August 16, 2005
once upon a time...
If you told me a week ago that I would eat cookies today, I would've said you were crazy. If you told me a week ago that I would be eating meat today, I would've said you were crazy. If you told me a week ago that I would jump off a 10-story building and live to tell the tale, I would've said you were crazy. ...okay, one of those didn't actually happen, but they're all pretty crazy. So what happened in the past week that caused the official Robyn Food Liberation Craziness? A book called Health Food Junkies plus a bit of beef in my broccoli.
The previous quote is taking from a blog entry I wrote on July 3, 2004.
I feel like I should fill you guys in on some of my fooding past. Even though I'm mentioned it before, it's probably very hard for any of you to believe that for a bit of time there were people who were surprised that I was eating things like cake and bread. It's weird to think about since I'm synonymous with baked goods these days (ain't that lovely?).
"When I told everyone that you were eating cooked food, they could hardly believe it."
"HAHAHAHA...oh boy." *wipes away a tear*
A conversation with my old roommate from freshman year at college went something like that during a get-together where we...ate. She saw me eat a lot, of course, but the stuff I ate was mainly bananas, oranges, apples, and nuts.
I found another interesting entry from June 7, 2004, in which I talked about my intestinal cleanse and a day when I ate "five bananas, one orange, and one fruit cup. And a lot of honey, but I don't think that does much to me. It's quite yummy." That wasn't very interesting, but later in the entry I talked about how I did clean up work at a faculty member's house. I can't believe that I had forgotten about it; the work was horrendous.
We had to toss a bunch of spackle and wood with nails in em that were ripped out of walls out a window and in garbage bins and roll up this huge ass carpet and lug it down the stairs to bring outside (the faculty member's daughter and her boyfriend were helping too). I got to smash a wall with a hammer to get more spackle off...quite fun. Surprisingly, my arms don't even hurt (my legs are still aching though). Ryan and I also had to take down a drywall ceiling, which was about as pleasant as you could imagine having lots of dust and dirt falling on your head could feel like. We had to toss all that stuff out of a window as well. In another room we did more tossing and it was completely dust filled...by the end of the day, I thought my lungs were coated in dust. We went through a few dust masks and we all got super heavy gloves and protective eyewear.
My clothes, hair, and NASAL PASSAGES were covered with dust--and I probably would've puked dust without the masks--after the 6 or 7 hours we spent ripping out stuff. I don't know if it takes a year for all that dust to kick in, but I didn't have any asthma at the time, which I NOW find really weird. I can't believe I lasted the whole day without getting very tired (I remember going to a nearby gas station for some fruit since they didn't have any raw food at the house) and that I didn't get sick or achey afterwards. If I had to do that today, I wouldn't last more than an hour.
What's my point? The raw food diet was pretty good, health-wise (but less good mentally). Unless you have your own experience to speak of, there isn't much anyone can say about this. I'm not saying its the BEST diet but it was a lot better than however I was eating before (I don't remember how bad my diet was before). No grains, no meat, no tofu, no chocolate, no "a lot of things" and my organs seemed better off. The bad part was not having any friends who ate the same way (I had my mum, at the very least) and even though my friends were nice enough to let me drag them to the occasional raw food restaurant, that was usually the extent of my food outings.
I know there are lots of people who eat normal, cooked food and are healthy. I don't think I'm one of these people. Ever since I was born, I've had little problems. ...little. Nothing very serious (there are a gazillion things worse than asthma), but I had more of them than the rest of my family. I guess I should be happy that I don't have worse problems but we're all a little self-centerd sometimes, yes? Especially those of us who blog on a regular basis.
As for the asthma thing, I haven't decided whether or not to see a doctor; I haven't ruled it out. Amy is right that people like me need to have one around, even if I barely use it (I didn't use it at all during the school year; the times I became wheezy were very minor, almost always caused by having to talk on the phone). I didn't need to use my inhaler yesterday, even though I wanted to at one point.
Today while walking to class, which is about 1.75 miles, I had a few coughing fits but I didn't become asthmatic. My lungs seem to be okay if I cough while moving around. Quickly. With a backpack on.
Amy also mentioned becoming asthmatic from walking up a flight of stairs, which is kind of funny except that it's kind of...true. I noticed during school that even though I could easily walk 2 miles without getting asthmatic, walking up a few flights of stairs would feel like death. However, going up and down the stairs all the time at home never makes me asthmatic. Maybe it's school?
My asthma is sometimes tied to stress--I don't think anything else could explain my phone call-onset asthma. There's nothing physically laborious to speak of but during most of my life, I've never liked talking on the phone. This is mainly when people call me and not the other way around; I guess it's the element of surprise that messes me up (good thing i don't watch horror movies).
Oh, I ate food today! Obviously. :) I had a pluot for lunch (my new favorite fruit, besides plums) before going to NYC for my class. After class I went to Han Ah Reum and got four of those Korean appetizer things: spinach, radish kimchi, seaweed, and spicy tofu. Don't worry, I shared them with my mum and we didn't finish everything! It's a deceptively large amount of food; they pack a lot in those little containers. I also got a red bean popsicle since I haven't had one in 7 years: delicious, and definitely my favorite form of popsicle. I wasn't planning to get one but I was sweaty and I saw a girl eating one outside the supermarket. If you don't know, my "hunger" usually results from visual cues; "girl eating popsicle...must have...popsicle..."
My overall message is that I don't want to make anyone worry about my eating habits or my asthma. I've had worse asthma before what I'm going through now (when I needed to use that vapor machine majiggy, and I'll probably get a real inhaler by the time summer ends). I've eaten my share of questionable diets (wanna hear about that time I fasted for about two days?...okay, maybe not). I think my general "eating lots of bread and wheaty things" habit is bad but it doesn't get much criticism, I think because so many other people have similar habits, although hopefully not as extreme as mine.
Posted by roboppy at 12:32 AM
Comments (5)
Oh man is it really the year 2005? When you were backlinking to previous entries I thought those entries were from last month. I'm getting old...
Posted by: Amy at August 16, 2005 7:46 PM [#]
A blog entry from 3004? =)
I admire anyone who can adhere to a raw food diet. The asthma link is an intriguing one though...
Posted by: AugustusGloop at August 16, 2005 8:35 PM [#]
While there are more natural ways to take care of out bodies, not going to a doctor is a very poor decision. Even if you decide not to take any of the vile modern medication, it still helps to know what is wrong in the first place. What's a visit to the doctor going to do?
Well, as long as you have a good health insurance company.
Allen
Posted by: Allen Wong at August 16, 2005 10:11 PM [#]
you are a bundle of fun roboppy~ no matter what u do, how u eat, how frequent u blog. Love how, like, it makes no difference :) yer just the lovely same :)
Posted by: carol at August 17, 2005 1:00 AM [#]
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I don't know if you are interested or not bu there are herbal options for dealing with asthma. I avoid going to the doctor as well (I just think that our bodies have natural ways to deal with many things and commercial drugs tend to have nasty side afffects.)I will find out what it is that does the trick and let you know cause I can't remember right now.
Posted by: Becky at August 16, 2005 6:11 PM [#]