The Virgin Diet Week 1

I survived my first week on the Virgin Diet, well sort of.  I did fabulous the first four days, then kind of fell off the wagon.

The first four days went great.  I stuck to the program and was having little problems sticking with it.  It got tougher mid-week when the food limitations started to have an impact and I was going to the fridge wondering what I was going to eat.

My only real challenge was the consistent hunger pains around 8pm every evening.  I figured it was because I had removed cheese from my diet and wasn't getting enough fat to sustain me through the evening so I increased my raw nut intake.

If I'm eating enough calories during the day then hunger pains in the evening could be fatigue, thirst, or the body burning fat.  So my evening hunger pains may not be a bad thing, just something I need to pay more attention to.

Mid-week I had the opportunity for a cookie.  It had been a long day so I rationalized it thinking, "A little won't hurt."  Boy was I wrong!  The next morning I woke up teary and emotional.  By dinner time my depression and apathy were in full swing so I said "f**** this diet" and indulged in some enchiladas.  They were good.  But they also triggered some intense evening cravings for sugar and chocolate.  The effects of sugar and wheat on my mood and cravings were incredible!

My menstrual period arrived mid-week intensifying my food reactions.  If I hadn't been paying attention to my food choices I would have easily blamed my emotional nose-dive on my period, or my husband, and my period would also get blamed for my increased sugar cravings.

I recently learned that eggs and Vitamin C were both good for stabilizing the hormonal shifts caused by your period.  I have had success with both of them helping me stay more emotionally and physically stable during my premenstrual and menstrual cycle.

Having eggs off limits was really tough.  Without my anchor food I found myself a little lost as to what I could do nutritionally to help stabilize the hormonal shifts and more susceptible to old habits of increased carbohydrates and sugars during my period.

It's not uncommon to crave sugar and carbohydrates during your period.  They provide a temporary serotonin increase that elevates your mood and makes you feel better.  But the sugar crash triggers mood swings and increased cravings in an attempt to get those happy feelings back.  It's a vicious cycle that can leave you feeling fat and frustrated.

Healthy ways to increase your serotonin include sleep, exercise, sex, and sunshine.  So I made a point to get out in the sun and do some pleasurable activities throughout the day to stabilize my food cravings and boost my mood without caving into more sugar.  My efforts paid off and I'm back on track, physically and emotionally.

I was grateful that before I started this program I gave myself some flexibility.  I chose to focus on this process as being a positive food change, rather than as a "diet" (code for: dying to be thin).  This allowed me to make mistakes without feeling bad or beating myself up, and instead learn from them and get back on the program.

Having been off wheat and sugar for four days and then back on I was quickly able to see how these food choices negatively impacted my moods much more severely then I realized.  I also clearly saw how these foods triggered cravings for more carbohydrates and sugars.  Both effects would have been missed if I hadn't been paying attention to the effects of the different foods I was eating.

I could see that if I was eating these foods on a daily or near daily basis the effects would be interpreted as "normal" and I would make no correlation to how I was feeling and the foods I was eating.

So even though I didn't perfectly follow the Virgin Diet protocol I still have learned a lot about myself and the effects of food on my body.  I'm ready for week 2 and looking forward to more insights and learning.

By Carolyn Almendarez

Infinite Love and Gratitude

I like to listen to Hay House Radio to get inspiration and ideas for improving health and healing.  Recently I was listening to a lecture by Dr. Darren Weissman, he teaches the lifeline technique and repeats the healing phrase "infinite love and gratitude".  On a recent show a caller called in saying she had applied his technique by repeating "infinite love and gratitude" to a mole on her face while looking in the mirror each morning, until one day the mole fell off and the skin beneath it had healed.  I found this to be an interesting concept of loving the parts of ourselves we do not like or wish would go away.  I also decided to try it out myself.

I decided to start with my uterine fibroids.  Uterine fibroids are masses of smooth muscle tissue in the uterus.  It is normal to have small fibroids, 1-2 cm in diameter, but anything larger is considered abnormal.  Mine are about the size of grapefruits, definitely abnormal.  (But not as bad as they could be, some get as large as a full-term baby!)  These growths feel like rocks.  Most are hidden in the uterus, but some protrude like an alien is growing inside you.  They can cause pain, bleeding, sexual problems, and can cause problems for neighboring internal organs like the urinary and digestive system.  The standard treatment is surgery to remove the fibroids or uterus.  Medically fibroids are believed to grow from an excessive of estrogen in the blood system.  Psychologically/Energetically fibroids are believed to come from regrets of not giving birth to children or regrets of not giving birth to dreams, projects, or ideas.

I haven't been to keen on surgery so for the past three years I have been trying non-surgical methods of reducing my fibroids.  Biochemically following an estrogen free diet of all organic and no red meats, dairy, or pesticide laden foods.  I also have done visualization exercises imagining the fibroids shrinking, and imagining a healing white light blasting them apart like asteroids while the body naturally flushes the remaining particles out.  And of course affirmations of "I love my body", "My body knows how to heal itself", and "I release the pattern in me that attracted this experience.  I create only good in my life."  Haven't noticed much change in the fibroids yet.

So today I decided to try the affirmation "infinite love and gratitude".  I placed my hand on one of the protruding fibroids and lovingly thanked it for the messages it was trying to tell me and letting it know it was time for it to go.  I then repeated "infinite love and gratitude" several times.  While I didn't notice any shrinking in my pelvis rock I did notice that I felt a whole lot better sending messages of love to my body rather than the typical frustration and anger.  I felt happier and calmer.  Like taking a warm bath of love.  I could feel a warm flow of loving energy now encompassing all of my body.

Today is day one of my "infinite love and gratitude" experiment.  I'll keep up with my diet, visualizations, and affirmations.  But hopefully with this added tool of love energy I can convince these masses that it's time to leave my uterus home.

By Carolyn Almendarez