Healthy Food – Naturally

322 cups of milk over 3 weeks.

(For 3 weeks, I did the milk cure, drinking 3 1/2 quarts to 1 gallon of raw milk each day. Except for water, all I had was milk. This is a series of posts (25) keeping track each day. For the entire series, start out on “Trying Something Old“). All links to the series is at the bottom of each article.)

The last day of my raw milk cure. 21 days, 322 cups or 20.125 gallons of raw milk. In three weeks my nutrition has been a total of:

• calories – 47,012 total / 15,670 per week
• fat – 2,553.46 g total / 851.15 g per week
• sodium – 31,556 mg total / 10,518 mg per week
• carbohydrates – 3551.66 g total/ 1,183.89 per week
• protein – 2530.92 g total / 843.64 per week

That’s a lot of carbohydrates and calories for me. Before this cure I was eating (on a weekly basis)

• calories – 11,135 on average per week
• fat – 311 grams on average per week
• sodium – 12551.7 mg on average per week
• carbohydrates – 355 grams on average per week
• protein – 663.6 grams on average per week

Looking at those number I can see how little I actually ate on a daily basis before this. And even though my calorie count was so little (1,300 – 1700 calories per day) I couldn’t lose weight and was actually up 1 1/2 pounds when I started the milk cure. In 3 weeks on the milk cure, I lost 5 pounds. Given the numbers up there and the popular characterization of weight loss being that it’s all calories in/ calories out I know you are wondering how can this be? Stay tuned next Tuesday for what went on. I’ve been giving it plenty of thought. I haven’t had anything but milk for the last week. Prior to that when I was thirsty, I would have some water. But I haven’t been thirsty this week. Or hungry.

Sometimes I forget there is milk in my glass when I am doing something and I have to remember to drink it. My stomach woke me up this morning at 3am. I’m in another full detox phase. I’m of two minds about it. One mind would very much like to continue with the cure, get through this detoxing phase and see what happens on the other end. The other mind is very glad today is my last day and I can get back to a normal life. If I were continuing this process, I’d back off on the quantity of milk again, but since I only have today it’s not that big of a deal and I’ll drink the full 14 cups.

I was talking to GC last night and had an insight. The milk cure is a series of detoxes and plateaus. Its like the milk and my body search out and start fixing the issues in my body and that is when I feel ill and have the detoxing symptoms. The milk isn’t making me ill, the milk is helping my body to heal. Its like when our body fights an infection. We get fevers and feel sick. The times I’m feeling good are the plateaus between the healing when my body is adjusting. I don’t know how scientific this is, but it makes sense to me.

One of the reasons I know I’m detoxing rather than ill, is that the detoxing seems to hit after 12 noon. Before that I’m fine and have no issues. But from noon on my symptoms and discomfort increase. If I was simply coming down with something I would be feeling it on a constant basis. So obviously, if I’m on another detox cycle, I have more healing to do and no more time to do it right now. I might do this again next year. I’m going to give it serious consideration and thought over this coming summer and winter.

While I’m kind of, sort of looking forward to real food again, I’m not that excited. I’m worried about how my body will react to anything but milk after 3 weeks. I’m going to give myself a week to get into my new eating habits. (Mostly because I would like to have one sushi dinner before I swear off grains). I have my yogurt made and ready to go and also my bone broth is simmering in my crock pot for tomorrow. I finished my grocery shopping and in a very serendipitous turn of events, my spring meat order from my farmer is ready for me to pick up tomorrow (50 pounds of grass-fed beef and 1/4 of a pastured pig).

Most of this journey has been a blast, even the detoxing parts. It’s given me new insights into myself, and also how much I want to continue to be able to eat something so life-giving. The books and blogs I’ve read through this journey have given me so much knowledge, but the greatest teacher has been my body and how it’s reacted to this process.

I can safely say that I’ve met my expectations on the milk cure and even more. I wasn’t really expecting weight loss, but 5 pounds is awesome. I’ve been trying to get below 200 for about a year now and kept losing and re-gaining that same 3 pounds. To get past that is just amazing. I’m hopeful I will be able to see more weight loss in the future. Watching my vital statistics (specifically my blood glucose) has been edifying. I’m going to continue to track these vitals for a few months, just to see.

I know my digestive system has been given a good rest. Its been very efficient as well. In between the detoxing phases, I can feel a difference in my body. No issues at all. Headaches and shoulder aches no longer exist. I had someone remark on how nice my skin was yesterday! Although its allergy season here in the DC area, I don’t have any this year (this might also be because I started eating local honey a few years ago also). I’m definitely rested and ready for the rigors of the spring/summer preserving season!

I’m going to do one more post tomorrow before I go back to my once a week Tuesday posts.  That will be basically on how hard (or easy) it was to come off 3 weeks of Raw Milk only.

Being My Own Human Guinea Pig

Weight went up slightly to 196.4. My basal temperature is the same this morning as it was yesterday. Given the pattern, I’m not surprised my weight is up a bit. Blood Glucose was 124 this morning. With all my other symptoms, I’m definitely going through another detoxing phase My white tongue is still hanging in there, the white has receded from the side and is now only white in the middle.

Tags: milk cure, milk diet, Raw Milk

Only 3 more gallons to go (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(For 3 weeks, I did the milk cure, drinking 3 1/2 quarts to 1 gallon of raw milk each day. Except for water, all I had was milk. This is a series of posts (25) keeping track each day. For the entire series, start out on “Trying Something Old“). All links to the series is at the bottom of each article.)

It went back to being cold last night. But even under my summer comforter (silk), I slept really well. I’m loving how deeply I’ve been sleeping since starting this. I wake up rested (even at the ungodly hour I have to wake up) and I haven’t missed the effects of caffeine at all.  Maybe I won’t be going back to coffee when I’m done with this.

Drinking only milk is now feeling normal to me.  It’s just something I do. I don’t feel bad. In fact I feel pretty good. As of today I’ve only got 3 more days to go.  Hard to believe I’ve been doing this for almost 3 weeks.  14 cups a day (3 1/2 quarts) seems to be working for me. I’m not hungry. What more can a girl ask for?

I’m starting to prepare foods for next week. I made yogurt with my remaining milk (I’ve been saving that extra 2 cups a day) and I put some on the counter in a quart container to clabber. I’m interested in seeing how that has come out. I also ordered keifir grains and will be experimenting with them next. I’m planning on picking up a chicken and some vegetables tomorrow to start my bone broth again.

I had a friend ask me how I was going to break this cure.  So I thought I would share that here as well.  Starting tomorrow, I’m going to start a bone broth (chicken) so that it is ready for Friday. Starting Friday I will be adding the bone broth, some pastured eggs fried in raw butter, yogurt and maybe a few blueberries into the mix. I’ll also be continuing to drink raw milk.  I want to make sure I get some probiotics in to promote good bacteria in my gut. I also want something I can chew that is pure protein and that’s the fried eggs.  With the yogurt, milk and blueberries, I can make a few smoothies.  I anticipate having regular food on Saturday. As I’ve said before I’m going to continue to eliminate grains and starches from my diet for a while.  Grains (unless they are sprouted or soaked) are hard to digest anyways. My stomach is used to easy digestion now and I want to let it continue to work easily for a while.

This evening, I started with the bloating and gas again. I might be going through another detoxing phase. In many ways I wish I could see this detoxing phase through and have my body go through even more positive changes. I did my detox bath with ginger again last night. While I’m not sweating after it, I do feel very hot for about an hour after the bath.

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Tags: milk cure, milk diet, Raw Milk

Get Raw Milk (Photo credit: On Bradstreet)

(For 3 weeks, I did the milk cure, drinking 3 1/2 quarts to 1 gallon of raw milk each day. Except for water, all I had was milk. This is a series of posts (25) keeping track each day. For the entire series, start out on “Trying Something Old“). All links to the series is at the bottom of each article.)

I woke up at 3:30 this morning, because I was hot.  When the alarm went off, GC told me he had been cold.  We had turned the fan off and kept the window open as a compromise last night. Luckily for him, I have a mattress heater on the bed, so he cranked that up, which could have contributed to my being too warm.

Noticing that I seem to be bloated today, which is not fun. But it does seem as if my body has adjusted to the sugars. No other stomach issues at all anymore, I can say definitively that I am not lactose intolerant to raw milk. Pasteurized milk is another issue, but after doing my reading of what pasteurization does to milk, I’m not going to be buying it. Ever.  It just isn’t healthy.

I ended up taking a detox bath in the early evening. I added ginger to it.  While the bath itself wasn’t super hot, I did notice that my face felt as if it were trying to perspire a bit.

I’ve noticed a few other things that seem to be benefits from this raw milk cure, but I can’t definitively say that these things are happening specifically.  I think they are happening, but the observations are subjective.

I seem to be losing less hair

Coming into my mid 40’s I noticed I was losing more than the usual amount of hair. I was finding hair, not only in my brush, but all over my floors regularly.  When I washed my hair, it would come out in clumps. Luckily I have very thick hair, so no one has ever noticed any thinning.  I’d have to clean the hair off my bathroom floor on a regular basis.  I’m still noticing hair on my floors and such, but not as much.

My sense of smell seems to be returning

I used to use Zirtec.  The stuff you inhale through your nose at the first sign of a cold.  Remember that?  Well, it destroyed my sense of smell.  I still have enough to enjoy the taste of food and strong smells are still there, but my smell sense is not very keen.  But last night, I realized that I could smell the steak GC was grilling on the deck when I was in the kitchen.  (It smelled good too, but not good enough to break the cure for).  The smell went away when I retreated further in the house, but I could smell them without being right next to them.  That was different.

Again, I don’t know if these two items are a result of the milk cure, I’m noticing something, but that doesn’t mean anything  on a scientific basis.  These are my observations on myself.  But it’s not something I was expecting and its pretty cool.

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Tags: milk cure, milk diet, Raw Milk

Still drinking raw milk

(For 3 weeks, I did the milk cure, drinking 3 1/2 quarts to 1 gallon of  raw milk each day. Except for water, all I had was milk. This is a series of posts (25) keeping track each day. For the entire series, start out on “Trying Something Old“). All links to the series is at the bottom of each article.)

I’m starting my 3rd week of the raw milk cure today.  Two thirds of the way there.  Amazing that I’ve been able to do this as easily as I have. Of course not all of it has been easy. Having to sip milk at regular intervals (every hour) throughout the day has limited what I can do socially. It’s hard to go out when I’m tied to the “bottle”.  But given that it’s also supposed to be a rest cure and I’m fairly much a hermit at times, its been okay.

Today is my regularly scheduled house-cleaning day.  In order to not tax myself, I decided to do it over 2 days instead of the  one day power clean I usually do. I did half of it this morning from early to late morning while the temperatures are down. One of the things I noticed while doing this is that I got hot.  Like really hot.  Like breaking into a sweat hot, and I was.  Not a lot, but since I don’t really sweat at all it was pretty amazing. I’m not saying I like the feeling that much, for most of my life, I’ve had to avoid getting hot since it was a prelude to heat stroke. So this is kind of weird. I’m not drenched, but my skin is moist.   Just weird for me.

Most of the rest of the day was just spent relaxing and resting. Boring I know, but I’m also certain that my body is healing and rejuvenating and needs the rest so that most of the energy can go towards that.

In some ways, I’d love to stay on this longer.  Looking at my numbers today, I think the detox is finished and I’d love to see what the milk could do without it. But I know that I’m fantasizing about foods I’m going to eat and planning what my meals will look like when I’m done, so I’m okay with ending this next Friday. I do know that I’m going to go grain and starch free for a while.  This rest of my digestion system is a good time to not put the foods in my body that are not good for me.  (For those not reading me regularly. I was low carb for years and felt great. Once I figured out I was gluten intolerant, I somehow thought that gave me a free pass to eat grains other than wheat, barley and rye). So I’m going back to my sensible diet.  Meats, vegetables that aren’t starchy (no potatoes) and dairy.  I’m going to follow that for a few months and see where I’m at.  I know that my diet the first week will still include a lot of raw milk, but nowhere near a gallon a day.

Being My Own Human Guinea Pig

Basal Temperature is gone from all over the place to slowly rising consistently.

This morning is the first morning where my fasting glucose is lower than my bedtime glucose. It’s also the first day where my blood glucose stayed below 100 for the entire day.  That is a trend I hope continues.

My tongue, while still having some white on it, is finally showing more pink than white.

Tags: milk cure, milk diet, Raw Milk

The last week on the Milk Cure

(For 3 weeks, I did the milk cure, drinking 3 1/2 quarts to 1 gallon of raw milk each day. Except for water, all I had was milk. This is a series of posts (25) keeping track each day. For the entire series, start out on “Trying Something Old“). All links to the series is at the bottom of each article.)

Wow, two weeks have pretty much flown by.  This whole experience has been a lot easier than I thought. I’ve never been hungry or thirsty. So far, while I’ve had fleeting thoughts of non-milk food, I haven’t had any cravings at all.

I slept well last night, I had a fan going in the room. The fan is not aimed towards me, but rather is there to move the air around the room. I’m still tired today though and wonder if that is more of the detox happening.  I also woke up at my usual time of 4:30 to faint feelings of hunger. That is a first.

I’m still feeling fairly good (remarkably so).  The aches and pains I had yesterday have subsided. But I’m still planning on taking it easy this weekend (appointments and such not-withstanding). Any house chores I’m supposed to do can wait another week. The only thing that won’t wait is putting the new grill together on Sunday with GC. I’ll let him baptize the new grill on Sunday while I drink my milk.  But you can bet I’ll use it when I’m done with this.

Fatigue still finds me when I get home from work. I’m still at my best (as is usual) early in the day.

Yesterday evening, I took the milk I hadn’t drunk for the week over to a friend who had indicated that they wanted to try it. I didn’t want to waste it. My friend tried it and decided it did taste “different”, “better” than the milk they had from the supermarket, so I left it there. But the fact that I didn’t want to waste it begs the question of:

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Tags: milk cure, milk diet, Raw Milk

Raw Milk - It truly does a body good

(For 3 weeks, I did the milk cure, drinking 3 1/2 quarts to 1 gallon of raw milk each day. Except for water, all I had was milk. This is a series of posts (25) keeping track each day. For the entire series, start out on “Trying Something Old“). All links to the series is at the bottom of each article.)

I had difficulty falling asleep last night. I think partly because it was just too warm. I’m just totally against turning on my air conditioner in March!  But I think I might drag a fan up there.  I also didn’t take a detox bath last night, which probably didn’t help (but warm air and warm bath just didn’t seem to mix).  Once I finally fell asleep (a few hours after going to bed), I slept well.

I’m noticing some of that shoulder ache from last week coming back.  Not much, it’s mainly just annoying at the moment. I’m also feeling a slight headache (different side of the head from last time).  Fatigue is hitting me earlier today as well. I’m fairly used to a round of late afternoon fatigue by now, but lets just call this early afternoon fatigue. All of this makes me wonder whether I’m going through a second round of detox.

I’m also noticing that thoughts of food are coming into my head. Not overwhelming cravings, but more of thoughts about what I’m going to eat once I’m done.  Of course it doesn’t help that most of the blogs I follow have to do with food. I know my first day will mainly be eggs and milk with maybe some fruit (maybe a smoothie?) But I’ll have my new grill delivered and put together by then and I really should break it in. I love grass-fed beef ribs and I have a few in my freezer right now.  Thinking about having them the second day of life after the cure. (Do you know that while they were a regular thing at restaurants in Los Angeles where I grew up, ribs in Maryland are pretty much only pork?).

Finally got a detox bath in. It used up the last of my detox oil mix, so that’s something I have to make more of.

I’ve had a few people I know (some with chronic illnesses) ask me whether I thought they should do this.  Personally, I think its been great and I haven’t had any problems with it, but I’m fairly healthy.  Even though the milk cure was designed for chronically ill people, it was typically done under a doctor’s care.  I’m hesitant to recommend that people who are chronically ill begin this without at least discussing it with your doctor.  Many doctors will discount the idea of raw milk, so if you want to do this do your research and be prepared not only to advocate for your side, but to do it safely and in the way that best promotes your health. Your doctor does need to be made aware of what you are planning. This isn’t just “drink milk when you think of it” kind of thing, especially if you are planning on trying to help anything specific. There are specific steps to take and it will take up a lot of your time and most of your energy.

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Tags: milk cure, milk diet, Raw Milk