Better light than full

Years ago when I was focused on eating for nutrition and was steadily losing weight I discovered that I would much rather eat a large bowl of delicious homemade vegetable stoup and feel good than to eat badly and feel stuffed and miserable. I could eat vegetables until my urge to eat was satisfied without feeling like I had a rock in my stomach.

I also know the feeling of eating so badly that I enter a comatose state that lets me drift off into sleep to escape feeling anything at all. That moment of lethargy just before passing out was like a drug used to enter oblivion instead of bliss.

This past week I experienced something new and very likeable. To juice most of the day and eat a small meal or snack just to shut up my perverse nature to cheat left me feeling light and clean. This struck me most forcibly when I went to lunch with the office yesterday and ate a plate of Indian food. Yes it was good, but I hated the way I felt afterwards. Feeling a heaviness inside me that was irritating. I didn't want to go back to work, I wanted to go home and nap so I could wake up feeling better. And in that moment I remembered how I had felt all week and I missed it.

So this bright and lovely weekend morning I did not get up and cook pancakes, or make a bowl of oatmeal with nuts and fruit and maple syrup. Instead I juiced enough for breakfast and dinner, and plan on making something wonderful for lunch; stoup or chopped salad or a smoothie.

My salami sandwich the other evening reminded me that if I want my respiratory faculties to be free of phlegm I cannot indulge in sugar, wheat or dairy. It's no wonder I have had so many problems over the years. Why did no doctor every guide me away from those foods? Why is nutrition avoided as a valuable tool to use in gaining health?  There are many answers to that but the bottom line is the ever present Money is the root of all Evil. Here I will not rant about corporations, bottom lines and pharmaceutical companies fueled by the standard american diet that is killing us yet subsidized by we the people. Talk about a suicidal death dance - we take the cake. Literally.

Instead it's time to start cleaning up - we have a holiday to prepare for and the clutter has to go. Arrangements for cleaning the carpet must be made, and the dog messes disposed of before it rains. Sounds like a busy day, I wonder how my energy will hold up while juicing. I was tired often this week, but it was probably the lack of my decaf coffee combined with detoxing from my sausage biscuits. Hopefully I have once again kicked the fast food monkey from my back; it was starting to itch anyway.