Moichido Update

Ate a lot and took a little help tonight: 2 units.

Yet Another Update

The next day, Thursday, was okay but I think my sugar was a little high and it was a somewhat stressful and extraordinary day. But I did okay. Then, Friday, I had a really great morning and was telling some family members how well I was doing (like most of Wednesday) and then that very evening I got overly tired and stupid and ate tons of cooked beans and corn and my sugar went up to 281. I took 4 units. The very next evening, I more or less did the same thing and took 3 units but then my sugar was low all night - too low, but I was asleep; woke up with a headache. Then yesterday yet again I was distracted and eating crazy and took 3 more units. So I went about 2.5 weeks without needing insulin, but have to say I'm back on it - but only because I stopped being careful and started eating frivolously if not stupidly. I don't seem to be any worse though, and should be able to pick up where I left off and not need any further insulin.

Update

This morning I was going to ride my bicycle over the hill 15 miles to the dentist in Pittsburgh. I was fixing a bicycle for this purpose and running a little late, so to get off on time, I didn't prepare for such a ride as I normally would. I ran off without my hat and with my pants falling down and I totally skipped breakfast (I normally like not to carry food when I go to Pittsburgh but rather have some juice n'at before I go). But I threw 2 apples into my pack as I left, which I ate on the way back, at about noon. I got home at about 2:00 pm.

Naturally, I was weak and hungry. Normally, this is a bad situation: hungry, worn out, afternoon and not eaten all day. It normally spells eat a lot and super spike your sugar.

Well, I ate all I wanted of everything I wanted and got all my strength back and my sugar didn't go high at all. Not a bit. Didn't do any exercise afterward. No sugar. No hunger. No munchies. No discomfort from eating too much, yet I most certainly did not undereat. No nuthin.

But I sure am starting to eat differently, even for me: I was eating collard leaves like they were hot cakes. I was having yellow yeast on them. I had some other things too, but yellow yeast on collard leaves was a good discovery. The way I ate though, normally would have spiked my sugar, believe me. Oh, and I never test my sugar or take a shot without telling you, but I will spell it out here that I did not test my sugar. It was too certain to waste a test strip. No question, there is something going on here. Like never before, since I was diagnosed in '96. Not at all like ever before.

Later that night: I had a lot of confusion going on during my evening and ended up eating a pretty weird supper and going high. Took a little walk with the dog and then fell asleep and when I woke up about midnight, my sugar was 179 and I took 2 units. Pretty stressful night and bad food.

Thanks Mom and Dad

I must publicly thank my parents for getting onto the non-toxic and natural wagon decades before I was born. To help put it into context, Dad was born in 1912, Mom just a few years after. I was born in 1960. I tasted my first pizza (free sample from a lady in the grocery store) when I was in grade school. Didn't really have any more until high school, and then not much. I had my first hot dog at the age of eight, my fourth at the age of 10 or so. I have had one glass of Coke. Never any Pepsi or other cola. I have never had an asprin. I took half a Tylenol when I was about 26 and had a severe flu. I have had a few of those since then, but not lately. At our house, there was never ketchup. The ice cream was home made with honey. We never ate any pig. We didn't eat casseroles or cakes. What people call banana or zucchini bread, we called cake. The only junk food we had around our house regularly (in more recent years) was all-natural peanut butter and white bread from the store. The white bread was not too popular.

Thank you for shopping every week and avoiding every can and bag with ingredients you could not read and know what it was.

You bought cans of things, mostly for the sake of food storage or travel, but thanks for putting fresh produce on the table for the most part, all those years, and as often as possible, that of our own picking from the vine and tree.

Thank you for never providing us with frozen food.

Thank you for never providing us with any preservatives.

Thank you for making sugar strictly a special occasion.

Thank you for not giving us money. The penny-candy and gum we came by was from money on the sidewalk we sometimes came by - or bummed off a friend. We had to save up for months to go somewhere like McDonalds or DerWienerSchnitzle (or however you spell it).

I wish you had known the devastating effects of white flour but thank you for the continuous supply of bread, mush and other delights that came from FRESH-ground wheat.

Thank you for trying to hide the sugar, mom. Dad would have simply thrown it out and never bought more.

Thank you for never buying harsh chemicals for any reason; thank you for never spraying or spreading on our lawn or in our yard.

Thanks Dad, for getting on the neighbors' cases whenever they tried pouring anything into the irrigation ditch.

Thanks, Dad: you didn't ever know the harm in working unprotected with asbestos, lead and gasoline, but you had the sense to control chemicals the best way you knew how. You didn't just throw it about the way many of your generation did.

Thanks for never bringing any detergents into our home.

Thanks for the bar of soap: always Ivory, Sweetheart or Lava.

Thanks Dad, for washing your hair with bar soap and never putting any lotion or other remedy on your skin. You died formaldehyde free, I expect.

Thanks for never taking a pill. Well, Mom took vitamin pills, but still. Thanks for teaching us how to deal with pain and let it slip away. Thanks for teaching us to go to bed when ill.

Dad, thanks for showing us the very best and only truly effective and spiritually satisfying acne medicine: wash your face and leave it alone. It took me 40 years to get the hang of it, though. After 40 years, I finally threw it all up to God in utter despair - whatever happened on my skin was in His hands; I wasn't going to even pay any more attention to it. Only then did my skin have a chance to heal and become normal.

Thanks for always doing everything the hard way or the cheap way. We never had a concept that this was a hardship or deprivation. I always saw it as for the sake of toughening ourselves up, including the women and children - why would anyone ever be interested in anything else?

Thanks for sunbathing regularly.

Thanks for virtually raising us out of doors.

Dad, thanks for always eating everything alone, and enjoying it so intensely - even though you grew up eating pretty darn fancy.

Mom, thanks for teaching me to garden. Thanks for growing up poor, in the country; I always used to feel sorry for you because you had precious little candy or other treats, just a garden where you could go steel a raw carrot or turnip. Not sorry now.

Mom, thanks for showing us how to pray and know everything would be alright.

Dad, thanks for teaching us to relax and not worry about things that didn't matter, things we weren't sure existed and things we could do nothing about.

Thanks for considering getting a TV only to be set up outside and then never getting around to it. We finally got one after I was 21 or thereabouts. Thanks Dad, for never watching TV for more than 30 seconds, and then only if a movie you had seen before 1952 at a theater or a favorite actor from those days was on and caught your attention as you passed through the living room. You'd always say, Boy, that was a great show! as you walked out after such a pause. Thanks for all that, even though I feel I personally have watched as much TV as anyone nonetheless. There is a quality we enjoyed in our home, and I in my own at times, that is not attainable with a TV in the house - even if the TV is off in a basement room or stored away in a box in the attic. We are even further from said quality now that computers in the home have all but made TVs obsolete (I personally expect TV to become obsolete in 5 years. That's just what I expect, not that I care or have a theory. But I will note that no one forsaw the quick extinction of the electric computerized typewriter that occurred in > 5 years time. I was an engineer at IBM's largest typewriter plant in 1988 and no one expected that plant to be sold off as soon as it was - no one had a typewriter anymore after what: 1994? 1993?). Still, maybe not; the computer is a little different in that it is not so totally passive: you can watch movies and do mindless things, but you are the programmer so there is some control. You don't just turn it on and let it take you away for an indefinite amount of time. Two things never hooked me at all (never had the patience for or got any enjoyment out of either one - not one iota): Web-surfing and video/computer games. So in a way, computers bother me less - unless I see my son spending his life in front of one.

Thanks for taking off your glasses, decades before I was born, and learning to see well (and pass the driver's eye exam, Dad) without them. I sometimes need and appreciate my glasses now, but the attitude of gratitude, confidence, peace and relaxation I gained from learning the Bates method remain with me. And I haven't had a headache in 30 years or more because of it.

Thanks for the hip thing, Mom. For showing us how to wait on the Lord, and how to have faith. Thanks for confidence in Him to remove the disease from throughout your body; if it had only been your hips, you may have had them replaced, but it was all through you, you knew. Thanks for the pure desire to be touched by Him and for the feeling that it was best to be all better rather than just a band-aid from Man.

Thanks for making your conversation, your private thoughts and your judgement about other people just like your food, your home and your Bates practice.

Thanks for truth.

Thanks for gratitude.

Thanks for faith.

Thanks for thrift, respect and generosity.

Thanks for natural.

Thanks for clean and neat. Even though your clothes were many decades old, everything at our house was always clean and neat and as often as practical, made of wool, cotton or leather. The same is true of me today.

Mom, thanks for mopping the floor on your hands and knees and making me do it too. I use a mop handle now, but mopping floors is one of my favorite things to do. Thanks for all the dandelion and star of Bethlehem digging. That's another one of my favorite things now. Now I eat the dandelions. These days, most of our neighbors don't even know what we are all doing out on the ground all day - especially the younger ones who never held a dandelion digger in their hand.

Thanks for all the cheap rich togetherness.

Meat and Dairy

A word about vegansim and vegetarianism. I did some reading to see if there were any solid reasons for either or both and found that the Gerson people assert that it is necessary to overcome cancer, but I didn't come up with any clear or compelling reasons for myself to abstain from meat or dairy.

However, I make it clear that I do not disbelieve them insomuch as for curing disease. The scriptures direct that the sick who have not the faith to be readily healed should be given "mild food." I would not argue with any of the Gerson Cure.

But I have not tried the Gerson cure myself.

And to me, it is a cure, not a normal regular diet.

The vegan roots of some Gerson heirs are in the Bible, yet to me the verses they quote do nothing to eliminate the verses I found in the same book that tell us to eat meat. Then I have my understanding of modern scripture that says to eat meat - sparingly (Doctrine and Covenants, LDS canon). Top it off with the simple fact that you can't get needful B vitamins naturally without it, and I find no reason to abstain from meat or dairy.

To explain the last sentence, it is my understanding that vegans get their B12 from nutritional yeast, as a major source. To me, if you stretch just a little bit, you can consider it natural to eat husbanded fungus as a staple. But it is my understanding that the yeast only contains B12 because it has been added - like the Vitamin D in your milk! That is why I said you can't get needful B vitamins naturally without animal sources.

What about the fact that meat stays several days in your intestines and rots while it's in there? What about it? If that's what it is supposed to do, then it should do it. Based on the scriptures, I know it should not do whatever it does too much or too regularly. But whatever it does, telling me it "rots" or "stays too long" does not show me the harm. Finally, how do you know how long it stays in MY intestines? Are the data representative of people who have been eating properly? I don't know. But the time it spends and how much it "rots" are moot if you can't show me what it does to me.

I have noticed a stark difference in my blood sugar wellness between consuming excess dairy and meat and not consuming an excess. Makes a huge difference. I have not noticed any difference in wellness between going vegan for a few months and just eating prudent amounts of meat and dairy.

I have developed a dislike for butter, having pretty much quit the use of it. I prefer coconut oil and seeds. I didn't like too much butter as a kid, I recall.

I find that when we are out of raw milk and I drink straight raw cream, I do harm. But if I drink whole raw milk without taking any of the cream out, I'm okay. But normally, I only drink the raw milk after removing most of the cream.

Don't bother telling me it's not natural to drink milk from a cow by asking me how often I see people out sucking on them. After all, didn't I say I drink it straight from the cow? [just kidding]

How do I eat meat sparingly or properly? I eat natural meat that ate and lived naturally - at least as naturally as the livestock before 35 years ago. Then I eat it plain and alone. Having done all this, I follow my appetite. Having eaten my plants simple, whole and raw, my body tells me when it wants some meat simple whole and - oops, I don't eat raw meat too often. But I'm shooting for 100% raw dairy and I sometimes like raw eggs.

End of April Update

To reiterate, the point of this blog is to help others, who may want to try, with encouragement - knowing that there's a guy out there who actually loves eating whole and simple and raw and whose diabetes (and other ailments, such as inflamed joints and asthma) have been reversed.

The last several days, I have walked around in a cloud of euphoria because my feet felt so good. It's like you had a headache for 12 years that sort of got better and worse and better and worse but never went away until this week and now you are like, Wow - so this is how it used to feel!

And to be able to go through my day and just eat when I'm hungry, and not have to bother with the injection routine or the burden of Having to run when I'm done, yet having my feet and my lips feel great without them. And my fingers and all my blood vessels.

But please do not think these things come just from eating the way you were supposed to in the first place. They come from your Father in Heaven because of Jesus Christ and because of what you do toward them. Like yesterday: I was painting the outside of the house. I worked steadily all morning. Just as I was putting on the last few brush strokes, it started to sprinkle (on me, but the place I was painting was protected from rain as long as the wind didn't blow much). Just as soon as I went in to paint the rest, which was under a porch roof where the rain could never get me or what I was painting, it began to pour. It has been pretty much raining ever since and looks like it will keep it up for the foreseeable forcast. And the wind did not blow. This kind of thing is what makes me feel close to my Father in Heaven. This and feet that don't just have a bad feeling turned off, but a good feeling turned on too.

Speaking of what comes and why, it came very clear to me the other day, why I love my Father in Heaven: I love Him because of the way He gives me things for my having done good. Especially the big (for me) sacrifices. I haven't much analyzed this (how and why this is what makes me love Him), but I am certain of it. The other day, it came clear to me certain blessings I have been given were because I did certain things, and I knew which ones.

As indicated in the April Meals post, I have been off of insulin injections (by necessity, not by design) for a couple of weeks and do not have to exercise right after I eat anymore. Also, I have been eating even more raw vegetables and less nuts and dairy and such. And have not struggled to stop my meals after the main course or two, to avoid the "extra little something" - but still kind of graze a bit too much sometimes, yet even then my sugar doesn't spike like it used to. I quit bread and stix altogether; I only eat sprouts of spelt barley and millet. I don't miss anything at all. Not ever hungry at all - except during the time it takes me to walk to the kitchen and eat. I am totally satisfied all the time. I quit taking my ogliofructose complex multi-vitamins because I did not like the mix of what they include. I still take my supplements: Vitamin E, lipoic acid and Provex CV (grapeseed extract), and brown and yellow yeast. The brown yeast is what I consider my chromium supplement. I have been eating plenty of meat and dairy. I am anxious for the day I finally get around to making my own cheese so I can have it raw, same as my milk. Raw milk cheese tastes way better; I don't know why it's not more prevalent. It sure is expensive. Even pasteurized cheese costs too much.

May Meals

1st

Last night I sat a little too long at the table and had a little something extra, plus it was late and I went right to bed. So this morning, I woke up with relatively numb feet and not feeling good. I checked my sugar to see how high I needed to come down from: It was 124.

3rd

I had another insulin shot - first one since I last reported - last night. 3 units. Had been partying I guess. Was up to 236. Partied again today; didn't exactly eat just things you could not say were empty calories. Did one story, read a story to the babies. When I was done and acting a bit sleepy, the baby said, "Dad, it's time for you to go to sleep on the couch." Then she curled up beside me and I went to sleep for a couple of hours. Then I was still feeling sugary and I ran up the hill. Came back and checked my sugar: 126. Still, gut feels a little bad.