Nov 27, 09 - Going home

Tomorrow is my last day at the center. It's a day early, but I feel like I've done all I can do here. I'll eat all the meals tomorrow, maybe lunch one last time at Cafe Gratitude, then head home around 6:00 pm, after traffic has died down.

It's one last day before we need to consider meal preparation at home and a last opportunity to wish those well who have come from around the world to fight the good fight for their physical health with the best tool available - the immune system of their own bodies. And I can't forget to again thank the staff - the doctors, cooks and even the housecleaning crew - who have all made it clear that they each are committed to the well-being of all of us, while making you feel like you mattered the most.

I have a fleeting fantasy of being well to do enough to hire our own professional cook, one who would shop for us and prepare each meal just the way we need. Then it would no longer be an issue carefully planning and always having enough healthy snacks around for everyone to eat, even packing delicious food for times when wer're in town and the fast food smells call. As truth sets in, the dream fades, and I come back to the reality that the responsibility to eat the right food must be owned by me and delegated to no one else - whether it be food for the soul, the body, the mind or the spirit. It all matters and it's all tied together. I must care for each of these areas to be fully alive. We all owe ourselves that much.

Thirty-three days I will have been here. Looking back on my first day seems like an eternity ago and forever since I've been home. I look ahead and no sooner do I end my day of rest, that Monday morning comes all too soon and I start work at a new place. New life begins.

I've gained about eight pounds since my low of 123, and my blood pressure, though much lower and considered in the normal average American range, will continue to drop with time and continued adherence to the right foods. It fluctuates a bit which baffles everyone here, but the trend is still downward. I need no drugs. It may be a few months before it figures out where it wants to settle. For many people on this food plan (which rids the body of hidden sources of sodium), 90/60 is not uncommon. But everyone is a little different. There is no definitive and safe way to gauge the degree of progress in the clearing if the artery, and I still feel slight symptoms occasionally. I'm a work in progress, and there is till steady clearing going on, so time will tell.

Overall, I feel fantastic. I have never been this calm inside. I am well rested with 6.5 hours of sleep. All agitation is gone. I think more clearly and calmly, I don't feel a need to get anywhere in a hurry when I drive, and I notice the little things. I am more sensitive to the kinds of things that can tear me down, and I recognize and gravitate almost intuitively to those things that promote my well-being. Moments of joy come easy and last longer. These unexpected results alone were worth every day of this experience. It was worth every dime, too, though money could never buy it. The help I gave my physical body was just a bonus.

I'll continue to post occasionally items of interest that I discover in material I have read once I know the material to be true and sound and can help us all make better food choices. I have no desire to listen to or quote the mainstream media headlines as it pertains to health advice, as over the years they have misled and confused us all with their contradictory headlines and outright false and misleading news quips, proving time and time again, they don't do their homework and buy whatever they are fed because they're just flat lazy. The majority of us a long time ago hopelessly just threw our hands in the air, gave up on all of it, and went back to eating whatever the heck we wanted to.

I've just tossed into the garbage a brand new book that I spent a few extra dollars for because it was available only in harcover. Even giving it away seemed like murder to me, so straight to the trash it went. Thinking that with such a promising title it might contain some life-saving information that could help others who just want to live, I read through it cover to cover looking for signs of intelligence only to find that he did not do his homework, but merely quoted the same tired headlines and pushed the same old lies, and decided anyway that it was clearly in his own best self-interest to make a quick buck and write yet another money-maker on the same failed "breakthrough" diet plan and to do his ignorant best to teach trusting readers everywhere just how easy it is to commit suicide in tasteful culinary fashion.

This "revolutionary" plan continues to kill Americans at the same rate as Atkins, The Zone, blood type, and South Beach diets do. You won't buy an extra day on these diets. And the author is a cardiologist! And what diet is this? The high-fat, low activity, high calorie American version of the so-called "mediterranean" diet. Don't do it. You are not from post-WWII Crete and neither is your food and the facts speak clearly against the headlines. Throw the meat to the dogs, dump the oil down the sink, and eat from the garden. The rest is fine tuning. There - I just saved you $23.99 plus shipping.