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had really intense therapy this morning. we talked about my desire to leave Portland, and he told me about his reasons for leaving (they've been gone about a year and a half I think?) and it got really intense. Also stuff with Finley and Josh that was nice to just vent about, and some gratitude practices, and he sent me some info about adaptogens that I'm looking forward to reading. I taught him the Beauty Way Chant and talked about Martha Beck a little and it was all just really nice, with a little bit of tears. I really like therapy. Learning so much.
It's so crazy to me, as I get older, to see how kind of generally sickly most Americans are and how normalized it is. I was checking up on a youtuber who goes by "Hot and Flashy," who is in her early 60s, and works extremely hard on her appearance and also tries to be really fit. She *is* really fit, for her age, for an American. But she confessed that she has Osteopenia and each time she gets a bone density scan it gets worse, and she feels like she's "doing everything right" and keeps trying things like estrogen to try to fix those numbers.
She talked about reducing her sugar and processed food intake and upping her protein, which is exactly what menopausal/post-menopausal women need to do, but then in her "what I eat in a day" video, she started with processed cereal and oat milk. Oat milk is full of canola oil, which most people don't realize is poison, and it is in pretty much everything if one eats out anywhere. (This is why Josh and I almost never eat out. We don't want to poison ourselves and try to do so as little as possible.) So, she's trying, with the cereal - she adds nuts to it, but it's not enough.
I am in the middle of a serious attempt to get back to my fighting weight, and I eat:
breakfast: pastured, full-fat organic unsweetened sheep milk yogurt which has 20g of protein per serving, with berries from the farmers market or that i foraged myself, sliced seasonal local organic fruit (right now it's peaches), sprouted almonds or roasted local organic hazelnuts, cinnamon, raw cacao nibs (no sugar), goji berries, hemp seeds, sea salt and pepper (my body does not hold onto salt so I need extra). This tastes like ice cream to me, it is the most delicious meal. I will also eat a banana and often another handful of sprouted or roasted organic nuts.
OR, avocado with an egg, sea salt and pepper, hemp seeds, and unfortified nutritional yeast, chopped sage and rosemary. If I'm craving carbs, I will put this on a small slice of local artisan organic sourdough with a pat of grass-fed organic butter.
Also always coffee with organic grass-fed half and half. Grass-fed meat and dairy has a different molecular structure in its fat that is heart-healthy. There are scientific studies about this.
If I snack, during the day, it is cashews and I try to go easy, and/or 100% unsweetened organic dark chocolate, no more than one serving (four squares if it's Alter Eco, two if Ghirardelli.) Or fresh seasonal fruit (apple, nectarine, etc.)
If I am being naughty, a local baked pastry or plantain chips (cooked with coconut oil) might slip in there somewhere, but I am trying *so hard* to be good.
Granola is a weakness I occasionally indulge in but I try very hard not to. Too much sugar.
In the winter I tend to eat more oatmeal, with the same toppings as the yogurt meal. And I make soups from scratch. I haven't been baking anything, lately.
For dinner, I force myself to eat meat, usually - pastured chicken or red meat of some kind, or salmon or sardines, I usually can't make myself eat more than 3-4 ounces though I really should be eating more for how active/athletic I am. Along with that, steamed organic farmers market veggies with organic single-source traceable olive oil and hemp seeds, sea salt and pepper, and unfortified nutritional yeast.
This is pretty much all I've been eating for the last week or so.
(Tonight I skipped the meat and just had the steamed veggies with a soft boiled egg.)
I can't really afford to mess this up, at my age, if I want to shed any weight and actually feel good.
I don't get sick.
The only time I got covid was when I hosted my mom's memorial, in 2022, at the peak of the delta surge.
I work out daily, sometimes double-headers.
I hydrate with sea-salted mineral water or hopped water or carbonated water with bitters and lemon sea salt if I'm feeling fancy. Dry kombucha if I need a little kick.
I drink an almond milk latte or almond milk matcha latte pretty much daily. I know that milk is processed but it is for now an acceptable level of toxin.
I don't do drugs, or drink.
Every once in a while I get treats like popcorn or fancy organic chocolate covered cashews or de-alcoholized wine or non-alcoholic beer. I had ice cream at the Beats Antique/Emancipator show and it was AMAZING. The nice thing about such a strict diet is that treats are REALLY amazing when they happen. Like, that treat where I take organic corn tortillas and top it with organic cheese and thin sliced local peaches and toast them. omggggggggg.
Sometimes when I need something tasty after the veggies I just eat a little bit of grass fed butter by itself. It has healthy fats and K2 and I don't want to put it on bread or something else that my body doesn't need, so I just eat it straight, maybe half a tablespoon or so, as a snack, and it's so delicious to me. This apparently is a fairly common behavior for menopausal women. I remember catching my mom eating butter straight when she was this age. Definitely something we hide, though Josh knows and calls it my "butter pop" when he sees me licking yellow cream off of a spoon, lol.
But for me, steamed veggies are a treat. Blueberries are a treat. I love what I eat and crave it regularly. I can't wait to eat and I'm so happy during my meals. I feel so good after. I don't get that phelgmy cough/throat thing that happens after a meal eaten out somewhere. I love all of it. All but the meat, which I just tolerate because I know I need the protein. The eggs are just okay. I wish I could live on vegetables and yogurt but I can't. My iron falls too low if I don't eat meat. And other nutrients.
Occasionally when I'm not trying to lose weight I'll make veggie tacos with canned black or red or chili beans and all kinds of veggies and a light sprinkle of cheese on an organic corn tortilla.
Or a pot of black rice with rosemary salt.
When I make red lentils for Josh I sometimes eat a bite or two (also cooked with rosemary salt).
This is pretty much it.
(I make a lot more different kinds of things for Josh, curries and stir fries and protein-pastas and such.)
It makes me happy and it helps my mood, I notice this the most with the veggies and 100% chocolate.
The only other people I know who eat this way are people online, or my neighbor who is a doctor, or my hyper-athletic girlfriend Liz, who's dad is a doctor.
People would call this extreme. To not eat packaged, processed food, or fried food, or canned food, or frozen food, or restaurant food.
But I feel best this way.
I think the Standard American Diet (SAD) is extreme.
But I'm a weirdo, I know.
It's so crazy to me, as I get older, to see how kind of generally sickly most Americans are and how normalized it is. I was checking up on a youtuber who goes by "Hot and Flashy," who is in her early 60s, and works extremely hard on her appearance and also tries to be really fit. She *is* really fit, for her age, for an American. But she confessed that she has Osteopenia and each time she gets a bone density scan it gets worse, and she feels like she's "doing everything right" and keeps trying things like estrogen to try to fix those numbers.
She talked about reducing her sugar and processed food intake and upping her protein, which is exactly what menopausal/post-menopausal women need to do, but then in her "what I eat in a day" video, she started with processed cereal and oat milk. Oat milk is full of canola oil, which most people don't realize is poison, and it is in pretty much everything if one eats out anywhere. (This is why Josh and I almost never eat out. We don't want to poison ourselves and try to do so as little as possible.) So, she's trying, with the cereal - she adds nuts to it, but it's not enough.
I am in the middle of a serious attempt to get back to my fighting weight, and I eat:
breakfast: pastured, full-fat organic unsweetened sheep milk yogurt which has 20g of protein per serving, with berries from the farmers market or that i foraged myself, sliced seasonal local organic fruit (right now it's peaches), sprouted almonds or roasted local organic hazelnuts, cinnamon, raw cacao nibs (no sugar), goji berries, hemp seeds, sea salt and pepper (my body does not hold onto salt so I need extra). This tastes like ice cream to me, it is the most delicious meal. I will also eat a banana and often another handful of sprouted or roasted organic nuts.
OR, avocado with an egg, sea salt and pepper, hemp seeds, and unfortified nutritional yeast, chopped sage and rosemary. If I'm craving carbs, I will put this on a small slice of local artisan organic sourdough with a pat of grass-fed organic butter.
Also always coffee with organic grass-fed half and half. Grass-fed meat and dairy has a different molecular structure in its fat that is heart-healthy. There are scientific studies about this.
If I snack, during the day, it is cashews and I try to go easy, and/or 100% unsweetened organic dark chocolate, no more than one serving (four squares if it's Alter Eco, two if Ghirardelli.) Or fresh seasonal fruit (apple, nectarine, etc.)
If I am being naughty, a local baked pastry or plantain chips (cooked with coconut oil) might slip in there somewhere, but I am trying *so hard* to be good.
Granola is a weakness I occasionally indulge in but I try very hard not to. Too much sugar.
In the winter I tend to eat more oatmeal, with the same toppings as the yogurt meal. And I make soups from scratch. I haven't been baking anything, lately.
For dinner, I force myself to eat meat, usually - pastured chicken or red meat of some kind, or salmon or sardines, I usually can't make myself eat more than 3-4 ounces though I really should be eating more for how active/athletic I am. Along with that, steamed organic farmers market veggies with organic single-source traceable olive oil and hemp seeds, sea salt and pepper, and unfortified nutritional yeast.
This is pretty much all I've been eating for the last week or so.
(Tonight I skipped the meat and just had the steamed veggies with a soft boiled egg.)
I can't really afford to mess this up, at my age, if I want to shed any weight and actually feel good.
I don't get sick.
The only time I got covid was when I hosted my mom's memorial, in 2022, at the peak of the delta surge.
I work out daily, sometimes double-headers.
I hydrate with sea-salted mineral water or hopped water or carbonated water with bitters and lemon sea salt if I'm feeling fancy. Dry kombucha if I need a little kick.
I drink an almond milk latte or almond milk matcha latte pretty much daily. I know that milk is processed but it is for now an acceptable level of toxin.
I don't do drugs, or drink.
Every once in a while I get treats like popcorn or fancy organic chocolate covered cashews or de-alcoholized wine or non-alcoholic beer. I had ice cream at the Beats Antique/Emancipator show and it was AMAZING. The nice thing about such a strict diet is that treats are REALLY amazing when they happen. Like, that treat where I take organic corn tortillas and top it with organic cheese and thin sliced local peaches and toast them. omggggggggg.
Sometimes when I need something tasty after the veggies I just eat a little bit of grass fed butter by itself. It has healthy fats and K2 and I don't want to put it on bread or something else that my body doesn't need, so I just eat it straight, maybe half a tablespoon or so, as a snack, and it's so delicious to me. This apparently is a fairly common behavior for menopausal women. I remember catching my mom eating butter straight when she was this age. Definitely something we hide, though Josh knows and calls it my "butter pop" when he sees me licking yellow cream off of a spoon, lol.
But for me, steamed veggies are a treat. Blueberries are a treat. I love what I eat and crave it regularly. I can't wait to eat and I'm so happy during my meals. I feel so good after. I don't get that phelgmy cough/throat thing that happens after a meal eaten out somewhere. I love all of it. All but the meat, which I just tolerate because I know I need the protein. The eggs are just okay. I wish I could live on vegetables and yogurt but I can't. My iron falls too low if I don't eat meat. And other nutrients.
Occasionally when I'm not trying to lose weight I'll make veggie tacos with canned black or red or chili beans and all kinds of veggies and a light sprinkle of cheese on an organic corn tortilla.
Or a pot of black rice with rosemary salt.
When I make red lentils for Josh I sometimes eat a bite or two (also cooked with rosemary salt).
This is pretty much it.
(I make a lot more different kinds of things for Josh, curries and stir fries and protein-pastas and such.)
It makes me happy and it helps my mood, I notice this the most with the veggies and 100% chocolate.
The only other people I know who eat this way are people online, or my neighbor who is a doctor, or my hyper-athletic girlfriend Liz, who's dad is a doctor.
People would call this extreme. To not eat packaged, processed food, or fried food, or canned food, or frozen food, or restaurant food.
But I feel best this way.
I think the Standard American Diet (SAD) is extreme.
But I'm a weirdo, I know.
