Berenstein Principal

PostScript to Original Post:

Simply put, I am convinced that the Bernestein Diet saves lives. If I'd have found out about it within a year of learning I had Type 2 diabetes, I believe I could have reversed my diabetes (since I am still only borderline.) You CAN reverse diabetes (if you catch it in time.) I am really hoping (trying to believe) you can cure it at anytime. Curing it is defined by a year of perfect blood sugars (as was defined by Dr Mehmet Oz on an Oprah show.) People (the medical establishment that has a stake in you being unhealthy) say you can't cure diabetes because you will always have this faulty pancreas. But the point is that it isn't the faulty pancreas that causes problems- it is out of control blood sugars. If you maintain perfect blood sugars then you can live as healthy a life as anyone.

The Berenstein Diet is about seriously curtailing your carbs and filling out your menus with protein. But, I am allergic to milk and I seriously want to throw up at the smell of eggs. O.K. so I love crisp bacon, but I don't really want to eat a pig that never harmed anyone and is at least as smart and loving as a guide dog (or my worthy dog, who has never worked a day in his life.)

Anyway- I am trying to find a way to do Berenstein without it being an eggs-meat-cheese-fest. I don't know that I actually believe there's any benefit to eating your vegetables raw. What I do know is that when I am doing a lot of green vegetable juicing- I get compliments- so you know, it works with my vanity! And, when I eat like this I have no cravings for food that raises my blood sugar. Perfect blood sugar just feels so good.

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Original Post Begins Below:

Again, it is important to note that diabetics cannot go wild eating fruit or starchy vegetables even if they are eating a completely raw diet. (And this is in contrast to the teachings of most raw food practitioners.)

Berenstein says

Fruit:
Avoid sweet fruit entirely, although many people doing his plan eat small amounts of berries, a slice of tomato in a salad.
Remember that lemons and grapefruit are sweet fruit by sugar content, it is a bitter flavor that makes them seem as if they are not.
Eat the non-sweet fruits (plants with pits and seeds that people don't usually consider fruits.) Eat eggplant, summer squash, cucumber, green and red bell pepper, avocado.

Vegetables:
Restrict your amounts of starchy vegetables to 1/4 a cup per serving.
Corn is not a vegetable, it is a grain.
Restrict your overall amount of vegetables to no more than two cups of salad, or 1.5 cups of cooked vegetable per meal.

Nuts- eat small quantities. Learn which nuts are lower in carb
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How can I combine what I know of Berenstein, with Raw? It is completely within the bounds of a berenstein-raw diet to start the day with a green juice made of two cups of spinach, a squeeze of lemon, a slice of ginger. A few hours later have two thirds of a cup of nuts in the shell for a snack. Then a few hours later have up to two cups of raw green salad (for example spinach, celery, red bell pepper, cucumber, raw mushroom) with a quarter of an avocado and a raw oil and raw vinegar, for lunch. Then have a dinner which incorporates a small amount of vegetables and nuts (such as Ani Phyo's 'That Chicks' Pate with Spanish Vegetables'.)

Making the Connection

Yesterday I had coffee and wine, ruining the eleven days of keeping my commitment to not do either.

I have also been eating a lot of cheese. But no meat. Cheese on whole wheat bread is a food that seems good to me, and so it's easy to miss that it is not.

My blood sugars have been perfect. So it was easy to rationalize that, in fact, I broke my word to myself not to do these things for one month.

Anyway- beginning again...

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Continuing with this a couple of days later-

I can definitely see how I turn to eating crap whenever I have a high degree of conflict with a particular close friend. It is like (to paraphrase Ekhardt Tolle) I have a pain body that wants to maintain itself. Whenever I go into victim mode, eating is a way to nourish the pain body and to return to the familiar place of poor blood sugar- to build up my ego through a negative identity as a diabetic and also through the drama of not keeping my word to myself.

Of course- I am also paying very close attention to the things that are triggers for my pain body. MY trigger is feeling that I am being judged. I am not being loved unconditionally. And I have to be even more right about what I am saying- I have to criticize and judge and be rigid about being right. That is my ego protecting itself- defining itself- making itself superior. Then seeing myself as something less than radiant and wise, I go straight into feeding the pain body.

Making some slow progress perhaps- if awareness really is progress...

Game of Life

If I count "wins" such as January 23 post- does that mean that set-backs are "losses?"

Do I want to live my life seeing everything that happens as either a win or a loss?

Wins

A few days ago I whacked my thigh very hard against a modern boxy-style wooden chair. The thing is as solid as a tank. I was expecting a bad bruise. I was in pain, and if I were a cartoon character I would have been seeing stars dancing around my head. I have no bruise or soreness. I credit all the spinach I've been eating with this healing. The body heals itself, and does so quicker if we don't encumber it with toxins.

Also a few nights ago, I awoke from sleep and felt like doing some yoga. I surprised myself by getting much more range of movement and deeper stretches than I have had in years. My body felt quite warm, and I felt deeply peaceful and relaxed before, during and after the yoga. My friend, who was a yoga instructor, said about this amazing experience "Where the mind goes, the body will follow." That day, I had been watching Shazzie, another raw foodist, on a YouTube video practicing yoga.