All Fruit Day – Healing Journey Day 37

Journal:
This morning, I didn’t wake up until almost 10:00! Man, I’m enjoying the ability to sleep in. It shall be short-lived as I return to work tomorrow.

I didn’t eat ANYTHING until 2:00 today. My fruit supplies at home were low, and I needed to go get groceries. There are four organic grocery stores in my city, and I frequent three of them (one has awkward parking). So, I made a list for what I will need this week and went out.

It wasn’t until I got to the second grocery that I noticed they had apple samples! Yes! I ate about a quarter of a Fuji apple that was amazingly delicious, and about a quarter of a Red Delicious apple that wasn’t so impressive. Needless to say, I chose Fuji apples to buy. Then, as I was getting ready to checkout, I decided that I should buy something to take with me. So I bought a cup of grapes to take along.

Now, you’ll notice in the picture that I also bought a bottle of water. One thing that I have noticed is that I am NOT consuming water. Yes, fruit is hydrating, but I haven’t been doing well getting in all my calories lately either. So not only am I not eating everything I need to, my body is also being deprived of water which ended up leaving me with the feeling that I needed to pee all day. It was almost like I couldn’t get all the urine out and I know that lack of water causes all kinds of problems in that area, hence, the bottle of water. People, don’t joke around; drink your water!

After I came home and put everything away, I went to the gym and completed about 26.5 minutes on the rowing machine. Now, this is interesting because I use to try using the rowing machine when I ate the typical bodybuilding diet and I HATED it. I don’t think I was ever on one longer than 5 minutes; seriously. And yet, with no rowing experience, after having eaten maybe 150-200 calories so far, I was able to do the 26.5 minutes of rowing with burst intervals (fast/strong pulling reps between slow/easy pulling reps). I was shocked and amazed. There truly is something to this journey about unlocking my own potential and I’m loving it.

When I came home, I went to look at my food sources I had only to discover I didn’t have much that was ripe for today. I guess I kind of overlooked that when planning my grocery shopping. So I ate an apple. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I ate an apple to end my day. So in total today (and this is terrible), I ate 1.5 apples and 1.5 cups of grapes. Yup, I ate hardly anything and it doesn’t make me happy. This is an example of bad planning. Please don’t replicate days like these. On the other hand, this also proves the potential our bodies have and how ridiculous it is that we – as a society – have become so distant and scared of the feeling of hunger. It’s not going to kill us to feel hungry from time-to-time, just not purposefully starving ourselves either.

Now, let’s talk about hair. I said I was going to finally fill you guys in and so let’s do it right now! I have been looking into the no-poo movement. Basically, it explains about all the chemicals we put into our hair which ultimately gets absorbed into our heads. It also discusses how the typical shampoos and conditioners strip our hair of its natural oils and all of the damage we do. So the no-poo movement works towards restoring your hair back to maintaining its own oil balance while using no shampoos and conditioners and washing with simply water.

Now, it doesn’t happen overnight. We have trained our hair to create more oil than it needs to for years, hence the greasiness you feel when you haven’t washed it in so long. So it is quite the process to get your hair to look and feel good without washing it for a long time. Currently, I wash my hair every 4 days with water, and every 12 days with shampoo and conditioner. When I started this 3 months ago, I ended up wearing my hair up a lot because it looked greasy and awful. But now, 3 months later, I only wear my hair up one or two days of those 12 days and it’s awesome. My hair is learning. 🙂

If you’re interested in learning about the no-poo method as well, please Google it! There is so much information out there and it is totally awesome for those who are trying to get back to our natural state. I’m all about keeping as many chemicals as possible away from my body!

Review of Symptoms:
-Surprisingly energetic despite a lack of calories.
-Stamina is so much better!
-Hair is not greasy.
-Acne is awful.
-Digestion on pause… but what can you expect with hardly any food…
-NEED MORE WATER! Caused me to feel like I needed to pee all day without actually having to.

Weight at the end of the day = 169.4 lbs (down 1 lb from yesterday… so excited!! Haven’t seen the 160s in a LONG time!)

Total Calories = 320 (96% carbs, 0% fat, 4% protein… embarrassingly low…)

This is What Happens When You Don’t Plan… – Healing Journey Day 27

Journal:
I knew smoothies were going to take a little more effort than everything I had done so far. It would mean getting a blender to blend my fruit anytime I needed to consume one. This generally works out alright as I have a blender at work and at home. Although it worked well yesterday, today was a different story.

I started out well. I brought a large watermelon and two small watermelons to work with, as well as the last bottle of that pear juice that tasted like liquid honey. I figured if these watermelons were a little less sweet like the last ones, the pear juice would perk it up.

When I cut into the big watermelon, water literally started pouring out of it. In fact, it flooded the cupboard and then the sink. I had a funny feeling this wasn’t a good thing. I then discovered that I could squeeze the two halves of the watermelon and the water would just continue to pour out. So needless to say, I lost my big watermelon.

I then cut into one of the small ones and it seemed to hold up like normal. So without tasting it, I scooped it out, put it in the blender, and poured in some of the pear juice. Then I blended it up. If I could only describe the taste of this smoothie to you. It was literally the worst watermelon thing I have ever tasted. Even so, I managed to drink down half of the smoothie. But the other half, well, I just couldn’t do it anymore;  I ended up pouring it down the sink. It literally was like drinking grass with a slight taste of pear. It was terrible. The pear juice did not do its job. I was so sad because it even looked so pretty… but I guess it’s another example of how looks can be deceiving!

Now, normally, I would have enough time after school to make a smoothie before doing anything else, but because I am flying out first thing in the morning, I had to run home immediately after work to take my dog to the sitter and still make it back in time for our staff/board social tonight. I literally had to fly to get this done in time. Somehow I managed.

Because I didn’t have time to go back home to make a smoothie, and because there was nothing there to make a smoothie with, I caved and ate some food. After a rough day, stress of getting things done in time, and literally living on a couple hundred calories of food, I was hungry to say the least. And this wasn’t a night I could just go to bed hungry and be fine because I knew I still had to stay up and do laundry and pack. Oh my goodness… I would really rather go back and change what I did. But since I’m keeping you guys updated on my progress, here’s what I ate: cauliflower, broccoli, hummus, rice crackers, samosas with chutney, Tostitos with salsa, baguette with a red pepper spread, quinoa salad, and juice (all vegan of course). Even now as I’m writing this, I’m cringing. My stomach is so heavy; it right away started feeling bloated. It even went as far as making my head feel taken aback (not quite headache status, but almost like a pre-headache). Oh man. I wish I could take it all back. The food tasted decent, and I’m really loving cauliflower and broccoli on its own, but the way I feel is not worth it. And thankfully, going back on smoothies will provide my body with enough fibre that it should clean out within a day or two. But even this should be an interesting venture because I’m not sure all the airports I’m going to have only fruit smoothies. Typically there is a sorbet or ice cream that is mixed in with them, but we will see what I can do.

Anyways, I finally came home after a bit of visiting at the social and now I’m just signing off on here for the night while I wait for my laundry to finish and finish packing. I won’t be eating anymore tonight, but will be drinking water for sure! I may make an early morning mango smoothie before I leave, but I’m leaving at such an early hour that I’m not sure that will even happen. I shall keep you posted tomorrow!

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne the same.
-Noticing that my hair has grown so much in the past year since going vegan… wow! Even past students are beginning to comment.
-Cooked/high fat foods leave me feeling yucky; feeling bloated.
-Energy decent.
-Tongue actually looked like a brand new tongue this morning! So impressive!

Weight at the end of the day = 178.6 lbs (up 4 lbs from yesterday… not bad for eating a ton of cooked foods again!)

Total Calories = approx. 2213 (72% carbs, 22% fat, 6% protein… this is my best guess!)