Since this is also a journey for physical health as well as spiritual, I would like to start with my story about my physical health. I'll keep it as brief as possible.
Physical health has always been an issue with me. I have a long history of illnesses. As a youth, I became a vegetarian. I believed that was the way to health. But I found out it really wasn't. I still got all kinds of illnesses. Doctors were, also, always a problem for me. I used to ask them how I could prevent getting sick. None of them knew. All they knew was what meds to give me that would suppress my illnesses so I appeared to get well. It was only later that I learned that the meds don't really heal, but add to my health issues later on.
I found lumps in my breasts when I was in my early 40's. I thought for sure I had cancer. Luckily, they were only cysts that needed to be drained occasionally. But who wants to live with that? I quit drinking coffee, eating chocolate and other things the doctor suggested. That didn't help. My doctor put me on the pill which later caused more cysts. I got really mad and stopped taking them.
About the same time, I got irritable bowel syndrome. I couldn't understand why I was having all these problems. I was a vegetarian and that was considered a healthy diet, right? I knew about raw food. I knew in my heart that it was an even better diet than what I had been eating. But, I didn't try it because I was the only vegetarian in my family and that was hard enough. I believed it would have been awful trying to become raw. I wasn't ready to take all the flack from my family. That turned out to be a problem in my own mind. Seven years later, when I did turn to raw food as my last resort for healing, it was easier than I thought. My family was skeptical, but supportive. My cysts that the doctors didn't know anything about went away within 2 months. The IBS that I was suffering took more time. My colon was in pretty bad shape. Still, after about 5 months of drinking lots of fresh juice and eating a high raw diet, the IBS seemed to have gone away.
It took me a year to stop eating some cooked evening meals. The food I ate throughout the day was raw, but meals with my family usually included a large salad and a little of what I cooked for them. The more I read about the raw food eating program, the more I wanted to eat only fresh unprocessed and unheated food. I finally did it after a long talk with my husband. That was six years ago.
I love what I have gotten from the diet. I no longer get IBS, I don't have cysts in my breasts anymore, I don't get bronchitis 3 or 4 times a year anymore; I don't get it at all! I had a thyroid problem that caused heart palpitations; that's now dormant unless I eat cooked food for a couple of days.
What I've learned, is if I eat something cooked once, I'm usually OK. But if I eat cooked meals several days in a row, symptoms begin to return. This happened last month when my friend was visiting me from the States and I ate at lots of restaurants; I live in Panama where I met someone who considered herself a vegetarian if she ate chicken but not beef. I went off the program somewhat and got lots of symptoms. I was really sick and grumpy. Now that my health has returned, I have no cravings what so ever at this time. I want only simple food; not spicy, salty or complicated. I found that the gourmet raw that I love is now too rich. In the last couple of days, I couldn't even finish eating the meals no matter how good they tasted.
I think that's enough for now. That's seems long! More later. Now you now know lots about me!
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