Juicy Juice and the Mystery of the Missing Gluten?

 

I want it to be spring - desperately. I want to start growing my own veggies, and going to farmer's markets. For some reason it feels so much easier to be healthy during the growing and harvesting seasons. Maybe it's because I don't feel like hibernating all the time.

Last week I got a new juicer - it works like a dream. The idea of juicing is that you "free" all the nutrients to make it more easy for your body to digest. Less work, more results. People are really into juice cleanses these days. Clearing your body of all toxins, flushing it with six juices a day, two hours apart.

I'm not entirely sure if I buy all the hype surrounding juicing, but it certainly seems to be a delicious way to add extra vitamins to my diet, so I'm planning on adding it in alongside the other clean eating habits I've been working on establishing over the past few months. 

I think what I like about juicing the most, is that it allows me to expand my repertoire in a fairly easy fashion. Despite my best efforts, with the new dietary restrictions my body has decided to impose upon me, it's getting harder and harder to find easy, everyday meals to turn to. Not that I had an incredibly varied diet before, in fact, quite the opposite. At least now my limited selection of meals is healthy.

It seems to be a sort of fad to be gluten-free lately (dairy-free not so much...), but I'm not going to complain - if it takes a fad for companies to decide to try and make more delicious GF products, I appreciate it. Some people have expressed their doubts about my GF lifestyle, seeing as "well, you weren't that way before". Truth time - I've known I was gluten intolerant since I was about 14. I just pretended that eating cookies, devouring the bread basket at Olive Garden, drinking ALL THE BEER at festivals, wasn't the reason I got sick. It's been a journey of self acceptance. Try imagining that, as a child, you are told that all your favorite foods make you sick. You'd be in denial too!

Last summer, I decided that it was time for me to take control of my life, and specifically, my health. Being sick constantly just isn't fun. And though I have suffered other afflictions throughout the years (those are a different story), I had the power in my grasp to properly nourish my body. Let me tell you, this change of attitude changed my life. 

Yes, I felt shitty for a couple weeks while my body detoxed from all the poisons, and while I went through gluten and dairy withdrawal -- food can be an addiction!! Just ask anyone who has ever craved chocolate....

But I began to see results almost immeadiately. For the first time in my life, I had ENERGY!! My head felt clear, and my body was the opposite of lethargic! I actually wanted to go outside and run - stretch my legs and go. 

Eight months out, I feel like a completely different person. I feel alive, I feel well. I feel more myself that I have in years. I didn't go on a diet - I changed my life. Now if I eat gluten - it's not "cheating" - it's a mistake, because my body rejects it, just like it wanted me to for all those years. Dairy is a different story... allergies are a little more complex than intolerances. Either way, I could never go back - mentally or physically.

There's the side benefit that because I have been so focused on getting healthy, that I have lost (not a small) amount of weight. I feel like I fit in my own skin - again, for the first time since before high school.  I don't think that there is a woman (or many men) in today's society who has not had an unhealthy relationship with food at some point. It's a shame that in a world where people are starving, so many Americans can actually fear food, be controlled by food. Of course, this change in my physiology has had some people asking me for "my secret" or just how I did what I am still doing. There's no secret. No easy track. It's all about changing your attitude and deciding who or what controls you. 

I won't lie - I began this journey with a program. My older brother and his wife had used the Advocare System with great results, and I was envious. It worked for me, but I don't think that this system is the end-all and be-all of nutrition. What I do think, however, is it works as a cleanse and a method of teaching yourself how to nourish your body. There are other methods that could help you achieve this, possibly free, but I can only speak for what I did. Advocare worked because I was dedicated to it - I wanted to change my life, I wanted to be better than my older brother (not gonna lie!) and I didn't want to waste my money (it's not cheap). 

The Advocare Challenge only lasts 28 days. 28 looong days that will test your willpower, but if you can make it through and make a commitment to continuing to live this semi-paleo lifestyle, bravo to you! Everyone is different - your body has different needs than mine. Learning what those needs actually are, versuses what we have been conditioned to believe they are (hint: it's not the USDA food pyramid or America Runs On Dunkin) is the first step to well being.  My body just happens to work best on fruits, veggies and lean proteins (Turkey Jerky is a gift from God), and not function at all on gluten and whey. Am I a model of perfect health? No. I love chocolate. I drink too much tea. I like putting ranch dressing on everything, and I can only afford to eat eggs for protein most weeks (watch that cholesterol!). But I'm getting better, daily. I cheat for reallllly good GF brownies and cake, but I know to not let that make me feel guilty, or let food control me.

So I can't wait for the season of fruits and veggies. There is nothing better than a fresh, juicy tomato, picked straight from the vine, that you grew yourself. Call me a control freak, but if I can give my body the best, why wouldn't I?

Lurve. Luv. Luff.

The Ancient Greeks had five words for love: agape, philia, storge, xenia, and eros - spiritual, mental, affectionate, hospitality and physical, specifically.

We have one word - love. It's a combination of Middle English "lufu", Old Frisian "luve" and Old High German "luba". (So maybe the lolcats are actually scholars of ancient languages. But I digress). We may use love in many different senses, ie - I love KitKat Bars, or I love that new song, but our culture tends focus on "love" in an entirely different way.

Take a look at any "woman's" magazine the next time you're in a checkout line. Or rather, don't, they're pretty tasteless and full of advice on how to be a two dimensional "perfect" woman. But a recurring theme is "How to tell if he's THE ONE", "6 Ways to Nab Your Dream Man" "83 Questions to See if You Are Meant To Be" etc etc etc etc. It's formulaic, it's a game, it's a competition. We might as well call it "How-To-Not-Be-A-CatLady-Opoly".

Love. It's the subject on everyone's minds, it's the elephant in the room, it's the caged bird in our souls. We all feel it, we all discuss it, but we only share it IF ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

I'm not even talking about "soulmate" love here - I'm talking about being so afraid of rejection, that we can barely tell our friends and family that we care. Do we really think that some day on our death beds, that we will be regretting telling someone we loved them? No.

That's not to say you should give your heart away to everyone who walks through the door. You've seen Frozen? Getting engaged to someone after three hours - not exactly what we're talking about here.

 

Then again, who knows - it could work out! All joking aside, there is this concept that we have hearts made of glass - don't let it get broken, no one wants a broken glass.

I'm going to say something a little bit crazy.

Let it be broken. Your heart is incredibly strong. It's a muscle and it needs it's exercise. Weightlifters at the gym know how to use their muscles. They also know that they constantly need to push their muscles to the limits - ripping the muscle is how you build it up. Little tiny rips, make them jacked and stronger than ever.

Let your heart get jacked. Start with the baby 2lb weights - show your love daily in the little things. Pay attention to the details of the life of someone you care about. Smile at your coworkers. Work your way up to the 5lb kettleball - have a heart-to-heart with your friend late at night, and before you both fall asleep end with, "night, luv ya!" 8lbs and give your heart some crunches too - tell your mum how important she is, aside from giving you that amazing recipe for stirfry. Before you know it, love, like exercise, will simply become part of your day to day experience. You won't fear rejection, because you know your heart can handle it. I'm still working on getting there, practicing daily - like Mad Eye Moody shouts - "CONSTANT VIGILANCE" (only replace vigilance with love... and maybe don't scream it randomly. Or do. Whatever suits you best.)

But truly - a broken heart can hurt. It can ache. It can seem like it may never get better. But every injured muscle needs a little PT to recover. It's just like any sprained wrist or ankle - at first it will hurt to move it and get it better, but with practice and commitment overtime, it will heal, and hopefully become a distant memory. 

You might say, Hey Patria, what's up with all the love nonsense lately? Why so wistful and introspective?

Well m'dear, I might say, hedging my bets, it simply has been on my mind. Maybe it's the teasing of spring in the air, but mostly I think it's because of another four letter L word --- Lent. Now there's an example of true love that I can never hope to match, but maybe in my short time on this planet, I can try to show even a little bit of that agape love to someone. And maybe all the other kinds of love will just fall in line behind that.

If we focus on loving others, and not on if others love us, we might just find that those two loves go hand in hand. No one is perfect, and we need not express love in a perfect way. It can be as clumsy as trying to take care of someone who is drunk after you've had a couple yourself. It could be a majestic confession at a balcony, but probably only in a Shakespeare play. It could be a hand-written confessional note, complete with elaborate cursive, or it could be mumbled on the phone sleepily before you hang up (and then swear with horror at your "love youuuu", and tear up that note cause they know now.) It could be a song....

The most important thing is that we get our exercise. Get out those two-pounders and start some reps right now!

There is nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

The Thing about Tinder

A few weeks back, I was introduced to the popular dating app, Tinder. For those of you who aren't familiar with Tinder, it's essentially a "lookbook" of eligible singles within a specific radius of you (or rather, your smartphone). Each photo is paired with a first name, age, and whether you share any likes or friends on Facebook. Then you can flip through the photos, and either "nope" or "like" to your heart's content. When two people "like" each other, a little chat window appears, and you are able to connect further.

By now, you've probably noticed the obvious flaw -- can a relationship really be based on a photograph and a small amount of information?

Using Tinder so far has made me feel like a shallow, horrible human being. Yet I've pushed myself to keep trying, to see if it's possible to make any progress with technology. What I have learned is that, I've learned less about any of these eligible bachelors, yet I have learned a lot about myself.

See, when I first started to click through these photos, if anything, I figured I would learn what my "type" is. You hear a lot about girls and their types. Everyone is supposed to have some "ideal" that they're looking for in a companion, and that it should fit rigorously in their boundries.

Well, what I've realized is that even though there are some physical features that may stand out to me as attractive, the massive amounts of men I "noped" were based on visible personality qualities gauged by your chosen avatar.

For instance, if you've got a selfie taken in a bathroom - NOPE.
Picture of you showing us your abs (no matter how nice they may be) -NOPE.
Picture of you at a party sloppily holding up a glass (with or without posse of friends) - NOPE.
Flashing some sort of hand signal while wearing a baseball cap in any position but the way it is practical to wear it - NOPE

and the list goes on. In the end, looks aren't everything. They certainly could begin a relationship, but if the image you are sending out is perceived as over the top or too bland, you are probably going to get noped in other areas in life, not just Tinder.

Herein lies the inherent problem with Tinder, and nearly all forms of online dating. They try to quantify something unquantifiable: who we really are. We can present ourselves in any way, even a possibly accurate way to how we view ourselves. So we find someone who messages us back. At least finding each other possibly interesting, we talk for a bit, swapping basic information about ourselves, wondering if this will lead to anything. For some people, it does, and that's great. For the majority of people, myself included, we find ourselves frustrated by continual rejection from personality-lacking avatars, and instantaneous "marry me"s from possible stalkers. Or just the basic "we have nothing left to talk about now.... so..." that most of the conversations devolve into.

This general lack of satisfaction from online dating, and as for that matter - the current "dating" scene, lends a sort of nostalgia to the modern single. (although do we think times have improved things? Tinder is essentially just a modern day Yenta).

We long for the day our life looks like an old-time movie: you meet someone, in a bar, at work, at your favorite activity, and without any hubbub about the whole situation, he/she asks if you want to have a drink with them or take you to dinner. It's perfectly clear that it's a date, but if it doesn't work out, it's okay - there's no hard feelings, because you haven't spent months needlessly worrying about it.

Until that happens, we sit at home with a glass of wine, send flirty messages into the void and NOPENOPENOPE till our thumbs are sore.