Healing and Mindful Eating
Recently my husband introduced me to "juicing", and after fighting him just a bit, I've been waking up again to the healing benefits of food. I say again because I was here once before. I was a 19 year old cancer patient, who, along with traditional chemotherapy and radiation, consumed a non-dairy, seaweed, bean, meat-free, veggie-full macrobiotic diet, i.e., no pizza. I did not want to change the way I ate, but I also wanted to live, so I conceded. But to me, giving up yummy food was just one more deprivation in a series of painful losses that morphed me into, "the cancer patient". However, after I was officially in remission, I returned to college and changed my major to nutrition and steered my career path towards healing (Cancer has a funny way of changing...everything). I eventually dropped the macrobiotic way of eating; it was heavily associated with cancer in my mind, and I wanted to just be "normal". Thus, the aforementioned initial resistance to my husband's healthy new diet idea. So, it's funny to be back here again, almost 20 years later, but this time I am feeling more empowered and engaged with the diet change, rather than pushing against it; to use a psych term I'd say the change is more egosyntonic. So, I'm juicing, eating and thinking about food more mindfully, and feeling like I just woke up again after a long long slumber.
If you want get started eating more mindfully, healing yourself from the inside out so to speak....try these documentaries. They will change the way you think about food and likely make you hungry for more awakening! Dr. Alejandro Junger, the author of Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself, has a great starter list of documentaries pictured here on his facebook page Documentaries: Mindful Eating . (I did not do Dr. Junger's 21 day clean program, but he has great advice and I follow him on twitter). The Gerson Miracle is an important documentary on Junger's list. I'd start here, especially if you've come to this blog because you or a loved one are struggling with cancer. It has been said by many doctors, researchers and clinicians that smart patients pay attention. They ask questions; they tend to be the squeaky wheel. Healing is not passive. For more on taking your healing into your own hands, see Dr. Oz's Smart Patient Checklist. And just as a fun aside, regardless of your politics, remember that even President Bill Clinton has dramatically changed the way he eats; he's a vegan! Mindful eating is still not mainstream by any means, but maybe it is heading in that direction? Here's to continued awakening ....
Love and light,
Dr. Regina