Remind me, which are my owwie parts?
You know, your lower back, your right knee, your hips. How you can't get around in the morning.
Right! I remember now.
- lower back - an intermittent problem, but always skulking and slightly there. No flare up in several weeks. I had forgotten about it.
- right knee - this is an old Wii injury. Beware the hula hoop! Now I feel it when I walk a lot. A stick helps, but the point here is that I'm walking now. So, I notice it more, but it doesn't build to an acute situation. Now it's more obtuse.
- hips - what hips? The pain used to keep me awake.
- morning stiffness* - I've been trying to rephrase this for fifteen minutes. The takeaway is, I have no problem moving around in the morning now; lower back stiffness seems to be gone.
Annie and I have lost a total of 55 pounds. More or less. Give or take.
Before the juice reboot we were already vegan, which felt better physically than our old ovo-lacto diet. The juicing made such a quick difference, though, that we wanted to incorporate some part of that into our everyday life. Where we are right now:
- We still have an alcoholic drink, whatever (vegan) kind we want. Not every day, though.
- Annie: heart-healthy red wine
- Roxi: Jim Beam, neat
- I had a craving for eggs (!) and so we found some free-range eggs laying around and ate them. They were under the free-range hens. Okay, not vegan. Also a slippery-slope food for Annie. So, for a fierce craving - okay, but not a go-to food. We won't be stocking them.
- We're staying away from processed foods, even ones we used to enjoy. Facon and fauxsage, faux example. We've tried them since, and were disappointed, so we don't need those to live.
- We still juice once a day. When we skip it, we eat and eat and don't find what we're looking for.
- Bread is back on the table. We've been buying sprouted bread, which they apparently make from 24 karat wheat. The price alone is enough to keep us moderate.
- We eat nuts, but "raw" and unsalted. The oil and salt turn nuts into my slippery-slope food. Peanut butter is not the greatest food, either, but it's SUCH A GREAT FOOD that I eat it. On my jewelry-grade toast. Remind me to watch for signs of returning inflammation. Nevermind, I'll write it down.
- We're still off coffee. We have green and white tea sometimes, and herbal stuff that tastes like leaves. And my favorite, Bengal Spice.
If you eat a different way, that's cool. I'm not writing the Bible. We all want to feel good in our bodies, and whatever makes that happen is the right way. Except for the way you eat, of course, but we can fix that.
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| Annie enjoying the Flagstaff sunshine, in the shade. |
Flagstaff's weather is a story of contrasts. At 7,000 feet in elevation, Flagstaff residents enjoy over 300 days of sunshine per year and low humidity. Yet historically Flagstaff receives the second most snow of any city in the continental United States and can be surprisingly cold in the winter. Even during the coldest periods when snow is falling by the foot (or even by the meter!), warming sunshine is never more than a couple days away. Weeks can pass in spring and autumn without so much as a single cloud interrupting the sun's rays, whereas in July and August the summer monsoon season brings intense thunderstorms nearly every afternoon. When most people around the world think of Arizona they conjure up images of blazing desert heat without realizing that Arizona is among the most mountainous states in the US. At 7,000 feet elevation, sitting in the heart of the cool pines of the Coconino National Forest, Flagstaff is far from a desert environment. Even in the peak of summer, daily high temperatures rarely exceed 85 degree Fahrenheit, making Flagstaff a retreat for desert residents fleeing their scorching Phoenix summers. - American Conservation Experience
Which is all pretty educational, but it means Flagstaff is sunny year-round. In the summer, you can shed your down, and in the winter you'll freeze your pin feathers off. But, you'll feel cheerful about it.
*What your doctor may not tell you: erectile dysfunction may warn of bigger things to come.
More about that, without double entendres.
