Marlena Torres

Hey Everyone!

Months ago I posted about how I was doing things a bit differently diet-wise. I wrote about how much I was enjoying fruits and small amounts of whole grains, eating throughout the day rather than juicing until dinner, basically doing and eating things that I never did for years prior to pregnancy.

Just to reiterate what I wrote in that post, I believed that approach was best for me, and that foods like fruit and grain would feed yeast in the body and would cause weight gain, skin issues, illness, etc. I also emphasized that the belief that yeast overgrowth or candida being the root cause of all illness is a very common belief in the raw foods and holistic wellness community.

Since my pregnancy I have experimented with my diet a lot. I’ve tried eating more during the day, including fruit daily, experimenting with grains, juice fasting, veganism, eating every two hours – you name it. Within the paradigm of eating mostly raw foods and juicing, I’ve tried it.

And I’ve pretty much remained within the same 8 pound range through it all.

I’ve come to a few realizations I’d like to share with you.

1. I can throw away my scale and pack away my “skinny pants”, but it doesn’t change how I feel. I can’t lie to myself about what I’m doing, such as when I’m eating to distract myself or out of stress versus genuine hunger. In this light, a scale and skinny jeans are pretty irrelevant. I don’t need them. I usually know the outcome before I use those means of measuring myself anyway. Sometimes, when I’m going through a particularly stressful period in my life, the scale keeps me in check with the reality of my behavior rather than just a way to reinforce a hyper critical attitude that I have towards myself.

2. I really, really, really love food. I don’t love overeating at all, but I LOVE food. On Monday night I made a sweet potato and carrot soup that was so good I ate half the pot. I wasn’t planning on having any of it (I made it for my husband and daughter), but it came out so creamy and amazing I used it as a salad dressing, poured it over kelp noodles, and dipped steamed broccoli into it. Amazing. At the same time, I really, really, really loathe feeling uncomfortable in my body (due to eating too much or because I’m not as lean as I’d like). I cannot eat unlimited sweet potatoes, avocados, chocolate and macaroons and feel comfortable, although if I remained thin while eating this way, I would eat it and love it. I wouldn’t feel guilt about it at all.

3. For the above reasons, I feel that it is part of my destiny to get over food addiction and overeating, to learn how to find peace in my life no matter how stressful things may be around me, and to really find balance with my love for food and my body. I realize that may sound a bit cheesy, but it’s how I feel. This means that I’m going to have to go without some of my favorite treats for a while, and remind myself how indulgent the simplest of fare can be.

4. Excitement for your lifestyle is everything. With the demands of motherhood, I really started to resent the juicing, the grocery shopping, the dinner prep…all of these things that I really felt excited for prior to becoming a mother. I’ve definitely fallen back in love with the juicing process, but I’ve found myself very, very drawn to the denser, heavier foods that I keep as special treats in my diet. It’s almost like I’m making them the focus rather than the vegetables (think tahini, dark chocolate, tahini, dark chocolate…yeah pretty much those two things right now! lol).

What I’m going to do with these realizations is a cleanse that I’m already doing and have been at for a little over a week now. It’s a cleanse of sorts that focuses on ridding the body of candida/yeast/fungus and finding balance. After all I’ve tried I’m very confident that this is exactly what is in my best interest on all levels.

The pillars of this cleanse will be:

1. Lots of lemon water and green juice daily. Green juice is medicine and I have at least a liter a day.
2. Juicing until dinner (yup – back at it again and loving it!)
3. Yeast fighting herbs for a bit
4. Sweating, rebounding, exercising (daily)
5. Colon cleansing (duh)
6. Omitting all sugars and grains completely (including honey, agave, coconut sugar, and fruit sugar)
7. Keeping density to a minimum. For example, this would be half to one whole avocado at a meal, or 1-2 tbsp of tahini or almond butter in a salad dressing (plus cooked vegetables if I desire them)
8. Daily meditations

I know that there are conflicting arguments about fat feeding candida and yeast feeding candida. I really don’t pay too much attention to these arguments because I know that what feeds candida and disease in the body is overaccumulation of toxicity, overeating, over stressing – an overwhelming of the body in general. This leads to the body being overworked and being unable to process what it consumes. The body needs simplicity in it’s digestion more than anything. Too much fat will overwork the body and so will too much sugar. While many people may disagree with me, I’m not going to change my mind simply because the only approach that I have seen work for people to lose weight and ease up their symptoms is to eat for digestive optimization and to cleanse the colon (colon hydrotherapy) periodically. I haven’t seen anything else provide lasting benefit for a broad range of people with all sorts of different health and life backgrounds.

With that being said, this approach is NOT for everyone. When I first got into raw foods I ate about three avocados a day and lost weight, improved my digestion, and had soaring energy levels. It’s because my body was not a sensitized or calorically efficient. As your body cleanses it becomes more calorically efficient, and needs less calories/food to function. This is why there is no one perfect daily intake for anyone, ever. It’s always changing as you cleanse and improve your health.

The important lesson I’ve learned is that I absolutely must be honest with myself, always. As I’ve been thinking all of this time that I’ve been too hard on myself and too restrictive with my intake, I haven’t allowed myself to see how restricted and unpleasant I have felt physically by allowing myself free reign to “indulge” in foods that I used to avoid or eat smaller amounts of. When it’s time to step it up, we have to be honest with ourselves, honor ourselves, and step it up!

While I realize this cleanse that I’m doing may result in no physical change at all, I realize that it’s very important to just get into the action of making a change, and committing to it, at least, for me. I know that there are so many of you out there who are so hard on yourselves about your weight and appearance no matter what. This post is not for you, this post is for people who feel like they don’t have it in them to make a change that is calling to them.

Without putting too much of my personal life out there I’ll just say that this will be a challenge for me and I am going through a pretty stressful, albeit exciting time in my life, which will make it even more difficult for me (I’ll share more on that in the future). This approach doesn’t feel limited or restrictive to me, it’s mostly the consistency of always being on my “A game” for lack of better words that I know will be difficult as changes take place and stressful days happen. I’m hoping that a daily meditation practice will help greatly with that.
On the other hand, there have been enough health scares with people who are very important to me over the past few years for me to take my health even more seriously than I ever have before, and not cut myself so much slack for my “off days”. I must say that my days of feeling like it would be nicer to have a lower grocery bill or to have more time to do “fun stuff” instead of juicing and chopping veggies every day are over. I’d rather spend my money and time on good, wholesome, organic foods than on doctor bills and disease treatments in my future.

Do you ever find yourself torn between how you want to feel and look and indulging your tastebuds? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below the post!

That’s all for today. I just wanted to share with you all what’s going on over here, and I’ll share more about my experience as the weeks go by.

With Love and Gratitude,
Marlena

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