More Micronutrients

Thank you so much for the beet advice! I just made a new juice, a different recipe, and peeling the beet fixed the problem! No grit. So far I'm on my second glass and I don't have any of the dirt. What a relief! Woo hoo!! I'm totally getting nuts with the juicing. Yesterday I made three different batches each as a new recipe. Since I was on the high doses of artemisinin three days out of every week and I wasn't supposed to eat antioxidants, these juices and my blended drinks are H.E.A.V.E.N. to my body.

This recipe is amazing. I'm being good and following recipes since I have such a horrible track record. I figure I'll play around and learn all of the suggested pairings, then when I really get the hang of this I will be able to figure out fun variations of my own. Below is the recipe from today.

Beet Detoxifier
1 Peeled Beet (Include greens & stalks)
4 Stalks Celery
4 Carrots
1 Inch Ginger
1 Lime
1 Green Apple

For breakfast I created a new smoothie, and it was delicious!

Breakfast Smoothie
1 Small Head of Napa Cabbage
1 Large Banana
1 Tablespoon of Orange Flavored Fish Oil

Don't confuse the smoothies with juices. The smoothies you end up eating the entire piece of produce, unlike the juice where the pulp and fiber are removed. I like to vary between the two options. It's important for me to get a lot of the cabbage, kale, watercress, etc. But, at the same time, it's really hard to ingest a whole blender of liquid. That's why it's nice to have a micronutrient dense juice too. I've read that the juicing allows your body to absorb all of the enzymes quickly since the fiber is hard for the body to digest. Removing the fiber speeds up the absorption.

This juicing kick is such a great distraction. It's perfect timing in fact. I have less than two weeks before my MRI and I'm nervous as hell. We stopped the growth of Hermie from October to January, but now I've been on a whole new protocol. Instead of doing the trio of sweet wormwood compounds, I've mainly been taking the artemether which is the fella that crosses the blood brain barrier. We have a friend who used this protocol and cleared up her brain tumor (same type as mine), but it's still scary when you try new things. I'm mostly scared because I didn't eat as strictly as I did for the previous MRI period. It's hard not to overanalyze, and that's why I need distractions.

This morning, I woke and met up with my friend Jessaca and her baby girl. We walked over to Green Lake, and wandered to the playground. It was wonderful to see them! I miss my Wenatchee girls. After that I took a nap until 2:30 pm. I sleep a lot, but while I'm up, I need things to do to keep my mind sane. My life consists of sleeping, juicing, blending, laundry, running, showering, etc. Just the basics - but I like it that way. If I do too much I get run down, and then I get sick. I've come to the point where I'm pretty clear where my energy boundaries are, even though sometimes I still push it and wear my body out. It's always worth it though :)

Last night Meghan and I ran Green Lake, then swung into my house so that I could make her my favorite green apple, carrot, and ginger juice. She was pretty impressed, and laughed hysterically, when she saw our fridge. To be honest, it's been a long time since I've seen anyone else's fridge, so I didn't really know what the big deal was. She grabbed my phone though, to take a picture. I wish I could see what other people's fridges look like. There must be some delicious looking food or something? I still like whole real food, like normal meals, but I really enjoy cleansing my body with veggies and fruit. My body feels so much better. Especially the green drinks. Tonight, Danny has class so I'm on my own for dinner. I think I'll tackle a new green juice. I'm excited about it! In the meantime, I still haven't ran the lake yet today so I'd better get to it. I'm not going to lie, it's beautiful out and I wish I was sitting at Duke's on the patio with a large Hefeweizen and a side of their delicious cabbage salad, but oh well. Maybe later in the week.....who knows.

Am I A Binger?

Aaaaaaaarrrgh. I'm a bad, bad girl. I think it has to do with my blood sugar levels. I'm going to blame it on that. This is my routine, I'm sure you've already heard it before, but here it goes: 4 days on high doses, twice a day. I wake up in the morning and fiddle around until I take my pills at about 8:30 - 9:00 am, then I wait three to four hours before I can eat. So....I can eat at around noon or 1:00 pm. Then, I stop eating at 4:00 pm and take the second dosing at 8:30 - 9:00 pm. That only leaves about three to four hours of time to eat. I get full so quickly that I can't even eat that much. I do that for four days then I have six days off. During the high doses I need to avoid my healthy smoothies and high antioxidant foods (they clean out free radicals which I need to help my herbs attach to the cancer cells). By day three I'm starving and craving everything from my delicious green drinks to sourdough, burritos, ice cream, wine, and artisan cheese. Ugh...my body just talks and talks to me telling me all the delicious foods that it needs, IT NEEDS, it says. On day 5, the first day I can eat normal foods, I crave eggs on toast, or a turkey sandwich (totally gross), or a burger (yuck). I crave crazy foods that I never normally eat...well, except for the eggs on toast - that's a special treat about once a month.

On Friday Danny and I ate Mexican, on Saturday I ate a lamb burger, yesterday I ate a burrito. What is wrong with me?!?! I can't seem to stop myself. Eek - am I binger?!? That's so embarrassing.

The first phase, after the October MRI, was so easy. I do well with consistency. It was easy to take my my pills each night. I could drink my green smoothies each morning, and make sure I was done eating at 4:00 pm. Each day was the same, very simple to implement. I like things that I don't have to think about, easy rules that always apply. This whole 4 days high dose, and 6 days off is very difficult to deal with. It probably sounds really easy, I mean, it sounds easy as I type it, but I promise you it is definitely not easy. I believe my blood sugar levels are fighting me. My body loves the green drinks, and for those four days it is tough to avoid them. I feel like my head is constantly spinning, always trying to figure out what I can have or what I need to avoid. It changes so much. On the 6 days off I'm supposed to eat high doses of special sprouts, maitake mushroom supplements, turmeric supplements, ginger drops, shark liver oil, and it's all so confusing. This protocol is, in my opinion, cutting edge. There are no distinct rules other than the whole antioxidant thing, and knowing when to stop eating so that pills will digest properly.

I need rules. Aaaaaaaaaah. AAAAAAAAAH.

I did manage to drink three different fresh pressed juices, full of veggies and fruits over the weekend. That should help counter act the bad food choices that I've made. Sometimes I feel completely crazy. This is one of those times. How can I cheat so badly with my food choices? I don't know. I understand that the bad food feeds little Hermie, but sometimes my body overrides my mind. I now can completely understand people in my position who just flat out don't want to change their lifestyle even though it may save their life. It's hard. It's so effing hard sometimes. When it's sunny outside, I want to walk over to Dukes with Danny and sit on the patio with a glass of white wine and a cheese burger. Or just the wine.

This morning, trying to completely jump start my digestion and apologize to my poor confused body, I made my most powerful smoothie yet. It's completely random, but it was surprisingly good! Be careful though, make sure you're hungry. The below list will make 2.5 tall glasses of goodness.

1 bushel of upland cress (roots removed)
1/2 bushel of cilantro
1 English cucumber (ends chopped off)
1 apple (core removed)
3 carrots (ends chopped off)
1 banana (peeled)
1 inch fresh ginger root (peeled)
1 inch diakon radish, skin and all

I'm sorry for complaining this entire post. It will not always be this hard. I truly believe it's my crazy fluctuating blood sugar level. That has to be it. Somehow it feels better to blame it on something.