Author: amy mondloch

I am many things. I am a farmer's daughter, an activist, an educator, a mentor, an organizer, a person who cares about this place that we inhabit, a member of a community-- of many communities actually, a resident of a small Midwestern town, a little sister, an aunt, a friend, someone who likes to play with art supplies and spend time outdoors, a believer that people can create positive change, and a writer.

70 More Days

· Leave a comment ·

Okay, day eight was not so great. It was the first day back to work in almost a week and it was rough. People not showing up for meetings, other meetings I didn’t want to be at, having to work on an annual report, and reading my organization’s history to find that yes, there are some issues that we’ve been discussing and have not found resolution to for over a decade now. There were good points to the day too, but I just wasn’t ready to go from vacation time to what lay in store for me today.

Oh, and it did start with realizing that I’d run out of a couple things that could have made me a quick, tasty, good for warm weather breakfast. I have since replaced them, but this morning wound up being scrambled eggs with greens and tomatoes. Normally, a good breakfast option, but today my stomach just wasn’t happy with that choice. I thought for a bit I might have to call in sick.

I wasn’t hungry at lunch time, but figured it would be best to have something or I’d be ravenous by mid afternoon so I dug into my broccoli and cauliflower with a little hummus and was surprised to find I could eat an apple too.

Still, by mid afternoon it was clear nothing was going my way. It was a bit early, but I gave up for the day and went home and mowed my lawn. So, I got a little extra exercise in and got the lawn cut before the rains come again. I suppose that’s an upside.

I felt a little better after an hour or so outside. I got to arguing with myself on whether to relax from a rough day with pizza out or to take care of myself with a tasty dinner in. Pizza won. I rationalized with the idea of having a salad with the pizza. I got to the buffet to find that there were only a few sickly looking scraps left in the spinach salad container. There was the other salad, but I find no reason to eat iceberg lettuce. There’s simply not sufficient taste or nutritional value. So, I’ve learned not to count on salad being part of the buffet.

That leaves me at the end of my day with probably about 4 cups of fruits and vegetables consumed. I suppose I could still have some berries with yogurt and banana or maybe make a rhubarb smoothie, but right now I’m not really hungry and my stomach isn’t feeling quite right. So, I don’t know whether to call it a fail or if it’s a win to sometimes just say “I’m not really hungry right now. I don’t need to eat.” So, I’ll just leave it there and let it be and start again tomorrow.

One Week In On The Fruits and Veggies Challenge

· Leave a comment ·

Well, if I made six cups of fruits and veggies today, it was just by the skin of my teeth. I took a trip to South Dakota this afternoon. It was the 152nd annual Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Wacipi (powwow) and it felt time to go. I am glad that I went. Powwows, however, are not the place to find nice, healthy fruits and vegetables. They are though the place to find the best fry bread known to humanity and that’s reason enough to go.

So, my food at home was good and healthy; yogurt with strawberries, mango, and banana, fresh green beans to snack on, things like that. At the powwow though I enjoyed a delicious Indian taco and some nachos with cheese. The day wound up a bit under 1600 calories, so not too bad even with some high carb indulgences which were well worth it.

The food was just one piece of the powwow. I’ve gone to many before and they are always good for the heart. There’s a special power in the drum. It’s good to feel the music. I find myself watching the dancers, thinking it’s probably nearly time for me to step away, but I can’t just yet after all it’s men’s fancy, my favorite dance. Then a few minutes later I think it’s near time to go, but I can’t right now, it’s women’s traditional, my favorite dance. This goes on through all the different dances. Each has it’s own strength. Each holds a role in teaching the children to be proud of who they are. It’s a gift to get to sit there on the sidelines and witness what remains, how the strength of generations continues forward never to be squelched by the colonizers.

I sat today on the sidelines when the older man sitting in front of me turned to talk with me. He asked where I was from when I answered and asked where he was from he told me, just down the road and then proceeded to speak to me in Dakota. I looked at him confused. He translated what he’d said for me. He told me he’d learned English when he went to school and asked me if I was surprised that he was Native. I was a bit, but I’ve known a fair number of blond haired, blued eyed Native people in Minnesota, so it wasn’t too big a surprise. Then he went on and told me stories of his life. He must have talked for at least an hour talking of his family, ancestors, speaking in both English and Dakota. He shared so many bits of wisdom. It was one of those life moments that cannot be anticipated and reaches in to do amazing things.

It was a good day and has been a good first week. Let’s see where next week goes.

6 Days Into the Journey

· Leave a comment ·

I had a strong start today with an apple/rhubarb/strawberry smoothie with just a bit of greens thrown in and some scrambled eggs with greens, banana peppers, broccoli, and tomatoes. It sounds like a lot of food as I write it down, but it was only a bit over 400 calories. It’s really amazing how much one can eat when you eat the right foods.

My dog, Buddy, and I celebrated his first birthday this morning with a trip to Monson Lake State Park for a nice little hike. He’s so happy when he gets to go on an adventure in the woods, sniffing for treasure everywhere, finding mud puddles to lay in, meeting new friends. We followed up our hike with a bit of human indulgence. We went to Willmar for a stop at Culvers. I was happy with myself though for not getting any pop or ice cream, just a cod sandwich and onion rings. Still, a meal like that is roughly 1,000 calories, the same as the total of my other two meals for the day and it’s not really more food. It’s just the wrong food to eat too often. I am happy that there isn’t a Culvers near Morris and it’s a special treat to go.

We did take advantage of being in Willmar though and gave Buddy another treat for the day. We went to the dog park. Buddy had a great time! He met two huge Great Danes, Stout and Porter, who were just a few weeks younger than him and each about 70 lbs bigger. They came with their little friend, Ebony, a Springer Spaniel mix about a year older than Bud, but closer to his size. It was a laugh to watch Buddy play and wrestle with his new pals. It was a gift to see him so friendly with the giants and to feel his trust as he ran toward them and then would come back to me when he needed a bit of space and assurance. I am grateful for his trust. He’s a good friend.

The rest of the day was napping, joining the community band in a parade, watching the pageant at the Starbuck Heritage Days, and just generally relaxing. It was good.

I am doing really well with getting 6-9 cups of vegetables and fruits each day, though some days, like today, I’m at the lower end. My challenge is to keep away from too many trips to the places that serve me high calorie and unhealthy options. I can get there.

Day 5 of the 78 Day Challenge

· Leave a comment ·

Thinking today about my recent visit with the dietitian. It was basic visit, too basic for me. I’ve read a lot, watched a lot of videos, and listened to quite a few professionals in health care over the past twenty or so years. But, I needed to see a dietitian to get the okay on dietary changes so that my neurologist and general practitioner might know I’ve seen a professional to approve how I feed myself. It’s a messed up system. After all, who knows our bodies better than ourselves? Still, I visited with hopes that she could give me new insights that would help me along my journey. Here’s what I came up with.

She encouraged me, as health professionals do, to pre-plan my meals and write out a shopping list. She told me that it’s okay to sometimes go out to eat and indulge in my favorite pizza, but I should have a salad as well so that I would fill up and not eat as much pizza. I was frustrated as I left with that simple advice, late on my way to another meeting.

Today, I thought about it a bit more as I indulged in some of my favorite pizza choices along with a large salad and some pickled beets. I realized that even with the salad and beets that I could easily eat just as many slices of pizza as ever. I’d just added a bit more food rather than cut any out. With that I was reminded how little food has to do with physical hunger, at least that’s true in my world as a reasonably economically stable white person in the United States today. Eating is more about filling a space, emotional or social or maybe something else, but it isn’t simply physical. We eat for the comfort of eating. I certainly don’t go to Pizza Ranch for the quality of their food. I go to read a book, enjoy some quiet time, imbibe in some stuff that is rich and greasy and some that is sweet, decompress from whatever stress I’ve been facing. I don’t go to fill my caloric needs. That’s not why we eat, at least not the primary reason. The question then becomes, how else might I fill those needs?

I don’t know the answer to that yet. I do know that answer needs to be found for my happiness. Meanwhile, I think I hit six cups of fruits and vegetables today, and, not surprisingly given that I went to Pizza Ranch, I wound up high on calories, carbs, proteins, fats, and sugar. Still, much better than a lot people in the US, so it’s okay. I am on my way.

History Isn’t Such a Long Time

· Leave a comment ·



I like history museums and historical sites. I’ll often go visit them to get to know the place that I live or the spot that I’m visiting or maybe just to get to know myself a little better.

Today, since it was raining and I had the day off of work, I took a trip down to the Pope County Museum in Glenwood Minnesota. It’s a great little museum. I would encourage folks traveling through the region and those who live here to stop in. It had one of the best displays on Native American history that I’ve seen in a museum of its size. True, I’ve seen some really inaccurate and just plain awful displays of Native history, but this one, it was okay. Overall, the museum was quite good, and, as far as I can tell, accurate.

As I wander, generally aimlessly, through museums and historic sites my mind comes to think of time. I come to understand connections and recognize how huge and small things are at the same time. Today, in the Pope County Museum, I studied a simple display. It was a timeline from the founding of Glenwood through the present. It laid out what seemed to be a rather random collection of historical events at national and local levels. Looking at it got me thinking again how short time really is.

Glenwood was founded in 1866. My great grandparents were just children then. My grandparents would be coming along in a few decades. Three of those grandparents would pass on before I was born, but one I knew. Grandma Mondloch was born in 1900 and would live until 1984. She passed on just after I turned 13.

I looked at that timeline just as I’ve looked at many historic sites. I looked at it thinking in Grandma time, looking at how the world has changed in a lifetime that I knew and still know. It’s not a story in a history book. It is life.

Grandma was the third generation of her family in this country. She grew up with her native language. I remember my Aunt Lucille telling me once how she’d been angry that, as kids, they spoke Luxembourgish at home and that it was tough to learn English as a school kid. Four generations, it took four generations to lose a language. Now, we expect immigrants to give up their language, forget who they are not in generations, not even in years, but immediately on coming to this country. We do this while we still try to find ourselves in festivals and museums, German Fest, Luxembourg Fest, Irish Fest, whatever fest.

I kept wandering through the museum. I turned a corner and a small Nazi pennant caught my eye. It was part of a display of items soldiers had brought home from WWII. My family knew this war. I had several uncles who fought, and well, all families knew this war in one way or another.

Last year I went to Luxembourg. I saw memorial sites and visited museums. I also learned a little something about myself. I learned that my ancestry generations back was Jewish. My branch of my family had left behind that identity generations ago, but it gave me a different perspective on those concentration camps. Those concentration camps became the death places of unknown cousins, aunties, uncles. They left the history books and became real. I had an uncle, Uncle Clarence, who helped free the people in the camps at the end of WWII. I never heard him speak of it. I just learned it some years ago from a cousin. I don’t know if he knew, but he was freeing family.

I look at it now in the question of the detention camps in the US. Is it any different? I mean really, is it any different? Looking back, somewhere we are family. We are detaining our brothers, sisters, cousins. We don’t have that right. We who carry European blood, this isn’t our land. We are, once again, imprisoning those who come from this place based on silly lines we drew on a piece of paper and called a map. The map isn’t real. It’s our lines. The lines we’ve drawn. Why do we keep drawing lines? It didn’t work when we held the Japanese in detention centers or when the Germans put Jews and others into the concentration camps or when we held Native peoples in stockades or for that matter as we still hold Native peoples on reservations or Black people in ghettos.

Stop with the lines, stop with the pretending that maps are reality. History is short. It’s not too big to change. All we need to do is to listen to the stories, learn, and act. Take a trip. Check out a museum, a historic site, maybe sit with an elder. Whatever it is, come to know yourself, where you are. Reach for knowledge. We have a lot to do.



Halfway Through Week One

· Leave a comment ·

This experience has me baffled at the moment. I weighed myself this afternoon and the scale read the highest that it has in more than a year. I hope that it means that the batteries are dying in my scale.

Today was a low calorie day. I did well today with my fruits and vegetables intake. I hit nine cups! Strawberries, mango, banana, rhubarb, asparagus, mixed greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, and a bit of hummus. The hot weather helped. I didn’t want to cook so smoothies, yogurt and fruit, fresh vegetables and hummus were all good options for the day.

I suspect that at some point I will start to see weight loss. But, I wonder when? It is a strange thing that my weight is up rather than stable or down. I think I need to do some more reading to better understand what is happening.

I feel good though. It’s been a quiet couple of days without a whole lot going on and sometimes being so quiet can get me feeling down. I noticed today that I didn’t feel that. I just felt quiet, but not melancholy. I don’t know if my eating over the past few days has impacted my emotions, but I can hope that it has.

Now, I suppose might be a good time to put some thought into my grocery list for the weekend.

And oh, for those who’ve been following this journey, I waited for morning to have the berries and yogurt. I recognized last night that I was just wanting to eat for entertainment and not to assuage my hunger. I decide to find other ways to entertain myself.

Day 3

· Leave a comment ·

Still high on the calories, that, I will admit, was due to a trip to Pizza Ranch though. The good news though on my pizza indulgence was that it included a large salad and a little less pizza then previous trips. I don’t know how much that matters given that their salads are made with spinach that is probably well sprayed with chemicals throughout its growth and nuts that are glazed with sugar. But still, it tells me that it is possible to have a meal out that is mainly reasonably healthy food and still enjoy it.

I didn’t hit the full nine cups of fruits and vegetables today, but I am within my goal of six to nine cups with roughly six cups. Given that most Americans are eating less than two cups of fruits and vegetables a day, I feel quite good about that. Plus, I am still considering a bowl of freshly picked strawberries with some yogurt. It feels a bit late and I am well over the calories for the day, but I just went to the U-Pick this afternoon and came home with just over twelve pounds of berries. It seems a shame not to eat some right away. Doesn’t it? Hmmm…..

2 Days In

· Leave a comment ·

Day 2 of the 78 day challenge was a hungry one, but I am happy to say that I didn’t slide into the world of pizza and I did well with getting about nine cups of fruits and vegetables.

A purist in this journey toward better health might say that I’m depending too much on berries and bananas. But I’m going to say that in the world of sweets that some berries and bananas with a bit of cream and some sugar-free chocolate chips is a pretty good healthy option and I’m willing to go with it if it means that I’m not eating cake and ice cream.

For dinner I treated myself to dinner out at Mi Mexico. So, my calories were high for today. Still with a vegetarian option, I was able to keep on track with my vegetable intake goals. My protein, which is typically low, was also right on target. I’m hoping that this means tomorrow will not be a hungry day.

Feeling good. I am already not as tired as I was a week ago. I suppose, at this point, it’s mere coincidence, but we’ll see how it continues. I am hopeful that my health will continue to improve.

Day 1 of the Challenge

· Leave a comment ·

I took a nap yesterday after writing my post, declaring my intent with the 78 day challenge to increase my fruit and vegetable intake, lower my carbohydrates, and just generally improve my health and lower my weight. I woke with one thought in my mind– “What the heck was I thinking???”

Well, the dice were tossed, so I am here to play the game. Today was a good start. It began with a smoothie. A cup of greens, one of mixed berries, and one of rhubarb with a bit of almond milk and maple syrup to sweeten and a few pecans on the side. It was surprisingly tasty. I had wondered if the rhubarb might be overpowering, but it worked well.

Breakfast was followed by a visit to my dietitian to follow up on earlier discussions on how to improve my diet so that I might become less dependent on my epilepsy medication and reach my goal weight as well. She added a few ideas that may prove helpful, encouraging me to work on my meal planning and move away from red meats in favor of more fish, among other things. There wasn’t a lot new there, but it was good nonetheless.

Lunch was simple, just some homemade tomato soup with a little cheese thrown in and some broccoli and hummus.

Dinner was the most complex meal of the day. Broiled walleye with a side of leftover mashed cauliflower and another of yam chips. Dessert was mixed berries with banana and sugar-free chocolate chips covered with just a bit of maple syrup and some whipping cream.

A quick review of the numbers told me that my carbs were still at 174 for the day. My goal is 100. I could get much closer by taking out syrup, raisins, and sugar-free chocolate chips. Taking out the yams would have put me well within range. I have to ask myself though what is most important to me? Is it that carbohydrate goal or enjoying a little bit of sweets? I don’t know. I do know that my carbohydrate levels must have been simply out of control before I started down this path a few years ago and that a keto diet sounds painful!

Still, it was a good start and I am happy with how I did.

The 78 Day Challenge

· Leave a comment ·

Probably about fifteen years ago or so I started having headaches, bad headaches. At their worst they’d cause me to black out and cause nausea and exhaustion for days. Then about six years ago a housemate discovered me having a seizure. The seizures continued and I finally had a diagnosis. I had epilepsy.

While after a couple of tries my neurologist and I found a medication that dealt with the seizures and my headaches were largely gone with only a very rare occurrence. There were a couple of problems though. My medication causes brain fog. High doses make even simple tasks like spelling a big challenge and short and long term memory became an issue. Another problem was simply that I don’t like taking medicine and don’t want to take it for the rest of my life.

So, about two years ago I decided to embark on another path. I had my foods tested. The testing came up with nine food sensitivities. I leapt in taking my allergens out of my diet and starting to heal my gut. The results were great! I had been obese when I was first diagnosed. Upon changing my diet the weight started to come off. Ultimately, I lost about 50lbs and got to a reasonable weight. Adding in CBD oil over the past six months, I’ve been able to cut my zonisamide use by more than half and stay seizure free.

I’m still taking medication though and after two years of my diet changes I find myself slipping more lately and going to some of those bad for me foods. Pizza is a big one for me. Too many carbohydrates and too much dairy in general. I’ve added back a few of the pounds I lost and I’m noticing a bit fatigue lately.

It seems time to up the game again and I’ve realized that I need a form of accountability. That’s the 78 day challenge. My next neurologist appointment is in 78 days. I want to take some significant steps toward healing my brain and making my body more healthy before that visit.

I’ve been listening to Dr. Terry Wahls recently and am intrigued by her work, particularly by the idea of eating nine cups of vegetables a day. I’m intrigued because that’s a lot of food and I admit it, I like to eat. It’s also a way of looking at diet as a gift. So much of our food consumption is based on denial. I want to eat a diet that encourages me to take in a variety of delicious foods that treat me well.

Over the next 78 days I want to aim for that nine cups of vegetables a day, limit my bad carbs and dairy consumption, and increase my good fats and turn to healthy proteins. I am aiming to lose that last 25 lbs, get rid of that fatigue, and get a positive report from my neurologist.

I am hoping that you’ll join me on this journey. I’ll be updating here 3-7 times a week to let you know how it’s going. I would love to hear about what you are doing to care for yourself too!