A Rise in Kidney Stones Is Seen in U.S. Children - This really gets me upset - my ramblings

I was reading the news today, and I saw this article in the NY Times titled A Rise in Kidney Stones is Seen in U.S. Children and I was astonished! But, I wasn't at the same time. I have been to my daughter's school and I have seen the food that the students eat. I have watched people in the grocery check out lines, and I see what they buy for their family. In fact, I used to buy that stuff too. The article states that children around the age of 10 years old are getting kidney stones, a problem usually afflicted on older generations, because they are eating too many salty processed foods and not drinking enough water.

When I gave birth to my daughter, I decided to raise her to be healthy and as a vegetarian (not knowing later that we would switch to raw vegan) and at the time, I didn't know how to prepare any food. When my daughter was a year old, I went to college and we shared a dorm. All of our meals were prepared for us, which meant that I never had to learn how to prepare food. I spoke with other mothers at my college, and maybe 1 or 2 out of the MANY that I knew actually knew how to prepare a meal. I mean a real meal, not Betty Crocker in a box. Luckily, for me, while I was in college I met my husband, who can make anything, but not everyone is that lucky. Most of the women I knew from college are now married and have children, and they buy them Betty Crocker in a box, or Hamburger Helper, because they know how to make it. When I talk about raw food, or even healthy food, they always say that they don't even know how to make real mashed potatoes! I think this is where we are failing. Somewhere along the line, parents stopped teaching their children how to make food, and schools stopped teaching students how to make food. Now everyone thinks that meals come from a box. It's difficult to make homemade meals these days! It's hard just to find the ingredients in the grocery store.

So these poor kids are eating processed food, but what about their drinks? I have actually seen with my own eyes, a mother give soda to an infant in a baby bottle. I have seen it, and it was in my family! People actually believe that drinks like Gatorade are good for them on a daily basis. Even water is flavored these days. A friend of mine has a flavored water filter in her sink! I think right now it is cherry flavored. If people could drink more real, fresh water, they would be more able to flush out the toxins that are put in their bodies from food.
In the process of making meals in a box, the manufacturers need to make processed food taste good. This means adding more salt, preservatives, and other nasties. The consumer buys their products, and eat them for each meal, 24/7 and wonder why they get sick! I feel bad for these children with the kidney stones, unless they can see beyond these boxes, they may live their entire lives in misery.

I'm no saint either, I still feed my daughter vegan food. This week I bought her soy dogs. I had told myself that I would not buy her anymore processed soy foods, but sometimes they are just easier. She also eats whole wheat bread, which is full of sugar and other yucky ingredients. I realize that I have to work on things in my own home, and I am proud that my family has come so far as we have. My husband is 100% raw, I am working on becoming 100% raw, and my daughter is about 60% raw. This is so much better than we used to be. We used to eat pretty much nothing but cheese, pasta, and soy products. My husband has lost a ton of weight, my daughter used to be overweight and is now "normal", and I am in the process of losing weight.

Even if people do not embrace raw food, I truly believe that the dynamics of American health will greatly improve if parents learn how to make food homemade, and if people just began drinking more water.

30 day exercise challenge

Hi! It's a great day! Except for the fact that I have no heat in my house and I GAINED weight! That's right, gained weight. I now weigh 270. I can't believe it, I've been so diligent. But, I am not going to let it get me down, instead I am going to start a new challenge for myself. I realize it will be difficult to work on two challenges at once, but I think I can do it. With the support of my family and friends, and everyone online, I know it will work.

My new challenge is to work out 30 minutes a day for 30 days. I want to see if this will speed up my weight loss (I don't doubt it). It's getting pretty cold out, and I can't handle cold weather, so I will have to do all of my work outs indoors. I am not exactly sure what I am going to do, but I plan to do some yoga, aerobics, and strength training. Not much strength training, but just enough to firm myself a bit each day. My husband has been wanting to do more strength training, so maybe I can convince him to join me on this challenge. Maybe Rawdawg Rory can do a 30 day strength training challenge! I dare him! (I know he will be reading this). SO I will keep you posted on how I do this challenge. Maybe if I am feeling outrageous, I will post pics!

Today I day 1 of the 30 days. I plan to start with some stretches, yoga, and then some aerobics. Hopefully by the time I am done, I will enjoy exercising, but I can't promise anything.

Feeling good and close encounters

I feel pretty good today. I got on the scale today and it said 267.0! I decided to go to the bathroom and then see what it would say (I get so giddy over this stuff) when I weighed myself again it said 268.4! What!?! I hate scales sometimes. It's okay though, I know I am losing weight and feeling great.

For breakfast today I just had a banana, since I wasn't that hungry. For lunch I made myself a collard wrap with diced tomatoes and seasonings as the "meat". It was really yummy. I also had a green smoothie. I always feel so much better with green smoothies. In fact, I think that is how I lost the 30 something lbs to begin with.

It's Halloween season! Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love to see all of the costumes and the haunted houses. If I had more money, I would buy an old barn and really spook it out for Halloween. When I was going to college, there was an old barn on campus that someone had actually died in. That place was spooky! It was also on an old Indian Reservation. Once, at night Rory and I were out very very late walking around and we heard some creepy noises about 20 ft away from us. There was nothing there at all, but we definitely heard it.

Another time I was really creeped out was about 5 years ago at Devil's Den in Gettysburg, PA. I went there at around 1a.m. with a friend of mine and we were hanging out on top of the rocks talking about all of life's b.s. when this glowing light started slowly coming toward us. It moved really slow, and you could tell that it was coming closer, but the light wasn't getting any brighter or larger. My friend called out to it, but there was no response. It could not have been a flashlight, because no one could have walked where it was. My friend freaked out, and jumped off of the rocks. Those rocks are pretty high, so it was a very dangerous jump for him. I was pretty freaked out too, but I took the safer path and rushed my way down the normal path. We jumped into the car and drove away pretty quickly. Now when I see all of those "ghosts of Gettysburg" books out there, I don't just snicker at them, I feel like there may be some truth behind all of that tourism propaganda.

Single Nonvoter Tipped Election

I just HAD to share this video with you. It's super funny!

Rainy day blues

This is going to be a very short post today. I lost a pound since yesterday! So now I am at 268 lbs. It's a terribly rainy day and I am sleepy and still feeling cranky. I will probably take a nap and wake up just in time to catch tonight's episodes of Rawkathon.



You know, I took this pic to show just how miserable I am, but now I see that my face actually looks a lot thinner!

I'm cranky

I finally gave in and looked at the scale today. Good news and bad news. The good news is, I didn't gain any weight. The bad news is, I didn't lose any weight. It's okay though, I am just happy that I don't have to work anything off.
Today was pretty difficult for me because it was shopping day. Usually I love shopping day, because we go to so many fun places to get our food. Today though, I was just hungry, and cranky, and I couldn't wait for it to be over. My daughter and I often by ourselves a couple stuffed grape leaves, but I couldn't this time, so that was pretty depressing. Instead I ate a banana. Bananas are good, but not as good as stuffed grape leaves. If I HAD bought the grape leaves, I would be writing a post about how bad I felt for messing up again. Instead, I didn't eat them, so I don't feel bad. I would say I feel great, but I feel kinda annoyed...at everything. My husband is making a smoothie, so the Vitamix is going and going, and it's so irritating. I think I am still getting used to being 100% and maybe tomorrow I will feel better. Besides, it's the weekend!
My daughter is not 100% raw, but I try to give her about 70-80%. Tonight for dinner she had toast, one had Rory's raw unchicken salad, one had diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning and olive oil, and one had carrots with salad seasoning and hemp oil. I looked really healthy, and very tasty. She loved every bit of it. Rory said that it was a good transitory food, but I just thought it looked YUM. Of course, I didn't eat any of the toast. My daughter loved it, and says she wants to eat it all the time. Honestly though, I don't want her having so much bread, but now I have another healthy meal for her.

Day 5

Well, it's Thursday, and I am scared to look at the scale since I ate poorly on Tuesday. For breakfast today I enjoyed another apple cinnamon "cereal" with buckwheat. I shared some with my daughter too, and she loved it. She asked if we could eat it every morning! I may get tired of it, but luckily we could easily change the flavor by adding different spices, fruit, or seeds. For lunch I enjoyed a green smoothie and a tomato. It's nearly 6pm and I am starving. My husband is making an unchicken salad wrap for dinner. When it is finished, I will take a picture of it and share it with you.
I had this song in my head all day today. Now it will be in yours. Teehee! Enjoy!



Here is the pic of the unchicken salad wraps I promised. They were so freakin good!

My first failure was my first success!

"We may not have control over how long we will live, but we do have control over how well we live" ~Nomi Shannon
Last night was a night of revelations and a night of falling off the wagon for me. Yes, I did it, I cheated, but I decided not to beat myself up about it and just continue with my raw food experiment unscathed.

On our way to the Halloween party that my daughter and I were invited to, I kept telling myself that I would not eat anything there unless it was raw. I committed myself to this. When we walked in, the first sight to be seen was an enormous Halloween decorated table covered from end to end in baked goods, snacks, and other things I shouldn't even be looking at. It was excruciating.

This was a party for my daughter's Brownie troop, which she just recently joined. I had only met about 2 or 3 of the other parents so far, and none of them were at the party. I am usually pretty quiet, so while I was trying to find my "in" to the conversations, my stupid f*%@ing eyeballs kept forcing themselves in the direction of the annoyingly delicious food on the table. I wanted to scream! Instead, I went outside, sat in the car and played with my cellphone. Eventually, once I was feeling more composed, I decided to chance another try at socializing. Well, as soon as I walked in the door and that junk food covered table was in front of me, staring me in the face, I broke down. My right arm involuntarily reached out for a plate, but my left arm pulled it back. The right arm forcefully twisted the left and shoved it quickly into my tight left pocket. The right arm, no longer under my control of course, picked up a plate and placed it in front of me. Then it continued by placing various foods on the plate, including but not limited to popcorn, pretzels, and chips.

In the middle of this dramatic struggle, one of the women I had befriended once before arrived at the party. We began talking and I mentioned that I felt so horrible about eating the foods on my plate, but that I just couldn't help myself. She said that if I was going to eat them, then I should enjoy them. She explained that by expressing negative feelings toward the food, it pretty much destines the food to go to all the wrong places on my body. At that point I decided that her words of wisdom were just that, very wise. My right hand gently let my now sweaty left hand out of my left pocket and we enjoyed the rest of the party.

Now, don't get me wrong, I won't be ending my raw food experiment here. I knew I was going to make at least one mistake in the beginning and I am actually happy that I did. Now that I know that I do not HAVE to eat a certain way, I am more likely to actually eat that way.

Later last night I watched Nomi Shannon on Rawkathon with my husband. Nomi helped me to clear the air of any more guilt residue that I had from the Halloween party. She stated, "It's only your food, it's not your religion...it's what you do most of the time that counts". So maybe I wasn't 100% raw yesterday, but that doesn't mean that I won't be today!


This is a picture of my daughter, Isabel, in her Halloween costume for her party.

Day 3, very very early

It's the very very early morning of day 3. You would not even believe how much weight I have lost in just these past 2 days (today doesn't count since it hasn't started yet. I now weight 270.4 lbs! It's amazing. My Wii Fit says that I am losing weight too fast, but my husband says that my weight loss will slow down and that my body is adjusting to the lack of cooked fats. Whatever works!

I've been really hungry and craving things that I don't normally even eat. I haven't had dairy products since I can remember, but I am craving a burrito from taco bell! I am eating constantly, but maybe not the right foods for me.Luckily I somehow scheduled the start of my raw food experiment with the first day of the Rawkathon, which is a "free 7 day, worldwide online living food event". Amazing stuff really. This event is helping me stay inspired. The first night I listened to Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com and he said that he was a type O blood type, and therefore he needed more protein. I had an epiphany! I am also a type O blood type, and I definitely do not eat enough protein, which may be why I could never stick with the raw diet before. I would always say "I'm hungry, I need something heavier", and then I would end up eating something cooked. My husband says that I should drink more green smoothies, eat more bee pollen, hemp protein. He had tons of ideas for protein, but honestly I don't remember all of them. When I ask him later I will be sure to carry an notebook and pen. I think that knowing this information will really help me this time around.

Last night on Rawkathon, I watched David Wolfe go insane! He was talking faster than a teenager with juicy gossip! I could barely keep up, but the stuff he was saying was so inspirational. He says that we need to get into the flow and the things that we want will just start appearing in our lives. We need to write it down and have goals, realistic goals, and the universe will just start making them appear for us. A lot of the stuff he said was reminiscent of the movie, The Secret, but he said it so much better.

I also watched Dr. Graham which I found so inspiring. He raises his daughter as a raw vegan on the 80 10 10 diet. My daughter always says she wants to be 100% raw, but in practice she can only really eat 2 raw meals a day. Of course, I didn't start her on a raw diet until she was 8. Dr. Graham and his wife started their daughter from birth. They say that when she was only 2 year old but has the mental capacity of a 3 year old and that her health is excellent! I wish I had them for parents!

Anyway, that's all I have for this very very early morning. Here is a pic of the lunch I had yesturday. It was sliced avocadoes, diced tomatoes, lime juice, dulse flakes, and pepper. It tasted really good and took care of my savory food craving.

first morning thoughts

I just woke up and was looking at the news when I found this article called 5 things I learned from Jilian Micheals and she talks about weight loss, NOT being about willpower. She says "Losing weight is not about willpower--it's about moments of bravado, like the moment when you ask your waiter to take the bread away from the table right away." Wow! I guess I don't have willpower. When I go to a restuarant, I love those little freebies! I really need to be stronger if I am ever going to make it to my weight loss goal. Micheals also says that she pours candle wax from the dining table onto her food to prevent from eating it. That's hard core! Maybe I should stop worrying about how long I slaved over the meal and I don't want it wasted and start thinking about how I am wasted my own LIFE making sure I eat every bite.

So anyway, today is day 1! YAY! For breakfast I am having some raw cereal - buckwheat (soaked and dehydrated), sliced bananas, raisins, and apples in a bowl with almond milk. It should be tasty.

My secret

Tomorrow is day 1 of my challenge. I decided to start before the holiday mini challenge just so that I can get a head start. The longer, the better...right? I am sure that sometime in the beginning I will fall off the wagon, I just hope that I can get myself right back up again. Today I spent most of my time thinking about all of the foods I will NOT be eating the next few months. My husband says I should concentrate on all the new foods that I WILL be eating starting tomorrow. Easy for him to say, he hasn't had any cooked food since...I can't remember when, actually.

Okay, well I wanted to divulge my biggest secret in this post, just to let you know where I stand in the world. I weigh 275 lbs at this moment. That's actually a good weight for me compared to what I was just 2 months ago. at that point I started incorporating more raw into my diet and reached 275lbs from 306lbs. That was a major achievement for me because my entire life I was never able to lose any weight, no matter what diet or exercise program I was on. If I was exercising a lot and getting my sweat on, I would stay the same weight and never lose a pound. But, if I was not exercising, even if I was dieting, I would always gain weight. I was never able to actually lose weight until I started eating raw foods. Plus, I am not even exercising! I know, I should be, but I just don't. My weight loss goal for tomorrow until December 24th (the day the mini challenge ends) is 20 pounds. That gives me 67 days to lose 20 lbs, which is about .3 lbs a day. Are you excited? I am a little nervous.
I hope you come along for the journey with me, I could definitely use the support! And leave comments as well, so that I know you're out there supporting me.