Health Diaries » Becoming My Passion » May 2006

May 8, 2006

It’s a New Dawn, It’s a New Day It’s a New Life

It’s a New life for me and I’m feeling. . . GOOD!

Okay! I lost 17 Pounds on the 3-day fast and this morning after a day with some eating (including a little ice cream and coffee!) I lost another pound! I did start exercising on Saturday though. I put the Walk-Away-The-Pounds DVD in with Mariah Carey on the sound and it really limbered me up. I just got done doing the workout just now too. I started reading “Body for Life for Women” by Pamela Peeke. She breaks down all this information about our bodies and what they’re going through the four phases of a woman’s development years.

1. Menstruation
2. Reproduction
3. Perimenopause
4. Menopause

I had no idea that as a woman moves past 40 that her ability to taste sweets diminishes so she may try to increase her sweets to get that same basic taste level like some women over spray cologne because they can’t smell it anymore! Ooh, that’s a scary thought considering most of us have been trapped at some time or another in an elevator with a woman committing this gut ripping olfactory faux pas! Let me be fair I’ve also experienced it with a man who’s left us all on the floor groping for air as well! Moving along, as I was reading her book I felt the immediate urgency to workout and but QUICK!

Since I started the 3-day I’m moving up the 3 flights to my apartment much faster! My goal for those stairs now is to run up them every time I come back home! Who says fasting’s bad for you? Forgettaboutit!

Some positive changes since the start of the 3-Day Fast:

1. My blood pressure has gone from 155/81 to today’s 147/79 (And that was after today’s workout!)

2. I’ve lost 18 lbs

3. I got some more dimensions to the screenplay that I hadn’t thought about and even got the exact ending point for the screenplay!

4. Completed some great research for the screenplay and got to speak to a wonderful Ranger in the Grand Canyon National Park, who promptly gave me his direct line if I should ever need any more questions answered! How cool is that?!! Wow!

5. Shared my “Letters to Heal” Letter to my dad with my brothers and sister and made the great decision to send the letter to dad anyways! I got the blessings of my siblings! Very cathartic and cool!

6. I’m making connections with how to get to that “Before and After” picture Mecca! Drop calories, pick up exercises in number and frequency, and drink water like it’s going out of style! Yeah!

I’m so full of joy right now. It’s amazing how everything sort of spiritually fell together! I discussed sending letter to dad with my sweetheart who supported me wholeheartedly and encouraged me to speak to siblings. Got a conference call into my brothers which had us reminiscing the old family times with lots of laughter and the connection felt so deep and needed, then miraculously my sister called from Iraq the next morning and I was able to read her the letter and share the previous night’s conversation! Mind you we can’t contact our soldiers, most of them at will by phone but they can use calling cards and occasionally contact us but there’s no rhyme or reason when, and definitely no ability to plan it. At least that’s not the case for my sister’s unit. So for her to call within hours of my conversation with my brothers was fabulous! I had already woken up that morning from a dream for the screenplay so I grabbed pen and was furiously writing before I barely woke up! Between that, my sister’s call and finding the spot I’d been picturing for the character to end the movie, and finding it on the internet a place I’d never even heard of which is one of the most remote places in the United States to speaking to someone who overseas this natural National wonder and treasure… well I’ll tell you, my heart is ready to explode!

Sunday was truly a spiritual day for me! After I’m done here I’m going to go sauté some veggies to chow on and open a can of albacore tuna! Yeah! I’m getting it! I AM GETTING it…ALL THAT HEAVEN WILL ALLOW!

Totals:

147/79 Blood Pressure Goal: 130/70 or lower

Posted by ijellorca at 10:10 AM | Comments (3)

May 6, 2006

Fasting 3-Day Comes to an End! Woo Hoo!

Okay it’s definitely the bile-dumping portion of things! Sheesh! Oh boy water and more water. Stomach is empty so I know it’s burning up the fat resources. I have to get to the belief that I actually can be like these “before and after” pictures I see everywhere. Whether it’s through Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, South Beach, Gastric Bypass surgery, or whatever method that produced the coveted “Before or after” can be in my future too, if I only believe it. That is one hell of a monolith to traverse for sure!

Right now I’m feeling a little hungry, some chicken fettuccine would be wonderful, but not worth it. Soon, in about 7 hours I’ll be done with day 3. I’m changing channels on the TV because now everything looks ravishingly satisfying! I’m not sure if I’ll continue or not. One thing I will be doing is counting the calories big time! I like the scale going down again. If nothing else I can keep the amount ingested really low! If not low amount then super low calories! One thing’s for sure I need to manage the water so that I don’t have to get up so much in the middle of the night! The bathroom business will start calming down I hope tomorrow. I missed taking picture but I’ll take one tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll get body measurements too. I started taking my blood pressure and it’s dropped from 2 days ago. The goal is to get it low permanently! It’s almost 18 hours just a few more minutes so I’ll count that! Soon!!! I’ll be there! Woo hoo!

I feel good!

Totals:

013 Pounds Down 037 More to go

Posted by ijellorca at 4:50 PM | Comments (0)

May 5, 2006

The Toxins are Transuding!

This isn’t one of my favorite stages of Fasting. Your olfactory becomes hypersensitive and everything you’ve ingested in the past week seems to exit stage right every pore and portal known to womankind! Okay, okay, I’ll say mankind too, just figure I’ll come from my personal experience. I think I could shower 5 times a day and still the nose picks up everything! I can’t be quite certain it isn’t my imagination considering the way our olfactory region works. I guess it’s good I’m not around anyone. This is before acetone breath that comes from the body becoming acidotic with ketone byproducts. I know it sounds gruesome, but the truth is this phase passes as the toxins are cleared away. The worst truth is it tells me how much junk I was ingesting lately. Thank God for clear cool and clean water! Lovely clear waterfall dreaming water! My other ally!

Today I am proud of myself for hanging tough through the first 24 hours. I’ve taken to daydreaming about the smaller body and stepping on the scale with lower weights. I daydream of the days when food is just plain insignificant, and no longer a social game, activity, or “Moment” in life! All the cooking I’ve done has helped me develop my sea legs for dishes I’ve never done or the skills in making bread, but they were also the “achievements” of someone with “NO LIFE” to feel worthy in the grand scheme of not Moving when you want, and not working when you want, and not getting the business going the way I wanted, okay a long line of failures! Well, what seemed like failures to me. Living in limbo! When I finally get completely out of this “Hole” I think the air is going to be too wonderful and sweet to hold my breath anymore!

My lips are starting to dry out so I’m downing more water. Yesterday I drank a gallon easily. They say obese people are really dehydrated people. Hmm. Well that fits I guess. I’ve heard that people often mistake thirst for hunger. That may be, I used to be thirsty more than hungry but I suspect my natural cues are all kattywonkous from years and years of toxins padded on my undeserving body!

You know I cry for women who are battered, children that have been abused and the world’s hunger, mistreated annihilated and oppressed but how am I any different than those monsters metering out such heinous acts? My body has been under an onslaught of horrible treatment since I was first abused as a 4 year old, displaced aggression if I ever saw it. There are no good excuses; no excuse is ever good really. If it were then you could excuse all the serial killers, rapists, mass human exterminators because of something that happened to them in their past. How did Jesus put it? And the King will answer, “In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40 NJB standard edit.

I really should be crying for how I treated this child of God!

I’m going to try to look to the positives and remember me, and being good to me.

Had major temptation today. I scheduled a grocery delivery and forgot I had Entenmanns’s assorted donuts! Sheesh, I guess that was one big Freudian slip eh? Chocolate glazed and Powdered staring at me innocently! I wasn’t as stone strong as I liked to become. I opened it, yes, all the way! I touched the glazed and closed it back up thinking “WHAT WOULD ONE DONUT HURT?” I got up put it and the cheese and bread into the fridge. Funny I had ice cream delivered but it didn’t bother me it was headed for the deep freeze, too much trouble to bother with. I know what’s so healthy about these items. I find that I crave them less when they’re in house. The best thing is the donuts aren’t the boss of me! I don’t even want them now and I sure as heck can’t smell them so passed that test! Yes I’m on my period and that’s definitely wreaking havoc with the cravings, but I triumphed big time with this, BIG TIME!! It’ll be nice to post ZERO foods to fitday.com again.

I’m making Mint Green Sun tea on the deck. It’s nice outside 80 degrees F. The summer’s hunting me! I’ve got to drop this weight before it comes! I know I’m going to make it. If at the end of 3 days I’m within 10 lbs of getting under the next 100 lb mark I’ll stay on the fast a few days longer. The more distance I can create weight wise from my starting weight the better I’ll feel about restarting the protein and veggies eating style. Right now I’m too fragile. I know just like any drug addict who’s able to cut through the fog to be honest with themselves that “one donut, drug, drink, screw, dollar spent, etc” whatever sinks your boat is one too many to handle when you behave addictively! More good news, I’m more than half way done with the fast! I’m sliding down the good side of the hill! I love it! Time to go Meditate!

Totals:

010 Pounds down 040 More to go

Posted by ijellorca at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

May 4, 2006

Sleep the constant ally!

Well, I’ve just about made the 24 hours. I learned my lesson from yesterday’s failings and gave the dogs straight kibble. Of course they turned their noses up at it, but no matter when they get hungry they’ll eat! I did feel hunger earlier; it was the TV, ads, even shows! Out of nowhere someone will be eating rice or soup and it just sounds like a 10 course gourmet meal! Silly eh? Watched “The Family Stone” and it’s now one of my Christmas, holiday classics! Just like “Pieces of April” and “Home for the Holidays”, “What’s Cooking” and “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “The Holiday Inn” “The Christmas Story” and all the animated specials I love! No Christmas would be complete without “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” or “Peanuts Christmas” Rudolph, Santa Claus, and Frosty. I’m digressing again! Still it was a wonderful movie with one of my favorite people in the world! Diane Keaton! She’s a Goddess!

Moving along. . . the day’s just about up, my stomach feels good. I don’t feel nauseous or ill at the moment. I’ve been drinking lots of water today. I think that’s helped tremendously! I did take a picture but I think I’ll wait on posting that, looking at my face might cause severe damage at the moment! Oops ouch, nasty little self-talk, I’ll have to work on that too!

Oh goodness next movie has pasta in it! WEAKNESS! God I’d do so much for some fettuccine Alfredo! Oh boy, will those cravings ever cease! I’m safe no ingredients to make it in the house! Well I’m probably going to have to watch some shows with beautiful svelte women so that I can be reminded of the impending summer uncomfortable ness of living in a fat body! Besides that, there's the cleansing of the system thing.

Tomorrow’s a big day. It’s Friday for one, and I do believe stinky pants boy needs a bath tomorrow AM. Oh the joys of owning a dog!

Well that’s it’s for the night. Only 20 more minutes till 24 hours so I’ll just count it and go on with the Fast!

Totals:

024 Hours down 048 More to go

Posted by ijellorca at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)

Let my Guard down, won't be Fooled, Foiled Again!

Food Foiled AGAIN

Yes! At 24 hours I was foiled. What took me out? Feeding the dogs, gave them some apple stew on their food. I should have eradicated the extra nummies on their food. Today I most certainly will just put down kibble only. I ended up with the runs for my step off the path. After 24 hours stew just wasn’t the thing to eat. Ate a biscuit to calm to the stomach and had a few more felt better for a bit. This morning stomach not happy. I’m back on the 3 day as of 11 PM last night so new hourly count today. Not surprisingly I still dropped weight but we all know that’s water weight. Still it’s nice to see the scale drop down. It may plateau with what I ingested yesterday. Usually when I come off a fast I eat quite a bit less caustic for the tummy. I’ll be more understanding to the body from now on.

No weird food dreams last night. Didn’t sleep well. I’m more aware of how uncomfortable I am with my actions and the way I treat my temple! This temple of mine is in serious decay and neglect! I started drinking my water again last night and it’s the only thing that felt right about yesterday. I hadn’t had any during the day, but now I feel the craving. When I fast that’s one thing I tend to have trouble with is drinking water. I think I start shutting off anything going through the lips, which is probably the biggest part of foiling my fast. I do need water.

I feel my left tonsil a little, it’s a little inflamed I think. Every once in a while it happens, usually something I’ve eaten! My skin seems bumpy and full of blemishes, let’s not forget blotchy! Blotchy shows up on my skin tone big time! I have jowls like a pig. Sad when you start to resemble the nasty names cruel people have for the overweight, fat, and obese! I remember when I was 1/6th the size I am now and in a weight loss group that that discussed nutrition and how people treat overweight people and this lovely woman in the group who was bigger than me at the time (See I’ve always seen myself as fat even when I was Height Weight Proportionate! I guess when you’re given a “Harmless name like ‘FATSO’ as a little girl with a bit of pudginess then you live up to it the rest of your life, or never believe it will go away, no matter how small you get!) But nonetheless a beautiful woman and no where as big as I’ve gotten in the last 3 years, told me that she was just walking to get exercise and some guys in a passing car yelled WHALE at her! To this day I hate to walk on the street because I’m afraid someone will yell something cruel like that at me. I’ve taken walks with my dogs late at night after 10 PM, but this neighborhood is full of drug addicts and prostitutes that do just about anything for money. Cars are constantly being stolen from the parking lot. If I didn’t have the Walk Away The Pounds tape by Leslie Sansone I wouldn’t get any walking in other than what little I do with the dogs in the field, and that’s much too leisurely to do much good. I spend more time trying to wrangle them then walking in the field. They’re herding dogs so running, cutting cattle, and corralling is what they do. It’s infuriating when you think about it. An overweight person not only has to deal with the food cause: “You have to eat!” You have to deal with tauntings and meddling from people while you’re trying to do the healthy thing for yourself!

Being fat, overweight, obese is such a nightmare; wish you could give the experience before a person actually heads down that path. Not just see it on TV, or in a movie but also intrinsically feel it and all the horrid trappings that go with!

Oh there’s just way too much! All the while people that are big by virtue of emotional, medical, or physical mishaps, issues are real people in the middle of the mass wishing people would see the real “me” instead of just how fat they are. Honestly I know people feel this way about everything they feel takes away from their “true self” For instance, women with small breasts, women with extra large breasts (that don’t want them, be it emotional or physical.) People wish this who have massive scarring on their faces or have been left minus a limb or appendage from birth or an accident/assault. There’s so many reason we all want to surmount out “detracting” physical issues and be accepted, loved, admired and so importantly, respected!

I’ve wrestled with weight since I was first molested at age four. Before that I was a skinny boned little girl who was shy and barely spoke. I remember sitting on a blanket at a family picnic quietly watching everyone and my grandpa Joe, the Blackfoot Indian mix stood over me and asked my mom “Doesn’t she ever speak?” I often wondered if he were frustrated with me or just curious. He himself was a man of few words, so I don’t know. The thing is even before the weight started I had “shyness” I was born into a black family with Native American mixings and Caucasian mixings. I am a girl. I would have 4 things to surmount even before I started weight-merry-go-round! Girls can’t do what boys can do, but hey they can wash the dishes and clean the house! Joy! Being black never seemed like an issue to me at first until some Dark black children started teasing my sister and I for being so light. The thing is we weren’t that light, not by a long shot I thought. Then came the “But you’re black” days and after my mom moved us to a predominantly white community there came the “N” word, I was too shocked to respond at first, then instantly enraged the next time and threatened the kid within an inch of his life. So I was wishing to be seen as me through a lot more than my weight, and suddenly the weight became my protector, buffer zone between the creepy people and the small gushy me. If I were fat and ugly then maybe I wouldn’t be sexually abused or groped by the male species!

People just don’t know how sad and vicious the cycle of the fat, overweight, obese person’s daily lives are. If you’re upset you eat, as you gain you get up set so you eat, if you try to lose weight and are teased ridiculed: “Oh you’re trying a new diet? Hope this one works, are you allowed to eat that?” Or the classic from my aunt: “Turn to Oprah they’re talking to a 650 lb woman who’s having gastric bypass surgery!” Or “Turn to channel 8 there’s a 400 lb twin with her 120 lb sister!” What cracks me up is the people who do this usually have some major issue in their life that’s horrendous, either their weight or their drug addicted husband or something. Ack! It’s exhaustive! I can feel one of those “Letters to Heal” coming!

Daily totals:

010 Pounds Down 040 More to go

Posted by ijellorca at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

May 3, 2006

Infiltrated Dreams...Foody thoughts!

It’s almost like the last vacation the dogs and I took last year to the ocean. Sleep when you want, wake up watch Nature from the deck or take walks as you feel like it. No obligation to eat or go anywhere to eat. I haven’t even had the TV on. I dreamed some interesting stuff though.

My family was having some kind of family reunion outside and I guess I was on the committee to set up or something like that. The spread of food was enormous and involved several long tables one end toward the other! My family can cook believe you me! All those wonderful southern dishes left and right…Aunt X’s ‘tater salad, Aunt X’s Jell-O cake, Cousin X’s ribs and chicken, and brisket (he’s a professional meat smoker! Say no more!) Grandmother X’s Pecan pie, and Momma X’s pound cake and greens, and fried chicken! Cousin X’s Pansit, and Phad Thai, Yes our family broke the racial barrier years ago!

So moving along through the dream people started filing into the park where this was being held and the ladies who were setting it up ran and got their pick of the food and sat down at the head of one set of tables. All the dining tables had been set up in long long long rows very close together so if you were sitting mid table you’d almost get stuck unless you were “regular sized to squeeze past everyone’s chairs to get back to the food or go to the bathroom, (Trust me it’s worse than an Opera house!) So I, feeling like I was the biggest person there, asked for someone to move down so that I could get up and down easier. They, the set up women, were busy stuffing their faces and they were laughing saying that I should have gotten a seat sooner and I was on my own. (Note the first intense feeling of abandonment, major theme in my life!) So I started searching the other rows of tables only to find as soon as I got to one it was immediately filled up on the ends except the mid table! Finally after walking a long while I found one seat at the very end way far from the buffet table and I remember thinking “Man, I’m so far from the food!” but then I thought oh that’s okay at least I can get up and down without bothering anyone so I can at least hit the bathroom when I need to. I looked back at the seat and miraculously part of the table covered it from the side so I’d end up enclosed and unable to get back up after sitting down. I’d be trapped. I walked off far away from the cluster of tables and saw a lone smaller table that would normally fit six diners and my cousin X, and his wife were sitting there.

They sat on one side but they’re so obese that they took up 2 seats apiece. They started admonishing me for not having more food on my plate, (their plates were mounded over almost a foot high and they had several at the table covering most of the table. As I cautiously sat down son joined us with two foot high heaped up plates of deserts or something. “Now see that’s how you’re supposed to load up because some of the good stuff will be gone if you wait to go back up a 2nd time!” She said to me and I felt suddenly embarrassed to be at their table with all that food and to be fat at the same time. I was too dumbfounded to eat. They continued to admonish me, asking me why I hadn’t returned their calls for some kind of Psychological/religious event they wanted me to attend with them, informing me that I was going and they weren’t taking no for an answer this time they were coming to pick me up to make sure I was going! I felt the terror grown at the back of my neck causing the nape hairs to stand up.

“You must talk, to Dr. X, he knows how to take care of you so that you can stay healthy like us, if you keep eating like that with barely anything on your plate you’ll waste away to nothing and people like us don’t come a dime a dozen you know!” I remember somehow drifting away from them while there were stuffing their faces too much to realize I’d left, and left them my plate. I couldn’t eat. All of a sudden everything was over and everyone was packing up and grabbing paper plates lined with foil to steal away the last of their favorites. Some people shamelessly had boxes of food. Someone had packed a box for me and I was sifting through it to see what they would have picked for me and I saw a bunch of fresh lightly steamed veggies still bright green with a wonderful “al dente” crunch to them. (Green beans, my favorite!) When my Cousins from the “FAT” table came over and started shoving starchy, sugary desserts and dishes in my box. Thwarted again I was disgusted and woke up!

Now if that’s not a nightmare I don’t know what is! Phew! I guess if I keep eating unconsciously then I’m no better than my cousins. Every time I see them they’re bigger and bigger. I don’t think they actually struggle at losing weight. I know one of them had diabetes, and they do always try to get me to go their church or whatever they’re into. I like them very much they’re both super intelligent so conversations with them are a “feast” so to speak but I’ve always suspected that since I’ve been on the heavier side they tried to get me to hang with them at family get-togethers. There may be somewhat a bit of that, but then to be fair it probably has more to do with my mind and conversation as well. It’s my insecurities that would lead me to think it’s my weight. Since the assaults and the excess of weight I’ve put on it’s almost like they’ve wanted me around more though. If you go to their home it’s full of the most wondrous foods you can imagine! That’s on any day! They are very spiritual as well and that I love about our conversations but as pointed out in this dream I’m fearful of fat. I think I always have been. Hmm, I guess there’s some truth to becoming what you fear if you don’t deal with it.

What a wild dream!

Well it’s been16 hours and I feel good. I don’t feel hungry, nothing to really remind me that I might even be hungry, no food smells, not television commercials, nothing yummy in the fridge calling my name. In fact the curry stew that I made the other day can go into the freezer to keep for months down the road. The only thing that will probably go bad is the bagged salad in the crisper and some fruit that really needed to be ingested probably earlier this week. But let me think the welfare of fruit, or the welfare of me? I win! I WIN. I like the thought of that my winning out over food or any adversity I’ve let control me in the past! On Saturday I’ll clean out the fridge just for fun! I’m moving in steps this time small fast to bigger and so on. On weight loss, small amount and so on. Phase one will put me 50 lbs closer to my goal weight!

So totals:

004 Pounds down 046 more to go

Posted by ijellorca at 2:09 PM | Comments (0)

8 hours into 3-Day Fast

Last night in the middle of the night I got up and vomited! Weird, it’s like my body has spoken! I never throw up unless I’ve got a bad virus. It’s going to be good to feel nothing but water filtering through my body. I got up early today. It’s beautiful outside. I really need to set up my camera and take daily pictures; I’m such a chicken when it comes to being in front of those danged things. I love photography, just haven’t made friends with being the subject of it. Who knows maybe the more balanced I become. We’ll see. I’ll definitely make the effort on one of these fasts. It’s good to have a record of change in ourselves I think to be able to spur us on further in our pursuits and to see how far we’ve come, still…baby steps girl, baby steps!

Today I want to start the “de-cluttering” of my living space. Books are falling off every space I could hedge them! Yup! Books are like candy to me, and truthfully if I could afford books in place of food, I’d have it made! I read where Oprah said something like: some women have to have shoes, but I can go barefoot if I could just have books. That’s the gist of it, not a direct quote. I have no self-control when it comes to books. There’s always some kind of information that I’m curious about or want to study or just peruse; I’m insatiable! I knew a schoolteacher who went to the church I used to attend when I lived on the South end of town and she invited myself and another friend at that time to her home. It was a simple unassuming looking place from the front and when I walked through the front door I knew it was my dream home! There were books stacked up everywhere spilling off everything and the whole other wall of her home was almost a complete window looking out over the valley leading to Tacoma, WA with all the lights and plenty of sky to daydream with! Of course she had hardwood floors so you didn’t have the nightmare of dust and clean up mishaps of carpet! You never realize how much you miss hardwood floors until you have to live in the Pacific Northwest with the rain, the mud, and the mildew! Even though I’ve always taken my shoes off at the door in my home (Which a carpet cleaner attributed to the miraculous cleanliness of the carpet after I’d been living here for a couple years-He couldn’t believe I’d lived here that long) eventually with visitors who don’t take off their shoes and the addition of 2 dogs ran the carpet into the ground so to speak. As usual, I’m off on a tangent!

I just loved the schoolteacher’s home. She apologized for the stacks of books and even suggested that it was shameful; I could barely answer her because I was too busy greedily reading the titles and feeling the joy of being given the “okay” to live in such a manner! I know that’s why I’ll own that condominium on Alki Beach before too long because it’s a wall of windows looking out over Puget Sound and the Seattle skyline and the Olympic Mountains with 4000 sq feet of space for me to fill up with books, art and beauty! That’s my dream home. Elevator up to the home so no help needed with the boxes of books I love to check out of the library or buy at Amazon! Of course there’ll be comfy cozy seating and a few area rugs but NO WALL TO WALL CARPET! Boo hiss! The only place I can even think of having carpet completely is the bedroom where no spill should ever happen, no sooner spoken then the spill happens to be sure!

So the game plan today is if I feel any of those familiar hunger pangs or more realistically just gastro-entero gurglings, I’ll crawl under a blankie and meditate on just how good it feels being on vacation from eating, ingesting, craving, fixing food, cleaning up after, or the excessive physical quirks that come with ingesting toxic fodder! Ha ha what a mouthful. Wouldn’t it be nice to turn to fasting during emotional times instead of eating! I could be an emotional Faster instead of an emotional eater. Hey and with the completion of more “Letters to Heal” maybe I’ll be less emotional period!

8 Down 64 more hours to go!

Posted by ijellorca at 6:14 AM | Comments (0)

May 2, 2006

Fast Fast Fast, The Tummy's On Vacation!

3 Day Fast in the works

At 10 PM tonight I begin my 3 day fast. Next week I’ll increase it if I achieve my commitment to my body. I listened today and my body said that it can no longer keep making up for the horrible way that I mistreat it with creepy foods and excess foods and general neglect. I meditated a long time and listening to my body speak was incredible. I look forward to the empty feeling in my stomach again. One of my dogs got sick so I spent the day cleaning carpet, so we’re all getting a vacation day from food tomorrow. They’ll probably get a little bit of plain kibble or rice, but tonight it’s just water! No one’s whined for the food so that’s good. I don’t have it in me to steam clean carpets in the middle of the night. I’m going to try to go to bed early but alas that’s not a strong point of mine. Nonetheless I’ll kick my feet up for now. So far we’re 10 minutes into the fast! I’m excited!

Posted by ijellorca at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

I Want To Listen; I Want To Hear!

I’ve prided myself on listening to other people and what’s going with them. I listened to my friends, my mom, my aunt, cousins, my brothers and sisters but what about me? I just want to be still and listen. I want to hear what my body, mind and heart are trying to tell me daily. I want to hear the beauty in my voice and my soul, not the desperate crying and screaming of pain from too much fat pressing an extraordinary amount of weight on my knees or the yell of a heart attack. I want to hear my body sing and speak to me about the world from the point of view I can’t see or hear traditionally. I want to hear the love songs the world sings to each of us when we listen. I want to hear the calm illuminating voice of the Holy Spirit and God’s wisdom and caring! I want to listen. I want to hear love.

I want to sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon and feel the depths of the beauty of centuries gone by; feel the natural wonder of all the energies that travailed there. Right now I’m trying to listen, I’m trying to hear all my body and the stillness can tell me today. I pray to God that I listen all day and that tomorrow I can wake up and hear just a little bit more and so on and so on until the dialogue with my heart will fill me up with something beautiful to share. I want to listen, I want to hear and then I hope I can see more clearly the rest of the world, see me. I want to listen.

Posted by ijellorca at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)

Letters to Heal "Every Kinda People"

Every Kinda People

I’ve always cried my eyes out when listening to this song, why? I listened to the lyrics again and how it speaks to us all is the humbling thing.

“It Takes every kind of people to make the world go ‘round’” How I doubt myself and believe deep down inside that the whole world would prefer someone, anyone over me keeps me from helping the world go ‘round.

“Said the fight to make ends meet
Keeps a man upon his feet” does that mean that the fact I’m not working traditionally mean I can’t feel my feet and the reason that “lost” sensation hovers over me constantly?

“You know that love's the only goal
That could bring a peace to any soul
Hey, and every man's the same
He wants the sunshine in his name” Well there you have it love is the only goal and it is the only thing to bring peace, Prince of Peace, God is love thing. And God I’m just like everyone else I want the sunshine in my name. I’ve allowed dark clouds for so long that it always seems out of my grasp! Tonight I realized there were so many things that I’ve left unsaid to so many people that I feel “wronged me” or left me feeling weak and small and unworthy but my non-confrontational nature keeps me from saying things that I need to say so that I don’t upset the “Balance.” Now that’s funny, because I wouldn’t feel so insignificant if there were true balance! I started a file called “Letters to Heal” The first letter to my dad who refuses to talk to me. I so need to heal I get better but then something drags me back into the crab pot! All this extreme weight doesn’t come from soap operas and chocolate covered cherries! I don’t watch soap operas and I hate chocolate covered cherries but no matter how much I think “ooh I’ve got it” the physical truth remains, I’m out of balance and I got there from way back and I’ve never truly let out my feeling and thoughts about it and I really need to do this, because I can no longer stand the weight of the pressure on my heart and mind and bones!

Letters To Heal

May 1, 2006

Love B

Every Kinda People

Ooh, it takes every kind of people...

Posted by ijellorca at 2:01 AM | Comments (2)