Hi! Jody reporting in, here! My dear friend, Melissa, shared with me Dr Brooke Goldman's "Goodbye Lupus" protocol. In it she shares how hyper nourishment with leafy greens, omega 3's and pure water can help us heal of chronic, inflammatory conditions. I have no doubt that is true, since I watched my own daughter heal herself of an illness that caused muscle weakness to the point of using a wheelchair. That was over 12 years ago, another story for another time. 

Fast forward to this week. All I can say is WOW! I watched the video on Friday or Saturday, on Sunday I went shopping for my kale, spinach, mixed greens, chia seeds, bananas, frozen fruit, and treated myself to 3 different vinegars for making salad dressing. 

Now, I should add, I have been a yo-yo vegetarian for the better part of 20 years. I have some unhealthy food issues left over from a toxic situation from my younger days, and let me just say, that I found having control over my food to be a way to exert some control over my life. By that, I mean, I used unhealthy foods as a way to rebel against (what felt like to me) someone/thing dominating my life's choices. 

Add nine pregnancies and 2 knee replacements to my dysfunctional relationship with food. The result? Morbid obesity by the time I was in my 40's. In the past 10 years I have worked with a therapist to overcome many of my toxic ways of interacting with the food and the rest of the world that had become second nature to me.

And now, I'm learning what it means to truly love myself. The Smoothie Shed challenge came along at a perfect time for me. I had given up meat this past year and committed to WFPB, although I still cooked with oils, enjoyed processed vegan foods and had the occasional cheese/dairy product. A visit to an ashram over a year ago helped me identify that not consuming animal products was one way I could embrace a non violent life (an aspect of yoga), and love and respect our mother earth. 

My daily routine now goes like this: I drink half a liter of water and ride on my stationary bike for 20 minutes, and take a few minutes for gratitude and reflection. Once showered and dressed, I start the hot water for my tea or hit the button on my coffee pot. While that's brewing, I make my smoothie. I make a complete blender container full. It's 3/4 leafy greens, 2 cups water, 2TB chia and flax seeds and whatever fruit I want. I love mangos and blueberries! If the fruit is frozen, even better to make it frosty and cool. The smoothie takes me through until lunch. 

Lunchtime: HUMONGOUS salad. Like, in a "pass the potatoes" sized bowl. I fill it with leafy greens, top off with whatever raw veggies I prefer, add a few chopped nuts or sunflower seeds and a vinagrette made with a flavored vinegar, water and herbs. (One day I added soysauce and another I added the juice of a freshly squeezed orange). Super yum! 

Dinner is either more salad, more smoothie or just munching on a plate of sliced fruits and veggies. I will add spiralized veggies this week, too. Pictures to come! Thanks for reading along! 

Timeline: The Past Ten Days

Here is a quick catch up to what brought me to this moment.

In general, my diet is whole food plant based, no sugar, no oil, gluten-free. This is my ideal diet and the one I live by, for the most part. Every once in a while I'll have periods (because once I start...) where sugar creeps in in the form of dark chocolate bars and dark chocolate chips. Or processed vegan food, mostly in the form of vegan cheese and gluten free bread. Three meals a day blends into non stop eating, even of healthy foods. I am still too heavy, and though I feel healthy in general, I still have aches and pains. I am trying to stave off cancer, heart disease, early death. And gluten causes me terrible joint pain, headaches, intestinal agony, and an uncontrollably quick temper (anger.)  

Then, on Saturday, December 26, I visited a friend in need and gave her a massage. Afterwards she offered me a piece of the pizza her family had ordered (regular: wheat crust dairy cheese pizza, not the vegan gluten-free pizza I sometimes indulge in) and I said yes. It was so good that when I then went to wait for my daughter outside a fast food restaurant, I ordered myself a pizza, and ate it in the car. I never do that. 

My daughter was shocked and afraid of the gluten-anger that might follow in the next day or two. I suddenly remembered all the painful gluten-symptoms that I conveniently forgot about as the headache began.

So the next day I resolved: No sugar (no more chocolate!), No oil (no more vegan cheese!), no more gluten-free bread (processed food.) Just back to wholesome delicious food, recipes from Forks Over Knives and their meal planner I had recently purchased. 

Then on the evening of December 30, I saw that Dr. Brooke Goldner's free classes were being offered, so I watched them immediately. The next day, December 31, I added the giant blenderful of green smoothie and a gallon of water to the mix. 

I packed the greens to fill the blender to the 7 cup mark, using all the greens I had in the house (plus some raw Brussel sprouts.) I added 1/2 cup of flax seeds, fruit/frozen fruit, and water. It took me until mid afternoon to drink it all. In addition I ate lettuce with guacamole, and one small cooked meal, I believe it might have been miso soup with rice noodles. Plus, I measured out a full gallon of water and drank it glass by glass all day. 

Everyday after that I made the huge blended green smoothie with seven cups of packed greens - always including some cruciferous greens: most often kale - with the spinach. I had raw food (usually lettuce cups with guac and sprouts) for lunch, and then a cooked food meal from Forks Over Knives: Lentil Korma, Eggplant Rollatini, Curried Yellow Split Peas and Brown Rice. Then my friend Jody watched the Dr. Goldner class, and told me that on Monday, January 4, she was going to begin the 4 week protocol: aka basically what I had been doing but ALL RAW. And I said, "I will join you!"

So here we are today: Day 10 since I stopped oil, sugar, and processed food, Day 6 of drinking the green smoothies, and Day 2 of the 28 day all raw protocol. I am down 4.6 pounds in these 10 days.

Today for lunch I made zucchini noodles with a blended sauce of avocado, tomato, peppers, onion, garlic, basil, and celery, topped with cherry tomatoes, red onions, and basil: 

I'm much more hungry today than I have been so far, and I'll have to figure out something filling for dinner, then plug along until my smoothie tomorrow morning.

Green blessings!

~ Melissa

The Four Week Protocol of All The Nourishment

 Welcome!

My friend Jody and I are attempting - nay, slaying - Dr. Brooke Goldner's Six Steps to Reversing Disease with Supermarket Foods Protocol. Follow the link and you will find her classes, which are offered for free a few times a year. In fact, if you are reading this post before January 8, 2021 you can still catch this round of free classes!

Watching her videos is the absolute best way to get the information about the protocol, especially the how and the why, and to make sure you are doing it correctly. But as we understand it, this is what we are doing for the next four weeks:

1. Eliminating all animal foods and animal products: meat, dairy, eggs, etc.
2. Eliminating all added oils (yes, even olive oil and coconut oil)
3. Eliminating all processed foods, so that's a lot of foods

The next three steps focus on the hypernourishing aspect of the program:

1. Focus on raw vegetables, including cruciferous (kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, arugula, etc.)
2. High doses of Omega Three Fatty Acids: Flax or Chia Seeds (anti-inflammatory)
3. High Water Intake

To get the mass quantity of greens needed per day, Dr. Goldner recommends a green smoothie, and you should really watch her make one to understand what she means:

Dr. Goldner's website Goodbye Lupus tells about how she cured herself of Lupus, and she now helps people cure themselves from all sorts of autoimmune and chronic diseases, so check her out.

I have not been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, but I deal with chronic pain and inflammation, and currently am struggling with Achilles Insertional Tendinitis, with painful, inflamed bone spurs on the back of both heels where the tendon connects. I also struggle with very painful menstrual cramps, and currently have pain in my thumbpads, especially the right. I am also trying to lose weight.

I have been vegan/whole foods plant based for years. Sometimes 100%, sometimes allowing for a few sugary treats. Perhaps because of that leeway, I have not been able to lose the weight I need to. Last year I went on Dr. Fuhrman's Six Week Aggressive Weight Loss Plan and I did lose 30 pounds, though I gained some of it back when I went back to a starch based diet. His plan is very similar except instead of the daily giant smoothie it includes a daily giant salad. They both want you to get 1 pound of leafy greens, but Dr. Fuhrman allows a pound of other vegetables which can be raw or cooked, whereas Dr. Goldner wants you to stick to raw food. She also wants you to have much more than the 1 TBSP of flax seeds Dr. Fuhrman recommends, and he insists you eat cooked beans and mushrooms as part of his daily G-BOMBS (Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, Seeds).

I absolutely love Dr. Fuhrman and his Nutritarian approach, and when I'm finished with this four week protocol I will likely go back to his Nutritarian style of eating, because I love the cooked beans and mushrooms.

This blog is a place for my friend Jody and I to keep track of what we eat and how we feel during this four week period. We hope you enjoy it!

Lots of love and green vegetables, 

~ Melissa