Category: Lifestyle

My god, what a week.

The fatigue was unreal.

I’m not sure which had the greater effect on my energy – caffeine withdrawal, the food detox, or the kick-my-booty yoga workshop with Desi Springer and John Friend – but I was a tired puppy dog.  Surely it’s a combination of all three, but I’m putting my money on caffeine as the primary culprit.

I even took naps.  Yes, naps.  Now, I am not what you’d call a nap person, but there was an afternoon that I could not help myself but collapse into bed between the yoga training and teaching and passed out.  Deep, sloggy, bone-ass tired.

And the moods.

Friends, I would like to share: I am not always a bright, chipper ray of sunshine.  Yes, I love the light.  I relish the uplifting joy of being alive, embodied and in play with the universe.  Like a plant, I yearn to lean into the light and expand my happy little leaves.  But there are days where I descend into the darkness and the muck.  My happy little leaves get squashed under a big-ass boot called “Anxiety-Depression” and down I go into the boggy depths.

Last week there were moments of light…and there was also some serious swamp time.

But sometimes we gotta be in the swamp.  There ain’t no lotus without the mud.   If we’re going to clean the house, there are going to be some dust bunnies.  Now – relatively on the other side – I marvel at the emotional journey.  Yoga was incredibly helpful during this time.  I am very grateful for Desi Springer and John Friend’s heart-bursting, booty shaking yoga workshops.  I have no doubt that – despite my weary resistance – consistently working to expand my physical body helped to woo my nervous system from its depths.

Tips for your first week

From my experience over this last week, here are some tips for you if you’re going on a cleanse:

• Be ready to be tired.  The fatigue that you’ve been hiding under your sugar and caffeine feedings will surface.  Let it come.  Embrace it.  It is your authentic energy body finally having a chance to ask for rest.  Give yourself the time and space to get quiet.  Sleep.
• Allow your emotions to surface, rise, and pass.  Like your fatigue, emotions frequently get stuffed under food and drinking habits.  We dull out the feelings we don’t want with alcohol and comfort foods.  Breathe.  It’s okay.
• Do yoga.  Show up to your practice.  But give yourself permission to modify.  Try restorative or yin.
• Slow down, clear your schedule.  Give yourself permission to nourish your senses with walks outside, music, good books.
• Drink warm liquids.  Even just warm water.  Warm liquids help your digestion and calm your nervous system.
• Sit quietly for 5 minutes a day and simply feel your body and your breath.

On another note, forgive your cleanse lapses.

I had some slip up’s this week (like the moment I realized my beloved Bragg’s is made with soy.  Duh.  I think I was in denial.), but the big picture is really what’s important.  You are making big positive changes.  Do your best, but forgive the lapses.  Then do your best.

And my caffeine update.  Okay, I had a small caffeine lapse.  And I’ve been a little obsessive about decaf coffee.  I know it’s a sticky point for me.  So as a personal challenge, next week I may try to get off coffee entirely.  Onwards.  Week 3.

Um, I think I’ll consider this week a warm up week.   A…mostly elimination diet week.

I’ve done a pretty good job of cutting out the potential causes of digestive alarm, but…there have been a couple slip ups.  Mostly involving decaf coffee and diary substitutes.  (Starbucks – why do you only have soy?  Why?)   However, since discovering the outrageous goodness of almond-milk decaf lattes (really good ones available at 49th parallel, Whole Foods, Bica, and Gene’s), I feel that I can overcome nearly anything.  That is, except letting go of decaf coffee entirely.

Another Achilles heel?  Popcorn.  I am a crunchy, crunch finger food-lovin’ fan.  But corn is a no-go (even dry popped and organic), so instead I will satiate my crunch needs forthwith on rice cakes.

While eliminating many of the comfort foods from my diet is a physical challenge (read on, friends, read on), the really interesting part of this process is psychological.  It’s become very entertaining to watch my mind find excellent excuses for satiation:

• “But I deserve a coffee!”
• “Surely a little won’t hurt.”
• “It’s just rude not to toast with real champagne!”
• “But popcorn is healthy!”
• “They’ll think I’m so weird for not drinking!”  (It is so much fun to make others responsible for my decisions.)

Truly, a major reason that I’m doing this elimination process is to withstand the strident compulsions of my mind.  By changing the way I eat, I am beginning to change my identity as an eater.  I am not interested in being on a temporary diet that will have me yo-yoing between being “good” and “bad.”   Rather, I’d love to set up eating habits (and an identity) that will best support my functionality, wellness, and happiness as a human being.  Going a bit to an extreme through this elimination diet helps me to confront the harpy voices in my head and settle into the discomfort of not appeasing my mind’s every whim.  Getting comfortable with discomfort opens a world of possibilities and helps us to make good choices that are inconvenient.

…Even though I’m not giving up decaf coffee.

Yes, I see the irony.  But baby steps, okay?

Symptom #1: Fatigue

So, I’ve been absolutely exhausted.  Waking up in the mornings has been a muddy slog.  The first four days of last week were characterized by dullness and headaches – symptoms almost certainly caused by caffeine withdrawal.  And not only do I want to sleep, but my muscles feel physically tired as well.  Attempting to get exercise has been pretty hilarious.  I consider it a triumph if I just make it to class and do the minimum.  And I’m sore!  It’s as if my body is saying, “Slow down there, sister!”  So yes, body, I’m listening.  Slowing down as ordered.

The last time I withdrew from caffeine I experienced a similar torpor.  It’s as if going off caffeine suddenly exposed my underlying extant exhaustion.

These unpleasant side affects raises the question: well, why quit caffeine anyway?  If drinking caffeine gives me a happy high that makes the world seem grand,  why forgo that experience?  Is it that bad for you?

Well, for me, even though the highs feel great, the troughs of a caffeine crash are so brutal that I lose a sense of the difference between real and chemical fatigue.  I also have a hard time with moderation.  My little rat brain thinks: if one cup is good, surely four will be amazing!

For me, caffeine is like a bad, bad boyfriend.  When he’s there, he feels sooooo good…and when he’s gone it feels sooooooo bad.  Until I get over that cheating motherf*cker.

More symptoms

A secondary word for the week: bloating!  Damn, but those veggies know how to turn me into a puff-monster.   With a little pooching, I can seriously look as if I’m in my second trimester.  I think the problem will be ameliorated by the deliberate addition of fish into my diet, rather than trying to source my protein exclusively from vegetables.

Other symptoms?  I’ve also had a lovely breakout on my face.  I’m told this could be related.

Week 1A: 

So: tomorrow begins the…ah, “no-cheating-whatsoever!” portion of the elimination diet.

Well, truthfully, I will do my best, I’m also going to be okay with occasional slip up’s.

Otherwise I’ll accidentally eat soy, give up the ghost, and eat a cake.

Stay tuned.

Oooohhh, coffee!  Coffee I miss you!  Ohhhh, your sweet, sweet caffeine-y goodness!

Well, I have to share, I’m not off to the most perfect of beginnings.  Let’s just start with coffee.

I’ve spent the last ten days in Hawaii, where I went a little overboard (okay – a LOT) with the kona deliciousness.  Oh, delicious kona coffee!  How yummy you are!  I wasn’t going to eliminate coffee completely from my diet right off the bat, but I showed up at the office and we’d run out.  Darn it!  I had some black tea, but friends, it is not the same.   Just.  Not.  The.  Same.  So I’ve spent the last 48 hours sleepy and with a headache (not helped by the red eye flight and jetlag, I’m sure).  Rather stubbornly, I haven’t taken any Advil.  Although I wasn’t really planning on eliminating caffeine right away, I don’t want to let all this headachey detox go to waste.   I’m going to stick to decaf coffee and teas.  I may get away from coffee and caffeinated tea entirely…but let’s not be too hasty.  This is admittedly a place where I’m a little fuzzy in the elimination diet.

Another hiccup to my start: I did my requisite Whole Foods trip (that’s one of the perks of healthy diet change – a gleeful trip to fill a shopping cart with all sort of permitted goodies), but I had forgotten that on my list is no citrus, corn, and potatoes.  Hmmmm, whoops.  They just seemed so healthy when I put them in my cart.  My tactic is to eat them all immediately and consider these first couple days a “ramping up” into the true elimination.  Also, I just realized I can’t eat mustard.  I love mustard.  Or popcorn.  I love popcorn.  Rats.

Other news?

Well, let’s just put it this way.  My guy decided to stay in Hawaii and extra week and I’m darn glad that he did, lest my veggie inspired emissions mar his image of me as a ladylike creature.  It’s been an exciting two days.

To recap:  what is currently out of my diet:

• gluten, flour
• soy (and soy sauce, oh, sad!)
• dairy
• nuts/seeds
• legumes
• alcohol
• caffeinated coffee
• eggs

I’m also going meatless here, but we’ll see how this goes.  Without nuts, seeds, or soy, I’ll have to stay aware of how I feel.

Onwards!

Herein begins the tale of a 3-week odyssey into an….(bum bum bum) elimination diet!

Ever since a trip to India awhile back, my digestion has been plagued by inconsistency.  I’ve tried being vegan, omnivorous, seen two naturopaths, seen an acupuncturist, done the antibiotic route….and still had a grumpy gut.  Having spent the last while happily in mai tai’s and  kona coffee, this seems like a perfect time to do a reset, clean up my act, and see if I can get to the bottom of what ails me.

An elimination diet removes foods that have a tendency to cause digestion issues.  Basically, you take away all the trouble makers for three weeks, then add them in one at a time to see if you have a reaction.

Here’s the game plan I’m intending to follow, courtesy of Precision Nutrition:

“To begin with, a good elimination diet will remove gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, corn, pork, beef, chicken, beans/lentils, coffee, citrus fruits, nuts, and nightshade vegetables. That might sound like a lot, but it leaves plenty of options for a relatively satisfying diet comprised primarily of rice, meat (i.e. turkey, fish, lamb), most fruit, and most types of vegetables.

The following table gives an example of what to include and exclude during an elimination diet.”

Join if you wish and do your own version..perhaps just eliminating alcohol, refined sugar, and gluten, for example. Time for a good fall cleaning!

Here we go!

The issue of poo

Ever since I went to India, my digestion has been…shall we say, “off.”  Ummmm, for those of you who like better descriptors, shall we say…”fuzzy.”  Or ill-formed.  Or goopy.  Or how about let’s just say that my body is not producing the perfect, soft, firm poo that we all aspire to.

I got my poo tested (trust me, you do not want to know how I did this), then did the usual Western solution and endured three weeks on some particularly disgusting antibiotics in an effort to rid myself of my new-found digestive pest.

To no avail.

The sexy naturopath

In desperation, I went to a highly recommended naturopath, who suggested that I do an elimination diet.   She was dressed like one of the real housewives of Newark, New Jersey.   She had high hair, massive bosoms, and a soft, knowing manner.  I quite liked her, and admired how she was able to walk in heels that were so high.

I took an expensive allergy test, waited three weeks, and came back for the update.  She said that though I looked skinny, I had fat around my organs that wasn’t healthy.  I had developed allergies to several foods, but luckily nothing that was permanent.  If I was disciplined for 9 months, I could help my body recover from all of my bad habits and reset my system.  And then she put me on a diet that removed…well, almost everything.

• no gluten, flour
• no dairy
• no soy
• no eggs
• no nuts
• no seeds
• no alcohol
• no caffeine, no coffee
• no sugary foods
• nothing fermented (this truly sucks.  No Braggs.  No Braggs???)
• nothing that would add to yeast (no nutritional yeast, my vegan friends)
• no bananas (particular to me, I have an allergy.  Which makes sense, because they make me feel sick.)
• no broccoli (particular to me, because I lived on it all the time)
• no pineapples
• no citrus fruits
• no corn
• no nightshades (tomatoes, eggplants)
• no potatoes

Understand: when I went to see her, I was vegan.

Take another look at this list, my friends.  No soy, no nuts, no seeds?  What does a vegan eat exactly?

Answer: the vegan eats meat.

Oh, and the naturopath’s specially formulated protein shake mix that she’ll sell you for a low-low price and you’ll need to eat as two meal replacements.

Now, when this event happened, I was ready to try anything to fix up my belly.  Veganism had been a bit tough on my innards.  (For more information, see the many posts on flatulence under “Going Vegan.”)  So, with my newfound, “what not to eat” knowledge, I went home whipped up a buffalo meat stew.  Yep, the same night.

Alan watched from the sidelines, incredulously.

“You’re cooking meat?”

“Yes,” I say, stirring our stew.

“You’ve been vegan for five months, haven’t eaten red meat in 15 years, and now you’re making a buffalo chili.”

“Yes.”

He crossed his arms, leaned against the fridge, suspicious of his good fortune.  “Why?”

“The naturopath says I should.  And I’m anemic, so I’m low on iron.  She says that if I’m going to eat meat, buffalo is my best protein source.”

“I am,” he says emphatically, “thrilled about this.”  Alan, though very supportive, had never been a big fan of my veganism.  At heart, he was an avid meat eater stuck in a pescetarian psyche for the last ten years, and his natural carnivorous cravings were beginning to catch up with him.  My decision to go omnivore suddenly lifted his self-imposed ban as well.

My parents happened to be in town visiting (from Texas, so you can well-imagine that they were also pleased with my culinary turnaround), so we all sat down to eat together.

Alan took a bite and moaned, “It’s soooo good!  Why have I deprived myself for so long!”  He looked at me, wide-eyed and slightly wild, “This is amazing.  I want to always eat like this.”

I took a moment to pray for the buffalo before eating.  Thank you, buffalo.  Thank you for showing me so clearly this great cycle of life and impermanence, and my place within it.  I will not always be here, either, and this moment reveals the constant ebb and flow of material and life force, and my part in it – at least for now.  Thank you.

And I ate.

Did it taste good?  Well, yep, it tasted pretty darn good.  Was I freaked out to be eating meat?  A little freaked out.  But I’d been raised on meat, so it actually didn’t feel or taste that weird.   And what, you may ask, were the side effects?   What happened to my poor system from eating a pretty good portion of red meat after 15 years without?

Answer: nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

And, wouldn’t you know, my digestion started to improve too.

The follow up

In addition to encouraging carnivorousness, the naturopath had also put me on a rigorous supply of supplements (sold by her, top quality at a low, low price) and her twice daily shakes.  When I went in for a check up, she measured my body fat percentage.  It was higher than when I started.

“Isn’t that weird,” I said suspiciously.  “I thought that number was supposed to go down.  You know, the organ fat.”

“No, sometimes it doesn’t.  It’s okay.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m drinking like a can of coconut milk a day in these shakes.”

“No, it’s not the shakes,” she says, “the shakes are fine.”

“And how long am I supposed to do this?”

“Nine months.”

Uh huh.

More problems

Soon after, I started getting massive stomach cramps after drinking the shakes.  I’d never experienced anything like it.

I emailed her, “Why am I getting massive stomach cramps?”

She emailed me back that it’s probably because I’m cheating on my diet. See, even the tiniest cheat can cause a massive setback.  And the tricky things is, you won’t experience an immediate side-effect.  The side effect can turn up a couple days later.  So really, you never know what’s causing your symptoms.  Or maybe it’s the flax oil.  Sometimes that causes a reaction.

Uh huh.

I’m starting not to like this naturopath anymore.  Particularly because she’s right: I am cheating.  It’s four months in and I’m exhausted by the restrictions (particularly the “nothing fermented” rule.  This eliminates pickles, mustards, citric acid…it’s  serious challenge.)  Particularly since the smallest cheat can apparently cause massive problems, it’s hard to tell if it’s actually working.  Am I going through a “healing crisis,” or reacting to a cheat?  Or is my body pissed off because I’m not eating  anything that it’s used to?

I decide that it’s not likely that putting a dollop of cream in my decaf coffee is causing massive cramps.  I think it’s more likely being caused by the massive amount of rice protein and coconut milk that I’m being told to consume every day.  Or the 20 pills per day.  Or the amount of money I’m spending.

I stop going.  It doesn’t feel right and I don’t trust the process.  I don’t trust her.

I go out and have a pizza.  Gluten, starchy, cheesy yum pizza.

And it is delicious.

And frankly, yes, I do feel bloated and paunchy afterwards.

But damn, it was good.

Post-script

I am still not satisfied.

Ethically, veganism rocks.  However, as a vegan, my body does both better and worse than it does consuming animal products.   And I do feel a profound connection to the cycle of life and death as an omnivore, though perhaps that is not commensurate with the argument to be made against suffering and the impact the animal husbandry can have on the environment.  Eating only fish (great protein, great omega’s, perhaps the best option) has some problems now due to overfishing and concerns about radioactive saturation from Fukushima.)

More investigation needs to be done.  The self-laboratory continues…

More distressing news from the Blue Front.

Colbert had a guest on this show named Captain Charles Moore, who discovered (or rather, did not discover, but talked about) the giant floating patch of garbage that can be found in the Pacific Ocean between Asia and North America.  He brought in a tub of plastic bits that had been taken off the shores of Hawaii.  Not encouraging.  Apparently instead of coral, our beaches will soon be made of old Tupperware and plastic baggies.

I also finished the Ocean book (“The World is Blue,” by Sylvia Earle).  It was hard to read.  Kind of like taking the Omega 3 oil that I’m supposed to take everyday.  Frankly, kind of unpleasant. (I’ve been neglecting my Udo’s Oil supplement lately.  The taste and texture just has done me in.)  Basically, we’ve depleted our fishing stocks and destroyed the sea floor so much that until something drastic is done, we are on a steep decline to no-happy-ocean-ville.  And no happy ocean-ville means no happy-people-ville.

Did you know that most of our oxygen comes from the ocean?  All the furor about the Amazonian rainforest – justified as is might be – has deterred our eyes from the more desperate question: what if we muck up the food chain in the ocean so much that the algae stops doing what we need it to do?

Not to mention that eating all these delicious top of the food chain fish (tuna, salmon, flounder, swordfish) means that we’re ingesting the compounded heavy metals (and yes, plastic) that these guys have been eating underwater for the last 100 years.  It also messes up the food chain by taking out the big boys.

AND, there’s also been some speculation lately about contamination from the Fukushima catastrophe.

So, I am concerned and a bit overwhelmed.  What do we do?  And what can I do in my own small little life to help make a difference in these global issues?

I take some solace in a quote from Gandhi: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

One step at at time, my friends.  Or one mouthful.

I went with my friend Vicki to see Reginald Ray speak at the Vancouver Public Library.  Ray is in his sixties, has a doctorate in religious studies and is currently meditation instructor in the tradition of vajrayana Buddhism (tantric).  The founder of Dharma Ocean, a retreat center in Colorado, he spoke of intimacy and really “seeing” others, as well as of our need to renew our intimacy with the earth.

At the end of his talk, he asked for questions.  A thin, dark-haired young woman who was sitting in front of me nudged her partner, who shrugged and motioned her to get up.  She made her way up to the microphone.

She shook out her long hair and spoke in a soft voice.  “What do you think about eating animal products?  Don’t you think that not eating animal products is the way to become more evolved and that it is necessary for us to move forward?”

I perked up.

He paused and studied her a moment, “What do you think?”

“I have been a vegan for over ten years.  And it changed my life.  I felt closer to everything, more aware.  And that seems to be the way to go, to be compassionate to the earth, to others.”

My friend Vicki mutters, “So judgmental.”

He took his time, “I would say that that was a very good decision for you.  You got a lot of out of and it works for you.  But I don’t think it works for everyone.  Like me.  I eat an enormous amount of animal protein.  An enormous amount.  For health reasons.  I have this theory I was a Tibetan in my last life, and their diet is almost all animal protein, because there is nothing else.  But this is where we get into trouble as people.  When we find what is right for us and decide that then this must be right for everyone.   Then we are not “seeing” each other.”

“Hmmm,” she said.

He looked around, “The original humans were hunter gatherers.  But they hunted only what they needed.  They thanked the animal for its sacrifice in feeding the people.  Today the problem isn’t the eating of the animals, but the lack of responsibility in the way that it is done.”  He looked back at her kindly, “Dare I say there might come a time when you are no longer a vegan.”

She shook her head emphatically, “No, no, no.  My email address is “forevervegan.” I will never eat meat.”

He smiled, “In Buddhism, we have this thing called impermanence.”

Vicki and I hung out after the talk.  “I was so glad she asked that,” I said, “so interesting to see her assume that veganism had to be the way to go.”

Vicki paused.  “I hate that.”

Vicki is a soft-spoken MS physical therapist who has done a bunch of meditation retreats.  She is a fellow yoga teacher; we met when she came to one of my classes and we realized that we’d gone through the same teacher training.  Our yoga style is a tantric yoga tradition, which means that the point is not to transcend life, but to become a deeper, more conscious part of it.

“I went to a vegan feast at Burning Man once,” she said, “It became very clear that I had to lie as soon as I arrived.”  She smiled, “I’m a terrible liar, but they were…ferocious.”  She laughs, “That’s such an animalistic word to describe a vegan.”

“They are, though,” I agree.   “They can be ferocious.”

“I couldn’t tell them that I wasn’t vegan.  But I’m also gluten intolerant, so they were like, “Wow, you can’t have wheat, bread, or eggs, or dairy, what do you eat?” ‘ She laughs, “I didn’t know what to say, I said, oh, you know, uh, quinoa and vegetables.  Lots of quinoa and vegetables.”

She pauses, “I do try to be responsible about what I eat.  I eat consciously and I respect my food.  But I like what Reggie said.  You have to see others where they are.  And be where you are.”

Vicki and Reggie got me to thinking.  Is being vegan a way of resisting – in some way – the impermanence of life?  After all, I don’t believe a cheetah is malicious when it takes down a zebra.   Of course we have a choice and that choice involves non-violence.. but I  began to wonder if eating vegetables was a way for me to avoid staring death in the face.  After all, if you’re paying attention, eating an animal is a huge signpost that points straight at our own mortality.

When I ate my dinner that night, I took a moment to bow my head to my food.  “Thank you,” I thought to my carrots, “for reminding me that I am part of the cycle of life.  From the seed and sun and soil, you have have grown.  Now you will become part of my body, dissolving and transforming – and nourishing me.  So I can go forth and participate in this world.  You remind me that I am a part of this cycle of impermanence.  Of change.  Amen.  Namaste. Om.”