I had a conversation with my friend Jodi in Cary recently, in which she asked me how I was doing. I replied as follows:
I guess I would say that I am doing OK but not great.Since that conversation, things have improved a bit. I have been doing yoga most days. I am still eating a completely vegan diet, with the modifications I talk about above. My skin is clearing up a bit. The arthritis is very low. You get the idea.
I have had a couple of major flare ups recently. One occurred at the tail end of my last trip. I was stuck in DFW airport hungry and searched in vain for something healthy. The most healthy thing I could find was a sugary smoothie and roasted, salted nuts at Smoothie King. I actually became enraged in this airport as I looked for something vegan to eat. I entered establishment after restaurant and asked what options they had for vegans, only to receive a blank look and a “what’s that?”question. The last place I tried was Bodegga Winery, supposedly a fairly high-end restaurant in Terminal D. When I got this reaction in that restaurant, I went ballistic.
Needless to say, this did not help matters much. When I told the poor, clueless woman who I spoke that DFW Airport was a miserable place for a vegan to travel she replied, “Well don’t come here then.” To which I responded: “I have no choice!”
Texas in general seems to be one of the most unfriendly states in the country for vegans. I am considering writing a letter to the president of American Airlines on the issue, though. DFW is their headquarters and supposedly they are a fairly liberal airline in this area.
By the time I got home, I was completely inflamed and had big problems. This continued through Saturday, the following day. On Sunday, I got to my yoga class and things began to resolve. I was on track for about a week, when I had another major flare up last Tuesday night. I cannot tell you what triggered this response, although it may have been stress. My wife and I had a fight that week about the amount of skin I am making and how much of a mess it is. This left me depressed with feelings of self loathing and disgust. I did not want to face the situation, but she forced me to do so. In the process I worked myself into a frenzy and my skin and joints went crazy.
By Wednesday, I was back on a stable track, and I am now doing OK as I said.
In terms of progress I seem to be stuck. My weight is hovering around the low 230s. I am not gaining, nor am I losing. I am going to yoga almost every day which does cause the psoriasis to basically shut down for several hours. Everything scales off and I feel completely terrific. It also makes me physically tired enough so that I can sleep well, which is a big win.
I have modified the diet by dramatically reducing grains. At this point, I am eating lots of green leafy vegetables, legumes, a few nuts, fruits, starchy vegetables like squash and sweet potato, and that’s about it. This seems to help with the psoriasis a lot. In that regard, I am also basically stuck. I can’t tell I am making any progress, but I am certainly not getting any worse. I have fewer symptoms like itching, and the scaling has slowed down somewhat, but the lesions are still there and they are not going away. One bright spot is that some of my nails seem to be healing.
I am aware that I need to keep doing this and not give up. You basically saw little to no progress until your situation resolved dramatically after a lengthy fast, right? If that is the case, I may not see much visible progress for a while. I do need to get my weight down, though. Short of reducing portion size dramatically (which Dr. Fuhrman seems to say is not necessary), I am not sure what else I can do about that. I am eating to satiety at this point. If I were to reduce the calories I am eating dramatically, I have no doubt that I would lose weight. (I have certainly done that before.) But I am not sure that is what we are looking for. Such dramatically calorie reduction diets for me has always been accompanied by a big rebound later when I resumed my normal caloric intake.
To bust loose the weight loss I am considering another four day fast next week. I think I need to jump start myself and it has been almost two months since I did the last one, so I should not be training my body to have a low metabolism. Let me know if you think that’s a good way to get myself off of my current plateau.
I am pushing greens pretty hard, but am not sure I am getting a full pound a day. I looked at this. A pound of greens is the amount in an entire box of salad greens in the grocery store. (In fact, it’s the amount in a very large box. The smaller box is only five ounces.) Eating an entire large box of salad greens a day is a daunting challenge. My friend Ray who is pretty gung ho on this stuff has never pulled it off. Do you actually eat a pound of greens a day? If so, how do you do it?
I am having a couple of large salads a day plus a green smoothie with about half the solid content being greens in the form of frozen spinach. I have also found that using a green food product like Natrol Factors Enhancing Greens to be helpful. I also put in a serving of wheat grass juice which I buy fresh at the health food store. That’s about a dollar a day, but it seems to help reduce inflammation and swelling. In addition, I am adding A’cai, which I am not sure you have discovered. Very similar to mangosteen which I also sometimes add. A’cai is a great anti-inflammatory, and is basically just fruit. I buy it in frozen form (the whole fruit, not the juice) from the health food store. After having my smoothie, I always feel great for a few hours. But I can’t eat that all the time. It costs a few bucks a smoothie for one thing. Salad also feels good to eat. Things that feel bad are grains, spicey foods like peppers, and sometimes legumes. Legumes can cause me to swell up. I still eat them though. I figure I need some protein in my diet, and I am not getting any from much else. I have deleted all soy-based products though. The soymilk is pretty much gone. Once in a blue moon I will have a little, but very seldom. Not daily like I was doing before.
So that’s my story at this point.
I am presently traveling to Boston on a business trip and finding it a bit easier than my previous experiences. I have actually found some decent restaurants in Boston. The first is Fresh World, which is another example of what I am calling ethical fast food, a major cultural and economic shift that is happening right now. This is an outstanding restaurant for a vegan. Many, many choices. They even had acai smoothies, which as I point out above has become an important part of my diet.
Move later.
