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!!)

Week 11 Day 4

God knew I’d need my car this morning. He knew my husband needed it to work last night. Because for the first time ever, my husband got called into work very early and I had to drive myself. The best part was, I was up so early so he could drop me off as per normal that I had time to eat, and take my time getting ready. I can’t lie, it was actually kind of nice!

Work went well today. It was busy, but everything seemed to be good. It was after school when things got crazy.

We had our second after-school tutoring session today and it seemed like a bigger mess to me this time than it did the first time. My head was swimming with names, grades and subjects trying to match up the tutors and tutees, and trying to make sure that everyone had someone to help them. We also had a few problems arise that we now have to address, but hopefully everything will run smoothly once those problems are dealt with.

When the students left, my room was a mess. Papers and pencils were everywhere, chairs all out of place, bins of books knocked over; it looked like a tornado had come through! I had to take a few minutes to clean it before I even decided to go home without any other school work. My mind couldn’t handle it tonight.

I got home (late) and expected to go to the gym right away. However, my husband was sleeping and did not wake up easily. In fact, we did not end up going to the gym until 2:30 in the morning! I know, we’re crazy; dedicated, but crazy.

I had a leg workout today and it didn’t quite start out the way I wanted. I had worked my squats back up to 95 lbs, even though it’s still a struggle. My form just is not right. But I’m tired of fighting my form and not being able to raise my weight.

Tonight was different because my husband came over to watch and give me constructive criticism. My form is terrible. I did more squats than normal, changing my foot placement, changing the placement of the bar on my back and shoulders, and making tons of different modifications to see what would help. It was more squats than I wanted to do, and we didn’t figure out the solution to my problem. But it was nice to work with my husband again, and more squats can never hurt… right?

The rest of the workout went well though it drained every ounce of energy I had. Between leg curls (prone and seated), leg extensions, leg press, bench jumps, calf raises (both seated and standing), plus several other exercises, you can bet I was walking funny by the end and knew the pain would be coming soon. It was a tiresome workout, but a good one.

I doubt I’ll go to sleep since we’re leaving the gym at 5, but we’ll just have to see what happens. One thing I know for sure is I’m leaving the gym STARVING and will be eating before I sit down at home. I have to feed this tired, muscle growing (I hope) body.