The One About the Boob Tube

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness.

Hippocrates

I think it's a very interesting idea that food should heal all illnesses.  In fact I think often that food is a direct link to health and wellness.  When I was pregnant with little honey bunny, I had gestational diabetes and was instantly thrown into a world of nutrition, calorie counting and carbohydrate controlled mayhem. Already interested in nutrition, I learned quite a bit about how food works in the body.  This was my first introduction into "preventable and lifestyle diseases".  Gestational Diabetes was not my fault.  My body produced a hormone in the placenta that blocked insulin production so I had to have some help until I gave birth.  However, this was the tip off that my body had the genetic predisposition to getting Type 11 Diabetes later in life.  Luckily, I have been able to fight off this horrid disease but the rest of the ailments that plague most people in their 40's on up have been knocking on my door for awhile and I have learned that the same rule applies.  Eat your veggies.  Simple as that.  We can eat to cure.  We can eat to live.  We can not only stop and prevent but actually halt and reverse disease by eating broccoli.  Think about that.  I mean really think about that...by eating a healthy plant based diet, you can get rid of high blood pressure.  You can remove plaque from your arterial walls.  You can unlock the magic keys in the pancreas that block insulin.  You can change your cellular structure to prevent certain types of cancer.  Really.  Really?  Yes Really.  Did you know that you can also get rid of sinus problems and acne and acid reflux and hot flashes and eczema?  Did you know that with a plant based diet you could save the environment and the health care crisis AND stave off impotency (in both men and women?)  

So what is the deal with not doing this?  Well I can tell you why it is hard for me.  It's hard for me because I spend way too much time thinking about food.  I have gone to the other side of the Hippocratic philosophy to the point where food is my addiction and instead of eating to live, I live to eat.  I live to eat all the wrong things.  I have an addiction.  And it is food.  Food used to nourish my soul and then it served as a friend and a lover and now it is really just a totally abusive spouse.  I never learned to use food as it should be used.  I fight almost daily doing it to my son.  It is a constant struggle to outwit, outplay and outlast my food cravings.  I have all of the red flags and tell tale signs of a personality disorder when it comes to food.  I crave potato chips and french fries when I start to feel anxious.  When I am sad or depressed, I start to go looking for ice cream and brownies.  When I am bored I want some kettle corn. When I am really pissed off, I want McDonald's.  When I am really happy, I want to go get a bunch of sushi and crab spring rolls.  And when I am feeling all of these I want to drink.  Lots and lots of wine.  Sometimes margaritas.  I look forward to all of the holidays so I can buy fun holiday cookie makings and special yummy breads and all kinds of fattening desserts.  It doesn't occur to me at this time to think of all of the awesome vegetables and fruit that will be in season or the incredibly fun activities that take place each season.  

Does it really just take a twist of the brain to start thinking like that?  Do you have to practice healthy habits of the mind, just like you have to practice everything else.  What if I worked daily on the practice of every time I thought of food, unless I was really hungry and it was time to eat, I forced myself to think of something else, more healthy or more spiritual or more funny or more touching?  

One of the things that works for me is to turn off the tv.  I have noticed that since I work from home, when I actually stay at home and don't venture to the library or to a coffee shop, I have to leave the tv on for some mindless company.  Well that mindless company most often turns into a distraction which puts me on the couch with some food and diet cokes and then that usually turns into an unplanned nap which then turns into fat assness.  So if I turn off the tv, I am acutely aware of going to the fridge and eating something that is not planned.  Somehow the tv gives me super invisible powers and I don't have to actually see or feel myself hitting the sectional with bags of crap in my hand.  The problem is, turning off the tv

So by changing one thing - maybe I have given the bad food a little less power and the veggies some time to do their work.  Maybe by instead of obsessing over every calorie I put in my mouth, by changing a behaviour I am taking more control over my addiction.  Maybe I can learn to eat to live instead of avoiding the fact that I am living to eat.  "To eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness."  Uh huh - got it.

The One About Not Eating Unicorns Anymore

I recently ran a race - the Army 10 Miler in Washington D.C.  It was a fantastic race.  I wasn't necessarily trained for this race but since I had signed up for it and it was very hard to get into and had filled up, I thought I would head up and do it.  I had an extremely awesome time doing the race.  I got to see Honey Bunny and Little honey bunny three times along the route.  The weather was great, it was a very gently rolling hill race (mostly flat), great and plenty of water stops, lots of runners around me - which is significant since I am in the back, and tons of inspiration to draw from - like the teams of army soldiers who had no or just one leg and they were completing the race.  So, I figured that I would just not put any pressure on myself and try my best to enjoy the race.  I thought that this would be my last race, even though I had signed up for two half marathons in the Fall, I really needed to take a break from what seemed like my worst training season ever.  Two half marathons in record slow times were not inspiring me to work harder.  It seemed as if I just needed to take some time to work on other things, like losing weight and  gaining strength.  So I just wanted to kick back and see how much of the race I could run.  I was very proud to say that I ran 99% of the race - the hardest part was from mile 8 1/2 to 9.  It was over a very boring uphill bridge and it was really, really warm at this point and we were very exposed to the elements so at that point, it got a little discouraging but overall, I was pretty happy with how much I had run of that race.  I spent the better part of the week basking in my post race glory and thought that for me - the time was pretty good.  Until I looked up my results for the Charlottesville 10 miler which I ran in March at what I thought was my highest weight ever.  I actually completed that race 5 minutes faster than this race.  And that race had at least 5 giant hills.  I couldn't believe it.  I was stunned and spent a good part of the day moping and undoing my glory bask because I actually ended a training season heavier and slower than I started.  What the FUCK?????  What a giant disappointment!  After this and of course the news earlier in the month that I needed blood pressure medication, do I still try to turn my life around?  No of course not.  I take a stab at it here and there...eat a fruit, a veggie, run a little. But do I count calories?  No.  Do I go totally vegan?  No.  Do I follow the Furman plan?  Nope.  Do I stop eating crap and drinking tons of wine?  Not even a little.  So what is a girl to do?  Give up?  Seriously, do I just give up on nickel and diming this thing to death?  I've always wanted to do something radical.  Like becoming a hard core vegan or a yogi or a meditating, brushing, juicing, raw foodie, purist.  Honey Bunny and I were at dinner last night where I was enjoying a nice ribeye sandwich with blue cheese aioli and he paid me one of the nicest compliments ever.  He said, one of the things that he totally loves about me is that I am really open to most things.  While some people are scared of what they see as the alternative, and thinking outside of the box is very intimidating - to me, there is no other way of life.  I like to think of myself as someone that can do this.  So why do I hesitate so much?  Not so much because it's hard.  And make no mistake, it is hard.  Not many restaurants serve vegan food and let's face it - all that cheese and yogurt and sour cream and lump crabmeat and london

I am looking for the support.  I will start with my own self awareness and my own self confidence and when that wanes, I will look to Honey Bunny most immediately because he is definitely a huge source of support.  After that goes, I will look to a few famous people like Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Brazier and Kris Carr for some quick inspiring thoughts.  I want to shake up this little bit of suburbia that I am living in - look out...here comes the vegan!!!!

The One About the 50 Miler

So I need a big goal.  A really big goal.  The reason I need a really big goal is because I typically use my really big goals to avoid the most immediate, important and should really be working on goals.  I usually feel that if I can work on a really big goal, the more important goals will either solve themselves or go away or at the very least, I will feel that those immediate goals are not nearly as important as my really big goal.  I think this might be similar to the definition of insanity which I keep coming back to, pretty often as it turns out.  Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.  I ran 3 marathons that way.  The fourth one, I finally did the miles and the hard work and voila- shaved 30 minutes off of my time.  I was still injured and not showing any significant weight loss but I did at the very least, work really hard on getting my miles in.
What is the really big goal?  What are the most immediate goals?  Well, I'll tell you.  The really big goal is that I want to run a 50 mile race. A real, authentic endurance run.  One with trails and rivers and rocks and some bad ass ratings.  The immediate goals are not nearly so exciting or sexy.  In fact, they are downright unsexy.  I need to lower my blood pressure by quite a bit and I need to reduce my waist circumference by at least 10 inches.  God how middle age is that?  I am fast approaching my 44th birthday (which gives me only one year left to qualify for Boston, which means that in a year, I may have to rename my blog:/) and for those of you that don't know I have already gone through menopause. I completed my long ass fertility journey three years ago.  Yes that's young and yes it was a surprise and yes it was a complete bummer.  But alas, I have made some peace with it or at least I thought I had until I  went to the minute clinic at CVS to have my blood drawn by a skinny ass nurse practitioner.  She was totally nice and supportive during the whole procedure.  Of course I did this to avoid going to my regular Doctor.  I knew my numbers would be a total disaster but I needed to know and I needed to know immediately because I had been putting it off.  I decided that I should go with the urge to know so in a valiant effort on my part to start managing what I measured, I boldly went in to have my finger pricked.  So I was totally suprised at some of the information.  I am going to share some totally personal information so that in order to get it all out there, I never, ever, ever have to say these numbers again and I become somewhat accountable to you.
Cholesterol:  198 - HDL 66, LDL 132, Tryglicerides, 53
Blood Pressure :  154/98
Resting Heart Rate - 49
Glucose - 78
Waist Circumference - 41
Weight - 196
Height - 5'4
BMI - 36 - obese

The glucose and the cholesterol were fine.  She would like to see the LDL under 100 but was not totally unhappy with the overall number.  The triglicerides were really good and she thought that was a direct link to my running.  My blood pressure totally sucks and that rate has put me in Stage 1 Hypertension which means I need medication.  My resting heart rate is that of an elite athlete (yeah) and I couldn't improve that any more if I tried.  My glucose was great which makes me extremely happy considering I had gestational diabetes and would do almost anything to avoid taking insulin ever again.  My waist measurement was devastating and I knew that my stomach was pushing maximum density (at times I felt my gut was pushing out past my enormous boobs!) but I still can recall my awesomely slim and svelte 27 inch waist of yore.  My BMI is not a suprise to me, nor was my weight, albeit not something I have wanted to deal with at all - shocking I know.  I have been in the obese BMI range for many many years now - even when I was 25 pounds less than I am now, the range on that thing is not very forgiving and I need to weigh what I weighed before I was married to get into the healthy range.

So what was really depressing to me though and downright scary was the blood pressure.  She urged my to call my doctor and start medication right away.   Not just because of the threat of a massive coronary event or because I could stroke out at any minute (although definitely a possibility for me) but because of the organ damage I am doing from carrying too much pressure in my veins. She also told me this was a direct result of menopause (also, my waist measurement was menopausal). I begged her for two months. Two months to lower the number and to whittle away at my waist which is a direct link to my blood pressure.  I absolutely must lower these two numbers.  10 inches, 20 pounds and ten points on my blood pressure at least.  No ifs ands or buts.  Those are the numbers that need to be seen by Thanksgiving.
So I came home and immediately looked up endurance runs.  I searched all day for my next big race.  The one that would set me on my goals.  I can't do an endurance run being all fat and out of shape.  Those people have great BMI's and blood pressures.  But here's the rub - you can do those things fat.  It's hard but I have done four marathons while sitting in the obese BMI range.
The endurance race is not going to get me there.  So I signed up for Weight Watchers.  I have given into the fact that I must be write down every single thing I eat.  I need to count calories.  I need to weigh and measure my food.  I am 100% interested in nutrition and fuel and veggies and veganism and micro nutrients and phyto nutrients and sustainable, organic farming and all those things.  But really what I need to be interested in is how many calories am I putting in my body and how many calories am I burning every single day.  I need to be all biggest loser, not ultra marathon woman right now.  I cannot look at the next big deal in order to forego the hard work.  I cannot maintain this denial about how I look and now how my body is reacting to my weight.  I must do the work.  I must relish the process and I must throw my heart and soul into it.  I have said this before and now I must say it again, I must be relentless in my pursuit of health.  If I don't, I will just be a middle aged, post menopausal, obese, blood pressure medicine taking marathoner.  That's not good enough for me.  But I still will be signing up for that race in Georgia for next October!