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!)

Water Fasting w/ Lemon – Healing Journey Day 5

Journal:
Today was my final day of water fasting, but I did it with a twist: I added the slices of one lemon to my water. Why would I do this? I figured it would be a good transition between water fasting to juice feasting while also giving extra motivation the final day of no eating with a beautiful taste. Lemons also have the most minimal calories so it is almost like I’m consuming nothing anyways.

Let me tell you, that first taste of lemon water was absolutely divine! I have never had better tasting lemon water. It was so satisfying and just simply amazing.

When I woke up this morning, I actually felt like a fairly normal human being for once! I cannot describe how nice it was to wake up not feeling absolutely worn out and tired already. I actually slept off and on all night, waking up every couple of hours. I was expecting to be extremely tired this morning. However, my stomach was not burning and didn’t start burning until later though much milder than the previous day. My limbs were not cold even though I didn’t have the heater on and I was not as tired as I thought I would be; I was fairly wide awake. It was honestly the most amazing feeling after days of not feeling good at all. I hadn’t had any lemon water by this point so I’m not sure why the change happened, but I will honestly say that I have never been so thankful to feel good.

So as mentioned, the stomach burning did happen shortly after I got out of bed. It wasn’t near as bad as before, but still something noticeable. Honestly, it was so mild I barely noticed it throughout the day. But in the very first part of the morning, not only did my stomach begin to burn a little (again probably from my body metabolizing fat stores), but I felt a little weak walking around. What fixed that? The blessed lemon water. Again, I cannot tell you what the little flavour and tiny calories of lemon in my water is doing for my body. I did not even squeeze the lemon into it. I simply sliced up a lemon, put it in my water bottle, and kept refilling with water as I ran out. I feel more stable and stronger when I walk though I can still tell I’m looking for opportunities to sit when possible and my energy is not back to where it should be. Still, the improvement is huge!

I got through my work day fairly well, though once again, about half way through the day, I was still looking for any opportunity to sit down and limit my walking. Of course, as the day went on, the lemon began to lose its strength of flavour. But something is still better than nothing!

After I got home, I had energy enough to actually sit upstairs and have a conversation with my housemates which was awesome. I did end up coming downstairs to my part of the house and decided just to lay down and watch some YouTube. Partly to rest my body, and partly because it was a hot day and I wanted to wait for the heat to die down before I ran any errands. I probably laid down for about an hour watching YouTube videos and then somehow fell asleep.

I did not feel so good when I woke up. My stomach was hurting again and almost felt like my stomach muscles were cinching just not to the level of being “pinched”. It was a dull but constant pain and not a sharp pain. I got a touch of the same acid reflux/heartburn feeling that I had yesterday and though I tried to use the washroom with the same proper posture I used yesterday, there was no success. My energy literally felt like it was drained from my body while I slept although I continued to drink lemon water after I woke up.

I made myself get changed for the gym and made it out to my car. I was taking many deep breaths for the rest of the night. I had to go to the store to buy a cable to tie my dog outside as he chewed through his soft leash and there are gaps in the fence that he can easily fit through. The cable is 15 feet long and he’s a miniature dachshund so that is tons of room for him to go through almost the whole backyard. But after I was done going through the store, I felt winded and awful. Still, I made myself drive to the gym.

After I got to the gym parking lot, I knew I had to make a choice. I could either force myself to go in and do a small cardio workout and risk the chance of feeling even worse than I did, or just go home and see if I could sleep it off. I decided to go home and try to sleep it off.

I think today has truly been the weakest and most uncomfortable I have felt yet. It is not pleasant though I think it is so weird how good I felt in the morning to how awful I felt towards the evening.

At this point, I’m kind of nervous about how my body will react to the introduction of juice tomorrow. I am excited that it’s the closest to “food” that I will have consumed in 6 days, but at the same time, with the way I feel, I’m not sure what my body’s reaction will be. I only pray that it is a good reaction and that it will help my energy come back.

In total, though it felt like I drank more, I only had about 2L of water today. I did savour the lemon flavour.

Review of Symptoms:
Acne is noticeably better today. No new pimples again and instead of being a brighter red, they are starting to pale-down. That is something to celebrate. Stomach burning has gone down significantly becoming almost unnoticeable. Waking up feeling refreshed and “normal” was a treat. Sleep was lacking as I woke up every couple hours throughout the night. Something odd that I noticed was the veins in my hands are much more visible. I have pale skin to begin with, but I can see many more veins than usual. Stomach cramping in the evening. Energy zapped in the evening.

Weight at the end of the day = 180.8 lbs (down 1.8 lbs in 24 hours, down a total of 8 lbs in 96 hours)

Total Calories = ~15-20 calories

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 11 – Weight Check-In

I haven’t mentioned anything about weight so far because I wanted to see what would happen. After all, I’m used to counting calories, believing in a “Calories-in, calories-out” deficit system which I have not been doing at all. I’ve simply been trying to eat raw until 4, and everything vegan. I eat until I’m full, and that’s about it.

Well, I’m happy to announce that I’m officially 11 pounds under my heaviest (a couple months ago), I don’t have 5 pound variations from day-to-day, and I feel so much better! How exciting is it that I don’t have to feel like I’m starving, and yet I’m losing weight! I have more energy (compared to calorie restricting), and I just all around feel better. It’s amazing. I really don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.

Upon waking, I had a long drink of water. It’s time to get the body hydrated.

For breakfast, I had a deliciously juicy organic cantaloupe. It was SO good! I also had an organic honeydew that was the juiciest, sweetest honeydew melon I have ever had. Thank you Organic Box!

For lunch yesterday, I had another fresh beet, carrot and apple juice with a veggie wrap. My fail was that I ate a doughnut right before, and regretted eating it while I ate it. I also ate a little too close to my workout and thus felt too full while exercising, but stills was able to punch out a good workout. I did lunges, toe-touch jacks (a new favourite), side planks, push-ups and overhead squats. It was an excellent circuit and built up a good sweat. And where would I be without doing my chiropractor’s exercises. She has bumped me up to another level which are essentially harder versions of the ones I have been doing, so I’m working on conquering those.

After I finished my workout, I laid down to take a nap, after drinking some water of course. I slept for quite awhile. After sundown, my husband and I talked for a very long time, too long in fact. We got ourselves to the point of starving. It’s a known fact when you feel like you’re starving, you make bad choices. And that’s exactly what we did. We ordered in.

I didn’t do as well as last time. In fact, I did awful. I had veggie pizza (with cheese), I had jalapeño poppers and brownies. I felt so unbelievably greasy and yucky. I can’t believe I did this! Ugh.. Need to never do this again!

Day 4

We slept for as long as we wanted; it was so nice! I love the weekends where we don’t have to wake up according to an alarm clock. They’re so nice!

This morning was bad. My husband hadn’t put away the stuff from pizza last night, and I had a sip of Coke Zero, and the rest of the cinnamon sticks. I felt awful, the sugar in my throat (or cinnamon, or both) was actually choking me (hence the drink of Coke Zero), and it was just a mess. I wished I hadn’t done it as soon as I had done it.

For a pre-workout snack, I had a vegetarian wrap and a fresh juice made from beets, carrots and apples. If you’ve never juiced beets before, you need to. I love the flavour and texture it gives the juice. Yum! However, it is recommended that you don’t drink liquids and eat food together. I think I felt this a bit. I felt extremely full and slightly uncomfortable.

My workout went well. I did some squats, lunges, push-ups, lateral raises, and of course my chiropractor exercises.

For a late lunch, I ate 4 mangos. I really don’t know why I was feeling so full today, but that junk food really didn’t help. My body was “off”!

I had to rush to leave for a presentation that my students were doing for a crowd of 1800 people! They sang in the choir and gave an awesome concert. What I didn’t expect was the concert to take an hour, (we were there already an hour early to practice), the sermon to take about an hour and a bit, and the baptisms to be quite so many, but praise God! It was all amazing! I love seeing people give their hearts to God, and to praise with all of their hearts for God. A spectacular night, all 4 1/2 hours of it! Can you imagine how much I was starving?

I had promised my husband a date night, and since I was in a rush to get home, I actually ended up taking two detours, one out of our own city! Needless to say I was later than I said I was going to be. I even called ahead and have him get ready and meet me outside. Somehow, we made it in time and even had a fairly empty theatre. But that of course meant my supper was some popcorn, candy, and some Fanta Orange Pop. Not a supper I recommend. But by the time we got home (1:00 a.m.), I was too tired, and still full so I got ready and went to bed.

Tomorrow needs to be a better day…

Week 9 Day 5: The Crash

So I slept maybe 1/2 hour last night. And the results: I’m much closer to being done, but I’m still not done! This is taking so much longer than I ever planned, but regardless, off to work I go.

I actually went to work earlier this morning so that I could stop and get a coffee on the way. I knew I was going to need it badly today. Throughout the day, I managed to get more grading done (still not done) and my classes went well.

After school, we had a staff meeting that was very informative, and our Home and School group provided us with supper which was incredibly nice! But I could tell my body was getting antsy and my eyes were starting to hurt from being focussed and open so long.

I was almost scared for my 2 minute drive home. I knew my brain was probably not at the functioning it should be. But I made it home safely, and took a nap. The problem was, I took a longer nap than normal, thinking it would help. But instead my body started to release it’s tension, and it turned into a 12 hour sleep. My body literally crashed, with good reason. I must have gone through at least 6-12 dreams, the result of my brain on overdrive for 3 days in a sleepless row. My body has certainly had enough.

Week 9 Day 1: Had Some Fun

Today was a pretty awesome day.

First of all we slept in. I love sleep. If someone had only been able to convince me at a young age how much I’d value sleep later on, I think I would have slept more.

Then we got up and went to the Canadian Finals Rodeo: Championship Sunday. This was so much fun! Going through the Expo, watching all the finalists; it was a blast! I’ve loved horses for as long as I can remember, and my husband and I really seem to have picked up the rodeo circuit. We absolutely love it!

After the rodeo, we went to one of our favourite restaurants, Azucar Picante that has traditional Peruvian food. Now here’s a funny story. The ONLY South American country I’ve been to is Peru. I went on a mission trip with my church’s youth group, TYMES, during my grade 12 year. My husband’s uncle married a Peruvian woman and so his cousins are familiar with only Peru as well. Small and strange, but a definite connection here!

As always, the food was great! I was able to get a shredded chicken, rice, potato, and some delicious sauce dish that was amazing. I can finally eat soft food! But I did try something crunchy earlier and winced in pain. So no hard foods yet.

Following the restaurant, we came home and took a nap.

After the nap, we got up and went to the gym. Today’s workout was a three circuit workout of mainly shoulders mixed with some abs. Oh boy. Did I have fun playing with poses and the lighting at the gym. I have not felt like I’ve been losing much fat lately, but seeing how some of my muscles were popping out tonight, that encouraged me a little bit. At least changes are happening!

Now I’m home, working on grading again. Of course, taking an intermission to write this blog. I’m going to work much harder to stay on top of these daily posts. Thank you guys for your support this whole time! Life is a journey with many ups and downs, but it has been and always will be my focus to stay on the happier side! Night everyone!

Week 8 Day 7

Today was a rest day in many ways. I slept more, I relaxed a little. And then I had to work on grading, EPPs, and report cards! I’m behind, so the grading pile is massive. But I managed to get through all 17 EPPs and a bunch of grading, so I at least feel like I’ve progressed!

Not much really happened today, other than we woke up to snow. It’s the first snowfall of the season! As much as I know I’ll get tired and sick of it eventually, this first snowfall is kind of refreshing! I’m not sure how that works, but it does. I’m coming to the realization that even though it’s 12-15 degrees Celsius colder with the snow, I actually feel warmer than before the snow was here. I’m predicting the reason for this being that when it looks nice outside, my mind believes that it should be nice. So when the temperature is cold, my body freezes. But when there is snow on the ground, my body expects it to be cold, and therefore my body has adjusted to what it has seen and it doesn’t feel as cold.

Anyone else feel like this or is this just me?

Week 2 Day 5

I did not want to get up this morning, not at all. I could have slept, and slept, and slept, and slept, and well, you get the picture.

Somehow I managed to get up and get ready and managed to survive the day. Work itself was not extremely stressful, at least no more than usual.

My food was still not quite on point, and I noticed today that my water intake was very low, way too low. Note to self during recovery process: up the water intake.

My husband and I meant to go to the gym last night, but as we were both exhausted, decided to take a nap before we went. The problem with this was, I have this “thing” that I think has carried over since I was in university: being fully functional without being consciously awake, and I must have turned off the alarm because the next time I saw the clock, it was already after one in the morning. Oops…

Definitely going to do better tomorrow.

Week 2 Day 7

I woke up today feeling so much better. I slept in, and didn’t even bother starting to eat until noon. I could still feel the negative effects of eating so much sugar last night, just not quite as uncomfortably full.

I had my meals way more in check today and felt so much better. I made it back to the gym and finished my workout from the day before with much better energy and also completed 25 minutes of cardio on the stationary bike.

My husband and I decided to have a date night. We decided to go to a movie. As usual, we got a #1 combo that comes with a pop choice (we got diet coke), popcorn (no butter), and two candy choices: peanut butter M&Ms for my husband, and a fat free candy that I could have some of.

Now I know diet coke is not the greatest choice. I am against aspartame. But when I know I’m in a situation where I’m bound to slip, it’s better to make a safer choice than not. I also know popcorn, even with no butter, is not a very friendly food (when it comes from the theatre). But I already knew ahead of time I could only have a little, so it is much easier to stay within range without that yummy butter. I also already know that candy, especially after yesterday’s episode, was a terrible idea. But I also knew that again, I could smell my husband eating it, and it was better to plan ahead with something I could have some of without killing my diet. And yes, above all it would have been best to not buy anything, but I refuse to force my husband into doing what I’m doing if he doesn’t want to. So did I really make the worst decisions? In my mind, no. And it’s ok if you do not agree. I may come to a point where I can watch him eat other things and not feel tempted to eat the same things, but that day was not today and so I did what I could.

I did learn something from this whole experience, and that was that watching tv with too much food on your plate is a horrible decision. Do you know how easy it would have been to mindlessly keep eating that popcorn? My husband nudged me a little to remind me of my limit. I do so appreciate he supports me. But it really did hit me how easy it would have been to be tranced by the movie and not even notice how much I was eating.

HUGE fitness tip: Portion your food and don’t eat while watching tv!