Rawsome Healthy Day 3/5 – Healing Journey Day 54

Journal:
I wasn’t as prepared for today as I wanted to be. I was exhausted, my stomach was hurting a lot from having junk food two days in a row, I didn’t sleep very much because I had so much to do, and I didn’t even prep my grapes for today. However, after reviewing the whole diet plan again, I decided the best place to start again was with the grapes breakfast because the only two breakfasts that are left include persimmons (of which mine are not ripe yet), or a smoothie of which I had no time to blend. So I chose to do Day 1 today, packed some grapes, spinach and bananas, and went off to school.

I got to eat breakfast around 10:00 am as my students were outside at recess which gave me some time.

In the afternoon, I was not able to make my smoothie because our school kitchen is not set up for me to do so at the moment as a lot of people have been using it. So, this meant that I ate a banana instead to tide me over. It’s still on the meal plan, just whole instead of blended. It was a way better option than eating more junk again today. I am breaking away from the bad habits I’ve developed in the past few days. I hate feeling miserable. Raw foods are definitely the way to go.

After I got home, I had to quickly get set up because I had a webinar to watch. So, I took my dog outside for a bit, then came in and cut up some kiwis as that was the “pre-dinner” snack. I could have made my smoothie, but sorting through spinach would have taken way longer than just slicing up some kiwis. So that’s what I did. In fact, I didn’t make the smoothie all day.

Now, after the webinar, and perhaps even during the webinar, I fell asleep. I was so exhausted. I’m literally sleeping like 5 hours a night because I stay up working so much. I keep saying I need to balance things out, but the truth is I really do. Perhaps this weekend I’ll actually draw up a schedule for every day.

After I woke up from my nap, I immediately had a huge stomach cramp and had to run to the bathroom. Three times today this happened, and it has been painful. My stomach is finally in a full rebellion of the junk food I ate and is starting to cleanse itself. Hopefully this is short-lived and my body can do its job efficiently because I didn’t even go to the gym tonight in fear of being too far away from a bathroom for too long.

I didn’t feel like eating again for the longest time, but did end up making a salad before bed. However, the salad didn’t taste the greatest (it’s very hit and miss with the dressings), so I only ended up eating about half of it. But because my stomach was fairly empty, I was so hungry and couldn’t even go to bed without eating something else. So, off the meal plan but still predominately raw, I sliced up some banana, drizzled some apple honey (honey consistency but made from apple, no bees required), and put a few vegan chocolate chips. Now, I’m not sure what was wrong with my kiwis earlier, but they were very “zingy” and it left what almost felt like some stinging in my mouth which made the late night dessert not so good. Perhaps my kiwis were not fully ripe; I really don’t know. I don’t have any food allergies and have never reacted to kiwis before, but perhaps there is more to the story than I know.

Now, tomorrow is National Sandwich Day and it is a planned, off-course day. It will still be vegan with tons of raw veggies, but I am intrigued to see how my body reacts to bread. I do suspect that bread will help stop the immediate bathroom needs which would be nice while I’m at work since the staff only have one washroom to split amongst us all, but I’ve also heard people discover their gluten intolerance when trying gluten after so long of not eating it. So this will be an experiment to see how my body reacts. Then I’m back on course with the last two days of the Rawsome Healthy Diet Plan. I’m still trying to decide where I want to go after that, but stay tuned and you’ll find out.

Review of Symptoms:
-Stomach is in an all-out war, cleansing mode!
-Tired/exhausted
-Acne is the same.
-Hair is so soft, but still a little static-y.
-Muscles are finally less sore today. Aiming for the gym tomorrow.
-Tongue/mouth seemed to react a little to the kiwis (not swollen, just like a “sting”).
-Hungry

Weight at the end of the the day = 165.6 lbs (down 4.8 lbs from yesterday)

Total Calories = 2087 (83% carbs, 10% fat, 7% protein… good macro ratio!)

A Flying Smoothie Day – Healing Journey Day 28

Journal:
I gotta be honest guys, I didn’t sleep more than 30 minutes throughout the night. You know how you hit that point of tired where you aren’t really concentrating very well resulting in things taking twice as long to do? That was me, resulting in a delayed time even getting to bed. Oh well. I definitely made it to the airport on time.

So I didn’t get a chance to make a mango smoothie before I left, so in order to save the fruit that I still had at home, I had some work to do. For the mangoes, I simply put them in the fridge to slow down the ripening process hoping that they will make it until I get back. For the bananas, I peeled them, chunked them up, and put the in the freezer. Perhaps there shall be some banana nice cream in my future! But of course, since I didn’t have time to make a smoothie, that meant I had to find breakfast at the airport.

Now, I’ve traveled on the national side of the airport often, but I have not traveled on the international side more than once, and that one time was only flying back from the states so I didn’t even get to see what stores and restaurants were on the international side. I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Well, let me just start off by saying that travelling on a smoothie day is not the easiest thing to do. Of the 5 places that serve food on the international side, none made smoothies out of just fruit. But, good ol’ Starbucks had the Odwalla smoothies so I decided to take a look at them. Thankfully, the Mango Tango flavour only has fruit in it. No, Odwalla is not organic and yes it does have additives to help it last longer, but it seriously was the best option I had in this situation. It was either that, or the choice of water fasting today and I’m not feeling a water fast at the moment.

How much did a 450 mL bottle of Odwalla Mango Tango smoothie cost? Well, I bought two and it was over $10. I don’t typically spend this much on a meal, but I’m trying to be dedicated guys! So I did what I had to do. And to be honest, this smoothie actually tasted sweeter than I remembered so tastebud sensitivity is still there. I thoroughly enjoyed them.

I pretty much slept through my first flight. I guess my 20-30 minutes of sleep during the night wasn’t enough… (insert crying/laughing face here)! I had around 2 hours to sit at the second airport and actually found a place that makes all fruit smoothies! However, I have limited US funds on me, and I will be arriving at my final destination at lunch time, so I held off to get something with my husband.

Once I finally landed, I joined my husband and we both went to a juice/smoothie place. I got a what was called a Marathon smoothie which was made from orange juice, frozen bananas and frozen strawberries. It was ok. It actually was missing some flavour because the lady put ice cubes in with it, but I ate it regardless because it was the only smoothie place in town.

Now, later in the night, we wanted to eat again. My husband did not want another smoothie, but instead wanted real food. By the time he would have gotten food and gotten his dessert from the place he wanted, there would have been no time to drive over to the other side of the city to get another smoothie from the same place. And sadly, it was the only smoothie place in this city. So I was left with a decision: I could either continue on with my smoothie thing by drinking the “fake” smoothies  like I had in the morning (fake as in hardly any fibre and seeming more like a thick juice than a full smoothie), or postpone my smoothie days by another day and eat a cooked meal with my husband. Since I am not trying to do fake smoothie days, and didn’t really feel like I was totally completing a smoothie day while using pre-made smoothie drinks with additives in them as a primary source of food, I decided that after a month and a half of not seeing my husband, we could eat together.

My husband listed a bunch of places to go, so we compromised with the healthiest option: Genghis Grill. At Genghis Grill, you get to choose the size of stir fry you want as well as you get to choose what goes in your stir fry. Because I was thinking about how awful my stomach felt after the cooked food last night, I almost backed out of eating there as we went in. But I decided to give it a go and ordered the smallest size I could. I put in mostly veggies and fruit (spinach, bean sprouts, broccoli, pineapple, clementines, baby corn) as well as a tiny bit of tofu. I had it served with some steamed rice and a bit of sweet and sour sauce on top. It tasted pretty good, though I must say, it was way sweeter than I had every remembered it being. The tastebuds are still in full effect.

After supper, we decided to go shopping for some fruit so I can make smoothies the rest of the weekend when we go home. While shopping in Sprouts, I found something I had never seen yet! I saw Let Thy Food’s Chile Con Queso! It’s a vegan chile con queso or Mexican cheese dip. I was actually going to save it and take it back home with me to wait for the day that I can eat stuff like that again, but instead of waiting, my husband and I decided to eat it tonight as a snack. To be honest, it’s been nice to have a date night with my husband and to do things with him again.

If you’re eating junk foods, I highly recommend this cheese sauce. It is so good with a kick. But of course, more than anything, this means I’m back 100% for the next 3 days. I don’t have a scale, but I can guarantee I went up a few pounds again especially considering I had chips with the dip. So here goes the clean-eating again tomorrow.

Review of Symptoms:
-Energy is good
-Tired from not sleeping
-Really not feeling the cooked and junk vegan foods
-Throat actually feels dry from too much salt… needing to drink lots of water.
-Face is not good. Junk food is definitely an acne trigger!

Weight = Don’t have a scale in the hotel so cannot report on the weight until we go back to my mother-in-law’s tomorrow.

Total Calories = approx. 2766 (72% carbs, 20% fat, 8% protein… that was a lot of food!)

Dry Fasting – Healing Journey Day 1

Journal:
Today was the first day and let me tell you, it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be! I have never dry fasted before, so this was a completely new experience.

For those who don’t know what dry fasting is, it’s abstaining from the consumption of food and liquids, including water. There is absolutely nothing but the air you breathe entering your body. Yes, it can be quite intense and no, it is not something that you can do for a long time.

There are some dry fasting extremists who even avoid brushing their teeth and showering, but I have chosen not to go that route as I use a very natural, clay toothpaste and shower with only water so I believe that is all apart of the cleansing state I’m trying to be in.

I quit eating around 7:00 last night. I was full from supper – a root veggie burger with corn – and though I planned on stuffing myself before falling asleep, I was so tired from my first week back to work that I crashed and didn’t get around to eating anything else.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty normal. I walked the dog, was on the computer for a bit, then got up and got ready to go to church.

Church went well; I always enjoy singing worship songs and the sermon was excellent as well.

After church, they had a fellowship meal in the hall. Yes, there was lots of good food, but just by going around and talking with different people that I knew, I was able to stay away from the food fairly easily. Thirst had not yet set in either so this didn’t really seem like a big deal to me.

After talking with almost everyone I was happy to see, I came home to the smell of garlic bread and lasagna – two of my favourite foods. Although I knew I wouldn’t be bothered to eat them because they were not made vegan, the thought of food did enter my mind. However, I must say that it wasn’t too hard to continue battling food at this moment. I was even offered vegan food to be made for me, but thankfully, my housemates have a baby so I was able to trade off by saying that I would take care of the baby while they ate and to not worry about a thing. There was even pumpkin pie and homemade peach sorbet but I managed to keep busy with the baby while only starting to notice hunger creeping in.

After a couple hours when the food was put away, I was invited to a church corn boil and potato roast. I was encouraged to come out to get to know some of the younger adults in the church so I took the opportunity to socialize, but knew I’d be confronted with food that would be perfectly delicious in a hungry state. However, I was determined to not allow the fasting to ruin my life and to get rid of the hold of food, so I still decided to go.

I had a good time overall. I got to meet some awesome new people and connect with people I haven’t seen in a long time. The corn was freshly harvested the day before as well as the potatoes. There was a cucumber salad, juices, lemon water, and cookies for dessert. Many times I was eyeing the food, but again, kept myself busy socializing with other people. By the time the sun began to set and we had a beautiful Vespers service, I knew I had gotten through without food or water successfully.

After I finally got home for the evening, I was hungry but not so bad that I was going crazy. Before too long, I came to bed and went to sleep.

Review of day and symptoms:
Overall, this honestly was a fairly easy day. I managed to dodge 3 food-related social situations by keeping myself busy talking with other people and taking care of the baby. I don’t feel bad at all besides the minor hunger and have been surprised that my energy has kept up all day. I consider this day an absolute success.

Weight at the end of day 1 = 188.8 lbs.

Total Calories = 0

Beating Mind Tendencies

I’m going to be embarrassingly honest with you in this post. We are all human, and we all have our own struggles. But when you choose to do something, you better do it 100%, or you will never be successful. There’s only one major road block that will battle you daily: your brain.

Yesterday, I decided I needed to do this vegan thing 100%. I’ve had too many travelling days in the past 3 weeks where I’ve had little control over what I could eat. Now that I’m home, I’ve gotta buckle down and do this.

My goals for this new lifestyle are as follows:
-Get rid of acne
-Weight Loss
-Feel Better
-Better Digestion
-More Energy

What I’m going to do:
-Work up to 8 hours of sleep per night
-Increase water intake up to 3L a day
-Raw fruit until 4 (some days raw all day)
-Minimize salt intake

So yesterday, when I completely made up my mind, I still started the day off wrong. I had half of a leftover black bean burger in the fridge, and simply because my husband was eating his leftovers and it seemed convenient, I ate mine. Remember, raw food is much better in the morning!

Throughout the day, I did well on the vegan side, but not the raw side. I did eat 6 organic bananas for one meal/snack, and then black bean pasta with marinara and nutritional yeast flakes for lunch. I could tell I definitely didn’t eat enough fruit because then I cooked up some “dessert” of coconut oil, oatmeal, and brown sugar. Sure it tasted good, but that was way too high in fat, and was another cooked meal before 4.

I don’t recall eating too much else throughout the rest of the day, but for a late, late supper, my husband and I went for pizza. I thought the place only had one option for vegan pizza. It was a wood-stove cooked, marinara pizza with fresh tomato marinara, basil leaves, and some rosemary mix. As I was browsing through the menu at all the other delicious pizzas I used to eat there, I noticed a side option of Daiya vegan cheese! My husband jumped right up and asked them to add that to my pizza. I was feeling pretty excited!

Now I’m not sure if it was because my taste buds are reprogrammed to all the junk food I had the past few weeks, but if I could describe the pizza in one word, it would be “fresh”. It literally tasted like tomatoes, oil, and a bit of flavouring. The cheese sadly didn’t do much against the amount of oil I’m sure they put on that pizza. I ate most of it, but took two slices to go. It honestly was all I could do not to reach out and put that parmesan cheese on my pizza, knowing it would improve the flavour so much. I’m holding out on this vegan thing, I can do it!

Now naturally, this morning, I wanted to reach in and grab those two pieces of pizza. But I’ve been watching a lot of Freelee’s videos lately. I’ve started with her oldest ones and I’m working my way to the newest. When you have so much of that information running through your head, I can honestly say it makes a difference.

Now, the embarrassingly honest part is that I was coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why I should eat the pizza. I was thinking about my blog, and how I could just not talk about what I ate today. I was thinking about how I want to eat raw until 4, but I could just go one more day. I’m sure we all know about that “one more day” psychology… And as I sat there making up excuse after excuse, I put my foot down and said no. I need to do this right, right now, not later.

And so I’m happy to say that this morning so far, I’ve juiced 6 oranges, savoured every sip of that fresh orange juice, and in a bit, throughout the day, I’ll be eating pears, a mango, apricots, and nectarines. I would love to get into more mono-meals, but right now this is what I have on hand so it will have to do.

I hope you are all having an awesome weekend!

Fighting Temptations

Last week, our home and school group put on this extravagant “Year-End Picnic” for our school. There was endless pizza, salads, fruit trays, etc… Unfortunately, I was munching on salad and carrot sticks while my husband ate 6 slices of pizza. I will say, this wasn’t the worst. The worst was dessert.

When they set up for dessert, there were endless tables of choices. I have SUCH a sweet tooth. I kept looking, and admiring, and looking, and wanting. Everything looked SO GOOD. But thanks to my husband being there, I knew I didn’t want to disappoint him and I used that as my motivation.

But what do you do if you’re all alone? Well, here are some tips I have for you:

#1: Don’t EVER bring junk food INTO your house. It’s ok to have a treat, but keep it out of your home. If it’s not there, you can’t eat it.

#2: Have an accountability partner. This person you report to for food problems. If you’re craving something, this could be someone you send a text too who may be able to suggest a healthier alternative, or may even be able to talk you out of it.

#3: If you are actually AT HOME and ALONE, go to a mirror. Drop your clothes. Look at your body and sincerely think if it is worth it. For some people, this is an immediate fix.

#4: If you know you can control yourself, have a SMALL amount. Now I say this cautiously as I know it is some people’s tendencies to not just have that “one bite”. If you know one bite or small item will fix your craving, then it may be ok. Keep in mind your caloric requirements for the day. But if you know you’ll start eating and won’t stop, then don’t do it. Be careful and know yourself.

So what do you do? How do you fight food temptations when they stare you in the face?