Fruit w/Salad Supper Day 3 – Healing Journey Day 40

Journal:
I woke up so cold today. This is the coldest I have felt yet. I honestly haven’t struggled with the desire of wanting something hot to eat yet, but I’m wondering if the colder temperatures will get me yet.

I actually was on the ball this morning. I was up and ready faster than normal. It has been my week to do worships at work, so I had everything ready to go and was even at work at my earliest time yet. I was impressed with myself today!

So, I have been thinking about ways I can get in more calories throughout the day, and today I knew that not only did my class had Reading Buddies with another class, it was my turn to have that time off. During Reading Buddies once a week, we take turns on which classroom the students go to and it is the duty of that classroom’s teacher to supervise while the other gets a short break. It really works nicely because what teacher doesn’t like a little bit of an extra break? I know I always have a ton of things to do, so a little extra time is nice.

While they were outside at morning recess, I quickly went to the kitchen and made a smoothie from three peaches, some water, and three frozen bananas. It actually was really good and I was able to drink it while my students were with their Reading Buddies.

I honestly don’t know where these giant mugs came from, but they were in our school’s kitchen so I’ve been using them. I seriously want to invest in one because they are the perfect size to sip away on a smoothie while still looking somewhat professional.

Throughout the rest of the day, I managed to eat two Mandarin oranges. It wasn’t a lot, but I definitely felt better after having that smoothie in the morning. If I could just figure out a way to make a smoothie each day, I’d be winning!

I ended up with two impromptu meetings after school. Following those meetings, I came home and put my dog outside. The sun had come out and had raised the temperatures to a nice, snow-melting temperature. So I figured my dog better enjoy it while he can.

Once he had been outside for awhile, I brought him back in, gave him some food and a treat, and hit the mall. I was on the hunt for white slippers to go with my pyjamas for Pyjama Day tomorrow. Do you think I could find what I wanted in any store in the mall? Absolutely not. It is a 2-floor, multi-level mall, and yet had nothing that I wanted. I then drove to another store and spent forever in there trying things on to change my outfit. But honestly, it all was to little avail. I came out with a new pair of pyjama pants that were on sale and only half-heartedly looked forward to tomorrow.

So amidst the hours of stress, fast-pace walking, jumping in and out of clothes, I managed to eat the apple I had stashed in my pocket. It was another Fuji apple that thankfully was delicious, but honestly it did little to fuel the calories I was burning off throughout the evening.

I ended up stopping by Subway to pick up a pre-chopped salad. I hadn’t eaten my nightly supper yet, and it would have taken too long to make my usual dressing and chop up all of the salad ingredients. I’m already not getting enough sleep and am preparing for a long day tomorrow as we have a staff meeting after school. So, I decided that assistance would be nice on this particular day.

The Subway lady was really nice. It was a half hour before closing (to give you an idea of how long I was running around), but she brought out her freshly washed tools to chop me up some tomatoes, cucumber, bell peppers, red onion and lettuce. Instead of choosing a regular dressing, I had guacamole on top (essentially mashed up avocado). I then took it home and added some chopped up mushrooms and made my dressing. Now, I didn’t know this before, but I definitely know it now. I do NOT like rosemary. Oh my word. I almost had to choke down my dressing (hence why it is in the bowl on the side). I would have much rather enjoyed the salad with just the guacamole. And do you want to know something? I actually finished this salad in less than an hour (it went down a lot easier once the dressing was gone…) AND I could have eaten more. I actually liked it simple. My tastebuds are improving!

As you’ll notice, the dressing looks a little chunkier than normal; that’s because it was. The amount that I used, according to the recipe, was just enough to fit under and around the blades of the Vitamix . Even when I added a Roma tomato to the blender to see if that would help, it just built up along the walls of the blender. So… yes… a little chunky.

If you want the original recipe, here it is (I think this is another Fully Raw Kristina recipe.. if you like rosemary, I’m sure you’ll love it):

-2 Cups Mango
-Handful of Dates (Approx 10)
-Handful of Fresh Rosemary

So tomorrow, the plan is to try and get a smoothie made first thing in the morning again. If I don’t wake up early enough, then I won’t be having a smoothie until lunch time which could still work. I will just have to eat some Mandarin oranges in the morning and have the smoothie in the afternoon. I will also take an apple or two to have during our staff meeting so I don’t eat all the chips and snacks they usually bring out. This will be probably my first staff meeting without indulging in junk… so here we go!

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne still bad… very bad…
-Hair is so soft, shiny and beautiful.
-Energy is still holding up despite everything going on.
-Eyes seem to do better when not on the computer as much.

Weight at the end of the day = I’m so sorry. I didn’t stay awake long enough to weight myself.

Total Calories = 1175 (89% carbs, 5% fat, 6% protein… still not yet enough food but slowly I’m getting there!)

All Fruit Day – Healing Journey Day 36

Journal:
I’m still shocked at how little of a difference the food I ate yesterday made in my weight. I’m really figuring out that the more raw fruits and vegetables we eat, the better it is for our bodies. Honestly, if you need to get healthier and lose some weight, start swapping out cooked meals for raw meals and eat as little cooked food as possible. I promise it will work.

I slept in again today and it felt great. Unfortunately, I did not make it in time for church so I watched a church service from home. My stomach felt so heavy when I woke up this morning, but of course, I knew it was because of the cooked food from yesterday, so it wasn’t really a surprise.

I didn’t eat until 2:00 pm today. I’m not meaning to do intermittent fasting, but it just seems to be happening. I’m not complaining as it does mean that I’ve learned that a hunger feeling is ok and normal. But… I should be so lazy.

So for my first “meal”, I had a smoothie made from frozen bananas and frozen strawberries. It was pretty good and came out more of a sorbet consistency.

Later, I made another smoothie with bananas, blueberry juice and strawberries. It was good as well but again, came out as a sorbet consistency.

Because these smoothies were very low calories, it didn’t take long for me to get hungry again. So then I decided to snack on ten deglet noor dates.

I didn’t do much for the rest of the night; mostly some work on the computer. I was super hungry still, so I made another banana and strawberry smoothie. However, I never was satisfied. My fruit supply is low which means I desperately need to go buy some fruit tomorrow. And then on Monday, I get to have salads for supper! I have been doing my research to find some dressings made only out of fruits and veggies so I’m looking forward to that! The variety is about to increase!

Review of Symptoms:
-Digestion is good.
-Acne still bad.
-Muscles are so sore after yesterday’s workout (need to eat more).
-Very hungry on few calories.
-“Your poo smells like roses.” This is a sarcastic phrase I’ve heard since a child. However, I have learned that the more pure the food is that you eat, the less smell there is. There is a difference when you eat cooked foods.

Weight at the end of the day = 170.4 lbs (down 1.8 lbs from yesterday)

Total Calories = 1047 (93% carbs, 3% fat, 4% protein… need to eat more)

Fruit Smoothie Day – Healing Journey Day 33

Journal:
I was so impressed with myself this morning! I actually got out of bed at a decent time, and besides one misstep, I was actually doing good all around with my time this morning!

Once again, I packed the remaining mangoes that I had and some frozen bananas. And as happened yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to make my first smoothie until the afternoon. But when I did finally get to make it, I savoured every minute of its flavour. I am really enjoying the combination of some very juicy, very ripe, excellent quality mangoes with some frozen bananas. Seriously, try it out!

The school day was crazy so I did not get to make another smoothie after this. Instead, I finished up work, came home, got changed, and left to do some errands. I was “recruited” by my housemate to join a female soccer team this year, so I had to go to the soccer centre to pick up a player’s card. This was easy and didn’t take long at all.

The next stop was the gym. Booster Juice is attached to my gym, and because I was very hungry, I bought a Tahiti Squeeze before my workout. This is another juice/smoothie like the Maui Juice. It consisted of some fresh-squeezed orange juice, some fresh-pressed apple juice, and blended with some strawberries. It was quite tasty.

For a workout, I completed four different ab exercises and then did about 33 minutes of cycling. It was good to be in the gym and after doing ab exercises two days in a row, my abs are starting to feel it.

To end the night, I had a mango banana smoothie again. This time, I changed the ratio: 1 fresh mango to 2 frozen bananas. Man, I’m telling you: if you haven’t tried this combination yet, do it! You’re definitely missing out!

Review of Symptoms:
-Tongue coated in a tan colour this morning.
-Energy good.
-Hungry due to not eating enough.
-Loving the smoothies.
-Acne still bad.
-Digestion is good.

Weight at the end of the day = 174.2 lbs (up 1.2 lbs from yesterday)

Total Calories = approx. 1011 (94% carbs, 3% fat, 3% protein)

Fruit Smoothie Day – Healing Journey Day 32

Journal:
I thought it was going to be incredibly hard to wake up this morning, but surprisingly, it wasn’t so bad. I did miss my pooch, however, as he was still at the babysitter’s until I could go get him after school.

I took some frozen bananas and some ripe Keitt mangoes to work with me. I didn’t have a chance to go shopping for other fruits, and since I’ve technically managed to mess up all smoothie days but the first one, I’ve dedicated today and tomorrow to smoothie days so I can still get in my three smoothie days. I will have to go shopping for more fruit though very soon.

I didn’t get a chance to make a smoothie until after lunch today, so I guess you could say I did intermittent fasting today! In the first smoothie, I blended about 2 and a half bananas with 2 mangoes. Oh my goodness. It was SO GOOD! You can definitely tell when you have good quality fruit! Yum!

After school, I had to run home right away so I could drive to pick up my dog before the kennel closed for the night. I didn’t have time to make another smoothie, so I stopped at Booster Juice along the way and got what is called a Maui Juice. Now, a Maui Juice is not truly a juice; it is a cross between a smoothie and a juice. It has pineapple juice, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and frozen bananas blended up. It was pretty good, but definitely not filling.

I did intend to go to the gym, but I just didn’t make it there this evening. I didn’t feel right not doing anything to progress my fitness, so instead, I stayed home and did some ab exercises.

After I did these exercises, I made myself another smoothie containing one frozen banana, two Keitt mangoes, and a bit of water. It was so yummy!

And that was pretty much it. Aside from that, I worked on the computer for awhile until I went to bed.

Review of Symptoms:
-Energy was good.
-Digestion better than yesterday.
-Feeling good on smoothies.
-Acne is same.

Weight at the end of the day = 173.2 lbs (down 3.4 lbs since yesterday)

Total Calories = approx. 1110 (95% carbs, 2% fat, 3% protein)

Smoothie Day – Healing Journey Day 29

Journal:
This morning started out well. I was able to sleep in and even upon waking up, didn’t have to rush to go anywhere. We had until 2:00 to check out of our hotel room which – even though we didn’t stay that long – was really nice.

After showering, packing up, and leaving the hotel, we went and got some breakfast/lunch. We went back to the smoothie place we had yesterday and I got the same Marathon Smoothie but with a bit of a tweak: I asked for less ice and added pineapple juice. It was so much better today.

After driving to my mother-in-law’s house, we stopped at a local supplement store that also sells smoothies in house. So I ordered a custom smoothie that was simply water, frozen bananas, and frozen berries. This one did not taste so great, but I ate it anyway.

For a few hours in the afternoon, I visited with my mother-in-law and took a nap. I woke up in time to get ready for church and make a small smoothie before we left. This time I made a smoothie with two bananas and about a cup of raspberries. This one was pretty good.

Church was ok. The sermon was good, but the music beforehand involved a mini-rock concert that I felt was definitely not the time nor place; I actually felt like it took away from the service. The praise team leader was jumping all around the stage with his guitar, head banging the whole time, and encouraging the drummer to always play louder. Sometimes, the drumming took over the whole music so that if it wasn’t for the words on the screens, I wouldn’t have had any idea what they were singing. It honestly was a bit much.

After church, we had a bit of a surprise: My mother-in-law took us out for a late supper. When she asked where I would like to go, instead of saying my usual, “Oh it doesn’t matter to me at all.”, I requested Chilli’s right away. The reason being, is that this small town that she lives in does not have a “restaurant” that serves smoothies. Not one at all. And instead of completely blowing this smoothie day again, I knew that Chilli’s has a salad that they put a lot of fruit in. And out of all the restaurants in town, it’s the only one I know I could still eat raw at and eat fairly light. Guys, I told you… it’s back to being dedicated!! I know it wasn’t a smoothie, but it was the best case situation. And even though I knew it wouldn’t fill me up, I was sticking with my game plan.

So at Chilli’s, I ordered the Caribbean salad. It contains greens (including spinach), pineapple, mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, red bell peppers, green onions, cilantro and sesame seeds topped with some lime. I then added some slices of avocado to it. Oh it was so good! I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though, as I predicted, it did not fill me up.

Following supper, my husband and his mother stopped at Cold Stone for ice cream. Did I fall for this stop? Nope. I waited until I got home to make a smoothie.

For the smoothie that ended off my day of eating, I blended two bananas, a cup of raspberries and five deglet dates. The deglet noor dates are actually my favourite, though they seemed less sweeter than the ones I usually get in Canada which is surprising. But, I am happy to say that I stuck with raw foods today, primarily being smoothies. I am getting back on track!

Review of Symptoms:
-Tongue still clean in the morning (surprising!).
-Didn’t feel so well after eating all of those salted chips last night and such high fat.
-Was nice to eat out with family and still stick to raw foods.
-Smoothies are not so sweet without added sugar so definitely looking forward to moving past the smoothie stage though I think I’m going to be doing smoothies for a little longer as my full smoothie days hasn’t really been a “thing” lately.
-Digestion is top notch when I’m NOT eating cooked foods. There is definitely a difference.

Weight at the end of the day = 178 lbs (down 0.6 lbs from two days ago)

Total Calories = approx. 1719 (85% carbs, 12% fat, 3% protein)

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!)