I was your typical American woman, trying to do my best at whatever I needed to do.  I was trying to be Super Wife, Super Mom, Super Homemaker, Super Church Member, Super Citizen, with all of the organizations and committees and activities that called for.  In short, I was overworked, overstressed and ready to fall apart!  And I did...

            I had struggled for years with urinary tract infections, sore throats and yeast infections.  Taking antibiotics had been a way of life for a very long time.  When our nephew that was living with us came home from school with mononucleosis, my body was primed and ready to fall victim, too. I had had mono before and thought I was immune.  HA!  For six weeks I lay around like a limp dishcloth. The worst of the symptoms went away in a week or so, but the dragginess held on.

            But I was a busy person.  I didn't have time to be lying around!  So even though I was still so tired I could barely drag myself around, I decided to get up and just push myself.  Bad move!  I remember the exact moment that my life changed completely.  I was slowly inching a grocery cart through a store when all of a sudden, as if someone had flipped off a power switch, all of my energy (what little bit I had!) totally drained away.  I just stood there, unable to move.  I panicked, not knowing what to do.  Then I told myself to just turn around and lay down on the couch that must be behind me.  Yes, I was so thoroughly exhausted that my brain had been tricked into believing that there must be a couch there on which to lie down!  When I turned and didn't see one, I laughed at myself for being so ridiculous!  "Of course there is not a couch in a grocery store!  Just look for the recliner instead."  When there wasn't one of those either, I seriously considered just lying down on the floor.  But the sight of other customers reminded me that I couldn't do that either.  So what was I to do?  Somehow, some way, by the grace of God, and I'm sure with the help of some angels, I managed to inch that cart to the check out, pay for my groceries and drive the car home.  I don't remember all of that except in a far away dream. 

            When I got home, I went straight to the couch.  All of the mono symptoms returned, including the terrible headache, fever, body aches, foggy brain, and more.  I still can't explain it exactly, but even though they were the same symptoms, somehow they felt different, too.  I just assumed I was having a relapse of the mono, just with some slight variations in the symptoms.  One thing was clearly different this time, though.  With the mono, in a week or so, the symptoms started to subside and over a period of weeks the fatigue lessened day by day.  Not this time.  The symptoms remained and the fatigue relented not a bit.  I could barely lift a fork to feed myself!  After 6 weeks with no improvement, I finally realized something was terribly wrong.  I needed to see a doctor.  But who?  I had already learned enough by that time to know that I wanted to go to a doctor that would try to help me with natural means if at all possible.  Thank the Lord He led me to one! 

            He was able to help me a little bit.  I made some very small and slow progress.  But 8 months later I was still living on the couch.  But, while on my couch, I managed through the brain fog to do a lot of research.  One of the things I came across was juicing fresh vegetables.  I found in a list of symptoms some juice combinations to try for them.  I discovered that all of my particular symptoms kept repeating the same combination of half carrot and half celery juice.  So we decided to give it a try, figuring it couldn't hurt.  In only 3 weeks time I began to have more energy, my chronic tonsillitis just went away, the brain fog began to clear, as well as other symptoms improving!  Was this a miracle of some sort?  Yes!  The miracle is in this wonderful God designed body that has the ability to repair itself when we feed it the nutrients it was designed to run on!

            For several years I continued to see improvement with the help of juicing and supplements the doctor had recommended.  Then the doctor left the area and I had to find another one.  The Lord then led me to my present doctor.  He and his wife introduced me to a product called Barleygreen®.  It's a green juice concentrate.  I had already learned firsthand the value of drinking fresh vegetable juices and had read about the power of green vegetable juices for cleansing the body of toxins and poisons and for rebuilding health at the cellular level.  But I didn't own a juicer that could juice the superior grasses, such as wheat grass. What the Pareja's were recommending is a product that is juiced organic young barley grass, harvested and juiced at the height when it is the most nutritionally dense.  It is then immediately dried into a powder by a patented process that uses no heat or freezing, keeping those all important enzymes alive and active.  It is loaded with chlorophyll and almost every known vitamin, mineral, enzyme, essential fatty acid and amino acid (for building protein).  It is thought to be the most complete and perfect food, able to sustain life from the crib through old age.

            It sounded like something I needed to try.  What an amazing thing it was!  I couldn't believe it but in a very short time my energy levels really began to soar.  Up to this point, all of my progress had been slow.  Now, the progress was moving along much faster!  I couldn't believe how much I was able to accomplish in a day with fewer and fewer breaks required.  Later, I doubled the amount I was taking (to 2 tablespoons daily).  Again, I was so surprised at the incredible change!  Recently, I increased the amount to 3 tablespoons.  I am truly a new person.  I thank God again and again for leading me to this whole food concentrate that is giving my body what it needs to heal itself at the cellular level while at the same time helping my body to cleanse out the years of accumulated toxins and poisons!!

            I have to add, that the Pareja's also introduced me to the idea of eating closer to God's original diet that he gave to man in Genesis 1:29 - the all raw, no animal products diet - the one our bodies were designed to run on.  I learned that if we stop putting foods into our bodies that work against health and start feeding them the fuel we were created to run on, that most diseases will just go away!  I was already making some diet changes, like cutting down on fat and sugar while increasing whole grains and drinking clean water.  But the thought of living mostly on raw fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds...?

            I knew it made sense, so I was determined to try.  Just as we had made small gradual changes in other areas of our diet, I started making small changes here, too.  What could I substitute for meat?  For dairy?  For eggs, including in baking?  How could I work in more raw produce?  It was a slow process of learning what is available, how to use it, trying new recipes and adjusting my present ones.  By making small gradual changes, it has given our taste buds time to adjust and adapt to some new flavors and textures.  And tastes do change!

            I am still in transition but have reached the point where I usually eat nothing but raw food till dinnertime.  I start the day with freshly made vegetable juice, eat fresh fruit through the morning, have a large vegetable salad for lunch with raw seeds and sprouts in it, have more vegetable juice late afternoon, then am ready for something cooked at dinner.  We have baked yams, or brown rice with some cooked vegetables over it.  Or maybe some soup or stew or veggie covered pasta.  Perhaps we'll have a garbanzo loaf or a garden burger.  There really are lots of vegetarian meal options!  If we want a snack in the evening, it may be some raw nuts or some homemade goody made without eggs or dairy or refined sugar.  And, yes, they do taste good - once I learned the "tricks".

            My daughter asked me to jot down some of my ideas for making gradual changes and adjusting recipes so that she could carry sheets with her to hand out to folks who ask how we are doing it.  Those few ideas on a single sheet of paper turned into a small booklet!  I finally realized I needed to give it a title and take it to a printer since so many people were waiting for copies when it was completed.  And thus was born The Junk Food Lover's Step-by-Step Guide to Healthier Eating.  It takes the reader through many of the small changes our family made.  It gives folks the opportunity to make changes as slowly or as quickly as they choose.  It's broken down into different groupings such as how to slowly reduce sugar, how to increase fresh produce, substituting for meat and other animal products, increasing whole grains and so on.  There are sections on how to reduce time spent on food preparation and how to save money on groceries.  Plus much more.  It also carries on the back our doctor's endorsement of the booklet.

            If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the booklet for yourself or for someone you know, or if you would like to know more about Barleygreen® and other instant vegetable juice powders, please get in touch with me at:    carmie@riversidehealth.com

Barleygreen® is a registered trademark of Y.H. Products

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