So, it's been a long stretch since I last posted. I was sick around the holidays. Once again I cheated on my diet, and thought I could get away with eating a piece of raspberry coffee cake, but having been on a sugar-free diet for months without getting sick, just like that incident with the pumpkin Kringle, after having a piece of coffee cake, I was sick a few days later, not from food poisoning, but I think the sugar in it messed up my immunity.
I was pretty much sick in bed for the first six days of the new year. I don't know what it was, if it was Covid, or the flu, or a bad cold, but I knew I was getting sick before I even felt sick, because my resting heart rate started to spike, and that is always a sign of impending illness. You see normally my 7-day resting heart-rate usually hovers between 57 and 61, but a couple days before I started feeling sick, it started steadily increasing into the 70s, which on my sickest day my heart rate never got below 85 bpm, which is not normal for me at all.
Symptoms were mostly just runny nose, sore throat, headache, the chills, everything tasted bad, especially toothpaste, and I was dead tired and couldn't sleep, maybe I got two hours sleep total per day, and I just lay there uncomfortable all day and all night, waiting to get better. Of course, drinking plenty of fluids, and soups, and medicinal doses of garlic, but I ate relatively light because nothing tasted good. Actually, around day number three, I was starting to feel better, but then I drank some wine that night, like four glasses, and so I had a relapse, and was sick for another three days. I probably would have recovered faster had I not drank alcohol.
Eventually I was well enough to watch YouTube videos in bed, and spent several hours watching these Jamaican diet gurus and assorted black nationalists, advocating eating a 100 percent organic raw fruit diet. They made some convincing arguments, and they were very healthy looking, and completely ripped muscularly, and like 90 percent of their diet was fruit. So I contemplated becoming a fruitarian, but then I realized I don't think I need to do that, but what I will do is substantially increase the amount of fruit I do eat, finally settling on eating an all fruit breakfast, and also having more fruit for lunch. Usually I start the day off with a cup of ginger tea, and either a cup of mango, or a cup of blueberries, and two bananas. If I'm still hungry, I will usually have a cup of Greek yogurt, a spoonful of peanut butter, and another banana, or a piece of Ezekiel bread with peanut butter on it. I also eat pears and apples and kiwi and pineapple and mixed berries and am looking forward to watermelon. I also buy organically grown fruit whenever possible. Despite what some ignorant people say, there is definitely a difference in the nutritional quality of non-organic versus organic non-GMO fruits and vegetables. Perhaps you could say the difference is subtle, but truthfully there is more power in subtlety than normally acknowledged.
I never ate a high fruit diet before, I mean I ate some, but not a lot, because I thought too much sugar was bad for your health, but fruit sugar does not cause the same kind of health problems that refined sugar causes. And according to these Jamaican raw fruit health gurus on YouTube, they say that eating fruit can actually cure diabetes. Not only is the fruit nutrient dense, high in fiber and a good source of hydration, it really helps clean out and detoxify your digestive system. I believe it. Since I've been eating an all fruit breakfast over the last week or so, there is a noticeable improvement in my health, I'm sleeping better, and I just feel better. You know, eating fruit is holistic, is 100 times more effective than taking synthetic supplements. So as long as the stores are continuing to stock frozen and fresh fruit, I will stick with this partial fruitarian diet.
Also, in case there's anyone still reading this blog who is in possession of freewill and a pulse and has been reading the blog long-term, you may remember that I posted about being vegetarian on more than one occasion, though I think I deleted those posts, but maybe you remember them. Anyway, since I'm on the topic of diet, I thought I should mention that I'm no longer vegetarian, and haven't been vegetarian for years. The thing is though even though I'm not vegetarian, I hardly eat any meat at all, it's like maybe once or twice a week, and not necessarily every week. So, my diet is probably like 90 percent vegetarian. Also, I avoid fried foods, and fast foods, because those foods are killers. I also never eat pork of any kind, no ham or bacon or sausage, or fake soy-based meat, which is just as bad for your health as deli meats. I only eat fish occasionally, usually tuna, or wild-caught salmon, and currently am off chicken, for some reason I just don't like the taste of chicken anymore, and actually when I do eat meat, I prefer red meat, and my absolute favorite is bison. I love bison. I season it with cayenne pepper and jalapeno peppers and onions. Usually a pound of bison lasts me a month.
I recently, as in a couple days ago bought a sirloin beef roast from Trader Joe's, it's already cooked, you just heat it up, and I had it with steamed carrots and potatoes and peas and corn, and two glasses of wine, and it was the best meal I had in years. Absolutely delicious. I hadn't had a beef roast in probably 25 years. I guess it's because I had no experience cooking a beef roast before, and my mother was a strict vegetarian when I was growing up, and was repulsed by the sight and smell of meat, so I pretty much only ate meat at my dad's house and at either one of my grandmas. My grandma on my father's side used to make these huge elaborate meals every Sunday, every Sunday was like a holiday, she made enough food to feed an army, and the whole family was invited as an open invitation, though hardly anyone showed up and my grandma was bothered by that, but I was there almost every Sunday for my entire childhood and teenage years, and her favorite most commonly served Sunday meal was home cooked beef roast and mash potatoes and sweet corn and peas and homemade biscuits and applesauce. It was so good. So I grew up eating beef roast, once a week every week for several years.
That's right, I was not a vegetarian as a kid or even as a teenager, there was only a short period of time in my 20s and 30s that I was vegetarian, and have never been vegan or had any desire to be vegan, as I love cheese and eggs and yogurt and would never willingly give up those things, and have never been overweight or unhealthy, but I would say my diet most closely resembles the Mediterranean diet, and although I've been a meat eater most of my life, I was never a big meat eater, as in I never ate meat everyday, or had more than one serving of meat a day, and at most only maybe ate meat a couple times a week. So when I'm not eating meat as a protein source, I'm usually having eggs, or some variation of beans and rice and vegetables and potatoes, and olives and cheese and mixed nuts (walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, peanuts and raisins), and like I said I enjoy eating red meat, especially lean cuts of beef steak and bison, a few times a month at most.
I honestly think this is a good diet for me, and really the only change I'm making for the new year is to increase my consumption of raw fruits, as I've already cut out refined sugar, chocolate, cookies and pastries, and most fried foods.
