Food Photos

Lately I’ve been super addicted to greens – green salads, green smoothies, etc. Green smoothies have become my new coffee (since I don’t drink it anymore). I can’t function well without it in the morning! Haha. I have also begun buying the pre-packaged organic salad mixes again because it’s so much easier to get a large selection of various lettuces that way. When I buy various heads of lettuce, something always goes bad before I’m able to eat it. Buying the pre-packaged salad mixes makes me a little nervous because I know they are irradiated, but… oh well.

So I’m in a bit of a quandary right now over my diet. For one thing, my hair is falling out in strands. Now, this happens every year in the summer – I recall it happening many times before and it’s always super-annoying because I have such long hair. However, I am suspecting that maybe more of it is coming out than usual this time. It’s not like I can pull on it and it comes out – nothing like that. But I am finding more of it around lately – much more. The strands loosen or something and hang at the end of my hair, annoying me to no end. Plus, my hair has gone from being shiny, silky and soft to dull, flat and lifeless. I am so disappointed, to be honest. My hair is one of my best features and now it sucks! Healthy hair and strong nails are huge indications of health, and lately, my hair has been bad and my nails just OK – not their best, but they aren’t as strong as they were a few months ago either.

What can I do? What should I do? I have spent some serious time thinking about this situation for the past few weeks and have come to the conclusion that maybe – just maybe – it’s my ‘mostly’ vegan diet causing this. I mean, it can’t be lack of protein because I’ve had plenty of protein over the past few months in the form of grains, beans, seeds, nuts and other veggie proteins. (I still occasionally eat cooked vegan meals – I haven’t quite transitioned back into fruitarian yet, although I’m easily eating 7+ servings of fruit per day these days). Back when I was eating eggs and a yogurt every morning, my hair was simply amazing. I got tons of compliments. So… it got me wondering if I should start eating a yogurt every day again to see if that helps. (I can’t stomach the thought of eating eggs anymore so that is simply out of the question.) I’ve been contemplating this for a couple of weeks now and even bought some yogurt a couple of weeks ago, but hadn’t touched it. Until yesterday…

The funniest thing about the sudden yogurt buying was that I spent several hours one day watching TV, and there were a million dairy commercials on that day. Suddenly the thought came into my mind – and I am NOT kidding, it literally popped into my mind – that I need to start eating dairy for health. How weird is that? It’s odd how the thought would come out of nowhere like that when I have been so adamantly against dairy for a few months now.

Anyway, as for eggs… truth be told, eating eggs regularly (nearly every day) has always been the #1 thing to make my hair its absolute best. I’m not going to lie. I think it’s the vitamin K and/or E in them. But I just cannot stomach eating eggs, especially now knowing what I know about them.

So I’ve made a tough decision. As of yesterday, I’ve given up on veganism and have decided to just settle on vegetarianism for the time being. Yesterday and today I’ve had a non-fat Fage Greek yogurt (which supposedly has the least amount of lactose in it) with my salad at lunch. I was surprised to find that I actually like it plain. Most people say they have to add stuff to it. It seemed to digest OK (well, somewhat, I had a little tummy upset that went away). I’m also now taking the Mega Mineral supplement, which has all of the stuff I sometimes come up lacking in my daily totals (calcium, zinc, iron, D, iodine). I am going to look into a Vitamin K supplement as well.

I figure one serving of dairy about 5 times a week should be OK. I don’t know… I feel guilty for eating the yogurt, but at the same time, I’ve never given up cheese or dairy completely for a long period of time anyway. (I’ve had cheese roughly twice a week since that long 2 1/2-week stretch without any). I still think the dairy industry is cruel.

So I guess I’m a hypocrite. But I’m concerned that my body isn’t getting proper nutrition and I’m not sure what else to do. There are only so many supplements I am willing to take.

I’m going to do this for a while and see how it goes. I hope my hair gets better, it really sucks to walk around with horrible hair when you’ve had great hair your entire life!

Please… no harsh criticism in the comments. I already feel guilty!

Here’s a picture of the salad I had yesterday for lunch:

It was delicious – mixed salad greens, English cucumbers, tomatoes and red peppers with an organic and all-natural roasted red pepper dressing.

I’ll be honest and admit that I’ve eaten very low calories in the past few days. Lower than I usually do. (And no, this isn’t the reason for the hair situation because that started over a month ago). I realized once I started REALLY writing EVERYTHING down that I eat and/or drink, that I had been eating MUCH higher calorie totals than I thought on most days – like over 2000! No wonder my weight loss has been so slow. So, in an effort to correct this, I’ve cut [way] back temporarily to see if the scale will get moving. I have yet to weigh myself though because I keep forgetting until it’s too late in the day!

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I know I haven’t updated much lately and I’ve kind of just felt like taking a break, but I thought I’d post a photo of what I’m having for breakfast today: perfectly ripened organic bananas! (I actually ate 5 of those bananas pictured). It has taken a lot of legwork, but I’ve finally found two good sources of bananas that actually ripen correctly and are oh so delicious. Yummy.

Bananas that are underripe are more starch than sugar, and bananas that are overripe are turning into alcohol. Perfectly ripe bananas are the perfect kind of sugar that the body can use for energy and digest perfectly.

Bananas that ripen with lots of dark lines or smudges have been gased or had chemicals sprayed on them to keep them from ripening correctly (mostly due to store transportation). This even happens to organic bananas, unfortunately. The bananas that ripen with only dots/spots with only a couple of dark lines or smudges haven’t been tampered with (much if at all). They have fewer nasty strings inside too – sometimes none. And last but not least, the untampered with bananas open very easily when they are ripe.

Anyway, I’ve been sleeping a LOT the past several days! I am talking between 9-12 hours a night! I’ve been so hungry and eating a lot of fruit and veggies, too. Not sure if it’s PMS or detox or what is causing it. But when I’m up and about, I feel fabulous and energetic. When I mono-meal on bananas or pineapple for my first meal or two of the day, I feel even more fabulous. But when I go to bed – watch out – I’m gonna be there a while!

I’m also noticing that I have no body aches or pains lately. You don’t always notice small aches and pains until they go away (or get worse). Little things that used to hurt only a bit, like getting up off the ground, or my first few steps out of bed in the morning… now don’t hurt at all.

That’s all for now… I’m meeting my cousin’s wife for coffee in about an hour. I haven’t had coffee since two weeks ago when I was in Branson… so I’m really looking forward to it! For those of you who don’t know, I drank coffee every day for the past 9 years until only recently, when I finally kicked the daily habit. It wasn’t easy – the weaning/withdrawal period caused a lot of headaches! But I’ve been only drinking coffee ‘once in a while’ for the past month or so.

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So yeah I definitely have a tropical fruit addiction right now! Here’s a photo of my little “ripening” area for bananas, pineapple and star fruit:

(I’ve never seen such giant star fruit!)

I got on the scale this morning even though I’m smack dab in the middle of PMS, and I’ve only gained 2 pounds! Usually around this time I’m several pounds up – sometimes 5 or more.

So far today I’ve eaten 3 1/2 bananas and almost a pound of pineapple. I’m going to continue eating fruit all day, plus make myself a veggie juice, and will also have few ‘raw green crackers’ I got yesterday. They are made with stuff like kale, collards, tomatoes, spinach, garlic, carrots, etc and are surprisingly good! Dinner will be vegan pizza made with all-natural ingredients.

Anyway, I’m feeling and looking much better today so I’m off to get some other things done!

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Well I made it to Branson and within 5 minutes of walking into my hotel room, I broke my veganism. The concierge had put a plate of red grapes and various gourmet cheeses and crackers on a plate, plus a bottle of white wine in a bucket. Being that I hadn’t had cheese in a while, I couldn’t help myself… and I cannot tell you how good that cheese was.

Gulp.

Oh well. I’m not going to beat myself up. So long as I don’t eat meat I’ll be fine. (In my eyes, that is).

Anyway, the drive up was OK, although it poured rain half the way.

Here’s the fruit in my fridge:

That’s tomatoes, strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, mango, orange and grapefruit slices.

I’ll update more later and possibly add more pictures!

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