Hi Andre,

> When I went rawfoodist for an entire year - the weight went down to
> 180 & the blood pressure went to normal.
> - Now that I'm vegan again(since July 98), my weight is back up to 205!

Are you now eating breads, noodles, bagels, muffins, cereals, cakes,
cookies  --  in other words things made out of wheat and other
grains? Was that by any chance the biggest change in going from raw
foods to your current diet? I ask because these things are fattening
for lots of people! (I'm just assuming you wanted to weight less than
you currently do - or are you happy with your current weight?)

> It much fouler that the other members of the
> family (they eat everything but red meat)

I'll bet it's those beans! Loads of people have problems with beans
(and by the way, tofu, the "darling" of the vegetarian community, is
made from beans  --  fermented (which in itself is a problem for
some people) soy beans).

Also - do you eat dairy products? (milk, cheese, ice-cream, anything
made of milk). The other day I saw an even higher number for
the percentage of people of African descent that are allergic to
milk proteins (in addition to being "lactose intolerant, meaning
that they are unable to digest milk sugars). If I'm remembering
correctly it was somewhere up around 80%. (By the way, this is for
cow's milk, not human milk, or goat, sheep, or other milk or milk
products).

> I decided to go vegan because it just did not seem
> morally right for humans to eat meat.

Yes, there are lots of people feel the way you do. (Most of the
gigantic country of India, for one). My own sister, a SUPER animal
lover, and life-long champion of animal rights, has not eaten ANY
form of meat for 28 years! Not even meat "stock" that might be a
component of vegetable soup, or things like that. Animnal cruelty is
definately an important issue. So I can understand how you feel.

(I always wonder about myself, whether I'm just a meaner person than
my sister, :D
since I love to hunt and fish. For me, it's just _fun_ somehow.
ESPECIALLY when I get to eat it afterwards. And members of my family
and friends hunt, too, and provide us with lots of good food -
caribou, deer, pheasants, shad, mackerel, herring, salmon, lots of
good stuff.)

> I unfortunately
> did not have an interest in getting a degree in
> digestion or nutrition when I went vegan.

HA!!  :D That's hysterical. I loved your analogy to buying a car,
too. I would have to say that the huge majority of my clients say
exactly the same thing. They do NOT want to have to know all the
confusing details, or understand the science. That's what they hire
me for. Wnat they want is to be able to trust that I'll do my
homework, advise them of the key issues, and then let them make
whatever decisions need to be made  --  the same way you'd do with
a plumber (not there's any special similariy between these two
professions! heee heee other than their professionalism).

> What is intestinal, flora

You have loads and loads and loads of little bugs and germs and
microbes and organisms living in you - parasites is one word you
might hear. The reality is that every living thing is host to a vast
array of other _smaller_ living things that make a cozy home for
themselves and their families in various sites and organs and
tissues and bodily fluids. That's just as it should be - it's the
great, beautiful, "web of life."

So your and my guts are inhabited by an awesome number of these,
as well they should be. However what happens is, that for a number
of different reasons of modern lifestyles, the environments of our
guts (meaning among other things the acidity, permeability of the
wall,
"stickiness" of the wall, temperature, secretions, which foods come
down the pipe, etc) these things change in such a way as to make our
guts inhospitable to the bugs that HELP us digest things (one of their
jobs), and, unfortunately, very welcoming to microbes that don't help
us in any particular way - in fact when they start making babies and
creating large extended families and communities, they cause all sorts
of problems (maybe the biggest being that THEY, like us, have to eat
food, and then they, like us, have to "poop." It's their poop that's
the biggest problem.)

Anyhow, "intestinal flora" is just the fancy word for bugs that live
in your intestines.

>I've pretty much always have been bloated, but I=92ve attributed
>that to my lack of exercise.  I thought the pot belly was from
>not enough sit ups, etc.

That might be partially true, since if you had awesomely strong,
tight, abdominal muscles, like your ancestors probably did, then
that would help all those organs that are right behind all those
muscles. Part of that hanging-stomach look is just weak muscles, and
I've found that people's stomachs (especially the "lower abs" that
both sexes complain about) go "in" with focused excercise.

But the problem if bloating, from too much food, or too much gas, is
a different one. A well-functioning stomach doesn't get bloated, in
my experience, unless it's fed foods that it can't digest (either
too much at one sitting, or foods that make gas).

> Oh by the way - I do have one bad vice here.
> My only vice here is OVEREATING!!!

Me too. I love to eat, and I do eat way past the full mark when a
thing tastes delicious.

There's an interesting list you might want to check into - I used to
keep up with it but haven't had the time - it's the "Calorie
Restricion Society" - formed in response to Roy Walford's
interesting book about the connection between low calorie diets and
longevity. In fact, just like any good list group, there are TWO
lists (the "good  list" and "the one I wouldn't have anything to do
with" :D  I have no idea which is which since I haven't kept up over
there).

Anyhow, from all the evidence about both health AND longevity, if
you really want to make a big improvement in your health, you could
cut your calories. But you should consider the reasons you're
overeating, too. It might be because you're missing nutrients, in
other words your body is just CRAVING something it's not getting, so
you keep being "hungry" for it. Overeating could also be a sugar
problem - lots of people I've worked with are on a cycle of
over-tiredness so they need the sugar and caffeine to  get hyped up
so they can function, and then they crash, and need more, and then
crash again (3pm is a famous crash time in the U.S.), so then they
need more to wake up again, and then of course it's hard to get a
decent sleep at night because of all the caffeine and sugar and
upset of hormonal secretions and so on. But this cycle kind of
typically goes hand-in-hand with overeating.

And then there's just that lovely habit of GLUTTONY. Lots of
cultures encourage it, especially the ones where poverty and
starvation is part of the heritage. And people eat for all kinds of
emotional reasons (my particular area of interest and
specialization.)

> I just love to eat
> - what can I say.

:D Heee Heeee. Yes, eating is great. A great part of life. Glad to
hear you like to enjoy yourself! :)

Anyway, thanks for your great emails. Nice getting to know you!  :D

Love, Liza

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[log in to unmask] (Liza May)