Start of a new RAW week!

So my husband has agreed to do all raw dinners this week - Monday through Friday. I'm planning on giving him a green smoothie for dinner and then hopefully find some raw desserts to make for him too. I don't want him falling back on cookies or candy or ice cream or anything not raw for this week. It's an experiment to see how we can help his heart burn at night. It's doing way better with the fruit juice for breakfast but we still aren't up to 100% with it. He says he wants to try to have it under control without meds by October when we go to Disney World. I really, truly believe it will help him a lot, but the real question will be if he will have the will power to do the raw dinners. He's going to have his choice of whatever he wants for lunch at work. If he wants to go out, fine, if he wants to bring stuff from home, fine. It's all up to him.

But breakfasts will be juice (strawberry, pineapple, grapefruit, romaine, tomato, cucumber, orange, pear, plum, watermelon mix). For the green in my green smoothies, I picked up a collection of kale, collard greens, romaine, and a spring mix. Fruits will probably be just bananas, strawberry and honeydew melon. Everything else is a little too much for my cruddy blender and we'll be left with ickie chunks. I'm so excited for this week and I'm going to be STRONG and not give in when he pouts and wants other food. This is just an experiment for one week! We can make it through one week without cooked dinners. I'm also hoping for no wine! No alcohol! No beer! That one is always a mighty big struggle. Wine just makes dinner so much more enjoyable.

But I don't care how much he pouts, how much he begs, whines, makes sad faces. He's eating the danged green smoothies and staying raw after work. It's just one week! We can do it!

The Menstural Miracle?

I get horrible menstrual cramps. It's been a problem since I was around 13ish, so definitely a big, huge, long-term problem. In my quest to become more healthy, eat more raw, eat less junk and crud and synthetic stuffs, I have cut out Ibuprofen. Previously, I was taking 3-6 every day, starting right when I got up in the morning and then as needed through out the day. I started this routine at the recommendation of my doctor who was trying to help me control my cramps. She said if I built up drugs in my system, it would help during that time of the month. And she was right, it was helpful. It didn't solve the problem but it helped. I also tried pretty much any other cure anyone said might work and bought all sorts of products and pills. Nothing was great. I also tried a bunch of prescription drugs over the years. One of them prescribed to me was Vioxx (now pulled from the market) and I had a horrible reaction to it. Basically, I've been suffering for years and trying every possible thing under the sun, and still in pain every month.

Except for this month.

What changed? Well, I'm not 100% sure yet. I've been struggling with my amount of raw food intake. I'm down to about 30% at this point and some days I'm not even making that. I'm planning on making a big push starting next week to be near 100% but these last few weeks were just a bit of a struggle. I was expecting raw food to help reduce some of the pain for me, but last month, where I was at a much higher raw %, I am not sure I've never had more pain. I knew giving up the Ibuprofen was going to be difficult but I had no idea it was going to be that bad. So last month raw was definitely not helping me. But it is possible that with another month of more raw foods that it's finally starting to help.

The other thing I changed in the last week or so was to start taking pH pills. I recently finished a book called The pH Miracle for Diabetes. I'm not worried about diabetes, I was just interested in the pH part of the book. It pretty much goes hand and hand with raw foods. The more raw you eat, the better your pH level should be. Your pH should be around 7.3 ish. I tested my pH this past Friday and was at 5.5. I thought mine would be way, way better after several months of so many more fruits and vegetables than I usually eat. The book recommended adding pH drops to your water but I couldn't find them in stores, so I got pH pills to take in the morning and before bed. I want to wait a full week of the pills to test my pH again so I don't know how it's changed, or if it's even changed at all. What I do know is I have no pain and it is so unusual and wonderful.

I'll keep updating about this pH situation as I learn more about it and how my body feels. No woman should have to suffer through what I've been going through for days out of every month for the last 15ish years and if I could find a cure for it, I would love to share it with everyone! :)