Tonight is my last supper....I ate Ma Po Tofu, absolutely delicious. I know it's not 811rv and it will make me sweat and get grotty but...after a month and a week on raw, this amazing dish of bean curd in oyster sauce with green peppers, onions and zucchinis was heartbreakingly good.
Tomorrow is March 1st and, stomach being curedish (still farting alot!), I will return to my raw sanity. Goodbye Ma Po Tofu - yes, you guessed it, I am still high on MSG and all those toxins...
Goodbye too to the white chocolate alfajor I ate, a maize cookie sandwiched with dulce de leche and chestnut.
Hello Raw, my friend and saviour. I await you with longing for the sweet relief, physical and mental, that you bring. Like the shade of the willow tree from an angry mid-afternoon sun.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Taking a Cooked Holiday
Well, there is method behind my madness...
After suffering chronic diarrhea from Friday afternoon to Tuesday evening, my weight had gone down to 44.5 kilos. It has never been that low in my life. My old lady eyes were sunken in my head, hooded and triangular, and everything I ate passed right through me. I was going to the bathroom several times an hour and chronically dehydrated. All the while, I was continuing to breastfeed my baby.
As an alternative to going to hospital, I decided to follow my father's (he's a doctor) and husband's advice and eat foods like boiled rice and oatmeal. Slowly, the diarrhea began to abate, thanks also to a poison-absorbing medicine called cream of bismuth which is similar to kaolin. Today is the first day I am back to normal, and my third day on cooked. I really feel I had no choice.
I would like to go raw again tomorrow but may have to take it slowly and go far part raw and part steamed vegetables as my stomach and health are still quite delicate. I feel great compared to how I was during the illness although admittedly not so clean and fresh as on raw!!
I am 99% sure this was a bug caught from contaminated water. Probably something to do with the water that lettuces have been hosed down with by the grocers. They are then left in the heat and who knows what grows on them. I will have to use hydrogen peroxide to clean everything with in future.
After suffering chronic diarrhea from Friday afternoon to Tuesday evening, my weight had gone down to 44.5 kilos. It has never been that low in my life. My old lady eyes were sunken in my head, hooded and triangular, and everything I ate passed right through me. I was going to the bathroom several times an hour and chronically dehydrated. All the while, I was continuing to breastfeed my baby.
As an alternative to going to hospital, I decided to follow my father's (he's a doctor) and husband's advice and eat foods like boiled rice and oatmeal. Slowly, the diarrhea began to abate, thanks also to a poison-absorbing medicine called cream of bismuth which is similar to kaolin. Today is the first day I am back to normal, and my third day on cooked. I really feel I had no choice.
I would like to go raw again tomorrow but may have to take it slowly and go far part raw and part steamed vegetables as my stomach and health are still quite delicate. I feel great compared to how I was during the illness although admittedly not so clean and fresh as on raw!!
I am 99% sure this was a bug caught from contaminated water. Probably something to do with the water that lettuces have been hosed down with by the grocers. They are then left in the heat and who knows what grows on them. I will have to use hydrogen peroxide to clean everything with in future.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
More Cleansing...
I had to miss the milonga this Saturday, because my body had been doing some major cleansing since Friday night...I still don't know if this is a healing crisis or a reaction to Argentinian bugs but I have been living here 2 years now so I think it's a detox.
I've lost way too much weight lately. My pre-baby weight was 53/54 kilos. My heaviest during pregnancy was 68 and my stable low during intense breastfeeding was 50-52. However raw brought me down to about 48 and then several boughts of vomiting/diarrhea on a weekly basis have taken me to an all time low of 45. Not good. Alot is dehydration.
As a result, since yesterday I have begun to eat plenty of nuts as I am still feeding my son and need to get the weight back on while providing him with rich milk. I'm still within 80-10-10 because I have kept to well below the 10% fat for the last month so it all evens out. Today I must have eaten 150g of almonds/walnuts and feel better for it.
It's hard to get avocados here, in fact hard to find a good source of everything so monomeals are rare for me. I have been eating cherry/grape tomatoes by the kilo for the past few days however, and this is my current fave. One of those ecstatic foods, for me.
Thank the Lord for the underrated tiny tomatoes!
I've lost way too much weight lately. My pre-baby weight was 53/54 kilos. My heaviest during pregnancy was 68 and my stable low during intense breastfeeding was 50-52. However raw brought me down to about 48 and then several boughts of vomiting/diarrhea on a weekly basis have taken me to an all time low of 45. Not good. Alot is dehydration.
As a result, since yesterday I have begun to eat plenty of nuts as I am still feeding my son and need to get the weight back on while providing him with rich milk. I'm still within 80-10-10 because I have kept to well below the 10% fat for the last month so it all evens out. Today I must have eaten 150g of almonds/walnuts and feel better for it.
It's hard to get avocados here, in fact hard to find a good source of everything so monomeals are rare for me. I have been eating cherry/grape tomatoes by the kilo for the past few days however, and this is my current fave. One of those ecstatic foods, for me.
Thank the Lord for the underrated tiny tomatoes!
Monday, February 16, 2009
More Cleansing
I got sick again on Sat night/ Sun Morning, although it wasn't as bad as before. I'd had a bad time at the milonga.
My friend danced every set, but I sat all but the first one out! No one would dance with me. It was great for my ego as I am a professional dancer while my friend has only danced 2 years and she is 20 years older than me too. Ha, ha!
Someone has since told me that at that milonga people only dance with their friends. Ok, but could my "friend" not have introduced me to anyone there? She has pointed out an English guy there both times and he even brings her back to our table after her dance...Well, I actually began to wonder if it's a coincidence that I have got sick both times a few hours after going out with her. Maybe she's given me the evil eye or she's a witch or something!!
I will go again to the Thursday night and see what happens.
On the plus side, although I woke up with the stomach pains and horrible burps, I did not vomit. After lying there for a couple of hours with intense nausea, I managed to eventually go to the bathroom instead. It could be that my body is finally managing to purge this bug out of my system.
Last night, I had an intense craving for fried sausages which of course I ignored. I think I need to eat more greens. Just writing about it is making me start to fantasise again so I am going to sign off!!
My friend danced every set, but I sat all but the first one out! No one would dance with me. It was great for my ego as I am a professional dancer while my friend has only danced 2 years and she is 20 years older than me too. Ha, ha!
Someone has since told me that at that milonga people only dance with their friends. Ok, but could my "friend" not have introduced me to anyone there? She has pointed out an English guy there both times and he even brings her back to our table after her dance...Well, I actually began to wonder if it's a coincidence that I have got sick both times a few hours after going out with her. Maybe she's given me the evil eye or she's a witch or something!!
I will go again to the Thursday night and see what happens.
On the plus side, although I woke up with the stomach pains and horrible burps, I did not vomit. After lying there for a couple of hours with intense nausea, I managed to eventually go to the bathroom instead. It could be that my body is finally managing to purge this bug out of my system.
Last night, I had an intense craving for fried sausages which of course I ignored. I think I need to eat more greens. Just writing about it is making me start to fantasise again so I am going to sign off!!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Nutridiary
I have been charting my intake on Nutridiary for the last few weeks to make sure I'm getting enough calories. It's a great tool and it has helped me stuff myself a bit more than I probably would have otherwise!
I haven't had any problems in my milk supply quantity-wise since going raw, although a couple of times the baby has complained about the fat countent. So lately I have kept my fat close to 10% which is the max recommended on 80-10-10. This is easy for me as I like to consume a couple of teaspoons of olive oil, scantily used throughout the day on green and tomatoes. I also like nuts, but the dressing is number one for me so these last haven't figured in my diet recently.
Tomatoes have been my number one craving this week, sometimes I have been eating a kilo a day! Today I had some divine cherry tomatoes that had me letting out amorous cries, I had to laugh at myself. Yesterday it was the overripe figs that did that...
Corn on the cob is something I've cut down but not eliminated. It is not the easiest to digest and leads to a bit of acid reflux. However it's more filling than a lot of other raw stuff and sometimes I do get tired of fruit.
I have a stash of raspberries and strawberries for the morrow. I haven't eaten any of these all summer (it's summer here!)
Can't wait. Wondering how strawberries and tomatoes will marry together too...
I haven't had any problems in my milk supply quantity-wise since going raw, although a couple of times the baby has complained about the fat countent. So lately I have kept my fat close to 10% which is the max recommended on 80-10-10. This is easy for me as I like to consume a couple of teaspoons of olive oil, scantily used throughout the day on green and tomatoes. I also like nuts, but the dressing is number one for me so these last haven't figured in my diet recently.
Tomatoes have been my number one craving this week, sometimes I have been eating a kilo a day! Today I had some divine cherry tomatoes that had me letting out amorous cries, I had to laugh at myself. Yesterday it was the overripe figs that did that...
Corn on the cob is something I've cut down but not eliminated. It is not the easiest to digest and leads to a bit of acid reflux. However it's more filling than a lot of other raw stuff and sometimes I do get tired of fruit.
I have a stash of raspberries and strawberries for the morrow. I haven't eaten any of these all summer (it's summer here!)
Can't wait. Wondering how strawberries and tomatoes will marry together too...
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Getting Fit
Today I walked 4 or 5 km which doesn't sound like much, but a couple of months ago I could barely make it up the stairs and was too weak to hold my baby! I decided to try and do these walks everyday and even managed some push-ups - albeit the girly knee ones.
I feel so much fitter and look forward to taking my thyroid blood test one of these days to compare it to my pre-raw results.
Cravings the last few days for massive quantities of divine plum tomatoes, although today one of the veg sellers got annoyed at me for picking the good ones out of his offerings! Trouble is, if you let them pick 'em for you, they have no qualms about giving you the most rotten. Anyway, they were delicious, that deep dark red that tastes of seasoning on it's own. I added some sea salt, which I am trying to curb as I love it so much!
Dreaming of raw olives which you cannot buy here. And my first taste of Durian which will hopefully be within the year. A durian in Buenos Aires? Not even on the menu at the Casa Rosada...
I feel so much fitter and look forward to taking my thyroid blood test one of these days to compare it to my pre-raw results.
Cravings the last few days for massive quantities of divine plum tomatoes, although today one of the veg sellers got annoyed at me for picking the good ones out of his offerings! Trouble is, if you let them pick 'em for you, they have no qualms about giving you the most rotten. Anyway, they were delicious, that deep dark red that tastes of seasoning on it's own. I added some sea salt, which I am trying to curb as I love it so much!
Dreaming of raw olives which you cannot buy here. And my first taste of Durian which will hopefully be within the year. A durian in Buenos Aires? Not even on the menu at the Casa Rosada...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Cleansing Reactions?
Well, I haven't posted for a while, partly because I had a couple of bouts of being less than well.
First, I got this vomiting stomach bug again...it's one I've had every 10 weeks for the past 6 months. It comes with these disgusting eggy burps and I reckon it's an Argentine bug since I've never had anything like it in UK or Europe. This time, I dealt with it by eating only grapes for nearly 48 hours, these delicious black grapes of a variety called "Alfonso". They are as good as a glass of wine! Anyway, that finally cured me and I wonder if I am retracing, i.e reliving past illnesses as I cleanse myself. It felt like my body was finally trying to purge the bug!
Then a few days later, I went to my first "milonga" after a year of not dancing tango due to pregnancy and baby. A milonga is the name for both the dance hall and the tango evening, as well as the name of a fast type of tango which has a more upbeat rhythm and melody.
It was great, I danced about four sets or "tandas" of tango and managed that whole etiquette of letting the man catch your eye if you want to dance. If you do, you glance at him to make sure, he gives a questioning look, you nod slightly, he may nod to check (!) and then finally he walks over to your table and leads you to the dance floor. It felt a little strange at first, with my husband back at home with our baby!
Anyway, I had worn a bra marginally tighter than usual to make sure the straps didn't keep falling down when I danced. That night, I came down with mastitis and a blocked duct. I was panicking for a couple of hours but finally managed to burst the blockage which appeared as a white blister in the nipple. I was sore for the whole of the next day, with a slight temperature, but by the evening things were improving. Another cleansing reaction? I hadn't had mastitis since my son was born, so maybe. Or just a bad bra!
First, I got this vomiting stomach bug again...it's one I've had every 10 weeks for the past 6 months. It comes with these disgusting eggy burps and I reckon it's an Argentine bug since I've never had anything like it in UK or Europe. This time, I dealt with it by eating only grapes for nearly 48 hours, these delicious black grapes of a variety called "Alfonso". They are as good as a glass of wine! Anyway, that finally cured me and I wonder if I am retracing, i.e reliving past illnesses as I cleanse myself. It felt like my body was finally trying to purge the bug!
Then a few days later, I went to my first "milonga" after a year of not dancing tango due to pregnancy and baby. A milonga is the name for both the dance hall and the tango evening, as well as the name of a fast type of tango which has a more upbeat rhythm and melody.
It was great, I danced about four sets or "tandas" of tango and managed that whole etiquette of letting the man catch your eye if you want to dance. If you do, you glance at him to make sure, he gives a questioning look, you nod slightly, he may nod to check (!) and then finally he walks over to your table and leads you to the dance floor. It felt a little strange at first, with my husband back at home with our baby!
Anyway, I had worn a bra marginally tighter than usual to make sure the straps didn't keep falling down when I danced. That night, I came down with mastitis and a blocked duct. I was panicking for a couple of hours but finally managed to burst the blockage which appeared as a white blister in the nipple. I was sore for the whole of the next day, with a slight temperature, but by the evening things were improving. Another cleansing reaction? I hadn't had mastitis since my son was born, so maybe. Or just a bad bra!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Small Improvements...
I thought I'd just note down some improvements:
My husband commented how nice and smooth my skin looked. He though I was wearing make-up but I wasn't!!
I stopped wearing deodorant and didn't even notice for a couple of days that I had - don't need it anymore.
My joints are more supple
I can stretch more easily and if I hold a stretch my body gives into it, where as before I had biltong tendons!
I'm so much calmer and feel positive about life.
I look forward to the day when I wake up, just like I used to (when I was a child!)
My husband commented how nice and smooth my skin looked. He though I was wearing make-up but I wasn't!!
I stopped wearing deodorant and didn't even notice for a couple of days that I had - don't need it anymore.
My joints are more supple
I can stretch more easily and if I hold a stretch my body gives into it, where as before I had biltong tendons!
I'm so much calmer and feel positive about life.
I look forward to the day when I wake up, just like I used to (when I was a child!)
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