I just want to say, in my social surrounding there are numerous people getting cancer being overweight but not fat. And there are thin, even meager people, too. I read there was a dose of something causing cancer in mice in the injections. So, if that should turn out to be true, cancer is a planned disease. Sorry for my multiple spelling mistakes, it is so rare nowadays I am using English. I absolutely like the way you play around with language but very often it is way above my level of English proficiency.. So sad but one cannot can all... ;-p
You do just fine, Angela. I can understand you. And agreed, cancer has been more prevalent in my life, with young people and with thin people too. My dad was in his 70s but healthy and vibrant. He took the jabs (inexplicably!) in the lowest vax uptake country in the EU - Bulgaria. He was diagnosed and died within nine months. I didn’t get the chance to see him and it still pains me. 😢
Oh dear! I am so sorry! That is unreasonable.... My dad is 91 by now and took four doses (!) (in 2021 following) after having been vaccine-critical and not having had a single one in 40 or 50 or 60 years. After the shots he got a heart attack- totally sound and thin and having eaten sound and having had daily excercise for at least equally long in the past, after the operation (where they shot him down unneccessarily with tranqulisers) he got a delir, fell and hit his head, by now his slight dementia is increasing, ah well, I forgot, he had a Gürtelrose (??) as well, all the typical side effects of it. In the following months after all that he quit his sound eating, his motion, is watching TV daily with his partner (who/ which surely made him do all of this) and - getting ever more forgetfull.... Well.. SAD is not an approprate word.... !!
Steering with guided/ induced emoition. Is the key. Rationaliity and the age of enlightenment seem to be over.....
I have a friend who had a mother with dementia who is seeing progress with diet. Let me look at some of the resources she’s dropped and I’ll link them here.
Tonika, you’re just plain beautiful inside and out, before and after! But isn’t it amazing to feel so healthy? I’m so darn happy for you. Thx for sharing this story.
May I ask which Harmonious Hunk BUSTED OUT during the anthem?? 🤭👏 🇺🇸 🥰
My long time friend Brendan Balfe (great name to boot!) was the high tenor in the Star Spangled Banner. All those guys are a part of Silent Theatre except for the guy that passed, David, and I’ve known them for over 20 years. Super talented actors and singers.
Yes, 💯. I was doing Gersons therapy which has ways to clear toxins out and help the liver do its thing. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a toxin removal system in play. Some people have only done the juicing part of the therapy and end up worse. Well yeah, your liver couldn’t catch up with the hat the juices were doing! Thanks, Rob!
Thanks! You look so fit! I'm going to try doing a plank today. I'm 78 but heh, it's never too late to start! I'm a wfpb vegan so pretty healthy, no meds or anything. Anyway, thanks again.
Awesome writing as usual. {smile} We are capable of doing a lot when our life depends on it (read the book "The Comfort Crisis"), the challenge can be understanding and realizing that your life *does* depend on it. Losing loved ones around you can also be motivation to make some steps in the right direction!
Putting in my two cents here - losing weight was the hardest thing I ever did, and, at 53, so far the one and only thing I am proud of, my single accomplishment in life. It took me 18 months to go from 165 to 125 pounds, and although it wasn't physically a matter of life and death, it very much was psychologically a matter of life and death. Still is, in fact, as the mental health benefits of being super-healthy are what still keep me from falling into a more serious depression. There's a meme (or expression, or whatever), I like called Choose Your Hard: being poor is hard, earning money is hard; getting divorced is hard, staying married is hard; being healthy is hard, being sick is hard. Choose your hard. I train seriously 6 days/week and have a pristine diet, and I know some people think I'm nuts for all the effort I put into maintaining that lifestyle, but being healthy is the hard I choose. It's 100% worth the mega-effort. I'm so glad you made the choices you did and had the strength to do what you did, took your health into your own hands and came out the other side victorious. Huge kudos and much love to you.
Thanks, Jen! I remember that part of your book. It was an impressive feat! And it still is, to keep that fit. Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad I took my health in my own hands too.
I could nibble on nuts and dry fruits all day and not feel hungry. Too bad they’re not allowed on the Gersons. I imagine three more months I’ll stay on it and then slowly start to ease into nuts and seeds and some darn salt! I miss salt.
Salt, real salt, not that ultra processed crap, is very healthy!
Yes, it's very easy to nibble on nuts and dried fruits! We have to remember to get out of our chairs, stop nibbling and be physically active too though!
{grin} I hear that excuse from everyone taking care of kids. Yes, children do keep you physically active! Maybe we need kids to not grow up so they keep us physically active? Or maybe this is a good argument for "multi generational households" so the grandparents are still engaged with the kids?
Im an advocate for multi-generational living, for sure. My own mother lives with me and is indispensable help when it comes to the kids. She is also a fabulous cook. Imagine living with a built in chef who also grocery shops and babysits on demand. No way could we have our lives as comfortable and as stress free without her. And she is healthier and more vibrant than your regular 70yo. (Although she still smokes! 😬Balkan habits die hard) Because she feels needed and wanted, it has directly affected her health and attitude towards life positively. Run after the five year old, however, she will not do. 😂 that’s when her great pair of lungs come in handy and I can hear her hollering at him from the basement.
In case my humor wasn't obvious. Clearly being healthy takes more than JUST being physical. I know in my own case (desk job my entire life), I need to be *more* physically active. Even when my kids were young I still managed to gain weight!
OMG Tonika the kareoke singing cracked me up. I love this. It's not my journey I have always been moderate and an unstoppable force of moving energy, breakdancing, martial arts, soccer, basket ball, professional drummer, landscaper, house builder stone mason. I can't stop moving - I'm 53 and it is the key to a long live - which if you are a fucked-up ego maniac triggered Scorpio loon-bag like me, well you need a loooooong life. Jesus 33 years. Me 33 lifetimes minimum. But at least I nailed health from birth.
I love that you share updates and the fasting at the start to me was key. Even though you had other steps to take fasting is incredible for the human body. It really is.
Also we need bugger all food. We really need very little.
Yes, I’ve seen what you look like, you’re in amazing shape! Maybe you got good genes! I hate to pull the lady card, but our bodies take a beating during child bearing, then during child rearing when a mother's energy goes all in on children, and then during menopause when hormones start doing whacky things.
Having the mentality you have helps tho. Squeezing in “33 lifetimes minimum” in one. 😂 bless you, indeed!
P.S. wasn’t gonna say anything about the breakdancing but is that from the same school at Raygun, or… 😂
Hahahaha! Nice reference. Wish I had thought of it to include in the post. Especially since food might have been my Achilles heel when it came to persistent vices.
I certainly felt lifted by your words and encouragement throughout my ordeal and nourished by your posts which have a life of their own. Loved your latest too. Food for soul.
You and Gabe share that quality of being brutally honest with yourselves and tenderly honest with everyone else. I'm deeply honored to know you both. What a journey. You've done things I didn't know were possible.
I remember saying at the beginning of this that somewhere in the pre-Tonika aether, I thought you'd raised your hand, and volunteered to demonstrate how to do cancer right. I didn't realize all the other things you'd show--that humor isn't optional but eating is. And that a shoestring is a big enough budget for international travel at fancy health resorts with lousy internet.
Looking forward to 2025 with you. This year do you plan to grow wings and teach us all that gravity is a choice too? Wouldn't surprise me.
"You and Gabe share that quality of being brutally honest with yourselves and tenderly honest with everyone else." Beautifully said, and completely concur.
Yes, Tonika demonstrated how to do cancer right - and how to do it with courage, humor and grit.
You as well, Tereza - and others we know via SS universe - are growing into better versions of themselves in real time. I love it - the greater the attempts at confinement 'out there', result in more evidence of what can't be confined 'in-here'.
😍😍😍 Oh, T! I was about to go to bed when I saw this comment, and now you've got me feeling all kinds of special, and I'm at a loss for words. You have a way of dropping truly generous feedback in a very poetic way, and as a fellow lover of words and expressions, I must kindly steal your "humor isn't optional, but eating is." I will return it once I've made the rounds.
I just saw you dropped a New Year's post and will be saving it for my morning tea before 15 teenagers descend on my house to celebrate the twins' birthday with video games and pizza. I'm about to show these kids how to play Mario Kart like it's 1999.
I'm going to keep your reply close, Tonika, so I can hug it occasionally.
I had a 'mansplaining moment' last night. I was sitting at the bar of a favorite restaurant and an older guy asked me what I was reading. Somehow it led to poetry and I said I thought memes were a modern form of distilling essence down to the pithiest pit, with pics and humor (from my article). He said, no they're reductionist, simplistic. A poem doesn't have any idea it wants to express. Like my parenting critic saying you can't control your kids, you can't control the muse.
Actually, he was more pedantic than this, I can't even quote how certain of himself he was. I asked why he had the authority to dictate what was and was not poetry. I talked about rhyme and meter leading in new directions, but not starting with a blank slate. Eventually I suggested I go back to my book and let him eat. And I got back to my pistachio arugula steak salad and mezcal-amaretto-chocolate bitters cocktail.
The point of this story is to thank you for saying "You have a way of dropping truly generous feedback in a very poetic way." The nicely crafted comment is its own art form, isn't it? Glad to be sowing them in such fertile, friendly ground!
I concur in every single way possible, with all y'all have said, about Tonika, and about one another. Makes me actually GRATEFUL for all the shit that's been pulled to "confine us." We CANNOT BE CONFINED. Love you goddesses. xox
Dang Tanika I did not realize you had lost that much weight. Congrats! Your karaoke is actually pretty good. What do kids know?
Hi, thank you for sharing!
I just want to say, in my social surrounding there are numerous people getting cancer being overweight but not fat. And there are thin, even meager people, too. I read there was a dose of something causing cancer in mice in the injections. So, if that should turn out to be true, cancer is a planned disease. Sorry for my multiple spelling mistakes, it is so rare nowadays I am using English. I absolutely like the way you play around with language but very often it is way above my level of English proficiency.. So sad but one cannot can all... ;-p
You do just fine, Angela. I can understand you. And agreed, cancer has been more prevalent in my life, with young people and with thin people too. My dad was in his 70s but healthy and vibrant. He took the jabs (inexplicably!) in the lowest vax uptake country in the EU - Bulgaria. He was diagnosed and died within nine months. I didn’t get the chance to see him and it still pains me. 😢
Oh dear! I am so sorry! That is unreasonable.... My dad is 91 by now and took four doses (!) (in 2021 following) after having been vaccine-critical and not having had a single one in 40 or 50 or 60 years. After the shots he got a heart attack- totally sound and thin and having eaten sound and having had daily excercise for at least equally long in the past, after the operation (where they shot him down unneccessarily with tranqulisers) he got a delir, fell and hit his head, by now his slight dementia is increasing, ah well, I forgot, he had a Gürtelrose (??) as well, all the typical side effects of it. In the following months after all that he quit his sound eating, his motion, is watching TV daily with his partner (who/ which surely made him do all of this) and - getting ever more forgetfull.... Well.. SAD is not an approprate word.... !!
Steering with guided/ induced emoition. Is the key. Rationaliity and the age of enlightenment seem to be over.....
😢 I truly hope he recovers. So so sorry.
Recover from dementia?
Is that possible?! I'd be happy to hear how!
I have a friend who had a mother with dementia who is seeing progress with diet. Let me look at some of the resources she’s dropped and I’ll link them here.
Tonika, you are far from alone.
I am still recovering from writing this, and do not really feel like I have any words left in me to give to people: https://vicparkpetition.substack.com/p/morning-has-broken-like-the-first
I am, however, up to 1.7k and lapping people in the medium lane now. I could go much farther but feel like I need to keep a bit in the tank.
See you in the pool x
Tonika, you’re just plain beautiful inside and out, before and after! But isn’t it amazing to feel so healthy? I’m so darn happy for you. Thx for sharing this story.
May I ask which Harmonious Hunk BUSTED OUT during the anthem?? 🤭👏 🇺🇸 🥰
Thank you, Barbara!! 😍😍😍
My long time friend Brendan Balfe (great name to boot!) was the high tenor in the Star Spangled Banner. All those guys are a part of Silent Theatre except for the guy that passed, David, and I’ve known them for over 20 years. Super talented actors and singers.
Weight loss is important but should be done slow.
Some toxins are fat soluble and stored in body fat. This is how the body can sequester them.
If one loses weight too fast, they can have issues where too many toxins are released, overwhelming elimination pathways.
Boosting the liver with NAC, coq10, and vitamin B complex helps the body eliminate crap.
Yes, 💯. I was doing Gersons therapy which has ways to clear toxins out and help the liver do its thing. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a toxin removal system in play. Some people have only done the juicing part of the therapy and end up worse. Well yeah, your liver couldn’t catch up with the hat the juices were doing! Thanks, Rob!
My fiance has lost weight without cutting calories but doing these simple detox supplements.
Hopefully in the next few years, mainstream medicine will finally admit the truth.
Then we can have a society that isn't "cluttered" by bullshit and crap drugs. 😂
Thanks! You look so fit! I'm going to try doing a plank today. I'm 78 but heh, it's never too late to start! I'm a wfpb vegan so pretty healthy, no meds or anything. Anyway, thanks again.
It sounds like you got a handle on it. If I can pull off a plank at 78, I’d consider myself superhuman. Let me know if you try it!
Awesome writing as usual. {smile} We are capable of doing a lot when our life depends on it (read the book "The Comfort Crisis"), the challenge can be understanding and realizing that your life *does* depend on it. Losing loved ones around you can also be motivation to make some steps in the right direction!
Adding the book to my queue. Thanks!
Enjoy the book! I found it fascinating and extremely well written.
Putting in my two cents here - losing weight was the hardest thing I ever did, and, at 53, so far the one and only thing I am proud of, my single accomplishment in life. It took me 18 months to go from 165 to 125 pounds, and although it wasn't physically a matter of life and death, it very much was psychologically a matter of life and death. Still is, in fact, as the mental health benefits of being super-healthy are what still keep me from falling into a more serious depression. There's a meme (or expression, or whatever), I like called Choose Your Hard: being poor is hard, earning money is hard; getting divorced is hard, staying married is hard; being healthy is hard, being sick is hard. Choose your hard. I train seriously 6 days/week and have a pristine diet, and I know some people think I'm nuts for all the effort I put into maintaining that lifestyle, but being healthy is the hard I choose. It's 100% worth the mega-effort. I'm so glad you made the choices you did and had the strength to do what you did, took your health into your own hands and came out the other side victorious. Huge kudos and much love to you.
Thanks, Jen! I remember that part of your book. It was an impressive feat! And it still is, to keep that fit. Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad I took my health in my own hands too.
Nuts are healthy! 😇
I could nibble on nuts and dry fruits all day and not feel hungry. Too bad they’re not allowed on the Gersons. I imagine three more months I’ll stay on it and then slowly start to ease into nuts and seeds and some darn salt! I miss salt.
Salt, real salt, not that ultra processed crap, is very healthy!
Yes, it's very easy to nibble on nuts and dried fruits! We have to remember to get out of our chairs, stop nibbling and be physically active too though!
I’ve got a five year old. John! Not being physical is not an option.
Yes, Celtic salt for the win in my household. Although, still not for me! 😢
{grin} I hear that excuse from everyone taking care of kids. Yes, children do keep you physically active! Maybe we need kids to not grow up so they keep us physically active? Or maybe this is a good argument for "multi generational households" so the grandparents are still engaged with the kids?
Im an advocate for multi-generational living, for sure. My own mother lives with me and is indispensable help when it comes to the kids. She is also a fabulous cook. Imagine living with a built in chef who also grocery shops and babysits on demand. No way could we have our lives as comfortable and as stress free without her. And she is healthier and more vibrant than your regular 70yo. (Although she still smokes! 😬Balkan habits die hard) Because she feels needed and wanted, it has directly affected her health and attitude towards life positively. Run after the five year old, however, she will not do. 😂 that’s when her great pair of lungs come in handy and I can hear her hollering at him from the basement.
In case my humor wasn't obvious. Clearly being healthy takes more than JUST being physical. I know in my own case (desk job my entire life), I need to be *more* physically active. Even when my kids were young I still managed to gain weight!
EXCELLENT point, one I hadn't really thought of before: "How many old fat people do you see walking around?"
OMG Tonika the kareoke singing cracked me up. I love this. It's not my journey I have always been moderate and an unstoppable force of moving energy, breakdancing, martial arts, soccer, basket ball, professional drummer, landscaper, house builder stone mason. I can't stop moving - I'm 53 and it is the key to a long live - which if you are a fucked-up ego maniac triggered Scorpio loon-bag like me, well you need a loooooong life. Jesus 33 years. Me 33 lifetimes minimum. But at least I nailed health from birth.
I love that you share updates and the fasting at the start to me was key. Even though you had other steps to take fasting is incredible for the human body. It really is.
Also we need bugger all food. We really need very little.
God bless you from Australia
Yes, I’ve seen what you look like, you’re in amazing shape! Maybe you got good genes! I hate to pull the lady card, but our bodies take a beating during child bearing, then during child rearing when a mother's energy goes all in on children, and then during menopause when hormones start doing whacky things.
Having the mentality you have helps tho. Squeezing in “33 lifetimes minimum” in one. 😂 bless you, indeed!
P.S. wasn’t gonna say anything about the breakdancing but is that from the same school at Raygun, or… 😂
Raygun!! 😂
Lookin' and soundin' good T, and as for the title, I think Achilles would agree.
Hahahaha! Nice reference. Wish I had thought of it to include in the post. Especially since food might have been my Achilles heel when it came to persistent vices.
Quite the transformation Tonika! (Though honestly you still looked quite adorable singing the grinch song from my perspective.)
Congrats on the anniversary that wasn't and sharing Gabe's stack.
I feel privileged to know you. I'm certain my life is better for it. XOX
I certainly felt lifted by your words and encouragement throughout my ordeal and nourished by your posts which have a life of their own. Loved your latest too. Food for soul.
💪🏽
You and Gabe share that quality of being brutally honest with yourselves and tenderly honest with everyone else. I'm deeply honored to know you both. What a journey. You've done things I didn't know were possible.
I remember saying at the beginning of this that somewhere in the pre-Tonika aether, I thought you'd raised your hand, and volunteered to demonstrate how to do cancer right. I didn't realize all the other things you'd show--that humor isn't optional but eating is. And that a shoestring is a big enough budget for international travel at fancy health resorts with lousy internet.
Looking forward to 2025 with you. This year do you plan to grow wings and teach us all that gravity is a choice too? Wouldn't surprise me.
"You and Gabe share that quality of being brutally honest with yourselves and tenderly honest with everyone else." Beautifully said, and completely concur.
Yes, Tonika demonstrated how to do cancer right - and how to do it with courage, humor and grit.
You as well, Tereza - and others we know via SS universe - are growing into better versions of themselves in real time. I love it - the greater the attempts at confinement 'out there', result in more evidence of what can't be confined 'in-here'.
Thank you, Kathleen! Well said. Well said, all of you. So honored to be amongst you bright, compassionate, unique souls. ❤️
😍😍😍 Oh, T! I was about to go to bed when I saw this comment, and now you've got me feeling all kinds of special, and I'm at a loss for words. You have a way of dropping truly generous feedback in a very poetic way, and as a fellow lover of words and expressions, I must kindly steal your "humor isn't optional, but eating is." I will return it once I've made the rounds.
I just saw you dropped a New Year's post and will be saving it for my morning tea before 15 teenagers descend on my house to celebrate the twins' birthday with video games and pizza. I'm about to show these kids how to play Mario Kart like it's 1999.
"how to play Mario Kart like it's 1999" Hahahaha!
I'm going to keep your reply close, Tonika, so I can hug it occasionally.
I had a 'mansplaining moment' last night. I was sitting at the bar of a favorite restaurant and an older guy asked me what I was reading. Somehow it led to poetry and I said I thought memes were a modern form of distilling essence down to the pithiest pit, with pics and humor (from my article). He said, no they're reductionist, simplistic. A poem doesn't have any idea it wants to express. Like my parenting critic saying you can't control your kids, you can't control the muse.
Actually, he was more pedantic than this, I can't even quote how certain of himself he was. I asked why he had the authority to dictate what was and was not poetry. I talked about rhyme and meter leading in new directions, but not starting with a blank slate. Eventually I suggested I go back to my book and let him eat. And I got back to my pistachio arugula steak salad and mezcal-amaretto-chocolate bitters cocktail.
The point of this story is to thank you for saying "You have a way of dropping truly generous feedback in a very poetic way." The nicely crafted comment is its own art form, isn't it? Glad to be sowing them in such fertile, friendly ground!
I concur in every single way possible, with all y'all have said, about Tonika, and about one another. Makes me actually GRATEFUL for all the shit that's been pulled to "confine us." We CANNOT BE CONFINED. Love you goddesses. xox
Love received and reciprocated. Yeah, good luck confining the feral, moon loving je ne sais quoi. 🤗
You're incredibly kind! Thanks for sharing my new 'Stack!
You're super talented Gabe. Keep going.
Thank you and will do!