I'm Back! 2022-09-30 Food Log and Some Updates

Food:  

Breakfast:  Watermelon

Lunch: Smoothie of blended: Banana, Blueberry, Kale*, Coconut Water with dried White Mulberries on top

Dinner: Cucumber* Noodles with chopped sugar snap peas, carrots, yellow bell pepper, celery, pineapple, tomato*, sunflower seeds with blended sauce of kale*, lemon juice, carrot juice, carrot, chia, broccoli sprouts*, fenugreek sprouts*, alfalfa sprouts*, tomato*, yellow bell pepper, celery, basil* with a little sprinkle of ground black pepper on top

*stuff we grew and harvested (rather than bought)

Here are a couple pics: 1st is with noodles and chopped things unmixed, with the sauce still in the blender. 2nd is with sauce in bowl. 3rd is with everything in the bowl.

 

The Rest:

I am not in Hawaii right now, and have been away from there since about this time in 2017. Darrel and I were driving around the US Mainland for a couple years, then got stuck in Washington during pandemic lockdowns, etc. I gardened some up there in the Pacific Northwest for a while. We have been in the Southwest for a couple years now, and are gardening in the Semi-Arid High Desert. I have videos and things ready for release soon, just finishing more of them first. There will be an update to where I am, what I am doing, and so forth.

Variations from what I had been doing:

I have not been getting as much sunshine or exercise as I did in Hawaii. More on why another time. I am working that back into my life more now, however I have some injuries that I need to compensate for at times. This is a retro-log, as I am putting it in during October, rather than when it happened. I picked a few days that I have pics of food saved to add in this way. I have not been tracking my exercise as well as my food, so have omitted the exercise section for now. I will try to start tracking it better, at least on the days I blog here.. but not starting right away... maybe November. I want to finish videos and other content I plan to share with y'all first.

I am post-menopausal now, so don't track my basal body temperature anymore, so that section is now omitted. 

I am still the joyful gal y'all know. I am still doing 811rv, depending on how you define it. For convenience and availability I include pasteurized carrot juice and pasteurized lemon juice (even though I know it has been heated too much to be considered raw by most) in many of my blended evening meals. As in older posts here I still include frozen fruits (sometimes greens), and dehydrated/freeze dried fruits and veggies at times, which some would consider raw and others wouldn't. I do not eat salt, but do track my sodium intake along with other nutrients. Yes, I am back to tracking not just macros, but also the micros as well.

I also am taking a few supplements at this point, and will add a supplement section to my logs later. I discovered in 2020 I had a vitamin D deficiency for I don't know how long as it was never tested before, and I had been extremely sun-sensitive for most of my life. 811rv helped with that and I got more sunshine and exercise than ever in Hawaii. Then we were on the road for a couple years, and were stuck up where and when not enough sunshine for vitamin D.. I could go on about how I think it happened later, but no time right now. It will be a FAQ video probably. I actually had to ask to be tested, and did so because I had symptoms that indicated it. So I have been supplementing with D3 along with sunshine (when weather permits). The deficiency was corrected by sometime in 2021, but I am still taking some and monitoring my levels off an on. I believe I still don't get enough sunshine and conversion of sunshine to vitamin D becomes more difficult as one ages and hormones change, etc.

I got more extensive testing and found out that while I was getting plenty of Magnesium and Omega 3's in my diet, I might need to get them in a different form. I seem to not be absorbing the Omega 3's properly, and while I am absorbing the Magnesium properly I seem to be using it all up somehow anyway. 

Even though my B12 levels and Homocystine levels have always been fine according to the reference ranges whenever tested, I have been taking a little B12 for the last year to raise that a little further to see if that helps with things that the vitamin D deficiency affected. I will go into those things more another time. 

And lastly, while my diet should have enough zinc in it, I am taking a very small amount of zinc, as the soil and water where I am is alkaline which affects the plants' ability to absorb zinc. That zinc supplement also has copper and iodine in it, but not enough iodine for the RDA. Iodine is actually something that I may not be getting enough of, and I have some iodine level tests scheduled to find out. It is difficult to determine how much iodine is in our foods since some soils have it and others don't, then there's the ability for the plants to uptake and absorb it... so most nutritional tracking data is not reliable in that way, if they even have iodine measured at all. 

Since as far back as 2013 (maybe longer, don't remember) I have had what seemed like a tiny somewhat prominent adam's apple equivalent as it would go up and down when I swallowed. My sternum has always been prominent, no matter what I weighed, so it seemed maybe that was the same with my neck. Over the years when seeing a healthcare prof. they would sometimes look in that area like they were looking for potential thyroid issues or anything odd.. and they never seemed concerned about it or even mentioned it, nor did I. My blood/urine for thyroid issues always tested fine. Fast forward to last month when someone was concerned and ordered an ultrasound. Turns out it is what is called a nodule on my thyroid. It is very small and has not changed size as far as I know. It is not considered a type or size to be enough risk of cancer or anything for mainstream docs to do anything about or test any further. So.. knowing that iodine is an unknown in my diet I asked to get my iodine levels checked to see if maybe I need to supplement more than the tiny amount in the zinc supplement. I would only supplement up to the RDA if it turns out my levels are low, and don't want to take it just in case because it is one that is supposed to be a problem (with your heart I believe) if you supplement too much... I'll let ya' know how that turns out.

K, gotta' go! Went into some details a bit more than planned.