I wish I could accurately describe what my life has been like the past while. However, no matter how hard I try, I cannot come up with a truly accurate description. The best I can do is tell you that … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Documentaries
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 =Â 167.4 (down 1.6 lbs from yesterday)
Total Calories =Â 1571 (82% carbs, 11% fat, 7% protein… didn’t eat so much today…)
Summer Days of Fruitrition 2/7 – Healing Journey Day 62
Journal:
I did not wake up when I wanted to today. In fact, I had a huge amount of plans for today and somehow still slept in. I shouldn’t say “somehow” because obviously it wasn’t hard to sleep in. It felt really good to not get up for work today. I was happy to have the day off.
Upon rising, I right away started on my day. I started with typing up my devotional, did my fertility tracking on all four apps that I have, did both brain training sessions I have on my two apps, and began preparing foods for the rest of the day (put dates in a bowl to soak and figs in another bowl to soak). Now, because I had nothing ready to eat in the morning, this did lead me to eat something not raw for breakfast, so that part did not work out the greatest… However, I was set up for the rest of the day!
I did quite a bit of work on the computer while watching some documentaries at the same time. The three I managed to watch today were the following:
Excellent documentaries that I highly recommend watching! There is a lot of good information out there, we just have to look for it!
At 2:00 pm, I had an oil change, so before I went to the dealership, I quickly blended up a Datorade with 15 Deglet Noor dates. Unfortunately, I was really looking forward to it, but I put in too much water. It completed diluted the flavour.
After I returned from my oil change, I went ahead and made a snack from Medjool dates and Romaine lettuce. I always thought Deglet Noor dates were my favourite, but this batch of Medjool dates that I got far surpass my love for Deglet Noor dates. This snack is one of the best and comes highly recommended!
The next thing I tried to eat, following a webinar that I listened to, was some mangoes. The guide suggested 6 mangoes as a mono-meal. However, I only ended up eating 2, one of which burned my lips a little from being unripe. I’m not having good luck with these expensive mangoes…
I got the most exciting package this evening. I ordered it almost two weeks ago, and it just showed up. How excited and thankful I was!
There is going to be a long friendship with this machine. I’m absolutely beside myself that I finally own a Vitamix! Yes, I had an old Vitamix, but it was such a pain to clean and use. This is brand-new, beautiful, and mine. I can’t wait to make amazing recipes with this thing!
So to end the night, I rinsed it out and made the fig pudding using soaked, dehydrated figs, dates, and raw carob powder. It was ok, though I think I could have blended it a little longer. The carob powder was nice.
And that summarized my night. I did a lot of stretching and mobility exercises for my hip flexor pain again. I think it’s doing way better, but I just don’t want it to turn into a serious injury. So taking it slow and steady is the way I am going.
Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is bad.
-Energy is good.
-Hair is so-so.
-Mental focus is good.
-Digestion is ok.
-Productive.
-Feeling hydrated after consuming more water today.
-Hip flexor pain has improved today.
Weight at the end of the day =Â 169 lbs (same as the past two days)
Total Calories =Â 2380 (80% carbs, 9% fat, 11% protein… macros are almost spot-on!)
Ripe Fruit Would Make This Easier – Healing Journey Day 61
Journal:
I woke up today uncomfortable just as I had assumed I would last night. I had too much in my stomach and my body just didn’t like it. However, I was productive this morning with work, not so much with getting breakfast.
I packed the rest of last night’s soup to take with me today, as well as a box of strawberries and some dates. However, all I had the chance to eat today was the soup which was nowhere on the Summer Days of Fruitrition after having it for supper last night. It also is just not as rich as it could have been had the mangoes actually been ripe. So what ended up happening? I fell apart when I came home. Instead of making my raw foods (and also the frustration of finding out that the fridge froze my lettuce), I went to what was easy: Hummus and this Indian cracker stuff. And that’s what I ate. Tons of it. And to add to the awful food I was eating, I ate some vegan ice cream that has been sitting in the freezer for over two months. I HAVE TO find a way to get in more food during the day. My job is just not the greatest at allowing that to happen.
I made it through work fine today and simply continued working at home. I also watched 3 documentaries tonight: Prescription Thugs, Fed Up, and Food Matters. They are wonderful documentaries and I highly recommend them!
While I was watching these documentaries, I also worked on some hip flexor stretches and exercises. It doesn’t hurt badly at this point, but I can definitely tell when I’m using it and when I’m not. So the rehabilitation continues.
Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is still bad.
-Woke up with an uncomfortable stomach.
-Energy was decent.
-Hair is not good. Ugh… Regressing slightly thanks to bad foods…
-Need to eat more throughout the day.
-Hip Flexor seems to be holding up through exercises and stretches.
Weight at the end of the day =Â 169 lbs (same as yesterday)
Total Calories =Â 1835 (59% carbs, 35% fat, 6% protein… awful macros)
Brutal Reality
I came across a picture not that long ago that clearly struck me as truth in a reality-awakening sense. This was the picture:
Yes, this is a strong picture. No, it is not something we would want to look at. But the very controversy of these pictures explains the reality that most people don’t understand.
Growing up, I knew I hated seal clubbing. It’s a brutal, beat-them-until-they-die way of getting some seal skin to make clothing for humans. It’s terrible. Imagine yourself, as the picture portrays, being beaten to death so you can be skinned and worn. It’s so unnecessary. We have so many clothing options and yet people prefer to pay a high price for brutality. Useless.
Growing up, I also knew I didn’t like trophy hunting. Trophy hunting is where the animal isn’t killed for its meat, but simply for its skin, a picture, and a trophy. Imagine if we were hunted for a trophy. Our lives a waste just to end up on somebody’s wall. A father or mother torn apart from their family, their friends, their herd just so you can kill them, stuff them, and put them up for your pleasure. Awful.
Growing up, it made me sick to think about bullfighting. What humans enjoy watching animals be injured, suffer and be killed for fun? It’s such a brutal, painful, slow death I could never stand the thought of it. And people enjoy this!! It used to make me so mad as a kid. So as the picture describes, imagine that everyone came to watch you die a slow and painful death. And just when you were on the brink of barely having a reason to live anymore, confused as to why these people would cause you so much harm, they finish you off. The last moments of the animal’s life was the cruelest it could have ever imagined. And humans enjoy this. Disgusting.
The one thing I didn’t connect growing up was the very fact of wearing fur. Of course fur is beautiful… it’s gorgeous! But it isn’t ours. And yes, you may think that the animal is killed for other reasons and then the skin has to be used, but that’s not how it is. Most of the animals who are trapped for their skins aren’t even dead when they are skinned. Meaning they are fully conscious of the skin being ripped of their very bodies all so you can wear something “fashionable”. I know there were some natives (in history) who used to scalp people. Go ask them how that turned out. The thing is, you won’t be able to because they’re dead. Just as humans can’t live without their skin, neither can animals. Instead, humans don’t care about the animals and gladly wear their bodies, their brutal death around. Terrible.
The thing is, humanity has become so blind. And though it’s not entirely our fault, a large portion of it is. The meat industry, dairy industry, egg industry, fish industry, fashion industry and entertainment industries have caused us to think so blindly. They regularly lie and hide things they don’t want you to know. But it’s on our part to do the research, to investigate what really happens. The Internet is huge. Documentaries are everywhere. What excuse do you have?
From now on, before you make the choice to buy (or not buy) animal products, do your research. I can honestly tell you the safest bet is to avoid all animal products. By avoiding all of them, you can ensure you are not contributing to the cruelty. If you already have these products, it’s up to you to decide what to do. The damage has been done and you can’t take it back. But you can decide who your future dollars are going to fund. It comes down to one simple choice: Will you pay for the cruelty to continue, or will you pay for the humane choices to thrive? Every dollar being avoided towards cruelty is another step in showing those industries we don’t want their services anymore. What will your decision be?