Smoothie Day – Healing Journey Day 30

Journal:
It was nice to be able to sleep in again. I’m surely going to miss these days when I leave tomorrow. I do have to admit I didn’t sleep the greatest last night. I was an incredibly light sleeper (versus being my normal heavy sleeper self) and there was a mountain lion screaming in our back field for part of the night. So I guess sleeping in was a bit of a requirement.

For breakfast, I made myself a banana, date, and raspberry smoothie. It was ok, but really not the greatest. I’m really beginning to think that the dates truly are not as sweet, and the amount of water I’m putting in just drowns out the flavour. It could also be that I don’t have a high-powered blender so everything is not quite mixing as well, but either way, I’m looking forward to smoothie days being over.

Following breakfast, we did a bit of laying around and getting ready to go take our dogs for a walk. Knowing that it was a very hot day and that we wouldn’t be back for quite awhile, I decided to eat a snack before we left. I didn’t have a bottle or anything to put a smoothie in, so I ended up taking something to try: I had thin corn cakes (like rice cakes but half the size and made from corn) topped with a little Kite Hill original cream cheese-like spread and a spoon of salsa. Believe it or not, it was SUPER good. The Kite Hill cheese is made from cultured almonds. So no, this wasn’t a completely raw meal, but again, I have to use my resources, and for the future when I’m back to eating cooked food again, I know this will be a repeat purchase. Highly recommend!

We took the dogs to the local park, but stopped at Starbucks along the way. My husband got a frappuccino and I refrained from getting anything.

The park was a lot of fun. There is a little island with a gazebo connected to the mainland by a bridge. I like going on the island because the dogs can run free without worry. However, though my dogs HATE water, I was shocked to see how badly they wanted to get the ducks that were abundantly swimming around. My oldest dog who has hated water for the 6/7 years of his life actually went swimming after them. He progressed through stepping into the water, going until he couldn’t touch anymore, and then finally swimming towards them. We were shocked and so impressed knowing that he actually can swim and will when necessary, but called him back because we didn’t actually want him to go after the ducks. Our youngest dog only went up to his stomach but even that was huge improvement for him. We may turn them into water dogs yet!

After going home, I was hungry. My two corn cakes did not keep me satisfied whatsoever and my mother-in-law wanted to take me shopping. She sees me as the daughter she never had (she had two boys and my husband’s brother is not married nor seeing anyone at the time). So before we went, I made up a bowl of that Kite Hill cheese and mixed in some salsa. I ate it with rice crackers.

We had some fun shopping and I tried on many things. I ended up getting a sweater but definitely didn’t have as successful of a trip as we did when we went shopping this past summer.

After shopping for quite awhile, we ended up going back to Chilli’s and I had the same salad again. I don’t know what happened this time, but I felt a little weird after eating it. I really can’t figure out why since it didn’t even contained cooked food, but for some reason it did not sit with me the same way.

After we ate and said our good-byes, my husband and I drove back to the city. We stayed at the same hotel we did two nights ago, but this time I had a blender! What a game-changer!

We ended up going to the movies (neither one of us have been to a movie in 8 months), but in order to help fight the popcorn craving (my husband always gets candy and popcorn), I was able to use the blender to make a banana, date, and blackberry smoothie. It was pretty good to be honest, but I used almost the whole clam of blackberries. Needless to say, there were a lot of those tough blackberry pits in it (as you’ll see in the picture). But, did I crave with the popcorn? No! It was a success!

We ended up getting back at the hotel around midnight so that pretty much ended our night. We knew we wanted to get up fairly early to spend my last few hours doing as much as possible in town, so the alarms were set and lights went out.

Review of Symptoms:
-Tongue lightly coated.
-Feeling good for the most part, but not after the salad (possibly because of too much fat, also).
-Was able to stay awake until midnight (this alone is sometimes a success).
-Fighting the most tempting popcorn smells with success.
-Acne is the same.
-Digestion still good.

Weight at the end of the day = Didn’t have a scale at the hotel so I cannot report.

Total Calories = approx. 2072 (72% carbs, 23% fat, 5% protein… way too much fat!!)

Banana Island – Healing Journey Day 21

Journal:
Today, I finally did it. I did a full day of consuming only bananas. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t overly hard either. My biggest complaint is simply that everything seems so sweet to me now so the ripe bananas are almost too sweet, but the majority of my bananas tasted not as ripe. There was no perfect middle today.

I didn’t do much in the morning. In the afternoon, I managed to get up, gather a few things that I had left at work, and went to the gym. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the earlier Sabbath hour, I had enough energy to do a full hour of cardio on the elliptical instead of the normal half hour I did. I hadn’t even eaten that much today so I’m not completely sure where the energy was coming from. But regardless, it felt good to feel so good.

What didn’t feel good today was my neck. All the stress is starting to show in physical symptoms. I had an ache in my hip (never had this before without just cause) and my neck was in pain. Ugh… live a stress-free life as much as possible! The suffering is not worth it.

Other than that, the rest of the evening was very “chill” as well. No further developments have happened at my mother-in-law’s except for her own upgrading in security equipment. But just to be sure, when nobody was home, my dogs were also at taken out and put at the grandparents. No risks taken when not necessary.

Total bananas eaten for the day = 8.

Review of Symptoms:
-Energy is good.
-Caught up on some sleep = awesome!
-Lazy Day = nice break amongst the stress.
-Not craving bananas… would have been nicer to add a little coconut sugar to not very sweet bananas but I wanted to be completely reliant on solely bananas.
-Tastebuds are definitely much more sensitive.
-Elimination hugely improved!

Weight at the end of the day = 174.6 lbs (still the same)

Total Calories = approx. 923 (94% carbs, 3% fat, 3% protein)

What in the World is Going On? – Healing Journey Day 20

Journal:
Today was actually a pretty good day. Now, when I say it was a pretty good day, I’m reflecting and realizing that my “good” days have taken on a whole new meaning themselves. A “good” day now would have been a “crazy” day to me before. But I firmly believe in celebrating what is good overall, so I will continue to say that today was a pretty good day.

I managed to eat 2 bananas in the morning. This was a feat. I can’t remember the last time I actually managed to eat before the afternoon. The bananas were ripe and sweet and I was thankful. I was not craving any cooked food whatsoever.

At lunch time, we ran into the first big issue: hot lunch was not ready. I, in no way, blame the person in charge. He was doing the best he could with none of his help showing up. In fact, I felt bad. Being the teacher I am, I decided to move our lunch time to after lunch recess so that there wouldn’t be a huge rush and extra time could be provided. After explaining this to my students, they completely understood.

Before my students came back in from recess, I decided to go see if any help was needed. Instead of giving assistance, they told me to call out my orders according to my list and simply gather what was needed for my class. So that is what I did. I had 8 orders for my class and I worked on transporting everything and having everything prepared for my hungry students to eat when they came in. However, because it was such a rush, I didn’t realize that I had also taken the lunch of a student who had been sent home in the morning. Because it had been handled, the hot lunch could not be returned. So I ended up splitting the lunch with another student whose father had not yet shown up with her lunch. This wasn’t even because I really wanted the lunch to be completely honest. But it was because I have a problem with wasting food. The cheese slice they added to the veggie burger? It definitely came off. Since being vegan, I cannot look at cheese the same way. And for anyone who has not read my other posts, I work in a school that does not serve meat whatsoever, so on any hot lunch day, meat is never an option. Everything is either vegetarian (like pizza days) or vegan, often with the option of either.

So, I didn’t end up with a super heavy feeling which I credit to not eating the whole lunch myself. However, I did not feel as “fresh” either. I’m not enjoying cooked food as much as I thought I would. There really is something to eating raw. I think my biggest struggle right now is that I’m limited to a single fruit per day and I just really want some veggies in there too to give me a break from the sweetness. But that day is coming soon. I just have to keep this up a little longer (especially since the past 3 days haven’t been 100%). Tomorrow, I have to clean up and do a full banana island day.

After lunch, my next big event happened during gym class for my students. The student whose parents still had not shown up with anything for her to eat was keeling over in gym. At this point, I asked if I could go into the canteen and pick a couple more things out for her. I sat with her while she ate the two things we selected. After she returned to gym, I looked at the clock and realized I had only about 5 minutes left until it was time to pick my kids up from gym. So I decided to head back into the kitchen to see if any help was needed in the clean up from hot lunch (again, one person doing everything). As I went in to help, the announcement went for what should have been a lockdown drill. However, a small and yet huge mistake was made. In a rush to fit our drills into the day, the script from the emergency paper was read and instead of using the appropriate words to say that it was just a drill, the script that meant it wasn’t just a drill was used. I can’t even begin to explain the stress and panic that occurred following the use of the wrong script. Thankfully, it ended up being just a drill with the wrong words being read. But as soon as everyone was given the all clear, many teachers ran to find out what happened and I think it is safe to say that this mistake will not happen again.

The rest of the day went fairly well, aside from an earthquake drill we had to practice later in the day. It was not the most productive day at work. But I came away from the day proud of my students and how they handled each situation. I am just happy we were all safe.

Though I did have a meeting of sorts again after school, I was actually home by 6:00 pm. It is a record for the past few weeks. It felt so good to just leave my classroom a mess, not worry about prepping for the next day, and not worrying about having to get up early the next morning to do it all again. I was home, I was safe, and for one evening, work could wait.

I would like to say the rest of the evening went well, but it didn’t. Around 7:00, I started wondering why my husband had not messaged me since lunch. He almost always messages me when he gets home around 6:00. And then I found out what happened.

A year or so ago, my mother-in-law was involved in a massive court case as her assistant had embezzled a bunch of money from the company. As she is second under the owner, she was just as much if not more involved with taking this lady to court than he was. While this was going on, my mother-in-law’s house was broken into: the door was kicked down, things were stolen, etc. Police were involved, the door was taken for fingerprinting, and the house was searched. Nothing ever came from this case, though suspicions were strong. She then installed some cameras along the driveway and put an electric gate at the end of the driveway as well. Nothing seemed to happen after that.

Well, yesterday, someone had come along and not only disconnected everything from her electric gate, but had also unbolted and stolen all of the electric gate equipment. To me, that took someone who had premeditated this as the person would have had to have all the right equipment to do it while also trying to be fast so as not to be caught when someone drove by. Though there is still a slight possibility it was someone looking to make some cash, it doesn’t seem likely.

Not only was that bad enough, the reason my husband had not contacted me was because someone had actually broken into the house again. But instead of just kicking in the door and stealing some things, they had turned on her gas burners and left them running. No, they were not ignited; they were simply turned on so the gas would continue to fill the house. Honestly, this is so much like a tv show. These are things you don’t think will ever happen to you. But this is real life and this is scary beyond belief. The worst part of it all is I had two of my dogs upstairs in a kennel. If they had blown up the house or burned the house down, my dogs would not be alive today. I freaked out. The worst part is, they called the cops, they came and took a look but of course could do nothing. The best advice they gave her was to set up cameras, fix the gate, and attach a sign at the beginning of her property saying that it was under surveillance. Even for myself, I find no comfort in this whatsoever. I think I’m still in shock now, even as I write this. This is one of my “homes”. This is my husband, my mother-in-law, and my dogs. If anything happens to them… I just can’t even fathom right now.

So needless to say, I didn’t leave the house. The gym was the furthest thing from my mind. And though I did manage to eat a total of 5 bananas today, only 2 of those were after I got home. My appetite was far from here. I’m on edge. I just can’t even imagine…

Review of Symptoms:
-Tired
-Stressed
-Not so hungry due to stress
-Cooked food is causing me to feel not as great.
-Acne is the same.
-Haven’t “eliminated” in several days…

Weight at the end of the day = 174.6 lbs (still no weight change)

Total Calories = approx. 1237 (78% carbs, 15% fat, 7% protein… much better ratios today)

Watermelon Island – Healing Journey Day 18 – Experiment Time!

Journal:
Wowee! What a day. Where do I even begin?

Well, let’s start with the fact I was running late this morning, so I packed 3 mini watermelons with me. I attempted to eat one before leaving on our field trip only to find out it tasted ROTTEN. Not a good start to the day.

After returning from the field trip, I attempted to eat another one for lunch. This one tasted better, but still not like the watermelons of true summer. I’m hitting the end of the season and the results are nasty. Why did I choose to eat fruit at this time of the year?

So needless to say, my idea of getting in some watermelon was a disaster. So I decided to use today as a true experiment day. For the past 17 days, I have only had MINIMAL amounts of fruit. I have not had anything else. Well, today I decided to see how I would react to some vegan junk food.

First I had a slice of vegan carrot cake. I wish I would have taken a picture of this beauty, but I was so nervous to actually eat it that it didn’t cross my mind. I actually was nervous to eat this piece of cake! I think back to my childhood days where we ate sweets REGULARLY (and here I was questioning a piece of carrot cake!!). Well, my body was dying while I ate it. It was so unbelievably sweet that I honestly started not feeling well. I stopped after a couple bites. It was not “good” to me at all. Oh have my tastebuds changed! As I forced myself to eat some more, I noticed that I even could end up with a headache if I continued eating this way. Oh man. Processed sugar is clearly bad.

Then I had some Ruffles All-Dressed chips. It was a very small amount, but the salt almost felt like it was burning my mouth. Oh it was so strong I can’t even begin to describe it to you. I felt like I might even go puffy around my eyes. Thankfully I didn’t as I was in a staff meeting, but man! Once you’ve been eating clean for so long, you really notice the unhealthiness of such foods when you eat them again. The power was potent!

I didn’t leave work until around 7:30/8:00 at night. It was a long, stressful day. But after I got home, I was starving. I didn’t get around to eating the third watermelon and I was STARVING. All I could think about was going ANYWHERE to get some kind of food. Fruit was not on my mind. It took a bit of willpower to prevent myself from getting in the car and driving to a drive-thru but I knew it was the effects of the junk I had today. It’s honestly terrible. Why do we do these things to ourselves?

In the end, I cracked open the third watermelon I had. The flavour sucked. It almost tasted like the red parts were the same as the rind. I couldn’t even eat it. I maybe had 2 or 3 bites. Fruit just sucks in quality here right now so my calories are staying very low. I’m not eating what I need, especially with the long hours I’m pulling and the stress I’m going through at the moment. Tomorrow is a banana island day and I’m hoping my bananas show better results. So here’s to going to sleep hungry and awaiting to have bananas tomorrow. Let’s hope it’s a better day.

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is bad, especially on chin and where cheeks meet neck. Hating it.
-Hungry. Fruit quality is sucking right now.
-Almost a headache from sweet vegan junk food.
-Burning mouth and feeling of swelling from chips.
-Hair is slight greasy after water washing today.

Weight at the end of the day = 174.6 (up 1.8 lbs from yesterday… salt retention much?)

Total Calories = Approx. 966 (63% carbs, 32% fat, 5% protein… way too high in fat!!)

Orange Island – Healing Journey Day 17

Journal:
Today is the last day of oranges and it couldn’t come sooner. Part of my problem is I’m not eating enough, but two of my 10-lb bags of oranges have blue-molded after purchasing them two days before so I had to throw them out. And what a day it was…

Today was one of those days that once again, I wish I had stayed in bed. It was such a stressful day I can’t even begin to tell you. I didn’t get home until after 6:30 (school gets out at 3:55). I didn’t get my spares today because I had to deal with situations. On top of already being exhausted from the weekend, the day took the rest of the energy I had left. What a day…

And of course, on a day when I’m super hungry, not eating enough, and sick of the awful quality oranges I’ve been managing to eat, a loving parent of a student brings me these delicious oatmeal bars. Ah! It took all my willpower not to eat those as they sat on my desk. Ah…. I’m internally screaming at this moment. But tomorrow is a watermelon day, so I’m hoping my watermelons are better.

So I survived the day, came home and changed, and then went out to drown my sorrows in a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Yes… even it didn’t taste the best (again, not the right time for oranges), but it was the only way I could not break my orange island day. So it worked. It hit the spot.

After I drank the juice, I went to the gym and did 33 minutes of cycling cardio. It felt good. Exercise is such a good stress reliever and it was much needed tonight.

So that about sums up my day as I just went home after the gym and pretty much went to bed. I’m looking forward to some hopefully better fruit days coming up.

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne still bad. Not happy. Picture day is coming up…
-Hair not greasy. Loving that!
-Stomach is great. Not having anymore issues.
-Digestion on hold so I’m monitoring. Could be stress-related.
-Tired.
-Hungry. Still not eating enough.

Weight at the end of the day = 172.8 lbs (down a total of 16 lbs)

Total Calories = approx. 1032 (99% carbs, 0% fat, 1% protein)

Orange Island – Healing Journey Day 16

Journal:
What a day. I’m exhausted. After staying up so late getting things ready last night, I had to get up early and get going again. We had to pack up the vehicles and transport everything to the playing fields to set up and sell from the canteen all day. I didn’t get a chance to eat anything until noon, and even so, I did not eat much today. What drove me crazy all day was the smell of the burgers on the bbq. Oh my goodness. I had to smell them all day. They weren’t vegan, so that helped me not to cave. They were vegetarian as we didn’t sell anything with meat.

Thankfully, the weather was nice. That in itself helped. What I also find helps is the accountability that I have. I have accountability to you guys on here, and also to my housemates because they know what I’m doing. When people are watching, you are able to be so much more careful with what you do. So I stuck it out with clementines. Only one more day of oranges after this.

A note about the oranges: They are terrible right now. I totally picked the wrong fruit to eat for 4 days. Oranges are a winter fruit and we have not yet hit winter so the quality is terrible. But, because I’m determined to do this journey, I’m sticking it out. So here we go.

Review of Symptoms:
-Really not liking the state of my acne. I really want it to go away.
-I’m hungry and I know I’m not even enough.
-Exhausted. Doing way too much.

Weight at the end of the day = 174.4 lbs (down a total of 14.4 lbs)

Total Calories = 616 (99% carbs, 0% fat, 1% protein)

Orange Island – Healing Journey Day 15

Journal:
Today was a very lazy day. I didn’t wake up in time to go to church so I grabbed a plate of oranges and stayed home.

I don’t have a lot to write about today as I literally rested for most of the day.

After sundown, I did start prepping some items for tomorrow’s softball tournament. My housemate and I made up more candy bags, made two kinds of popcorn balls and rice krispy squares. Though I did stick to just eating oranges, the smell of vanilla was getting to me. It took some willpower to not breakdown and eat something today. But once again, I was able to do it.

It was a late night, but by 12:30 am, I was asleep.

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne showing no improvement.
-Hair is still not greasy and I’m loving it.
-Digestion is great.

Weight at the end of the day = 174.6 lbs (down a total of 14.2 lbs)

Total Calories = 781 (98% carbs, 1% fat, 1% protein)

Orange Island – Healing Journey Day 14

Journal:
Today is the day. I can hardly  believe it. Today is the day that I actually get to take a bite of fruit. Today is the day that I begin a 4-day orange island journey. What is “orange island?” It is where I will eat nothing but oranges for the next 4 days, as many oranges as I want. Now, I haven’t chosen to get so picky as to only select one variety of orange, but instead will be eating a mix of Valencia, Navel and Clementine. I’ve never done a fruit island before, so I’m excited to see what it will be like.

I didn’t get to sleep in this morning as I had a dentist appointment first thing. I was not looking forward to this dentist appointment as – if you remember from last week – there was a spot that grew into a cavity that needs to be fixed underneath an old filling. I could not be seen by the naked eye, but instead would require removing the old filling and replacing it with a new one. This would require a freezing needle, drills, and all of that jazz. However, they scared me enough with the possibility of a future root canal that I had agreed to get this done.

I did not want to go to this appointment with an empty stomach, so I quickly chopped up and ate three valencia oranges. Honestly… it wasn’t all the “fireworks” that I thought it would be. Sure, it was nice to actually have food to eat again, but I think I was just so used to juices at this point that the act of chewing actually took away from my satiation. It’s weird to describe but perhaps it is because you have to eat more to get the same calorie amount as simply opening your mouth and swallowing juice. I’m not sure but I have 4 days of eating oranges to figure it out. Either way, I got some food in my stomach and went to my appointment.

The appointment went well. I didn’t have any pain, but hated the swollen face from the freezing. It actually tired me out to be honest. I did manage to go get groceries after my appointment, but finally had to succumb to a nap when I got home. I was exhausted. Whether it was from stressing about the dentist appointment, or whether it was what my body went through at the dentist, I’m unsure. But I was completely exhausted and slept for a good couple hours.

I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for the upcoming softball tournament with my housemate. We are in charge of the canteen that will be there so there was quite a bit we had to get. Because I work at a SDA school and this is a fundraiser for our school, everything is either vegan or vegetarian. No meat is sold which fits in so nicely with my own beliefs and morals. I’m just hoping the day is going to be a sunny, nice day.

After shopping again, I spent the evening laying around. I was still tired and looked forward to sleep. I didn’t eat near as much as I should have, but with the dentist trip and so much shopping, it was hard to have the time to eat enough oranges. I’m hoping to do better tomorrow.

Review of Symptoms:
-Underate. Went to bed hungry.
-Super tired today.
-Dry air is making me more dehydrated. Need to drink more water.
-No stomach upsets.

Weight at the end of the day = 176.6 (down a total of 12.2 lbs)

Total Calories = 708 (87% carbs, 5% fat, 8% protein)

There’s Nothing Like…Family Get-togethers!

Growing up, we stayed very close to our family.

My mother was an only child, but my grandmother was one of thirteen children. So naturally, my mother grew up very closely to her aunts and uncles which also meant we grew up close to our great aunts and uncles and their families.

My father had a desire to keep my sister and I close to our cousins, to grow up together as we were all around the same age. That meant a fair amount of travelling but lasting relationships.

The only time I’ve really been completely separated from my family is when I left the East Coast to live in the West Coast, which is understandably too long of a distance to just go for a ride to see them.

Of course, now that everyone is getting older, and the economy has not gotten better in the East Coast, my generation are starting to move towards the west for jobs. So getting all of us together is no longer as easy as it once was.

But this weekend was my French grandparents (my father’s parents) 52nd anniversary! And so we took a little trip to a little island, filled up most of the small hotel (only 2 rooms weren’t ours) and had a lovely time sitting around and talking again. I believe we totalled 18 people. Try fitting all of us in restaurants together! It gets tricky.

Roosevelt Park we visited on Campobello Island, NB.

But what I loved most about it is that sense of being “home”. The familiar faces, the histories I have with my family, the fact that no matter what seems to happen in life, they’re still able to get together (at least most of us… a few were missing) and still have a great time. There’s no better bond that a family’s love and I am extremely fortunate to have a fantastic family. The love and care is evident, but of course they love to have fun and joke as well.

This weekend was so great, and I just happen to be home at the right time to make their trip; totally unplanned. But I got to share it with my family, and that’s what mattered most.

52 years together… my grandparents are an inspiration. They still love each other and that love has trickled through the family. They continuously have an open door policy and my grandfather himself loves nothing better than to sit and play cards and talk. While my grandmother likes to talk, but also likes to make sure you’re well taken care of with delicious home-cooking. And if the whole family shows up and fills their house?That’s great. Because that’s the family I grew up in. A family who knew that staying together was important. And that’s the kind of relationships we’ll always have.