menu update
Well, Thursday, and especially yesterday, didn’t go quite as well as the rest of the week, and today has been kind of a wash. I’ve figured out a couple things that I want to share with you before I post the menus.
I’ve been trying to balance my daily food intake according to the five elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which to me means a balanced intake of the five flavors the tongue can distinguish - salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and pungent. When one of these gets is ingested more than the others, it throws me out of balance as well. The one I experience most problems with, as most Americans do, is sweet.
The problem I’ve noticed this week was when I switched back to having fresh vegetable juice for breakfast. Yes, this is good thing to do, if your body will handle it. Mine, unfortunately, does not care for it. It likes the juice, but the time of day is wrong, and it throws my eating off for the rest of the day. I need something sour in the morning, like the lemon water, and citrus fruits like grapefruit. So to rebalance myself, I’m going back to this - my body just responds to it better.
Out of respect to my sensei and those professionals who’ve studied TCM in depth, I’m not going to discuss five element theory any further, as I’m not remotely qualified to teach, but a good primer on the subject is Beinfield and Korngold’s Between Heaven and Earth. So without further delay, here are my menus from the previous two days.
Thursday
lemon water
2 glasses fresh vegetable juice
almonds
chicken caesar salad (partially raw)
curry chicken w/white rice (not raw)
no exercise
Friday
almonds
corn chips (not raw)
fruit smoothie (not raw)
peppermint tea (not raw)
4 pop tarts (not raw)
chili relleno (not raw)
taco (not raw)
refried beans (not raw)
salsa (not raw)
guacamole salad
decaf mocha (not raw)
2 egg rolls (not raw)
beef fried rice (not raw)
coffee ice cream (not raw)
no exercise
You’ve probably noticed my lack of exercise too, and I expect my weight to be close to last week’s disaster. I will be rectifying the exercise situation in the coming week.