Praise the lard and pass the butter.

Taking a break from my blogging sabbatical because I came across something today which has been soooo profound that I think it will change my life.

I've been looking into traditional/ancestral diets after all the press on the failings of modern nutritional science regarding low fat diets, and how massive amounts of toxic sugar have infiltrated our diet to make us "healthier." I am resisting dietary conspiracy theories, although I think that food and drug companies benefit greatly from the confusion and misinformation.

What got me on this lifestyle change was Robert Lustig's video Sugar: The Bitter Truth which I conveniently happened to hear about a couple of days before he appeared on 60 Minutes. I've been sharing the 60 minutes video with family and friends because it is so accessible, and it leaves them in shock and awe, whether or not it makes them put down the soda. As I learned in my public health classes, people are more likely to think they'll win the lottery than get lung cancer from smoking. Just substitute any of today's chronic diseases (which have skyrocketed since our low fat diet craze) for lung cancer and smoking with a sugar and processed food.

 

 I have gotten more intense in my search for information this week, and thankfully so. With all this time on my hands waiting on my impending move across the country, I've been able to let my mind meander through a lot of the information in the videos I've seen, and none have been more impacting than the two videos I'm posting below.

I've battled with anxiety, depression, and ADHD symptoms for a very long time, and at times, it seems depressing to think that there will be no end to it. I have intuitively known that things I was eating had obvious effects on my mood and physical well-being in the negative direction. I prefer animal fat and protein and vegetables, I eat less and feel better when I base my diet on them. Yet I have gone against intuition (and the French paradox) because people tell us it is healthy. Yet at the times when I ate Lean Cuisines every day and fast food no more than twice a week, I was to told my LDL and triglycerides were higher (though still in a "healthy" range), and had an EGD, cystoscopy, and colonoscopy before I was even 31.

In the end I'm only left feeling that everything is all in my head.

I hope that there is a tidal shift in nutrition recommendations for the sake of all people out there who are suffering in similar ways, at the hands of well meaning doctors, nutritionists, and corporate executives. Our bodies replace 98% of our atoms every two years, so physically, we really are what we eat! Hopefully it won't take two years for me to feel renewed.

In the meantime, I'm eliminating gluten, and following a semi-Paleo diet. I never would have expected myself to go gluten free, and it is so trendy that I hate the sound of it. However, the pieces of the puzzle seem to be coming together. I've always thought that I had irritable bowel syndrome, but always blamed it on my anxiety. I've intuitively stayed away from bread and sweets (confirmed by my grandmother) because I always felt mildly ill or bad afterwards. I've dealt with the incredulous looks from bosses and friends when I needed to go home early, or didn't show up due anxiety and/or gastrointestinal issues. Another memory that sticks in my head was throwing up immediately after eating a lot of chicken flavored seitan, during my barely tolerable 30 day attempt at being a vegetarian.

Too many people are eating the wrong things, unfortunately with the best intentions. So praise the lard and pass the butter, then put down that Coca-Cola! Actually put down the Coke first!

This first video is of Dr. Terry Walls at her TEDx talk. She cured herself from a debilitating case of multiple sclerosis purely through nutrition and an ancestral diet.
 

The next video is of Nora Gedgaudas presenting at the Ancestral Health Symposium. She is the author of Primal Body, Primal Mind, a neuro-feedback practitioner, and her presentation led me to this AHA moment. I will definitely be buying her book, and healing myself in the meantime. Your brain is bio-electric, and your psychiatry emerges from that.

Tension

I guess I'm writing this to put some sort of energy out into the world that will come back and manifest itself in my life, or more importantly, my voice.

I finally started vocalizing every day (again), and felt so much improvement in the ease of singing, and placement of the sound. I promised myself that this time I wouldn't stop practicing, and for the most part I have upheld that promise for the past couple of weeks, but the events of this week proved to be an effective deterrent and psychological block.


When I finally mustered up the courage to take singing lessons last year, my vocal problem was identified as singing with a closed posture and too much tongue tension. I've been lip rolling and tongue trilling myself into a frenzy, over the past few weeks and was really noticing a difference.

Today, however, brought a new surprise. I just got a new computer this week and decided to record my voice to listen to all the great progress I knew I had made, only to feel like I hadn't made any.

I'm wondering if external events are putting a negative spin on how I perceive things. Even as I type this I'm starting to feel as if I was way too critical when I was listening. I feel like I could "hear" my tense tongue when I was vocalizing the notes, and hear the tentativeness in my technique and intention when I sang a couple of lines from a song.

In the back of my mind I've been thinking to myself, "Does a calling require this much of a struggle?" It's making me question why I feel like it is my calling to sing in the first place. I only know that no matter how much I feel like I'm struggling, I just don't want to give up. I just want to be heard by someone one day and for all people involved in that exchange of feeling and sound to be pleased with what they experienced, myself included.

I remember listening to Eckhart Tolle talk about the symbol of the cross, and how it was the symbol of both suffering and salvation, and that we each have our own crosses to bear. I have never looked at a cross the same way, and I have felt that my struggle to be heard and gain my voice, though currently the source of my anguish, is the ONE thing I hope sets me free. I never prayed for such a long time, but did so for the first time in a long time when I was laying on the table in Thailand about to be put under for reassignment surgery. My prayer was, "God, if I am not going to sing, don't wake me up." I vowed with my whole heart that if I woke up I was going to take this seriously.

It all sounds so simple, but I feel like there is some spiritual or physical reason why I can't let go of the tongue tension. I know that my voice teacher said it is really just a habit that a lot of singers have to unlearn, but I really see it as a fear of letting go. Despite the fact that I know it is not the most efficient and free way to make sound, I feel that something else is making me hold on to old ways.


I definitely need a breakthrough . . .