I feel like crap. You’d think that 8 months of travel, 6 of that on a bicycle would have made me feel better than any other time in my life. But I can’t seem to wake up, sleep long enough or think clearly. I’m irritable and easily frustrated and can barely cobble enough effort to coordinate our final journey to Yosemite National Park or our return trip to Madison, WI. I could barely enjoy San Francisco, driven mad by their public transportation system, the cost and how tiring the hills were.
I have determined that my exhaustion (and Jessica’s too, she’s wiped out as well) is our nutrition. We’ve asked our bodies to do so much this year. Climbing and pedaling and early mornings and harsh weather have tasked our cells with major strain. And we struggled to feed ourselves as well as we had in Boston. We’re really healthy eaters for the most part, especially when we have a kitchen to ourselves, but eating healthy is a huge feat, at least to us.
The American South, where we spent the majority of our trip, is not known for vast amounts of vegetables on the table. Our diet consisted mostly of animal protein (in the form of beef brisket, seafood, beef jerky, cream cheese) and simple carbs (in the form of bread, bagels, tortillas, rice, noodles, snickers, granola bars). We did try to get as much fruit and vegetables as possible, but they just don’t keep, so it was left to occasional salads, a few green beans or spinach and dried fruit, usually berries.
As you sit here wondering what this has to do with what we’ll be doing next, I simply have to say, we’ll be taking care of ourselves for a little while. We need to recover before we can venture out again. We need to do this fast because we only have the month of May to do this before we’re back to traveling, moving and re-establishing ourselves in society.
Our plan for this will initially take the form of a juice fast, and end in a stricter diet of as close to vegan when cooking at home as possible. We need to strip our bodies of the toxins we’ve accumulated while not eating well. We need to give our bodies as many vitamins and minerals as it will absorb. I’ve been doing some reading and we’ve watched a few documentaries that promote a plant based diet and using juices as highly efficient cleansing and nutrition delivery system. (If you’re curious, I’m reading The China Study. It documents a comprehensive study in which the scientists were able to turn on and off cancer growth by varying the amount of animal protein consumed. The evidence is very compelling and makes me believe that almost any disease could be controlled with nutrition. The film that convinced us to fast/cleanse was Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. In it two men fast on juice for 60 days each and undergo a remarkable transformation not only in their waistlines but in mental capacity, skin clarity and the need for medications.)
We’ll keep you posted as to how we feel and whether it works and how we feel. But we have to do something because I just can’t keep feeling this rotten after doing something this extraordinary!
