PETITION FOR BETTER FOOD KY!

After my eye-opening grocery shopping trip in Kentucky I decided that something has to be done. Louisville desperately needs a place to find better quality foods at decent prices!!!

I just finished shopping at Trader Joe's here in NYC and I think I paid 1/10th of what I did in Kentucky for all kinds of food! Isn't New York legend for being more expensive???!!!!

After speaking to many of my KY peeps on facebook I figured there has to be some way to make their requests heard. I found a petition site online. Yeah!
I hope getting 10,000 signatures from people in Kentucky might be enough to get Trader Joe's to seriously listen. If we can get even more all the better. This might even get Kroger, Whole Foods and the other stores to lower their outrageous prices or seek out more organic solutions!!!

You can sign the petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/view/we_need_trader_joes_in_louisville_kentucky

CONSUMER POWER

I'm so glad to see consumers raising their voices and beginning to be heard. Here is a link to an article about sugar versus high fructose corn syrup. http://tinyurl.com/23m3uec The big brands are starting to play around with their formulas and ingredients because they're recognizing there is a demand for better quality in regards to food.
Consumers still need to be more educated and specific. White sugar is still processed! Is it still better than HFCS? I'm sure the body can at least recognize it better.

I am also pleased to report that the stoppage I was experiencing from eating Denny's and Famous Dave's last Sunday is finally beginning to exit the building and my body's swelling is going down. I couldn't even work out this week I was so uncomfortable which is a first for me in a year!!!!!

Glad to be almost back!

THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

As I have mentioned in the past if I ate something that was not organic I would have severe reactions to the food. They include toxin spots oozing with blood and pus and major headaches behind my eyes.

For months I have been bracing myself to eat at my grandmother's favorite place, Denny's. I don't have the heart to make an aging woman go through my organic experiment. So this past week as planned I went ahead and ordered the Moons over My Hammy (eggs with ham and cheese) and the cheese fries. Hey if I'm going to break organic I might as well go all the way. Much to my surprise the only thing I experienced was severe bloat (probably from all of the salt). No ketchup on the fries. No extra salt. Just the sandwich and the fries. In total I consumed 1400 calories in that meal. The sandwich tasted good, but the fries tasted fake and tasteless to me. What was sad is less than two hours later I was starving again as if I had never eaten anything. My stomach looked like I was in the early stages of pregnancy.

Then my grandmother wanted me to go to dinner with her as well. I wasn't so worried about dinner since I seemed to survive breakfast okay. We went to Famous Dave's and I ate the rib tip dinner as pictured here on the left. The entire platter was actually only 1073 calories. The sides all tasted fake to me, and the meat was just okay. Nothing amazing...until I drowned it in devil sauce (those calories are calculated as well). After I ate I felt drunk and off balance. I also felt like a slug. At least I felt full. In fact I woke up the next day to a major food hangover. Thankfully no headache though. The sad part is it's three days later and it still hasn't left my body. My body is swollen and I look like my stomach is in the final trimester of pregnancy. This is horrible. Two meals could physically do this to me? What was interesting is I had 2,473 calories in total for the day. That's a lot, but not when you compare it to the 4000+ calories I have been consuming each day over the last month (and still losing weight).

So I would like to discuss a few facts or shall I say observations on this journey so far:

-When I eat produce that is not organic I get SEVERE migraines and nausea.

-When I eat meat that is not organic I can not use the toilet for a few days. I feel sluggish and my stomach swells. I am usually still feeling hungry or dissatisfied.

-When I eat organic processed foods in quantities of 5000+ calories I FINALLY start to put on some weight and break out around my jaw area.

-When I eat unprocessed organic meats, dairy, fruits, and vegetables I can eat unlimited amounts of food and not gain weight and also be satisfied for hours. The side effects are great energy and satisfying sleep.

The photos featured here show the industrial food I had on the left at Famous Dave's. The food on the right is the organic food that I normally eat at Gusto Organics. It's more meat than the Famous Dave's. I guarantee Gusto's potatoes which are rich in dairy and other binders is heavier in calories than what I had at Dave's as well. The only thing I normally don't eat is the corn bread and the corn (unless they are organic chips). I am probably eating twice the calories on the right as I am on the left. Yet the meal on the right didn't bloat me or give me discomfort or indigestion. I had no problems using the toilet. I can say this for all of my meals at Gusto Organics.

I added these photos to show the people who think I am "dieting" the actual volumes and content of my foods. Please tell me what kind of diet allows you to eat steak and potatoes like this and lose weight?

I hopefully have put some minds to rest and can't wait to see what happens in September when I actually begin to try to lose weight......that is if I can get the Famous Dave's to pass out of me first. Yech!

LUCKY IN KENTUCKY

Sorry I've been absent for a few days. I've just returned back from both a work and play trip in Kentucky. Sometimes it's nice for people to not know where you are or where you're going at all times.

I was really looking forward to this trip so that I could get a chance to experiment and research organic versus industrial a bit more away from New York and be closer to the source of food I was raised on.

As I arrived to my dad's house he asked me what I wanted to eat. He told me there was a lot available in the garden so he gave me a tour of what was growing out back. He wasn't kidding. Endless amounts of tomatoes, squashes of all kinds, zucchini, grapes, varieties of herbs, melons....in fact this photo is of my dad after just plucking a watermelon right from the garden. He's a bit shy here. It ended up being the sweetest, juiciest melon I've had in a looooong time.

It was so nice to have access to the freshest produce 24/7. Nothing beats waking up in the morning and gathering raspberries to go with my yogurt! I was in heaven.

Then I realized I still needed my dairy and eggs so we went off to the grocery store. There was VERY little that was organic at the markets and what was there was TWICE and THREE times the price! No wonder people complain about the cost of organic! In addition a lot of the organic was vegan or bland stuff that has no real appeal or taste. No wonder people associate vegetarianism with organic!!! That's just wrong!

So one thing was for sure. Price and availability is an enormous problem in Kentucky (the last place I ever thought it would be). It made me feel really fortunate to live in New York City. The only financial relief consumers can take some comfort in is from the food salvage stores. My best friend Chris shops a lot of her organic from there. So instead of her pasta costing $4.00 at whole foods, it's .60 cents for the same brand at the salvage store. They carry a huge variety of organic products like Annie's organic pasta or Late July's cheese crackers. Who knew!

As I reflect I think about the fact that we grew our food a long time ago to supplement the food we really couldn't afford to buy. Now growing our own food seems to be a luxury. If my parents weren't retired there would be no way they could maintain a garden. Time is now the new luxury that most of us do not have.

If a lot of people put their time together in a community garden maybe we all could afford this luxury. Just thinking out loud. I know it's being done in coops around the country. This just has to somehow go viral. This would bring back community and also give parents and their kids something to share.

This sunday is World Kitchen Garden Day. New Yorkers will come prepared to garden and bring their own bowls, utensils, and a few bucks. The people sponsoring it are trying to get a garden in front of City Hall in New York. Interesting. I would prefer Central Park.

Anyway. I felt lucky to be in Kentucky and was thankful my family shared their garden with me. I probably ate 20 lbs of tomatoes while I was there!!! Wish you were there!

HOME GROWN

At the beginning of my experiment an old mate from grade school told me she had a friend she grew up with in Pittsburgh that had gone organic and lost 40 lbs in a matter of two months. I later found out it was a small exaggeration. I am so glad I waited to speak to her until this last week because we both have the same story to tell. Her journey didn't influence the outcome of what happened to me and I would probably have doubted her anyway. I NEVER would have thought I would lose weight by eating more food!!!

Her name is Heather Henderson Price. Heather is originally from Pittsburgh, but now lives with her husband and kids in Georgia. Heather was generous enough to allow me to listen to her life's story about her relationship with food and how it related to her.

She just as I had been raised mostly off of food grown in her garden. If "they needed carrots for dinner she walked in the back yard and picked them". As Heather got older she married and had three children. Each pregnancy she packed on the weight and found it impossible to get off. During one of her pregnancies she had an urge of to consume oreos and other processed foods which is what made the weight creep on so easily.

Eventually Heather went to extremes to lose the weight, but she couldn't shake it. It wasn't until she had tried every weight loss gimmick on the market (the shakes, etc) that Heather decided to visit a weight loss center for assistance. The center showed her how to eat again and emphasized whole, fresh foods. Processed foods were eliminated from her diet. Heather intuitively took it a step further by eating a lot of her foods organically because that's what she did when she was younger. She quickly sloughed off 30+ lbs within a couple of months from the diet change and still continues to maintain it over a year and a half later.

Weight wasn't the only major change that Heather noticed by going with whole, fresh foods. Heather was on migraine medication. She would get persistent migraines throughout the month. When she changed her diet her migraines disappeared. Occasionally she will get a migraine about once a month.

Heather's family began to also see other benefits from the diet change. At 8months of age one of Heather's kids was diagnosed Tuberous Sclerosis Complex which causes epileptic-like seizures. After years of dealing with different issues with the drugs, etc they took her daughter off of the medication. For the last six months Heather's daughter has not experienced an epileptic episode. Heather credits watching her daughter's diet and making sure she doesn't get any refined sugars or processed foods.

The part that blows me away is how Heather and I both react to industrial food now that we've made these changes. Four times through my journey I have had SIGNIFICANT reactions to my food where I get nausea, severe headaches, and a feeling similar to a hangover for two days if I eat something that is not organic. I have been able to go back to the sources of each incident and pick out which food was the problem and confirm that with the people that served me those foods! The funny thing Heather said when she goes to visit her family in Pittsburgh she has the same problem!!! She also feels "sluggish and fatigued".

After speaking to Heather I now wonder if people are more prone to chemical sensitivity in their foods if they had little to no exposure to chemicals in their food as a child? Changing our diets allowed us to increase the volume of food that we ate and resulted in weight loss we were both unable to achieve in prior attempts. Would someone raised off of pop tarts and McDonald's have the same benefits or weight changes that Heather and I had? I have to find someone willing to take the challenge!

It's also interesting to reflect on seeing the swelling and weight gain in my aunt who is vegetarian. She seems to eat a lot of tofu which is mostly genetically modified. If she went entirely GMO free would she lose the weight?

If anything it was certainly consoling to speak to someone on a similar journey and see that organic has had a positive outcome in our lives. We both feel more of a sense of control about how we look and feel.

Heather and I also agree that sourcing our food is going to be the next biggest challenge for both of us. She wishes she could have a garden like the one she grew up with, but her back yard in Georgia is all clay. We'll get there Heather. I promise!

DAYCATION

Over the weekend I got a chance to go to Boston to see my Aunt whom I've only seen maybe a total of 5 times in my life. What was special about this trip was she was the first person to introduce me to the idea of vegetarianism. She's been vegetarian for over 30+ years and a darn good one at that!

One thing about her is despite her healthy consumption of vegetables she is still overweight and struggles with her health at times. She has also been in accidents that have caused major trauma to the head where her weight was affected just as I have. I will have to speak with my old classmate at the University of Kentucky to see if weight and brain damage tie in. I know that I have been told that my pituitary gland has been compromised.

Back to my daycation. When I arrived she took me to a vegetarian Indian restaurant south of Boston that she thought would be safe for my organic needs. We really enjoyed our tasty Palak Paneer and rice Dosa filled with potatoes. Not even an hour after eating I had the worst headache behind my eyes and fatigue. I tried to ignore it.

After spending many hours together it was time for dinner. She prepared THE BEST Quinoa salad I have ever had. It was soooo fluffy!!! I could have eaten the whole thing. I overate dinner hoping that it would help dilute what was in my system for lunch, but the headache only worsened! It was turning into a migraine followed by nausea. Eventually a couple of hours later I ended up vomiting. I sprayed some silver just to make sure I didn't get some weird food poisoning, but I don't think I would get a headache from food poisoning.

In the end I woke up with a sore stomach and didn't want to eat. I forced myself to eat just before boarding the bus back to NY. Part of the take home had some of the Indian as leftovers. I took it back with me and had it for dinner. The headache symptoms returned along with the nausea!!! It was definitely a reaction to something in the food.

Two days later all of the swelling in my hands and arms and especially my stomach shrank back down. My stomach calmed down. Everything is back to normal.

What's the moral of the story here? Even eating a healthy vegetarian lifestyle has its hazards. I reacted to what would be considered healthy food! This is insane!

In my next post I will talking about an interview that I did with a young lady who started organic almost a year before me. She was introduced to me by an old grade school buddy who found out about my organic journey and thought I should speak with her.

In the meantime I have to get my aunt's recipe to that quinoa!

All THAT AND A BAG OF CHIPS

After listening to a lot of discussions and theories over my weight loss I decided to try a little experiment. Do calories really count?

For almost the last two weeks I have been eating like a complete pig!!!!
I'll have a huge 1100 calorie burrito bowl at Chipotle followed by a 250 calorie ice cream. Then even the last two nights I have forced myself into eating an entire BAG of UTZ blue corn tortilla chips with a whole container of hummus. That's at least another 2000 calories. People I'm eating over 4000 calories a day and not even exercising and still not climbing the scale.

No, I do not have a tapeworm, nor am I using stimulants. Mind you I'm also not able to get to the gym and exercise like I usually do either. My schedule is murder right now.

I don't know how much longer my stomach can take this stretching so I'm going to back off now, but I just thought you may find this interesting.

I'm also going to announce that as of September 1st I will be officially trying to lose weight. That's right. I have not tried to lose those 70 lbs. They just came off.
What's going to happen now that I'm going to put some effort into it?

I will be making small changes like not eating after 7pm, paying closer attention to my portions so that I'm eating 1 serving of mashed potatoes instead of 4. I'll either lose, gain, or stay the same.

Watch me put the effort in and stay the same!!!!

Anyway thanks as usual for reading!

MS

A NEW RECRUIT!

My friend Stephanie was so excited to see some of the changes that I have undergone from eating entirely organic that she decided to go ahead an jump on board.....at least for this month. I believe she said she had a weight loss goal, but don't quote me on it. I think she already looks fabulous!

Anyway I thought one of the very interesting things that she posted on her facebook wall was that she is sleeping better! I have to say that in the beginning I noticed my body craved more sleep as well. Babies are constantly repairing at a rapid rate and need tons of sleep. Could organic be rejuvenating for Stephanie as well? Is her body trying to mend from all of the damage the chemicals induced on her body? Remember toxins are fat soluble and wear down the immune system and slow down the thyroid!

We'll have to keep you posted on her changes as well!

Welcome aboard Stephanie!