Organic fresh-squeezed valencia orange juice is literally HEAVEN in a glass. HEAVEN. I am serious. The next time my sister and her daughter come over, I’m going to squeeze them some. Both of them have been sick with some kind of cold/sinus/throat thing for weeks! I keep telling my sister to skip dairy for a couple days and see if it helps, but she can’t. She eats it every day. I can’t blame her – I once did too!
I found an online source for both valencia and juicing oranges. I will be ordering some when I return from Branson.
I literally have to drive to different stores to get really good fruit around here. It’s sad but true… I go one place for fabulous organic valencias and good apples, I go a different place for organic valencia juicing oranges and good bananas, and I go to still another place (Whole Foods) for the rest of my fruit. When you subsist on tons of fruit like I do, you learn in a hurry what is good and what isn’t.
Today I have had lots of fresh squeezed orange juice and water. I’m not intentionally fasting or anything, but I haven’t felt like eating much of anything today. I also had some honeydew melon though this morning. Unfortunately it gave me terrible stomach pains that left me out of commission for a few hours. So for the rest of the day I’m going to subsist on juice and smoothies, and perhaps a bit more fruit later. No raw veggies today for me. (Except juiced or blended). I’m learning to listen to my body, and this is what it’s telling me. Other than my stomach, I feel absolutely amazing today.
I got my car’s timing belt changed and they said everything looks fine. My car is actually driving better – it seems to shift and pick up from a stop a lot better now.
I’m so excited for my trip to Branson! I am staying in a nice hotel on the Branson Landing, arriving on Thursday afternoon and checking out on Sunday. My room has a large bathroom with a large bathtub (I know because I’ve stayed there before) so I am bringing my sea salt bath crystals and will be soaking every night. Technically this isn’t a vacation, since I’ll still be updating my sites (except probably not over the weekend) but I’m going to treat myself to some luxuries while there. (Have I mentioned in the past how much I love expensive hotels?!) This particular hotel is only a couple years old and is FABULOUS. I will be taking photos, and perhaps may post a picture of me from the weekend here next week. I’m a little sensitive on posting pictures of myself because in the past, I’ve had people call me a fat ugly pig (and worse). Anyway, while I’m in Branson, my friend S and I will be going to shows, walking the famous ’strip’, doing some antique shopping and hanging out. We may hit Silver Dollar City on Saturday.
Earlier today while my sister was driving me to the mechanic’s, we talked about where we were this year at this time (in life) versus last year. For me, I am doing 10000% better now than I was exactly a year ago. For instance, one day ago yesterday I was hungover from shots of Patrone tequila at the bar. I had played pool with B the night before and as usual had too much. I was also preparing to drive back here (to Tulsa) from New Hampshire, where I had been since January. I was working out a lot back then (more than now, to be honest) but I weighed about 6 pounds more than I do now, plus I felt like utter crap every single day. I remember that clearly. If you go and read the March 2008 entries on this blog, you’ll see I was complaining almost every day about aches and pains. I was also very depressed during that time, although I would have never admitted it. I was spending a lot of time out drinking and hanging around bars with B, which seemed fun at the time but to be honest was really a cover for how miserable I was.
Overall I am doing so much better now – spiritually, health-wise, emotionally, mentally, physically… and no longer addicted to alcohol.
Anyways I am just rambling here. I’m going to take it easy for the rest of the evening/night today and watch some of the movies I just got from Amazon. I have “King Corn”, “Supersize Me” and “Fast Food Nation” to watch, plus several books on veganism. I also have the book “Slaughterhouse” to read, which supposedly is very sad but enlightening. “King Corn” is a documentary on the corn industry that claims Americans are literally made from corn. It’s in almost every processed food. And if “you are what you eat” is true, we are made from corn! (They did tests on people’s bodies and hair to prove this). I wonder – if after I’ve been a fruitarian/raw vegan for a few years, what will I be made of? Fruit? 
I only have time for a quick update today… I’m rushing around trying to get things ready for my trip to Branson on Thursday. I had to get up super-early today to get my car down to the mechanic’s to get a new timing belt.
Anyway, drumroll please……
I am down 20.2 pounds from my highest-ever weight!!!!!!
There are some more improvements in my face… I swear I look younger and healthier. I actually looked in the mirror and smiled this morning! A real grin.
The weight is still falling off although I haven’t been as strict for the past few days… plus I’ve also ramped up on my fruit intake a bit. Yesterday, for example, I had a total of six bananas, 3 oranges and various other fruits.
I’ll update a bit more later!
I figured I would post the various juice concoctions that I come up with. This one is really good so long as the orange is a sweet one. (I used a pink navel today and it wasn’t as sweet as the regular orange-colored navels).
Ingredients:
4 carrots
4 large celery stalks (use 3 for a sweeter juice)
5 cubes of pineapple
1 medium/large orange (use a sweet orange for best results)
2 cups mixed baby greens
(Yeah, I need a measuring cup!)
Mmmm.
The elimination/detox phase has finally let up again after three somewhat unpleasant days… I woke up this morning feeling good again. I didn’t sleep well at all last night – tossed and turned until 5am, so really I only got about 5 hours of sleep but I feel fully rested.
They say during your body’s rejuvenation/elimination/detox periods, old cells and wounds that were medicated before healing naturally (which would include ALL of my old cells/wounds since I’ve taken Advil on a regular basis all my life!) flare up again temporarily [usually only mildly] and re-heal themselves naturally. Well, this may sound totally crazy, but here goes… As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I got into a bad car accident in December 2004 and injured my right eye. The cornea got scratched up pretty badly. Of course I was put on meds, including eye cream/drops. So imagine my surprise a few nights ago when that eye began hurting and feeling dry/scratched up again out of the blue! I couldn’t figure out what was happening and checked the eye in the mirror to see if I had something in it. Anyway, after about an hour of intense irritation (where I likely didn’t help matters by rubbing it) there was one sharp stab of pain, and then the situation cleared itself up.
Last night as I was meditating before bed, it occurred to me what had happened: it was my body systematically cleaning up old wounds! This means that the pot/alcohol tasting & smelling incident that happened Saturday night (that I thought was from a year ago) was in fact probably from 5 years ago – winter/spring of 2004, when I was going out nearly every night smoking and drinking with a bunch of friends from a night job.
If I was fasting on juices or water, this cleanse would behappening a bit faster. They say you go back approximately 120 days for every day fasting. So I don’t know how fast the raw foods diet/detox works, but if I’m already on 5+ years ago, that’s pretty darn fantastic!
This all sounds completely insane I’m sure, but it makes sense to me. This website talks a lot about natural hygiene and how the body can heal itself when given proper rest, raw foods and/or through fasting.
So onto other things… the Farmer’s market starts around here on April 11th… less than two weeks away. Yay!!! I’m really excited because lately the produce at Whole Foods has been disappointing. I’ve found mold growing on tomatoes and strawberries, plus the bananas have been sucking, not to mention some of the oranges just don’t ripen. I hope the FM around here has some good fruit! I am also going to start ordering produce online from an organic farm in California that does free overnight shipping. Their stuff will be a LOT fresher than WF’s stuff that comes from South America and Mexico.
I figure, if I’m gonna eat raw foods, they better be fresh and high quality!
I’ll probably update more later…
I finally got a juicer…. yay! It’s Jack LaLanne’s Power Juicer. I already made a test juice and it came out fabulous: 3 carrots, 3 celery stalks, 2 handfuls of mixed baby greens, 1 large naval orange and 3 pineapple chunks. Mmmm.
Now I see why people complain about how messy they are, though… sheesh!
I’m going to make a second juice later this evening. I will be able to use the juicer at any time of day or night because it’s pretty quiet – much quieter than my loud ear-splitting blender.
I am officially down – from my highest weight in Sept ‘08 – 19.4 pounds!!!
The weight loss has slowed a little on the scale but the clothing I’ve been wearing for the past year or two are just swimming on me. Even my 36C bra is on its tightest clasp now!
I’ve been going through another round of elimination/detox for the past few days… this one stronger then any of the others. Not to get into too many gross details, but let’s just say my intestines are probably cleaner now than they have been in years! Last night things got a little weird. I was sitting on the couch watching the HD version of Twilight (on On Demand) when I suddenly began smelling/tasting alcohol. Given the fact that I haven’t consumed any in a while, it was a bit odd. Then an hour later I began smelling/tasting cannabis/pot, of all things! That was even weirder, given the fact that I haven’t touched the stuff in over a year. (I’ll admit that during my late 20’s, I smoked it on occasion with friends). And when I went to bed I started having crazy psychedelic dreams, and even dreamed about eating meat. (Funnily enough in the dream I realized I shouldn’t be eating it and began spitting it out). That dream reminded me of my “drinking” dreams when I first stopped drinking booze. I also became very weak and lightheaded last night.
All of this is normal, however… as I’ve said a thousand times by now, our bodies store toxins (including drugs and alcohol we’ve used) in our fat, and when we start losing it, these toxins get released in our blood stream. So I’m not worried, although it’s pretty weird to go through. Right now my body is likely releasing all the alcohol stored, plus any pot I smoked in the past few years, plus all the prescription meds, processed food chemicals and additives, etc. So I’ve been taking it easy and am trying to drink a lot of water. I am keeping nourished through fruits, veggies and juice.
I will admit that I had a cooked meal the other night – a little pasta and red sauce. So I’m not being as strict on this 80/10/10 thing as some people are.
I’m going to buy a juicer today at Bed, Bath & Beyond. My blender is fine for making some smoothies, but it took me an hour or so to squeeze 60 ounces of orange juice yesterday morning. (I’ve re-added fresh squeezed orange juice to my daily menus. After all, it’s truly divine and nourishing and no longer causes blood sugar problems).
So it snowed like crazy yesterday… I’ll post some pics later. Even though I have covered parking, I know snow is on my windshield since it blew into the carport area a bit. (I went down to check last night). My ice and snow scrapers have since been lost so I am going to have to figure out a way to get the stuff off my car! My window leak is a little worst than I originally thought, too. More on that later.
Edited to add: My eyes and face both look a lot better today… the whites of my eyes seem whiter and the skin on my face is clear and youthful-looking. So although I may feel less than stellar, thankfully it’s not showing up on my face!
It’s been a crazy day here… first and foremost, there is yet another storm raging outside, complete with high winds, rain, thunder and lightening, which is supposed to turn into a snowstorm by tomorrow morning. Grrreat. The problem with this is that I discovered I have a very leaky window in my computer room… a window which is directly behind my main computer. Not good! I had to do some shifting of computer equipment and chords and stuff… the worst thing is that Maintenance can’t fix it anytime soon. I’m on the 9th floor and it is too stormy outside. So I have a towel down now that hopefully will absorb anything else that comes through. Unfortunately the wind is literally driving the rain into the windows although they face north, and the storm is coming from the south/west.
I broke my diet a little last night and had some chips. But I’m back on track today. No biggie, I’m not going to beat myself up over any slips I have. The chips don’t seem to have done anything bad to my weight or body – my stomach is flatter than ever and my skin still smooth.
I got a really angry comment from a woman who has been trying to leave rude comments for a while, which I haven’t posted because frankly, I don’t have to subject myself to such negativity. However, her latest comment is so ridiculous that I decided to post it, plus my own reply. (Original comment and reply are on my Wednesday post).
Tess: yet another comment you won’t post, but it’s for your health. You will kill yourself if you don’t get adequate nutrition; ie, protein, calcium, fiber (you ARE NOT GETTING ENOUGH FIBER FROM YOUR ‘VEGAN’ DIET), not to even consider your eltrolytes have to be way out of balance.
Be prepared to either fall off of the nutritional wagon or go into cardiac failure and/or serious malnutition malfeasance.
You are only 30? Grow up, you fool. Exercise and count calories. Boo freeking hoo about the damn animals you call ducks but are geese-you can’t even tell the difference! I would be a member of PETA if I had to watch those videos or see how my meat was killed but I choose not to-everyone would be a ‘vegan’ if they saw that commercialized crap; I know what I need to eat to keep me healthy. I am my number one priority. YOU HAVE TO DECIDE THAT FOR YOURSELF.
Do you even own a pet? Thought not. And don’t give me that BS that your building doesn’t allow it. I live in a Highrise and I pay 1k/year to keep mine (in the 4th largest City in the Country).
I’m sure my pet doesn’t mind that she eats meat for dinner so why can’t you? Get over your self righteous BS and have a steak.
My reply: Wow Tess, first off all, please relax. I don’t know why you are so angry, but I suggest you step back from the computer and not visit my site again if it bothers you so much. Also, you might want to look into the book called “The China Study” and you will find your ‘have a steak’ comments are terribly ignorant.
I’m going to keep my reply really simple and address your accusations:
1. I get over 70 grams of fiber on my “vegan” diet each day. Many meat-eaters don’t get anywhere near that amount. So you are incorrect about that.
2. I am 31. I exercise nearly every day.
3. I appreciate that people are not going to agree with my new Vegan stance. That’s OK. I’m not angry and you shouldn’t be either.
4. I wish I could have a pet, but I travel too much and don’t have anyone to keep the pet with when I’m gone. I long to have dogs and cats, but it’s just not a good time for me yet.
5. And about my electrolytes, well, you are so far off base it’s funny. I usually get low electrolytes within a couple days on low carb. But I’ve been doing this (on and off) for a couple weeks now and haven’t had any problems.
6. Have a nice day!
In closing, I know my diet seems a bit extreme to some. However, I have had no electrolyte problems, feel tons of energy and mental clarity, and am at peace. I tested out my muscles today and they haven’t gone away. Some people who have been on the 80/10/10 plan for years report that they did lose some of their muscles, but they were rebuilt much more strongly afterwards. It’s like the body gets rid of all the old crap – all the extra water weight, toxins, old imperfect muscles, and rebuilds everything new. I suggest anyone wondering more about my particular plan to visit the doctor’s website who created it here.
I’m planning to get on the scale tomorrow morning… I will post the latest loss results when I do!
