Dr Fuhrman's Healthy Getaway

We spent last week at Dr Fuhrman's Healthy Getaway. What a treat for me. All the food was compliant with "Eat for Health" principles and most of it was free of our allergens. This meant that I had a cooking holiday. What bliss.



I must admit that I was excited about going because I knew I was going to have a cooking holiday, but at the same time, I was rather leery of going as I was worried about being surrounded by the church of Dr Fuhrman. Thankfully the vast majority of the attendees were rational beings who were glad of the difference "Eat to Live" and "Eat for Health" had made to their lives but who were not sycophants.



There were a bunch of kids at the getaway so Ben and Shira got to see that they are not children of a space alien. They got to see other children and adults who also eat the way mommy makes them eat. A huge benefit was that Ben became more adventurous with his food choices. I was shocked. I have no idea why or how seeing all those different foods on a buffet three times a day worked, but Ben was merrily trying different foods at each meal. Now the hope is that this adventurous spirit will stay with him at home.

I am still trying to work out what top benefit of this getaway was to my family. The major ones were:

• I had a cooking holiday


• The children got to see other children who eat the way they do


• The children were allowed to go free range and demonstrated that they follow orders and are trustworthy


• The lectures by Dr F were worth their weight in gold. I was reminded of things I had forgotten and I am psyched again to ensure that our family has the best diet possible


• It was relaxing and rejuvenating. The grounds were absolutely beautiful

I almost think that the top benefit was that Ben and Shira were able to go "free range". They loved being able to run around without me tagging along. I watched my children mature day by day as they were given more and more freedom.

They were as happy as clams to be able to finally learn to fish. I have steadfastly refused to teach them to fish. I think that if you are going to kill animals you need to eat them. We don't eat animals, so I don't hold with killing them. I also don't hold with hooking and releasing fish as I don't think it is ethical to cause harm and pain to living creatures for self gratification. However, the kids' camp was teaching the kids to fish and I decided that perhaps if the kids tried it once, they'd see what I meant. Fat chance! Ben now wants to go fishing again. UGHH!



One of the attendees, Larry, is a great photographer. He took a all the photographs I am linking to in this post. If you want to see more photographs, have a look here.



We're definitely planning on going to next year's getaway. This time we'll plan ahead of time so that Marc can take time off and join us. We had a splendid time, but it would have been so much better if Marc could have joined us. It looks like my in-laws might join us at next year's getaway. That will be marvelous because the ratio of adults to children will be more favorable and I'll be able to do more of the adult activities.

One of the big side effects of the getaway is that I am now psyched again about exercise. I used to be an exercise fiend, then I had twins and developed osteonecrosis. Being overwhelmed and in pain took over my life and I stopped exercising. I am now psyched to start again. I started with a personal trainer this week.

I know it is a luxury, but I know myself, I need a bit of help with self discipline. Having a trainer come to the house twice a week will keep me on the straight and narrow in the beginning. She also checks that I am doing my cardio workouts. The accountability makes a big difference for me. The current plan is to do Pilates with her twice a week, yoga with her and the kids once a week, spinning at the Y 3 times a week and perhaps a Pilates class at the Y on the weekend. The kids have been begging to do a yoga class and I have no been able to find one in Norfolk. Yesterday I asked, Erin if she knew of a children's yoga teacher. To my great delight, I discovered that she used to teach children's yoga in TN. She is going to teach a class in my playroom for me, a friend and our four children. How cool is that? (and it's cheaper than going to the kids' yoga classes in VA Beach).

I am loving the burning, sore muscles I have. I am starting to feel alive again. Dr Fuhrman says that females should have a body fat of no more than 18% (males should be 10%). Suffice it to say that I am not near the recommended 18%. My plan is to be there by next spring.

Fresh Produce

MSNBC published an article yesterday about research done by the University of Arizona that states:

The average U.S. household throws out nearly a quarter of the fruits and vegetables they buy. For a family of four, that adds up to about $500 each year, according to a study by the University of Arizona.

The article then goes on to give tips on how to choose and store fresh produce. To my mind, the research brings up a much more worrying issue.

If the average household of four throws out about a quarter of their produce costing about $500 a year, it means that they are spending about $2,000 a year on fresh produce. Put another way, they are spending $38 a week on fruits and veggies (and only eating $28 a week if the study is to believed about a quarter being trashed). I don't see how anyone can even eat the official recommendation 5 fruits and veg on that amount of money. Five fruits and veg a day are no where near enough to maintain good health. No wonder Americans are so unhealthy.

I was amused by this quote:

One reason is that "people want to perceive themselves as eating healthier than they do," said Timothy Jones, author of the University of Arizona study on food waste.

When you are eating that little plant material, a few extra bunches of broccoli or spinach hardly counts.

I'm spending between $120-$180 per week on fresh produce for our family of 4 and there is no way I throw away nearly a quarter of that food.

One of my best finds were the Tupperware Fridgesmart containers.

I'm not a Tupperware fan as I am no fan of plastic and I think that they are way over priced. However, these containers are cheap at the price. I love how they stack so I can fill every available space in my refrigerator. Better yet, they do deliver as promised. I've kept strawberries fresh for 2 weeks in one of those containers. (not that berries generally last that long in our household. Ben and Shira are veritable berry fiends. They eat berries with every meal. My test happened when I forgot to clean out the fridge before we went on a trip. I was pleasantly surprised to find all the food in the containers to still be fresh when we returned).

I also use the Evert-Fresh bags.

They work well, but don't allow for stacking, so I use them for things like apples and cabbage, stuff that I toss into the produce drawers.

I'm still in shock that Americans eat so few fruits and veggies. This morning I used 2lbs of fruit and 2lbs of veggies to make my family's breakfast. That cost approximately $8 (or $56 a week). Our family spends more on fruits and veggies for breakfast, than the average American family spends on them for all three daily meals. That's truly scary.

I just don't understand modern medicine

I was watching an interview yesterday with a doc on the side of the drug companies that make vaccines. He was responding to the recent ruling where the feds admit that vaccines aggravated autism.

He said that there was no proof that vaccines caused autism. The interviewer asked him if there was proof that vaccines did not cause autism. He was taken aback and it appeared in his mind that just because the proof of a cause was lacking that it meant that it proved that vaccines did not cause autism.

Until recently there has been no proof that food allergies cause rhematoid arthritis so the docs have insisted that there is no link despite thousands of anecdotal cases of people with RA going into complete remission once they took their food allergens out of their diets.

A small new study has just been published that shows that docs have been looking in the wrong place for the connection between food allergens and RA. Before, they always looked in the blood, this study found that “the intestinal fluid of
people with RA had higher levels of antibodies to proteins from
cow's milk, cereal, hen's eggs, codfish and pork than that of people
without RA.”

It’s early days still and more research has to be done, but it is good to see that medicine is finally catching up with what some people with RA have known for years.

I am always amazed at how rheumatologists are quick to give their patients truly dangerous drugs, drugs that have horrendous side effects and at the same time, they refuse to countenance the idea that simple dietary changes might make a difference. I often think that I have completely misunderstood that old maxim that is always quoted, “First do no harm”.

Last July, I was in agony. I could barely walk on my feet, they hurt so badly. My hands were so weak and painful that I couldn’t open jars and I struggled to cut with knives. My fingers were turning into claws.

I saw a rheumatologist and he wanted to put me onto methotrexate. I refused and said that I was going to try dietary intervention first and then if that didn’t work, I would consider his drugs.

I went to a wonderful nutritional doc, Dr Joel Fuhrman for treatment. Dr F. is the author of many books, the most well known being Eat to Live. I had been following his Eat to Live plan for about a year at that time and had successfully brought my BP down from 170/150 to around 90/60,

Dr F put me on a boot camp version of his Eat to Live plan. I cut back on the fruits, increased the leafy greens and in particular the more bitter of the cruciferous veg, upped my fish oil to 9g a day, stopped eating my beloved sprouts and became consistent about taking a probiotic daily. (that’s a very abridged version of the plan. Email me if you want more details).

Within weeks all my pain had disappeared and I my hands were useful again. I still have some deformity in two fingers but other than that, there is no evidence of what I looked like less than a year ago.

Last month, before I had my knee surgery, I had my inflammatory markers checked. Every marker is at a perfect level, there is no evidence of inflammation anywhere in my body.

I can’t but wonder what my life would have been like if I had done as the rheumie had suggested and started on Methotrexate. I would be worrying about cancers, would fee like shitl and if the people I have spoken to who take the drug are anything to go by, the disease would not have reversed. Here I am, I did not pay a single penny on drugs, just changed the way I ate and I have never been healthier in my life.