Winter Days of Fruitrition 1b/7- Healing Journey Day 64

Journal:
I debated on how to title this post because it was a weird day. Technically, the snack on Day 3 of the Summer Days of Fruitrition was a punnet or more of strawberries, and that’s what I used for my breakfast this morning. I woke up later than planned and had to rush to get ready for church. I chose strawberries because they took the least amount of prep (just washing and going) and I was able to eat them on the way.

I ended up staying for the meal after church and honestly, I was proud of myself. The meal was haystacks. For those of you who don’t know, haystacks are where you start with corn chips, then add beans/chilli and cheese, all kinds of chopped up veggies, and then finish with your sauces, typically including sour cream, salsa, guacamole and ranch (though ketchup seems to be a favourite too). For the first time EVER, I did not get chips! I had no craving for them. My body could feel the high salt and fat from looking at them and I was so pleased with myself. Now, I didn’t avoid all of the cooked foods because I did have a little vegan chilli, and there was a potato/carrot cheese sauce that I really wanted to try (just like nacho cheese people!!), but the bulk of what I ate was the veggies. Man, I have changed from how I used to eat!

After coming home, I decided I needed to just go along and finish my winter day from yesterday, hence the 1b in the title. I missed the snack of persimmons blended with dates and because I didn’t eat all of the persimmons I was supposed to eat in the mono meal, I had a lot of persimmons left to consume. So I got out my beautiful new Vitamix (I am so in love with this thing!) and blended up the rest of the persimmons with some dates. Friends, it came out the EXACT consistency of pudding. I was honestly amazed. I didn’t put any spices in it, yet it reminded me of pumpkin pie filling. So good. I highly recommend!

It took me forever to eat all of this pudding. It honestly did. And at one point, I started feeling really weird, like my food was sitting in my chest. Bad food combining, bad food combining, bad food combining. It actually scared me enough that I had to put the food away for awhile and start walking around to help it go down. I really need to straighten myself up.

Because I still was hungry at my normal evening time, I did make some rice. Simple, low fat food, but not good. Now, I didn’t go to bed until 2:30/3:00 in the morning and was super tired so decision-making was not my strong point. However, the reason why I was up so late was super exciting! My family is willing to try going vegan for a month!!! I’m so pumped!!! I think it all started from my brother, but my family has a host of health problems and I’m so excited for them to see how amazing being vegan is. So I stayed up late making them a first week’s menu. We’ll see how it goes, but I tried to use easier recipes that were cheaper to make and easy to take as leftovers for lunch the next day. I’m hoping it goes well!

Tonight, I watched a few documentaries as I was working on this menu. I watched “Food, Inc.” and “Vegucated.” Vegucated was just an awesome documentary showing the journey of people from different walks of life going vegan and learning along the way. The transitions were amazing and what they learned was life-affecting. But “Food, Inc.” blew me away. The amount of corruption there is in the big food industries is deplorable. I just kept shaking my head throughout the whole movie, disturbed at how people think the whole time. Please educate yourself by watching that documentary. This world hides a lot of things from us, but there are people out there who are willing to suffer to bring us the information. Don’t let their efforts be in vain but instead watch so you’ll know.

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is still bad.
-Stomach pains in the morning from cooked food.
-Stayed up way too late, but for a good cause.
-Hair is… well, I’m not happy with it. Must be the change in foods.

Weight at the end of the day = 167.4 (down 1.6 lbs from yesterday)

Total Calories = 1571 (82% carbs, 11% fat, 7% protein… didn’t eat so much today…)

I Was Invited Over… – Healing Journey Day 35

Journal:
It felt so nice to sleep in today. I was actually surprised how late I slept in, but did not regret it at all. Since I only have one of my dogs living with me at the moment, I’ve been letting him sleep on the bed with me and every morning, I wake up to him laying directly beside me, head on the pillow and everything! He’s such a cuddle bug. I love him.

So, today was pretty much another write-off day. I had been invited over for supper to a colleague’s house and because I’m only eating fruit at the moment, I knew that there wouldn’t be anything there for me to eat in the way of fruit. However, I did find out they were having haystacks which meant there would be veggies.

If you don’t know what haystacks are, they are a build-your-own dish. You start with some type of chips (usually corn chips) then put beans or chilli on top of the chips, usually some type of cheese on top of the beans, then top with all your favourite veggies (cucumber, tomatoes, olives, lettuce, onions, etc…). The final topping is your sauce and depending on who you are, you may put ranch, sour cream, salsa, guacamole, ketchup, etc. There are many, many different combinations you can do and it is all up to your preference.

For breakfast, I got out my new, electric orange juicer that my husband bought for me. I only had three oranges, but it was enough to make me fall in love with this electric machine. No more hand-grinding for me! Along with the orange juice, I mixed in some organic blueberry juice. Oh my goodness! I wish I could tell you how good it was. It was… a dream. I could have drank that all day! Next time, I need more oranges!

Following my little breakfast, I washed up the dishes, folded a load of laundry, got ready and went to the gym. We were having a bit of a snowstorm and I found out later that between the hours of 11:00 and 4:00, there were 157 accidents in the city. I’m thankful to say that though I saw one accident and watched a truck and trailer slide into the curb and bounce off of it, I was safe and was not a part of that statistic. It was a bit of a mess on the roads.

At the gym, I had a really good workout. I did some squats, chest press, hammer curls, pullovers, EZ-Curl bar bench press, and 3 ab exercises. I then finished up with 30 minutes on the elliptical. I came out of that gym sore and tired but feeling accomplished.

After I got home, I decided that I should use up some of the vegetables that are going ripe too fast since I’m already not going to be eating all fruit later. If I’m going to break my plan, then it needs to be within the same day so I’m not breaking my plan every day.

For a late lunch, I washed and chopped up a whole head of butter leaf lettuce. I then sliced up half of an English cucumber to put in it. I cut up two Roma tomatoes and threw them in. I took a whole head of broccoli, chopped it up and put it in. I also had some raw, fermented beets and their greens in my fridge so I put a couple tablespoons of that in. I then mashed a whole avocado, a tablespoon of raw sesame tahini, some lemon juice and a bit of garlic powder in a bowl to use as the dressing. Though the first few bites were good, it quickly got very bland. I then remembered the BeeFree Honee I had downstairs (honey made from apples, no bees required to do the work). I put a splash of that in and it was ok, but still didn’t do the trick. So I did a dangerous thing (out of control) and found some organic, green sriracha that I put in as well as some Earth Island ranch that I had. It did make it a bit better, but honestly, I shouldn’t have put all that in. I simply sat, looking at my salad, and thinking of how much fat was in this salad. This was definitely not at the same macro levels that I normally eat at and it was honestly making me nervous.

I tried my best to eat the whole salad, but I just couldn’t do it. It was more volume than I’m used to, not to mention all the fat that was in it. Before I hit the stage where I eat fruit all day and a supper salad, I need to figure out how to make a good, raw, fruit and veggies only dressing.

After I ate, I had to quickly shower and get ready to go. By this time, it had stopped snowing and the temperature was half a degree above zero celsius meaning that things were a little slushy and not frozen, so driving was relatively safe.

We honestly had an awesome night at my colleague’s. It was a night of relaxation and laughter.

I made myself a small haystack because I was still a little full from the salad. I used only a few of the small, round, Tostito corn chips (I didn’t want that nasty over-salted feeling again), some vegan chilli, some soy cheese that my hostess had bought just for me (if it wasn’t just for me, I would have left this off to be honest), tomatoes, lettuce, corn, an olive, cucumber, pickles, and salsa. I know it sounds like a lot, but when you consider that I’m only putting about a tablespoon of each topping on the half cup of chilli that I ate, it actually wasn’t that much. Needless to say, I was STUFFED.

When we finally came home, I didn’t do much but go to bed. I was really hoping my digestion would kick in, but it didn’t. It takes so much longer to digest cooked foods – particularly processed foods – than it does the fresh fruits and vegetables. I was almost sure, with all the fat I ate today, that I would be up another 8 pounds like that one day I went up 8 pounds from eating cooked foods. However, I was ecstatic to find what I stated below. To find out how much this day set me back, keep scrolling down!

Review of Symptoms:
-Tongue is clear. 🙂
-Acne still bad; almost thinking it’s worse today.
-First day in a long time feeling stuffed.
-Digestion is delayed… a cooked food/processed food result.
-Hair is not so greasy (will try to explain this finally tomorrow).
-Noticed that my thighs have shrunk A LOT! I was getting to the point I hated my legs and didn’t even want my husband to see them. I couldn’t even look in a mirror with shorts on in the summer or I would take them back off. Now? I am LOVING my legs again! Eating naturally has made such a difference!

Weight at the end of the day = 172.2 lbs (only up one pound from yesterday!!!)

Total Calories = 2051 (58% carbs, 36% fat, 6% protein… way too much fat!)

Salt Burn

Ok, so this is seriously the weirdest thing I’ve ever encountered.

I eat and have always ate a lot of Tostitos. Whether making nachos, dipping in salsa or guacamole, or whatever, I love Tostitos. Now of course, I’ve been buying more organic versions of corn chips. But while I was in New Brunswick, organic options were much fewer and far between so I ate the regular Tostitos again.

No word of a joke, they burnt my lips.

At first I thought it was the brand of salsa my mom bought, but on a different night when I only had 4 Tostitos with a different, more mild salsa, my lips still felt burnt! In fact, both nights I had Tostitos, my lips continued to hurt and swell the next day.

Have you ever heard of this before? Do you have any experience? Please leave any insights you may have in the comments below because quite honestly, I have NEVER heard of nor experienced anything like this before!