Whew! Back in!

Wow!  I just spent 30 minutes trying to get back into my blog.  It's all pretty confusing and complicated to me.

Well,  I'm sad to say I have gained most of my weight back.  The reasons aren't obscure.  I know why.  But I have also had great weeks of solid 100% raw and liquid with little weight loss.

Someone suggested I might be low in Iodine and it is easy to test and see if this is my case.  Online I found several articles about low Iodine, which makes this all even more confusing since there is conflicting information out there.  Some of the authors had "Dr." in front of their name, but are they really?  Anyway, some say to test for low levels of Iodine I need to paint a patch of Iodine on my upper thigh, belly, or inside the upper arm.  If the Iodine fades quickly it means my body is low in Iodine.  Several foods were listed that should be eaten to bring levels up and several foods not to eat because they deplete Iodine levels.

Other articles stated the Iodine test isn't a true indication of Iodine levels.  That Iodine evaporates into the air faster than it soaks into the skin so the "fading" Iodine indicating a low level is actually due to evaporation.

Another article stated that a blood test is still not an accurate indicator of Iodine levels.  I read this to be kind of like a false/positive outcome.  The test could show you are fine in the Iodine levels but actually be too low.  (I would like to know what test is being used to determine a good outcome still might be wrong.)

Anyway, all this to say there is so much information out there and all of it is conflicting.  I will say if an article has a product to sell you to fix your problem, stay away.  It's just a commercial for their product.

It can't hurt to eat more sea vegetables, onions, radishes, watercress, eggs, and dairy.  Supplements listed to take are tyrosine, iodine, zinc, copper, and selenium.  Chomping on sea vegetables will be easy.  I chewed on some today and it has a pleasant flavor by itself.

A couple articles said brown sea vegetables are the best with red next best.  Here are the brown sea vegetables:  kelp, Focus (aka Bladder-wrack), Hijike, Sargassum.  Red sea vegetables:  dulce, nori, Irish Moss, Gracilaria.

I have heard of a couple of these.  The rest I'll do some research on and look at online sources.  Mountain Rose Herbs has several sea vegetables available.

The morale of this story:  do your own research.  Don't read just one online article written by someone you don't know, who may or may not be a real doctor of anything, and take their word as gospel.  Do your own legwork.  The internet is full of misinformation and it's mixed in with the good information.

Too Long Between Posts

My goodness but it's been too long between posts.  I let life become too busy.  My brain becomes fuzzy and I forget things.  Important things like a good friend's birthday, dates I volunteered for and event at church.


I have gained weight.  It's a bummer but it is also my fault.  No one else's.  No series of events made me choose to eat what I did or choose not to be high raw.  It still amazes me how fast I can put weight on but what a struggle it is to take off.  Even when I'm 100% raw for several weeks straight I can put on weight.  That is discouraging.


Lately my body has felt run down and I know exactly why.  I haven't been drinking water because I'm cold and don't think about dehydration during winter months.  During cold months I drink a lot of hot coffee and sometimes herb tea.  Heavy foods seem to call to me during the cold winter months.  I wonder if that is a natural instinctive hibernation mode we go into.  Whatever it is I'm fully insulated but don't want to be.


Something else I have been struggling with is body image.  The number on the scale doesn't totally upset me but my lumpy sack of potatoes body does.  I saw a picture of a young lady who is overweight by about 50 lbs.  She is very comfortable in her skin.  But I was looking at her sporting a cute bikini bathing suit and actually felt jealousy.  She had a lovely, softly curved body, an hourglass shape that I will never have and I was jealous of her body.  We both have the same amount of extra weight on our frames but she was so proportionate and beautifully shaped.


And let's talk exercise.  So many people talk about how much they enjoy exercising but I can't like it.  It's a chore to me.  I wish I liked exercise.  I have a few great DVDs but I'm not motivated.  I totally understand that I am not going to get the body I want by sitting at the computer and I hardly count housework.   I just need to do it.  Any amount is better than nothing, though.  The body I want isn't going to happen by itself.  There isn't a magic pill, no magic machine that is going to tone my body.  It's a mindset.  Am I tired of my sack-of-potatoes body or am I not?  If so, get off your butt Molly and do something to change it!  Only I can change my thinking.


Okay, that's enough.  I need to not stress and dwell on things, events, and people I cannot control.  I can only control myself and that is more than enough!

Farmer's Market

Friday I went to two local markets and had such a good time.  The first was a small market called New Roots for Refugees.  The people are taught to grow food for themselves and enough to sell so they can learn to be self-sustaining.  This was a great market for greens and I really feel it is one that I can support long-term.  You can read about New Roots for Refugees here.  This is what I came home with:

There are white turnips which are melt-in-your mouth smooth, radish, dill, collards, kale, Muchichu which is some type of green, cilantro, and purple and green kohlrabi.

That evening a couple friends and I went to the Bad Seed Farm market in downtown KC.  That was a lot of fun! Sheep cheese, Local-bucha, greens, peas, turnips.  Next door the owners of a new soon-to-open vegan restaurant was handing out samples.  This wasn't just a Dixie cup but a dessert-sized plate with nice helping of three types of fare.  OMGsh!  It was delicious!  I put my name on the emailing list!

If you have local farmer's markets please visit them.  It's nice to know that what I bought was grown a mere 10 to 15 minutes from my own home.  And these are worthy of our support instead of big-box stores where food comes from where?  They used what type of chemicals?  Who am I supporting with this purchase?  Well, you get the picture, now do you really get the BIG picture?

Morning Guest

This was such a pleasant start to my day.  This sweet little bird was perched outside the living room window with Mama and Papa Robin chirping away in the nearby tree.  

This is Pumpkin also seeing the baby Robin outside the window.

And Strat is seeing the baby Robin, though he isn't quite as interested as Pumpkin.

Sabotage! and Organized Eating

I don't know why it happens.  Things seem to be going okay (food-wise), losing weight and inches, feeling good, and... KAPOW!  It happens.  A weak moment.  Something slips past the lips and begins a downward spiral of SAD gnoshing and munching that I seem powerless to stop.  

I have been on a junk food binge for a couple weeks and I cannot seem to get off.  I have smoothie makings and made a great fennel, apple, raisin salad the other day.  What makes me crave stuff that is so bad for me?  Why am I so powerless to resist?  I know what it does to me and how it makes me feel.  


I feel like Paul.  I do what I don't want to do and don't do what I know I need to do.  


I have some great fresh foods in the house.  Perhaps if I were better organized in my eating.  Instead of winging my meals, which is easy to do when you cook food, it isn't the best thing for fresh raw foods because there is often prep-time involved.  


That's it... I need to be better organized.  Not necessarily better stocked, just better planning with what I have.  I have never been good at planning ahead and that trait often causes me some stress.

That will be my one goal for the week.  Better planning with my food.  Instead of a drive-thru I'll

have a packed cooler.  One step at a time.  Rome wasn't built in a day and I sure can't change a

lifetime of bad habits overnight.

It Fits!

After 20 years, a gift my thoughtful husband gave me fits.  Here is the story:

20 years ago I was pregnant with our second child.  At Christmas the office I worked was planning it's usual Christmas party (always a dress-up affair).  The other girls were on diets to lose weight so they could fit into their beautiful slinky dresses.  I on the other hand was putting on weight at six months pregnant and feeling anything but pretty.  The party came and we all have a wonderful time.

Christmas morning:  hubby and I are sitting on the living room floor watching daughter #1 open her presents.  Hubs gives me a thin, wrapped box.  I open the box and inside the tissue paper is a candy apple red satin lingerie set with a camisole top and tap pants.  As I looked at this gift he told me,  "I know you were upset that the girls in the office were trying to lose weight and you're gaining because you're pregnant.  But I know you'll be wearing this soon.  I thought you would look pretty in it."

Well, it's been 20 years since he gave me that gift and I have never been able to wear it.  This morning I saw it in my drawer and thought, "Why not try it on?"  It fits!  The elastic in the taps is pretty much gone (whose isn't after 20 years?!)  but the lingerie fits!  I think I'll surprise my hubby this weekend and thank him for such a loving and thoughtful gift!

Foods That Just Don't Seem As Tempting

I receive several different email notifications from different types of foodie bloggers, raw, vegan, not raw.  The other day I received a post about a coconut baked flat round thing (you can guess, I just didn't want to type it).  This morning I finally opened it expecting it would be one of those recipes to be printed and saved (I am a recipe, cookbook, uncookbook collector).  But when I opened it and looked at the baked flat round thing it didn't set off any sirens, bells or whistles.  I just looked at it and thought, "Eh.  It's a coconut baked flat round thing."  No mouth watering, racing pulse, nothing.

But when I opened the picture of Bryan Au's Bear Claw the drooling mechanism kicked in big time!  Don't get me wrong, I still love to bake and cook, but will admit that even if I snitch a baked treat it just doesn't seem the same as it did say two years ago.  It's still good, just not satisfying.  Does that make sense?

When I first started green smoothies two years ago I would try raw "baked" goods but just couldn't "do" the texture.  It seems so heavy when I had my mouth set for light and fluffy.  It would be nice to find light and fluffy raw goodies, but with my desire for tastes and textures changing, light and fluffy may not be what I like anymore.  We'll see.