Hello everyone,
It has been a little over 90 days since I smoked my last cigarette and consumed tons of coffee, sugar and such~

Also for the past 90+ days, I've been 90% raw, eating lots of salads with green and red lettuce, carrots, artichoke hearts, apples and homemade dressing with apple cider vinegar and flaxseed oil~

I want to lose 60 pounds...when I weighed myself the day I stopped smoking, I weighed 188 pounds. I've never weighed so much in my life~

I haven't had my period since I quit smoking.

My adrenals are exhausted.

What foods will specifically help me with loss of my period and adrenal exhaustion??

I'm just curious-when your adrenals are exhausted what are the symptoms?

adaptogenic herbs are a godsend such as ashwagandha,licorice root, jiaogulan, maca root, siberian ginseng etc all help restore adrenal function whilst providing many other benefits being an adaptogenic herb they help everything.

nettle leaf although not adaptogenic they support adrenal and thyroid, with natural vitamin C support such as amla berry along with vitamin b5 with bee pollen, nettle leaf, rice bran etc then your covering all areas for adrenal support.

Congratulations on quitting smoking! That's a fantastic achievement!

It's possible you might need more iron.

Nutrition.com has lots of helpful information. For instance, you might try their "nutrient search tool". Here is the nutrient search for nuts/seeds with the most iron: [nutritiondata.self.com]

For vegetables that have the most iron: [nutritiondata.self.com]

For fruits with the most iron: [nutritiondata.self.com]

You can also access nutrition charts on any food by clicking on it off the above lists, or by entering the name of the food in the upper right hand corner of any page on the nutrition.com website.

You might also consider visiting a (preferably vegan) registered dietitian.

Best to you!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2010 10:28PM by suncloud.

Powerlifer,
I've seen you refer to this website several times.

The list is overwhelming. How to you take all these? How much do you take??

I wish I had a "coach" to help me with all this...it is so overwhelming trying to navigate this myself~

rad gal,

I have a different approach to healing than powerlifer, one that worked for me. Before going raw, I had been working long hours in Silicon Valley, and consuming coffee to keep me going. When I finally quit coffee, I had massive chronic fatigue.

What ultimately healed me was to quit all stimulants in my lifestyle and diet, including digestive stimulants like condiments such as salt, pepper, spices, garlic, onions, vinegar, etc. When all the stimulants were out of my diet, and I was just eating fresh fruits and salads, my body finally was able to convert the chronic fatigue into acute fatigue, meaning I was constantly tired. It was necessary for me to take 4 months off of work, and in the beginning I slept over 16 hours a day (including all the naps I took). But after my leave of absence was over, I was a whole new person, feeling great and having lots of energy.

Many of the superfoods and supplements that powerlifer are stimulants and using them will only delay your real healing. In the meantime, you can spend megabucks making the superfood/supplement merchants rich!





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2010 06:10AM by Prana.

In the early days I tried maca - someone had convinced me it was a good idea - it was like speed - stopped me sleeping, made me feel dreadful.

I agree with Prana - keep it simple. You don't need a coach for buying and eating fresh fruit and vegetables.

Best of luck - and a huge well done for giving up smoking

Thank you flipperjam and Prana,
I have really appreciated reading both your posts. Prana, I grew up in Hawaii and you certainly could pass for a local boy from Hawaii!

Thank you for your feedback. Though I like the idea of adaptogenic herbs, I am also a recovering alcoholic, sober in AA for almost 26 years and am extremely cautious about anything "medicinal" that can potentially get me high or have weird effects, especially if I'm self-prescribing them.

Someone in another forum mentioned that maybe my absence of menstruation was from not eating enough? Though I've been most raw in these past 3 months of not smoking, maybe despite eating "large" salads, I'm not getting enough protein?

Prana and flipperjam, forgive me for how this is going to sound but let me tell ya, if you lived locally you both I would want to have as my raw food sponsors!!

I really wish you two were hireable!!

Thank you both for your compassion, feedback and guidance!

If you care to, my e-mail address is: gratefulsobergal@yahoo.com

i dont know where you read that prana but none of the suggestions i offered are stimulants, they are adaptogenic herbs.

cutting out stimulants that were perking you up is a given, but sometimes people need more than diet.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2010 05:24PM by powerlifer.

I agree with you, powerlifter. You and Prana are constituted differently. And me, a middleaged woman, different yet. As to stimulants, even they can be sometimes applied appropriately, flipperjan's experience with maca notwithstanding.

Any healing tale is worth told its not easy to heal so what Prana has done is great, although i had to do things differently like i say(different doesnt mean bad though), raw food diet didnt cure me sadly but it did help a large portion so im glad to say for any raw would be's out there.

Before i got rid of all the junk i had acne type cysts, my digestion was ruined from SAD diet, rashes on my arms etc, excluded all the crap the allergens went vegan then finally went raw. It was a massive help but not the full 100%.

The herbs i got interested in finished it off though and im glad for finding them, but im also glad i got interested in raw, vegan and healthy diet as without it i would have still too many dietary stressors.

The thing about substances we take that remove symptoms, these only delay the true healing. The symptoms are in place to heal the body. Anything we do to suppress or palliate a symptom is preventing healing from happening. Just because we have the technology (either through pharmaceuticals or herbs) to make a symptom disappear doesn't mean we've 1) healed, or 2) removed the cause of the disease.

Disease is caused by lifestyle. Only by cleaning up the lifestyle can the body really heal itself.

Adaptogens dont just relieve symptoms they increase the bodies resistance to pretty much anything.

diet is a massive factor though.

When the kids come home from school all germy and I end up with a scratchy throat that feels like it's turning into a rotten cold, raw GARLIC often knocks that sucker right out. I don't think the symptoms are lying in wait, that illness is GONE.

I love garlic, remember to crush it for 10 minutes at least before it increases the active components. It really helped a few of my symptoms but it stinks big time.

When the body has a cold or flu, this is just detox. This detox is something to be celebrated and to be grateful for, since this is the body getting rid of the the toxins and dead matter from within. It is a sign of health to be actively detoxing and internally cleansing.

So when we take something that halts the cold or detox, what we do is keep the toxin stuff inside of us until we get enough energy to deal with it. All the energy that was going into detoxing is now going into dealing with the "medicinal" substance we just took. For example, as soon as you take garlic, your body is actively eliminating the toxic elements in garlic through your lungs, your skin, sweat, and digestive system. The detox becomes such a high priority that all other detox actions are halted.

So yes, your cold goes away, perhaps for a long time. And instead, your body is detoxing garlic big time. And if this is your automatic response to a cold over a period of years, then the body never gets to detox anything except garlic. And this will lead to more severe symptoms in the future, diseases that are much more unpleasant than a simple cold or flu.

I don't hold with that "detox" theory at all. There is no evidence to support that one, sorry. Periods, colds etc, not detox IMHO. I'm not going to claim that I have the answer but I sure don't think that's it.

Coco-

Isn't the "proof" that when we have a cold, all this mucus comes out of us, usually via the nose? Or we cough up hardened mucus or we get a fever and that burns out the toxins? What else could be happening? When I was younger, I used to get multiple colds a year. And I would take some cold remedy and guess what? A respiratory infection would result, meaning that I would feel sucky for a longer period of time. When I began to eat natural foods and investigate what true health was, I stopped taking stuff for colds. And the end result is that even if I am flat on my back for several days, I get rid of all the stuff inside and I don't get a worse condition afterwards. I don't buy that only toxic women have periods, though. I remember reading that in "Survival in the 21st Century." Anorexics also lose their periods and I think it's due to lack of enough body fat. That makes sense because girls are getting heavier at a younger age and getting their periods earlier. I also think lack of dietary fat of some raw fooders may be a culprit as fat assists with hormones.

I think it's dangerous and irresponsible to put forth the idea as FACT that all illness is a symptom of detox. People have chalked up loose teeth and massive hair loss to "detox", that's just wacky IMO.
Mucus is formed when you get a cold, it's not like it's sitting in there waiting for a cold to come along so you can let it out. And a fever is the body's natural reaction to burn out a virus, not toxins. Unless you are calling viruses toxins... which is also not true as far as I understand.
Someone with a science background may chime in here to clarify, in the meantime if it seems highly doubtful, which this "detox" theory does to me, it's probably not true.

Radgal, please see my article here for an alternative view on periods:

[debbietookrawforlife.blogspot.com]

IMO - colds are something that you can catch from other people. They are infectious - which is why a whole class room of kids goes down with it like nine pins. The fact that one might not have had a cold for years is that ones immune system is stronger.

Some detox symptoms might be very much like a cold, streaming eyes, bunged up nose, mucus etc but are not a contagious cold doing the rounds.

Also agree with coco that infections a.) actually exist, and b.) the body's response to these cannot be scientifically attributed to "detox," even if ultimately, this is what the body's response becomes. Also, I do not necessarily conflate pharmaceuticals and botanicals. Although ideally[and this is subjective], one could heal without intervention, we know that certain herbs initiate an immune response that actually precipitates healing because these effects have been observed clinically. For that matter, we know that certain antibiotics kill pathogenic biota because this has been observed clinically(IMO, most other pharmaceuticals are bunk). There is no legitimate scientific support for the idea that all illness is self-curable according to Natural Hygiene precepts and that all medicines, natural and synthetic, slow healing and always force a greater healing "burden" on the body. This denies the very real effects of adaptogenic compounds, for example. Conventional research is constantly discovering wonderous things about the body's propensity to heal itself, in ways NH proponents advocate, and of the mind/body connection that people like us have known of for ages and ages. And that's good news. However, I doubt I will ever hear of someone's contracting Ebola Virus because of "lifestyle," and subsequently healing themselves through "lifestyle." There are just too many exceptions to that hypothesis to assume that's possible. I'm sorry that's the case, but I accept it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2010 12:47PM by Tamukha.

The germ/virus theory of disease, as far fetched as it may seem to a person who does not experience much sickness, is accepted by most of the population because it matches their personal experience of disease, and certainly medicines/herbs seem to make a difference to these people. But for some very sick people, the medicines and herbs quit working. This is not explained by the germ/virus theory and modern medical science, except for the fallback argument of the germ/virus theory, that people become "immune" to medicine, just as some super healthy people are "immune" to germs/viruses.

The reason that the toxin theory becomes unshakable to people living a natural hygiene lifestyle is because once a person becomes "immune" to germs/viruses, that the theory doesn't make sense because it doesn't match their personal experience. Same for those people who have become "immune" to medicines/herbs.

But the toxin theory does take into account the people who appear to be "immune" to germs/viruses, or who become "immune" to medicines/herbs. In the germ theory, there really isn't an explanation for this phenomena.

For people who experience this "immunity", the germ theory is never going to be accepted, as it doesn't match their personal experience. And likewise, this is why most of the population can't accept the toxin theory, as it doesn't match their personal experience. It is only by getting into this state of "immunity", whether it be to germs/viruses or to medicines/herbs, that a person can get ready to discard the germ theory and start looking for another explanation.

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Also agree with coco that infections a.) actually
> exist, and b.) the body's response to these cannot
> be scientifically attributed to "detox," even if
> ultimately, this is what the body's response
> becomes. Also, I do not necessarily conflate
> pharmaceuticals and botanicals. Although ideally,
> one could heal without intervention, we know that
> certain herbs initiate an immune response that
> actually precipitates healing because these
> effects have been observed clinically. For that
> matter, we know that certain antibiotics kill
> pathogenic biota because this has been observed
> clinically(IMO, most other pharmaceuticals are
> bunk). There is no legitimate scientific support
> for the idea that all illness is self-curable
> according to Natural Hygiene precepts and that all
> medicines, natural and synthetic, slow healing and
> always force a greater healing "burden" on the
> body. This denies the very real effects of
> adaptogenic compounds, for example. Conventional
> research is constantly discovering wonderous
> things about the body's propensity to heal itself,
> in ways NH proponents advocate, and of the
> mind/body connection that people like us have
> known of for ages and ages. And that's good news.
> However, I doubt I will ever hear of someone's
> contracting Ebola Virus because of "lifestyle,"
> and subsequently healing themselves through
> "lifestyle." There are just too many exceptions
> to that hypothesis to assume that's possible. I'm
> sorry that's the case, but I accept it.


Thank you, voice of reason.

Hi all, I'm new and very interested in this conversation. I have to say that I agree with Powerlifter and Coco.

Herbs are not 'medicine' in the way that drugs are. Most herbs are foods - foods that have amazing healing properties. They were provided to us by nature just as the rest of the foods (fruits, veges etc) were and when used will heal - not remove symptoms.

A fantastic example is Slippery Elm Bark. It is a herb that can be used to heal - a job that it does very well. It is also a very nutritious food as are many herbs.

With regard to maca - it is part of the staple diet of Peruvian people in the Andes and has been for centuries.

All of our plant foods have an effect on our body - some just have more specific or stronger effects and that is why they are known specifically for those effects.