It's Not Easy Being Green

I've never been a very consistent blogger. From the very beginning, back in January of 2010, when I made a resolution to blog (among other resolutions, a few of which I haven't kept), it has been a rhythmic pattern of surfacing and submerging that continues to this day.

It's kind of like when I tried to keep a journal consistently over the years and I'd write a couple pages in February 2000 and next thing I know it's 2003. Yeah, it's kind of like that.

So...sorry that I've been submerged for the last 6 months, but I'm going to try to surface again now.

I'm not sure what to surface with...a post about my green smoothie every morning, or about my daughter Sissa who's off backpacking in Hawaii.

Guess I'll start with the smoothie thing (Yup, it's all excitement and edge-of-your-seat thrill rides over here). I know you're thinking, oh yay. A smoothie story.

I'll keep it short.

So my last post I told you about how I fractured my back from bending over to tie my shoe right? And I was feeling a little better by late October, but not as good as I thought I should. I was eating better and taking vitamins, had lost a little weight, but I still just wasn't feeling...healthy.

I had even bought some stuff called "Go Ruby Go" from a vitamin catalog that my mom had. It's a fruit powder that you can mix with juice or water and is supposed to give you energy. The ad shows old people riding bikes and Skeedos and rock climbing and stuff. So I thought if it can give old people energy, maybe it would help me too.

Let me just give you a little warning about ordering something from old people junk mail. You will be added to all the old people junk mail mailing lists in existence. And there are a lot of them. A lot. I get vitamin catalogs, gardening catalogs, testosterone replacement ads, reverse mortgage ads, even offers to pre-buy my mortuary plot.

They could save some postage and just send the mortuary plot ads and gardening catalogs together. "Your loved ones will never have to be bothered bringing flowers to your grave again, with our new forever-blooming bulbs!" or "Sow your tomatoes and meet the reaper in one convenient location!"

The worst ones are the ones with pictures of poop in them. Yes, apparently, pooping is a hot topic among old people. I kid you not. Take a look:

Yes, those are supposed to be photos of poop. I know, right?

This was just one page of a 12 page newsletter ad whose topic was poop. So my point is...don't order from old people's junk mail unless you are prepared for a deluge of poop ads.

Your mailbox will be overflowing. (Get it?)

ANYhoo, even Go Ruby Go (and as I typed that I realized that name could very well have been a product advertised in the poop ad.) was not not giving me energy or vitality.

So I went to see a homeopathic doctor. Don't judge me. I believe in medical doctors, but I believe in alternative therapies too. If something works, then it works. Does it matter whether it's homeopathic, chiropractic, psychopathic...whatever? Well, maybe not psychopathic, but you know what I mean. I just wanted to feel better. (Defensive, much?)

The first thing she told me was to drink a green smoothie every morning. Green being...well...greens. Spinach, kale, collards, leafy lettuce, those kinds of greens. I add in a little fruit, carrot or cucumber if I like, and non pasteurized orange or tangerine juice. She gave me other nutritional advice also, but that was the biggest change for me.

And you know what? I finally started to feel better.

I've slowly made some other changes in my diet, like eating less processed foods and less animal proteins and animal fats. I cut out red meat, but I still eat fish and some chicken. I eat a whole lot more vegetables and fruits than I used to and I pay attention to food labels more than I used to. I buy organic whenever possible and try to cut down on the toxins and chemicals that I put in my body. Some we can't control, but many we can.

After about 3 months of doing this, my sister told me I look younger. I've lost 23 pounds and dropped my cholesterol by 33 points. My regular doctor was genuinely surprised that I did that by diet alone. He had been trying to get me to take cholesterol meds, but after seeing my blood test after a few months of my new eating habits, he said, "Just keep doing what you're doing."

I now realize what a powerful thing diet is. It's one of the few things in our lives that we have control over, yet it can be so hard to just take control of it. It doesn't help that processed food loaded with chemicals are cheap and easy and fast to eat while the healthy stuff takes time to wash, cut, and prepare. It's much harder to eat healthy than to eat junk. Hence, the obesity problem in our country.

But that's a whole 'nother post. I guess my point here is...we are in control of our health. And diet and nutrition are powerful, powerful things and the right changes in those areas can make a huge difference in how you feel. It did for me.

I didn't mean to get on a soapbox, really. Just sharing my experience.

This post is going longer than I intended and I didn't even get into the endearing little nicknames my hubby and brother called me while I was wearing that awful brace. Names like Borg and The Metal Menace, to name a few. Nothing like good 'old family support, right?

So that's it for now. Next post will be about Sissa's backpacking adventure in Hawaii. Leave it to my hippie daughter to find a spot in Hawaii with no cellphone service and where supplies come in by boat.

At least they don't get poop junk mail there.