Now That I’ve Got It – A Typical Vegan Day

As many of you know, my original transition to a vegan lifestyle was a little rocky at first. I wasn’t always consistent, I had a few trips that made eating vegan very difficult, and I definitely had some struggles sticking to my Raw Till 4 principles. However, the time has come where I can honestly say I’ve been successfully following a vegan lifestyle and eating on point with the RawTill4 principles for the past couple weeks. Can I just say I’m in love?

(Check out this post to see all the positive things I have to say so far:) Success of Going Vegan (Approx. 2 Weeks Solid)

So here is what I eat in a typical day for those that are wondering.

Waking Up: Water. Get the hydration started.

Breakfast: Watermelon (a whole one), or pulpy pure Orange Juice (about 2-2.5L), or 1 Honeydew, or 1 Cantaloupe, or 6-8 Banana Smoothie (bananas, water, coconut sugar)

Lunch: Banana Smoothie (bananas, water, coconut sugar), or Freelee’s Datorade (20 dates or more blended with water and coconut sugar until milky consistency), or Apples (like 8-10), or Pears (like 8-10), or Stone Fruit (peaches, plums, apricots, etc… eat lots!), or DragonFruit (a few), or Mango (8-10)

Supper: This one varies because it’s cooked! If I’m going out, vegan pizza, vegan burritos, vegan burrito bowls, vegan Indian food (love it!), vegan burger, or this awesome stir fry place we have called Mongolie Grill where you load up a bowl as much as you want from the stir fry bar (veggies galore!), and they do it up on a large open grill, served with your choice of rice or noodles (I always pick coconut rice). If I’m eating in, tonnes of potatoes with lettuce and sweet chilli sauce, or rice and seaweed, or pasta with low sodium pasta sauce.

Snacks: Dates, or bananas, or any fruit I have (strawberries, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, etc…)

Honestly, I’ve never felt so satisfied! I eat as much of the item as I want. The key is that I try not to combine my breakfast and lunch meals (eat multiples of the same fruit), I keep my melons to the morning, and I don’t drink with my meals (or at least I’m 97% at doing this). It’s all about the rate of digestion. Look it up and try it out!

Day 15

I felt much better today. I definitely slept better last night!

I didn’t eat anything until after our assembly this morning. I had an organic vegan chocolate coconut granola bar. I am so addicted to them! They are so delicious!

For a snack, I tried these different variations of oranges. They were quite possibly the juiciest oranges I have ever had, but they were almost flavourless, like bursting pods of water. I was not impressed. I waited awhile and then had a coconut cream Larabar.

At lunch, I ate 3 organic bananas. I don’t know if I could ever get sick of bananas.

While running a couple errands after work, I stopped and got a veggie burrito and tater tots. I was craving those tater tots pretty badly actually. I gotta stop craving grease! But on the flip side, I was thinking heavily of burgers and ice cream. Oh some habits die hard! So in a way, my meal was a mental success. I also had my last chocolate coconut granola bar. I told you, they are good!

We were supposed to go to the gym tonight, but that just didn’t happen. I did eat some organic blue corn chips with some salsa and some nutritional yeast flakes sprinkled on top.

Day 13

This morning was a bit of a better morning, at least as far as food choices. I don’t even want to get into my lack of sleep.

I woke up and had water first thing (I’m getting better at water at least!). I then waited 20-30 minutes, and had a banana, 4 medjool dates, and some veggies chips. A bit later, I had some organic limeade and my vitamins.

We had to leave the house to get my husband another dress shirt for work. So naturally, we got hungry while we were out, and ate. I had a veggie burrito and tater tots (not the best, but one of the better alternatives). We kept shopping a little more, then grabbed stuff for the way home. My husband got a Pineapple Whey smoothie, and I got a fresh juice made form kale, apples, carrots, and pineapple. The girl went heavy on the kale, but that is a good thing. I could use the extra greens.

Both my husband and I have felt awfully tired today. So we took a bit of a nap before we had to make arrangements to meet with my dad. On the way to meet with him, we did a quick gas station stop. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but my stomach feels bloated and full! Almost like my digestion is at a stall. At the gas station, I picked up a candy bar (sometimes the excess sugar helps my digestion keep going), and an aloe drink. The bar actually did help soothe my stomach a little. I’m not really sure how this works. And the aloe was soothing and hydrating of course.

I didn’t eat much else today, but before bed, I had 3 pieces of Silver Hills Squirrely bread. Two with an avocado, cucumber, lemon juice and a dash of salt and pepper, the third piece with peach jam made with xylitol. I am thinking this was a little too heavy to eat before bed.

Week 11 Day 4

God knew I’d need my car this morning. He knew my husband needed it to work last night. Because for the first time ever, my husband got called into work very early and I had to drive myself. The best part was, I was up so early so he could drop me off as per normal that I had time to eat, and take my time getting ready. I can’t lie, it was actually kind of nice!

Work went well today. It was busy, but everything seemed to be good. It was after school when things got crazy.

We had our second after-school tutoring session today and it seemed like a bigger mess to me this time than it did the first time. My head was swimming with names, grades and subjects trying to match up the tutors and tutees, and trying to make sure that everyone had someone to help them. We also had a few problems arise that we now have to address, but hopefully everything will run smoothly once those problems are dealt with.

When the students left, my room was a mess. Papers and pencils were everywhere, chairs all out of place, bins of books knocked over; it looked like a tornado had come through! I had to take a few minutes to clean it before I even decided to go home without any other school work. My mind couldn’t handle it tonight.

I got home (late) and expected to go to the gym right away. However, my husband was sleeping and did not wake up easily. In fact, we did not end up going to the gym until 2:30 in the morning! I know, we’re crazy; dedicated, but crazy.

I had a leg workout today and it didn’t quite start out the way I wanted. I had worked my squats back up to 95 lbs, even though it’s still a struggle. My form just is not right. But I’m tired of fighting my form and not being able to raise my weight.

Tonight was different because my husband came over to watch and give me constructive criticism. My form is terrible. I did more squats than normal, changing my foot placement, changing the placement of the bar on my back and shoulders, and making tons of different modifications to see what would help. It was more squats than I wanted to do, and we didn’t figure out the solution to my problem. But it was nice to work with my husband again, and more squats can never hurt… right?

The rest of the workout went well though it drained every ounce of energy I had. Between leg curls (prone and seated), leg extensions, leg press, bench jumps, calf raises (both seated and standing), plus several other exercises, you can bet I was walking funny by the end and knew the pain would be coming soon. It was a tiresome workout, but a good one.

I doubt I’ll go to sleep since we’re leaving the gym at 5, but we’ll just have to see what happens. One thing I know for sure is I’m leaving the gym STARVING and will be eating before I sit down at home. I have to feed this tired, muscle growing (I hope) body.

Week 5 Day 3

What a way to wake up this morning – sore as could be! My quads hurt. My glutes hurt. My back muscles were tight. Oh boy! But I knew it was for a good reason, and for that I smiled.

Today was the kind of day where I thought everything was going superb, but it ended up being not quite what I thought. I felt so good doing laundry, taking care of the animals, got some grading done, as well as some computer work. While I’m in the full work mode, I began to notice the time go a little quicker. In fact, it went way too quick and I all of a sudden was in a rush to get ready for work. In fact, it was so much of a rush, I didn’t realize until 2 minutes before I had to leave that today was picture retakes day. Oh no… I was supposed to get retakes done today. So I did the best I could in two minutes (mainly changed my top and tried to fix my hair) and ran out the door.

The rest of the day went pretty good, minus a student doing something utterly ridiculous. But honestly today was a good teaching day. I was quite satisfied with it.

After work, I had a dentist consultation. I had been moulded for Invisalign, and this was my consultation to see how long it would take, how much it would cost, etc. I think it’s almost always safe to say that it’s going to be more than what I would like to pay, but they are honestly treating me so well, charging me for the minimum and taking some discounts out. I’m going ahead with it. It’ll start in November and will take 10 months. Have you ever seen the technology they have to figure these things out? It’s incredible! I got to watch my teeth’s movements and progress ahead of time for the whole ten months! Check it out sometime. It’s amazing.

After that, I came home. I spent some time talking with my husband until he was too hungry to talk. He needed food and decided to go out.

Now here’s a tip if you want to go with a person but you don’t want to get off track. Look up the nutrition for the menu before you go AND eat something! I grabbed a banana knowing I’d need to eat one later so might as well fill myself some with it now.

At the restaurant I had a side garden salad with a chicken breast. I also had already assessed my macros and found I had just enough room for a tiny sundae! Oh how that made me happy. This was definitely my treat for the week and it fit right in my macros!

Following the restaurant, we came home and got ready for the gym. I was so sore that I debated whether I should actually go or not, but decided since I had already eaten my banana (a workout food, not eaten on non-workout days) then I needed to go. So I did 25 minutes of steady state cardio on the recumbent bike and rolled a lot afterwards.

Now for the exciting part, pictures of my meals for the day!

Meal 1

Chicken and egg burrito. Absolutely delicious!

Meal 2

Never had one of these before! So good!

A sneak peak of what they look like. So much different than normal!

Meal 3

Super filling! Rice/quinoa dish with broccoli and chicken. I think I may have over microwaved the chicken… it got a little dry!

Meal 4

(Oops… I may have eaten this one too. I have to get better at this picture taking business! This meal was homemade hummus with rice crackers, celery and carrots.)

Meal 5

Greek and Chicken Chop Salad. Yum!

Week 2 Day 1

Today was an incredibly busy day. My husband and I had to get ready, get our four dogs ready, and make a couple stops before driving the 45 minutes to make it to a softball tournament hosted as a fundraiser for my school. We spent most of the 2 hours we were there monitoring kids as they loved our dogs and wanted to walk them and play with them. Thankfully, our dogs love attention and love kids so for the most part this went well (except the kid that starting trying to empty his water bottle on my dog… I was not happy).

I managed to pack some already cooked rice that I had set aside and a package of beef jerky to take with me. Lesson learned: cold rice is awful! But do what you can to eat healthy.

We left the tournament and dropped by our house to leave three of them at home. We took the fourth (Jewel) to her grooming appointment.

While she was being groomed, we went to Home Depot looking at tools, and then to H&W Produce to pick up some veggies.

After we picked Jewel up, we brought her back home with the others.

We then headed to the other side of the city to go to Shoppers Drug Mart, then ate at the Mongolie Grill. We chose this restaurant because it is very macro friendly. It’s basically a salad bar but for stir fry. You pick and choose what you want for veggies, proteins, sauces, etc… and they grill it up for you. Easy way to get in good food while you’re out.

Our final stop after the Mongolie Grill was Wal-Mart for some groceries.

It was a hectic, busy day but I managed to eat on track and succeeded in accomplishing a lot today. By the time I was done my workout (hard workout, 7 exercises in circuit format, pushed really hard with a little Olympia motivation) I felt so sick. Sick enough that I didn’t know whether my body wanted to vomit/sleep or what it wanted; sick enough that my husband almost made me pull over and let him drive the 5 minutes home. I was in rough shape.

Even though I felt so awful, I got it done and to me that is what matters. Can’t be successful if you don’t do the work!

Celebrate Your Successes!

I’ve been working out fairly seriously for about 2 years. It actually has probably been 3 years, but there were periods of time where I took breaks (later regretted). In those two years, I have changed my view on so many things.

At first, I just wanted to be thin and worked out in so specific routine, but whatever I felt like for the day.

My next phase involved my husband introducing me to structured workouts. This was a bit of a battle at first, but I came to appreciate and realize the potential of structured workouts. This is the stage I also realized that I could not even bench press the 45-lb bar! I honestly couldn’t do it!

The next phase involved my diet and changing what I ate. I was still in the mindset of not wanting to look muscle-y but wanting to be thin. There were a few arguments involved in this stage as well and I’ve “wobbled” on this a few times.

After that phase, I think it finally became serious. I no longer thought that having some muscle was anti-feminine. In fact, I’ve grown to love the look. I would never compete in women’s bodybuliding as that is not the amount of muscle I would be comfortable in. But a shapely body with muscle is very beautiful on a women, and that’s been a total mind-change.

I had a 2-month phase where I was actually tired of working out. I had a rough year and just wanted to have a break from everything (except my marriage). I was on vacation, didn’t want to be so structured, and totally rebelled. This of course led to some awful weight gain and I kicked myself about it for a long time after.

But after that 2-month period, I’ve been in my final phase, and that is dedication. I’m dedicated to my workouts because I want them. I’m dedicated to eating clean and fitting my macros because I want to. Nobody is forcing me to do it. It’s all me and I love it. I have goals, I have an ideal body look, and I’m going to continue to fight day after day to get there!

When I look at how far I’ve come, it’s incredible. I’m nowhere near my end, quite close to the beginning. But the funny thing that I realized tonight was my success with that bench press. You see, I mentioned I couldn’t lift the bar because when I started, I honestly couldn’t. I was so much weaker than I thought. Tonight I was able to bench press 70 lbs for 5 sets without help. I hope to bench press much more than this, but just the fact that I’ve not only become strong enough to lift the bar but to go above and beyond that is something to celebrate.

Celebrate the successes. Make the successes and progress your own. Don’t do it for someone else, do it for yourself. When you want it, and you own it, you will do that much better.

Date Night… It Has Been Awhile

Tonight I set the time aside, finally. My husband and I sometimes go out, but it’s always a spur of the moment thing and never a planned date. I’ve kind of missed that part of the pre-marriage state where we would sometimes have planned dates. Just because we’re married doesn’t mean we still can’t do that! Keep the marriage fun, keep it alive, go on those old-school dates!

Tonight we decided to do that. We both took showers and got ready this afternoon, picked out different clothes than I would wear normally. I put on his favourite pair of jeans that I own (still fit me for now… getting those fit girl jean problems), and a nice shirt, did my hair nice, make-up done right.

We headed to the mall. The best part about this whole thing was that we were not stressed, had no time restraints, just us and the night! So our first stop in the mall was to get his hair cut, something he’s been talking about for awhile. His hair got cut, he was looking all spiffy, and we began the shopping. Now the funny thing is, out of the ENTIRE mall, the only thing we (or I should say I) ended up buying was a tub of discontinued Syntha-6 protein (Caramel Latte, totally the best) and a chocolate chip cookie dough Quest bar. Ha! Can’t escape the good tasting healthy lifestyle!

After some shopping, we went to Famoso. Famoso is not on the healthy lifestyle menu, but it was the first official date night, and a cheat meal every once in awhile is ok. The more you stress about food, the worse your body does it, so we decided to just have some fun!

If you’ve never been to a Famoso before, it is a classic Italian pizzeria! That thin crust with Italian toppings cooked in a fire oven. It’s delicious and amazing. You literally can order your food and get it in 5 minutes. So my husband ordered a Quattro Formaggi pizza and I got the BBQ Chicken (get in that protein). The pizza was delicious as always, and you can get cheaper movie tickets with your pizza (we wanted to go to a movie after). Not the waiter who alone was doing an excellent job serving us, but the manager came over a few times to check on our food and to make sure it was ok and cooked well. On his last trip to our table, he told us that he would give us each a scoop of gelato on him. There wasn’t even a single mistake with our order or anything. I’m not quite sure what singled us out, but this guy was definitely going above and beyond his call of duty. And so I indulged a little more than usual and had one scoop of salted caramel gelato. It was delish!

After sincerely thanking the manager, we left and walked some more of the mall. Stopping in my favourite places: Chapters, pet stores, supplement stores. Then we went to the theatre, got tickets to see the new Captain America, and went and sat waiting for the movie for an hour and half. We definitely were there too early, but got awesome seats considering the theatre was pretty much sold out. So in the end, I could probably say it was worth it to wait so long.

The movie was very good, very well written and put together. If you like the superhero type of movies, then this movie is highly recommended for you! We both left happy and satisfied with the movie. If you do go see it, don’t leave when the credits start. There is a substantial after-movie scene that happens with a huge tip towards what I’m assuming will be the next Captain America movie. Quite a few people got up and left when the credits started and missed it, so I’m warning you now. Don’t miss it!

Now we’ve driven home on mostly empty streets. We’re home, safe and sound. It was such a nice evening, just a way to relax and enjoy ourselves before getting ready to head back into a work week. Date night was such a good idea. If you haven’t been on a date in awhile, take a look at your schedule and set aside a night. You deserve it, your husband/wife deserves it. Instead of being a burden on your time, it will actually make you happier and more efficient at life. Try it out! And if you can, take your date to the extreme. Dress up. Have flowers. Have him open the door for you. Do all of those little things that may not happen everyday. Take a time to just love spending time with each other, and watch your love continue to grow.

Crazy Gym Story #1: I Guess I’m Invisible?

So normally I have amazing times at the gym. Other than being too busy sometimes and having to wait FOREVER for the machine or weights that I need, I have never had a problem at the gym. But last night? I don’t know what was going on!

I was doing bench press. Even during my rests, I was sitting on the bench. I never got up once. And what happens? Well, two things.

#1: Keep in mind, my husband is standing behind me to spot me. A guy comes over and starts unloading one side of my bar! The very bar I was using! My husband was like.. “Um, excuse me? We’re here, we’re still using it.” The worst part? The guy looked like it was no big deal, but put my stuff back on.

#2: Seriously like a minute or two after, the guy on the bench press on the other side of us takes weight off of his bar and puts it on mine! I had a clip on my bar to hold my plates in, and he just threw the weight on. So again, my husband touches his shoulder and gives him this “Are you crazy?” look. Then has to say to him, “Um… we’re here. We’re using this bar.” And this guy at least was apologetic.

But seriously?! I began to wonder if I’m invisible. Of course I say this while laughing now. But what a crazy night at the gym!

Do you have any crazy gym stories? I’d love to here them! Comment below!