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Hi Lisa. My advice to you at this time is to eat a very selection of macrobiotic foods and not to eat too much of any one food on the yin scale or yang scale. Try to eat approximately 1 cup of cooked whole grains per day (rice, millet, corn, barley, oats, rye, wheat, etc) per day. Vary the type of grain from one day to the next.
In addition you need to eat a good amount of vegetables; steamed, boiled, lightly sauteed, grilled, etc. Take a little salad on occassion and a small amount of pickled daikon radish with main meal. You should include vegetable soups in with the vegetables as well. You can put cooked grains and soaked (then pressed) seaweeds in the soups as well. Too much grain at this time will make digestive difficulties and hamper enzyme action on foods.
A good condiment for grains and vegetables for you and your transition to macro diet is ground flax seed with dried dulse. ANother is gomassio made with roased sesame seeds and a tiny bit of sea salt. You need to buy a suribachi mixing bowl to gind seeds in. Make only a small amount to last one to two weeks and store in a dark colored container.
Miso soup in the morning with wakame seaweed, sliced onion, and shiitake mushroom (fresh or dried/soaked) is essential for your digestion and assimilation of foods. Once veggies are cooked you shut off the flame on the stove and add a small amount of miso to a bowl (1 teaspoon). THen pour hot soup water over the miso in bowl and mix. Add finely diced scallions (about 1 tablespppon) to the miso soup (float on top) before eating. The scallion will help with enzyme production and kill harmful bacteria in intestine. You can also put one or two cubes of baked mochi in the miso soup to help strengthen intestines and add more fat to diet.
You can have white meat fish a few times per week -- poach, boil, bake, without oil. You can add fish to soup as well (not too much)
Cooked beans every other day should be fine. Try to avoid too many bread products at this time. If you are eating fish it is then OK to eat a little more fruit during the day -- local fruit, cooked is prefered. Baked apple, kanten jello, some raisins in a nut mix, etc.
To regulate menstrual use Chinese Dong Quai root tea three times daily. They now have tea bags and tea has a celery like taste. My daughter recently started using this and period has normalized. A little soy milk (use Eden's rice/soy blend) is also good for menstrual irregularities and for weight gain. You need only about 1/2 cup per day. Add about 1/4 teaspoon of KYO- GREEN powbere to this and mix in. KYO is made from barley grass, brown rice and blue green seaweed. It offers B 12 and energy dense nutrients.
You should also try to drink other forms of tea, like bancha green tea, grain roasted coffee, local herbs (non-aromatic), and mineral or spring water (no gas). About 6 - 8 cups of liquid is OK for you at this time. Be flexible and not too ridgid when going into macro lifestyle.
I hope this helps.
In peace, Roy
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