Attempted and Failed – Healing Journey Day 59

Journal:
I felt fairly good waking up today, though I was tired. It was time to go back to work, though it would be a short and broken-up week.

Please excuse the language at the bottom of this book.

At first, I thought about starting Day 1 of the Summer Edition of 7 Days of Fruitrition  in the ebook, Go Fruit Yourself! by Freelee the Banana Girl. In preparation, I packed a watermelon which was the breakfast. However, I also packed bananas and spinach as I still owed one smoothie from that program. I didn’t even get to start eating the watermelon until lunch, and though it was an alright watermelon, I can definitely tell the difference between the quality now and the quality from the summer. It’s definitely not as good.

After finally finishing this small, 3.5 kg watermelon (the guide suggests an 8 kg one), I never got a chance to eat the rest of the work day and that was a mistake. I was not able to go home until after 9:00 pm meaning I had put in a 13+ hour day. Let’s just say… I did not complete Day 1. I ended up ordering food and though one item was a cooked, vegan pizza, the other was a big, raw salad. It does amaze me that even though I easily am falling back into bad, cooked food patterns, I have enhanced my desire for raw foods. I could not eat the cooked food without mentally knowing I had a big salad to go with it. That part of me has completely changed. I know that I need and my body screams for the raw foods.

As I said, I worked a long night preparing for my substitute tomorrow. I’m going to a Math PD with the other lower elementary teachers I work with, and it isn’t just a normal preparation, it also includes a Remembrance Day ceremony where we each create a wreath of poppies to present at the ceremony. That took up a bit of time to make.

Needless to say, I did not make it to the gym tonight. It was too late by the time I got home. So instead, I stayed up and worked some more (there never seems to be a shortage), and went to sleep.

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is bad.
-Tired.
-Hair is feeling a little greasy after the water rinse today.
-Hip flexor is feeling a little better but not great.

Weight at the end of the day = 168.7 lbs (up 1.9 lbs from yesterday)

Total Calories = 2111 (68% carbs, 25% fat, 7% protein… too much fat…)

Rawsome Healthy 5/5 – Healing Journey Day 58

Journal:
Today was a very busy and fully planned day. Today I planned on finishing the meal plans from the Rawsome Healthy guide and needed to go shopping for my next venture: The Go Fruit Yourself 2-week guide by Freelee the Banana Girl. Though I still wasn’t feeling 100% because of the little bit of extra, cooked food I had yesterday. I honestly don’t feel anywhere near as good eating cooked food as I do with a fully raw diet. I just somehow have to find a cheaper way to do this since everything is imported in the winter here and prices go up. Either way, I’m determined.

This morning, I had a different smoothie: apples, dates, and celery. It was incredibly sweet and a little refreshing because of the celery. I would mess around with it a little bit (perhaps more water), but I would definitely drink it again!

After I ate breakfast, I went out to go grocery shopping. I didn’t expect what I would encounter, and I made a mistake: I ended up going to 7 grocery stores in order to get everything I needed, and I didn’t prepare anything to take with me. At one grocery store, I ended up purchasing a small, not raw treat. However, I found an absolute gem at an Asian market! I found raw sugar cane juice! Oh my goodness… I finally understand why people like it so much! It was by far my favourite thing, and I would totally live off this stuff!

After I got home, I got ready to make my last salad right away. I had another soccer game to get ready for and I didn’t want to have a full stomach before the game. The salad was ok, though again not my favourite. Truly the only dinner I would probably make from this guide again was the dinner from Day 3. But for tonight, I was at least able to finish this salad and it definitely fuelled me for my salad.

The soccer game was good, though my hip flexor pain was coming back. I’m quickly realizing that this is a common injury amongst “kickers” which is when it hurts the most during the soccer game. I’m going to have to start personal therapy after researching what to do. If necessary, I will go to therapy of sorts.

After the game, I ate 2 persimmons on the way home and another 5 after getting home. And that concluded my night. I did really well today, though I have to somehow find a way to stop eating earlier in the day. I don’t think my body is appreciating eating so late at night, but that will be progress somehow.

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is bad.
-Energy is good.
-“Kicking” Hip Flexor issue is bad after the soccer game.
-Body does much better on all raw.
-Hair is great.

Weight at the end of the day = 166.8 lbs (down 1 lb from yesterday)

Total Calories = 1735 (85% carbs, 6% fat, 9% protein)

I Threw in the Towel and Regretted It – Healing Journey Day 46

Journal:
This morning was rough. It actually started out good: I woke up early, finished one of the 3 papers that were due today, showered early, got ready on time, and even had enough spare time to make a smoothie for breakfast to take with me! I was so happy.

Then it began. My dog started scratching at the door which is not allowed. So I reprimanded him and went back downstairs to finish making my smoothie. I thought I was all done when no sooner had I finished dumping it from my Magic Bullet blender into my cup had I realized that half of the rubber seal was missing. I hoped that it had just broken from being old and was still intact in my smoothie somewhere, but to no avail. It was gone: disintegrated throughout my smoothie. Ugh. These were my only 3 truly ripe bananas and I don’t even have any spare frozen ones. There went the best smoothie of the day. I had to dump it out. This upset me the most. But then, I went to let my dog in only to find that somehow he unattached his lead again (it’s a chain link so I’m not even sure how he does this) which meant he had run through the muddy, dug-up garden. So I tried to contain him on the mat inside the door. However, the second I turned to grab the towel to wipe him down, he bolted and ran muddy footprints all through the kitchen, down the beige carpet on the stairs, through the hallway, and into my carpeted room. Ugh. What a morning.

You can see the half of the silicone ring that was left… There was no finding it with my knife. It was completely obliterated throughout the whole smoothie.

So after worship at work, I took a few minutes to go to the kitchen and quickly threw another smoothie together. It was simple, spinach and bananas. But I could easily taste the difference of bananas that are not as ripe as the last ones I sampled. And to top it all off, I threw out the equivalent of a banana and a half because they so badly bruised that they were literal mush. But, I had a green smoothie and that’s what day it is today. Three days of green smoothies will hopefully only improve from here.

I didn’t get another chance to make another smoothie until late in the afternoon. I was hungry and couldn’t wait to make a smoothie. I quickly went through my container of spinach, only to find out that an odd amount of moisture had somehow gotten in the container and started to make some of the spinach go bad. So I picked out all the good spinach that I could. Then I peeled the rest of my bananas, only having to throw one out. I also had a bag of peaches that I had been looking forward to. Come to find out, I had to throw out two of the peaches and the others were going bad quickly. However, I saved what I could, threw it in the blender, and blended it up. Words cannot express how terrible this smoothie tasted. Whether it was because of the deteriorating peaches, spinach I saved from the wilting ones, or the definitely unripe bananas, I can only guess they all were a factor. I honestly tried to choke it down. I mean, I discovered I hated rosemary a few days ago and still managed to choke it down. But this… this was awful. Words cannot describe. And as hard as I tried, I couldn’t do it. So there went some more money down the drain. Needless to say, I was frustrated.

So, out of frustration, I left school starving, came home, grabbed an English cucumber and the Daiya ranch dressing that I had left, and ate it down quickly. I then went to get a vegan burrito. Sure, it tasted ok. But to be honest, I would have preferred just a side of rice and beans. My taste has definitely gone more simplistic. But the way I felt while eating this burrito was not worth it. My stomach immediately felt bloated and full. I could not finish the burrito. I may eat that volume of raw foods, but definitely not of cooked foods. My body is not used to it. Ugh. This was a big mistake. If I’m going to rebel in frustration, it NEEDS to be with unplanned raw foods. Though I must confess, a burrito with beans, rice, pico de gallo and salsa is not a huge splurge. In my old days, it would have been all the junk food I could have gotten my hands on. But even so, this is not what I like my body to feel like; I’m missing the raw foods.

I came back home and began working on my sub plans for tomorrow. I’m going to a convention tomorrow and there was a lot of work that needed to be done ahead of time. I was able to get my work done, but my mind was continuing to think about how much better I felt eating raw foods. I made up my mind to be back on track tomorrow, and so that meant a very late drive to two grocery stores to try and find the most ripe bananas I could. Here’s to attempting my 3 days of green smoothies again tomorrow!

Since I didn’t go to sleep until the wee hours of the morning, I ended up grabbing what food I had around me. This included an apple cinnamon fig bar and another English cucumber with Daiya ranch and green Sriracha. What a messed up day of eating.

Tomorrow we are back on track with some mostly ripened bananas, kale and spinach. Let’s do it!

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is better along my neck line, but worse on my cheeks.
-Digestion is so-so.
-Hair is actually doing alright. Washed with only water today.
-Energy is good.

Weight at the end of the day = 171.2 lbs (up 3.2 lbs from yesterday)

Total Calories = 2350 (68% carbs, 25% fat, 7% protein… totally blew my macros today…)

All Fruit Day – Healing Journey Day 34

Journal:
I am finally on to eating all fruit! I’m so excited. I don’t have to depend on a blender anymore. Honestly, making smoothies isn’t so bad when I’m home with a blender, but even though I have a blender at work, it’s hard for me to break away from the students to take the time needed to make a smoothie, wash the blender, etc. To be successful with a smoothie feast, here are my tips:

1. Always have a blender. Bring it with you everywhere.
2. If you’re short on time, prep the fruit ahead of time. Freeze if possible so it is always ready to go.
3. Try to make a big smoothie to take with you if you are going to be busy, so you don’t have to worry about finding time to make another smoothie (which also means buy a big cup or container to put it in!).

So today, for a snack, I had an orange pippin apple. I had never had this variety before, but it is delicious! The flavour is intense and wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed my apple.

For lunch, I had a Keitt mango and it was phenomenal. When I bought these mangoes, they were completely unripe, hard as a rock, and costed me $3 per mango. I took a huge chance when I bought these, but I couldn’t be any happier that I did. They have been the best mangoes I have had in years. Oh my goodness. I am in love! Sadly, today’s mango was my last one. I am going to miss them dearly.

So, as you can kind of tell, I didn’t get a lot of time to eat today. But, that’s why having easy-access fruit is crucial with my job. I only get short minutes here and there to eat, so if the fruit is not ready to go right away, then chances are I won’t be able to eat it or at least won’t be able to eat much of it.

I didn’t end up eating anything for the rest of the day. In fact, it wasn’t until I finished work, got home, went to get my local soccer player’s card, went to Eurosport and bought indoor soccer shoes, shin pads, and new highlighter yellow soccer socks, that I finally went to another smoothie place called Jugo Juice. Jugo Juice is a place that serves fresh juices and smoothies and unlike Booster Juice, never uses sorbet in their smoothies (hence why I’ve been getting only the juice/smoothies at Booster Juice).

At Jugo Juice, I got a smoothie called Blushing Mango. It had guava and passionfruit juices, blended with frozen raspberries and frozen mangoes. It was VERY good.

After finishing my smoothie, I ended up coming home. I didn’t end up making it to the gym because I was tired from not eating a lot throughout the day (my mistake). I also have had a chill all day, never seeming to be able to get warm. This made it difficult for me to want to go back outside to drive to the gym. We have snow on the ground already and after doing my morning recess duty, it’s like the chill was in my bones all day. I’m not enjoying this early winter.

I did end up drinking a little bit of organic blueberry juice before I went to bed (so hungry), but that was it for the day.

Review of Symptoms:
-HUNGRY! (Need to eat more throughout the day!)
-Acne still bad…
-Digestion is good.
-Tongue very minimally covered.

Weight at the end of the day = 171.2 lbs (down 3 lbs from yesterday)

Total Calories = 946 (96% carbs, 2% fat, 2% protein… need to eat more tomorrow…)

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)

Why Vegans Are Hostile Towards “Plant-Based” Eaters

Growing up, you are always taught the basics: people who eat meat were the norm, people who didn’t eat meat were vegetarians, and people who didn’t eat any animal products were vegans. Those are/were the levels of people with what they ate. However, this classification has caused strife in the world.

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen arguments about what vegans are and what they are not. That’s when I was introduced to a new classification: Plant-Based.

So from everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve read, and everything I’ve heard, I can safely tell you the difference between a plant-based eater and a vegan person.

A plant-based person is someone who avoids all animal products (sounds like a vegan, right?). However, plant-based eaters are not necessarily doing it for animal rights. They are not necessarily avoiding meat because they see inhumanely slaughtered animals in every piece of steak. They don’t see cows beaten with metal pipes because they are not cooperating with the milking machines when they see milk in the stores. Plant-based eaters are usually eating that way for health reasons and are often much less judgemental of others who continue to eat meat.

Vegans are all of the above, avoiding animal products like the plague, because they see the suffering in the animal products. They hear the squeals of pigs in fear and suffering when you bite into a sausage. They see the knife slitting a cows alive throat when you bite into your burger. They see the tears of terrified animals when their flesh is being used. And because of this violent world that most people do not even know about, vegans take on the role of educating the world and fighting for the rights of these living creatures who cannot speak for themselves. Vegans could NEVER make the mistake of eating an animal product nor even using something made from animals so long as they can help it. It’s just not something they can bring themselves to do in the name of suffering animals. Yes, sometimes vegans come across harsh, maybe even too hard sometimes pushing people away from veganism rather than drawing them to it, but it does come from their passion and their inability to understand why you don’t care for these amazing creatures who are suffering needlessly for your meals. It would be the same for someone who’s anti-abortion not being able to understand how someone could take an innocent life. It’s the exact same thing – both species unable to speak out for themselves, both lives being needlessly ended.

So where does the hostility come between vegans and the plant-based people? Well, it comes when the plant-based eaters claim to be vegans, and then tell people it’s still ok to have some animal products. Nothing angers vegans more than people pretending to be for their cause, claiming to be under the same category, yet supporting something they don’t support at all, something they in fact go out of their way to fight against. So obviously, this makes them very upset and causes them often to lash out against those that are ruining their name. It is very common for vegans to ask these “fake vegans” to change their name to plant-based, and often times a fight will begin before plant-based people finally find out what the vegan movement is truly about.

Do I believe in acting so hostile towards each other? No. I’m pretty sure these “fake vegans” don’t even know that there is a difference between claiming to be vegan and being plant-based. I really think it comes down to education because like I said, I grew up believing that eating no animal products makes you a vegan, so I can easily see how others would think that too.

Hopefully this helps some of you see the difference between the two classifications. I know it’s a bit confusing and may even seem a bit ridiculous to some people, but for anyone who has a true passion for something, you can probably understand how it feels when somebody seems to undo the work you’ve put so much effort into. Let’s just remember to educate and not hate. Peace out!

Day 2

This morning, I was very tired when I woke up… mainly because I went to bed after midnight… way too late! This is something I need to work on!

I was rushing around this morning, and only took my multivitamins and green chews.

After I got to work, I then drank a bottle of water and took my other supplements. I began to feel very nauseous, with nothing in my stomach and already being awake for a few hours. The mixture of supplements in my empty stomach were also not a great idea. So I opened up some organic medjool dates and ate away. I forget how many I ate (in the 8-15 range) and felt much better.

I’ve been pretty busy all day and have not been eating as much as I know I should, but at lunch, I ate two organic apricots that I got in my Organic Box yesterday, and 2/3s of a container of organic blackberries that I also got in my Organic Box yesterday. Fresh, juicy, and delicious!

For an afternoon snack, I had a Larabar in the flavour of coconut cream (it’s vegan, no dairy!). It’s basically a blend of nuts, dates and coconuts. Maybe I’m going a little “nutty” today! 🙂

At the end of school, we had a serious mix-up that caused me to not even allow my students to leave for an extra 10 minutes after the final bell. My students are singing for IMPACT 2015 (a huge outreach event, saving souls for Jesus) on the weekend, and our principal ordered shirts for them to wear. However, when she was handing them out, the different shirts got mixed up somehow. The grade 3/4 Choir is singing Saturday morning for church service. The boys are wearing white short-sleeve dress shirts. The grades 5-8 Choir is singing Saturday evening for the evening service and are supposed to be wearing white long-sleeve dress shirts. 11/13 of my boys had short-sleeve, and only 2 had the proper long-sleeve, so I had to go up to grades 3/4 to switch the shirts as they were given ours. Oh what a mix-up! Chaos at the end of school.

After that was finally sorted out, and the kids were sent on their way, I had to quickly clean up my desk, pack up my stuff, and be on my way to meet some people at the mall. I ended up being at the mall for a half hour. And as I was there, meeting the two different people and mailing a package, I was STARVING! I was considering buying something to eat at the mall, but decided I would rush home to my husband who was waiting for me. But then I made a mistake…

My husband is starting a new job on Monday, and I wanted to celebrate with him. Since we were both super hungry, I decided we should celebrate by going out. The problem was, we decided to go to a restaurant we used to have so many fun dates going to. What I didn’t realize was that the vegan options were minimal (their garden salad quality is not that great to me), and so I decided I would just suck it up and have a bit of dairy for the night. I knew I would be paying for this later…

For background knowledge, we were so hungry that we were at the point of feeling sick – a bad place to be when ordering food. We ate deep-fried jalapeño bottle caps, cheese quesadilla, and pancake puppies (deep-fried pancake balls). I had a veggie burger (not bad) with some seasoned fries. My husband had a beef burger with regular fries, chicken strips, and a piece of cheesecake. Now, we did not finish everything, but we did eat a lot. I could tell afterwards I was going to pay for what I ate. I never wanted to touch another piece of deep-fried food again!

We didn’t even go to the gym. Instead, we just spent some time together and went to sleep. We definitely “party” when we celebrate… lol. Neither of us drink or dance, so that’s almost as exciting as it gets for us. 🙂

Day 1 in Review

Hello everyone!

As promised, I will tell you what my days are like, and what I may struggle with.

I have gotten quite a few ideas from different vegans, however, today I decided to go with Freelee’s sample meal plan in a way that I could do it.

For breakfast, I’m having pulpy orange juice. That way I’m still getting in some of the fibre, and filling up on some yummy oranges. She suggests drinking 2L just for breakfast! I would have loved this as a kid, and still enjoy it today! I don’t think this is something I will do everyday, simply because I know it is important to get the full fibre in of a full fruit, but every once in awhile, it’s a nice, healthy “treat”!

For supplements with my breakfast (I’ll quit taking them as soon as I run out though…), I’m taking 2 probiotics (to make sure my digestion doesn’t do anything funny on the switch in diet), biotin (for hair and nail growth), and vitamin D (it just snowed again today!). I am planning on taking vitamin D still on days that I don’t get outside in the sun much, and also planning on taking B12 which apparently is difficult to get enough of on many different diets, not just vegan. Aside from those two, I will not continue the others once I am done with them, unless I need to. I also took two green chews (using to help me adjust until I’m eating a sufficient amount of greens each day), and some multivitamins (which I will also stop taking once they are done).

For a snack, I again took Freelee’s suggestion and drank some more pulpy orange juice. Like I said, it’s amazing! But I don’t think I would do this more than once or twice a week. It’s good to get a variety of fruits and veggies in too!

In total, I drank approximately 2.63L of pulpy orange juice. I did not even feel hungry at lunch! I’m in love.

Now, I was little worried that because I was drinking so much orange juice, and no water, that my urine would show up as dehydrated (darker yellow). After all, as a kid, you grow up thinking this is the case, usually because it’s not pure orange juice you were drinking. But nope! It was really clear. I was very hydrated! That’s the power of real things (no additives).

I got really busy at work (teaching, of course), and did not get a chance to eat anything else throughout the afternoon. I thought I had a deadline for certain files to be in my students’ records. Although I was done getting them to do their part, I wanted to grade them quickly before I sent them to their files. So I was grading like a mad-woman! When I was done with one stack, and about to tackle the next (after school), I took the one stack to our special needs coordinator. She was so excited I was done with them and was the first one. I looked at her and asked her why I was the first one when the deadline was tomorrow. She then proceeded to tell me the deadline was a week from tomorrow. I had the date completely wrong! Ugh… Oh well, I’d rather have things done earlier than later. I didn’t mark the second stack though. I went home.

I was so hungry when I came home, and so excited at the same time. I had just subscribed to a service called The Organic Box. They deliver fresh, organic produce to you once a week. You’re able to customize that you want, and it’s just amazing. So I got my first box today, and was so excited as I brought it in the house and was taking everything out. In fact, it inspired my supper.

For supper, I had a big salad with 50/50 mixed greens from Organic Girl, berries from my Organic Box (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries), rainbow carrots from my Organic Box, field cucumber from my Organic Box, some sunflower seeds and soya nuts that I had, and topped with a mixture I made of avocado, salsa, lemon and a touch of vegan cream cheese. Oh it was so delicious and fresh tasting. Absolutely loved it!

Unplanned, but when we got to the gym, they have a Booster Juice and my husband wanted one of their smoothies. They have these vegetarian wraps that are super tasty, so I got one of those. I’m not sure this was vegan… That was my mistake. I will have to check another time.

My workout went well. I did a 10 minute warm-up on the treadmill, did some push-ups, some kettebell and 10-lb plate squats (hold the plate straight out in front of you), planks, foam rolling, shoulder rolls, standing alternating toe touches, my chiropractor exercises, and a 20 minute brisk walk on the treadmill.

Usually when I do cardio, I take it as my chance to read. I’ve conquered quite a few books this way because I have so much going on the rest of the time. Right now, I’m reading a book called “Skinny B***h”. I don’t swear, ever, so I will not type it out, sorry. But it is a super good book so far (minus some swearing/harsh language), but the information is awesome. The two ladies that wrote it are actually vegan and they explain why they’ve made this choice and why people should make that choice throughout the first chapters of the book. Love it.

After we came home, I took some mini, organic sweet potatoes that I had and cooked them up. One had gone mouldy in the bag, but didn’t seem to effect the others. I was so deceived. I cooked up about four of them, took them out of the peel and mashed them together, had a couple good bites, then took a bite that was potently terrible. In fact I had to spit it back out, clean my mouth out, gargle and the works. Oh that was so terrible. I didn’t go on eating anything more last night. That had ruined my appetite.

Following this, I went to bed.

My Rib is Injured… Again!

Several summers ago, I got sick. The worst part of getting sick for me is always this nasty cough that I get. This particular summer, the cough was so bad that I heard a “snap” following a hard cough. I didn’t notice anything at first though I had a huge feeling that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t until later that I figured it out.

I jumped in my father’s truck that he had let me borrow while working away. And as soon as I had jumped up into the seat, I felt it. It was a tight feeling at first, but then quickly developed into a bad pain. I could barely turn the steering wheel. In the short 5 minute drive to the trailer I was renting, I knew I had to call my mother to come drive me to the hospital. I had to wait a fair time for her as I was about 45 minutes away, but she quickly came and took me to the hospital.

The hospital was about another 30 minutes from where I was, and the wait at the hospital was about 2 hours. The problem was, by the time I was registered and sitting in the waiting room, I was having a hard time breathing. All I can remember is intense pain and focussing on low and shallow breaths.

We waited for awhile until my mother decided to check where we were on the list, only to find out that we had been bumped down rather than up and the wait from that point was longer than 2 hours. It hurts to breathe but I’m not a serious case? My mother was mad to say the least.

We hopped in the car, and headed to the next hospital an hour away. It was a shorter time than I would have had to wait at the first hospital, and this hospital took me in right away. The only problem was, I had popped a rib muscle, which the doctor promptly told me hurts as much as breaking a rib (crazy pain), and there was nothing they could do except give me Tylenol 3.

Now some people I knew would have gone crazy over Tylenol 3. My mother had a mini freak-out session about how I might become addicted to it, but after telling her everything would be fine, I got my prescription and was on my way.

It was a painful summer. The T3s didn’t touch the pain hardly at all. I always walked around with one hand putting pressure on that rib area. It was awful. Nothing but time was able to heal that wound.

Once again, I was sick a few weeks ago and the cough has mostly gone but not completely. I know my body has suffered a little more than normal (didn’t help when my chiropractor asked what happened except I had been doing nothing but sleeping and sitting on the couch, trying to get better), but my body still seemed in decent shape. I worked out this week and everything seemed good.

Last night was a chest workout, and even though I warmed up and stretched, in the very first exercise (bench press), my rib started to hurt. I can’t remember if it is the same side or not, but I’m pretty sure I popped a stupid rib muscle again. It hurts so bad and I have to put pressure on the area to even try to take a deep breath. My abs are also starting to hurt because of the way I have to modify my body when I need to cough. It’s miserable.

I had just gotten well enough to start back in the gym and this is what happens! Ah!

To be honest, I wasn’t going to complete my workout last night because of the pain. But as I sat in the locker room, looking at my open locker as I was going to change, I got mad, closed and locked my locker, and went out and did the incline dumbbell press. I’m pretty sure it was a very dumb idea. I’m pretty sure I made it worse. I had written down to do 4 sets of 12, but after 3 sets, I knew I was being ridiculous. I shouldn’t be mad, although it was hard to not at least be disappointed.

So here I am with heat packs and taking it easy. I would much rather be in the gym but I’ve done my damage and I should know better. Injuries are something to take serious and it’s very important to know when to quit. So learn from my mistake and save yourself some pain. I’m all about lifting heavy and “sucking-it-up” in most situations, but I felt the pain and knew I should have quit. Next time, I will.

Teaching: What They Say Is True

Teaching is the only job (and I’ve been reminded of it a lot lately) where it can take more work to call in sick than to actually go to work.

It was a long weekend, so I had time to prepare for Tuesday, not that it was an easy task, but it got done. Wednesday morning, I felt mildly better, but knew I should probably still call in sick. But, I couldn’t wrap my mind around getting sub plans done and hence, decided to toughen up and go to work. What a mistake!

Besides the fact I was coughing all day, slowly losing my voice (albeit very slowly), and sweating as well as feeling miserable, I somehow managed to survive the day. The only thing was, I had a funny feeling I was sabotaging my recovery by pushing myself throughout the day. So I did the smart thing, and prepared sub plans throughout the day and finished them after school before coming home.

I really wasn’t sure if I had made myself worse or not, so I simply laid out the sub plans, wrote a few letters to some students that I had to ask questions to and didn’t get the chance, and instructed a student to make sure a couple things got done incase the sub forgot. Everything was in place, just incase. I did not ask for a sub yet, just incase.

Of course, this morning I wake up so tired. I had awoken several times throughout the night coughing up a storm. My throat felt like it had gravel stuck in it and dry as a desert at the same time. At times, I was coughing so hard, tears were running down my face. There was absolutely no way I was going to work and I definitely did damage going to work yesterday.

But the good news was, I didn’t have to worry about sub plans again because they were already done, so I couldn’t talk myself out of going: the looming task was done! And now I’m at home, taking medicines, both natural and over-the-counter, trying to recover and finally kick whatever it is that I have. After waking up this morning (from coughing again) and messaged my VP that I needed a sub, I managed to fall back asleep (fell asleep before saying good-bye to my husband because I was so exhausted) and slept for a few solid hours. I’m tired again already, but I at least don’t have to worry about anything except getting better. Sometimes you just need time to rest and recover.