The Elusive Introvert

Saturday. Today I only had a 1/2 hour worth of treatments, so I basically had the day to myself. Today I finally reached my goal of walking 9 laps around the one side of the campus.I've been slowing building up the number of laps as I'm feeling stronger and better each day. I'm not sure how many miles that would be but I'm guessing about 5 miles because it normally takes me about 20 minutes to walk a mile and I walked for like an hour and 50 minutes with a stop now and again for water and green juice! Then spent the rest of the day resting, reading and hanging out in nature. Dinner was "light" consisting of a delicious salad mix they prepare with spring mix lettuce, sprouts and avocado all mixed up and you can put it in a huge raw collard green or a sprouted, whole grain flat tortilla-type wrap. I tried both when they had it last week and I preferred the collard green, so that's what I went with this week. And tonight was ice cream night, so that...

Friday. HAHA! The most amazing thing I noticed upon waking this morning is that I actually slept the entire night without being awakened by a hot flash! When I looked at the thermometer, the temperature in the room was 66 degrees!  But still, no matter how cold a room is, if I have a hot flash, I'm still gonna sweat my balls off (yeah, I know, bad habit - listen, I never said I attended charm school). It's been YEARS since I've been able to sleep an entire night without being awakened by a hot flash (or night sweats) so that put me in a better mood than I was when I went to sleep last night - I was so worried and upset about the results of my hormone blood work, increased risk of heart disease and finances. Anyway, I've been having some weird dreams lately. I can't remember most of them, but the one I recall vividly had to do with my job. In my dream, the building where I work was located  right near the ocean (hmmm, if that really would be the case, I might...

Thursday. More Pilates today. I really enjoy it and plan to use some of the Pilates DVDs I have back home that have been gathering dust! Another great lecture by Brian Clement today, Principles of Health . Unfortunately I had to cut this one short, because I had a doc appointment to go over the results of a more extensive, blood/hormone test I opted to get. As I suspected, my Vitamin D3 levels are way down which offers no protection against cancer. I was taking about 5000IU a day back home but haven't really taken them for a few weeks. He found that my blood is viscous (not good) and that C-reactive protein is rather high indicating inflammation throughout the body which puts me at risk of cardiovascular disease. He also found low progesterone and low estradiol levels among a few other things. The doc recommended assorted IV therapies to get me back on track to the tune of lots of $$$$.  I mean, like $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. As much as I trust his advice and would dearly love ...

Wednesday. Wednesdays are fasting days here if you choose to participate, so I just consumed liquids all day. Wheatgrass shot in the morning. Green juices and water throughout the day and a delicious blended green soup for dinner. Last Wednesday, I did the fast and didn't feel hungry at all. This week I was hungry, but not uncomfortably so. I would say it was more that I missed the delicious food more than anything because the food is truly wonderful here - I love it. But I feel good for successfully getting through the day without eating. Today, Brian Clement (above) gave a lecture called " Fasting on Liquid Nourishment ". He recommends doing a juice fast one day a week (he does it for two days a week). He covered a lot of information and I haven't sorted out my notes yet so I won't go into much here except for one important takeaway: You with purpose will save your life. You must have a purpose. Without that, you will die. If you have a terminal illness...

Tuesday. Today we had a check-in for our weight and blood pressure.  So let's compare: October 8 : Blood Pressure: 128/80 Weight: 173 October 16 : Blood Pressure: 124/84 Weight: 168 I also tried Pilates for the first time today and loved it! The special treat was an evening lecture, Enzymology by Viktoras Kulvinskas (pictured below). He spoke for nearly two hours solid without stopping. The man is beyond brilliant. He basically spoke about the importance of enzymes for life (systemic and digestive). I tried to take notes, but he spoke in such a rapid-fire manner, it was next to impossible to keep up. I recorded it on my i-phone, but I haven't listened to it yet (hopefully I was successful in recording it). Not much else to write about that I can think of, just went to a couple more classes including Organic Awareness and Growing Living Foods and a couple of vendor presentations including H Wave Therapy and Stem Cell Stimulation . Since I have a little ...

Monday. I attended a yoga class for the first time ever and did OK. I got a little tired after the first Sun Salutation, but after the first one, I sat it out while the group did the asanas 6 more times and I joined back in once they were done. Hey, I tried it. Viktoras was in the class and it was amazing beyond belief to see him do the Plow Pose. He folded so tight he looked like a clam shell. Then there was a class called Taking It All Home most of which I do anyway such as using glass Mason jars to store nuts and seeds and how to equip your raw kitchen most of which I have also with the exception of a dehydrator and a couple of Easy Sprout sprouter kits. But as always, there's always a fun new tidbit to learn. We learned how to estimate how much sprouts are needed for weekly usage which will come in handy. So for instance, to plan to order enough sprouts for the Hippocrates green juice which consists of 50% sunflower sprouts and pea sprouts and 50% cucumber juice and celery...

Sunday. One incredibly, amazing week has gone by. Today was Beach Excursion Day. In the morning I walked 3 laps on one side of the campus and took some pictures. Then around 11:30, we took a bus ride to a local raw vegan restaurant called Darbster.  They aren't strictly raw, but they did offer 3 raw living entrees on the menu. I split a Raw Cheezburger with a friend and it was quite nice. Then we went to a health food store called Nutrition Smart and had a member of Hippocrates lead us on a store tour to know what to avoid and what to get when shopping once we leave here. This was not too informative for me, but again, every now and then you learn a little tidbit I suppose. So Hippocrates does recommend some foods when you get back home provided they are an occasional treat and not an everyday thing, keeping in mind the 80/20 (80 percent raw, 20 percent cooked). For instance, Sunshine Garden burgers in the frozen section is OK; some of Amy's frozen entrees are OK (jus...

Saturday. Easy, fun day. No lectures. I enjoyed the following: mineral pool FAR Infrared Sauna spent time outside in nature and enjoyed the beautiful wind today took walks had a delicious, light dinner (make your own wrap with collard greens) ice-cream night I don't have the recipe for the ice cream but it was delicious - I'm not supposed to have sugar while I'm here, so I had the nut version which I believe was made from walnuts with some organic maple flavor (Frontier brand). It was outstanding. They also had a berry version which I understand was not sweet but still satisfying. And the hands-down winner was the banana ice cream. It looked wonderful and those of my friends that had it, couldn't say enough about the creamy texture and the sweet taste.

Friday. Oh yes, I double did. OK, another read at your own risk disclaimer here! OK the day I've been dreading yet anticipating ever since I arranged this trip:  colon hydrotherapy. Today was one of the easier days - I didn't go to any lectures but I had treatments just about all day. Lymph drainage and chi foot bath. Then a full body massage - wife of Chef Ken - Pam is a lovely lady. Then (doomsday music here) the colon hydrotherapy appointment... Um, so it hurt and it was uncomfortable (for me since my body had a lot of gas due to candida and lack of or low beneficial bacteria - working on that here). It wasn't as embarrassing as I was afraid of and again, if I can go through brain surgery (and flying), I can pretty much do anything now. Lynn was knowledgeable and caring and in the end (ba-da-pum), I left feeling better than when I went in. It's something I would prefer not to do again, but the benefits are many so I surely will. Well, I would say no stone u...

Thursday. My favorite day so far because there was a kitchen techniques class today. Chef Ken Blue make it all look so simple and yet he creates recipe masterpieces, that's all I can say. I haven't anything yet that I didn't like. Some of my friends here are having a tough time with the food, missing cooked food, missing noodles, but I'm happily enjoying everything! I'm finding too that my appetite has been decreasing. When eating regular cooked foods, I would often go back for seconds and thirds, but here I'm quite satisfied with a single serving. Today, my ankle definitely seems better - it was practically immobile when I first got here and now I'm able to rotate it no problem and I'm walking much better again. I'm also noticing that my nails are hard again and not brittle.

Wednesday. Oh yes I did. Read further at your own risk! Part of the routine here is to do a water enema and 2 wheatgrass implants. And yep, I did my first ever enema and wheatgrass implants today. It's actually not that bad. In fact, you do feel pretty good after and I myself felt a small sense of accomplishment for doing something I knew was good for me, but not doing it because I didn't know how and was terrified of the process. I have all the stuff at home, but just couldn't get past the fear. Another gold star for me - the first MAJOR gold star was getting on that plane!! I was the same way with my pressure cooker - bought one and there it sat in my cabinet for the longest time because I was afraid to use it. I read the instructions a million times but just couldn't get past the fear. Finally, one day I made up my mind to do it and it was fine - done deal. You just gotta put your mind to it and do it. So today was an amazing day as Dr. Brian Clement conducte...

Tuesday. OK, this place must be working some major magic because I haven't dropped an F-bomb in three whole days, nor have I had the desire to! Back home, it was used in practically every other sentence! There are so many lectures, treatments, consultations and things to do (yoga, qigong, fitness center, meditation, Pilates, strength training, not to mention the Jacuzzi, the mineral pool, and the regular pool). There are so many beautiful paths to walk and little places to stop and just be with nature. I walked in a labyrinth for the first time. I'm not exactly sure what it's supposed to do; I think it's a time to meditate and be with yourself, but I tried it. It's hard to schedule everything in. Today I did some qigong which was OK followed by some meditation which didn't work so great for me because I have such sensitive hearing that I hear everything and I can't tune it out. So I could hear people talking outside, airplanes taking off and landing at...

Monday. First thing today was having a blood draw, blood pressure taken and weight check. Blood Pressure: 128/80 Weight: 173 I was surprised by the weight because I was 177 when I left home, so already some improvement! More mandatory orientations: Internal Awareness which all about our digestive system and the importance of colon health (enemas and wheatgrass implants and colon hydrotherapy). Wheatgrass Instruction which did not have too much new information for me since I have been doing wheatgrass shots on and off for a couple of years ever since I attended a lecture that Brian Clement gave in Fairfield but nevertheless they have electronic wheatgrass juicers here, so it was good to learn how to use them. I currently have a manual wheatgrass juicer and I kinda like it cause you get to have a mini arm workout while you juice. The afternoon consisted of back-to-back lectures. I don't have my notes here with me at the moment, so I can't write them all down righ...

So up until Sunday morning, I was unbelievably calm, serene and OK with the thought of flying.  About 20 minutes from the airport, I started freaking out, had trouble breathing and in general, wishing that I was taking the train from Penn Station to West Palm Beach.  But we got to the airport and pretty much everything was a blur: checked in, said farewells to Dad and BF, went through Security and boarded the plane. In case anyone needs to know, titanium plates and screws in the skull do not trigger airport security alarms! Then after the boarding the plane and preparing for take-off, the pilot informed us that there was a delay since the mechanic found that the engines were leaking fluid and since he made note of this in his logbook, a supervisor had to come out and investigate. So we waited and waited and waited.  Two hours during which time, I was devising a way to get off the plane and hop on a train. But I'm so glad I didn't do that.  Yes, take-off was terrify...

Live, Love, Laugh... It seems like I haven't been doing much of those lately. Oh yes, I'm Living. Yes, I'm Loved (and love) and yes, I do Laugh.  But not like I used to. I can't exactly pinpoint why. I blame a good deal of it on work and a great deal of it on the state of the world today. Unkindness to each other and abuse to animals, war, politics, destroying the planet little by little - it's all getting to me big time. I do my small part, but I still feel hopeless and sad, like I want to do more. I have a pretty good job, but I just feel so unfulfilled. For those that don't know, my dirty little secret is that I work at a big pharma company which is kind of a joke when I don't even believe in using allopathic or western medicine except in a dire emergency. When I meet people at various natural food / green / organic / good-for-the-earth type gatherings, I'm always met with a questioning head-tilt and raised-eyebrow (just one, sometimes both) when a...