A healthy conspiracy

Embracing my newfound vata dosha

2008-06-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I never looked into Ayurveda before. It makes just so much sense. I realized that I owned Gabriel Cousen's book "Conscious eating" which thoroughly explains how to balance your doshas. I realized I was doing a lot of things wrong which contributed to the unbalance in my body.

Gabriel provides a list detailing which foods balance vata and which create an unbalance. What have I been doing wrong? Lots! Mushrooms, raw onions, celery and leafy greens can call create an unbalance for vatas. What balances the Vata? Well carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, dates, bananas. It's very interesting. Also, I theorize that the reason why my last month of juice feasting didn't bring about much improvement was because watermelons create unbalances for vatas and I was drinking TONS of watermelon juice.

This is very very interesting. What's more interesting is that the description of typical vata people fits me to a tee! Artistic penchants, impulsive, lack of focus, easily overwhelemed, worry, etc... these are all typical vata traits.

I'm finding this just so fascinating. I'm thrilled that I can further tweak my diet to improve my health from another perspective. I was thinking yesterday as I was cooking squash in my wok how this may be the final step. I've learned so much from whole foods, alkaline diets, juice feasting, macrobiotics, raw foods and ayurveda.... Maybe the key for me lies in an intricate balancing act of all practices. I just need to figure out what works for ME.

I don't want to give anyone any cravings but... I can honestly say that eating cooked sweet potato and squash was VERY tasty and I think really appeased my vata. Vatas are supposed to eat warm, dense, oily foods. Yum yum.

I'm going to try to do raw all day and cooked dinners. I think that should work for now. We'll tweak that if we need to later. :)

- Ben

That's it in a nutshell

2008-06-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys. I know it's been a while. Let me see if I can sum up what's gone on in the last week. First off, I managed to really screw up my neck after that deadly flu I had. The chiropractor fixed it enough to a point where I could move my neck again... but I was still in a lot of pain. I ended up going for a massage which helped tremendously.

I've just been lazy lately...to be perfectly honest. That TV rule I had while juice feasting has flown out the window and I've been spending many nights just vegging on the couch watching TV. I need to get my bum on the rebounder again.

I had my first official meeting with my Guru today. Today's lesson was about the breath. The breath, I was told, is food for the body. Oxygen carries this energy called "Prana" into the body and this nourishes our cells. I was taught how to breathe today. She made me do some kundalini yoga and also made me speak to my inner wisdom. It was REALLY intense. I almost cried at some point. She's a really great teacher.

She made me some medicine too; triphala with some sacred ashes that she prayed on. That's right.... ashes. I didn't say anything at the time... but this worries me. Ashes, I imagine, are carcinogenic? Where did these ashes come from anyway? I'm concerned so I sent her an email asking for details of these ashes.

I also asked what I should do for my diet; she had mentioned she wanted me to incorporate some cooked foods into my diet. I was told today to start adding cooked root vegetables such as beets, carrots and sweet potatoes. Also squash was a good idea.

I would have thought that I would have been more disappointed with this change of path... moving away from raw foods after doing SO well at it. I realize though that we have to be flexible... we have to be open to what is. I'm being open to the possibility that maybe raw foods isn't the answer for me. Let's not forget; some people do really well on macro diets while others do really well on raw foods. We're all different and maybe there are different answers for all of us. I'm going to give this a shot and see how I feel.

Besides... it's not like she asked me to start eating oreo cookies, beef jerky and spam sandwiches here.... Of all the cooked foods I could be eating, I think carrots, beets, squash and sweet potato are really healthy options. I'm going to focus on steaming or boiling them in miso soup.

That's all I have to report for now.

Miss you guys! I'll catch up on your blogs soon, I promise!

- Ben

Worst migraine ever!

2008-05-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what's going on. I woke up Saturday morning super early to go take my government general competencies test for this new job I've applied for. I felt great, I had a tasty banana milkshake for breakfast and biked 5 miles to the testing area and biked home afterwards. I'm happy to report, this kid kicked some major butt! I should be getting the results soon but I paid such close attention to details (therein lied the traps) that I know I got 98-100%.

Anyway, I got home... made some of that curried carrot soup and I fell asleep shortly after (afternoon naps = mmmm). I woke up with the most splitting headache! I also had a fever and basically felt like I had been hit by a car. I figured maybe I was dehydrated from the bike ride so I had 2L of lemon-water.... nothing.

I went to bed with that vice on my head hoping I could sleep it off. No such luck, I woke up today at noon and my head was hurting just as much. I refuse to pop a tylenol. Off I went trying to find some natural remedies. The best so far is this roll-on I got in Vancouver when I was a flight attendant; all natural aromatherapy cure. It works GREAT usually... but this headache is of epic proportions. I'll need to order more of this stuff... I'm almost out and it normally always does the trick for headaches.

I tried acupressure on the webbed parts of my hand... and... I looked up "migraine" in Louise Hay's book only to find this quote "Often masturbation relieves the headache"..... I personally think that might have to do with the release of endorphins. :)

I have no idea where this came from. I have a fever of 100.1 which is high for a raw vegan whose body temperature is usually 2 degrees below standard.

I have a feeling I won't be going to work tomorrow. Sigh. I hope this isn't the flu....

So far today;

3L water+lemon
1.5L grapefruit+acai
2 nori rolls (I barely kept that down)

Probably will have some strawberries later...

- Ben

Babies!!!

2008-05-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't published anything in a week! Holy moly! Does anyone hate me now? :) Well you can't hate me for long because I have the cutest pictures of baby Canadian Geese!!! :)

Yep! That's right! There are Canadian Geese that hang out by our workplace (did I mention I work in the coolest building in Ottawa? It's an ultra modern building built on an island in the middle of a river! There's a good picture here.)... and some of the geese had babies!!! There are two couples that are denizens of the island; one couple didn't have babies yet... I keep saying to my coworkers that they're the gay couple! :)

Anyway... the babies are super cute and fluffy. We hung out there today and fed the ducks, geese and birds some bread. It was really cute!!! The Canadian geese would literally eat right out of our hands. Sometimes they would bite our fingers inadvertently but it didn't hurt at all... it was a very gentle bite! :)

Ummm... It was an interesting week. I had the best three-day weekend ever. I spent most of the third day cleaning because my sister was planning to sleep over on Tuesday night. She had a government exam early Wednesday morning and she had a late class on Tuesday. Ergo, instead of going all the way back to the outskirts of town and back, it made sense for her to just crash at my place.

I made my top secret pesto with zucchini prima pasta. She was blown away. She took pictures of it and sent them to her boyfriend. Hahahaa. She said that this former co-worker of mine's (my sister and I used to work for the same airline) response to hearing I've gone raw was "well that's lazy". LOL!!! I laughed so hard. My sister was going to make a point to show her the picture she took of the pasta and tell her it took an hour to do. Does "raw" really conjure up images of people feasting on baby carrots or something? Dear lord!

I cheated a bit this week on the raw thing; I hate a few breath mints (seriously... raw breath mints anyone? I've tried munching on parsley for this but it just makes it worse when it gets stuck in your teeth) and some tropicana orange juice (pasteurized shit). Not major stuff... but worth mentioning.

Also, I think Tuesday or Wednesday... I caved and used some steroid cream on some psoriasis patches I had in a really painful spot; right in the fold of the arm by the armpit. Ouch! I've never had it there before... but juice feasting seems to have moved things around; as some spots healed, new areas that were never affected seemed to flare up (specifically the upper chest). I'm not sweating it... I have tremendous faith in my new guru. I also noticed this week that my legs were healing out of nowhere. That was encouraging!

This morning, I woke up inspired by all the goodies in my fridge and made the best lunch I've ever brought to work. Coworkers were impressed. It was basically a raw twist on a stir fry I used to make... with bold flavors of dark miso, ginger and orange. Sweet!!! It was so good! Even one of the directors tried some of the sauce and was really impressed at my culinary skills.

Don't worry... that's another one for the cookbook (which is manifesting really quickly... be patient!) :)

This weekend, I'm going to try to make a bread reminiscent of my favorite cooked version: lemon/rosemary focaccia. I hope I do it justice. I have a general idea in my mind about how to go about it. Hopefully I can pull this off. If it works, I'll be posting the recipe on A Crunchy Conspiracy.

Have I mentioned how much I love the raw curried carrot soup on goneraw.com? Mmmm! I could live on that. When I make it, I use fresh ginger, lots of cracked peppercorns and a curry powder made of curry, tumeric, cumin, cardamom and cinnamon. I like to add some finely chopped fresh pasley at the end along with some Hawaiian clay rock salt. I also tend to use a bit more carrots than this calls for. :) Try it out when you get a chance, it's easy and wicked tasty!

Missed all you guys!

- Ben

A hidden garden

2008-05-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling this will be quite a long post. Yesterday I went to do groceries and tried to stick to my budget. It didn't go as well as last week; I stayed below 200$ but I spent more than I wanted to... that being said, the 1L of Nama Shoyu I bought was really what put me over the edge. I can't believe that's 26$! Eep!

Today was the day I was to meet with my spiritual teacher/therapist. The woman is on a different level than the rest of us. She's incredibly wise. The whole experience was very different from what I had expected.

First we chatted about the condition and my reason for coming. She asked me my date of birth to see if the condition was karmic in nature. She started doing some numerology and mentioned how this condition basically came about when I was 8; from not getting the support that I needed from my mother and having my spirit crushed as a result. It's interesting that she picked up on this. The shit really hit the fan when I was 8; that's when I started getting picked on and, to make matters worse, my parents were very distant. My mom had tendencies that were similar to being bipolar; this left me really confused as a child; how she could be so loving one minute and so hurtful the next. My home life revolved around trying to make sure the volcano didn't erupt.

Next she listened to my pulse for a bit, looked at my eyes and tongue. She basically said that I'm very 'clean' and that my organs are working really well. The issue is a surface issue and really has to do with my nerves and repressed anger. She said she will teach me techniques to release this anger in a safe way and we'll have to work together to get my body to relax and feel safe.

She also said that she feels I'm running on reserved energy; I totally feel this way since I stopped the juice feast. I pretty much had concluded I was just burnt from working 7 days/week for so long.

We talked about diet too. She wanted me to introduce ghee into my diet; neither raw nor vegan. I expressed how I'd be willing to introduce cooked foods into my diet but I am very committed to the vegan thing. She came up with hemp oil as a good substitute. Yuck! Hehehe. She explained how in ayurvedic medicine, certain spices are better with raw foods while others need to be in cooked dishes to act properly (like tumeric for example). She explained that for my body type (Vata - Air), raw foods is really hard to do because it increases the vata in the body. She says this is why I have lots of energy but in short spurts; extreme ups and downs. This also makes me a bit spacey.

So I guess that's a bit of a bummer; I was doing so well with not craving cooked foods. Ultimately though, I have to make the changes that will benefit me and rid me of the condition. She says I'll still be able to eat lots of raw foods (salads, etc) but there will be some vegan cooked foods. That being said, I've always believed that, as long as foods are whole and organic, there are worse things than cooking those foods.

She'll also introduce me to some yoga asanas to help me and it will be very important for me to meditate everyday. She said that in three weeks, I should start seeing some changes.

The whole experience was really cool! :) She didn't say so, but I could feel she was being 'guided' when coming up with a system for me.

When I went to bike back to work, I noticed my back wheel was broken; the axel was popped. I had to walk my bike all the way back to work. That was a 2.5 mile walk. After work, I walked my bike to this new bike shop that just opened up in my neighborhood. They're going to fix it for just 22$!! I added a tune up to the whole deal; 60$ total. I should have it back by the end of the weekend. Whoo hoo!

Well that's all I have to say. Are you disappointed that I'll be falling off the raw-wagon? I guess a lot of people are 80% raw right? Sigh... I was doing so good! :P

- Ben

PS: One of the nicest things the teacher told me is that I am like this beautiful garden, in the middle of a forest that I decided no one would ever get to see. I've shielded myself from love to avoid being hurt. We're going to work on showing that garden to the world. She also said that I need to feel love; not the love of a parent, friend or partner... but that of a teacher that expects nothing out of me. That's where she comes in. :)

Mmmmm banana milkshakes!

2008-05-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

The highlight of Monday was waking up and having a tasty banana/almond smoothie. Very tasty indeed! I managed to recreate the exact taste (okay… almost!) of the vegan version I used to have often. The vegan version was simple; soy milk, roasted almond butter, bananas, cinnamon, cloves, agave. The raw version is also simple: almond milk, bananas (more to make up for the thickness of soy), raw almond butter, cloves, cinnamon, agave. Suuuper tasty way to start the day.

Tuesday, on the other hand, I woke up realizing I didn’t really have anything to make ‘breakfast food’ out of. Solution? Nori rolls! I know it sounds crazy, but nori rolls in the morning was freakin’ brilliant! Loved it! I had tons of energy throughout the day too!

I went to the chiro on Monday and my arm got popped back into place. A rib was also not in its exact right spot; that had to move too. My neck was also part of the problem so it got a good crunch. It was actually pretty painful but I felt much better after and had regained full use of my right arm. Yay!

I’m toying with the idea of using some leftover steroid cream right now. I have a few spots of P that have become angry in the folds near my armpit and I have spots that have completely eaten up my nipples. Those are the most painful right now. It’s tempting to think that steroid creams could fix that real quick… but do I want to undo much of the detox progress I’ve done through juice feasting? Sigh. We’ll see. I know that I’m still healing because I see improvements in my arms and legs. But I’m noticing it’s getting worse in the chest area. I’m going to try to hold off and see how Friday’s session with my therapist goes.

I definitely need to do more affirmations. I’m doing really good on that front though… I think!

Monday I had:

Tasty almond/banana shake
¼ watermelon
Spinach & Strawberry salad
Fattoush (of course!)
Dates

Tuesday I had:

Nori rolls
Spring salad
Larabar – cocoa
Dates
Zucchini noodles with top secret pesto
Strawberries

Lisa asked me if my fattoush recipe would make it into the ebook. The answer is yes. I've been perfecting this recipe since last summer and it's perfect! The reason why I love this salad so much is because it's very tasty, it has tons of alkalizing veggies in it AND it has the perfect ratio of upward reaching veggies, crawling veggies and root veggies from a detox point of view. Technically, when you make a salad, for every root vegetable, you should have 3 above ground vegetables.... Or so I read in Dr Pagano's book. :)

Well that's all for now! :)

- Ben

Do-nothing weekend

2008-05-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

I'm so late on my posts... but here goes. This weekend was uneventful and that was the whole point. I purposely did nothing all weekend. That being said, I probably should have gotten around to loading the dishwasher. Sheesh!

I was cutting vegetables for my salad on Sunday and I realized that... I have no idea how I worked two jobs for so long. I am soooo grateful for my weekends, now that I have them! :)

I played a bit more with that marinated salad recipe. It still needs a few minor tweaks (not to mention, I need to get around to writing down what the hell I keep doing). It never ceases to amaze me how I can create recipes out of thin air and then remember every single thing I did without ever writing it down. The only annoying part about this is when I do get around to writing it down, I have to turn my "guesstimate measurements" into actual measurements. I'm not big on measuring cups and stuff when I'm in the kitchen. The only exception to that was baking... because baking is a science in that way.

I decided one of the main things I need to work on is making some flax crackers and some buckwheat cereal. I'm pretty sure I can manage to find some buckwheat that isn't toasted in one of the health food stores in this city.

Here's a few highlights of what I ate over the weekend :

Cilantro smoothie
Herbed marinated salad
Fattoush salad (of course!)
Nori rolls (with one hell of a tasty pecan/nama shoyu sauce)
Avocado
Bananas
Cashews
Dates
Broccoli Mash + miso gravey (from Ani Phyo's cookbook... one word... DISGUSTING! I was blown away at how gross this was.... I think I was never a fan of raw broccoli to begin with, so this probably didn't help. Darn!
More Fattoush! :)

Oh... side note; I woke up Sunday after having a nightmare about 1 bully that picked on me a lot in high school and 1 flight attendant that I really didn't get along with. I was on a bus with these two people; I just remember not wanting to be on that bus at all. I woke up and couldn't move my right arm at all. I had this really intense pain in my shoulder. Apparently I was angry. I tried to release it as much as I could but the pain stayed. Luckily my chiro fixed me up the next day; more on that tomorrow.

- Ben

What do vegetarians eat anyway?

2008-05-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

Friday was another fun-filled kiosk day. Actually, strike that. There really was no point in being there on the third day. There was barely any traffic to the kiosk. At least this gave me the chance to socialize with a senior member of our department. I learned a lot! I woke up early that morning to make a salad to bring to the kiosk. I had to be there for 8am… that’s early for me! Jeez. I can’t believe I did kiosks in the winter where I had to be there for 7am!

Anyhow, I totally pulled this salad recipe out of my ass. It's amazing how sleep deprivation + a fridge full of tasty vegetables can equal "lots of culinary creativity in the morning". It tasted pretty good when I left. Lucky for me, I found out, later that afternoon, that this salad gets better with age. It’s magical! Not to rub it in anyone’s face again but… this one is going straight into the ebook too! I just need to tweak it a bit. It reminded me of this marinated artichoke dish I used to make.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I got to leave work early and I got home and used my Holosync for the first time. I definitely agree that something’s going on while I meditate using the Holosync. I feel in a very deep state of relaxation. That being said, I was only able to do 10 minutes of it. That’s pretty good though; usually I get antsy after 2 minutes. Maybe with time, this will help me mediate for longer. I’ll never forget, when I was younger… there used to be this woman whose daughter was friends with my sister. I used to get invited over (I had no friends!) sometimes; she had a property by the lake so it was great in the summer. Incidentally, she was the first vegetarian I had ever met. She was brilliant too. I also think she was the first adult to ever speak to me like I was an adult. I became enamored of her lifestyle. This woman could meditate for four hours straight. To this day, this still blows me away. Hopefully I’ll get there someday.

Funny side story: when my sister’s friend would come to my house, my mom would be at a loss as to what to cook for a vegetarian so she would just make French fries every time. It was the only vegetarian thing she knew how to make. I’ll never forget Courtney asking my sister and I: “So… do you guys ALWAYS eat French fries?”

Hehehehe. Nothing’s changed. My mom still has no concept of what a vegetarian eats.

Today, this vegetarian had:

1.5L cilantro smoothie
1/4 watermelon
1 very tasty herbed marinated salad (no dressing needed)
A few honey dates
1 fattoush salad with creamy sweet garlic dressing
2 apples
water
enzymes/probiotics/leaky gut formula

- Ben

Grocery Day Success!

2008-05-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

I did it! A few tweaks, some budgeting and lots of counting while grocery shopping all contributed to keeping this week's grocery budget to under 200$. I actually spent 185$. Whooo hooo! Given this success, I may just stop by the gourmet store and pick up some blewit mushrooms and lots of fresh herbs tomorrow. Whooo hooo!

I'm sure next week will be even better; I had run out of a few staples this week (ACV, CP sesame oil). I bought some broccoli today for the first time in aaaages. I haven't had any since pre-juice feast. I'm hoping to try Ani's broccoli mash.

In other news, I finally joined the 21rst century and got a google reader account. I can't believe I didn't do this earlier. Now I can keep up with everyone's blogs with a lot more ease. I've been pretty busy lately and I haven't had a chance to keep up with some of my favorite people (you know who you are!) :P

Oh and best of all... I got some more herbed sun-dried olives! :)

Today I had:

Few handfuls of cashews
2 Apples
1/4 of a watermelon
1 large fattoush salad with creamy sweet savory dressing (no garlic at work!)
2 servings of marinated bok choi and shitake mushroom salad
A few honey dates.

That was actually a big savings today; buying honey dates instead of medjool. I also bought two 3-packs of organic romaine lettuce which was much cheaper than 2 containers of baby romaine lettuce. This also means I get 6 meals out of that instead of 4. Sweet! :) These are just a few of the tweaks I made to the grocery list.

That's all for now!

- Ben :)

Mushroomy goodness!

2008-05-07T05:45:00.000-07:00

Today was kind of fun. I went to the congress centre today to host a kiosk. My coworker Kate even surprised me with a carrot/ginger/apple juice from BoosterJuice. I was happy! I did my usual ice-pack routine. I made a tasty salad that I put in a metal bowl that sat on an ice pack in my backpack all day.

I got a comment on my blog not too long ago asking me to join into this recipe contest. The only rule was; the recipe had to include mushrooms. The organizers had told me that no one had submitted a raw recipe yet and they were curious to see what I would come up with. The prize? Two pounds of morel mushrooms. I’m not even sure what I would do with morel mushrooms… I don’t think I’ve ever had any nor seen any in any of the gourmet stores I visit.

So after the kiosk was over, I went and got about 50grams of chanterelle mushrooms: about 1 cup. I got home and the engines started turning. I came up with a really stunning dish that was both very gourmet and very tasty. It had this superb contrast of flavors; a sprightly quality contrasted with bold savory spices. I’m starting to sound like a somalier.

After I was done gobbling up my creation, I returned to the laptop to type up the whole recipe. I was about to post the recipe for the contest when I realized… it was only opened to residents of the US. Damn! Oh well; no loss there. I’m so happy with this recipe that it will very likely be a cornerstone of my upcoming e-recipe book. Yum yum yum. I’m salivating just thinking about it.

Speaking of salivating…at the kiosk today… there were SO MANY HOTTIES. Seriously! And of all things… it was an IT conference… who knew computer nerds were so hot? A few of them were total GQ material. Yum!

Today I had:

2 nori rolls (for breakfast! tee hee!)
1/4 watermelon
A few handfuls of cashews
750ml Carrot/apple/ginger juice
Carrot/beet salad
A bag of dulse
Chanterelle mushroom dish :)
2 apples
Water
Probiotics/Enzymes/leaky gut formula

Ta ta for now!

- Ben

New look!

2008-05-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

I'm skipping the Monday write-up because I'm just running behind on these. I always write my entries the day after; that way, I know exactly what I ate and what happened throughout the day. I also backdate each entry because I'm anal that way.

So... first things first... What do you think of the new look? I worked hard all night trying to get this to work. I notice now that there's a few colour issues I have to fix but otherwise, I'm happy! This is exactly what I had pictured my blog would look like. This unifies all my blogs with a coherent look. Cuuuute!

I brought nori rolls to work today and made everyone jealous. It was soooo yummy. I made this awesome dipping sauce using pecan butter, miso, ginger and left over marinade from the marinated shitake mushrooms. It was such a yummy sauce to dip nori rolls into. YUM!

I had to go set up a kiosk at the end of the day, today. Afterwards, I went to the health food store to pick up a few things.... I found out that this health food store (the one closer to home) just started carrying sun-dried olives. And they were much cheaper too! Whooo hooo. Then I got home and realized; same brand... not the same olives. These were plain sun-dried olives with PITS. The ones I usually get are sun-dried HERBED and PITTED olives. The herbed ones are SO MUCH tastier. The plain ones were a bit bitterer. I guess this means I'll keep using them for salads and won't snack on them as much. This may be a good thing because these herbed olives are an expensive snack!

I still haven't gotten around to perfecting a budget for food but I think I should be able to get around to that tomorrow. There must be a way to do raw-food on 150$/week.

Does anyone have a theory as to why ORGANIC CUCUMBERS are so damn expensive? I paid 4$ for an organic cucumber. I couldn't believe it! The farmer's market is opening soon... while they don't sell organic produce... I may consider buying certain items from them such as herbs and onions and other produce I can delude myself into thinking aren't pesticide-ridden.

Today I had:

2L Grape/Pineapple smoothie
¼ watermelon
4 nori rolls (sprouts, shitake, carrots, chayote, green onions, mangoes)
1 larabar (cocoa)
Fattoush salad (yes! Again!) with creamy sweet garlic dressing
2 Apples
Lots of water
Enzymes
Probiotics
Leaky gut formula

I love nori rolls! =)

- Ben Kaelan

Well... that's enough to lose my apetite!

2008-05-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and went straight to the Vita-mix to make some tasty “frozen grape yogurt”. Luckily, everyone in the family was up because the Vita-mix can sound like a lawnmower sometimes. I sat down in the living room with my dad and started eating my tasty creation whilst joking that I was having “ice cream” for breakfast. I then realized, instead of the “World Fishing Network” my dad was watching some hunting channel. When I saw the rednecks on the tele shoot down a majestic and noble moose, I gave my dad such a dirty look. It was a look that said: “seriously… you’re watching this in the presence of your staunchly vegan son?” Suddenly I saw him reach for the remote control and I was momentarily relieved that he realized how inappropriate this was…. And then he changed the channel to the World Fishing Network. Oy vey!

Luckily I was heading home early today. I spent most of the rest of the day vegging and cleaning. I can’t wait until next weekend; I plan to do NOTHING all weekend. Sleep, stay in bed most of the day… and possibly make tons of stuff in the dehydrator. I made another “Happy Fig and Date square” tonight. Yum yum. I warmed it up in the dehydrator and realized… 118F isn’t all that warm. Nonetheless, it was tasty! I’ve posted the recipe on “A crunchy conspiracy” so enjoy!
I plan to meditate more in the coming weeks and very consciously doing affirmations while meditating. I’m noticing some changes in my skin already and I want to continue allowing myself to accept my natural state of good health.

Today I had:

1.5L Frozen grape yogurt

4 applesMarinated baby bok choi and shitake mushroom salad

A few flax crackers

Ben’s version of Fattoush with creamy sweet garlic dressing

2 pieces of Happy Date & Fig squares

I can’t get enough of that Fattoush salad. It’s a good thing I’m single because I bet I have very garlic-y breath afterwards hehehe. Hence, I only eat it for dinner when I’m not about to see anyone. Don’t worry… this one will make it into the ebook.

Tschüss!!

- Ben

Off to see the 'rents

2008-05-03T14:47:00.000-07:00

Wakefield's covered bridge

Well, today I got up early and did a lot of housecleaning. I needed to do some very badly. Lots of dishes were piling up. My sister picked me up and drove me to Wakefield to visit my parents for the weekend. I both resented going there and wanted to go at the same time. Visiting my parents is not always a pleasurable experience; unfortunately my parents don’t always encourage me to feel positive about myself.

My mother was questioning my finances again. She does this out of fear but… I wish she could just realize that I’m an adult and I am capable of making my own decisions. I’ve lived on my own for almost a decade now. It’s time to let go. I think I may have a conversation with her soon about the inappropriateness of asking me about my finances.

My father had the “World fishing network” on non-stop. You know, if he came over to my place… I think I would have the moral decency not to play “Pridevision” or another channel that I would realize that my guest would not particularly enjoy. Oh well. What can you do? I never really got people watching fishing shows on the tele… it’s like people watching golf on the tele… I just think it’s so boring. :P

I brought my vitamix with me and will be using it to make myself some “frozen grape yogurt” tomorrow morning. I TOTALLY get why people travel with their Vita-mix. I know that if I moved to a deserted island (with solar panels), it would be one of the 3 things I bring with me.

I’m doing lots of positive affirmations nonetheless, especially in that twilight zone between sleep and waking life.

Today I had :

1.5L Sarma’s cilantro shake
A few handfuls of pistachios
Zucchini noodles with Ben’s tasty pesto
Flax crackers
Spinach salad with bold strawberry dressing
2 organic apples

Oh… I’m also very happy to announce that 3 recipes from my raw food workshop have been posted on my crunchy conspiracy blog. I’m looking forward to creating a cohesive look for that blog and this one… that should be coming before the end of the week… so keep your eyes peeled!

- Ben

Friday fun

2008-05-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's already Friday. I'm really happy that I can now rejoice and be happy with my coworkers about the concept of Fridays. I used to be resentful whenever coworkers would wish me a "good weekend" when I used to work weekends. It's as if it reinforced "oh yea... how lovely... I get to work all fucking weekend". I guess I was getting burnt out; it's typical to be resentful when you're burnt out.

I did a lot of biking today. There was a really important event going on at head office and they needed something from our office post-haste. I decided to act as a bike-messenger and bike over and bring it to them. Later we were invited to the event so I biked back to head office. Luckily I got to leave work a bit early.

I had the most amazing salad today... mostly because I came up with a REALLY amazing salad dressing. I'm saving this one for the e-cookbook which is materializing a lot faster than I ever could imagine. I'm using my affirmations to make it so. :)

Tomorrow I'm going down to wakefield (about 45 minutes outside the city) to visit my parents. I'll be bringing my own food over. And my vitamix! I can't leave the house without this thing anymore. You know you're a rawfoodist when, eh? :)

Today I had:

1.5L nutty banana milkshake
A few dried figs

half a watermelon
3 larabars (seriously... binge eating eh? Whatever... they're not "bad" for you or anything...right?)

Spinach salad with bold strawberry dressing

Zucchini noodles with Ben's tasty pesto :)

Damn that pesto is good! :) Expensive... but good! :)

Has anyone ever had black truffle mushrooms? Are they worth the 50$ or whatever they sell for?

- Ben :)

Pick my brain

2008-05-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

Well… I think it’s time for me to get a shrink! I think this is the logical next step in my healing journey. It’s time to do a lot of house cleaning inside my unconscious mind and get rid of all that repressed anger and sadness. I have read Freud’s “Studies in Hysteria” and I absolutely believe that some illnesses are psychosomatic in nature. That being said, is it possible, as Louise Hay believes, that all illnesses are psychosomatic in nature? Is psoriasis a manifestation of the pain and suffering I’ve repressed? I think this is worth investigating.

I’m really happy with the psychologist I’ve been referred to. She has a degree in psychology but also studied ayurvedic medicine, shamanism and yoga. She’s basically a spiritual teacher, from what I understand. It’s a very holistic approach. I have my first meeting with her on the 16th to see if we “jive”. That meeting is free… afterwards, it’s $525 for 7 sessions. Ouch. I think that means I’ll have to post-pone my NYC trip once more. Sigh. I better keep doing those prosperity affirmations :P I’m still not 100% sure if I want to do this… mainly because of the financial issue. I can afford it… but things will be really tight.

Melissa left a really great comment yesterday that I want to share with all my readers. The “Heal your Life” movie by Louise Hay is available to view online for FREE… but only for a short time:

I get the Louise Hay e-mail newsletter and guess what? In the May issue there is a link to watch her movie You Can Heal Your Life online free. It's her way of saying thank you for all the support she has received. I copied a portion of the newsletter and it's below. Just follow the directions and you should get a free viewing. I own the movie and it is awesome. I wanted to share this with you and everyone that reads your blog.

If you’d like to see a film preview or view my movie online, visit www.youcanhealyourlifemovie.com. Remember to enter Priority Code LHM in the online shopping cart for the free viewing. The Priority Code will only work for the next couple of days, so please pass this wonderful gift along at your earliest convenience.

I went grocery shopping today and spent a whopping $250 on groceries. This has got to stop. I’ve got to make a budget and stick to it. I’m going to go over the receipts from this shopping extravaganza and figure out what happened. I have a feeling buying organic is at the root of this problem. There should be a way to figure this out. I’m sure Microsoft Excel will help me identify why I’m spending so much… then I can hopefully rectify this. I would like to ideally spend no more than 150$/week on food ± 20$. Once a month, I could dish out an extra 50$ to restock pantry items or something.

Which brings me to what was on today’s menu:

1.5L “Frozen grape yogurt”
A few handfuls of pistachios
1 small ziplock bag of homemade “trail mix”

1 romaine lettuce salad with homemade herb dressing

Flax crackers
A few forkfulls of sauerkraut
A large bowl of “Ben’s version of Fattoush” with creamy sweet garlic dressing
A few handfuls of sundried black olives

I think they need to start building a rehab for people addicted to those sundried black herbed olives.

- Ben

Chiro day!

2008-05-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

It was time for my bi-weekly spinal adjustment today. My chiropractor noticed that I was subluxated in all the toxicity areas of the spine. My body apparently thinks I’m giving it toxins right now which is normal. After not having solid foods in so long, my body is apparently having a rough time adjusting to solids. It thinks of solids as foreign objects. Hmmm… Well the good news is, my spine has been adjusted!

I asked my chiropractor if she could recommend anyone who could help me release all the repressed anger and resentment I’m probably holding to from all the torture and harassment I experienced in School. She gave me this one person’s card who is also her spiritual counselor. She suddenly brought something to my attention that I didn’t really consider before. She pointed out how the work that I’ve been doing with her for almost a year now, the juice feasting and ultimately the raw food diet… this is most likely a natural progression; my body has been preparing for the emotional release that I’m now focusing on. She said that the release may be so intense, when I do experience it, that it will leave me feeling really drained… but it’s like intuitively, I’ve been “preparing” for this through chiropractic care, cleansing through juice feasting and strengthening myself with a raw food diet. I’m fertilizing the soil that will bring forth inner peace.

I do find it interesting how there has been a sort of progression from one thing to another lately; from chiropractic care to juice feasting, to raw food diet, to emotional detox. The journey definitely continues….

Today I had:

1.5L “Frozen grape yogurt”
1 bag of dulse (not really breakfast food…but I wanted it!)
1 small ziplock bag of homemade trail mix
1 “Ben’s version of fattoush” salad with creamy sweet dressing
2 larabars (banana/almond/date)
4 sushi rolls (sprouts, avocado, carrot, cucumber, marinated mushrooms)
1 small baby spinach salad with sweet and sprightly dressing
1L of water

I’ll get around to posting recipes soon… I promise! It’s just been really hectic lately… well not really… to be honest… I’ve just been feeling really tired lately and have been listening to my body by going to bed earlier.

Ciao for now!

- Ben

Holy Moly!

2008-04-30T15:58:00.001-07:00

Holy moly!

I weighed myself this morning and noticed I gained a whopping 7lbs sometime in the last week. I weighed myself 2 days after breaking feast and found I had actually lost 2lbs (down to 140). This morning, I was at 147lbs. I’m not sure what has happened. I mean, I have been eating larger portions but…. mostly salads. I haven’t had much nut based stuff lately… I have eaten lots of coconut noodles though hahhaa. Oh well… I guess I shouldn’t stress too much and realize 147 is still really good. I should have expected to gain about 5 lbs post-juice feast.

The post-juice feast life is interesting. I love being creative in the kitchen again. I love making new salad dressings each day and concocting new versions of my favorite salads. I don’t miss juice feasting right now. The only part I do miss is feeling light. I get bloated sometimes and feel heavy after a meal other times. I miss being free of those feelings while juice feasting. I also feel that I respond more to my feelings of hunger now; if I’m hungry… I can fix that. When I was juice feasting, if I got hungry… I might have another juice or I might decide I was too lazy to make more juice and just accept the feeling of hunger for a while.

I also find I need more sleep than when I was juice feasting. It’s a wee adjustment still. I desperately want to start including more water into my diet. I’m still out of MSM (must rectify this soon) and haven’t been doing my usual morning-msm-lemon drink. I need to start buying lemons in bulk; I need them for water, dressings, keeping avocados green, making yummy dishes.

Yesterday I had:

- Nutty Banana milkshake
- Dried figs
- Half a watermelon
- Flax crackers
- Spring salad with mango dressing
- Flax crackers
- 1 pear
(I went to bed early so skipped dinner)
Enzymes
Probiotics
Leaky gut formula

My main goal over the next few weeks will be to create a budget and stick to it when it comes to food. Last week I spent about 150$ on groceries which made me so happy! If I could stick to 150$... I would be SO happy! I think there should be a way to make this work… and I think a budget will be the best approach to attaining this. I’m so addicted to sun dried black olives right now though! They are so expensive though!! Sigh,

Yum yum yum.

That’s all :)

- Ben

Still alive post-raw cooking class! :)

2008-04-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone for the lapse of time without updates. I am alive and well and eating lots of good stuff (except for the occasional chocolate macaroon and the few sun-dried black olive binges). I was incredibly busy last week preparing for the raw-vegan cooking class. Practice runs, typing up mini-cookbooks to hand-out and generally just stressing over how this was going to go down.

I’m happy to report that my “uncooking” class went super well! It was so much fun! People loved my little raw creations and I got to talk a lot about the lifestyle in general. The funniest part of the workshop was when I pulled out the miso and said “now miso isn’t technically raw”… some of the participants went “Ooooooooo!” hahhaa. The raw-sushi was definitely a hit (especially the marinated shitake mushrooms) and the chocolate desserts went so fast… I didn’t even have time to take pictures! Even I was surprised at how delicious the chocolate mousse parfaits were!

I’ll be posting some of these recipes on “A Crunchy Conspiracy” shortly. In the meantime, here’s what I taught this weekend;

Raw sushi madness
Marinated Bok Choi and Shitake salad
Green curry coconut noodles (from Raw Food Real World)
Happy Date and Fig Squares (adapted from goneraw.com)
Chocolate mousse parfaits
Chocolate sushi rolls (didn’t have enough time to firm up, ended up being chocolate truffles)

I even got to talk about juice feasting! The participants were genuinely interested and curious about raw foods and juicing. It was really great! I got to sneak away with green curry leftovers which was awesome because I REALLY love this dish right now. I’ve had TONS of green curry this weekend; from the practice run and from teaching the workshop. Sarma’s recipes are to die for!

I missed blogging and I missed you guys! Hope you weren’t too concerned. As you can imagine, this was a lot of work to prepare for and I was pretty burnt over the following days. My kitchen is a bit of a mess still; I cleaned it all before starting the prep work on Sunday morning (before the class) and … now it’s a mess again. The prep work consisted of hacking open 8 coconuts to make coconut noodles (I saved one to demo during the class). I also made faux tuna for the sushi. That also went over very well; people were just eating it out of the bowl at the end! Hehehe.

On the emotional-detox front, things have been progressing very well. My dreams have reached a new level where I’m actually being explained what the iconography of my dreams signifies. The other night I was dreaming of dried flowers and suddenly this little girl came up to me and told me that dried flowers represented emotional detox. I’m sure that’s not the case for everyone but I thought that merited mentioning. It’s weird how my subconscious is becoming personified in my dreams and is cooperating with my conscious mind to divulge its secrets.

This are going pretty well so far. :) Sorry again for the delayed posting... Today I had:

8 dates (the fruit kind... not the cute boy kind)
half a watermelon

a few flax crackers
a few sundried black olives

one bowl of green curry coconut noodles

a few dried figs

my version of fattoush salad with creamy sweet garlic dressing

That's it! :)

- Ben

Forbidden fruit

2008-04-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well what a bummer that was. I was at work yesterday eating a really awesome fruit salad that drew attention from all my coworkers. One of my coworkers asked what the goji berries were. I told her to look it up on wikipedia (we enjoy having regular wikipedia discovery moments).

Sucks to be me... well not so much; I wasn't head over heels for the taste of goji berries to begin with but I was eating them because of their high anti-oxidant content. By some weird fluke of nature, Goji berries are related to the TOMATO. They are in fact, part of the nightshade family. These plants are toxic but their fruits are not. That being said, the fruit have minutes amount of toxins that most people are able to process without any big problems. Those with psoriasis however, seem to react badly to these foods. Dr. Pagano theorizes that is because of the toxins in these foods:

Solanine is the most prevalent toxin in potatoes, and to a lesser degree solanine is also present in tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, especially when the vegetables are green or not yet ripe. Other glycoalkaloid toxins found in the nightshade family include tomatine from tomatoes, and nicotine from tobacco. These natural poisons protect the plant from insects and other enemies.
This is also why cancer patients and those on macrobiotic diets are encouraged to remove tomatoes from their diets. I'm not sure if goji berries have any of these alkaloids, but consider the following (from Wikipedia):

Some Western resellers may state that their wolfberries are organically grown when in fact they are not. The Green Certificate claimed by some wolfberry marketers to be the equivalent of the United States Department of Agriculture's "USDA Organic" seal[19] is in actuality simply an agricultural training program for China's rural poor.[20] China's Green Food Standard,[21] administered by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture's China Green Food Development Center, does permit some amount of pesticide and herbicide use. Despite some claims that wolfberries sold in Europe, the United States, and Canada meet organic standards^{[citation needed]}, there is no public evidence for standardized organic certification of wolfberries from the Asian regions where they are commercially grown. Often, these berries are marketed as Tibetan or Himalayan Goji Berries that have been "wild crafted" or "wild harvested". On the contrary, however, Tibet's agriculture conventionally uses fertilizers and pesticides, and neither wolfberries ("goji") of Tibetan or Himalayan origin sold outside Tibet nor organic certification of such berries have been proved[25]. Since the early 21st century, the names "Himalayan Goji berry" and "Tibetan Goji berry" have become common in the global health food market [...] Although Lycium species do grow in some regions of Tibet, commercial export production of wolfberries in the Tibetan Himayalas must be a myth^[11] fabricated for a marketing advantage, as this mountain range bordering the Tibetan Plateau is a region inhospitable to commercial cultivation of plant foods of any kind. [...] The Tibetan Plateau, comprising most of Tibet north and east of the Himalayas, lies at more than 3000 m (10,000 ft) in altitude, with poor soil and arid climate conditions unfavorable for fruit crops. Defined by the geography of Tibet, particularly in the western Himalayas, cold nighttime temperatures averaging -4°C year round [32] with six months of continual frost[33] would inhibit plant bud development and prevent fruit formation. Wolfberries with a vibrant orange-red color may have been treated with sulfites.

So yea.... That's one more raw-foodist staple I'll be crossing off my list! :) I find it intersting how I started flaking A LOT right about the time when I introduced these into my diet. Hmm.

I went to the communicator's conference today. Very fun! I ran into my good friend Jill who is trying to convince me to go to Arizona with her to attend the Raw Spirit Festival. I'm thinking about it. The cost is daunting right now but we'll see. I'm going to keep practicing some prosperity affirmations :)

I had an hour and a half for lunch so I was able to bike to a raw/vegan restaurant where I had a really tasty raw salad. I was hoping to have a raw pizza but the crust has tomatoes in it :(

Today I had:

1L water+lemon
strawberries/blackberries/dried figs/pineapple/kiwi
-
flax crackers
-
Salad: Field greens, dandelion, fennel, celery, cauliflower (used to hate it, now I love it!), dill, parsley....barely any dressing.. I think only cold-pressed olive oil
-
Trail mix (I made it myself; almonds, pistachios, cashews, raisins, dried figs, dried currants, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds)
-
flax crackers
-
Salad: Romaine, celery, cucumber, sun-dried black olives, parsley, dill + Sweet and garlic-y tahini dressing
-

Did I mention how much I love salads? :)

I had the weirdest dream last night. You see, right after I finished posting yesterday's blog-post, I got a call from an old high school friend. We started talking about the upcoming HS reunion (which is supposed to happen this year) and I told her I was thinking of not going. I think that would be better at this point... I need to work on releasing the resentment, etc I feel for these people... I'm not ready to come face to face with them yet. This lead to us talking about the bullies. There is one girl in particular, let's call her Liz. She was REALLY mean to me and another friend. She was a big girl and she was also strong. She had a fist that would put a sledgehammer to shame I can't tell you how many times that sledgehammer came down onto my shoulder. She continuously made fun of me, vandalized my property, stole my things, beat me up, called me names, intimidated me, etc. One of my friends actually PRAYED for her to fail one year so we could be free of her torment. She got her wish... and things got better for both of us.

I went to bed and had a dream that I came face to face with Liz. She was in my apartment and was being really nice to me. She had done my laundry to try and help me out. Although she didn't say it, I could feel that she felt badly about the torment she put me through. During the dream, I realized her home life must not have been the best. People aren't born evil... they learn that behavior from somewhere. I could feel my resentment towards her lift... I realized that I could not hate her anymore because she was just a product of her environment... and, unbeknownst to be at the time, that environment must have been tough for her too.

I woke up with a sense of relief. It was as if the universe or my subconscious had helped me let go of that resentment. It was as if this dream was fabricated to help me FORGIVE. It was all a bit weird. :)

Well I think I've babbled enough for tonight. Sleep tight everyone!

- Ben

The thing about alcohol

2008-04-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

I walked into our conferences and special events department yesterday to ask how many participants would be at tomorrow's conference and I couldn't find my regular go-to person. I went to ask this other girl I knew. She was in her cubicle speaking with another co-worker I barely know. Her first question was "are you still drinking juice?". I think the last time I saw her was around day 30. I told her that I am in fact, still drinking juice but that my juice-feast was over, having completed the entire 92 days. She was dumbfounded. The other girl, had no idea what we were talking about. My friend proceeded to tell her how I "lived on juice" for 92 days with no solid food.

"Well I couldn't do that! I wouldn't last a day! Is beer allowed on this diet?"

I thought to myself; what part of DETOX do you not understand exactly? That's like someone saying to me "I'm going to rehab for my cocaine addiction" and saying "Oh... so are you allowed heroin at this rehab centre?"

Sigh. Nonetheless, I patiently and lovingly explained that the idea was to cleanse the body and consequently, only juice (of the non-alcoholic variety) is allowed.

"Could you imagine 3 months without beer? I wouldn't last a week!"

Now, I have had a love-hate relationship with alcohol. When I was younger, my dad was an alcoholic and that was pretty rough. When I turned 8, he went to AA and never drank a sip of alcohol from that point onwards. Not even a rum-filled chocolate. Not one drop.

I'm incredibly proud of my father. Each year, on February 13th, the day he quit drinking, we celebrate this day and buy him a cake and congratulate him.

During my teen years, most of my friends would drink. I mean... we were 14-15 years old and while this didn't seem like an issue to anyone.... it was to me. I was vehemently opposed to drinking (as per the experience above!). I wanted no part of it. I was convinced that a sip of that stuff could turn me into an violent alcoholic. I distinctly remember, on my prom night, as everyone was leaving for the "after-party" to go drink (I was 15) my parents offering to drive me to the after party and buy me alcohol. In front of all of my friends, I yelled at my parents "NO!" that I didn't want to go and I never wanted to drink. The other parents thought this was amusing because they were trying to convince their children NOT to go to the after-party.

Later, while in college... I relaxed my values a bit and had my first sip of alcohol at 17. I realized at that point that one could drink without having a drinking problem. I became fond of martinis and would drink once in a while. I would usually drink once or twice a month; but I would drink to the point of getting really drunk. This went on for some time until I became a flight attendant; drinking was part of the lifestyle. You landed at the destination, you had a nap and you joined the captain and crew for 'happy hour' in the hotel bar. If you had a longer layover; you'd go out drinking. You'd buy bottles of wine and drink in each other's hotel rooms. Drink drink drink.

The psoriasis worsened during this time. A year or so into my flight attendant career, I discovered the Pagano diet. In true Ben fashion, I dove into it 100%. As my massage therapist likes to say, "when you decide you're going to do something, you do it!". Part of the pagano diet involved quitting smoking and quitting drinking. This also meant I could only eat certain foods in certain places. Seeing as flight attendants were very fond of pubs (and I would usually follow and have french fries or whatever else I could find on the menu that "happened" to be vegan) this meant I bought my healthy food at Marks & Spencer (they had the best edamame salad!) and ate in my hotel room. I stopped "going out" and I stopped going to happy hour. I became more solitary. I realized just how shallow the people I worked with truly were. Without the vale of drunkeness to sink me to their level... I started to see things more clearly; the gossip, the 'cliques'. I was no longer in the 'in-crowd'.

I seldom used to drink before juice feasting. Once every three months, I would perhaps have a glass of Valpolicella or Masi... or even a Cabernet Sauvignon on occasion. Before the Pagano diet; I used to LOVE my cosmopolitans. Loved vodka. Never liked beer (the smell brought back bad memories from childhood).

Since juice feasting, I can honestly say I have no cravings for alcohol. It seems alien to me, why someone would want to do that kind of damage to their bodies. I'm not saying I will never drink again.... I may have a a glass of red wine in the future... but I think the once-every-three-months thing will become a once-a-year thing. I definitely will not be drinking to the point of drunkenness ever again.

I notice some raw-foodists tend to count certain wines as raw food. Is it one of those things that we turn a blind eye to like nama shoyu, maple syrup, etc? I mean, surely the alcohol would negate any benefits that wine has been proven to have? I'm curious of everyone's opinion on this.

Do you believe wine has a place in a raw food diet?

Today, in Ben's tummy:

1L water+lemon
1/2 watermelon
1 Intestinal movement cap
2 probiotics
1 leaky gut formula
-
1.5L Sarma's cilantro shake - I missed this smoothie SO MUCH... I used to hate the taste... now I'm addicted! I made mine with a fresh vanilla bean instead of v-extract
-
flax crackers
-
Salad: Arugula/pear/currants/pumpkin seeds + sweet grapefruit dressing
-
Fruit salad - Pineapple, Strawberry, blackberry, goji berries, dried figs
-
flax crackers
-
Zucchini pasta + pesto (mmm leftovers!)
-
1.5L Grapefruit/Orange/Acai
Enzymes

That's all I have to report for today I'm afraid. I was happy to read from everyone's comments that a lot of you had heard of Louise Hay. I'm just overwhelmed by her teachings right now. It's so marvelous. I have loaded her audio-books into my ipod and I play them on my way to work, I play them while I work and I play them when I get home. I play them while I sleep. I play them when I get up in the morning. If nothing else, at least it's flooding my subconscious with positive messages. I definitely feel lighter and more loving and compassionate lately. :)

Lots of love,

- Ben

Phase II - Heal your life

2008-04-21T23:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it's a whole new ball game, as the saying goes.

The juicy road has come to an end (but hey, I have a good map now and I know how to go back there!) and now it's time to focus on a healthy diet that will continue to support the healing process. My approach will focus on a healing diet that is raw, alkaline and high in greens. I will draw from my experience juice feasting and all the things I have learned on that journey to guide my way towards health. Juice feasting has been a springboard to better health and clearer skin. The battle is not over; a healthy raw diet will continue to support the hard work juice feasting has begun.

I'm happy to report I actually wanted some green juice this morning. It was great to bring green juice to work and look forward to a nice salad. I realized once I got to work though, that I had left at home the fresh salad dressing I had made earlier that morning. No worries; I biked home and had lunch there... it was worth it; that salad dressing was good!

Here's a quick look at what I had today:

1.25L water+lemon (I'm out of msm right now)
1 casgara sagrada (last one)
1 intestinal movement
1 leaky-gut formula
-
1.5L cleansing smoothie from RFRW (grape/fig)
2 probiotics
-
1L celery/kale/parsley+E3live+kelp+Hsalt
Enzymes
-
1/4 small watermelon
-
Salad: Arugula/baby spinach/pear/currants/pumpkin seeds + sweet grapefruit dressing
-
Flax crackers
-
Zucchini noodles with almond pesto
-
2 apples
-
6 dates
-
1 banana larabar

And yes... the PESTO was ridiculously good. I'm so happy I made that to celebrate my first day back on raw. I was also proud of myself that I only had a small portion and left enough for tomorrow. I used to eat HUGE portions of food before, so I really hope I'm able to continue having smaller portioned meals.

Now... onto something REALLY interesting. Has anyone heard of Louise Hay? I bought her book "You can heal your life" after I saw a really short video about the movie (that references the book) on youtube. I wasn't planning on reading the book until later... I was busy reading "12 steps to raw foods" by Boutenko. I just happened to flip through it on Sunday a bit and found something astounding. First, here's what Amazon has to say about the book:

The timeless message of the book is that we are each responsible for our own reality and "dis-ease." Hay believes we make ourselves ill by having thoughts of self-hatred. She includes a directory of ailments and emotional causes for each with a corresponding affirmation to help overcome the illness. For example, the probable cause of multiple sclerosis is "mental hardness, hard-heartedness, iron will, and inflexibility." The healing "thought pattern" would be: "By choosing loving, joyous thoughts, I created a loving joyous world. I am safe and free."
--P. Randall Cohan

Pretty intense right? According to this, thoughts are at the root of our ailments. It's not the first time I've heard this: I read a book called Skin Deep that was of the same opinion. It was about how repressed memories, anger and resentment are at the root of psoriasis and other skin diseases. I wasn't too thrilled about the idea then. Edgar Cayce also said that negative thoughts create acidity in the body.

I've never tried to "emotional detox". I do have a lot of repressed anger and resentment from the daily torture I was inflicted as a child and teenager while growing up as a closeted gay kid in a really hostile and closed-minded small town. Repeated beatings, name-calling, threats... I even had a guy throw a kleenex full of semen at the back of my head once. Those years were HELL. When I finally was able to move away (as soon as I graduated high school, I was 16) I did! I'm 100 times better off but I still have a lot of repressed anger. I still expect the worst of people I don't know. Having friends (I had none in high school) still feels very alien to me.

The thing about Louise Hay's approach is that she's adamant that it's not about condoning the behavior; it's about letting go of the past's hold that it has on us. It's about filling your mind with loving thoughts and positive affirmations to heal yourself. I can't get enough of this. I went on itunes and downloaded tons of her affirmation mp3s so that I can listen to them while I sleep, while I work, while I make food... etc etc. I wake up to Louise and I go to bed to Louise! :) I want to rid myself of all these negative thoughts.

I've done so much work on my body... it's time to detox the mind now. :) Here is what Louise says the cause of psoriasis is:

Fear of being hurt. Deadening of the sense of self. Refusing to accept responsibility for your own feelings.

That sounds about right. Here is what the daily affirmation for healing psoriasis is:
I am alive to the joys of living. I deserve and accept the very best in life. I love and approve of myself.

This book is just mind blowing. I am so happy it found its way to me. I still can't believe it's almost as old as I am and I had never heard of it. This seems like it should be one of those books that everyone should know about.

Well that's it for today's post. I'm going to go lay down now :)

Lots of love!

- Ben

Stay tuned....

2008-04-03T19:30:00.001-07:00

You've gotta wait until the juice feast is over for this blog to start up... Go back to A Juicy Conspiracy for now. :)

Lots of love,

- Ben