Ever-Changing Ichabode Health Ideas

 

"Mom, I am only going to eat one at a time."

I could  conjure up a number of dazzling recipes and diet catastrophes. Instead, I am going to list some basics that are easy to follow and use with steady (not roaring) success.

1. In early 2022, I began weighing myself daily and posting it on Google calendar, using lb to accumulate ups and downs. 215 lb was the starter, though I recall it being higher but not written down earlier.

2. I read Dr. Joel Fuhrman repeatedly, which opened my eyes to the value of basic nutrition and the folly of my Standard American Diet (SAD). I still read Fuhrman and added Dr. Michael Greger to my row of nutrition books.

3. I was eating walnuts daily (YAY!) but I always used them on ice cream (BOO!) My cholesterol went down and I was diabetic on the blood test. 

4. One day I bought some ice cream that really appealed to me (carton graphics). It was truly horrible and probably not real ice cream. I gave it to the squirrels and they would not touch it. Though I wavered, the ice cream deep freezer was converted to bags and bags of frozen chopped greens and vegetables. No more ice cream, pies, or frozen pizza. McDonalds? Nope.

5. I was staggered at the relationship between basic foods (chopped greens, vegetables, fruit) and SAD (cow and chicken products, bread, candies, fried chips, fried everything, desserts, sugared and dietetic drinks).

6. Greens, fresh fruits, and vegetables were filling and often delicious.  I kept trying new/old foods and found them very tasty in time. My vegetable consultant urged me to also try spices, so I now store and use many kinds - mustard, ground black pepper, turmeric, cumin, allspice, bagel spice, etc. I have one sausage serving in my patented Creation Super Stew. Meat is essential but we mostly overdo it.

7. Shocking facts - The SAD Diet is very expensive, especially since we add fast food restaurant items to the sugar-fat-salt prepared foods from the grocery store. Prepared food (microwave and fast-food) can be delicious when everyone is starving or at least feeling starved. Once away from sugar-salt-fat enhancers, returning to them is painfully disgusting, even when venturing back just a wee bit.

8. Encouraging facts - God has already arranged a vast array of healing medicines in greens, vegetables, fruits, and meats. I need eye drops (cataract surgery) so I see the pharmacists once a month. I said to the pharm tech who has waited on me since the Walmart opened nearby, "You have very few cures in your department, especially the over-the-counter things." She said, "I know." I asked, "How did I get perfect blood results?"

"I'm not getting paid?!"

Secret Prediction Unleashed at Ichabod Headquarters, aka The Ichabode

 

A few of us were discussing the presidential race, with various levels of gloom expressed. After all, the media were pumping for Harris and offering a thousand cuts for the crimes of Trump.

I said, "I have a prediction. I just wrote it down during the hand-wringing."

"Then tell us!"

I said "No! but it will be revealed afterwards in one phrase."

On October 27th - I wrote in my Google calendar -

"LANDSLIDE! - GJ!"

And what did the ever-so-honest media finally admit? The Left lost catastrophically, overturning the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and many other delights. 

I was first in line on Election Day and first to finish my ballot. Everyone was solemnly quiet, and that confirmed to me that all those early-birds thought and felt the same way I did.

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Advent - "This is what is meant by “Thy king cometh.” You do not seek him, but he seeks you. You do not find him, he finds you. For the preachers come from him, not from you; their sermons come from him, not from you; your faith comes from him, not from you; everything that faith works in you comes from him, not from you; and where he does not come, you remain outside; and where there is no Gospel there is no God, but only sin and damnation, free will may do, suffer, work and live as it may and can."

 

Jesus Christ comes to us, which is where faith and forgiveness begin.
He is the Good Samaritan, and so few preach and teach this.

First Sunday in Advent, Matthew 21:1-9. Christ Enters Jerusalem: or Faith; Good Works; and the Spiritual Meaning of This Gospel

18. See, such great things are contained in these seemingly unimportant words: “Behold, thy king.” Such boundless gifts are brought by this poor and despised king. All this reason does not understand, nor nature comprehend, but faith alone does. Therefore he is called thy king; thine, who art vexed and harassed by sin, Satan, death and hell, the flesh and the world, so that thou mayest be governed and directed in the grace, in the spirit, in life, in heaven, in God.

With this word, therefore, he demands faith in order that you may be certain that he is such a king to you, has such a kingdom, and has come and is proclaimed for this purpose. If you do not believe this of him, you will never acquire such faith by any work of yours. What you think of him you will have; what you expect of him you will find; and as you believe so shall it be to you. He will still remain what he is, the King of life, of grace, and of salvation, whether he is believed on or not.

19. Fifthly: He “cometh.” Without doubt you do not come to him and bring him to you; he is too high and too far from you. With all your effort, work and labor you cannot come to him, lest you boast as though you had received him by your own merit and worthiness. No, dear friend, all merit and worthiness is out of the question, and there is nothing but demerit and unworthiness on your side, nothing but grace and mercy on his. The poor and the rich here come together, as Proverbs 22:2 says.

20. By this are condemned all those infamous doctrines of free will, which come from the pope, universities and monasteries. For all their teaching consists in that we are to begin and lay the first stone. We should by the power of free will first seek God, come to him, run after him and acquire his grace. Beware, beware of this poison! It is nothing but the doctrine of devils, by which all the world is betrayed. Before you can cry to God and seek him God must come to you and must have found you, as Paul says, Romans 10:14-15: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent?” God must lay the first stone and begin with you, if you are to seek him and pray to him. He is present when you begin to seek.

If he were not you could not accomplish anything but mere sin, and the greater the sin, the greater and holier the work you will attempt, and you will become a hardened hypocrite.

21. You ask, how shall we begin to be godly and what shall we do that God may begin his work in us? Answer: Do you not understand, it is not for you to work or to begin to be godly, as little as it is to further and complete it. Everything that you begin is in and remains sin, though it shines ever so brightly; you cannot do anything but sin, do what you will.

Hence, the teaching of all the schools and monasteries is misleading, when they teach man to begin to pray and do good works, to found something, to give, to sing, to become spiritual and thereby to seek God’s grace.

22. You say, however: Then I must sin from necessity, if by my free will I work and live without God? and I could not avoid sin, no matter what I would do? Answer: Truly, it is so, that you must remain in sin, do what you will, and that everything is sin you do alone out of your own free will.

For if out of your own free will you might avoid sin and do that which pleases God, what need would you have of Christ? He would be a fool to shed his blood for your sin, if you yourself were so free and able to do aught that is not sin. From this you learn how the universities and monasteries with their teachings of free will and good works, do nothing else but darken the truth of God so that we know not what Christ is, what we are and what our condition is. They lead the whole world with them into the abyss of hell, and it is indeed time that we eradicate from the earth all chapters and monasteries.

23. Learn then from this Gospel what takes place when God begins to make us godly, and what the first step is in becoming godly. There is no other beginning than that your king comes to you and begins to work in you. It is done in this way: The Gospel must be the first, this must be preached and heard. In it you hear and learn how all your works count for nothing before God and that everything is sinful that you work and do.

Your king must first be in you and rule you. Behold, here is the beginning of your salvation; you relinquish your works and despair of yourself, because you hear and see that all you do is sin and amounts to nothing, as the Gospel tells you, and you receive your king in faith, cling to him, implore his grace and find consolation in his mercy alone.

But when you hear and accept this it is not your power, but God’s grace, that renders the Gospel fruitful in you, so that you believe that you and your works are nothing. For you see how few there are who accept it, so that Christ weeps over Jerusalem and, as now the Papists are doing, not only refuse it, but condemn such doctrine, for they will not have all their works to be sin, they desire to lay the first stone and rage and fume against the Gospel.

24. Again, it is not by virtue of your power or your merit that the Gospel is preached and your king comes. God must send him out of pure grace.

Hence, not greater wrath of God exists than where he does not send the Gospel; there is only sin, error and darkness, there man may do what he will. Again, there is no greater grace, than where he sends his Gospel, for there must be grace and mercy in its train, even if not all, perhaps only a few, receive it. Thus the pope’s government is the most terrible wrath of God, so that Peter calls them the children of execration, for they teach no Gospel, but mere human doctrine of their own works as we, alas, see in all the chapters, monasteries and schools.

25. This is what is meant by “Thy king cometh.” You do not seek him, but he seeks you. You do not find him, he finds you. For the preachers come from him, not from you; their sermons come from him, not from you; your faith comes from him, not from you; everything that faith works in you comes from him, not from you; and where he does not come, you remain outside; and where there is no Gospel there is no God, but only sin and damnation, free will may do, suffer, work and live as it may and can.

Therefore you should not ask, where to begin to be godly; there is no beginning, except where the king enters and is proclaimed.

Excellent Video from President Trump