Four Out of Five Muscles Agree: Meat Good

Just got a funny text from my good friend Susanna - a wonderful woman who shares my love of nutrition and healthy, holistic living...

For a long time now she's been on a mostly raw, almost vegan diet and very happy with it. But when I visited her earlier this year and heard about her exciting Krav Maga classes, I asked her how she was getting through such a strenuous thing on kale salad and a handful of nuts.

I had her tell me what she usually ate on any given day and there was so little protein - I'd have passed out doing all that on an occasional egg and some walnuts. I told her she might want to add in some protein powder somewhere - something - give her body some amino acids to rebuild those tired muscles. She eventually did and I'm sure it helped.

I recently embarked upon my own experiment with vegetarianism and while I started out well and felt wonderful - at first - it didn't last. After about 6-8 weeks, I was constantly hungry, tired most of the time and felt like all my muscles were turning to fat. My mid-section seemed flabby and the bloating - jebus christmas, the bloating. It never went away.

Maybe over time my body might have adjusted, but I think it was really a matter of my body not being happy on a no-meat plan. It just doesn't work for me. Especially not when I'm running and lifting. A bowl of kale, beans and quinoa just isn't going to cut it. For someone else maybe, but not for me.

... So, the funny text... After two hours meeting with her new nutritionist, Susanna texts me, "You might want to start eating that burger again!" I told her I already had and was feeling *much* better as a result.

The thing I was always concerned about while on my vegetarian vacation was if I was getting the right amounts of amino acids, in the right proportions. While it might be true that you don't have to combine your legumes with your grains at the same time, what *is* critical is to get all the essential amino acids and in the right amounts every single day.

From the research I've done, if you don't get them in the right amounts and you're low on one or another, it can impede the process of building muscle. All have to be present in the right proportions for optimal functioning.

I need to keep digging to see if this information is even available, but no food labels tell you which amino acids they contain and in what amounts. There's no way to easily know how much cous cous (or rice, or pasta) equates to the amount of amino acids & their proportions, or how many cups of beans/legumes you need to make up the balance. Just going by the grams of protein isn't enough information.

All along, I listened to my body. It finally told me "You need to roast a damn chicken and roast it now." So I did. And it was fugging delicious. There are other days when my body tells me "You need a damn burger full of B vitamins and iron and you need it now." And I oblige.

The trick is to make sure I'm not eating a burger anytime soon before I run, for obvious reasons. On running days, I eat like I always have - vegetarian throughout the day, then the run, then the MEAT.

As I've always believed, no one plan or diet can work for all people. You have to listen closely to your own body and give it what it needs. And everything in moderation. Now I really want a burger.

Hello World! I'm Baaaaack!

Actually, I never left. Not entirely... It's just that being a full-time student robs you of all that is leisurely in life - sleeping, eating properly, watching Bravo teevee, blogging...

I really have missed you, blog, and blog lurkers. I love you so...

School is out for the summer (cue song) and instead of taking classes I decided to sleep, get me summa that good ol' teevee, revisit this here blog and eat foods other than Power Bars and trail mix.

Speaking of food... I just became a vegetarian. The meat/bacon/baconmeat lover of all-time hasn't touched meat in almost two weeks now - 13 days, to be precise.

Why? Mostly because I read this book - Born to Run. Along with being a huge inspiration for running, it talks about nutrition and animal protein. Specifically how animal protein kicks cancer cells into gear. I don't have cancer (that I'm aware of), but I am at the age where cancer can begin.

So, that, combined with a 10-month Power Bar program (plus a few too many In & Out burgers), made me think about ditching meat and including a lot more vegetables & fiber into the plan. And so far, so good.

I definitely feel lighter - like things are firing a lot more efficiently - and even if I eat a ginormous bowl of salad with beans & cous cous, I don't feel like I'm 5 months pregnant with a medicine ball.

The trick is to watch the salt & fat... Been retraining my palate to go without, using onion & garlic powders and just teensy drizzles of olive oil, but mostly lemon juice - and it's amazing how much better the food tastes.

David is frightened, of course, because greens don't grow in Michigan (where he's from), or so he tells me, but I think he'll be OK. He eats lettuce sometimes. Capers too, even. He spies my plate with a wary eye, but I see a hint of curiosity there too.

My mother is confused, but supportive. She listened to me talk about my new lifestyle and then helpfully offered up a cheeseburger taco salad recipe. I love that about her. (I don't eat cow dairy - haven't in years.)

We'll see how it goes - I'm sure it'll be easy during the summer. I bet it'll be challenging when school starts and the weather gets dreary. I think I ate meat at every meal when we lived in The Great Grey North - couldn't get enough. But that could just be the usual effect Canada has on people.

I know there's a ton of veggie cookbooks out there - I'll be shopping for them soon - but for now I'm adapting the stuff I usually like to cook and I have to say, it's pretty darn tasty. I'll fire up another old blog - the Nootsmaak Cooksmaak - and start posting recipes there. Happy Eating y'all!

Cheater

Something happened yesterday. I'm not proud of it. I also can't explain how it happened. OK, maybe I can explain it a little, but most of it is still a total mystery.

We took a day trip yesterday, the first sunny day in four hundred years, and I may have been drunk on sunlight and didn't know it.

Rather than waste any time getting on our way, we stopped at Peet's for breakfast. I had a Kashi bar in my purse and it's still there, under my wallet, sunscreen, Orbit gum and a tampon.

I had a delicious almond croissant with my Peet's half & half. Whatever - what's a little frangipane going to hurt? Put it with all the butter in the croissant - what insulin? Plus, it felt like Christmas my birthday and the last day of school all in one - the sun was finally out! PARTY!

We continued on our way to the Marin Headlands to explore & hike around. Spent three or four hours goofing off by the bridge, the abandoned military installations and the beach, then made our way to San Anselmo for lunch.

I *wanted* pancakes and waffles but I *got* the turkey burger. I didn't even eat my fries. Then we left Bubba's and David said he'd really wanted a shake and wished he'd gotten one.


On the way home we passed a shopping center that had a Ben & Jerry's in it. I pulled over so he could get a fix. We cruised through the parking lot and a new store caught my eye. I said I would like to have a look in that store and see what's what.

This is where it gets blurry. I may have gone into said store and immediately joined the excited, jubilant line of eager customers waiting to spy the goods on display in the brightly lit case. I may have been asked what I would like and I might have asked for two cupcakes to go while wiping drool off my face.

It all happened so fast. It's like I wasn't there, but someone told me about it later with such detail that it feels like I was there.

We got into the car, David with a brownie and me with a beautiful little box of treasures. I put down the box and said to David, "I just bought SUGAR!" WTF?

Once home, we cut them up to share and POOF - gone. Just like that. Resolution totally annihilated. I made it 21 days without sugar, caffeine or booze. I'm still off the booze, but now that just seems silly.

But, and this is a very good but - this morning David said he's giving up coke zero. After years of trying to get him to just take a break from it, he's decided to give it up.

So, in honor of that, I'm going back to my no sugar (or almost none) plan, but I will have the occasional fully-leaded coffee and by the end of the month I'll go back to my one-drink-a-week benders.

You gotta live, right?


p.s. the mocha was *amazing* - the double chocolate, meh... next time... red velvet.

Serotonin Free

It's Day 8 and I'm still off sugar, booze and caffeine. Although it's impossible to be totally caffeine-free unless I give up decaf coffee, which I'm not going to do, so you can blow me.

It's been that sort of week. I thought it was PMS, which I want to think is mostly to blame, but now I'm DMS and usually by this point the mood issues are long gone.

Today was difficult. If we didn't have TV, I'd have spent the whole day staring at the wall. I did that once years ago when I lived in the Western Addition in a haunted house and my car got totaled and I couldn't quickly get the heck outta town. That wasn't a good time.

It hasn't gotten that bad, but today was the most depressed I've felt in a long time. I didn't think I ate that much sugar every day, but I definitely went on a bender during the holidays.

Way too many biscotti, chocolate chip cookies of all sorts, lemon tarts, pumpkin pies, and some dastardly petit fours from Trader Joe's in ridiculously delicious deep chocolate flavors.

I was bingeing like a drug addict right before checking into rehab. I wondered if I might be making a big mistake by doing that.

I'd started the decaf process in mid-December - I knew how painful cold turkey would be - but now I think I'm really starting to feel it. I'm getting that withdrawal headache in the afternoons and yawning. A LOT.

Thankfully the headache is mild, nothing like the cold-turkey variety that makes you want to saw your head off with a Leatherman and pour hot coffee into your skull.

The one bright spot is losing 2 lbs without even trying. That helps make some of the sadfulness worth it. If that keeps up, I'll gladly watch more bad TV while crumpled on the couch crying softly into my blankie.

Day 2: Sugar-Caffeine-Booze-Free

And feeling great. Just avoiding simple sugars & booze for a full day helped drop a pound of water weight - that's impressive. It's amazing how your body bloats up when that shit is in your system.

Speaking of shit in the system, one friend of mine is trying to go vegan for the first two weeks of the year. Like my detox, she's doing it to see how she might feel after a couple of weeks.

I feel for her, since she's a dedicated athlete and will need plenty of high-grade protein to help her body recover from her workouts.

It sounds healthy in theory, but it's not natural. Our physiology is designed to use animal products. What they're not designed for is all the shit in our food supply, literally and otherwise.

One theory about going vegan/vegetarian is that it will somehow help save the environment. It's a noble thought, but I don't buy it.

That problem is way too big to be solved by going vegan. At any rate, I'm not about to stop eating good quality animal products thinking that will help save the environment. It's also not going to help my health.

The funny thing is, I've heard of some vegans eating at Taco Bell. They buy "food" from the largest fast food company that sells the shit found at KFC and Pizza Hut, among others. Ironic, no?

Anywho, to each his own, right? I need to go slaughter some bunnies now.

Happy New Year!

Is it? I don't feel all that happy. Could be last night's tequila - the current lack thereof - making me cranky. I don't feel hungover, just irritated.

Could be lack of sleep. We crashed early last night, 'cause normally *nothing* goes on in Alameda at midnight on New Year's Eve. WRONG.

For the first time ever, we were woken up at midnight by a loud racket of firecrackers, the clanging of pots & pans, noisemakers and whoops & hollers. I felt bad about being in bed, wondering when all the noise would stop. Maybe next year we'll join the party. Who knew?

But I also got a lot on my mind. I recently learned of the Bilderberg Group and I'm totally creeped out.

Nothing is known about the content of their annual, private meetings attended by our elected and/or appointed officials, financial & military leaders and the super-elite & super-wealthy.

A quote from one of the members:

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."
-- David Rockefeller

So now I'm thinking, California needs to secede and become its own country with its own president elected by California citizens without any campaign financing of any kind other than a small stipend from a nominal tax fund.

All corporate donations/lobbyists are illegal and absolutely no policies are made without complete transparency and voter involvement.

We make marijuana totally legal and regulate it, tax it, and sell it to the rest of the world, along with the technologies we develop, Hollywood movies - whatever. There's a lot left to work out yet - it's still pretty early in the day.

I'm still happy about giving up sugar, booze & caffeine - it's a relief, really. It's easier when there's a good excuse - a New Year's resolution - otherwise people flip out. Why!? Why would you do that? What a stupid idea!

Yeah, you're right - striving for better health *is* a stupid idea - I'll feel so annoyingly good and the weight loss will be so lame. What was I thinking? Happy New Year.

The Clap?

Lady Parts Alert [LPA] - nothing graphic. Just wanted to get that out of the way.

I went to the doctor last week because, well, I was fairly sure I'd come down with a UTI. Nothing serious - it happens, though thankfully this was only the second one I've ever had. But once you've had one, you never forget that special feeling when it's time to pee.

When I first felt the signs I called my doctor, who of course wasn't available to take my call, but I left a message and asked that she call in a Rx for me - usually they'll do this with just a phone call, UTIs are that common for women.

In the meantime, I did some research on those newfangled set of tubes called the interwebs. Turns out, there's a whole new homeopathic remedy for bladder infections, way better than the once tried & true cranberry.

Not that cranberry juice/capsules aren't helpful - cranberry is still a good supplement to help prevent UTIs, but even better: D-mannose. D-mannose is a healthy sugar that occurs naturally in cranberries, blueberries, peaches, oranges, and apples.

However, D-mannose is not well metabolized by humans, so it doesn't affect blood sugar levels - it goes straight to the bladder where its molecules act as a sort-of magnet for the bacteria that cause UTIs. The D-mannose binds with the bacteria and it's flushed out in the urine.

You have to take a lot of it, and it's a little expensive, but the upside is that it's not an antibiotic - that's huge (and you don't have to go to the doctor - also good). The antibiotics can often cause a yeast infection, because they kill ALL the bacteria - wiping out the good stuff that keeps the yeast in check. Who doesn't love a yeast infection on top of a bladder infection!? Party!

The downside is, it takes a while to work, so things are uncomfortable for a few days, and you feel like you have a mild flu. Just to be safe, I saw my doctor so she could test a sample and do a culture and all that fun business. The D-mannose should work, but if the UTI is caused by a different type of bacteria, it may not.

The tricky thing about UTIs, if they're not cured quickly, they can become kidney infections, so it's good to get them cleared up as soon as possible. I'd had mine for about a week by the time I got to the doctor and it seemed like it was lingering. Just in case, she prescribed an antibiotic which I dutifully took because the results from the urine culture wouldn't be ready until after the weekend.

Today I called the office to get the results of the culture. The nurse looked up my file and said, "You're calling about the chlamydia test?" With a gasp I said, "AM I?" I told her I WAS calling about a possible bladder infection, but was there more information I should have?

I heard papers shuffling and then she said, "Oh no, I was looking at the wrong file - here's your results..." Which, interestingly enough, came back negative. That was great news, but certainly a strange way to get it.

The point is, the D-mannose worked. I didn't need the antibiotics and thankfully didn't take very many and cycled in probiotics between doses to try to keep things balanced. Still, if there's any way to avoid that stuff, it's worth it.

Those pills had me woozy, a bit nauseated, tired, and maybe even a wee bit depressed. Maybe I'm just a candy ass, but that stuff is rough. The warnings & list of side effects is frightening.

So, ladies, get yourself some D-mannose and use it like any other supplement - one or two a day and that should help keep the plumbing healthy. Yay, sugar!

Hippie Healthy

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I may be turning into a hippie.

It all started with the olive leaf. I'm still taking it, in small doses, working up to the recommended daily amount, but it feels like something's changed. It could also be age, the possible onset of perimenopause or overexposure to lawn mower fumes.

I found hemp protein at the Organic Market and thought I'd give it a try. Soy is purportedly bad for the thyroid so I'd rather avoid it. I read that some soy isolate powders are processed using hexane - an Erin Brockovich chemical! Gross!

Hemp seems to be an amazing super food. It has all essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, fiber, and it has the right type of branch-chain amino acids, the right ratios, blah, blah, blah... all good stuff - super good.

So far I've used it in fruit smoothies and as a "pesto" sauce on pasta and I love it. As I sit here writing this, I could be cramming blondies down my gullet but I don't want any. I just made them yesterday and they might as well be dirt clods.

I am trying to limit sugar overall and it's true that the less you eat it the less you crave it, but I'm not off it altogether.

The PowerBars, Kashi bars, etc. are all loaded with sugar, as are my beloved almond butter-honey sandwiches and the blondies I just made (I used xylitol instead of sugar, but they have butterscotch in them). But I'm no longer craving cookies & doughnuts like my life depended on them, which sometimes it does. Seriously.

I should add, I've not been drinking for some time - it's too expensive here and I haven't felt like it. Avoiding booze cuts out a ton of sugar & toxins right there, so that's always helpful.

It's like my body is weaning itself off anything unclean or unhealthy. Not going full-on vegetarian, but I'm eating less meat and I feel good. I think I'm feeling better than I have in a while.

Better energy, clearer thinking, and a reduced desire to pick fights with customer service reps. It's still too soon to know what might be going on, but I'm enjoying it whatever it is.