I used to be a vegan. Not for political reasons. I'm actually a conservative. Now all the liberals are screaming, "How can that be?" I'm a conservative who recycles, makes my own compost, was at one time totally vegan with 75-85% of my diet raw. I fell off that diet (the Hallelujah Acres diet) when I got cancer. Not BECAUSE I got cancer, but because the church was bringing us food, and it was hard to tell them, only bring salads and maybe twice baked potatoes. How do you look a gift horse in the mouth like that? And then I ended up with Celiac disease, and it was really hard to feed me. And then my kids ended up with it. Actually, my oldest already had it, so it was don't send over any noodles, David can't eat them. We had to have a noodle dish ready in case they sent a casserole with cream of mushroom soup in it. You can't expect strangers to understand this diet. It's complicated, and they don't deal with it on a daily basis. We were thankful to not have to prepare a meal with me in a weakened condition. So we fell off the diet.
Eating vegan is more expensive IF you try to eat like you used to eat. If you get the vegan cheese, vegan this and that. Cutting everything out and just not substituting is hard, too, because then you go out and have salad. As a Christian, we also felt that it was "before the flood" thinking. We evolved on to later in the Bible. There was a book called Body by God, and I can't remember the author right this minute, and I'm sorry, I can't put my hands on my copy of his book. I'm thinking about starting his diet. I read about it, but never actually put it in practice. I'll have to find the book to refresh my memory, but it was based on much smaller portions of meat, and only a couple times a week. And it was all about WHEN you ate certain things. I remember you get up and eat fruit and carbs. Never combine carbs and meat. You don't need fruit or carbs at night. You don't really need meat in the morning meal. Lots of real juice. Juiced vegetables would be OK, too, I guess. Lots of veggies. Doesn't really matter if it was cooked or raw, but I believe he said as close to the natural state as possible, which would be fresh. But a vegetable casserole is better than meat. It was all in how you combined and when you ate it.
I'm also going to start juicing carrots again. That was a big thing that kept me regular (sorry for the graphic). I've noticed that Depakote makes me a little "Big C." Maybe that's why you gain weight...it just doesn't come out! I used to run the carrots through a Champion juicer and get only juice. But I don't like to clean the thing. I want a Vitamix, but the one I bought with my mother in law, she kept when we moved out. Didn't even pay me for my half. It's like she got it in the divorce. It was a really bad move-out. Right now, I'll have to settle for a regular to make my smoothies.
We did just refinance our house, and I'm going to put the amount we don't have to pay on a mortgage this month for a Vitamix. My health is more important than a new computer when this one works. I think my sister-in-law is working on her, because she doesn't even use it, just didn't want me to have it. She grinds nuts with it, that's all.
But I don't drink just carrots anymore. Today I put in 1 small tomato, 1 stalk of celery, 1 tomatillo (happened to have a couple left), 1/2 a bell pepper, 1/2 banana, a small hand full of spinach and a carrot. And then a glass of filtered water. I also put a squirt of lemon juice, a sprinkle of basil and a dash of salt. It's not bad. It's a little chunkier than a Vitamix, which would get it really smooth, but it's drinkable. Sometimes I put ice cubes, already crushed by the refrigerator, and then hit liquefy. That makes it cooler.
Maybe this will keep the weight off. I'll keep this blog posted. Remember, exercise keeps your mood up.
Lori Ann Smith
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