Kaleah’s Health Blog

Last night I attended a Yoga class down at my local gym and it was a great workout.  I went earlier in the day and sat in the infrared sauna for 30 minutes.  These are things I committed to doing for myself before I decided to do the juice feast.  I came home and my husband was making Kale chips, my favorite.  Not that he was trying to tempt me but we went to the organic farm last week and it was their last week of the season, so we came home with this big box of Kale.  Kale chips had been a huge staple in my diet being that I was mostly eating raw food.  But now I need to juice my kale.  So while smelling the kale chips seasoning in the dehydrator I made a juice of mostly kale, carrot, garlic, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.  Wow was it ever strong.  A little too much!  But I drank it slowly and decided that was definitely not a favorite. 

Last night while trying to sleep I could feel the energy pulsing through my veins.  I was both tired and wired at the same time.  Probably not a good idea to drink so much juice that late at night.

So this morning I got up and drank a glass of water with a teaspoon of MSM as suggested by juicefeasting.com.  Except they suggest taking a tablespoon or more of the MSM.  I’m not ready for that yet.  I did about fifteen minutes of yoga and then got my rebounder out of the garage and put it in the solarium where I rebounded for about twenty minutes with my two dogs and cat looking on.  I then poured myself a cup of Yerba Mate tea and went to work. 

The first few days are always the most challenging when I juice.  I have to get used to the part where my stomach tells me it thinks its hungry.  I answer with “want some juice?”  And it proceeds to give me a few suggestions of what it would rather have…kale chips, dehydrated apples and bananas, raw carrot cake.  Its all good stuff!  But not juice!  So we go back and forth and I remind that part of myself that really isn’t into the fasting that there is a reason for this.  We are doing it for our health and well being.  “just think” I tell myself “this will make you feel stronger, look younger, get rid of that itchy rashy thing going on around your neck, give you a deeper spiritual experience, and all around more energy.  Most of all it is a deep detox!  After six months of eating 95% raw, you need to go the next level to assist your body with that detoxing journey!”

So I encourage myself to keep going and get beyond the discomfort of denying myself solid food. 

I had John take a “before” photo of me last night.  I wished I had him take one six months ago before I re-committed to raw food.  I would have liked to see the difference.  I won’t post it for a while though.  Because at this point, I don’t know how long I’m going for.  I know I set out to fast while my CD is in manufacturing.  It is a way of celebrating the CD’s completion after a year long journey and help me to get clear about how I want to introduce it to the world.  Yes, I know, I have a strange way of celebrating! 

Right now, it is only the beginning!  But after a week or so the effects of juice feasting will be in full swing.  So for now I just need to get over this hump.  It is the beginners hump that always prevents me from ever starting.  My last fast was the first of January so I’ve gone nearly nine months without a fast.  Although I had intended to fast again last March, I went raw instead.  Something I knew in my body, mind and spirit that I needed to return to.  I had gone a full year back in 2004 100% raw and loved it!  It was an emotional crisis that caused me to stop and although I’ve eaten a lot of raw food since that time I had never stayed committed until this time.  Now that I’ve done six months I can’t foresee going back to a cooked food lifestyle. 

The interesting thing about being high raw is that I’m not having the results I had last time when I went raw for a year.  I didn’t lose so much weight, maybe just a little, but I’m really not overweight to begin with.  It is either because I’m menopausal, or that I’ve eaten s much raw for the past five years that I’ve detoxed a lot already.  Time will tell.  But for now…I think I’ll have some juice!

After the completion of my “Emergence” CD I have decided to go on a juice feast until the CD arrives from manufacturing. I have several boxes of good organic apples, carrots and kale, which will be the staple for the feast.

My reasons for juicing are both physical and spiritual.  Even though I have been eating high raw for six months I am still having physical issues that seem to be a sign of toxicity.   So I need to up the challenge.   On a spiritual note I am getting clear about the launch of my CD and what that will involve.

Juice feasting is much easier than most fasts in that whenever I am hungry I just have another juice. I tend to add about a half glass of water to my juice. I started this morning with about three apples, four carrots and a cup of kale diluted with half glass of water. I did have a bit of dehydrated fruit this a.m. I didn’t wake up intending to fast but knew I was wanting to start one soon. Today just seemed like the right day to start. So off I go.

I recently watch a couple DVD documentaries on the growing concerns about the Standard American Diet. In these programs the responsibility was taken off the consumer and put right back on the shoulders of the food industry.

Although we do need to take personal responsibility for our health and what we put in our bodies, I couldn’t deny the message being sent through these documentaries. The government subsidies for products like corn and soybeans were so high there was actually an over abundance of these products which is why food industries were saturating the market with high fructose corn syrup and soy products that yield little or no nutritional value.

The subsidies for products government says we, as Americans, should be eating more of, such as fresh fruits and vegetables are very low. This pushes our farmers into growing more highly subsidies crops.

The food manufacturers can sit in their posh offices and tell us they are only giving us what we want and take no responsibility for the advertising campaigns that brainwash young children into nagging their parents for food items that don’t support health.

There are millions of new processed food products being introduced into our grocery stores each year, each more brightly packaged and attractive than the year before. The photos used in advertising both in magazines and television are actually not the real thing. They use special formulas that are intended to make the food products look more appealing in advertising, but are not made of real food. That explains why a McDonalds hamburger can look so big and juicy on television and when you actually buy one you wonder what happened.

The advertising budgets to market sugar coated cereals and cookies to young children are huge. Children are much more susceptible to advertising as they see their peers or cartoon characters on T.V. boasting about a new product that they have just got to try. The Nag Factor is then introduced as children beg their parents to let them try this new product. Studies have shown that parents will break down after time and give the kids what they want.

The irony is that childhood Obesity and Diabetes is at an all time high. My son was diagnosed with Juvenile, or Type 1 diabetes and the doctors, nurses and nutritional experts from the hospital he was in took me aside and assured me his condition had absolutely nothing to do with his diet. Yet there were seven other cases of juvenile diabetes in that same hospital ward that week. They tell me it is genetic, but neither my family nor my sons Fathers family have any known history of diabetes.

I was deeply concerned because when my son went to live with his Father his diet went downhill fast. A couple of bachelors they were living off fast food and T.V. dinners. My efforts to get my son to eat better were not taken seriously by my son or his Father.

Cancer is the number one killer of children by disease. Cancer in children was once an extreme rarity, now hospitals are filled with children who have been diagnosed with some type of cancer..

The Obesity and Disease epidemic extends far beyond our children. We have more issues of Adult Obesity, Diabetes, Heart Disease and Cancer than ever before.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that our food is killing us! It is not the food on the outer aisles of our supermarkets, but rather the products disguised as food lining the inner aisles. It is the processed, canned, frozen and packaged foods, the chips, cookies, sodas, processed fruit drinks and more.

It is not only that we are eating substances that we were never meant to eat. It is also that we are not getting our nutritional requirements met. Synthetic vitamins and minerals in supplement form don’t make up for the lack of nutrition. Neither does vitamin enriched food products.

The solution for Americans is to become educated in whole food nutrition and break addictions to processed substances. Eat food that is grown from the earth, preferably in their organic form, without harmful chemicals and pesticides. Make fresh fruits and vegetables the primary part of your diet, followed by nuts, seeds, and nutbutters in their raw form, not roasted. Next choose from organic grains such as quinoa, oats, millet, barley and whole wheat. Don’t buy packaged products that simply tell you they use these whole ingredients. Purchase the actual grains and learn how to use them.

If you eat meat or dairy, buy free range, organic products that have not been grown with antibiotics, hormones and fed products they were never meant to eat.

Drink water, herb teas, organic coffees and freshly squeezed juices and smoothies made from your own juicer. Avoid all processed drinks, including 100% juice products made from concentrate.

If enough of us rebel against the food and drug industry in their efforts to make a profit off our declining health, we will, through our demand for quality food, change the industry. If we stop purchasing empty calories the food companies will stop manufacturing them. There will be no profit in it!

We need to wake up and see what is happening around us. Make eating a whole food diet your priority and you will live a much healthier, energetic, and slimmer lifestyle.

Check Out the documentary on the video link below:
http://healthinspirations.wholefoodfarmacy.com/2005/wtloss1.asp

Kaleah