Just a quick note… I will do a more thorough when I am able to think more clearly! Right now I am extremely exhausted and am literally unable to type up more than a couple of coherent sentences. I’m really tired because once again I’m in the process of changing my sleep schedule back to nights, which requires me to stay up 20+ hours for a few days in a row.
Everything should be back to normal sleep-wise by Monday. However, I will update this blog possibly late tonight or tomorrow. I had a post on here earlier and had to delete it because it just didn’t make much sense.
I will confess that I blew my diet on Monday night and Tuesday. As of yesterday, however, I’ve been sticking only to fruit, veggies and veggie juice, plus I’m exercising at least 30 minutes a day. I’m planning to do this “strict” raw food thing for five days (until Sunday). I hope it gets me back on track health-wise and on the scale. Depending on how I feel, on Monday I’ll get back to eating nuts, seeds, dried fruit, etc.
Today I’ve decided to eat mostly just fruit and greens – including a smoothie – except for my dinner, which I’ll have some of my now favorite raw granola mix. I miss the amazing energy I get when I eat so cleanly, and I want to exercise a bit later this evening. Somehow my sleeping patterns got totally messed up again and I’m up all night and sleep a lot of day. I’m going to take steps to fix this though.
Something has been lacking lately, and after thinking about it, I realized that it’s the super amazing energy and euphoric-like moods I get with a mostly-fruit diet. So I’m going to try and go back to it for a while – at least throughout my 1st and 2nd meals, and for dinner I’ll have some of the other stuff. I just had a bunch of bananas for my breakfast meal (although it’s like 5pm!) and already I feel super-charged with energy.
I found out there is a raw food restaurant here in Tulsa that does take-out, which is really exciting! I’m going to order something from them probably tomorrow. They make pureed fruit and veggie soups, juices, smoothies and desserts – all from raw foods.
Not much else to update right now… I will probably weigh myself in another couple of days when TOM goes away! I’m looking forward to seeing the number.
Since yesterday I have been in a rather speculative mood. I seem to get this way after a few days of not cheating on my diet… yesterday my mind cleared again, as did my sense of smell, taste and vision. I went for a drive because for whatever reason, I do my best thinking while driving. Being behind the wheel allows me to focus my conscious mind on repetitive tasks, freeing up my subconscious mind, which allows me to see the world from a different viewpoint. It allows me to remove myself from the world so I can see things better and from a bigger picture. (If that makes sense, which it probably doesn’t). But when I’m in that particular frame of mind, I can see things for what they really are – the world, people, myself & my actions, etc.
One thing that spurred me into my speculative mood was signing up for facebook the other day (finally!) where my older sister and a couple of cousins are members. My older sister has tons of old family photos on her profile, which I looked at. Seeing photos of my parents and me as a kid were interesting and got me thinking about life… like where I am now, where I have been and where I will go later. Overall I am content with where I am at in life, although I am 31 years old and single with no children. Some would see this as a huge failure, but I do not. I know it’s the path I’m supposed to be on for whatever reason. I mean, I look back and there is not one ex-boyfriend that I would want to be settled down and married to with kids right now.
But I do feel like there is something else I’m supposed to be doing with my life. What, exactly, I don’t know, but I think I’m close to figuring it out. I don’t feel depressed or anything, although it seems like time is passing way too fast at the moment.
So onto blog stuff… I have been getting a lot of comments with advice and information about fats and vitamins, etc. I appreciate the comments but there has to be a point where I just start ignoring them. I have decided that I prefer instead to take the advice and suggestions from the raw food experts whose books I’ve read – namely, Dr. Douglas Graham and Natalia Rose (nutritionist and raw food book author). These people live the raw food lifestyle, look fabulous and healthy and have done the lifestyle for more than 10 years. They are the ones I am going to listen to. Natalia Rose suggests in her book “Raw Food: Life Force Energy” (one of my favorite current books) to stick to veggie juice on an empty stomach in the mornings. She suggests – for energy reasons – having a very light breakfast, somewhat light lunch and eat your main meal at dinner. Dr. Douglas Graham suggests fruit on an empty stomach pretty much all day, then greens and fruit at night. Since adopting to one or the other of these principles, I have had more energy during the day then ever (except on elimination/detox days).
People have left comments that I read and took to heart over concerns like iron deficiency, fat vitamin deficiency, protein deficiency, etc… and I need to stop listening! I cannot let faceless, nameless people on the internet who could be anybody make me fear my new diet plan or think I’m not eating the healthiest I can! But I have been. And I’ve decided that it is going to stop right now, because why should I listen to people I don’t know at all when I can read the true and expert advice given by people who have lived the lifestyle for years?
People always say “don’t take it personally”. Well, it is personal. This is my personal diet blog, after all. I’m not making this stuff up for fun. It’s my life.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not going to shut down commenting or anything and I’m not upset or frustrated any more. But I’m sorry to say that I will no longer read or pay attention to any dieting or nutrition advice left for me in the comments. Just as I don’t think anyone should take my advice on nutrition or dieting. I’m just here writing about my own experiences, after all – plus I’m still technically overweight!
One last thing: I do not believe in mainstream media. I do not believe in much of the mainstream health articles and information, nor do I believe in most of the medical and pharmaceutical companies. It’s not exactly in our drug company or medical industry’s best interests for us to all be super healthy, after all. That may sound cynical or paranoid, but look around… something certainly ain’t working right in this country!
Anyway, that is all for now… it’s time to get outside before the severe t-storms hit!
I never thought I’d see this day, but it has officially arrived:
The smell of cooking chicken makes me feel like vomiting.
No exaggeration. I just got home and when I came up the elevator to my floor, the smell of cooking chicken greeted me. I coughed and almost gagged. It smells awful! I hope the smell doesn’t seep under my apartment door.
And to think, only 2 months ago I would have loved the smell!
Later update: It’s gotten a lot worse and is in fact seeping under my apartment door. I’ve been forced to light a strong mango fruit candle and put a sheet under the door.
I’ve been doing really good on the ‘vegan’ front for the past several days… I’ve managed to stay away from cheese! For some reason the cravings have diminished.
I’m planning on going to Southern California in early June, and I’d like to be down another 10+ pounds by then. When I stick to 90-100% raw, I seem to lose weight pretty quickly. So I’m going to continue on and incorporate daily exercise into my schedule (now that I’m feeling better again). I was supposed to stick to 100% raw this week but failed on a couple of days.
I’m still technically in transition, but things are finally getting easier. What has helped was finding other foods I could eat. Whole Foods has some other gourmet raw food that I didn’t know about. Plus I found some online sites I could order stuff from. Last but not least, I’ve been learning some ‘easy to make’ raw recipes. For instance, I’m going to make a salad dressing tonight that consists of: raspberries, a little bit of lime juice, agave nectar and pepper. I have to admit I’m beyond bored of plain salad.
I still eat a lot of fruit – that hasn’t changed, although instead of 7 bananas in one day, I only have 1-3, plus pineapple and/or mango or cantaloupe. I haven’t had any veggie juice yet today… I’m kind of lazy today and don’t feel like making it! So I may pick one up from Whole Foods.
Well it’s almost 5pm… time to get outside and do something!
After a few nights of intense elimination, I am feeling 10000% better today! I decided to up my intake of vegetable juice to twice a day for extra nutrition in case that might speed things along. And it worked… so in the morning with my fruit, I make my favorite carrot, celery, spinach, tomato & apple juice (only 12 ounces though), then before dinner I have a second juice – this one with about 24 ounces made with kale, apple and cucumber. Not the tastiest mixture, but it’s not bad and I know it is EXTREMELY healthy. It’s a mess to clean up every time but the health benefits are worth it!
The rest of the day I subsist on fruit and other [mostly] raw foods, such as almond milk (I learned how to make my own but haven’t yet done it) with raw granola (not real granola, but a tasty mixture of seeds and buckwheat groats), plus spelt bread with raw almond butter & raw honey (yum!), veggie salads when I’m in the mood (which isn’t often), plus other raw snacks mostly made with seeds, nuts and/or dried/dehydrated fruits/veggies.
The veggie juices seem to help enormously with cravings for cooked crap food, too!
Sticking to a [mostly] raw/live foods diet requires enormous willpower and self-discipline – admittedly not one of my strongest areas – but I’m learning slowly how to manage. 9 times out of 10 when I’m craving a cooked dish, I am not the slightest bit hungry, but I long for the comfort that I know that particular food will bring.
So anyway… my TOM is really delayed this month for some reason because every few months or so, it skips an extra week (like most women). I thought I was having PMS last week but apparently I wasn’t. I think I am now though. It’s hard to tell because I don’t get many of the symptoms I used to. I’ve been extremely grouchy and irritated the past couple of days.
I really need to get on the scale… but I haven’t seen any really noticeable changes in my body for the past week or so, so I really don’t think I’ve lost much (if any) more weight. I guess after 20 pounds, I was overdue for a plateau though…
My body is going through yet another process of elimination… constant bathroom trips kept me up all night long! I feel good today though except I have virtually no appetite, so I’ve only had fresh squeezed orange juice and pineapple so far today. The two pineapples I bought from diamondorganics.com finally ripened, so I cut them up into squares and put them in glass containers in the fridge to be eaten later. (I still have a couple of other containers of pineapple to finish from Whole Foods).
A sign of ‘no appetite’ supposedly means the body is working hard to rid itself of toxins and poisons, so I’m not going to eat much of anything else today – other than fruit – unless I get hungry.
I’m supposed to be taking a walk along the river in another hour or so with my aunt. I think the sunshine will do me some good.
I had another weird “re-tracing” situation happen two nights ago. You may remember how I posted a few weeks back about how I suddenly tasted/smelled alcohol and pot one night while my body was going through healing/elimination. (Click that link to see what I’m talking about with the healing/retracing if you don’t already know). Anyway two nights ago I was lying in bed reading and suddenly smelled and tasted McDonald’s Egg McMuffins. LOL! I haven’t had one of those in over 8 months, so it was pretty amusing. However, there was a time about 6 years ago where I ate 2 of them every morning for breakfast for several weeks. (I would have them on the way to work, those things are super-addictive!) So I guess my body was releasing some kind of chemical or toxin (probably loads of them) that had been stored during that time.
Also a few nights ago, I got my first “meat” craving… sort of. I started tasting greasy fried chicken and wanted some. Thankfully it was a temporary feeling.
The human body never fails to amaze me! I can’t help but wonder what else I’ll experience on this healing journey.
I haven’t weighed myself in several days because of PMS, which seems to really be dragging out this month, but I’ll probably get on the scale tomorrow anyway.
I have discovered my absolute favorite veggie juice recipe ever and have decided to share it with you all:
- 6 medium carrots
- 4 large celery stalks
- 2 Roma tomatoes
- 2 smallish Granny Smith green apples
- A few bunches of spinach (couple of handfuls)
These ingredients make about 21-24 ounces of juice. If you want a smaller serving, like 10-12 ounces, halve all ingredients.
I’m not sure what it is about this particular mixture, but it is SO good that it’s unbelievably divine. It’s a combination of hearty flavors – carrots and apples for sweetness, tomatoes for richness, and celery for saltiness. (The spinach taste doesn’t seem to come through, as very little juice is produced from it).
Hey everyone! Here’s a quick note regarding comments… again.
It has happened again: someone leaving comments – this time someone pretending to be a nutritionist and nurse – has been posting multiple comments under different names. This person has successfully engaged me in arguments and discussions about my latest plan – pretending to be concerned about my protein intake – and in the process, wasting a lot of my time.
The fact of the matter is, if you have to use different names and pretend to be more than one person, you have something to hide and are not being forthright. Therefore, I am not interested in anything you have to say.
This has now happened with comments from Amy/Liz – the same person – and Tess/mktingmd – the same person. Some research into site and traffic logs finds some interesting things about these two combinations of people who seem to visit my blog around the same time – often within moments of each other. How odd…
Because of all the wasted time arguing with the same person or even two people this entire time, I will no longer be addressing or acknowledging concerned or argumentative comments on this blog. I am extremely content and assured that the path I am on is healthy and will lead to the eventual reaching of my body’s natural weight. Health has been improving so far every step of the way, healing is occurring, and I don’t have to count calories, worry about food or obsess about weight loss or food intake.
There simply isn’t enough time to constantly have to assure the same person/people over and over that I am fine. So I won’t anymore. Spring is here, the sun is finally staying out until past 8, and life is too beautiful to sit in front of a computer saying the same thing over and over. Don’t you agree?
That said, feel free to continue to leave comments. I love reading them. But no further discussions over health, concerns, protein deficiency or meat will be taking place with me. I have said this many times and I will again: If you don’t agree with the way I eat or live, feel free to go elsewhere.
Thanks for reading!
Just a quick update… it’s 3am and I should be in bed already! But I did an hour on my elliptical earlier tonight and still feel wide awake. It may be from the small amount of coffee I had this afternoon.
I ate only raw food today (minus about 3 ounces of hot coffee which I sipped): tons of pineapple, a total of 8 bananas, some mango, an orange, several carrots, lots of romaine lettuce, a mesclun salad mix (lots of baby lettuces), and various other raw foods. I had so much energy on the elliptical that I stayed on 30 minutes longer than originally planned!
I am going to try my very hardest to stick to only raw foods until next Sunday… lately I’ve had one cooked meal a day (as mentioned in a previous post) – usually cooked vegetables or a vegan pizza or oven baked potato slices. But for a week I’m going to try very hard to only have raw food, and see what happens.
Anyway I’m off to bed to try and sleep…!
