Tuesday's Thoughts

It seems all anyone is talking about today is the healthcare deal that President Obama signed into law this morning. No, I’m not bringing politics into the blog. If you are my Facebook friend, you know where I stand on the issue. But I thought this topic warranted a few musings.

My first thought is that it makes me weep that our country, our society, has come to the point where a health care crisis of this magnitude must even be dealt with. Our health costs are spiraling out of control in large part due to our overwhelming dependence on pharmaceuticals. Its somehow, somewhere become the normal school of thought that we can do what we please to our bodies, fuel them with whatever is handy, sit them sedentary for hours upon hours each day and then expect a miracle when we visit the doctor to have him prescribe us the latest, trendy miracle pill.

What would become of the healthcare debate if our President and First Lady challenged everyone to take charge of their own destiny? What if there was a nationwide call for everyone to put nutrition at the top of the debate instead of big pharma? Why don’t we focus on preventative measures instead of reactive treatments?

What if we chose to line the pockets of local farmers with our hard earned dollars instead of bankrolling the bottom line of the large corporations of big pharma and the insurance industry?

High blood pressure runs in my family, so does heart disease and diabetes. I’m choosing to reject that fate. I will not be a victim to my genes. I will not sit idly by and wait for my body to turn on me. I’m in control and it feels amazing. I’ve learned to trust my body. I know that as long as I give it the nutrition that it needs, it has the power to keep things running smoothly. Why would I settle for man made synthetic chemicals to make me “healthy” when everything designed to keep me running at optimal health is provided right here in nature? As God intended?

So, Mr. President, I offer you this challenge: rather than handing everyone a shiny new insurance card, why not start with handing everyone a blender, some beautiful leafy greens and the directions to their local farmer’s market? Let’s see what these beautiful bodies are really capable of!

***** By the Way, my blood pressure is 104/70 *****

***disclaimer: before I am publicly flogged, I realize that the healthcare debate is much more complicated than my simplistic approach above illustrates. I was simply trying to offer some lighthearted fun commentary on this otherwise toxic and explosive issue. I believe that some people do not need a magic pill, some people just need to change some habits. I also recognize that this is not true of everyone using pharmaceutical therapies***

Monday Musings

*cough cough* Well, there are three people sick in my house again and this time I'm one of them. We have what my son's pediatrician described as a "viral version of bronchitis". I'm glad its viral as we've had so many courses of antibiotics in our home lately. A little too much phramaceutical therapy for my liking.

So, I'm going to stick to the green smoothie cleanse as much as I can, but I also have to respect my body and listen to what its calling for. Right now all my throat wants is herbal tea and chicken broth. I make my own broth, so neither of those options are overly processed and I'm comfortable allowing them in my cleanse. I'm just not sure how much smoothie I'll actually get in today. It simply doesn't sound good on my throat. But I'll at least get my committed quart in.

I'll keep you updated throughout the day. Thanks for playing along! Let me know how you guys are doing! I'll start a discussion on the FB page.

Monday Musings ~ Detox

Ok, I've decided to go ahead with this green smoothie detox. I've gotten a lot of feedback from you guys asking about the rules of the detox, people letting me know they may not be able to last all three days, etc.

One thing I have realized during my journey toward a more healthy life is that the only rule when it comes to nourishing our bodies is that we listen to them. We feed them what they need. We ignore our brains and their constant requests for what they want. This green smoothie detox has no rules. We will each set up our own guidelines. No one is here to judge. Make this what you need it to be. The rest of us will do the same.

Let's plan to start on Monday, March 15. That will give us all time to prepare and to stock up on lots of greens and other fresh, exciting ingredients. Some people have mentioned that they get hungry while only drinking smoothies. I've often found that I'm not exactly hungry, but I do wish for something to chew on. I will allow myself some raw carrot sticks or apple slices if I encounter this. If its something I'd throw into my smoothie, I consider it acceptable to eat for a quick "chew fix" :-)

So, my personal guidelines will be:

• I will continue with my daily milkshake (raw milk, raw egg yolk, raw agave, cacao powder)
• I will have green smoothies the rest of the day
• Each evening, I will do a cup of juice with a daily cleanse & detox powder that I got from this shop. (my husband's aunt & uncle). This particular product does not seem to be available any more. I will call them to see if they still have any if anyone is interested
• I will do this for three days.

Let's have fun with this! I will start some discussions on our facebook page so we can muse about how we're feeling, what our bodies are telling us and what kinds of smoothies we're making.

Do you experience mid day slumps? Does three o’clock hit you like a brick wall nearly every day? I've always been told, “oh, you have young children, you’re supposed to be tired!” Well, I no longer accept that. I now know my mid day (mid morning, mid evening…) slumps were (and sometimes still are) a direct result of the food I put into my body.

Speaking of which, I had some serious motivation issues this weekend; both with my smoothies and with life in general. It still takes me by surprise to realize just how much the food we eat affects the rest of our lives. After the pizza incident, I made fajitas for dinner the following night and I did not serve a salad with it. Two dinners in a row with no raw foods and heavy on the white bread and boy was my body pissed! Friday I got up early and took the kids to the pool in a futile attempt to get in some sort of a workout, but the rest of the day I was useless and cranky, exhausted and lethargic. I didn’t even make my smoothie until after the kids went to bed that evening. I snacked on processed junk all day and just felt like crap. Saturday was more of the same. The boys and I were invited to a friend’s house for dinner and I knew the menu would be lasagna and salad. I took marinated cucumbers and filled my plate to near over flowing with salad and cucumbers and then had just a half a piece of lasagna. I drank water most of the evening and finally Sunday morning I was beginning to feel human again. I nourished my body with lots of healthy, raw foods throughout the day yesterday and spent some time outside at the park to soak up some needed vitamin D from the sun’s rays. By the end of the day I was feeling much better and ready to tackle this hectic chaos that my family calls Monday. I woke up a little, um, puffy this morning but otherwise feeling so much better.

When I’m feeling a little sluggish, I no longer reach for the coffee pot. My vitamix is my new “dealer” and green smoothies are my drug of choice! So the next time you find yourself reaching for a cup o’ joe in the middle of the day, why not reach for a green smoothie instead? If you don’t find your energy rebounding, I’ll buy you your next cup of coffee (j/k, sort of.)

Monday Musings....

I have a question for you. Would you offer your child a cigarette knowing that it’s an unhealthy habit? A habit that, knowing the health risks you chose not to partake in?
I mentioned in my last musings post that I am working on healing my relationship with food and switching my focus from weight loss to healthy eating. Often times our society uses those two ideas interchangeably. However, they have come to mean two very different things to me. My children do not need to lose weight, but they do need to develop healthy habits.
I was reading some weightloss blogs over the weekend and I noticed one recurring theme that really struck me. So many of these peole that were trying to lose weight were slaving over meale for their families, that they weren't willing to eat themselves because of their "diet". They were buying granola bars and other snacks for their children that they “couldn’t eat because of the diet.” I wonder, if these “diets” are supposed to lead us to optimal health and a fit and fun lifestyle why there are so many foods that these people are willing to feed their children that they aren't "allowed" to eat? After all, if the ultimate goal of these "diets" is ultimate health and not just a means to lose weight, shouldn’t the whole family be following them, not just one member?
In my quest for a healthy lifestyle and a healthy family, I can’t think of a single item that I feed my children that I wouldn’t personally eat because “its not healthy enough”. Yes, I feed my kids treats. They get plenty of them. More than I’d like to admit. But I’m not trying to teach them “if you want to be healthy certain foods are off limits, but if you aren’t on a diet, all foods are ok.” That doesn’t make sense to me. There are only a few things that I completely, and absolutely restrict from our diets. Well, one item actually that I can think of. Aspartame. I’ll muse about that another day, but, like the cigarettes above, if I’m not willing to eat it because of health risks, I’m certainly not going to offer it to my children! I’m trying to teach my children balance and moderation. Yes we eat chips, yes we eat boxed sugar cereals, yes we eat candy. But we also drink green smoothies (almost) everyday, we eat fresh fruit, and we drink raw, organic whole milk. We are all learning to listen to our bodies. Since starting this journey, my older child’s snacking has significantly reduced and I now hear him say, “hhmm, I’d love another cookie, but I don’t want a tummy ache so I’ll wait until later.” He’s learning these lessons on his own, by watching my example. So when I see blogs that say “I bought cereal, and pop tarts and granola bars and chips and, and, and,…for the kids, but I can’t eat them because of my diet” I want to scream and say “WHAT ARE WE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN????” Are we showing them that we value our own health more than theirs? After all, if we can’t eat it because some diet says it’s not “healthy enough” but we’re willing to let our children have it, what does that say? Are we simply setting them up to go through what we’re going through right now? Why can’t we, as a society, break this cycle? Why not focus on healthy eating for our WHOLE family rather than weight loss for one member?

Monday Musings....a little history

I've been toying with the idea of adding some new weekly posts to the blog. The first one is "Monday Musings". A time for me to muse about anything bouncing around in my head. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this idea.

I've been asked several times "what do you eat the rest of the day?" and "do you use the smoothies as a meal replacement?" "Are they a weight loss tool?", etc. I knew, when I started this blog, that these questions would inevitably come up. They didn't surprise me. What did surprise me, however, was how much I was struggling to answer these questions.


See, I have a very long and very complex relationship with food. Throughout my life, food has been partnered with positive emotion. Throughout my life, food has been partnered with negative emotion. I started this new habit, simply as a creative way to get more fruits and vegetables into my body and the bodies of my family. I was completely unprepared for the emotional roller coaster that this adventure would bring.


Its no secret; I'm over weight. Obese, actually. But its odd, because I don't feel obese. If you looked at my medical chart and my weight was covered up, you'd think I was an average, healthy 30-something woman. I have normal to low blood pressure, my cholesterol levels are normal, triglycerides - normal, glucose levels, eyesight, heart rate - normal, normal, normal. But I'm not naive. I recognize that my body could turn on me at any moment and my health could come crashing down on me. And my family. My grandmother battled high blood pressure, and now my father is as well. He's also on cholesterol medication. Diabetes runs in my mother's family & both of my paternal grandparents had heart attacks and later died of congestive heart failure. I've been lucky up to this point. That fact is not lost on me.


I don't remember when I first started struggling with food. I was not a couch potato child. I played kick the can and kickball on our cul de sac every afternoon as soon as my homework was finished, I swam the summers away at our summer place with my friends. I lived in my bathing suit from May until Sept. Playing volleyball and wiffle ball in the grass. Manhunt in the evenings behind the campers until our parents made us go to bed. I never stopped moving. I played competitive volleyball from the age of 8 until my sophomore year in college. So, what happened? I'm not sure. The first time I remember eating in secret was when I was 14. About a month after my first weight watchers meeting. I remember baking cookies and eating the whole batch after my first "real" boyfriend broke up with me. I remember taking diet pills and skipping lunch in high school because my coach told me I was too slow and needed to move faster on the court. But I can't blame these experiences or these people. I'm an adult and I make my own choices and I've been making the wrong choices for years. There is no one to blame, but myself.


I've tried every diet in the book. I've counted carbs, I've counted points, I've counted calories, fat, fiber...you name it, I've counted it. I've eaten cabbage soup until I thought I might sprout one of those puffy cheeked dolls from the 80's and I've drank gallons of grapefruit juice in an effort to shed these extra pounds. And then I found a book. This book really opened my eyes and made me realize I could never "diet" again. I have an OCD personality. When I count things, I become obsessed. There are no words to describe how truly obsessed I become. I think about food all day. Everyday. I can't stop. I am continually counting and recounting and recalculating and replanning and recounting again. Such complete obsession, with anything, is not healthy. So, about 18 months ago I stopped caring about food. I no longer labeled things as "good" or "bad". I ate what I wanted, when I wanted. I didn't care what anyone thought (at least I tried not to) and it opened my eyes to a lot of things. I gained 24 lbs. Its funny. When I tried to listen to what my body needed and wanted, my brain wouldn't shut up. It kept screaming about what it wanted. My brain and my body hadn't spoken in years. But you know what, that's ok. I broke a vicious cycle. Slowly, my brain and my body became friends again. Food lost a lot of its appeal to me. It became simply food. A tool to sustain life. Nothing more. And the strangest thing happened. Once I was no longer focused on the food I was consuming, I was able to focus more on how that food made my body feel. I realized I didn't like feeling like crap. I didn't like being tired. I didn't like that stuffed, uncomfortable feeling. I didn't have to gorge myself on a "bad" food because I knew if I really truly wanted more tomorrow, I could have it. Throw away a birthday cake the day after the party? Let the brownies sit in the pan until they've gone so stale they're likely to break a tooth? That was UNHEARD of in my world. (I once remember making enchiladas during a freezer cooking session with friends. I had some extra mixture leftover, so I grabbed a tortilla and hid in the corner (and deluded myself that no one could see me) and wiped that bowl clean. I wasn't hungry. But I couldn't throw away something so yummy.) But things changed. I gave myself permission to listen to my body. And my body was PISSED!


Shortly after this revelation was when my friend introduced me to green smoothies. Because I had recently become so in tune with my body, I noticed an immediate difference in the way I felt. It was amazing. And I'll tell ya what. After feeling so great, my body got even MORE pissed when I when I missed a smoothie. Or several days of smoothies. I knew I had to make some changes. It was no longer about losing weight, it was about getting healthy. About nourishing my body, not starving it. About treating myself right and giving my body, and my soul, what it needs and what it desires.


.........To Be Continued.