My Life as the 8th Grain

We’ll get back to that… Trust me, it’ll be worth reading through the next few paragraphs.

This week was challenging. I’m finding it much easier to slip back into convenience foods as my schedule gets tightened. A frozen dinner here or there shouldn’t be that big of a deal, especially when I’m watching out for carbs and fat, but here and there is becoming all too frequent. In fact, even grocery shopping tonight was difficult. I think Bertolini’s stock rose 3 points just from my one trip to County Market. Damn them and their easy to assemble skillets for 2!! I made the same mistake I usually make… I went shopping with out a plan. Ryan and I didn’t have a “Grocery Shopping Committee Meeting” leaving me with out a clue as to what to do for dinners all week. It probably would have been best if I went shopping for just a few days at a time. I know what kind of week I have coming up, so I was thinking there wouldn’t be another chance this week. So that is next week’s goal (not this coming up week, but the following… this week’s goal is focused on the 3 chapters I need to read, the writing assignment, and the 3 chapter quizzes I need to take for class…). When I was thinking about it on the short drive back from the store, I realized that I frequently think thoughts like, “I’ll have to figure out why I dropped back into this… figure out what I need to do to keep this from happening again.”

Those thoughts, even though they sound really well intentioned, really aren’t very well intentional. I know why I did. It’s easier. Two weeks ago, I had a burn out week where I got very, very little sleep each night. Maybe 3 to 3 and a half hours a night. Last week was the result of not taking care of myself the week prior by not getting enough sleep. I was exhausted and I didn’t want to cook. I went the easy way out. To keep this from happening again, I not only have to THINK about balancing different aspects of life, I actually have to DO it. That means taking melatonin as needed when I’m too anxious to fall asleep, trying to get to work at a more consistent time so I’m leaving work at a more consistent time each day. Doing so will allow me to plan my evenings a little easier. Each evening, I have to schedule some down time either before or after exercising, and either before or after dinner. I am not a person who can be hyper stimulated all day and expect to fall asleep at night. That scheduled down time is absolutely essential or I’ll use all day as down time. It’s similar to what I needed to do when I was in the midst of heavy grieving and sometimes still revert back to when my heart aches just a little too much. I scheduled an hour a day to reflect, remember and to just be sad. If I didn’t do this, emotion would consume my entire day leaving me with little energy and no room for any joy.

On the plus side, I also realized we need more time for fun. I’m constantly getting on Ryan for not taking care of himself the way I wish he would, but can I blame him? Everything I mentioned above effects him the same way it effects me. The difference is that he doesn’t always have an option. Sometimes I want to bring in a “health food buffet” for him and his coworkers. They put themselves and their bodies through Hell for their jobs. Sometimes I look at him and just wonder how he does it. This weekend I realized just how much he has sacrificed. Fun has eluded us. Occasionally we’ll get to have some fun… sunny days in the pool or chilly nights outside by the fire. It’s more common that we don’t spend any time doing anything purely for recreation.

So far, the intent of this blog has been about food and food choices. I now see that food choices are only part of the battle toward achieving a more healthful life. What we put into our bodies surely is important, it’s also important how we use our bodies. Working, exercising, sleeping, etc… we can schedule anything and everything and still not get it right if recreation is left out.

Those crazy grains on a mission — I doubt it’s all a serious mission. As the 8th grain, I should also make sure that we’re taking time off the path to have experiences that we’ll never get a chance to re-do. I was once someone so full of life and would do anything once – twice if I probably wouldn’t get arrested – but all that has changed. As we get older, we weigh the risks and the benefits of certain activities. I’m not likely to ever go bungee jumping ever again, but maybe find some other release of adrenaline. If I were to die tomorrow, would I be able to say I lived a full and adventurous life? That I treated each day as the gift it truly is? I know the importance God places on work and preparation for the road that lies ahead. I can’t imagine that He wouldn’t also want us to enjoy our time on this beautiful planet He’s given us.

My thoughts on life and this journey have turned to a darker, “heavier” side. After meeting another cancer survivor this week whose story was similar to my own, I was reminded of my frustration I had with feeling like I was being forced to continue to live the same unhealthy life. It’s hard not to think about how different things could have been if I won that battle.

On to Juicing… still my favorite meal of the day. I love the benefits that we’ve been feeling from it. My abdominal pains from “gastro paresis” are doing a lot better. And to think — I didn’t even need to take Reglan which was supposed to be the only way I could overcome that. Yesterday my mother in law, Alice, brought over a Jack LaLanne juicer. My father in law, Roy, had purchased it – I’m assuming – several months ago but never got around to using it. We tried to tell them that we were happy with the mini-juicer and that did that job well enough, but they really wanted us to use it, so who are we to turn away a gift?

Although the new juicer does take up much more counter space, this morning I learned it was so worth it and it has earned the “premium counter space” it is using. Instead of having to cut an apple into 8 to 10 slices, an entire half an apple can fit down the chute. This will save a lot of time and the chances of slicing off my thumb in the wee hours of the morning have dropped significantly. I’m not entirely sure if it produces more juice than our Juice Man juicer; perhaps one day this week I can experiment with that.

This morning was the first morning I was able to use the new juicer (which looks a bit like an ice cream maker). I put in my usual fruits and veggies… a few carrots, an apple, a lemon, bunch of kale and collard greens. I poured it into my oversized Starbucks coffee mug over a few ice cubes and stirred. Ryan was still sleeping, so I sipped my breakfast while watching Fox News. We had an unusually leisurely morning. Ryan juiced his breakfast and I decided to have some cereal since I knew I’d be working in the yard all day and not eating again until dinner. Sancho Panza – the newer cat – was playing with a little green speck of a leaf that was on the floor. I commented to Ryan about how Sancho was eating his green leafies just like his parents, and we laughed as he played with it. Sancho normally hisses and arches his back at the site of a vegetable that has fallen to the floor. This was a huge obstacle for him.

I noticed that the little piece of leaf seemed to be moving a bit… I asked Ryan to check it out and he said, “It’s a Kale Worm!!” The events after that might be disturbing to sensitive readers. May this serve as a warning.

Have you ever had one of those moments where a situation took a few seconds to sink in very slowly? At first I chuckled. Then, slowly, pictures, like snapshots, went through my mind of the morning’s events. I woke up, took a shower, started laundry, juiced… drank… the… juice… worm… on … floor…. oh.. my… God… what… huh?… chunks… surfacing… run… NOW! I know it wasn’t real, but I felt the sensation of a thousand worms crawling in my stomach and up my esophagus. I placed the cereal bowl on the counter and took off for the bathroom.

There aren’t too many things to make me vomit. That sure as heck did. All the while, I could hear my very concerned husband gasping for breath as he had stomach wrenching laughter spewing from his own mouth. I know that his laughing was a secret sign of concern for his wife who may have ingested a creepy crawly, or at least feared she may have.

I’ve had time to think about this all day. Did I really juice a kale worm? Probably not. Is it possible? I’m telling myself no and I really don’t want to hear any arguments about exactly how possible it is that I did juice a tiny green squiggly thing. I wash all fruits and veggies prior to juicing and shake out the excess water from the kale and collard greens. I will spend the rest of my life acknowledging how I probably saved myself from drinking worm-goo by my veggie cleansing rituals.

For a few hours today, I was about to retire from this entire journey. Call it quits. I’m glad I didn’t. I thought about people who ride motorcycles with out a helmet. Not only are they endangering their lives, but they’re also getting a lot of bugs in their face and I can only imagine how many of those bugs end up on their teeth and in their stomach. But, for them… it’s worth the ride. So my worm – it’ll one day be worth the ride…

(Oh, and Ryan? I checked… Oberweis Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream is God’s gift to those who pray. We may consume in STRICT moderation.)

So what is the Juicy, Grainy truth about the last week? I’m not hungry. In the mornings, we have been juicing the “base”: 3 carrots, 1 lemon and 1 apple. We added Kale to the mix. I think I was much more adventurous in adding our new leafy friend than my juicing cohort. What was once a bright orange cheery breakfast drink turned into something that, as Ryan described, looked as if it were drained from the dirty water bin in a Rug Doctor. Aside from appearance, it was still pretty delicious and rated even higher on the satiety scale. Toward the end of the week, we had to add spinach. I think someone from County Market took a trip down the fortune-telling-organic-vitamin aisle and saw that I was coming to purchase Kale for breakfast. Assuming I must be some sort of mad woman, they hid the Kale and tried to offend my juicing senses by replacing it with spinach. At this point, I’d probably juice just about any leafy substance if it had enough vitamins and nutrients in it. I’ve become accustomed to the freshly-mowed grass aroma wafting from my Starbucks Coffee cup in the morning. While driving home from work just the other day, I passed by a field that had been recently mowed and my stomach growled like a Pavlovian response. I think my 7 grain friends have made a “Survivor” type alliance with the breakfast juice. I’m glad we can all be friends.

Over the weekend, I was able to do some reading about juicing. My concern was my instable blood sugar from PCOS and the amount of sugar taken in quite quickly. I learned that the phrase “the internet is a wealth of information” is an incomplete phrase. To be exact, the phrase should appear as “the internet is a wealth of non information”. Every aspect that I attempted to find truth and reasoning was proven and disproved. I decided after that to let my body tell me what was the truth. I was feeling better, more sustained energy through out the day, and my focus was much more clear at work and while studying. I did not have the symptoms of high blood sugar and I didn’t feel the “crash”. While I know I have to watch how much sugar from fruit and junk food I take in over the course of a day, I don’t think that juicing in the morning is adding serious risk. If anything, it is still quite a reduction of “bad sugars” (with PCOS, fruit sugars are just as bad as processed sugars) from my days of fast-food dining.

Through my health insurance company’s website, I also found other information about the benefits of juicing. This was particularly interesting as I recently found out that I have slow stomach emptying which could be the cause for my acid reflux, ulcer type symptoms and -once again – constant pain. My doctor prescribed a drug called Reglan. It is commonly prescribed for this ailment. I checked out the drug online and saw that it can cause drug induced Parkinson’s disease. It even had a “black box warning” from the FDA about this. No thanks! I’ll either keep the stomach pain and grin and bear it OR find an alternative. This article about juicing talked about how the enzymes contained in the fruit and veggies can actually help the stomach muscles start moving and breaking down the food and the enzymes will work to remove the old food-product that stayed behind on the stomach and intestinal lining. I trusted the content of this article as it was science based and not opinion based. I know science can be wrong, but it seems VERY difficult for a scientific journal to write anything in support of healthy, more natural eating even though they say that will prevent most diseases. They just don’t agree on what “healthy, more natural eating habits” are. While on the topic of digestion and poop, Alice – my mother in law – told me a very interesting tidbit about meat. Our bodies don

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again… When you put a question out in the Universe, God always makes sure to get you an answer.

A few years ago, my husband’s parents gave us a juicer. Ryan and I were going to try Carrot juice. I couldn’t do it. We bought carrots for this purpose a few times, but couldn’t actually put the carrots into the juicer to make the carrot juice. It just seemed so wrong. Why would I want to eat carrot juice? Maybe if I were going blind and didn’t have teeth it would seem like a reasonable thing to do. The poor juicer went to storage when we moved like all the other unused appliances.

When I pulled out the Bread Maker a few weeks ago (another unused small kitchen appliance), I saw the juicer and giggled a bit. As I’ve been trying to make the move to a more “all natural” / organic nutritional lifestyle, I thought about that dusty ol’ juicer. That would be a much easier way to get the days worth of fruits and veggies in with out tearing up my stomach. It was just a few days after that when my cousin, Jim, suggested over Facebook that I try juicing carrots, a lemon, parsley and an apple for natural energy (I was whining about being so tired in the morning). I vowed to try it before my next blog.

Apparently I work best under pressure. I waited till this morning to try it. It wasn’t so bad! Really! Through out the day, I didn’t think that I felt much more energized, but looking back, I think it might have worked. I was sleepy, but not nearly as sluggish through out the day. It wasn’t an energy boost that I used to get from caffeine (Gave that up a long time ago… bad, bad caffeine… still can’t look at an Apria Healthcare Van with out getting nervous). It was a sustained energy lasting through out the day. It was as if my blood was happier to flow through my veins. You know how it is when you go to work on the day you’re supposed to find out how much your raise is going to be? You’re all happy, pleasant, and don’t mind going in? That’s what it was like. Pay day for all those billions of cells. You know what it’s like when you go to work expecting something great to happen (like, oh… I don’t know… being given the ability to start working from home) only to find out that there’s a problem and you no longer get to have that wonderful piece of work heaven? You’re cranky, bitter, and don’t really feel like doing your job. I’m starting to see that’s how my body has been reacting. It gets hope, only to have it smothered like gravy on a breakfast-biscuit.

Since I “juiced” for breakfast, I brought a mid morning snack. I picked up these Kashi TLC Pumpkin Spice Flax Granola bars. Immediately when my taste buds read the word “flax”, it replaces it with the words “poo flavored”. There really is no reason why I should think this way. I’ve only had one rough encounter with flax. Details not needed. It really can’t be called a granola bar. Granola bars are soft, chewy and chocolate-chippy. These were like pumice stone bars. Dinosaurs ate them to sharpen their teeth between bowls of Kashi Crunch. (Okay, not really…) The flavor was much better than I thought it would be. It satisfied my intense need to chew on something, and the pumpkin spice flavor totally made up for the flax (poo flavor. Stop it!!)

What I like best about the Kashi TLC bars was the name. I love the Kashi company because they think like me. Or, I should say they name things in a way that I would. It’s probably because of my brain-wave connection with those 7 silly grains on a mission. TLC wasn’t just a name. It was a real acronym. Tastey Little Crunchies. How could you NOT love that? Tastey Little Crunchies just begs to be eaten. Even if it did taste like flax (poo flavor), the name itself would totally make up for it.

So, have I given up on my 7 grain friends? No. They have been doing such a good job, I decided to let them sleep in. With juice in the morning, I’m taking cereal with me to work in a Stay Fit cereal container to enjoy as lunch. It’s a really neat little gadget. It keeps the milk burr-chilly cold, and the cereal contained. Even comes with a little foldable spoon that is more similar to a Bob The Builder Shovel than it is to a spoon.

In my last blog, I talked about trying Fish Oil. And I haven’t. Yet. In fact, please excuse me from this blog for a moment. I’m going to take one right now… All right, I lied. I thought we had a bottle of Fish Oil, but apparently that didn’t survive “The Move”. Will definitely make a trip to the health foods store tomorrow and purchase a bottle. I’m really a bit bummed out by this. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about Fish Oil, and apparently it has so many benefits for some of the issues I’ve been facing with my health. I’m most curious about the effects on the day to day pain that could be being made much worse by inflammation. There were also other benefits that surprised me. Fish Oil has also shown to enhance fertility, helps the exchange of oxygen and nutrients between mother and baby, and reduces the danger of premature birth (which is of utmost importance for me if God blesses me with another child). There is also the cancer prevention aspect to Fish Oil that can’t be overlooked.

The other benefits to Fish Oil that l was interested in is the reduction of depression/anxiety while changing to a more healthful lifestyle and the weight loss factor. Here’s a little snippet of an article I found online at

www.bellaonline.com (I have not seen the entire website, just this article, so if you go to the website and it turns out to be something about incontinence, don’t judge me…)A study done at the University of Georgia found that fish oil with DHA helps stop the conversion of pre-fat cells into fat cells by causing them to die. This significantly decreases the accumulation of fat. [Journal of Nutrition, Vol. 136:2965-2969] And doesn’t that sound like a dream fantasy come true? You just send in a fish oil knight-in-armor to kill off all those big bad fat cells before they can set up a stronghold in your body castle.

The more I read about it, the more it makes sense. At one point in my life, maybe 10 years ago, I used to take a whole slew of supplements. I stopped taking them because I didn’t notice a difference. Looking back, it was probably because of all the other damage I was doing to my body. I’ve dismissed things like Fish Oil capsules as a giant marketing scheme. Truth is, it’s probably because when you bring something like that up with most doctors, they are quick to tell you that there’s no definite proof. But isn’t there? Isn’t there proof in the lives of all these people walking out there who live nutritionally healthy lives? Is it better to just succumb to the cheeseburger? I think not.

Next week I’ll be sure to document anything else I add to the Carrot juice cocktail. I read that there might be a bit of a “man -up” challenge with the ingredients. Might have to toss in some Kale and Swiss Chard (which is NOT a cheese)! I might be woman enough to try it. Maybe.

(Oh, and Ryan? I checked — You can’t get the Fish Oil from “friedfeeesh”.)