Mono-Juice Feasting – Healing Journey Day 10

Journal:
I did not want to get out of bed this morning. I think I’m getting lazy. I felt good as always, but the nice, warm blankets on a cool day were a little too inviting. Either way, it was a work day, so I had to get up.

I noticed today that I wasn’t really “craving” juice. I’m actually beginning to really like the thought of vegetables. Yes, vegetables. Even lettuce sounds good right now. However, it’s going to be a bit longer until I get some veggies, so I have to keep my mind in the fruit game for now.

The juice of choice today was organic pear juice. Now, I’ve had pear nectars in the past and they weren’t overly sweet. But this juice? Honest to goodness, it tasted like liquid honey. I don’t even eat honey anymore. But the richness of this drink blew me out of the water. If you are ever missing honey after going vegan, grab a bottle of this and the honey cravings will be gone.

Now, this juice was so good that I actually had to run to the bathroom to double check my tongue. Remember how I said my tongue always tasted terrible when coated with the white, detox stuff? Well, my tongue was not perfectly clean, but it was SIGNIFICANTLY less coated than normal. I was shocked. Perhaps this means my body is almost done detoxing? I have no idea and at the same time I doubt it. My face still has a lot to clear before I will begin to think I have little toxins left. But still, the tongue is progress!

So today was a good day. It was pretty chill with the students, leading up to an afternoon that we spent at the community park. It was a great day to soak up some Vitamin D and allow the students to get some energy out. Overall, it was a great day.

After coming home, I laid down to rest for a bit. I think this is coming back to my laziness because it’s not that I was really tired, I just have been forming a habit of coming home, watching YouTube and taking a nap. I think this is something I’m going to have to work on and fix.

After finally waking up and convincing myself to get out of bed (temperature dropped so the warm, cozy blankets were begging me to stay), I went to the gym and got a little more aggressive in my workout. Instead of a simple bike ride or walking on the treadmill, I went at a decent pace on the elliptical for 30 minutes. It felt so good. I think, from here on out, I am going to get more aggressive with my workouts, little by little.

What surprises me the most is that I’m only consuming around 2L of juice per day lately. My body does not want more than that. I don’t feel a dip in energy at all. But what my body is asking for is more water. Not that I’m dehydrated, but it’s just what my body wants. Remember that I said I was going to listen to my body? Well, that’s what I’m doing. So once again, I only drank about 2L of pear juice, and upped the amount of water I was drinking. I only have 3 more days of juice left to go, so it will be interesting to see what happens by the end.

Review of Symptoms:
-Tongue not as white today. Less scraping to do.
-Stomach sounds like the rolling thunder at times (internal cleaning?).
-Energy is good.
-Acne has little bumps again.

Weight at the end of the day = 179 lbs (down 9.8 lbs from the beginning)

Total Calories = 1030 (100% carbs, 0% fat, 0% protein)

 

Journey Through the Healing Chart

Hello everyone.

I have been thinking about this for a long time and finally have decided that now is the time to jump right in. For the past couple of months, I have been intrigued by two charts that I have seen. One was presented by Joe Best from The Best Transformation on YouTube. He presented a chart that categorized the vegan doctors / gurus in a scale from healing diets to athletic diets. Unfortunately, he has recently taken the video down that had that chart so I have requested that he put it back up. I will let you know when/if he does.

For now, I have been presented with another chart that uses diet alone to categorize rather than names of doctors with their suggested diets. It actually breaks down into greater detail the steps on what would be the healing end of Joe’s presented scale. The detailed scale looks like this:

Though I don’t have huge health issues, I have been looking at breaking the hold that food can have on us; the feeling that we have to eat this right now. I watch people around me suffer intense cravings and not be able to stay away from junk foods at events. Food seems to call us to it and have more power than it should ever have over us. Though I have stopped craving foods for quite some time, I wanted to prove to myself that the hold of food is gone. I also have been suffering from bad acne again and have no doubt that it is linked to the vegan junk I was still eating. So as I said previously, I jumped in.

Now, if you are looking at the chart above, there is a dark green level at the bottom that has many foods I do not consume as a vegan. I will not be hitting that level. I am vegan, have been vegan for over a year, and plan on staying vegan for the rest of my life. That level may as well not be there whatsoever.

Looking at the chart again, you will notice the top level is water fasting. I am actually taking this chart one step further and going to be starting with two days of dry fasting. Dry fasting is where not only is food not consumed, but water is not consumed either. Yes, it is risky and not something you can do long-term. In fact, depending on where you live, I wouldn’t recommend more than 3 days at the most. Definitely research this one for yourself before you attempt this as this is the most risky stage of a fasting stage/detox.

So feel free to join me on this journey or simply stand by and watch my progress. I will try to log about each day, what my experiences are and how I’m feeling. I am continuing to live life as normal though my workouts may be lessened in the beginning depending on how I feel. I will discuss how I deal with social situations while I go through each of these phases and hopefully my experiences can advise you on a healing journey you may want to embark on for yourself.

Please remember that I am not a doctor but am simply sharing my own experience. Not everyone reacts to the same things the same ways. My journey is based on my own research, and a simple desire take a new journey with my health to hopefully end up in the best health I have ever had.

Focus Change: From Weight to Health

I’ve almost been vegan for a year. Can you believe it? Time has gone by so quickly, and I don’t regret a second of it! So I thought I’d fill you in on my progress, and something that switched mentally along the way.

When I first went vegan, in the end of June/beginning of July 2015, I went through a week of major withdrawal; not from animal products, but from cheese! My husband ate nachos almost daily, and the smell of melted cheese would be ever so tempting. So how did I combat it? By having a piece of fruit in my hand and shoving it in my mouth… lol. You do what you have to do.

From there, it got easier. However, since I was so excited about this vegan world, I started looking for everything vegan in the grocery stores. I subscribed to a local Organic Box delivery which was the greatest thing because then I was able to select organic produce to be delivered weekly so that I always had fruit and veggies available. But as the fall came, things changed.

In the colder weather, I wanted cooked foods all the time. No problem, really. You can easily be a cooked food vegan. But, with a few complications in starting up my next school year, I started grabbing denser calorie, fast food. This meant hitting much too much of the shelves and freezers in the grocery stores. Not only was I excited that so many things were vegan, but I was able to try so many vegan products. Let’s just say, I was not paying attention to the macronutrient breakdown in any of them. My diet was very high in fat.

Now, I was already mentally transitioning from a person who had heavily counted calories, starved myself to lose weight, and pretty much obsessed with being thin to someone who was just concerned about being healthier for myself and doing what I felt God was calling me to do. That didn’t make it any easier when I found my weight still climbing. I was eating all that I cared for, reaching a state of being full but not being stuffed. I felt pretty well, but I knew the weight gain was not what I wanted. However, I continued on because it was easy to do.

Christmas came, and I was so excited to travel to the states to try some new vegan restaurants. They were AMAZING. But it hit me when my mother-in-law had to ask my husband if she should even bother asking me if I wanted to sort through some clothes of hers before she donated them. That told me right away everyone noticed my weight gain. I started to feel pretty bad.

The following two months presented me with some of the greatest stress I have had in quite awhile. My husband left for school in the states, I moved our entire apartment myself, making appointments to sell items along the way. As soon as things were finally moved, I had to prepare report cards. As soon as that was over, I had to prepare for parent-teacher interviews. Needless to say, I got really sick after that. I literally did not have a single break, and as happy as I was to be leaving our old place, I hit the point of nostalgia as it was emptied and I was doing it alone. Emotional ups and downs, zero rest, and not eating was a recipe for disaster, and a time to hit my highest weight. I knew things had to change.

I was not giving up veganism, that was not an issue. Veganism had made me feel better about pretty much everything. In fact, when I was not reminded about my weight gain, I actually felt amazing. But I knew I could do better.

With my husband in school, and I taking on all of our bills, the money was cinched tight. I had/have a very small budget which meant all those vegan junk foods were few and far between. I actually had to start cooking again! And you know what? I felt even better than before. I found out that my greatest eating pattern is eating raw throughout the day (mostly fruit) and eating a cooked meal in the evening. The cooked meal ranges from pasta to potatoes to veggies and vegan proteins, to vegan sushi, to cream of wheat, to sandwiches. They are not complicated at all, and are whole-food based. I feel vibrant and amazing and have even found a 6-day pattern of attending the gym again. And that’s when it happened: I started caring less about my weight gain.

I knew I was bigger than I wanted to be, but I chose to trust the system. People have been through this before; I’m not the only one. God’s original diet for us was the fruits of the earth, and I was closer than ever to following that diet. I began to pray for God to not only bless my food before I ate it, but to bless my efforts in trying to eat the way He designed for us, and for my results to show to others that this is His design as well. I began to pray before workouts for the same thing. And then I continued to eat when I was hungry and stop when I was full, except this time, it was whole plant foods from home.

You know what? In less than two months, I am down 14 pounds from my heaviest. Did I cut calories at all? No. In fact, I have been logging my food everyday just to see how much I’m eating. Some days, I’m not very hungry and I only eat around 1500 calories. I don’t like to go lower than this, so that does involve an some extra food I probably wouldn’t have otherwise eaten. Some days, I’m super hungry and can eat over 3000 calories. I’m not starving my body anymore. I’m giving it the healthy nutrition it needs, and it’s working.

I’ve always worked out which you’ll see if you have followed this blog for quite awhile, so that has not changed. I’m currently doing 3 full-body circuits a week with 3 cardio sessions between and 1 rest day. I’m getting stronger, and my endurance is better. I absolutely love it.

So I’m continuing on my vegan journey, in love with it greatly. My father has started his own fitness journey and to my surprise, displayed a picture of a blender with raw vegan protein powder. He’s been making banana/protein smoothies. It’s a huge step! My mother has been trying to cut down on the animal consumption within the house, and a coworker of mine has just begun her own vegan journey as well. More and more I’m realizing that people are waking up to the reality of how great a vegan diet is, for health reasons, beliefs, ethical and environmental reasons. It is truly the greatest. And though weight loss is awesome, it beats nothing to knowing your body is healthy and going to last you a little longer. When you eat healthy, the body releases the fat that is not good. It’s a slow process, and already within the two months, I’ve had over a week of being stalled on the exact same weight. But I continued nonetheless, and it paid off with a lower weight break in the end. So take courage. If I can do this, you can too. Start researching and be awakened to the world of truth that is out there. It’s truly amazing how deceiving the world is. Get to the nitty gritty and find out for yourself; the only regret you’ll have is that you didn’t do it sooner.

The 4 AM Club

Let me tell you about something I’ve been doing recently that has totally changed my life… for the good! I’ve started/joined the 4 Am Club!

What is the 4 Am Club? It means you get up at 4 am! Why in the world would you do that? Well, I’m a morning person and not a late night person. If I go to bed at a decent hour (by 10 at the latest), I can easily get up at 4 and be on the go.

What do you do at 4 am? Well, I get up, get ready to go to the gym, drive to the gym, do my weight-lifting and then 30 minutes of cardio followed by 10 minutes of stretching and rolling, drive home, eat breakfast, walk my dogs, pack our lunches, and get ready to be at work for 7:40 am.

Why do I love life this way? Because I’m a morning person and I love the fact that my workout is done first thing. I have the most energy in the first part of the day before I’ve expended a lot at work and thus am getting quality workouts. I also love when work is done I can just do whatever I want or have to do without worrying about getting my butt over to the gym. This gives so much more time for extra grading, planning, shopping, cleaning or whatever it may be. Working out in the morning also gives you extra happiness to face your day. Its a positive way to start!

I love it. Maybe 4 am is too early for you, so pick a different time! But try getting your workouts done in the morning and see if you like it as much as I do. If you want to join the 4 am club, or have any questions about it, drop a message below! I’d love to have you join me!

Exercise on Vacation

As I said in previous posts, I was in New Brunswick for just about 2 weeks. Now, generally, the two main towns I spent the most time in do not have gyms. The city I was in had gyms, but I was staying outside of town and did not have my own vehicle.

Maybe you can relate to a situation like this. However, just because it’s a vacation doesn’t mean it isn’t important to take care of yourself and your health, so here’s what I decided to do:

I jogged/walked. At my mom’s, the town has a few different loops you can choose to take. At my dad’s, it was either risk running along the highway, or simply do laps around his house, which I more often did. At my favourite place in the world – St. Andrew’s – you can go anywhere on the walking trails or along the roads or along the ocean.

Now, I could have done plyometric workouts, but it was just so easy for me to wake up in the morning, drink down 1L of water, put on some shoes and go. Once I was out, there was no turning back until I was done. Then the rest of the day was mine for doing whatever I felt like.

And the best part? I got my family involved. My mom went with me, my brother went with me, I even took my brother’s dog, Charlie (a golden retriever), with me. People who love you will want to do things that you do just to spend more time with you. Plus, you never know who you are inspiring!

A good jogging and walking partner, and also a great passenger!
(Don’t worry, it’s a tiny town with speed limit of 30. Just hopping from the grandparents to the parents.)

Why Go Vegan?

Hello everyone!

This is a huge decision, as you can imagine. I want to explain myself as to why I’m choosing this venue. Let me explain my history.

My father was very young when his family went from Quebec to New Brunswick. Speaking little to no English, they struggled for awhile to because accustom to the new province. My grandfather was a woodsmen complete with a team of horses and later big machinery. My father quit school after grade 9 to work with my grandfather. And so the lifestyle of “meat and potatoes” began. Whatever they shot was their meat, and whatever my grandmother grew in the garden was their produce. A very simple, carnivorous life.

Naturally, I grew up eating A LOT of meat. Not because we didn’t go shopping, but I was still a hunter’s daughter, and meat was a regular, every-meal thing. When I was young, it would be no big deal for me to sit down to a pound of bacon myself. It’s a miracle I wasn’t obese!

When I met my first vegetarians in grade 8, I was amazed. This concept that I believed to only belong to celebrities belonged to real life people! I was the only vegetarian in my area, and the lack of knowledge was evident in a quick trip to a hospital with extensive stomach pains. The doctor then informed me of some vital nutrition I was missing, and instead of telling me to eat meat again, told me some vital vegetables I needed to be sure I ate daily.

I was vegetarian for around 10 years. I quit meat cold turkey. My grandfather of course was convinced I was going to die, and was continuously trying to feed me meat. My only family was shocked, but my grandmother on my mother’s side, who has always had an interest in health, was happy. She basically went vegetarian with me! (She never was much of a meat eater).

When I met my husband, he was vegetarian and had been his whole life. My university graduation had led my brother to convince my future husband to try the “real stuff”. From then on, he was hooked.

Eventually, it was the smell of beef jerky that won me back. That smell in my very house all over again won me in. In fact, it opened up the whole new realm of macro counting with my interest in fitness peaking too. With the high levels of protein “needed”, it seemed as if I couldn’t survive without meat. And so I ate meat again for roughly 4 years.

Now, I’ve done so much research. And to keep it short, there is so much evidence that a plant-based diet is the way to go. I would like to think of myself as “getting back to the basics”, naturally. The world of fitness and diet will continuously battle itself. All information can be conflicting. But nothing can deny the way you feel both mentally, physically, and spiritually. Mentally, I’m not hating my food, I’m not worried about going over my “macros”, and I’m not worried about having to stop myself from eating while still feeling like I’m starving. Physically, I feel better. I don’t have to worry about eliminating things to figure out what’s wrong with my body, I get to look forward to younger, more flawless skin. And spiritually, I can feel good about being accountable for selecting the best foods that I can. I can also feel good about my choice not to inflict pain on animals that I myself could not kill. If I couldn’t do it, why do I take part in the process at all?

Some things I’m going to be doing are:
-Trying to buy as much organic as I can
-Continuing my workouts
-Drinking 3L of water a day
-Learning more about, and sticking to food combining rules
-Cutting processed sugar 95%
-Eating mostly fruit until supper
-Eating raw 90% of the time
-Eating until I’m full!

I will keep you posted on my journey! I’m excited for this new phase 🙂

Back on Track

I have to admit, I have taken a long break from tracking my food. I didn’t always make the best food decisions, didn’t always eat as often as I should, and though I made sure I made choices with protein in them, I didn’t always aim to have the most protein either.

I also haven’t been going to the gym for about a month between being sick and hurting my rib. I basically “quit” my everyday life for a bit of time.

Normally it would bother me as I reached a higher weight and then somehow stayed there (my own fault). But the fact I was maintaining was also a sort of good thing as my weight was not continuing to rise. I chose to look at it as somewhat of a healing phase as well. I needed to rest and not stress about lack of gym time.

My clothes don’t fit the way they used to. Obviously I’ve gained some size. But instead of that causing my world to crash, I decided to focus on how I felt otherwise. In fact, a pair of dress pants that used to be too big for me now look awesome on me (as much as I don’t encourage that type of transformation).

But after all this, and really not wanting to go back to the task of tracking, I’m back. I’ve set my calories at 2000 (I’ll explain reasons why later). My protein is set at 0.8 per pound of bodyweight. And this is my first day back to tracking.

My workouts (I’ve done 3 so far), are modified in such a way that allows my rib muscle to still heal and yet lightly work at the same time. What I’ve noticed is that mainly and PUSH motion is what aggravates it the most so I avoid those. But a lot of things I thought I’d have to go super light weight in, I’m actually as strong, if not stronger. The month off from the gym honestly did nothing in hindering my strength progress.

Sometimes it’s all about listening to your body. Do I wish I controlled what I ate a little more? Yeah, I probably do. But I’m not going to let that ruin my happiness and motivation for the future. So I’m back to working out, and I’m back to eating properly. Let’s see how this goes!

Week 13 Day 1: Extended

So I did just what I said. I woke up bright and early, and got ready for the gym. I completed a harsh leg workout, but I ended up splitting the workout. I had only finished squats, hack squats and one-leg jumps before my husband woke up and wanted to come to the gym. So I finished up this round with 12 minutes of HIIT and went to get him.

We came back to the gym and I finished the remainder of my workout. For the first time ever, I enjoyed doing deadlifts. I felt strong and in control and I loved it! I almost cried doing 20 and 2s between prone leg curls and leg extensions. It really, really hurt. I also pushed super hard with leg press, using heavier weights again than usual. And as crazy as it was, I finished with my final and last 12 minute HIIT session. I’m completely done the challenge. All workouts and the equivalent for 4 cardio sessions a week completed. What a feeling!

I had taken some pictures two days ago of some ab outlines that I saw! I was ecstatic! And yet when I finished everything today, my pictures did not turn out the same way. I don’t know what I did! I was so depressed and almost ready to call the competition quits when I noticed someone had asked when the pictures were due, and our coach has given us an extra week to get pictures in! This was the hope I needed!

I’m going to monitor my diet very closely this week and try and get a picture to show the hard work I’ve done. I know my pictures won’t reflect the same fat loss I’ve seen from others, but I do want to be able to show what I’ve accomplished, and for whatever reason, my body does not reflect that today. So I’m going to take advantage of this week, and be watching for the opportune moment. It’s going to happen!

For the rest of the day, we didn’t get to the mall to shop for Christmas like we wanted, but we did go to a Mexican restaurant that we haven’t been to in a long time (I didn’t eat very much) and then we spent some time at Chapters. We absolutely love books and I was able to purchase my new agenda (what I used to write down my workouts) for the new year. It was a good night, and a day filled with hope. My husband is more or less in charge of my food and workouts this week, so let’s see how these pictures will turn out! The best part is, I don’t care if I win. It would be nice, but it’s ok if I don’t. I just want to see that hard work show!

Week 12 Day 7

So today was supposed to be the last day of the challenge, but things didn’t quite work out the way I wanted. I have two workouts to get done, and pictures are actually officially due by the tomorrow, so I’m going to try and get as much as I can done today, and use tomorrow if necessary, first thing in the morning completing the rest.

I got in a cardio session first thing this morning. I woke up just like the day before: wide awake and ready to jump out of bed. I had a couple hours before getting ready for church, so I just decided to go for a bike ride. It was a good start to my day!

I came home, got ready for church, and went. It was a phenomenal church service. And the best part was, I was able to see one of my students play his guitar for worship service. He had actually invited me to go, he just wouldn’t tell me why. But I knew better, and I knew he played instruments. So as “tough” as he may have tried to be while asking me, I knew he wanted me there. And I made sure I was there!

After church, we came home. We didn’t do much for several hours, but when sunset came (the end of Sabbath) we got ready to go to the gym. Unfortunately, we had no idea what we were in for.

We went to our regular gym which is usually open until 8 on Saturdays, but for some reason was closed very early today. So we went to the sister gym, around the corner and down the road but it too was closed early. Then we went back the opposite direction to a Gold’s Gym at a mall, but found out it would be $60 just for the two of us to drop in for the evening. There is no way we are paying that! So we then went back again, much further in the opposite direction to a YMCA only to be turned around once again because my husband didn’t have his wallet with ID because I was driving and not him. By the time this happened and we were walking out to the car, we decided we might as well drive the 1/2 hour to our old, faithful gym. And of course, it was open, reasonably priced as always, and to top it all off, wasn’t busy. They always keep great care of their equipment, and we fell in love with it all over again.

I completed a hefty back workout and another cardio session. I didn’t have the energy to do the leg workout right after the back workout, so it looks like I’ll be going to the gym first thing in the morning in order to get the last workout in before pictures.

We decided to go to eat, and go to a movie afterwards. We laughed very hard at our movie, and it was simply a great way to end the night.

Week 12 Day 6

This morning, I was on fire! I think that rest day was exactly what I needed.

I got up, got ready, took care of the animals and made it out the door, to both banks and the post office before arriving on time for my chiropractor and acupuncture appointments. The engine light is still on in my car, but the car runs, so I’m going with it! It was nice to get things accomplished and it was nice to be able to get to my appointments.

After my appointments, I went to the gym for some good cardio. I then went home, got my dogs ready, loaded them up, and took them to the vet. It was the day to get rabies shots, and the dogs all passed their exams with flying colours. I was very proud of them!

After we got home, my husband came home shortly after and was able to come with back to the vet (forgot the food and treats I had purchased) and to my oil change appointment on time. Seriously, I was on fire today!

We basically went home, ate, and got ready for the gym. I had an awesome, gruelling shoulder workout today, and was able to get in another cardio session when I was done with the weights. The challenge ends soon and I want to make sure I get all of the workouts and cardio sessions in!