Well my sugars headed uphill a little this morning, but they’re still OK. But I think I’m on the brink of a cold too. It’s like my body is saying “Right… so now you’re looking like you’ve got enough energy to support a cold, I think what you really need is… a cold!”. Imaginative eh!? and bloody typical.
My sugars this morning were 7.9 - no just kidding, they were 4.7, a few points up from the previous 4.1s and 4.2s, and to be honest my heart sank a little when I saw the reading, but, having thought about it since (not all day honest) it’s still a good reading really, considering it accounts for 5 days in a row of prunes and fruits for breakfast and as a ingredients in the salads I’ve been having. - I’ve kept prunes in the salads to, shall we say, alleviate any issue my bowels might have with digestion. And it’s worked.
So, although it’s a little higher, and maybe gives me pause for thought, I’m not, and shouldn’t be overly concerned.
Today was a good day in terms of food though, a landmark really. Around lunchtime I finished off fixing the door frames in the basement and garage and we headed to Jamocha’s (now called “the Market”) for our lunch. I had veggie chilli, and it was lovely. But the key thing here, is that it was the first full, hot meal, that I’ve had in over 3 months! So you can imagine how much I enjoyed it. It was followed by a coffee with a nip of Carolans (an Irish liqueur, kind of like Baileys).
Back at home, we both took care of business for a while, and my wife started preparing the Vegan feast.
Man oh man was it ever good!
Curried potatoes, a nice Thai coconut broccoli and bok choy curry dish and a lovely quinoa and roasted peppers dish. I may have got some of those dishes wrong by the way, but my wife got them spot on. We had a nice glass of wine (or two) with it as well and finished the meal off with a lovely dessert invested by my wife, a kind of nut based, tofu topped raspberry cheesecake.
I don’t think I’m doing it any justice in the description, but it was fantastic. And I think I did a pretty god job of chewing everything I ate tonight too
Well we’re off for a break tomorrow for a few days. A little getaway for some together time and some Christmas shopping no doubt, so the blog entries will probably calm down a little - certainly after the #100 mark I would imagine, but keep checking back as I want to keep everyone informed as to how this whole adventure turns out.
I got woken up by our next door neighours who are renting for the ski season and were partying last night. As a result I was up at around 03:45, and that was me for the evening. I went downstairs, had a cup of peppermint teat and did a little work on a future podcast I’m working on.
My sugars this morning, before I forget, were 4.2
I was fully planing on getting a little computer stuff worked on, and then heading back to bed around 6 or 7 in the morning for a couple of hours to catch up with the rest of my sleep, but it wasn’t to be.
Before I went back to bed, the phone rang at around 07:30. It was search and rescue. We had a call out, and it wasn’t a drill, repeat “this is not a drill”. I won’t go into any details as I’m unsure of the legal implications of data protection and all that, but my wife packed some fruit in a bowl for me and I got off to Sparwood pretty fast to meet up with the rest of the team there. I was unsure exactly of how I was going to be able to contribute, after all I’ve only been to a few practices, but when I got there, a few of the guys and girls were really helpful, and also told me that every roll on a SAR team was equally as valid to the success of the operation.
As it turned out, I did a little work at the command base, answering the radio and noting team updates, and then went out on an assignment with one of the more experienced members of the team, and later on even got to interview someone who had seen the missing party, and we got some new information. Like I say I can’t go into details for legal reasons, which is probably frustrating, be hey, what can you do. The long and the short of it was however, that the missing people were found late this morning and there were no fatalities.
I made my way home after we had lunch and were de-briefed and had a lovely salad with my wife and son. The first time we’ve all sat down and eaten with knives and forks and plates together in 3 months! I enjoyed it. We all did.
After that I headed to bed for a kip and slept like a baby for a couple of hours. When I woke up I hadn’t even moved position - I was knackered.
My son decorated our Christmas tree tonight to his traditional Christmas tree decoration music, which is “Any way you want it” by Journey. I was playing it one year in our old house as we decorated the tree, and it’s kind of stuck since then, which is nice.
We also finished off watching “American gangster” tonight - what a good film. It was accompanied by a few nice sips of whisky and a lovely little nutty dessert my wife whipped up, with a little honey and tahini mixed in there. Nice.
So, an interesting day, and good experience for me on a SAR team. And even though, I slept this afternoon, I think I’ve still got a good enough sleep deficit in the bank to be able to sleep tonight pretty well.
Today was a fantastic day. I was seven different kinds of bad in terms of being kind to my digestive system, but hey, a guy needs a break right, and I wasn’t that bad….
We went out into the bush with some friends for a “hike” and took along some salad and green juice, and also some “tofu dogs” - they’re shih tzus but tastier and less yappy, mulled wine and a hip flask of whisky.
Our friends took along actual meat smokies, and some coffee with baileys. Once we’d found a nice spot on our hike, we made a fire and got to business, what a great time! I had a lovely salad, and also, the “tofu dogs” - that’s actually what they’re called I swear, tasted phenomenal after being cooked over the raw flames of the fire - man they were good.
I had a few nips of whisky during the day, a lovely taste of the baileys coffee, and the mulled wine was great. It felt good to be alive! Now you might think - whoa Chris! you’ve gone a bit over board there haven’t you mate, that’smoving way too fast, and I think you’re probably right, but everything was in moderation, and we all shared, plus there’s no way I could drink too much, even the smell of most of it was enough to make me slightly giddy.
After getting back, my wife actually had juice for tea / dinner / supper and I had another salad - talk about role reversal, and then we watched the first 2 thirds of American Gangster. It’s unravelling as an excellent film, and the only reason we didn’t watch it all is so we could get a semi early night and get some DIY done tomorrow.
So, I’ll wrap this up for now, at the end of a fantastic Canadian outdoors winter day with friends.
I slept really well last night! Only got up to pee once. makes a hell of a difference not drinking so much cold green juice I guess.
My sugars this morning were 4.1
I went down to the hospital to get my blood checked yet again, this time to check the potassium level, not iron or blood sugars.
All the different tests I’ve referred to in this blog should give you an idea that if you are thinking of embarking on a juice feast, please do it with the blessing and supervision of your doctor. I’m been pretty lucky since moving to Fernie as I have two good doctors that I get on with, who are open (somewhat) to what I’m doing, and supportive.
My previous experience with doctors in England was not good. I was registered at a Doctor’s clinic and you couldn’t guarantee who you were going to see on any given appointment, and when you did…well one doc mis-diagnosed my diabetes and told me to go to the sex clinic, when I went to him with my symptoms (peeing all night, tired, hungry all the time and losing weight). He cost me several months of undiagnosed diabetes. Another doc wouldn’t even make eye contact with me, and yet another was just Johnny Negative. You’d come out of his office feeling so down it was crazy.
Here in Fernie? Two good understanding doctors, and I can’t fault them. I’m truly grateful believe me, knowing what the alternative can be.
I met up with a friend for a cup of tea at lunch time and while I was there got a call from my doctor - the potassium level was normal. Nice.
We’re going to keep an eye on it and get it checked again in a few weeks just to make sure, but we discussed the supplements and I told him I’d knocked the Super B Complex and Bee Pollen granules on the head, as I thought that’s what had done it. Turns out I was right. Good stuff.
I enjoyed each and every bowl of fruit that I ate today - absolutely loved them. I’m moving onto salads tomorrow, but will be having the fruit bowl for breakfast I think, and I’ll make enough green juice for between meals filler.
I had fruit for breakfast this morning, and man was it nice! I had a bowl of the following:
Strawberries, Raspberries, blueberries, kiwi fruit, tomato and prunes: a lovely bowl of fruit.
Check it out - here’s a picture I took of it on our snowy deck:
It was nice to chew again too, my jaw just seemed to remember what to do
I had a little juice before lunch, and then had another bowl of fruit - fantastic, and I wasn’t even really that hungry before lunch either - something that I’m completely not used to. Hunger has been a pretty normal state of affairs for me over the last 3 months - more so the first 2 months of the juice feast than the last month, but I think I’m just going to be absolutely ravenous for a while, enjoying all these long forgotten, newly appreciated flavours and textures.
As part of my gift from my wife for completing the juice feast, she got me a treatment with an NLP practitioner, and I went to see her this afternoon, which was really cool. It was a good session and was helpful.
I had to whizz back home after my appointment and quickly make up my fruit dish to go, to take with me to Search and Rescue practice in Sparwood. We watched a video on the dangers of avalanches, which was very moving, a group of 5 guys skiing in Montana who triggered an avalanche. One of whom died as a result, another lost a leg at the knee. Then there was more map and compass work.
Back at home in the evening, a friend of mine was ’round seeing my wife for a homepathice remedy, so it was nice to see him, and have a chat for a while.
I not long ago checked my sugar and it was 5.2, so I’m happy with that, we’ll see what it is tomorrow.
I almost forgot! I actually had the energy to run to the postbox today. It’s not far away, just down the street, but I didn’t even feel like I was running underwater or anything, it felt good. I was seriously out of breath when I got back home, but it still felt good!
OK, that’s enough form me, I’m going to head up the wooden hill to bodkinsville, and get some rest for tomorrow - got a blood test to take - let’s hope my potassium levels have calmed down eh.
More prunes for breakfast and lunch too today, I really enjoyed them for both meals.
I checked with my Doctor for my HbA1c results today and it came back with as 6.3 which he said was normal. That’s the lowest it’s been since late 2002. There was a bit of concerning news however regarding my sodium and potassium levels.
My sodium level is a little low, but my potassium level is a little high, and that’s the one concerning my doctor. Apparently too high a potassium level can lead to cardiac arrest, so I’ve got to go for a test on Friday morning to see if it’s gone up any more, and if it has then he’s going to prescribe some kind of drug to get it lowered. So we’ll see on Friday I guess.
In the meantime, I’ve had a look at some of the supplements I’m taking and the bee pollen granules are high in potassium apparently, and the super B complex which I’ve also been taking has potassium in there, as well as bee pollen, so I’m going to cut those two out of my regimen. Whether that will make a difference or not by Friday, I’m not sure.
My wife and I went to the cinema tonight to watch Mongol, a film that the local arts council has brought to town and rented a screen at the cinema to show. It’s basically about the young Genghis Khan and how he came to be one of the most powerful, successful warriors / empire builders in history and is a damn good story. Really beautifully filmed too. If you get a chance, go and see it.
After the movie we nipped down to Extra Foods to get some celery, and some fruit for tomorrow -that’s right it’s a fruit day tomorrow - plus some of the prunes too (which are also apparently high in potassium). To add to the list of things that are a “good source” of potassium as well, we have cucumbers and celery - two of my staples for the juice feast, so it looks like it could just be the perfect storm of supplements and diet that have lead to the elevated level of potassium in my blood.
I think it’ll sort itself out when I come off the diet, but my doctor seems worried. I guess Friday is crunch day.
I checked my sugars when we got back and they were 5.7 which is still in the post prandial (after meal) normal range.
So, I’m off to bed in a minute, ready for my fruity breakfast tomorrow. I’m pretty sure my body doesn’t have a bloody clue what the hell is going on, with all this prune juice, and prunes and now the fruits tomorrow, it’s kind of having to wake up and get out of the hospital bed, shake itself off and get back in the race, so I think a few anomalies are to be expected.
I’ll let you watch the video my wife and I made before I let you know about the rest of the day…
So, that pretty much says it all really, other than what happened afterwards
Fortunately my wife managed to remember to thank Gabriel Cousens, and David and Katrina Rainoshek. I would especially like to thank the Rainosheks, not just for the support, help and advice that they gave me, but for the incredible work they’re doing for everyone that wants to try and be a little healthier through juice feasting. Keep up the great work. You too Gabriel.
I’ve got quite a bit to mention about today so forgive me in advance if it’s not all in chronological order eh.
My wife and son both bought me a congratulatory gift which they presented me with this morning. So I’ve got an Eckhart Tolle book, and a Darwin Awards Next Evolution book to my library :).
I had a little scare a couple of hours after drinking the prune juice and eating the prunes - my sugar went up to 11.5. I kept checking it throughout the day though and even though I was still consuming the juice (green and fruit) the sugars came down steadily 2 hours after each drink. And I just measured them after getting back from the swimming pool steam room and they were 4.4 - poyfect
Yeah, I went to the swimming pool as after all the drinking of cold green juices, I was really cold inside, so I wanted to raise my internal temperature in the steam room, so I headed there and did my last man standing routine as people came and went for half an hour.
Another friend popped around after she’d finished work to see my wife, but also to congratulate me in my achievement, and gave me a card and a fantastic book to read. I’m going to be one spiritual dude after reading all the books and listening to all the audio I’ve been exposed too, and it’s all good!
I forgot to mention that yesterday, on the last day of my juice feast, while I was at Jamocha’s a guy was sat at a table across from me reading the local paper, The Free Press. He got to the page with my article on it and turned to look at me and said “Hey, that’s you!”
“I bet that’s never happened to you before has it?” I replied, and added:
“It’s never happened to me before either!”
We both grinned and went back about our business, it was a pretty cool moment.
So, I think that’ll do for this entry. I’m probably going to try and keep this updated as much as possible, certainly through these next few days of feast breaking so that other can learn from, and maybe be entertained by what’s happening.
Once again, thank you all for your support and compliments, it means a hell of a lot.
I’m proud to be able to say that things look pretty good from where I’m standing right now…
Hi, I'm Chris Sherry, and I live in Fernie, BC in the Canadian Rockies.
I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in May 2002 and have been trying all sorts of different things since then to live with it.
On September 1st 2008 I embarked on a 92 day Juice Feast.
