While 75% of my recent visitors (approximately the past 3 weeks) live in the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii), the remaining 25% live outside the states.
Please accept this warm welcome to my visitors from:
- Canada
- Italy
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- Brazil
I have traveled to Canada, the United Kingdom, and Italy. I have also traveled to France, Germany, Amsterdam, Spain, and Switzerland. My most fond food memories come from Italy and Spain.
Both years that I traveled Europe, I came home thinner. I find that the availability of healthier food choices in other countries (from ingredients to prevailing attitudes about food) is often the subject of books I read about health. In fact, the growing weight and general health problem in the United States is highly attributed to SAD, or the Standard American Diet.
I most enjoyed the book, "French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure" by Mireille Guiliano. I recommend this book to anybody as a wonderful commentary on weight issues that reach far beyond superficial motives and quick fixes.
I hope to see all of you again soon!
Hawa
PS: Thanks to Google Analytics for the cool maps and site visitor statistics that allow me to "see" my International friends. If you have a blog, you need to sign up for this free service.
I am surprised at how many times we get this question at the Yahoo group. Many members are frightened by internet urban legend that laments, "once you come off the cleanse, you pack on huge amounts of weight the moment you eat a morsel of food." These claims are often made by people who either didn't actually do the cleanse, or did the cleanse and went back to crappy eating afterwards.
In spite of the consistent evidence that weight is lost when you burn more calories than you consume - people still ask about what it takes to keep weight off. By confusing the basic answer, companies pocket kajillions of dollars while consumers bounce from solution-to-solution - believing that the answer lies in a remedy that can be purchased off the shelf.
So here's my official answer to the common question about managing weight after a cleanse:
1. Break the cleanse properly. Don't miss a single step in the process as described in the book.
2. Make a slow return to eating. Don't have a bacon cheeseburger right after you complete the "breaking" process. Remember, your metabolism slowed during the cleanse and requires some time to increase to normal levels. Naturally, if you pack in the calories now, you can't metabolize it all.
3. Reduce portions. Today's inhuman portion sizes produced lots of spare tires. Don't judge the proper portion by the tub of pasta served by your favorite Italian food restaurant. I had a small-dang-boat of pasta (Rigatoni Martino) at Carrabba's yesterday. I jumped in head-first and almost got lost in the bowl. It may have been delicious, but normal serving sizes say that my tub held enough food for probably 3 servings.
4. Exercise. Physical exercise helps the body burn calories. If you're gonna burn more than you eat, you must be physically active. Don't buy into the notion that you must have the latest exercise video to do this. Do what you enjoy. Garden. Walk. Ride your bike. There's no magic. Just get moving. If you choose to just control food without exercise, prepare yourself for tiny tiny portions. In my opinion, such a lack of balance isn't healthy.
5. When health is just as important as weight loss, improve the quality of your food. Some people just care about weight. While that may work for them, I'm also interested in long-term health results. In that case, choose whole complex carbs over simple and processed carbs (e.g. white bread, white pasta, etc.) Include lots of "living" foods. It's the living enzymes in food (such as uncooked vegetables) that aid our digestion. Don't fill your days with dead, overcooked, over processed food with no nutritional value.
6. Keep life interesting. Many "diets" require you to omit certain foods for life. That's a great way to lose interest in food and go back to gorging on your favorites. Make sure your eating includes small portions of things you love and some exploratory foods, like the purple whattsit-veggie that you've never seen before.
7. TRUST YOUR BODY'S CUES. You are your own best advocate. You know how certains foods and habits make you feel. Instead of hoping that somebody else's prescription will work for you, learn to manage your own health. You know when you're getting full. Push away from the table. You know which foods make you tired. Don't eat them and cause yourself to skip exercise. See my post on "Doctor Yourself" about your responsibility to learn about your personal health and stop letting propaganda rule your decisions.
Rock on.
Quotes like this can really captivate:
"One-third of what you eat keeps you alive.
The other two-thirds keep your doctor alive."
How about this one...
"Natural healing is not about avoiding doctors. It's about not needing to go to doctors. A dentist is not upset if you're cavity free. A doctor should not be upset if you're healthy."
Both quotes are attributed to Dr. Andrew Saul, who has taken on the war for good health. I came across Dr. Saul in my decision process to fire my doctor and hire a naturopath for my health needs. I know a woman who essentially nursed herself back from health (hadn't walked for almost 2 years) by cleansing and seeing a naturopath. The typical doctor goes blue in the face when you introduce the idea of going without food for 10 days. The same doctors respond with wide-eyed amazement after the cleanse produces outstanding health benefits.
This week, I will order Dr. Saul's book, Doctor Yourself, which focuses on our responsibility to care for our health. The author of one book review offers the following compelling comment:
Doctor Yourself is titled and based on a simple premise: every person is responsible for their own health care. When a person abdicates that responsibility, they often place themselves in the hands of the "disease care" industry, a monolithic and profit-driven enterprise where getting well isn't the bottom line.
After reading the book, I'll provide commentary here at the blog.
Rock on.
Sunday, August 6th
Prayer and fasting are the dynamic duo. Many who cleanse for spiritual reasons share a common experience when it comes to cleansing and spending some prayerful alone time.
Well I discovered something this morning: We can be led to fast even when it comes to the prayers that we pray for others.
After arriving at church this A.M., and sometime before service started, the Pastor and his wife shared wonderful news with me. Their lives were touched in an area that I have been praying for. I realized that this cleanse/fast wasn't for me at all... but an opportunity to get the Dynamic Duo working on an old prayer.
It's human nature to pray for ourselves, cleanse for ourselves, and hope for personal blessings. Yet praying for the lives of others is a much higher calling. The last time your grocery cashier looked blue, did you speak a kind word and say a small prayer for her as you left the store? That tiny gesture could change the course of her day and therefore every day after.
I know I'm off on a tangent, and somebody should really hook me with a large cane.
I said all that to say: My work is done here. I'm very satisfied with my cleanse results, almost more so to see that the result was for somebody else. Tomorrow is Attack of the Oranges.
Cleansing Rocks. hehe
A note to my readers: In weeks to come, I will be expanding the scope of this blog to include more posts about my life after cleansing and general health information, and other specific research about the Master Cleanse. In spite of successes with the Master Cleanse, my goal is to live a "cleansed life," which to me is defined by healthier living on a daily basis.
Rock on.
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