After the feast part deaux

So a week after I have stopped juice feasting where am I?

Well I am down another 2 lbs and just shy of 4 inches.  Although that seems like a stall when I was loosing 7 lbs or more a week, I don't feel like it is.  The key for me is to not transition back into the other direction again.  I have to be sure that I have made a change in my life, a true "repentance" in the Greek sense of the word, a change of heart, and mind. There are lots of people who can stay on a diet for a month but then they start adding the lbs back on and end up bigger than they were to begin with, so I am just trying to keep things moving in the right direction.

What have I learned?
Well I thought I would learn that as soon as I added milk or vegetable protein back into my diet that I would be lethargic and sick. I thought that maybe when I added gluten back into my diet I would get sick.  Fortunately that is not what I learned.  On the contrary, I think those things actually were great. My big takeaway is that diets that thrive on large exclusions are inherently flawed. God has put everything on this earth for our good. There are people who have created healthy diets in every corner of the globe based on everything from  grains, to greens, to grubs, and everything in between, even animal blubber. Even refinement is not an evil thing, for example, yogurt, cheese, soy sauce, tempe, are all refinements that took some whole food and modified it in a reasonable way to make it more healthy, or tolerable for human consumption.

In the end I think it is more about the inclusion of foods that we know are beneficial than it is about excluding certain foods.

If I distilled it down to a mission statement, I would say:

Eat foods as close to their whole state as possible. Favor less refined alternatives over highly refined foods when they are reasonable. If you struggle to pronounce the ingredients, then be cautious.   If you can make it at home then you should. Eat as many whole foods, mostly plants, as you can on a daily basis.

Here are some specific choices I am making in my life:

• Home made yogurt is much better than store bought, so take an hour and make a weeks supply, gogurt is not yogurt!
• A vinaigrette can be thrown together in a few min, and is far better than store bought ranch, so is home made ranch!
• Favor unsalted butter over hydrolyzed oil margarine.
• Fresh squeezed juice is better than pasteurized juice that has been trucked across the country.
• Home grown bread is better than hostess, make friends with local producers if you are going to buy instead of bake.
• Grow veggies in your garden. Even if you start small, you've never had better tomatoes!
• If great grandma would have recognized it as food, I can too.

These things all contribute to how we see and consume food.  I am so grateful for the help and inspiration that I have gotten on this recently. It is great to know that so many people, some of whom I have never met, are so supportive of me and my well being.


Great books that I need to write reviews for related to the topic:
In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
Eat and Run - Scott Jurek
The healthy Green Drink Diet - Jason Manheim

Izkiate revisited

I finally got my Bob's Red Mill Chia seeds and there is a reason that they are cheaper than the rest :-(

I mixed up some more traditional izkiate today and it was pretty good, but not as good as last week.

Recipe:

1 T Chia seeds

1 T agave nectar

1 T Lemon or preferably Lime

12 - 18 oz water.

Mix it up. wait 15 min or so for the chia to gel. Enjoy!

Bob's Chia seeds did not gel like the Good Earth ones. I was able to make them gel up some, but even in just 1 T of water, they never got to the point of Frogs eggs like the other did.  Just not quite as much soluble fiber in the shell, I presume that is because either they are grown in less nutrient rich soil or conditions, or more likely they have been "washed."

I must say, although I was a bit disapointed with the seeds, the izkiate was awesome. I had one of my best training runs to date as far as pace and energy tonight.  I definitely can see that there may be something to the energy of these little babies.  More than that I find it super refreshing!  The acidity makes it hugely thirst quenching, yet it is sweet. The chewable texture also makes it very satisfying. I know that does not sound too appealing but that is the best way I can describe it. It is kind of like when you get poppy seeds in your teeth after eating a poppy seed muffin and then you can chew them for a few min, only you get that with a drink.

Izkiate has found a regular place in my diet and training.

Izkiate how do I love thee.

Juice Feast Day 12
I picked up some chia seeds today (they were really expensive) because I wanted to try out izkiate. It was totally worth it.  I made some watermelon pineapple juice, added a teaspoon of chia seeds and it was fantastic.

The shell of the chia seeds kind of expand into a gell, like half set jello. It thickens the drink to a kind of frog spawn looking potion...not very appetizing.  That being said; It tasted great, and I really liked the consistency. I did experience the unusual energy and clarity about an hour after I drank the izkiate.  It wasn't the hyper feeling of an energy drink but it was definitely a pick me up.  I had another hit in my veggie juice tonight on my run and I clocked 5 k at 10:04 pace rather easily (today's run was a race pace run).  I am thoroughly impressed. I have ordered 1 more lb of chia seeds, and some more elete electrolyte water supplement  to drink it in.

Here's the rub though.  Bobs red mill chia seeds on amazon <$9.00 for 1 lb, chia seeds at good earth, $3.89 per oz.  Would I do it again? Yeah I probably would. If I could not stomach the chia slime, what would I do with the other 15.8 oz of chia seeds? So it was a good investment to try it out.  That being said, I am not buying any more chia seeds at Good Earth!

On a different note, I had someone comment on how much weight I seem to be losing (it was a guy too).  I also had to hitch my belt one loop further today (since last week). So things seem to be going well.  I feel really good. My runs have been pretty easy, no bad bonking.  I feel like if I get a twinge somewhere doing a sprint, I recover super quickly, usually the next morning I am fine.  And I am not experiencing hunger pains.  It seems that things are really good. I am really liking the plant based diet.  I  am sure I will eat meat in the future, but I will be more sparing with it than I was in the past.