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!)

I Said “No” to Cheese!

I thought this day would never come. I have been so addicted to cheese my whole life! I grew up in a Quebecois family, so those lovely Quebec cheese curds that make a world of difference in a true Quebec poutine? Ate them out of the bag as a snack! In fact, my dad, once my parents divorced, would take out the block of cheese, break off a piece for each of us, and that’s what we would eat.

I was vegetarian for almost 10 years. I thought a few times about trying veganism. But I never could do it, simply because I was so addicted to cheese. I could give up yogurt, milk, even ice cream! But I could not give up cheese. I swear it was running through my veins. The only cheese I probably never was interested in was the varieties of blue cheeses. I can never seem to justify eating something that is mouldy. Yuck.

After doing some research this year, it all made sense! Cheese literally can be an addiction. Other dairy products fail in comparison to how densely packed cheese is with different parts of nutrition. I believe it was casein that was pointed out specifically. Because of the concentration, it literally leaves us wanting more. It’s not just the flavour, there is an actual addictive side to the chemical mix of our bodies and the ingredients of cheese. How interesting is that! I literally was addicted to cheese!

Even with my first few days of going vegan, I fell with cheese. Like I said, everything else is avoidable, but cheese. When I had my burrito for supper last night, it would have been so easy to just throw on the cheese. It was readily shredded and available. But I said NO! Wow… I can’t even tell you how empowering that felt. And then my husband and I went to the theatre for the first time in forever last night. I LOVE peanut butter Reese’s and even the new peanut butter M&Ms, but I said NO. I can’t believe it. Who am I? Who is this woman that could never give up this stuff before. I like her! She’s empowered!

I’m feeling awesome. And even this morning, when I just wanted to grab some salt and vinegar cracker chips because they were easy to grab, I said NO and went to work. I’m now drinking my orange juice (another 2.63L) and I know I’m feeling a ton better than I would have otherwise.

I love this lifestyle. I’ve finally got it! Not that I don’t think there won’t be struggles (I haven’t tried going to a function or travelling while being 100% yet), but I’m up and ready. My foot has been stomped. I’ve beat the greatest temptation of all! I’m so excited!

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 9

I woke up several times through the night last night, each time feeling like I was ready to get up and start my day. Something is going on with my sleep and somehow I need to get down to the bottom of it.

I had a later breakfast this morning, well after I got to work. I drank 1.75L of pulpy orange juice.

The juice ended up being both my snack and lunch. I was handed back my students’ PATs to grade for myself, something I had not done in past years. If you can imagine my students writing stories and newspaper articles for 2-3 hours each, and then me trying to get these graded… it’s taking forever!

As an afternoon snack, I ate my last mini red banana, two small tangerines, and two small apricots.

By the time the day was done, I was drained. And yet I looked at my grading table (overloaded), and I looked at the PATs that were only half-graded, and my pile of ESL papers I was returned to also grade. There’s no way I should leave it like this. So I spent an hour and a half finishing the PATs, grading Bible books and Spelling tests. I even managed to get Handwriting books graded. But after that, I left knowing my mental capacity was seriously about to break.

Meanwhile, as I was dying mentally, I started thinking of all the fast food places I could go. I started thinking of Wendy’s, of Subway, of tonnes of places. I even started thinking some ice cream and a nice big burger would be so good right now. I must have spent a good 20-30 minutes grading and trying to talk myself out of going somewhere and just eating at home. My mental exhaustion was getting a bit extreme.

Somehow, I drove myself straight home. I defeated all of those tempting thoughts I had. I sat down to some corn chip crumbs mixed with some salsa. I also took out the fresh mango cake I made last night and ate about a quarter of it. I also had got this Natur-a Cappuccino Soy Beverage. Oh my goodness. So good. I’m going to finish this thing tonight! I also wanted something not so sweet, and there weren’t enough chips left to satisfy me (literally crumbs left), so I made some popcorn with salsa on it. This is when I realized how hard it is to give up dairy. That was the only reason I couldn’t do vegan before. I like butter and cheese. But I’m doing it for my health and the welfare of animals, so I have to keep my mental battle going.

I went to the gym and did an awesome circuit of jump rope, overhead squats, walking lunges, push-ups and planks. I did my chiropractor’s exercises and left feeling amazing.

After returning home, I finished that Natur-a Cappuccino Soy Beverage. Oh yum! Wish I had one of these every day!

As a last meal, I blended up my last 4 organic bananas from my first Organic Box. They were pretty much as ripe as they could be before they started going bad. I blended them with some unsweetened almond milk, 2 medjool dates, and a tablespoon of organic coconut palm sugar. It was a yummy, filling way to end the night.