Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies

This is a tasty, healthy recipe for anyone on a Raw , Vegan, Vegetarian or normal diet. It’s a great desert for kids with Mother’s who knows the dangers of processed sugared snacks.
Super quick to make. About 15 minutes total.
Makes 16
1 ½ cup raw almonds
1 cup dried, pitted tart cherries—Available in most grocery stores
2 tbs. Ionized water
2 tbs. Agave nectar—a low glycemic sweetener available in health food stores
¼ tsp. Vanilla extract
2tsb. Raw Chocolate Powder Reserve for rolling dough in. (available in health food stores)
Run ingredients through a food processor fitted with and "S" blade until oil is released in nuts and dough holds together. Roll into small balls, roll in raw chocolate powder. Flatten. Eat or store in fridge until you want to eat them.

By Nedalee Ruiz
Nedalee is the author of The Desperate Parents Handbook
http://www.desperateparent.com/
Nedalee recommends http://HealingWaterMachines.blogspot.com for more articles on health and healing.
And http://HealingDiets.BlogSpot.com for articles on diet and nutrition.
Copyright © 2008 By Nedalee Ruiz
Permission granted to reproduce in entirety only including links and author credits.

What I Ate

1.9.08
Exercise--- 100 crunches
Breakfast---Blueberry Smoothie
Lunch---Fruit scones broken up into a bowl like cereal, almond milk and a few dried blueberry’s on top, because I was in a super big hurry.
Dinner—Big Salad
Snack—Homemade Lavender Berry sherbet---not sugar, super yummy
5 -16 oz glasses Alkaline Ionized water total for the day.

1.10.07
Breakfast---A bowl of fresh cherries. Tastes great, and they are of course raw. My concern is that they are full of natural sugar and no protein, so they may give me short-term energy but not lasting energy like the almonds in the blueberry smoothie would.
Snack—Carrot Dill crackers and humus, Orange—More natural sugar Notice I needed a snack before lunch, which isn’t typically the case.
Lunch---Claim Jumper restaurant, salad wit beets and lots of thousand island dressing and beef dip sandwich. Worse yet, I ate the whole sandwich when I normally only eat half. The sandwich had real bread, real beef and cheese, none of which are really diet foods and the extra thousand island had fat and sugar. Even the beets are high natural sugar. Probably not good choices but I’m human and it tasted good. Oh, I had two cups of decalf tea sweetened with Stevia.
Dinner—A frozen store bought burrito because it was convient and I forgot that I still have lots of the raw chili which would have been a much better choice. The burrito tasted really nasty. I also had 3 raw chocolate cover cherry cookies, which gave me the idea to experiment with a mint chocolate cookie recipe soon.

5 16 ounce glasses of Ionized water. I drink Ionized water because it helps clean out your cells. It's molecule size penetrates the cells better than regular water.

Over all, I had low energy all day. It could be because of what I ate or it could be because I started work at 5:30 am, or because it was an overcast day. Either way, I’m about results, and I think the food choices at least contributed to the low energy. Don’t want that. Will try not to do it again. So if the cherries and orange, which were natural and raw, had too much sugar and no protein to give me energy, what about the cereal that most of us feed our kids to start their day? No less than the third ingredient on the box.

1-11.08
Exercise 10 minutes on rebounder
Breakfast—1/2 Blueberry Smoothie
Lunch—Salad and six flour tortillas with honey butter and salsa. Ok, so the flour and honey butter wasn’t the best. 2 glasses Tropical ice tea sweetened with Stevia.
Didn’t get to drink enough water because I was away from home and didn’t take it with me.
It’s 10:00 p.m. and haven’t had dinner or a snack, been VERY busy all day and not hungry. Will have some nuts soon. Alright, I admit it, I never got to the nuts. It’s never good, when dieting to only eat two means. Never, never, never do it, you won’t lose weight. But I have a good excuse, I wrote 3 purchase offers yesterday.

Raw/Vegan Cajun Creole Chili

6-8 servings

3 cups tomatoes, blended or 1 can tomato sauce
2 cups lentils, sprouted in high pH alkaline water
2 carrots, grated1 ear of corn, cut corn off cob
Juice of one lemon or lime
½ red bell pepper chopped
½ cup white onion chopped
2 teaspoons Cajun Creole Seasoning by Spice Hunter, available in stores or spicehunter.com or Chili Powder
3 garlic cloves, minced
½ teaspoon ground cumin
pinch cayenne pepper

Combine all ingredients and let marinate several hours or over night in the refrigeration before serving cold.

By Nedalee Ruiz
Nedalee is the author of The Desperate Parents Handbook
Nedalee recommends Healing Water Machines for more articles on health and healing. Copyright © 2008 By Nedalee Ruiz Permission granted to reproduce in entirety only including links and author credits.

What I'm Eating

1.7.08

Breakfast--Blueberry Smoothie

Lunch--- 1 Baja Burrito

Dinner--- Raw Chili

Snack--- 2 Raw donut holes. A great sweet snack. Mine have been in the fridge for about a month and still seem to be fine. I eat one now and then.

8 ½ 16 ounce glasses of Ionized Water

I was really jonesing for something sweet last night and will try to find a new, healthy raw dessert since I’ve been eating the donut holes for a while and because I want you all to know that that they exist.

1.8.08

No formal exercise but I passed out 300 flyers and got pretty winded.

Breakfast--- Blueberry Smoothie ---Sorry guys, your not going to get much variety from me there. I like this, and I don’t normally eat breakfast. I like that I can make up three days worth at a time and grab it on the run.

Lunch---2 pcs. Onion Herb Bread page 78 Living in the Raw Gourmet, with humus, sliced tomato, ½ avocado salted.

Snack---Fresh fruit cup

Snack---Carrot Dill Crackers—page 72 Living in the Raw Gourmet, it’s a bread recipe but I made it thinner into crackers. Spread with store bought humus. Plus Trader Joe’s Chicken salad—not diet, vegan, vegetarian, or raw, just what was left over in my fridge and about to expire. I’m going to Newport Beach tonight and was hoping to eat light so Ronnie might take me to my favorite restaurant.

Dinner--OK, it worked, but that means I ate too much. 3 Bar-b-ques beef ribs. Mash potatoes and some really great peanut coleslaw with spinach and cilantro in it. I ate all the peanut slaw first to fill up and the rest last. Didn’t even enjoy the ribs or potatoes and brought most of it home to my sons. The Bar-b-que sauce and the slaw both probably had lots of sugar in it.

5 -16 oz. Glasses of Ionized Water

Another snack---3 Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies very good and easy to make, will publish the recipe soon.

Fear of Fat

When I started eating more raw foods, I found that many recipes were very high in fat. I was a little worried about gaining weight even though people professed that I would lose weight. I had just enjoyed a wonderful tasting raw meal when I expressed my fear to my husband who assured me that my body would begin to burn the fat instead of sugar. The words had hardly come out of our mouths when I opened to this quote from Ani Phyo’s book Ani’s raw food kitchen. "Some folks worry about how eating fats affects their weight. Good fats are necessary for our organs and body functions, and they’re good for our heart. The more fats we eat, the more our body lets go of tats, because it knows more will be coming in. The less we drink, the more our bodies retain. The more we drink, the more it lets go of." Truthfully I had also heard this from other sources, but worried how it would work on MY body. Well, in my first 7 days of experimenting with this high fat way of eating natural foods I lost 5.3 pounds. And gained tons of energy.
Burning Fat, Fat, Fats, Fear of Fat, Healthy Fat

Week 1 Diet Results

Week 1 Diet Results

Started 1-1-08 at 165.5
Weigh in 1-7-08 results 160.2
Result 5.3 pound loss in one week. YEAH!

I have to tell you I really step on that scale in fear because of the high fat content in the new style of eating. I will be posing an article about that soon called Fear of Fats.

Changes--- I notice that I'm not needing to eat as many snacks. My new bathroom habits which I will spare you the details, are evidence that all the new fiber in my diet is cleaning me out. I have much more energy. As a matter of fact, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and started writing this at 6:13 a.m.. A big change from when I met Ronnie 41/2 years ago, I hadn't gotten out of bed before 8:30 a.m. in many years. Lastly, five days into this new diet, I've noticed a significant change in my skin. I had beautiful, almost perfect skin in high school, but have had some acne from my 20’s through current 40’s. I've always said that it’s unfair to have pimples and gray hair at the same time! Anyway, I've had a couple of zits the last tow days, but the rest of my skin is brighter and smoother and softer. I think it’s because of all the healthy oils in my new healthy living diet. Many people say t hat they see changes in their skin after drinking alkaline water. But for me it’s taken the water and the diet.
By Nedalee Ruiz
Nedalee is the author of The Desperate Parents Handbook http://www.desperateparent.com/
Nedalee recommends http://www.healingwatermachines.com/ for more articles on health and healing.
Copyright © 2008 By Nedalee Ruiz Permission granted to reproduce in entirety only including links and author credits.

Fail to Plan or Plan to Fail

When I started this new way of eating on the first of January, I didn’t really have a specific plan or menu. I had a general idea and plan. But like my girlfriend last night said, "Everyone tells us what not to eat, but no one tells us what to eat." So the first couple of days of my diet, I kind of floundered around from meal to meal trying to figure out what to eat. To help others out, every two days, I plan to post what I ate and what exercise I did. And once a week I will post the results if any. About every other day, I plan to post other health-related articles. I can’t post actual recipes of what I ate unless it is my own creation, but I plan to soon post links to the books I got the recipes from.


1/3/07
Breakfast—Blueberry Smoothie

Snack--- Apple

Lunch—Batter from my herbed raw bread. I couldn’t resist! I can’t give the full recipe because it’s not mine--- but it had apples, pecans, flaxseed and about 7 other spices including garlic and onion which I love. It's Onion Herb bread, page 78 from Living in the Raw GourmetRaw bread sounds gross but it uses no flour or yeast and isn’t cooked but is dehydrated in an oven, the sun or dehydrator. The batter of this recipe tastes great, we’ll see how the bread tastes later. I made it into hand size patties like hamburgers to use as a base for future sandwiches instead of real bread. The fragrance of the spices in the bread is filling my house and smells so good even upstairs.

Dinner---2 Baja Cheeze Burritos with Taco nutmeat and red pepper corn salsa. From Pages 151, 154,164, and 189 of Ani's Raw Food Kitchen: Easy, Delectable Living Foods Recipes I will say that they took a little more effort to prepare than I would have expected for something called raw food, but well worth it! This is gourmet raw food after all. When I asked Ronnie how it looked, he said "Worthy to be served in any restaurant." When he tasted mine, he said, "It was bursting with flavor," and I agree. One burrito was more that filling, but I had made two so like a pig I ate them both because they tasted so good.

Snack--- 1 Raw Donut hole. Page 228 Ani's Raw Food Kitchen: Easy, Delectable Living Foods Recipes

1-4-08
Exercised 20 minutes on the rebounder.

Breakfast--- Blueberry Smoothie

Lunch--- 2 pieces of the raw Onion Herb bread I dehydrated yesterday. page 78 from Living in the Raw GourmetIt was so good. I didn’t need anything with it. Don’t let the name fool you, there is no flour, sugar, what or yeast in this bread. The main things are apples & flaxseeds. Lots of fiber and omega oils.

Dinner---1 Baja Cheeze Burritos with Taco nutmeat and red pepper corn salsa. From Pages 151, 154,164, and 189 of Ani's Raw Food Kitchen: Easy, Delectable Living Foods Recipes

1-5-08
100 Crunches. Crunches are like half sit-ups

Breakfast--- Almond blueberry portage—raw. Page 36 Living in the Raw Gourmet I didn’t think it tasted great, but I didn’t use fresh coconut like the recipe suggested. It was quick and easy to make.

Lunch---Tuna on the raw herbed bread I made before, page 78 page 78 from Living in the Raw Gourmet. I didn’t choose tuna because I thought it was healthy or a good diet food. I chose it because it was easy. My husband was making one for himself on real bread and offered to make me one, I agreed as long as he put it on my raw bread.

Dinner--- 21/2 cups of my real ham, potato, cream and butter soup. Not the best choice for a diet, but it tasted good and was still around. I’d planned to eat a raw chili concoction. I had wanted to make it in the morning but got distracted. Turns out, this raw eating takes some planning, as the recipe needed to "marinate a few hours." I still had some of the left over burrito stuff that I really like but wanted to save it for lunch. Ronnie is already trying to figure out how to take those to work for munch as he likes them so much from the couple of bites that he had of mine.

Changes--- I noticed I haven't needed snacks the last few days. My new bathroom habits which I will spare you the details, are evidence that all the new fiber in my diet is cleaning me out. I have much more energy. As a matter of fact, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and started writing this at 6:13 a.m.. A big change from when I met Ronnie 41/2 years ago, I hadn’t gotten out of bed before 8:30 a.m. in many years. Lastly, five days into this new diet, I’ve noticed a significant change in my skin. I had beautiful, almost perfect skin in high school, but have had some acne from my 20’s through current 40’s. I’ve always said that it’s unfair to have pimples and gray hair at the same time! Anyway, I’ve had a couple of zits the last tow days, but the rest of my skin is brighter and smoother and softer. I think it’s because of all the healthy oils in my new healthy living diet. Many people say t hat they see changes in their skin after drinking alkaline water. But for me it’s taken the water and the diet..

I’m drinking lots of Alkaline Ionized water from my Melody Water Machine. I drink about 5-8 16 ounce glasses of water a day. It is high pH water and I’ve worked my way up to a number 3 setting which gets me about a 9 Ph. I cook with a number 4, which gives me about a 10 pH.
1.6.08
Breakfast--- Dehydrated raw fruit scones Page 75 Living in the Raw Gourmet broken up into pieces for a delicious cereal with almond milk. I’ll talk about the negative things about cow’s milk in another post.

Lunch---Went to El Torrito Restaurant. Took one bite of my favorite chips and was repulsed by the thick coating and taste of lard. Something that I’d never had the taste buds to discern before. I had their Mexican Caesar Salad, two glasses of Tropical ice tea sweetened with Stevia that I carry in my purse. Two vegetable enchiladas, ½ cup pinto beans, and 1 ½ tbs. sweet corn cake. The corn cake has sugar and butter, so that was the first actual sugar that I chose to eat in a week. The beans wouldn’t belong on an alkaverian diet. The cheese on the enchiladas wouldn’t belong on a Vegan diet and the cooking of the food wouldn’t belong on a raw diet. I will explain the differences between those styles of eating in a future post.

Dinner---Raw Chili and 3 spoons of salsa.
The raw chili was a totally new experience for me. As an American, I’m used to eating Chili, and most foods, cooked and warm. Even after I prepared it and let it marinate for a day and a half, I sat looking at it trying to buck up the fortitude to try the first bite. Cold chili sounded completely unappealing. I couldn’t even get my husband to taste it. With fear and trepidation, I took my first bite and was low and behold it was good, very good. Because I lacked so many ingredients from the original recipe, and had to improvise and over come, I will publish the modified version soon. I’ll tell you now that it had no meat or beans but rather carrots and lentils and lots of other great tasting fresh vegetables. The original recipe had celery and I will omit it in mine as it tasted out of place in the dish.

Motivation to Diet

The title Motivation to Diet is deceptive because for me personally, I don’t want to diet, I’m looking for a lifestyle change. I used the word "Diet" because that is what people understand and are used to and also because in the truest form, any eating pattern that we choose is our "diet" regardless of if we are trying to lose weight or not.
I’ve been trying to lose weight for the last four years rather unsuccessfully. I’ve put effort in, and have had various motivations to do it, including wanting to fit into my wedding dress that had to be altered to fit me from the original size I was when it was created.
When I met Ronnie I told him that I was seriously under my normal weight because of grief, prayer and fasting, and not to expect that I would always weigh 120. Since I have gained beyond my normal weight of 138, my husband has hinted at his displeasure about my weight for some time. I have tried to loose it but I don’t think that it was a total priority in my mind.
Quite honestly, I think it can be hypocritical for men to gain weight and then criticize their wives when they do. ESPECIALY if it’s like in my case, where its Ronnie, bringing the junk food home and in some cases quite literally feeding it to me!
Here’s an example from two nights ago. Ronnie: I feel like pizza, do you want pizza?
Me: No, I don’t want pizza, I’m on a diet and I’d like you to support me on it.
Ronnie: You’ve been doing so well I thought you’d like a "cheat day."
Me: I’ve only been on the diet four days, no I don’t want a "cheat day," I want results.
I’m not trying to rant on my husband there, I’m sharing it because I know that some of you have had similarly frustrating experiences.
What I do want is to share what has radically changed my thinking although that is something that has been in the process for over a year in terms of my health and well being. I’m going to quote from several sections of one chapter in Shaunti Feldhahn’s book For Women Only – What you need to know about the inner lives of men. She surveyed hundreds of men and this quote is from a chapter called The Truth About the Way You Look – Why what’s on the outside matters to Him on the inside. "This chapter is about something our men desperately want us to know, but feel absolutely unable to tell us…The effort you put into your appearance is extremely high on his priority list. Yet the chances that you know his true feelings are extremely low. What I’ve learned about men’s needs in this area has been life changing. It has jarred me out of a dangerous complacency. Call me naïve, but I just didn’t realize that the issue of appearance was such a big deal—such and imperative deal---for a guy. Of course, having learned just how visual men are, I should have gotten a clue. But somehow I assumed that if I was out of shape, I was the only person who was negatively affected."
As she’s doing research for the book, a professional acquaintance tells her, " There’s something I need to mention to you," Ted said, looking uncomfortable. "I think women have a blind spot in an area that they really need to understand." Taking a deep breath, he spilled the beans.
"I don’t think women know how important it is to take care of themselves and not to look like a slouch around their husbands."
"You mean, not to be overweight…?" I ventured.
"That’s part of it, but that’s not really it," Ted continued intently. "It doesn’t mean you have to be a size 3. The bigger issue is that your husband sees that you are putting forth the effort to take care of yourself, for him. See, my wife is 115 pounds, but her weight isn’t really the issue. It’s not about being tiny. If she doesn’t take care of herself, dresses sloppily around me all the time, never exercises, and has no energy to go and do things together, I feel like she’s choosing not to do something that she should know is important to me. And then it becomes a real issue because it affects her ability to do things and her self-worth and desire---and then it affects, me."
"Over and over again, I heard each man say that what mattered most to him was not that his wife shrank down to her honeymoon bikini, but that she was willing to make the effort to take care of herself for him."
"Why does your appearance matter? When men felt safe enough to tell the truth they said. "When you take care of yourself, I feel loved." Since men are so visual, seeing us make the effort to look good makes them feel loved and cared for. This area is so imperative to them, our efforts—or lack thereof--- directly affect their perception of our care for them."
Several men told me something like this: "I want to be proud of my wife. Every man has this innate competition with other men, and our wives are a part of that. Every man wants other men to think that he did well."
Now I’m going to share something that is difficult to hear. This two-part comment is from a close friend whose heart I trust completely. I’m including it because I’ve found it is truly how men think and because I believe it helps to make a critical distinction. My friend’s candid comment:
"Sometimes I’ll meet a guy who looks just like an average guy. But then, if I meet his wife and she is huge and very out of shape and just sloppy, I feel so sorry for him. It sounds terrible, but my gut just churns for him. It’s this "Oh, I’m so sorry" sort of compassion. That sounds absolutely terrible to say out loud, but it is what every man is thinking.
But then sometimes I’ll meet a man whose wife is overweight--- but she takes care of herself. She puts some effort into her appearance. She dresses neatly, or does her makeup and hair. If she is comfortable in her own skin and is confident, you don’t notice the extra pounds. I look at that husband and think, He did well."
End of quotes from Shaunti’s awesome book that all women should buy and read.
There you have it. That ladies and gentlemen in a nutshell is why I’m committed to changing my life. I want to be healthy, have energy, and I want my husband to be able to feel proud of me. That section of the book opened my eyes as the proverbial light bulb went off. I always wore dresses and did my makeup before I met Ronnie. But he didn’t care about those things and actually preferred me in sweats and a ponytail. But he has always told me that it was important to him for me to exercise. Anyway, I didn’t get it before but now I have awakened and I’m changing.
So for those of you who are interest in making your own life changes or seeing how my experiments work out, follow along.

By Nedalee Ruiz
Nedalee is the author of The Desperate Parents Handbook http://www.desperateparent.com/
Nedalee recommends http://www.healingwatermachines.com/ for more articles on health and healing.
Copyright © 2008 By Nedalee Ruiz Permission granted to reproduce in entirety only including links and author credits.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Well, I've stated eating healthier and making better food choices. Already my energy has increased. So Like the Hair in the fable, I'm out of the starting gate. The holidays have been hard for Ronnie, he seems to have been hit hard by depression over the loss of his Mother. He's putting off his New Year's resolution diet for a few days and comforting him self with food. I saw him eat an entire pint of ice cream last night which is not unusual. So having lost my guinea pig for the blog, I will have to step in and post my own fat pic. To summarize some of my last posts for those of you who haven't been following along, Ronnie lost 40 pounds last year drinking alkaline ionized water and eating a more alkaline diet. He gained it back eating comfort foods after he quit chewing tobacco and lost his Mother in the same month. He's vowed to lose it and more this year, but hasn't started trying yet.

My effort will include mild exercise, a more alkaline diet, and lots of alkaline ionized water. I am going to explore Vegan, Alkavarian, and Raw foods, but have not committed to eating them exclusively as I'm still an omnivore who loves Bar-b-que. Like any wise dieter, I will try to avoid the dreaded white foods, Rice, Potatoes, Sugar, Milk and Bread. But again, I not going to say never. As you will see from my food posts which will follow, I had Cream of Ham and Potato soup for dinner the first night of my diet and may have some more since the pot isn't finished. What I am doing is a very public TEST diet. Raw fooders eat lots of high fat items like nuts and avocados but burn the fat and lose weight. I'm going to see if a fairly inactive over 45'er can get weight loss results.

So here are the current stats: On January 1, 2008 I weighed 165.5 up about 3 pounds from before the holidays. I swear the new weight feels like it's all in my butt. It feels like I have a caboose waddling after me for the first time in my life. My weight is also up almost 30 pounds from my after baby weight from the second child who is now 23. I kept that weight for almost 20 years. My weight can fluctuate even if I weighed 3 times a day, so I'll only weigh in once a week or so.

My measurements, (don't tell anybody) Are a ghastly 41 - 35 1/2 - 38 1/2

What I ate: Jan. 1, 2008

Breakfast- Blueberry Smoothie

Lunch- Fresh broccoli florets dipped in store bought humus. (Broccoli is high in protein.)

Snack Trader Joes Spicy Ranchero Egg White Salad -Low fat, high protein, low carb, cholesterol free and only 50 calories. Tastes like cottage cheese with taco seasoning. Defiantly not raw, not vegn, not alkaverian. I bet that if you soaked almonds in water and chopped them in a food processor with the other ingredient you could make a vegan/raw version.

Another Snack- Store bought salad

Dinner 2 cups Cream of ham and potato soup.

Jan. 2, 2008

Exercised 20 minutes on a rebounder. (I've worked my way up from only five minutes.)

Breakfast- Blueberry Smoothie I buy my blueberries frozen and organic at Trader Joes for under $4 a pound which will make me about 6 smoothies.

Lunch- Tuna wrap because my last avocado was rotten so I couldn't have the avocado wrap that I had planed.

Snack- Apple Dinner- Pomegranate Salad- Don't freak out, it's not complicated, the pomegranate seeds were just a garnish on a purchased salad from Trader Joes. It had some goat cheese too so it wasn't vegan.

Snack- Celery with tuna and humus

By Nedalee Ruiz Nedalee is the author of The Desperate Parents Handbook http://www.desperateparent.com/

Nedalee recommends http://www.healingwatermachines.com/ for more articles on health and healing.

Copyright © 2007 By Nedalee Ruiz Permission granted to reproduce in entirety only including links and author credits.

Diet, Diet, Diet...Nope

Diets fail. Lose a little, gain it back and then some. Lifestyle changes work. But it can be hard to make changes if you don't have the support of the people around you. My two teenage boys are the perfect example. I've wanted to eat healthier for ages. But they complain when something has the word "organic" on it. In their minds the word "organic" equals "fake." So cooking two meals is a pain. My way around that is that I let them cook and eat whatever they want within reason after they've eaten some of what I made. Most diets are about depravation. Count your calories, eat less, bla bla bla. My new diet isn't about depravation or about calorie counting. It's about making healthier choices. Choice number one, I will have fresh vegetable juice or a Blueberry smoothie in the morning for breakfast. I've never been a breakfast fan, but I choose to have something now because it is impossible to loose weight on less that 3 meals a day, your body goes into preservation mode. Five small meals are even better than 3 if you want to lose weigh. Men and women actually lose weight differently. Because of that I'm going to join Ronnie on a very public diet. Have you seen that commercial where the fat cartoon lady is complaining that her husband quit drinking soda and lost 14 pounds and she lost one? I laugh every time I see that commercial because it's so true! Like I said in a previous post, Ronnie lost 40 pounds last year with very little effort. I wasn't as committed and didn't come close to matching his results. This year, I am committed and want to see how far that commitment can take me. I've packed up the left over homemade Christmas candy to mail to my daughter so it won't go to waste and will be out of temptations way. I'm going to exercise up to 20 minutes 3 times a week. I haven't done any exercise this past week because all the excess sugar over the holiday lowered my immune system and gave me a bad cold. I'm still sniffling and weak so I'll hold off on exercise for a few days. Most of my work is done form the computer so I lead a very sedentary lifestyle. I've had three gym memberships in the past and never went for more than 5 months and NEVER lost any weight from working out. As a matter of fact, I always gained weight and the trainers would smile and say that was good because muscle weights more than fat. This post is getting long, so I will wrap it up. I will be posting our starting weights and some pictures soon. The main reason that you should follow along with our progress on the blog is to see how easy it is to lose weight with the methods we will be using. Because I want increased energy more than I want weight loss I will be adding a lot more raw food into my diet. For people who don't know about raw food, the thing that comes to mind is raw meat or carrots and celery sticks. Let me assure you, there is now raw meat. And while I may choose some carrots and celery sticks from time to time, there is a whole world of great tasting easy to prepare gourmet raw foods which we will explore on the blog. Consider this passage of scripture from the book of Daniel in the old testament of the Bible. Chapter one verse 8-16. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God had brought Daniel into the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, "I fear my lord the king, who has appointed your food and drink. For why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are your age? Then you would endanger my head before the king." So Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, "Please test your servants for ten days, and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. "Then let our appearance be examined before you, and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king's delicacies; and as you see fit, so deal with your servants." So he consented with them in this matter, and tested them ten days. And at the end of ten days their features appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies. Thus the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.
By Nedalee Ruiz
Nedalee is the author of The Desperate Parents Handbook http://www.desperateparent.com/
Nedalee recommends http://www.healingwatermachines.com/ for more articles on health and healing.
Copyright © 2007 By Nedalee Ruiz Permission granted to reproduce in entirety only including links and author credits.

The Power and Purpose of Fasting

Fasting has many beneficial proposes and can come in many forms. Fasting helps to cleanse the body and focus the mind. Fasting gives the digestive tract a welcomed rest and also helps to cleanse the colon. Fasting can lead to temporary weight loss of as much as a pound a day. One of my favorite benefits of fasting is that when you are done, the flavors of food are amazing. You taste buds seem to come alive and fresh healthy foods suddenly have a much stronger appeal than sweet or unhealthy foods. This is because artificial flavors have overwhelmed you taste buds and numbed them to the calmer flavors of natural foods. A full fast would require that one abstain from all foods and drink for a period of time. Some will fast all food and drink only water. In one example, during Ramadan, Muslims won’t even swallow their own spit during the day light hours. However people modify their fasts all of the time. Some people will go on a liquid only fast getting most of their nutrition through shakes or smoothies. Other people only fast a certain food like meat or chocolate. I must tell a funny story here. When I was in high school, my boyfriend told me that he was giving up chewing gum for Lent. Not being a Catholic, and not knowing what Lent was, I thought he meant he was giving up chewing gum to chew pocket lint instead. Personally my first fast was water only, for spritual purposes and lasted 9 days. It felt good to have that much self-control. I have continued to fast over the years for various reasons and lengths of time. My longest was 22 days. But all of my fasts have had the wonderful benefit of causing food to taste better. Doctors say that one should never fast for more that three days without water, although it is recorded in the Bible that Jesus was able to fast 40 days without food or water. A typical side effect of fasting is that you may experience flue like symptoms about the third day of a fast as your body eliminates toxins. If you are not on a religious fast, and excluding liquids, it is recommended that you drink copious amounts of water to flush toxins. Try for a full glass of water every half-hour. I personally choose alkaline ionized water as it is up to six times more hydrating and the hexagonal shape of the water molecule causes it to get into my cells better than bottled or tap water. A short fast is the perfect way to cleanse your palate and begin a transition healthier eating. It is highly recommended if you are trying to become more spiritual or become healthier.

By Nedalee Ruiz
Nedalee is the author of The Desperate Parents Handbook http://www.desperateparent.com/
Nedalee recommends http://www.healingwatermachines.com/ for more articles on health and healing.
Copyright © 2007 By Nedalee Ruiz Permission granted to reproduce in entirety only including links and author credits.

New Year Resolution Diet

This button popping picture was taken of my husband, Ronnie, on Christmas day 2007. He's going on a diet Jan. 1st 2008. Follow along on the blog to see how easily and quickly he looses the weight. He's not too happy that I'm making a public spectacle of him. But I know that he will appreciate the added motivation to stick to his goals. See you on the 1st. And Happy New Year.

Man splits pants, see what he's going to do

Ronnie, my husband, has gained a lot of weight this year. Yesterday, in Home Depot he bent over to pick up something he'd dropped in the check out line and split open his pants! He has vowed to change his eating on New Years and I'm going to document it here on the blog. Last year he had lost 40 pounds in three short months by making some simple changes in his diet. He drank alkaline ionized water. He cut meat out of his diet, decreased sweets, and increased vegetables. The results were remarkable and we are going to see if he can recreate them as we follow along on the blog. He swore that he never felt hungry or deprived and that he really didn't have time to add exercise to his regime. Ronnie's Mom passed away in May, and the grief sent him into a wild self-comfort eating binge for over seven months for which he has dearly paid the price, seeing his health and energy decline and his weight increase. We've calculated that on some Friday nights out with his friends he would consume up to ten THOUSAND calories in a single night! So be sure to join us in January as we begin to document his journey back to health.