's time to isolate,
consolidate
and publish-ate.

As my health improves it's also time to think about my public speaking career.
I've been so sick and tired for so long I haven't even considered getting out there as a speaker.
But my energy is slowly picking up.
And I've toughened up.

A talk and a book
are great ways to start.

I don't have to BE anything more than I am right here, right now.
I've been through some shit.
Time to make that shit available
in print.

I say it to convey it....to make sure I do it.
Book.
Yes, book.

But first, a nap.
Still working on healing.
Naps are good for that.

Naps and snacks.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
I don't have to wait to be thin or lifted or anything to give my gifts to the world.
My experience, my story, exactly who I am right now is enough ...for now.
Does Amma worry about how beefy her arms look
or how her hair looks
or what the naysayers think of her?
She waddles on chubby legs throwing the trail of her sari over her shoulder with no cares for what she should be.
She gives darshan.
She gives what she has.
So what's stopping me?
click here or click below

Are you Hungry?

"High protein
low fat diets
are especially dangerous
because protein consumption
rapidly depletes vitamin A stores.
This is why we caution against
using protein powders
or consuming a diet containing
lean meat,
egg whites,
and skim milk...

...Children brought up
on high protein low fat diets
often experience rapid growth.
The results – tall, myopic, lanky individuals
with crowded teeth and poor bone structure,
a kind of Ichabod Crane syndrome
– are a fixture in America."

- Mary Enig, PhD and Sally Fallon in
"Eat Fat, Lose Fat"

"Fats as part of a meal
slow down absorption
so that we can go longer
without
feeling
hungry.
In addition, they act as carriers
for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
Dietary fats are needed
for the conversion of carotene to vitamin A,
for mineral absorption
and for a host of other processes."
- "The Skinny on Fats"
by Mary Enig, PhD and Sally Fallon

My nurse practitioner at the gastric surgeons office asked me today: Are you hungry?
NO! I answered quickly.

That's a big change from when I first waddled into that office looking for weight loss surgery to save me.
I was always hungry.
In this blog I actually called my stomach an angry dragon...

"I'm excited.
They're going to slay my dragon
Wednesday morning.
The greedy, angry, fire-breathing furnace
will be separated from my esophagus....forever."
- me in Step One: Deflate

Wow.
Looks like I DID slay that dragon.
My stomach is no longer greedy.
It's not angry.
I've babied it into a state of trust.
My body trusts me to feed it.
The cravings are down to less than a dull roar.
They're more like an insolent peep once in a while.

My weight stayed the same since May.
Not up or down at all, not even a pound.

That's reassuring to me.
That means that the way I'm eating now, occasional fried Oreo and all,
is not putting the weight back on.
This means that all I have to do is add some regular exercise to this hard-won, politically incorrect way of eating and I'll start to slim down again.

A few tweaks here and there - resisting making giant bowls of popcorn for instance - and the weight will start falling off me again, but THIS time, I'll be doing it the healthy way.

My practitioner was concerned about the anemia.
I assured him that I was taking supplements, eating red meat and leafy greens.
He wanted to know what he could do to help me get my weight down to less than 200.
I said I was seeing a good nutritionist and was on my way.
I explained that I was in the nourishing phase of healing and that I'd need to get my body in balance before I hit it with rigorous exercise.

Then he gave me what most medical professionals forget to give:
encouragement.

He praised me for working so hard from a wheel chair.
He told me I was amazing for toughing it out on crutches.
He told me I looked radiant.

Sure, he was concerned about the knee.
Without an MRI it would be impossible to diagnose.
He mentioned that if it's a ruptured tendon or ligament the healing time is longer than 6 to 8 weeks and I'd need a more restrictive immobilizer.

I assured him that I was in the process of getting charity care so I could get it looked at.
He said he was confident in me.
He said he knew how hard I was working to take care of myself.

I believed him.
I believed him because he's right.
I AM working my ass off.
It IS tough to do all that I do with crutches and a wheelchair.
I DO look better than I did a few months ago.
I feel better too.

Am I hungry?
I just had a small serving of crock-pot pork and sauerkraut.
Fatty, filling protein and fermented vitamin-rich goodness.

I HAVE come a long way.

It's nice when someone notices
and says so.

It's nice when I believe it rather than fight it!

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Folks are catching on to the nourishing traditions way of eating and living!
Here's another hipster with glowing skin and a healthy body telling us
to eat right for our metabolic type!
Thanks, TheNakedDish.com!
click here or click below

it can heal

"Type-2 diabetes did not exist 100 years ago
when our diets were very rich
in saturated fats.
Type-2 diabetes appeared when
trans fats came into the diet,
and has become epidemic
as people are eating more and more foods
containing trans fats.
And since we know that trans fats
interfere with insulin receptors in the cells,
it is clear that the blame lies
with new industrial fats,
not traditional saturated fats."
- from
Do Saturated Fats and Trans Fats
Cause Type-2 Diabetes?
by Mary G. Enig, PhD

I just ate the most marvelous lunch.
I used my parents old crock pot from the 70's to make a tasty meal.
If my little camera were working I'd snap a picture of the
That-70's-Show-style cookbook that came with the crock pot originally.
It makes you want to wear a polyester leisure suit and watch Laugh-In!

Late last night I threw in big chunks of ham (grass fed from an Amish farm), leftover porkchops (that's what I was eating in the photo above) , chopped onions and a quart of homemade sauerkraut.
Turned the crock pot on low.
Late this morning?
The most tender, delicious pot of food!

I feel nourished and well fed.
Notice, no starch. No rice, no bread, no pasta, no grains.
The carb portion of that meal is the sauerkraut.
A nice balanced meal of protein, fat and carbs just like my nutritionist suggested.

Things are changing for the better.
I remember 3 years ago (among a long, long list of painful ailments)
I was taking insulin injections for my Type 2 diabetes.
I was only working at one school and not making ends meet.
My medical debt was crushing me.
I was drinking a pot of coffee a day to keep my weak body going.
I weighed 400 pounds.
I was asthmatic.
My future looked bleak.

What's changed?
No caffeine at all and I'm still standing (not literally standing just yet...lol).
No insulin in my fridge.
I'm working at 3 schools and making ends meet.
My medical debt has been erased.
I weigh 140 pounds less.
I breathe deeply and easily.
I feel positive about my future.

Things are on the upswing,
improving,
getting better,
blossoming forth,
developing,
and I'm writing it so I can believe it.

We need reminders sometimes of how good things really are.

Like last night I was sitting on my sofa crying
silently praying
"Lord, help me, I'm in trouble."
...then the wind died down and I realized that things aren't that bad.

Folks keep telling me that I need to see a doctor about my knee.
They might be right.
OR
it will heal just fine.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do.
In this blog you've seen me waffle back and forth on the medical issue.
I COULD go to the emergency room and get charity care to pay for it.
I COULD go to an orthopedist and get my parents to help me pay for it.
I could stay off it and let it heal on its own.

I'm not sure which will prove to be the "right" thing to do.

Yesterday when we ran into the orthopedic nurse at the garage sale she asked what was wrong with my knee. I said it was a torn MCL.
She asked why I wasn't in an immobilizer.
duh buh duh ...
I had to confess that I hadn't seen a doctor.
"Then how do you know it's a torn MCL?" she wisely asked.

"I don't,"
I answered honestly.

She urged me to go to a hospital and get some care.
I asked if getting an exray would be enough if it was torn cartilage.
She said I'd need an MRI for that.

And then what. With no health insurance I can't follow through with whatever medical remedy is needed.

I told her I wanted to just stay off it and see if it heals on it's own.
She said "it could" but it would be better to see a doctor to be sure of what's going on.

She might be right about needing to see a doctor.
or
She might be right about it healing on it's own.

I got the wheelchair on May 27th.
This coming Thursday it will be 8 weeks in the wheelchair.
Wow.
Eight whole weeks.

I have not been taking pain killers recently for the knee.
I am able to walk short distances around the house without the crutches.
The knee bends and unbends easily.
There is no swelling.

If I stand on it for too long (over one minute) it starts to hurt.
So I stay off it.

If it continues to improve...I dunno.
I really don't want to get into all kinds of medical debt again.
Deep down I really want to heal this thing
with prayer,
essential oils,
diet,
chi gong,
a little therapeutic stretching
and staying off it.

It will heal no matter what.
If I have to relent and see a doctor for help,
I will,
but not just yet.

I'd like to see what my body does with all the recent changes.
For once I want to do this healing thing on my own...with God's help.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
This guy nailed it when he talks about "the complaint club"!
I feel everything when I'm miserable.
When I'm happy I feel like, not only can I heal myself, I can heal the world!
click here or click below

3 gifts plus change

"There is no such thing
as a simple act of compassion
or an inconsequential act of service.
Everything we do
for another person
has infinite consequences."
- Carolyn Myss

I'm rockin' my 80's style shades!
Hey, they're prescription.
Gimme a break!
lol

My brother Lance, the bears and I sitting
in one of my favorite places on campus!
(Behind Morehead Hall overlooking NYC)

If you look for the worst in human nature you'll find it.
If you look for the best in human nature you'll find it.

If you look up to your higher power and say, "Thou art great"
then you'll find exactly what you need to develop yourself spiritually.
You can label it good, bad, best or worst but it will be exactly what you need.

Carolyn Myss says that our soul knows exactly what it wants we just need to silence our minds.
My mind is always busy.
It gets busy judging people, events and well, everything.
OR it's busy reliving recent events where I've been wronged by someone.
I guess that's my ego's way of building itself up.
The ego wants to declare itself righteous.
All those "other" people are so wrong and I'm so right...yadda yadda.

Reliving past events (and not distant past events like major life traumas. I'm talkin' day to day stuff) isn't helping me heal.
Reliving injustices against me just makes me angry and sick.

Bad habits of mind keep us totally removed from the blessings of the present moment.

Like today, I was torn between feeling self-righteously hurt over an unfortunate slight and being present in the sunshine of this lovely Saturday. My mother and I were garage saling on one of the first decent weekends this summer.

My mind was honking at me.
She said this...I should have said that...why didn't she do such and such bla bla bla
honk
honk
honk!

As I crutched around one of the sales caught between the honking and the joy of a lovely day
with a fifty cent wicker basket clutched in my pinkie
I saw a little porcelain cross with a Precious Moments character praying with her eyes closed.

I had already paid for the basket.
"How much for this?" I asked holding it up for the woman to see.
"That's alright, hon. Take it! I'm cleaning out every thing today."

I thanked her profusely.
When I crutched back to the car I handed it to my mother and proclaimed the goodness of humanity.
"See! A cross for free. It's a sign from God that people are good!"
Lovely.

At another set of sales right next door to each other my mother eyed a large chicken shaped baking dish.
"How much?" she asked through the car window.
The woman wanted three dollars for it.
My mother shook her head.
"Well how much do you want to give me??"
I crutched out of the car as the woman approached us.
We started talking.
She's an orthopedic nurse.

We got to talking about my knee and how I hadn't really seen a doctor yet.
She told me to get charity care so I could go into an emergency room and have it looked at.
(I'm in the process).
She said if it's a ligament the treatment is different than if its cartilage or bone.
She chatted up my mother as I crutched around the sale next door.

When I came back to the car there was the chicken dish in the back seat.
"That lady said she really liked us so she gave me the dish for free" my mother announced proudly.

We waved appreciatively as we drove off.

I was pleased by the woman's generosity and warmed that anyone would "like" us enough to give us something.
We look like a couple of weirdos (I think we ARE a couple of weirdos).
My mother drives around wearing a strapless dress that's really just a long skirt pulled up over her bosom. I'm crutching around with my fat arms hanging out of a sleeveless top looking like I just drove through a carwash with the top down, my hair sticking everywhere out of my pony tail.
God knows what stains are on the front of my shirt.
But a perfect stranger liked us enough to give us a chicken.

As our energy wound down we drove up to our final garage sale of the day.
My mother was looking at a walker on wheels.
I was too tired to get out of the car. She called out to the woman who lived there.
The woman was an absolute doll!
She wanted a bit too much for the walker. Then she knocked 20 bucks off the price.
We still didn't want it.

Now I had we-bothered-you-guilt and wanted to by SOMETHING from her.
Her daughter was selling bottled water so we bought two bottles from the little girl who happily delivered them to the car for us.

The mother asked if there was anything else she could show us.
My mother asked if she was selling anything religious.
"Yes we are!"
She trotted away and came back with a lovely copper icon of Jesus.
"Please take it," she said, "you can't charge money for Jesus!"

More heartfelt thanks came pouring out of us.

That's three.
Three gifts.
Three spontaneous lovely gifts from kind folks who gave from their hearts to two weirdos in a black Toyota Echo.

Today, I'm happy to be a weirdo.

You'll always find what you want
depending on what you're looking for.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
The caption with this video says,
"You are here to serve others, to be a light for them,
to participate in their lessons and to help heal humanity.
You are also here to serve yourself,
to heal your karma,
to enable your soul's growth and reconnect to the Source.
Your challenge is to find a balance between serving others and yourself
so that you can accomplish the tasks that you established for yourself
in this lifetime and even go beyond that.
How you view your role in serving others
is an important part of this process."
click here or click below

right with family

"The new mystic is not someone who retreats
into the ashram or into the monasteries,
but rather is someone who remains
a very effective lay person
in the field
- a mother, a lawyer, a teacher,
a functioning person in the field -
while having a very
animated soul...

...That is what I think
this new individual,
an effective mystical activist,
is in the world...

...Our goal while on this earth
is to transcend our illusions
and discover the innate power
of our spirit...

...We are responsible for what we create,
and we must therefore learn to act
and think with love and wisdom
and live in service
to others
and all life."
- Carolyn Myss

We sure are our mother's children!
We resemble her around the eyes especially.

My brother Lance (pictured above with me and the bears and our mom) is my mother's first born child from her first marriage.
We're 20 years apart so we didn't grow up in the same household.
For the past 18 years I allowed that to be my excuse for not being in touch with him.
Really, I was just being inconsiderate.
Embroiled in my own problems and drama I put my Vermont family at the bottom of my priority list and forgot that my presence in their lives might be missed.
WORSE than that, I forgot that their presence in MY life might be missed.

When we connected on Facebook about a week ago it didn't take long for the universe to set the gears in motion to bring us together as a family.

I could have said 'no' to the visit.
I had good excuses: my work and my injury.
But those excuses became reasons to say 'yes' instead.

My work as a teacher would be a lie if I didn't have a good relationship with my brother.
I teach the principles of right relationships.
I teach about health and happiness being a reflection of our relationships with others.
There I sat in my wheelchair, damaged, and had the nerve to say to my students that reconciliation with and gratitude for the people in our lives was essential to healing.
Meanwhile I hadn't seen my brother in 18 years!

This is truly the summer of healing.
As Carolyn Myss says, "Whenever you become empowered you will be tested."
Well, I am being tested.
It is no longer ok for me to say one thing and do another.
It was wrong of me to know that my brother was praying for a relationship with me, his sister, and repeatedly avoiding him because I was too tired.

Even though I have been too tired, I could have been tired and talked with my brother anyway.

He and my sister in law came for a lovely visit this week.
When I said it was time for bed, they understood.
No one pressured me to stay up past my bedtime.
No one forced me to do things beyond my physical ability.
They understood that I was in a compromised state and they loved me anyway.

The future will be different.
I'm binding the curse of the compromised state and casting it out of my life.
I'm following my conscience to better health.

BUT and every one loves a big buttttt.....
the better health would not come before I cleaned up my karma.

The sequence of events isn't
1) get healthy
2) do the right thing

It's just the opposite!
1) do the right thing
2) get healthier and healthier

It was the right thing to make time to see my brother and sister in law....and bears!
We were all much happier for the time together,
more whole for the faith we shared together,
more healed for the assurance that we all love each other.

The rest of the Vermont family (my nephew, his wife and 3 sons) should be coming down in August for a visit.
More love,
more faith,
more healing.

Does this mean my life is getting simpler and easier?
Meh, depends how you look at it.
The car wouldn't start AGAIN so I had to get a new battery today.
There was a mishap with a cat.
Someone I thought was a friend called me delusional and sniped nastily at me on my Facebook wall.
Other small but meaningful things made me cry today.

Snippy dippy problems continue to arise in my life,
more hurtful than before the knee thing happened.

Even if my emotionally jarring problems never disappear,
I guess they'll be reminders that I'm still alive!

I'm learning to accept challenges,
tests,
problems
and mishaps
as ways to get stronger rather than ways to be depleted
and I'm not using them as an excuse to avoid the people who love me.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
My brother, Lance, has written 3 complete scripts for film projects
featuring Theodore and Tilly Bear of the Teddy bear Monastery.
Out in the world there is a producer who is, right now, praying for a well thought out
project like this one.
I'm proud of my brother's hard work!
His vision has been a long time in the making.
I pray that his intentions become manifest so the world can enjoy
the message of his work.
click here or click below

loud and doubtful

"So we’ve got actual health nuts
out there
reading articles telling them
to cut the fat
and eat corn starch
and pasta
and soy milk.
They’ll end up with arthritis,
snap a ligament lifting weights
at the gym,
develop Type II diabetes
while recovering in an easy chair
and eating soy milk-smothered pasta,
then wonder
what the heck happened."

- Tom Naughton in FatHead: The Blog

Too late, Tom.
It already happened to me.

I bought into the low-fat lie.
Why?
It made sense at the time.
Given partial information on the topic led me to the conclusion that, yes, fat makes you fat.
I believed that animal fat clogs arteries.
I believed that factory farms were the only resources for meat.
I believed that low fat eating led to weight loss because I remember losing a bunch of weight eating that way.

And then just like any diet, it failed.
Low fat led to low health.
I DID snap a ligament.
I DID develop Type 2 diabetes.
I WAS super morbidly obese (now I'm just plain old morbidly obese. Hoorah.)

But I'm also wondering why low-fat folks like Susan Powter stay so slim and fit?
Well, for one, she works out like an athlete. She's a professional fitness trainer.
She moves A LOT!
and I suspect she's a "carb type" metabolically.
Ask fitness guru Erin Huggins (click here) who provides metabolic typing for her clients.
Some folks function better on carbs.
Some need more protein.
Some need an even mix.

My nutritionist did a metabolic typing profile on me.
I'm a protein type.

Since changing my diet I'm more clear headed.
After eliminating caffeine from my diet I'm still able to handle a rigorous schedule.
Heck, I taught 4 classes this summer from a wheelchair!
Hell yeah I'm doing better!

Yet part of me is reluctant to endorse ANY type of eating plan.
I've been disappointed too many times in the past.
For over 2 years I ate a super low fat diet, lost tons of weight then regained some, then collapsed from catastrophic fatigue and a ruptured knee.

If you look at older posts in my blog you'll see me cheerleading for the low fat way of life.
I cheer-led till I fell down from exhaustion and illness.
My protein-type body needed protein, grass-fed meat and lots of nourishing fats.

In the morning I take a teaspoon of fermented high vitamin cod liver oil (click here),
a teaspoon of virgin coconut oil (click here),
then cook my meat and eggs in lard (click here) and raw butter (click here).

I also eat organic virgin olive oil and flax oil (click here).

Will I heal?
Yes.
Will it be because of my new traditional approach to nourishment?
I'd like to believe that's a big part of it.
AND I'm hesitant to believe whole-heartedly till I've been doing it for a few years.

But in the meantime I'm going to talk about it as if it's the best thing ever.
That's what it means to take a leap of faith...
right into the larder!

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Is fast food the enemy?
I don't even know any more.
I eat the occasional burger without the bread from McD's.
Their sausage and eggs are pretty good in the morning, too.
But of course I toss the bread to the birds!
In his movie FatHead, Tom Naughton debunks some of the myths about fast food.
click here or click below

smudge this

"Our Native elders have taught us
that before a person can be healed
or heal another,
one must be cleansed
of any bad feelings,
negative thoughts,
bad spirits or negative energy
- cleansed both physically and spiritually...

...This helps the healing
to come through in a clear way,
without being distorted
or sidetracked by negative "stuff"
in either the healer
or the client...

...The elders say that all ceremonies,
tribal or private,
must be entered into with a good heart
so that we can pray,
sing,
and walk
in a sacred manner,
and be helped by the spirits
to enter the sacred realm...

...Native people throughout the world
use herbs to accomplish this.
One common ceremony is to burn certain herbs,
take the smoke in one's hands
and rub or brush it over the body.
Today this is commonly called "smudging."
- 'the Smudging Ceremony'
by Adrienne Borden
and Steve Coyote

We smudged my place last night.
Then we smudged each other.
My buddy Michael was away for a whole week to visit his Dad.
He came back last night with a beautiful souvenir for me!
A big fat bundle of smudging sage.

God bless him, he went from room to room and let that cleansing smoke rise into each corner and along each wall.
Then we took turns cleaning up our auras from the bottoms of our feet to the tops of our heads.
The sage carried away the negative energy while the juniper attracted fresh, new positive energy.

I felt the paranoia of my dead battery/anemia waft away with the smoke.
New energy is flowing inside and out.

It also helped to get my first chiropractic adjustment since April (best to get your spine checked by a straight chiropractor once a month).
Having an injury really pulled my spine to one side.
My chi is flowing more smoothly now.

These seemingly little things make a big difference in my overall attitude.
A house cleansed by a gift of sage,
a spine free of vertebral subluxations
and an hour of sunshine.

I'm ready for a nap.
But my brother is visiting.
I haven't seen him in 18 years.
Shame on me for letting so much time go by.
That's why when he said he'd spend a couple of days here in NJ I acquiesced to the visit in the middle my weird summer.

Having company outside of my close circle of friends takes valuable energy.
But neglecting to do the right thing is an energy zapper too.

I chose to do the right thing and see my brother and his wife.
They're Pentecostal Christians.
Here's my brother's Teddy Bear Monastery (click here).
He brought the bears with them on the ride down from Vermont.
Let's hope the furry evangelists aren't afraid of cats.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
How to introduce your atheist partner to your evangelical parents.
Not knee slapping hilarious but funny.
Enjoy.
click here or click below

no blood, no battery

“Of all that is written,
I love only what a person has written
with his own blood”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Ever just go out and do a good deed on the spur of the moment?
Yesterday I happened to be in a position to run up to campus for our Red Cross blood drive.
I was home and dressed, showered, not in desperate need of a nap.
My out of town guest was late-lunching with some friends and wouldn't be back for a while.
Donating blood seemed like a quick, fairly easy way to give something to others, to be of service.

I grabbed my "little" purse with the long strap that hangs around my neck freeing my arms to crutch and plopped into the driver's seat.
I realized I had forgotten my cell phone.
Should I go back in the house to get it?
Nah.
Crutching back into the house was too much effort.
Plus, I was only going up to school, my home away from home.
What emergency could possibly happen??

Up at school I crutched from my car to the Student Center Ballroom. Although I was parked close to the building in a handicap spot it was still a mighty effort.
But my heart was light.
I was puffed up with self-righteousness,
about to do my bloody good deed.

The technicians looked at my crutches and leg with concern.
One woman curtly warned me that in order to give blood I would have to get myself up on the table on my own. My reassurance that I could didn't reassure her. Her boss came over to express his concern about my getting up on the table. I reassured him. Twice.

Finally they consented to allow me to use a stool to get up on the table to donate blood,
but first the screening.

Blood pressure?
Perfect: 118 over 62

Pulse?
Excellent: 66 BPM

Hemoglobin?

Uh...
Hemoglobin??

Not so good.
They tested me again.
Anemic.
My reading was "below 10.5".

They gave me a bright pink "here are all the risks associated with anemia" fact sheet,
a release to sign, and off they sent me.

Weak blood.
Damn.

Ok. I accepted the news as a blessing. Medical confirmation of anemia free of charge.
Time to boost my iron and strengthen my blood!
No biggie.

I turned the key in my ignition.
Nothing.
Again.
No juice.

The scary part?
I had NOT left my lights on inside or outside of the car.
There was no obvious reason for a dead battery.
The dang battery is only one year old!

I needed a jump.

Now what?
I had no cell phone.
I'm on crutches.

I lucked out.
Campus police drove by!
I beeped and waved.
They came to my car, called parking services on their radio and assured me that someone would be by to jump me in 5 or 10 minutes.

Fine.
I'd wait patiently.
They drove away having summoned the appropriate help.

I turned my face up toward the sun and prayed.
Thank you God.
Thank you for the campus police.
Thank you for my healing.

I breathed deeply.
I did Qi Gong.
I visualized health.
I got bored.

15 minutes had gone by.
It was too soon to panic.
There were plenty of people milling about.
I didn't feel too isolated.
Help would come.

tick tock tick tock
20 minutes went by.

More deep breathing.
30 minutes.

Agitation set in.
Now I was torn between sitting there waiting or going inside to call again thereby risking not being there for the parking services guy if he should show up.

45 minutes.
An official looking man in a button up shirt walked past and asked if I was being helped.
He works for our university auxiliary services.
He called campus police then parking services on his cell phone.
Whew!
I thanked him.

I settled in for more waiting.
I felt so disconnected.
I vowed never to leave my house without my cell phone ever again!

While I waited I appreciated the green lawns nearby, the trees catching the wind, tweeting birds, soccer moms picking up their kids from camp.

20 more minutes passed and still no help.

The work day was ending.
Folks I know from student affairs were slowly making their way from the Student Center to their cars. A ladyfriend recognized me and walked over.

First the shock of my crutches and knee brace, then the shock of a wheelchair in the back of my car, then the realization that I was kinda stranded with jumper cables draped over my open car door.

She let me use her cell phone to call my parents.
I didn't want to resort to them, but....
I did.

Then my ladyfriend called her boss.
Her boss made a call.
Within one minute parking services was there with a jumpbox.
My car started up no problem.

Parents arrived.
Rescue of daughter commenced.
My Dad charged my battery overnight although to the best of our discernment nothing was wrong with it.

Now,
YOU KNOW ME.
I'm going to read into all this like an obsessive fixate-o'-tron.

First, my little camera has problems with the ON/Off switch.
Then my blood isn't strong enough.
And my battery inexplicably goes dead then resurrects just as fast.

Power issues.
Energy problems.

What the hell?
What's the message??

I'm getting the same feeling I had the day Cassidy fell behind the dresser and I had the kitchen fire. Two panicky out of the ordinary incidents culminated in his untimely death in routine surgery.

I've been puzzling and puzzling over these signs.
Power button, source of life, source of energy.
Power, energy, energy source
what? what? what?

It crossed my mind that these were warnings of my own death.
I freaked.
Then I freaked because I freaked.
I don't want to be so attached to my own life that I have to lose it to learn some cosmic lesson about non-attachment.
I cried.
I begged God not to kill me.
I thought about how useless my begging was,
how beyond my control my life is,
how my life is not mine to keep.
No matter how healthy I strive to be,
all it takes is one bus,
one Mack truck,
one bullet,
one mishap,
one moment to be snatched away.

My job,
my cats,
my friends,
my family,
my cool apartment,
my blog,
my ideas,
my book,
my goals...
poof.
Gone.

And me with no control over any of it.

I'm still not ok with all this.

But and every one loves a big BUTTT...
my death might not be the symbolic message encoded in the camera/blood/battery mishaps.

Maybe it's something goofy and simple like
a warning NOT to take on teaching a fifth class this coming Fall semester.
It could be a heads-up about my energy needing to be conserved.

I really don't know.

That could be the lesson: learning to be OK with not knowing...anything.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
To be in love with the presence of God rather than the knowledge of God?
Maybe that's what I need to learn to do.
Carolyn Myss talks about God needing an ally on earth.
click here or click below

brain crack

"...Lead the people
who are struggling
in a world of darkness
and let them know
- there’s a light calling out to them.
The thought that the call to salvation,
the call to eternal life,
the call to an abundant life
now was done through these very weak,
deficient vessels is awesome
when we think about it."
- Fr James Chern, campus chaplain
Homily 7/12/09

Last night at the Fair with Marni!
Thankful to have friends who are willing to push
me around in a wheelchair!!

That thing on my fork is a fried Oreo,
aka BRAIN CRACK!
It is designed to give you intense pleasure
then make you incredibly sick.
I'm feeling down right "carb-dirty" today!

The extreme pleasure of eating something rich, fatty, sweet and gooey is what keeps folks like me addicted to that kind of food.
Therefore, I only eat it maybe twice a year. If I eat any more than that and I'll get caught up in a brain addicted cycle of GIVE ME GREASY SUGARY STUFF NOW.... RAWRRRR!!

Don't believe me?
Read the article by Julia Ross, Holistic Nutritionist and author of The Diet Cure on the topic.
Fried Oreos are like crack.
According to her they're stronger than crack!
The intense chemical pleasure rush is akin to the rush one gets from heroine or cocaine.
Hence my new nickname for fried Oreos: Brain Crack.

More and more research indicates that the foundation of food addiction (most substance addictions really) are chemical in nature.
Does that mean I'm blaming the food for my behavior??
No.

Does that mean the Oreos reached out to me and grabbed my wheelchair last night as I passed the kiosk at the fair?
No.

BUT and everyone loves a big BUTTTTT
if I followed my cravings that I have today (as a result of the insulin ups and downs and brain crack events from last night)
I'd be eating peanut butter and jelly on rye, cake, devil dogs, pie, commercial ice cream and a hot pretzel rather than
Amish bologna, farm eggs, organic greens, raw milk, and meat meat meat for dinner.

Still having a hard time giving up my popcorn with raw butter at night but no need to be perfect, right? (See homiletic quote above).

It cracks me up when the occasional blog troll will sleaze by and accuse me of eating anything I want.
C'mon, really?
Who the hell wants eggs WITHOUT CHEESE and WITHOUT BUTTERED TOAST??
Farm meat?
Bone broth??
Hey, I LOVE those foods, but I love them in a I-know-I'm-doing-myself-good kinda way rather than a my-tastebuds-must-have-you kinda way.

If I really were to eat anything I wanted based on taste, it wouldn't be farm food.
I'd be eating brain crack three or four times a day.
Everything fried in hydrogenated oil, breaded, batter dipped, full of msg, sugar and commercial dairy.
Why?
I'm used to it.
I crave it.
My brain gets high from it.
It's designed to give a pleasure rush when eaten.
I like it.
It makes me pass out after eating it
and who wouldn't like to be passed out asleep right now, right?

But that road leads to sickness and pain possibly even premature death.
I've elected to LIVE.

Therefore I suffer without my beloved coffee.
I'm still off caffeine and doing better than I thought I would.

I do without flour,
bread,
crackers,
chips,
pretzels,
pasta,
rice,
oats,
barley and all the other grains at the bottom of the God-forsaken food pyramid.

I go out of my way (way out of my way) to get organic, free range, grass-fed meat and dairy from a local farm.

I'm taking nutritionist-recommended supplements.
And am gearing up to a more rigorous exercise plan (one that's suited to my body and won't stress my poor adrenals).

This is hard!!
Not easy.
Not a pleasure plan.

Forget about the wheelchair and crutches.
That's just an added inconvenience to my rigor,
a big fat inconvenience designed to remind me what happens when I ignore my body's nutritional needs.
My body breaks.
It won't heal.
Brain crack comes with a price.
All addictions do.

But last night was the last night of the fair.
Once in a while, you gotta have a little brain crack.

And despite what you may have heard about addicts being unable to have-just-one
I won't be having any more brain crack for at least another year.

Cuz I'm strong that way.

So are you.
If you believe it.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Sugar is MORE addictive than cocaine?
Yep.
Ask author Julia Ross, author of The Diet Cure.
click here or click below

feeling fair

toothpastefordinner.com

My life is coming back.
I can feel it.

I remember last summer while Marni and I were watching seasons 6 and 7 of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer how I identified with Buffy Summers' lack of enthusiasm for life. She sang about "going through the motions" and how nothing seemed to penetrate her heart.

I identified with her.
I felt like I was going through the motions of life,
trying to do the things I once liked,
hoping the activities would stimulate some sort of enthusiasm in me.

Just now I looked back at a bunch of old posts on this blog.
Running theme?
TIRED
lack of energy
NO MOTIVATION
exhaustion
NOT WANTING TO MOVE...

"I wish I were more motivated.
Well, maybe motivation is not what I lack.
Considering what I accomplish in a day,
only a fraction of which
is actually reflected in my pay check,
I think I'm pretty darned motivated.

I just wish I were
looking forward to my day more.
I wish I could
experience more joy
in the moment."
- Me in this blog 4/09/08

Here's another telling excerpt...

"I don't FEEL like taking care of myself.
I don't feel inspired to do the daily chores
of making my surroundings livable,
of caring for my nutritional needs,
of getting oxygen and exercise.

I will go through the motions
and HOPE that the feelings come
and even if they don't
I will persist.

If I acted on my feelings today
I'd lay around all day playing
with my kittens
and
schmoozing around with my cats,
wasting time online,
moping,
watching TV,
regretting that
I'm not doing my chores."
- Me on this blog 8/13/08

Wow.
My life was slipping away and all I could do was blame myself for being unmotivated.
Then again you will see my ongoing inkling that my health had LOTS to do with my energy level.
I exercised in hopes that it would GIVE me energy.
It didn't.

I lost weight in hopes that I would be naturally perky.
I wasn't.

I ate virtually NO FAT in my diet for over 2 years.
It didn't help (it hurt).

A pot of coffee in the morning
and energy shots throughout the day
chased by diet soda
and Ritalin
gave me some temporary lift.
You can't push your adrenals forever.
Mine crapped out.

But I'm not drinking caffeine any longer.
I'm off coffee and caffeinated tea as of last week.
I haven't had soda in months.
I rarely take a Ritalin.

And I'm surviving!

I also have great hope that I'll have enthusiasm for life again real soon.
Instead of chemically inducing the thrill of living I might just experience some actual thrill!
Life may become delightful once again.

Hey wait.
Was it ever delightful??

I don't even remember.
I think I was delighted in 8th grade for a while.

According to this blog I've been delighting in the expectation of a new life for the past three years.
Ok.
Here it is, my life, unfolding
summer by summer
change by change.

Tonight is the last night of the Meadowlands Fair for 2009.
Marni and I are going.

If given the choice of sitting home and renting a movie on demand
vs.
going to the fair?
I pick the fair.

That's got to count for something, right?

Looking forward to some delight
tonight!

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
This is where we'll be in a couple of hours!
No rides for me.
Well, the wheelchair IS a ride if you think about it...lol.
Just not as thrilling as the ferris wheel!
click here or click below

patience

This must be the summer of learning patience.
That and being ok with doing-the-right-thing while detaching from the outcome.

See, I've been more careful with money lately.
I'm working on a budget.
Stopping myself from impulse purchases.
Ordering less take out/delivery food.

So when I gave myself permission to buy a new water filter (long overdue...the faucet attachment is spraying all over the place and I have no idea if taking it apart and putting in little washers is even possible) I expected everything to go smoothly.

I was especially proud to have found a brand new Amway water filter system on eBay, just like the one I have now, for a third of the original price.

I felt very in control and smug about the whole thing.
A bargain.
A planned purchase.
A necessity for my health.
Surely everything would go to plan!

Nope.
The eBay listing described it incorrectly.
I received the wrong unit.
The one they sent is for installation under the sink not above it.
Today I have to send it back and fuss to get a refund.

Dammit.

But that's a lesson I've always needed to learn.
Whenever I do the "right thing" I expect things to go smoothly.
I expect to be rewarded for good behavior.
I expect the universe to bow like a reed in the wind to accommodate me.
And that ain't what life does.

Part of learning patience is learning to give up control.
Giving up control requires patience.

I'm attracting into my life the perfect situations to teach me those lessons!

Now if I can just get myself a clean drink of water.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Pema Chodron a wise Buddhist nun talks about learning to give up control!
Should we cover the world with leather or just put on a pair of shoes?
Fabulous.
click here or click below

Q: Did it ever occur to you that maybe you just eat too much??

A: Yes. Especially when I'm in the middle of eating too much.

bus driver made me cry

I cried the first time I rode that bus and I cried the last time I rode it.

If you go back a couple of weeks in this blog you'll see that I did NOT enlist the help of the handicap-bus when I first got the wheelchair.

I gambled on finding handicap parking spaces,
relied on the kindness of friends,
prayed for the kindness of strangers,
struggled
and suffered getting from my car to my classroom on a campus that is hilly no matter where you park.

When I started teaching a second summer class on a different campus, you know, my 8:00am oh-my-god-I'm-out-of-my-comfort-zone class, I knew I'd have no time between that early class and my later morning class in Montclair to play the parking spot game.
I HAD to call transport services and arrange a shuttle bus for myself.

Just like I HAD to relent and get myself a wheelchair in the first place.
I HAD TO get myself the chair so my knee could heal.

This is the summer of being forced to take care of myself.
This has been the summer of owning that I HAVE TO take care of myself.
My self esteem issues can roil around all they want.
In the meantime I need to work.
I need to function.
This injury has forced me to take care of me.

That first day on the shuttle bus was a little overwhelming.
I had to face my helplessness.
I had to allow myself to be taken care of.
Being in a wheelchair became more real the day I had to be buckled into a chair-lift and loaded onto that bus.

Teddy, the driver, took great care of me.
Strapping my chair to the bus floor
then strapping me in was an ordeal.
The unstrapping was an ordeal.
Getting the chair onto the lift was an ordeal.
Only a physically strong, patient person could handle doing all that for me
and he did.

That first day was tough for me.
I felt handicapped.
I was uncomfortable with the care and attention
but as I said before I HAD TO allow it to happen.
I felt weak,
helpless and guilty,
so I sat in the back of the bus and silently cried.

After that I got used to the whole process.
It was a necessity, like the wheelchair itself.
It was just something I needed to do to get from one place to another.

On that last day as Teddy buckled me in I told him that my semester was finished.
God willing I'd be totally healed by the Fall.
I'd no longer need the bus.

He said with a big smile and his West Indian accent
"It would be a pleasure to drive you again, you wanna know why?" he asked.
"Cuz your students love you...everyone love you. I've never see students act dat way toward a teacher before. They come 'round the bus and want to push you to class. Everyone happy to see you. They hug you. It's good to see a ting like dat."

As he went outside the bus to ready the chair lift I sat there like a buckled-in piece of cargo and cried. I'm crying now as I type this.

It's one thing to be told you are loved.
It's another thing for someone to notice how much other people love you.

I had no idea.

Maybe in this lifetime I'll get a clue.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Self love sounds like a
"cliche... it's like some froofy san francisco hippie jibber jabber, and it's not!"
We get stuck in our heads and forget how lovable we really are.
Listen to Tarot expert Amanda on the issue of self-love.
click here or click below

healthy like a watch

Proud to be part of Real Food Wednesdays! (click here)

thanks to nataliedee.com

I've tried a lot of stuff in 3 years.
This blog just nicks the surface of my struggles to be....what?
Thin?
Small?
Not fat?

Was there ever a time in my life when I really wanted to be healthy?
I SAID I wanted to be healthy, but really I wanted to be thin.
To be thin meant to be socially acceptable, attractive, worthy and even enviable.
I'm finally getting to the point where I value my health more than I value my dress size.

All it takes is losing something.
Sometimes you have to lose something so you can realize its value.
I lost my health.
Now I understand the value of being able to wake, walk and function!
Thin??
You can't be serious.
Not after what I've been through this summer.
Thin is no longer the goal.
Healthy is the goal.

But but but...don't we all believe that we have to be thin to be healthy?
That's the bill of goods I was sold all my life.
My fat body was automatically judged to be an unhealthy mess.

In my efforts to take off the offending fat I ruined my health.

I won't even touch on the weight loss surgeries right now.
In a nutshell? Disasters.

What I do wish to touch on is the pride I took in eating virtually NO FAT for almost 2 and a half years.
It wasn't just that I was eating diet foods with tons of sugar or fake sugar with the words NON-FAT emblazoned on the label.
I was eating tons of whole grains, tofu, red sauce, fruit, vegetables, rice cakes, egg beaters, skim milk, soy milk, sugar free jello, sugar free ice pops, diet foods...and for what?

Sure I took off 140 pounds.
Sure I trotted off to the gym 6 days a week.
So why did my health crash and burn??

I burned out my adrenals.
I burned out my my ability to heal.
I totally malnourished myself.
And this summer, I broke down!
Just plain broke.

The exhaustion was too much.
If you read my blogs from the beginning of 2009 you'll see how desperate I was. I talked about feeling as if someone was pushing down on my eyelids.
I was drinking a pot of coffee a day and still struggling to get from task to task.

People keep asking me why I started this whole nourishing traditions way of eating.
They asked if something led up to this, some sickness.
Yes.
I hit an impossible plateau in my weigh loss despite a super low fat, supposedly health diet and ridiculous work out regimen
and
I had no energy left.

Before I could save myself my knee blew out over Easter weekend.
I'm spending most of the summer in a wheelchair.

Something radical needed to happen.
Another weight loss diet??

No.
I don't think so.

It's time for a different approach.
It's time to focus on health.

If I hadn't broken down the way I did, I'd still be hoping to lose weight even at the expense of my health.

Does that mean I'm giving up on losing weight?
Well, that depends on how you look at it.
Following a rehabilitation diet as prescribed by my nutritionist
along with exercise designed to reconnect mind and body
will lead to many changes in my health.
One of those changes will be regaining my ability to lose excess body fat.

Losing weight is not the focus.
It's the side effect.

Health is my priority, now more than ever.
I lost it.
Once I get it back, I'll never neglect it again.


*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
What part of a watch tells time?
Remove one part and the whole watch stops.
Trying to lose weight?
Let's take care of our bodies and trust that the weight will take care of itself.
And it will.
Focus on fat loss is isolationist thinking.
Focusing on health will succeed because it acknowledes that it takes a whole watch to tell time!
Paul Chek talks sense, always.
click here or click below

better to be better

I wanna be like the cat who's playing!

Right now I don't want to play.
But I want to want to play!

Right now I just want to sleep, take it easy, lounge around, think, write and be left alone by life.
That's not a damp spirit, that's a damp body.
Or a body that needs more spirit.
Or something.

Allz I know is that my body is holding me back from doing things.

I heard today that Amma the hugging guru is in NYC.
I would LOVE to go see her.
Can't.
No energy.

I would love to go to the beach!
Can't.
No energy, can't walk.

I would love to be able to say, "Hey, let's...."
and have the energy and stamina to do it,
whatever "it" may be.

Spoke to my nutritionist yesterday.
Now I'm officially off caffeine.
Totally off.

He had me cut down to one cup/generous mug of black tea per day since late May.
Now I'm down to zero cups/generous mugs per day.

I'm pretty grouchy about it.
But I'm also realizing how much I depended on stimulants for my enthusiasm.
That's what caffeine did for me (or what I thought it did for me).
I didn't get the jitters from it
or get irritable
or antsy.
I got enthused.

Wouldn't it be lovely to have enthusiasm without the chemical kick?

Over the next week I'll be taking a hormone test to see exactly what stage of adrenal fatigue I'm in and which bio-identical hormones I'll need to be taking.

I hear it takes about a year to heal from adrenal fatigue.
I hate to have to wait a whole year.
But the year will pass no matter what.
It will be better to be better a year from now rather than stuck in my depleted, malnourished, caffeine-addicted state.

The year will pass whether I'm healing or not.
Better to heal and look forward to a life of,
"Hey, lets go..."
than to stay sick and tired.

Fightin' the good fight over here.
I hope.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Dr. Grace Keenan from Nova Medical Group talks about Adrenal Fatigue, a condition seldom recognized by the mainstream medical community.
Wow, asthma is one of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue?
Who knew?
click here or click below

guts and grease

"The two most important things
you can do for your children
are to get them good whole raw milk
from pasture-fed animals
and to keep them off
of vaccinations...

...All our studies of traditional peoples reveal
that the more animal foods
they had in the diet,
the healthier they were.
That is what Weston Price found...
...Basically, the diet of the Indians
was guts and grease.
They used the fat from the animals
and they ate all the intestines
and the marrow
and the brains
and took the milk from the udders....


...that was the recipe for their health
- whole raw milk,
whole foods,
and limiting sugar
and white flour."
- Sally Fallon, M.A.

People think I'm crazy so I must be doing something right.
But that's the blueprint of my life.

Latch onto something that I believe will save me.
Fixate.
Fight everyone who disagrees with me.
Rally support for doing exactly what I want to do.
Succeed for a while
then fall the f*ck apart.

Then comes the disillusionment,
the reconfiguring,
the recommitting
and the whole cycle starts again.

I sure do have what Darren likes to call
"bounce-back-ability".

I've really put myself through some shit in my struggles to recover from depression and an eating disorder. I feel like a surfer who keeps wiping out. I get pounded into the sand by mountain-sized waves but I still manage to surface, climb on the board and paddle out for another ride.

I just got off the phone with my nutritionist.
We're going to look into testing for adrenal fatigue
and hormone imbalance.
Expect to read the phrase "bio-identical hormones"
on my blog in the near future.

Hey, I'm in it for the ride, man.
I want to stand up on that board!

No matter how many times I get knocked into the drink,
no matter how many times I think about giving up and staying drowned,
relieving myself of this struggle,
copping out,
I still surface once again to
grab my board and get back up.

That's what riders do.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
I love the way they talk about their wipeouts.
One surfer says he was not in the right position to catch his wave and he just
got launched.
Another guy says,
"Take it on and enjoy a wipeout, too."
They laugh about it and keep going in for more.
Gotta get back in the game, right?
click here or click below

My first corn dog

Look at that magnificent sunset!
A memorable July 4th at the fair
with Matt and Sarah.

The guy who was editing that photo (above) for us originally had the logo at the bottom of the picture thereby covering up my body and the wheelchair.
Why would anyone assume I wanted to be a floating head above a logo?

That happened to me once before.
I was sunning poolside during vacation in Florida.
A perky young salesgirl was selling pricey suntan products.
Being a people pleaser who was poor at confrontation I let her shmooze me into purchasing a whole line of pricey crap just for the glory of 5 minutes of her approval and attention.

She said to me, "You probably don't want the big bottle since you'll only want to be tanning up here, right?" as she motioned to my chest neck and face.

Mind you, I was in a bathing suit.
My legs were bare to the sun.
Why would she assume I only wanted to tan from there up??

Could it have been because I was overweight?
At the time of this incident (mid 1980s)
I weighed in the 150s.
I was in my early 20s.

I still spent the too much money for the privilege of being insulted by her as she looked disapprovingly down at my cellulite thighs and handed me my lotions.

That was 20 something years ago.

Last night I spoke up.

I told the guy to put the logo on top.
Why would I want to pay for a picture with all that blank sky above us?
He laughed uncomfortably and moved the logo to the top.

"I'm not ashamed of my chair," I told him.
He handed me my receipt and seemed glad to shout, "Next!" as Matt and Sarah wheeled me the hell out of there.

I wish I could go back in time and tell the poolside suntan bitch the same thing.
Maybe last night was my second chance to make it right.
I spoke up.
Glad I did.

But that's not what I wanted to blog about today.
I want to tell you about my first experience eating a corn dog.

Can you believe I'll be 45 this year and I never tried one till last night?

They always look so good when I see people eating them.
Tasty convenience on a stick, right?
I expected the outer layer of whatever-the-hell to taste good, you know, like food.
I imagined the taste of the extra crispy Kentucky Fried Chicken with a hot dog inside.

I imagined wrong.

My buddy handed me the freshly fried all-American fair treat on a stick.
I took a bite and was not entirely sure what I was experiencing.
Whatever it was, it wasn't good.
I can't even describe the awfulness of it.

Fried corn batter in hydrogenated vegetable oil is gross.
Never again.
I peeled off the ghastly batter and ate my sickly looking hot dog on a stick without the corn part.
The hot dog wasn't bad in the same way flat soda isn't bad when you're desperately thirsty.

I think it was the oil they fried it in that was bad.

These fast food joints must reuse the oil to the point of it being rancid or something.
Earlier at the fair I bought us some curly fries for the three of us to share.
I remember loving those curly fries the last time I ate them 5 years ago.

This year, not so much.
There was a powdery texture to the outside of the fries.
I have no idea what it was but whatever it was....bleh!

I had better luck with the Philly cheeseteak (without the cheese and bread).
De-lish!
Also good?
The chicken souvlaki.
Yum!

But in my heart of hearts I knew that the grass fed meats I get from my farmer are completely different foods than the corn/soy/grain fed meats they sell at the fair.
My stomach of stomachs is ready for some farm meat today.

July 4th weekend?
The perfect time to cook some meat!!
I just won't be dipping it in corn flour any time soon.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Screwy vegetarians are always telling folks to Meet their Meat!
Well, I have.
And they're happy as pigs in a pasture.
click here or click below

freedom from worry!!

Freedom, freedom, freedom, OY!

From left to right:

Gabriel, Sebastian and Bosie!

I love the 4th of July because it's quintessential summer.
Once it's over, it may as well be Christmas.
It's all down hill into the autumn and our long, New Jersey winter.

But then again, that's all in my mind.
It will be summer right through till October like it always is.

Right now it's warm, semi-sunny with a refreshing breeze.

My bestests and I just went to synagogue for the yearly July 4th sermon delivered by our mentor and dear friend.
Now we're resting up to spend a night at the fair.

Fireworks!
Love 'em.
And no matter where we are at the fair?
I'll have my own seat...lol.

I don't want to look on the bright side of things.
I just want to be at peace with what is, exactly as it is.

I'm impatient about my knee but then again it's only been 4 weeks in the wheelchair.
Although the injury was at its peak on Easter Sunday I stubbornly walked on it for weeks until I relented and got the wheelchair (and crutches for around the house and short distances).
So for all my suffering I've only been taking care of my knee for about a month.
It seems like longer.

The deal I made with myself in my head was that I'd use the wheelchair till the end of all my summer teaching. My last summer class meets on my birthday, August 6th.

If at that time I still can't walk on it, I'll relent and see an orthopedist.
But I have a feeling that it will heal all on its own.

Besides all the other spiritual lessons I'm learning
(being at peace with taking help from others,
relying on people to help me,
accepting what comes to me,
practicing gratitude,
honoring my body by taking care of my health, etc.)
I need to learn
the big one:
PATIENCE.

Everything in its own time.
My body is in healing-mode even as we speak.
Let me be at peace with my body healing itself.
Let it do its job.

And it will.

Deep down, I know it will.

Freedom Day.
A day of independence.
Free from the tyranny of worry.

(fireworks explode)
Ohhh
ahhh
my favorite kind.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
It's not Freedom Day unless Will Smith is beating up an alien.
Happy 4th of July!
Don't set anything on fire that might explode in your face.
click here or click below

wheeling out in faith

“When you have come to the edge
of all light that you know
and are about to drop off
into the darkness of the unknown,
Faith is knowing
one of two things will happen:
There will be something solid to stand on
or
You will be taught to fly”
- Patrick Overton

“Of one thing I am certain,
the body is not the measure of healing
Peace is the measure.”
- George Melton

"Although the world is
full of suffering,
it is also full
of the overcoming of it."
- Helen Keller

I'm afraid.
I'm afraid I won't heal.
I'm also afraid that God will be offended by my lack of faith and keep me crippled to teach me a lesson.

How awful.
It's awful because part of me knows how ridiculous that is.
There's no angry, finger-pointing God in the sky with his finger poised over the "smite" button on his keyboard ready to strike me down as punishment.

Yet I'm having trouble trusting that I'll ever be well.

I trusted that my kitten would come back from the vet.
You think I didn't pray over Cassidy before he went in for surgery???
I prayed that God would take care of him.
Now Cassidy's dead.

Sure, God is caring for everyone and everything but not in the ways we want.
Asking God to take care of my Cassidy was my way of asking that my kitten be brought back to me safe, whole, alive.
God said no.

So, why should I have faith that I'll ever be well??
If it's not God's will none of my prayers will matter.
God's will be done, not mine.

The only prayers of worth are prayers offering gratitude and prayers asking for forgiveness.
I can ask God for anything I want.
Then God will do exactly what God sees fit for the development of my spirit.

When my Cassidy fell behind the big dresser and I was screaming for God to help me
I feel that I did receive help.
I got more strength than I knew I could muster.
I became calm enough and strong enough to rescue my baby.

The kitchen fire that same day could have been much worse.
I arrived home in time to put it out and air out the apartment.
No harm done.

I thanked God for leading me home in time to save my household.

Then the very next morning my Cassidy-kitten
dies on the operating table.

I trusted God to take care of my baby and my baby died anyway.

So, why am I going to trust that my knee will heal?
What good is The Secret and visualization and goals and will and focus if God just does what God wants anyway??

My knee might stay damaged for a very long time.
If I need surgery I'm going to be off it for a year of more.
For all I know it could just stay damaged till I get a knee replacement.

Sure, I could step out in faith and declare victory over my injury but I stepped out in faith that my kitten would be just fine and now he's gone.

What good is mustering up all that faith that things will turn out the way I want just so I can be denied?

I think the only thing left to do is submit.
Tell God that I am ready to be used in whatever way God sees fit.
If that means I'm a cripple with a dead cat I need to be OK with that.
If that means I'll walk again, soon, and a new kitten will come into my life then I need to be OK with that. If God takes that kitten too, I need to be OK with that.

If I surrender to God's will am I giving up on myself?
Maybe the point IS to give up the self and rely solely on a higher power.
Give up all wants and desires and just be a lover of God.

I don't know if I'm ready for that.

Is that why I'm still in a wheelchair?

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Zac Poonen talks about how we can be led astray in self righteousness. The Bible speaks of being freed from spiritual pride and self justification. This sermon is about the"Thank God we are not like them attitude". This clip is an extract from the message " Characteristics of Pharisees" delivered at the conference "Led by the Spirit, not under the Law".
click here or click below

the short bus

"Refuse to fall down
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you
from lifting your heart
toward heaven
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening."
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés
in The Faithful Gardener:
A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die

I need to get a better digital camera so I can film this stuff!
Maybe out of this big paycheck tomorrow I can make two "big" purchases: new water filter and new camera.
One for my health and one for my career.
I have to think about it.
Weigh the pros and cons, not make a snappy impulse purchase.

The water filter has been a long time coming.
The camera?
I just thought of that now.
In honor of my new commitment to budgeting I want to feel at peace with my purchases.

Peace is hard for me right now.
I'm processing Cassidy-kitten's untimely death.
I'm dealing with caffeine withdrawal and low energy from adrenal fatigue
and of course, my knee.

The pics today are of my new mode of transportation from my car to my classroom.
I am officially riding a short bus!

Not only am I on the short bus I have to get on and off of it via the wheelchair lift.
This is NOT a simple process.
There's a rhythm to it.
Brakes on, brakes off, get backed onto the lift, brakes on, sit still, get buckled in, get the chair buckled in...and a million little steps in between involving setting up the wheelchair.

Singing up for this service (thank God for Teddy, Danisha and all the other hard workers who keep this system running at my university... and for whatever funds pay for all this!)
was a necessity
that I avoided.
Just like I've been avoiding getting an ex-ray on my knee.
Avoid
avoid
avoid.

God, I'm annoying in my avoiding!

If I had acknowledged my knee injury as needing medical attention from the get go (Easter weekend)...oh wait.
I did.
I did acknowledge the need for medical attention from the get go! (click here)

I was ready to go to the hospital!
Right then and there I was willing to submit to medical care.
What happened??

Good thing I blog every day so I can see exactly what happened.
I went on an Oz-style Odyssey into spiritual healing.
I've grown,
I've suffered,
I've learned,
I've taught.

Ok, I probably could have done it more efficiently with a proper medical diagnosis.
But that's not how this all unraveled.
It unraveled THIS way.

Now I'm back to square one, planning to go to a medical doctor for help,
except I'm different now than I was last time I was at square one.
I'm tougher.
I'm stronger.
I'm slightly more aware.

I'm more ready to be used by God,
more ready to submit to divine will.

I have less faith in my own ability to control circumstances and more faith in my spiritual development according to divine will.

Like the prayer says: Thy Will Be Done.

I'm learning.
I may be avoiding and annoying but I'm always
always
learning.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
I want to believe the words in this video.
I want this.
Even if it means landing my ass in a wheelchair for the summer.
Even if it means losing my beloved Cassidy-kitten.
My heart wants this.
click here or click below

making sense of his death

My beauty.
My baby.
My Cassidy kitten.

I only had him for a month, the last month of his life.

He spent the first few weeks of his life living in a noisy, dirty industrial complex with his birth-mother and litter mates, dodging trucks, lift loaders, city raccoons and other dangers.

My girlfriend Geri rescued him. Thinking he was a female, I immediately foisted him upon my mother to help her fill the gap left by little Kate who died of FPV (feline peritonitis virus).

Discovering he was male and not female, my mother put him in her kennel in the "nursery" cage and didn't really warm up to him as her own. She was reluctant to integrate him into the household.
So, I grabbed him for myself.

My big guys took to him very well.
There was much less hissing than with other new introductions.
Xander adopted Cassidy as his baby.

I looked forward to a big, robust tiger cat who would live to be 21 like my Jacob.

In his short time with me he taught me about my own strength (click here for that story)
then died the next day of cardiac arrest on the operating table while getting neutered.

A freak accident.
A fluke.

Most of my cats have been to this particular vet with no problems.
It was just Cassidy's time.

Or so I'm telling myself.

I'm telling myself lots of things while I try desperately to reason with fate as to WHY this had to happen.
I'm blaming myself for not sensing danger was imminent when he fell behind the dresser as if that was a sign to warn me of the heart attack.

I'm blaming my mother for not giving him to me sooner to strengthen up his heart and leaving him alone during his kittenhood.
I'm blaming the vet and all his technicians for giving him too much anesthesia.

I'm making up nice stories about how he came into my life for such a short time because he had a message to deliver and once delivered, he moved on.

I'm accusing myself of not really wanting a sixth cat thereby sending Cassidy the psychic vibes that he was unwanted.

I'm shaking my fist at God for taking him.

I'm getting all logical about it saying that expectations lead to disappointments, telling myself that no one is guaranteed a long life, that I should be grateful for the short time he spent with me.

But the bleak reality is that I had his little life with me and now he's gone.

He was here one day and gone the next.

Just like all of us.
Here today gone tomorrow no matter what we do to try to cheat death.

Death is a part of life.

Every time I get a new animal I take that risk.
I risk loving them with all my heart and getting my heart broken when/if anything should happen to them.

Something happened.
My greatest fear was realized.
Someone I loved, someone whose well-being was in my charge, died.
Blaming and reasoning can't bring him back.

There's no right, wrong or reason that will make sense to me.
There is only what is.

What is there?
Feelings, lots of feelings
and a headache from crying for two days...so far.

And 5 magnificent animals who are thriving in my care.
I just made Hurley go pprrrrooooooop when I touched his head.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Chocolate Box Entertainment - the same folks making "Peep Me" the documentary that will feature me (and my cats) - made the doc called "Cat Ladies".
Here's the trailer.
I like the woman who, when accused of being a crazy cat lady, says that anyone who would abandon an animal is crazy, not the ones who feed and care for them!
click here or click below