Vampires, Stomach Virus and BBQ

A lot of water has swooshed under the bridge since my last entry. I won't bore you with all the gory details, but suffice it to say, it's been a rush.

I was at work one night last week and was bored, so I decided to watch a movie on youtube. I ran across Twilight. I've never really wanted to see it because I thought it was mainly a bunch of greasy kid stuff for teenage girls. But I thought, what they hey, I don't have anything better to do, so I watched it.

DANG.IT.

It was pretty good. So good, in fact, that when I got off work at 0700, I made a Walmart run and bought the first two Twilight series books. I read them in two days. Then I found the other two books online. I read them in two days. They just got better and better. I checked out the New Moon movie today and watched it tonight with my two daughters. I felt like and old vampire, lurking among the video stores, waiting for the release of this teeny-bobber movie. It was embarrassing. But worth it...so, so worth it. The movie was pretty good. It had all three of us holding our breath and clenching the arms of our chairs.

Anyway, since I didn't sleep or hardly eat last week, I don't have a lot to report on the raw food diet. About all I did was read. I did eat a few salads because, as I discovered, if you go for so long without eating, nothing sounds good to you and nothing tastes right when you do eat. I ate mostly salads and a few fish sticks (hey, live like a kid, eat like a kid).

In the midst of all that midlife crisis, I got the stomach virus. Yep, just like that poor kid in the movie. It was AWFUL. I had a fruit & veggie smoothie that morning, but I just didn't feel quite right. I had gone over to Cheryll's that morning and she and I took the grandkids shopping. She asked me if I felt alright and I said "no, not really, but why do you ask?". She said "you are really pale and your lips are blue". I thought I was feeling crappy from detox, which you go through when you are first going over to raw foods. Nope, my lips only turn blue like that when I am sick. I got her to take me home, which was a darn good thing, because no sooner did I get home when the bottom fell out of my entire digestive system. It was like New Years Eve at Krakatoa. Sooo, it may be a very long time before I can stand the thought of another fruit and veggie smoothie. Since they are kind of the epicenter of a good raw food diet, this may slow me down a little. But I'm not going to go down without a fight.

I started out about 7 months ago weighing 225 lbs. I am now down to 199. I guess as long as I keep trying, it's going to gradually get easier and more fruitful...literally and figuratively. My family (Mom, Aunt, Dad, sisters, etc) don't really know what to make of it. They probably think I'm not wrapped tight. My Mom thinks I will "get me a boyfriend" (ohdearLordnonotthat) if I keep doing what I'm doing. Yeah. OK. Look Mom, don't mess up my good thing here by praying for me a boyfriend. I got it made! I am my own person, for the first time in my life, and I certainly am not giving that away! No, I like men. I really do. But I admit I do put them into that same category as cats. Lovely creatures, as long as they belong to someone else and not me.

Today it was salad and a grilled boca burger. My son-in-law is a sweetie, and a wiz on the grill, and he lightly grilled a burg and some asparagus for me, but he did it last, so I could pretty much taste the chicken fat on my food. I made a salad of baby greens (weeds, I call 'em) with chunks of apple, tomato, avocado and asparagus with a grilled Boca on top. It was pretty good. I am finding though that I will have to give up all grilled food sooner than I expected. Anything grilled messes with my stomach pretty bad. So, it's just as well. It'll get me that much closer to 100% raw food if I forego grilled or cooked anything. And I am giving up meat anyway, because it really is not good for you and can't do anything for your body that raw veggies and fruit can't do better. So it's not too much of a hardship. When you get my age (48) you usually have something that you can't eat because it doesn't agree with you. Meat is that to me.

Don't get me wrong. I could tunnel my way through a chocolate cake or pecan pie. I have a horrible sweet tooth. That is my hardship... sugar. I love it. But I am cutting it back. I tried going cold turkey off the sugar and it made me want to pull everyone's hair out. So I just have a little in my tea or coffee. (Yeah, I'm still drinking coffee, though not everyday anymore...which is a miracle in itself).

Well, that's all the blather for today. It was trivial, but nevertheless a part of the picture. Maybe next time I'll have broken some horses or mud wrestled or something else interesting I can work into my vegetable tales.
We'll see. ;)