I begin ... (pt 2)

Today is September 22, 2018 . It is 7:09 a.m. and this morning is the start of my second full day of following the first rule for me, which is a principle of Natural Hygiene:

RULES FOR ME:
#1: Implemented on September 21, 2018: I  will not eat before noon or after 8 p.m.

Addendum: If, for some reason, I have to (due to emergency or insanity) I will do my best to make it high water content fruit only.

;

I need to rewrite it better. Maybe like this:

RULES FOR ME: 
#1: I will not eat anytime between 8 p.m. and noon. Only an emergency can change this rule, and, if it happens, I will do my best to eat only high water content fruit, or, at least, another high water content food.  Begin date: 9-21-18

Because, I like to have contingencies planned for. 

Anyway ....

I did have  trouble sleeping and a lot of weird thoughts, kind of like when I fast. In fact, this has all felt a bit like fasting.  But, due to the lack of sleeping during my Assimilation cycle, I have decided that I will only drink coffee during the Elimination cycle, if at all. Which means putting nothing in it. Which means it will be that much quicker that I end up giving up coffee. Because, sometimes, I like it black, but, only sometimes.

I did get up a few times to pee and still had a lot to pee out this morning. None of it has been particularly dark, though this morning it was darkish compared to the other times.

I had  almost no cramps. There was one little twitch of a cramp starting in my right calve, but, it didn't go far or last long. At this point, I cannot say there is a major change, but, I can feel that things are changing some. I feel less stiff, less in pain (and, the pain feels more like from loosening up than from swelling  up), less overheated, less foot sore and tingly, more capable of moving -both in mobility and energy.  And, my eyes seem to see a little better.

I feel like I am almost to the point where if I only felt that bad, all the time, instead of way worse for long stretches, I could pretty much get on with my life.  I'd still have to be a little careful of overusing my energy.

I intend to do this until next Wednesday, making no other special efforts to change, then weigh and take measurements and see how it goes. If it looks like it is working quite well, I will work on a different aspect of managing my health. If not, I will shorten the time period so that I stop eating earlier.

I'm hoping it will prove to work well and then I can start working on my food combining techniques.

By the way, I am not even a little bit hungry, right now. As of yet, I have not dranken anything this morning. But, I am about to drink coffee, as I am going on a visit with my granddaughter and I don't want to chance a caffeine headache during that time.

11:41 a.m.: So far I have had two cups of black coffee. Turned out I did not need the energy as the visit was cancelled.  The reason I am adding to this post, right now, is that my right forearm and, especially, hand went numb and tingly. Then, there were some feelings of aches, pressures on my mid-back from inside, kind of burning and tingling in my gut and an ache under my left armpit. Now, my right neck and shoulder are going a bit numb and my left arm is starting to, as well.

I had a decent bowel movement  a little before 9 a.m., after I left home, and a good pee or two, and then nothing. I think all these weird feelings are related to my body "gathering forces" as I like to cal it. Making the special effort to really gather up toxic sludge and kick it out. Well, in about 13 minutes, now, I  will eat some grapes and help it along.

Maybe I should be eating fruit in the morning. But, then again, they also say not to eat until you are definitely hungry and I haven't felt that hungry, yet.

Maybe that better be my second rule. I have it in my head, too much, from decades of not really wanting to eat and being ordered /advised to, that one has to eat and that not wanting to eat is a sign of an illness that can be cured by eating the right food. Seriously! How weird is that? I mean, I guess it might be true for someone who is anorexic, but, that has NEVER been my problem!

12:36 pm - Totally forgot to pay attention to time. I am done eating grapes. So, I will wait until at least 12:56 pm before eating else.  By the way, I paid attention to chewing them more thoroughly and, as a result, ate far fewer before I got tired of them .At least, I guess that's why I wanted less of them.

6:30 pm  - Okay, for breakfast/unch I had two chimichangas with one each Roman tomato and avocado. (sometime after the grapes) and for dinner I had barbecued chicken thigh and one red potato, plus two tiny blue potatoes followed by some potato chips. Somewhere in there I also had more of my diet soda and I am on my second Vitamin Water.

I'm definitely done eating.

6:46 p.m  - May seriously regret eating the potatoes. They seem to be expanding in my stomach. I did not put any sort of oil on them Just salt and pepper. It really was quite a small meal, in size but, obviously, not a well-combined one.  I am feeling hotter than I had been.

Oh, I forgot. After b/l  I did eat the last little bit of the coconut cake. Then, later, my son went to the store to get bananas, as we are almost out of grapes, and, I didn't want him to get any junk sweets that pretend to be food.

Sunday  Sept 23, 2018  8:42 a.m. :  Just had a terrible b.m. Foul, weirdly in between constipation and diarrhea, felt like it left a burning hollow in my abdomen, disconcerted everywhere it traveled through; came on suddenly and as it left, it managed to make me feel less poisoned, but, somehow, worse.

This morning, at whatever stupid o'clock it was, I started having cramps in my legs again. I have been head-achy and feverish feeling.

9:01 a.m.:  Well, I had a coughing fit and now some mucus has come out of my sinuses, so I am breathing more clearly. This is after drinking distilled water this morning.

10:06 a.m; I was wondering, earlier- and, many times - if this was detoxification I was suffering the effects of, or, if I was already ill and now experiencing it more fully. Or, both. Now, I think- okay, I know I was ill in the way of needing to fix myself, but - it really is just detoxification. I feel much better after having dranken a good bit of distilled water. I won't say I feel good, but, much better.

Also, I am quite sure I lost some weight.I am more wobbly when I move about. Anyone who has ever been fat and then lost weight knows what sort of wobbly I mean, too. Anyone who has been pregnant and then seen their belly after the baby's arrival, also has a pretty good idea. I'm just so much squishier, but, obviously, can fit into my clothes some better.

And, I kept having this feeling like there was something strange feeling about my skin, whenever I had a reason to touch it. It wasn't until I was laying down and did some familiar movement, which I was expecting to be painful , that I realized what it is. There was no pain from a mild touch.

I have now pushed on several places that are usually excruciating and, so, actually need to be pushed on, and, they are no longer excruciating. Well, not to me. I don't know how they would be to someone who wasn't already used to the way they were before.

I've had several cravings, this morning, to dive in and eat a lot, to have coffee with coconut milk and sugar (the temptation-wielding bacteria said nothing about Stevia, I assure you), just a few chips. Strangely enough, when I thought about giving in and eating some grapes early and then maybe some bananas, it quieted down by quite a bit.

Anyway, right now, I have the last of the red potatoes, plus a big chopped up yellow onion, cooking in the oven. Later on, after they've had time to cool, I intend to use the vegetable broth that is on its last legs (in the refrigerator) ,and maybe a few other choice bits of veggies, along with the potatoes and onion and select spices, and, probably some coconut milk, to make us a hearty potato soup for the first meal of the day. Well, the first meal after fruit.

I'm thinking, more and more, that trying out the proper food combining is a wonderful idea. So, I am going to try having potato soup and then, later, if we are still hungry, maybe a piece of chicken and veggies.  Could have the soup right around 1 p.m., maybe, and, then the chicken around 4:30 p.m., and, call it a day. It still won't be the properest of food combinings, but, it will be closer.

I know I said I would just follow this one rule for a week without making any special efforts, but, you know ... I can already feel it is working, and, even though I would like to be able to say "This happened solely because of ..." at the end of the week, I am also 49 years of age and tired of being ill. So, what I want, even more than to impress others with Natural Hygiene, is to get on with having something of a life.


12:34 pm: I had the rest of the grapes (not that many were left) and two small bananas. I just looked up where it says bananas take about 60-90 minutes to digest. However, I have read things before that said if you want to eat several different kinds of things in  a row, then, you either need to give the first thing all the time it needs to digest (such as eating melon, then, making a meal), or, layer them in such a way that the things that take longer to digest always go in after those that take less time to digest.  It's not optimal, but, it is workable.

Well, by the time the soup is done, the banana will either be digested or a half hour off, in theory. Starches, the same site also said, take 4-5 hours to digest. Potato is a starch. So, definitely, the banana should have time to leave before the potato soup starts to ferment. However, that would mean that, if we finish eating it by 2 p.m., it would be 6 p.m., at the earliest, before it is out of there. But, let's see how long chicken takes.

According to another site, it takes chicken without skin (and, this would be) 1.5 - 2 hours to digest. So, then, if potatoes might take 5 hours and we finished eating them at 2 p.m., we could conceivably  begin eat the chicken at 5 p.m. and be okay.

Or I could cook the chicken right about now and we could eat that, and, then have the soup after, since it will take longer to digest than the chicken will. Tada!

And, this is why simple, maybe even mono, meals are considered such a lovely thing!

Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, 8:11 a.m.:  I had coffee with coconut mil yesterday, barbecued chicken followed by the potato soup, potato chips, chocolate and diet soda.  Somewhere in there, something definitely made me swell up.  Don't laugh, since most of it was not that far off from other days. I think it was just too much potatoes.

However, I also had grapes and bananas beforehand, so, for all I know, it was the bananas.

Today, I i intend to eat bananas. I was thinking of also eating other things, but, unless I get really hungry, I think no. I need to find out if bananas are my friend or foe. Not going to start eating them until I feel hungry, though.

I am instituting that as a rule:

RULES FOR ME: 
#1: I will not eat anytime between 8 p.m. and noon. Only an emergency can change this rule, and, if it happens, I will do my best to eat only high water content fruit, or, at least, another high water content food.  Begin date: 9-21-18

#2   I will  not eat unless I am actually, definitely hungry, and, if it is within my eating window of noon- 8 p.m.  Again, in an emergency, I can change the rule. But,  "Gee,  I've been offered  ...! !" is generally never an emergency.  Either is boredom or a frustrated oral fixation.

I've decided that, when it comes to Family Bible Study, we will be studying the fruitages of the holy spirit, and, we are starting with self control.

One of the reasons I am implementing a second rule already is that my waist was 43.5" yesterday (it had been swollen up to 49" at one recent point, before I quit measuring, which is part of what prompted me to look back into the  Allergy-Free COOKBOOK as well as Natural Hygiene) and today it was 45".

The other reason is that the second rule in no way affects whether or not I can tell if the first rule is helpful. For one thing, by the facts that I am not hungry before noon, now, and, I am still feeling better than I was -even though something made me balloon up - I already know that the first rule is helping me.  For another thing, not eating unless hungry is just plain good sense. It's all that time of being forced to eat when I didn't want to  and what I didn't want to which is screwing with me.

Oh man! Speaking of that, I cannot eat just bananas, today. I have some chia seed pudding I made days ago, with some coconut yogurt that I bought at least a week before I made it. And, I keep forgetting to eat it.  Well, I can start out with bananas. They take about 60-90 minutes to digest, according to a Natural Hygiene site, so , I could conceivably eat the bananas all the way up to 6 or 7 p.m. and be good.

I am not sure how fast coconut yogurt chia seed pudding with strawberries digests, but, I think it probably takes more than a half hour.

And, after I type the above (it is now 9 a.m) my son came home with pizza. Hmm ....

Tuesday, Sept 25, 2018 5:32 a.m.  So, yesterday, I had some apple cider vinegar, two bananas, some of the chia seed pudding (which is basically coconut yogurt, coconut milk and some chopped up strawberries); and, later on, I had 3.5 slices of  pepperoni and sausage pizza - but, 2.5 of them were small slices, so it really only equaled about two slices. And, somewhere in there I had some coffee with coconut milk, a very tiny Wal-Mart pecan pie, the small half of a regular size Snickers, and, the dregs of the potato chips that were bought a few days ago.

I feel amazingly alright for having eaten pizza.  Oh, I did have apple cider vinegar twice, which I am sure helped.

Then, I spent most of the day either watching videos related to the Bible and reading/listening to the Bible, or, studying up on various aspects of health.  According to Dr. Berg, in one vid he seemed to be indicating I was both too alkaline and too acid at once. But, in a second vid I found of his on the same subject, he said you can have some symptoms that seemed to indicate both, but, there is a way to really tell. For finding out if you are too alkaline, the way involves taking a test I already know the answer to.  He said if you use apple cider vinegar and it helps you, you are too alkaline.

I do wonder if it is possible to be both, though. Like, too alkaline as in not having enough stomach acid, which is a very real thing for me; but, also, too acidic in the blood, say, due to being ill and putrefying food from poor digestion and eating the wrong foods, etc.

I have realized that I have gone back to making things more complicated. But, you know, I am trying to find a way to live my life simply while untangling some very complicated health issues.

It's all right, though. I think I am mostly ready to set some more basic rules for eating and work into following them well.  I've tested the first one out fairly well and I have found it good, in that I feel better. But,  I also feel there can be more improvement.

You've read the way I've been eating. Some of it is pretty stupid. So, obviously, stupidity leaves room for improvement.

4:59 pm:  So, my sister tricked me and I actually finished eating lunch sightly before noon, which means I probably started eating around 11:30 a.m.  (sigh)  I'm not stressing though. I did my best to follow the rule.  Now,I know how it is going to go if I agree to such a venture with her,again.

As it was, shortly after we finished eating, I had quite a bit of toxic material come out, more than once, in an insistent manner and then I was fine. So fine, in fact, that I think I will probably be able to go out in service tomorrow.

I don't feel like I really lost any weight, but, if I get a chance I will weigh tomorrow and see. And, if I don't, perhaps I can weigh on Saturday.

Anyway,  I had a fairly healthy lunch special of beef with peppers and onions, lo mein, egg roll  Also had a diet soda, some Jade Boba drink (shared by three people), and a Krispy Kreme pecan pie, a tiny one. I will probably not elect to have the overly sweet drink or pie, again. Though, they did tell us there are such drinks that are less sweet.

For dinner, I am going to have a burrito and half a Cadbury Caramello. We have no greens, except frozen ones. We don't even have the burrito, yet.   Good health is something I am going to have to work toward, over time, as far as having a decent amount of fruits and vegetables on-hand.

Anyway, if there is any good change that is tangible, it will be amazing and pointed, since I have not gone out of my way, or been able to go out of my way, on eating healthier. There are intangible benefits I am experiencing. Less tiredness, less pain, less brain fog, less feeling horrible even though I ate cheese yesterday. That sort of thing.

Studying up on this video, right now.  It's about the adrenals. First off: get off coffee. (sigh) I wasn't going to watch it, because, this person looks like a large-nosed woman in a Karl Marx, err .. Groucho Marx ..., mask, proffering up 19 truths. It's very sardonic Bohemian Grove vibe. However, the comments seemed to indicate good info was inside, and, so I let it run on a wee bit and he (she? ze?) dived right in.  I'll take the plunge, then.

8:44 p.m,:  So, in watching the vid, I heard something about how important it is to sleep early. That this time of night is most beneficial. I'm tired right now, so I am going to give it a try.

Also,  I had four pieces of bread zucchini and a  chopped Roma tomato and an avocado, more or less with the burrito.

Going to post this now. Goodnight!