Transitioning to the Macrobiotic Diet

[Lisa2]

Hi everyone. What a great forum (lots of information and ideas)! I have been trying to transition to a macrobiotic diet for a few weeks now, and I could definitely use your help. I have been vegetarian for about 11 years (vegan off and on), and I just started eating fish again this past year. I've never really felt healthy though, which is why I'm trying to adopt a macrobiotic lifestyle. I'm currently in medical school, so my schedule and eating patterns are pretty crazy right now. I would welcome any suggestions to help this transition go more smoothly. Thanks.

Lisa

[Roy Collins]

Hi Lisa. 11 years vegetarian should have exposed you to large variety of health food products and supplemental foods including miso, seaweeds, tempeh, whole grains, organic foods, and more ecologic/economic thinking, yes? So this can be considered the transition stage to a large degree. Also the key to success in macrobiotics is to remain flexible, change gradually, and learn more about yin/yang. You will see this dialectic at work in all phases of your medical studies -- all phases of life.

I believe there are a number of old posts on this board and in theold forum section regarding the transition. Eating 1 cup of cooked whole grain and avoiding extreme foods (on yin/yang scale) that are outside the environment is your beginning point.
A little miso soup with seaweed daily in the am is a good detoxifying and blood builder. Chewing well before swallowing and excercising daily are also essential to the practice of macrobiotics. It is not just food, but attitude toward life/self/others.

The fish you eat need not be excesive in amount -- only once or twice weekly. Sometimes you can use fish flakes (bonito) or small fish in soups. I think people making transition to macro shuld eat more soups in general because it is easy to extract nutrients from eating this form of food. Grains, beans can be added to soups and easy to transport and heat up. You really need to eat some form of bean dish during the day (miso is good start because it has soy beans).

A wide variety of veggies -- cooked, raw, on sandwich, soup, ijuices, is important now too. Later you can make refinements to properly preparing veggies yin/yang style, that is when you decide to take macrobiotic cooking classes from a long-time practitioner. Ask at your health food store if they anyone into macro near you. Maybe put up a flyer to find a cook.

If you need more specifics please write back. There is a book on Making the Transition to Macrobiotics that you should purchase from the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation. If you need the 800 number let me know (it is in a past message to the other Lisa who is a newbie to macro). Let me know if you need more help. Good luck with mediccal school.

In peace, Roy

[Lisa2]

Hi Roy,

Thanks for the welcome and advice. I love miso soup, so eating that daily will be easy. I used to eat the packaged kind, and I know that I should really make it from scratch. Because of time constraints, that's kind of hard right now. I'm also not really sure about how many calories I should be eating daily or how much I should be exercising. I've been extreme about both in the past (eat too little/exercise too much or exercise too little/eat too much), and now I just feel out of balance in general. I would like to take a more gradual, long-lasting approach to obtaining maximal health this time. Unfortunately, I'm working with doctors and other healthcare professionals who would judge me if I told them about my transition. I'm hoping to eventually end up in a more macrobiotic-friendly area in the future. I'll look forward to learning more about macrobiotics (just signed up for the online course) and meeting other like-minded people on this forum. Thanks again for the recommendations. I'll keep you updated on how my transition is going.

Lisa

[mike chen]

lisa, it's interesting that you've been 11 years veg/vegan and feeling pretty much not so aligned. so while you're choosing mb foods and concentrating on your chewing, you'll also want to consider your background, how you got into vegetarianism in the first place, what your consumption was like in your earlier years, and what your family was eating (and how) on a daily basis. this also forms part of the yin-yang pattern that roy refers to.
mike chen

[Roy Collins]

Hi Lisa. No need to worry about calories on the macrobiotic diet. Standard macro fare gives you about 5 times more bulk than the average American fare (since their fiber has been removed). Most Americans eat too many foods with "empty" calories. Over 2,000 is too much. Macro foods have about 12 per cent of the total caloric intake from protein, 15 per cent from fat and almost 75 percent from COMPLEX carbohydrates. This all equates to more efficient use of nutrients and more efficient way to eliminate food (waste) the body does not use.

Regarding exercise: Since you are studying a lot and in sedentary position a lot of time it is advisable to take frequent walks out doors. A good hour per day should help you. Stretching and bending/deep breathing will help oxygenate blood as well. No need to over do it.

Don't worry about what fellows at med school think of your eating habits. Later when they become doctors they will see that the world is made of nearly 1/3 vegetarian peoples and that diet does help stabilize many conditions.

I had lunch with my blind friend yesterday and I asked him how his sugar level was (he had diabetes before turning to macro). "Oh very well", he said. I asked him what his doctor said about his condition. He replied: "She told me to keep eating the brown rice, garlic and parsley tea." He has controlled his own diabetes for over 13 years and proved to his doctor that food works. She is now a believer. He is 71 years old. Unfortunately his wife also suffers from diabetes but refuses to eat macro food. He had to put her in a nursing home 6 years ago because she only gets worse eating empty calories, simple carbohydrates, and other junk. Keep the faith. The world is changing rapidly.

I gave a lecture to the VA Hospital a few years ago on macrobiotic and alternative healing. I was amazed how many doctors, social workers, and nurses were eating macro and vegetarian foods! They wrote me a nice letter of thanks. Brown University Medical School is affiliated with the Providence VA and many resident students train there.

Two years ago Brown Medical School asked me to help them out by allowing their students to interview me as they know of my alternative healing leanings. Many medical schools are quite open to alternative therapies. Even the VA uses cutting edge alternative ideas, like packing open wounds and bed sores with leeches to eat infection… You will be amazed to know how much the mainstream doctors know about herbal interactions with mainstream meds. One VA hospital physician actually wrote a book on the subject.
About 40% of all pharmecuticals utilize plant compounds in their formulation.


I hope this helps.

In peace, Roy

[Lisa2]

Hi Mike,

Even though I've been vegetarian for so long, I still went through phases where I would eat unhealthily when stressed out, in a hurry, for convenience, etc. I became a vegetarian originally because of my passion for animals and the environment, as well as for the health benefits. Thanks for reminding me to think about that again. Sometimes I just let the craziness of the world around me negatively influence me in a way that causes me to neglect my physical and emotional well-being. Hopefully, I'm on my way to changing that now. Thanks for the advice.

Lisa

[Lisa2]

Hi Roy,

Sorry for taking so long to reply. It was a very busy week for me at the hospital. I'm right in the middle of my Ob/Gyn rotation (lots of call). Thanks so much for your post. I have been struggling with trying to decide what type of residency to apply for. So much of what I've experienced during my rotations goes completely against the holistic medical approaches I believe in. It's nice to hear that there are physicians, nurses, etc. eating macrobiotically out there. I have considered going into pathology, just so I don't have to be a "drug pusher." Wish me luck with trying to figure it all out. This forum and your online course have really been helpful. Thanks for all of the information and advice. Hope you're having a great time in Florida.

Lisa

P.S. Is running as a form of exercise considered to extreme in macrobiotics?

[mike chen]

in mb, we can say that we are looking for a recreation that COMPLEMENTS day-to-day lifestyle. assume that life in the hospital is about everyday emergency distress, lots of punishment [self-inflicted and otherwise], and emotional turmoil. the question is: what to do to balance all that? what activity would provide (as example): 1) routine calmness 2) lots of caring 3) emotional stability?

mb theory states that whatever it is that provides a sense of equilibrium to my being is where i will naturally gravitate. [theorem 4. yin attracts yang and yang attracts yin.]

traditionally, then, mb would propose something along the lines of tai chi or yoga or chi gung, because most of us lead lives that are in need of calming. for the more adventurous (since it is more demanding physically), aikido. of course, archery, fencing, and other such traditional arts as tea and flower arranging are also available. so you see that there's no reason that running couldn't qualify . . . as long as you know why you're doing it!! for example, my 18 year-old daughter is considering the biathalon!

[Roy Collins]

Hi Lisa. I think that it is important to remember that whichever field of medicine you go into you will find that macrobiotics can always play a major role in the treatment process, but not all people will want or will respond to macrobiotics. That is the dichotomy with the profession. You need to be responsive to both those who seek the mainstream and those who seek the alternative. For the mainstream you can always make more holistic/macrobiotic suggestions and give dietary recomendations along with whtever else is prescribed. Tlaking about food is always beneficial and usually the first questions people ask about their health conditions is food-related: "I must ate something bad" or "I've been eating alot of junk food lately", etc.

I have a friend that I met some 20 years ago when I first began to study Tai CHi. He is a pediatrician, an MD. Yet he is ALSO the most well-known HOMOEPATHIC doctor in Rhoe Island! His name is Jerry Kupperberg and he treats children as well as adults with homeopahtic remedies. He lives in Foster, RI. For difficult or compliated problems he resorts to traditional forms of allopathic treatment. He does a great job. He also uses whole foods, herbs, etc. Maybe someday you can meet with him to get some ideas about your own practice. He knows about macrobiotic as well.

If you choose pathology I think that with the recent discoveries with DNA mapping and other biotech advances that you will ened up onthe cutting edge of medicine and will be seeing yin/yang from the microscopic viewpoint which can tell much about the whole person. You will always have work in this field the way medicine is evolving. I like pediatrics myself and a former girfriend of mine decided to go into this field because she loved children and thought that she would do more good. She also knows abut macrobiotics and is a vegetarian. She made history a few years ago when she blew the whistle on a father who abused one of her patients. She is very brave -- once she left a bar room where we were dancing to break up a fight between two men and a woman in a motorcycle gang! Yeah, I watched from the door way and kept telling her to let them solve their own problems but she didn't listen and walking into the dark alley where there is screaming and pulled the woman away from the two men.

So from that incident I knew she would be a good doctor and had a big heart and would put her life on the line to save another person. Can you do that? I don't think too many would be doctors really have what it takes but maybe I am wrong. I am happy with my Urologist and Otologist (Ear). My Otologist is also famous as he developed the procedure called the stapedectomy.
He was able to me my hearing back to 100 percent in both ears.
To me this was like a miracle to bea able to hear again. Dentistry is another important "line" of doctoring and our teeth are needed to help process foods so that we can get nourishment. MAcrobiotics and non-macros alike all go to the dentist at some point in time. You will know what is best for when the time comes. There is no need to think that you will end up pushing pills. I have the greatest respect for the medical profession. Pleae continue in your studies.

In peace, Roy

[Lisa2]

Hi all, sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I've had a busy past 2 weeks, and I'm slightly sleep deprived at the moment. I'm still having a hard time making this transition. Partly, it's because of my schedule (no time to exercise or cook even if I wanted to). But I'm also still confused about what and how much I'm supposed to eat each day. Do I only eat 1 cup of whole grains? I've been eating a lot of oatmeal and brown rice, but I usually eat more than a cup at a time. I've also been eating a lot of miso soup (the packaged kind) and adding dulse flakes, wakame, and tofu. Occasionally, I steam a few vegetables as well. Okay, so now the bad part. I've still had a few bagels, vending machine crackers, diet coke and coffee during the week (at the hospital). I feel like I'm eating too many calories/day (about 1800-2000) for my current level of activity. I haven't gained any weight, but I haven't lost any either. I truly want to adopt the macrobiotic lifestyle, not just the diet part, and I feel like I'm failing. I wish there were more macrobiotic resources in this area (Chicago suburbs). I'm thinking about going somewhere else for elective rotations/residency. Sorry for rambling...probably need some sleep. Thanks Mike and Roy for your support and suggestions. I will not give up. Goodnight everyone.

Lisa

[mike chen]

to get out of town? what a great idea! what i think would be really good for you is to take a day or so and travel to cleveland to meet bob carr, maybe have a consultation with him, generally get an idea what it is you're doing and what more you can add
to your practice.

rncjr@apk.net