It seems I have become sick with either laryngitis or some sort of chest or throat cold. I’m losing my voice and have had a deep cough since late yesterday. I could blame it on low carbing, but I think it has to do with our crazy ever-fluctuating weather here. It has been so warm here in the past several days that the trees are flowering. (This doesn’t usually start in the northeast until May, so it’s a treat to get it so early here). I used to get this throat thing every spring and fall when I was growing up in So Cal – when the weather changed. I was woken up around 5am this morning by some of the strongest gusty winds I’ve ever seen – my building wasn’t just vibrating in the wind, it was creaking and moving. I can only imagine what the people on higher floors went through!
I’m taking some tips from some of the raw and/or health books I’ve read recently… it seems when you are sick, it’s a good thing to stop eating and instead drink smoothies, water, juice and broth. It lets your digestive system rest so your body can fight to heal itself. Almost like a fast. I haven’t eaten solid food since last night around 8:30pm (which is really 9:30pm since the clocks went up). It’s 12:40pm now.
Anyway, I’ve decided to add some delicious fruit and veggie-infused water drinks to my “fast”. I got a couple of awesome recipes in a raw book I have. I made a cucumber and mint infused jug of water yesterday morning and drank it chilled in the afternoon and evening… delicious.
Here is a recipe that I got from a book called Raw Food Life Force Energy:
- 1/2 sliced carrot
- 1 lemon
- 1/2 sliced cucumber
- a few sprigs of fresh mint (finally found use for the mint I bought the other day!)
- 64 ounces/half a gallon of distilled/purified water
Mix together in jug and put in fridge for a couple hours. It comes out delicious, refreshing and doesn’t really have many calories or carbs when you drink it. (Since you only drink the water itself).
So we’ll see how long I can go without solid food! I’m also resting and really taking it easy today. I just want to get better as quickly as possible.
Later Update: Well I have officially been “fasting” for 19 hours, and my laryngitis
almost seems to have disappeared! How weird is that?
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veggie and fruit water infusion
Ingredients:
- red leaf and butter leaf lettuce
- mint leaves (spearmint)
- 1 leaf of rainbow chard (mustard greens)
- flat parsley leaves
- orange bell pepper
- roma tomatoes
- cucumber slices
- olive oil
- 3 small strawberries cut up
- sunflower seeds
- sesame seeds
It came out tasting pretty delicious! However, I discovered that spearmint leaves are a bit too strong-tasting for my liking, so next time I’ll leave them out.
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salad
I experimented a bit this morning and this is what I threw in the blender (all organic):
Kale
Swiss chard
Baby spinach
Frozen peaches
fresh pear slices
Distilled water
It came out pretty good! Next time I am going to put a banana in there, perhaps some parsley and more spinach – and a little less kale.
Mmmm. It’s actually pretty darn good!
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Yellow pear tomatoes are delicious! They are the latest in a long line of new fruits and veggies that I’ve been trying lately… so far I’ve tried dandelion greens (which are OK), papaya (also OK) and golden raspberries. I’m waiting for passion fruit and star fruit to become available.
I would love to become a raw person who eats only fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouts and veggies… but I’m not sure if I want to cut chicken and eggs out of my diet! It just seems the more fresh fruits and veggies I eat, the more I want them, and only them. There is a ton of information out there about how a raw diet (or even fruitarian diet) heals all sorts of ills in the body, reverses aging, fights disease, etc. Fruit does seem to be the perfect food – it is chock full of vitamins, minerals, fiber, enzymes, etc. In its natural state it doesn’t even need to be refrigerated (except, of course, to prolong the freshness). We digest it easier than anything else. To be honest, I’d love to be a fruitarian. But it would be awfully hard to get there, and I’d be missing my chicken and eggs!
My next goal is to transition dairy out of my diet completely. I’m working on it… and there is no rush.
The oddest thing of all is that I don’t really think of my weight so much these days. Right now it’s more about nutrition and health than anything else! But I do plan to get on the scale in a couple days and see if any more weight has been lost…
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^^^My lunch today. (Eating as I type this, in fact). Blackberry phones take terrible photos for some reason. It’s SableFish (black cod), cooked spinach, and a salad made with: romaine lettuce & herbs, colored bell peppers and tomatoes. I have come to absolutely LOVE the herb romaine lettuce mix. The brand is ‘Organic Girl’ and the mix is triple-washed and packed in sustainable plastic packaging.
I’ve noticed lately that the more healthy stuff – like veggies and seeds – I eat, the more I want and enjoy them. I never in a million years thought I’d crave stuff like spinach and raw herbs. But… I do now.
Earlier I was freaked out when I saw my body fat % because I thought it was in the obese range. However, after my power walk, I looked the number up online and it’s just in the overweight range (which yes, is bad enough). Funnily enough after my walk, I had lost 1.5% of body fat.
Yeah… I can tell that checking my body fat % is going to be even more of a compulsion than checking my weight is.
Arghghghghghghgh!
Anyway, this lunch is huge and I doubt I’ll be able to finish it all. Dinner is going to be baked chicken and steamed or boiled veggies. I have a bunch of veggies that I need to try and get through before they go bad. They are easier to eat when cooked, so that’s what I’m doing tonight.
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Well, we are in the middle of yet another bad ice storm, and I think I’m going to be stuck at home for the next couple of days! I’m supposed to go somewhere later tonight with a friend, but I don’t trust anyone’s driving on the pure ice that is now coating the roads pretty badly. It’s raining at 27 degrees out… NOT a good combo. And I refuse to drive in this crap myself. I hope it doesn’t get bad enough to knock out the power or any services…! I think I’ll take the time stuck at home to catch up on laundry, some of my other websites, and maybe even utilize the building’s gym.
Anyway, I am currently eating the most delicious-tasting turkey breast cutlet that I’ve ever had… I oven-roasted it with a bit of olive oil, organic butter, cilantro and garlic pepper. To go along with it, I am having a romaine-herb salad with sliced tomatoes and colored bell peppers topped with organic sesame seeds:
Yum. Just a week ago, this salad would have tasted incredibly bland. But since detoxing my taste buds from chemicals and toxins located in processed foods, fresh food has become incredibly delicious. (And I promise you I am NOT exaggerating).
Overall I’m feeling pretty good today, although I was extremely tired this morning and did not want to get up. My waist, hips, thighs and stomach areas all feel smaller today. Scale is still reading the same number as yesterday though. I really need to stop weighing myself every day… I will see more dramatic results if I only do it once a week.
In any case, I will report on my weight loss one week from today… I know my weight stats are confusing since I never reveal the actual number to you all. I am going to start keeping track of the weight I lose again in the sidebar. The goal of -55 pounds is from my highest-ever weight, not my current weight (which is 8 pounds less than my highest-ever weight).
Anyway, I have my dinner all planned out… it’s going to be oven-baked wild Alaskan sockeye salmon and spinach. Perhaps some berries for dessert since I didn’t have them with my breakfast.
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Meals
I am confused… the chicken breasts I buy (the Smart Chicken brand) say that a 4 ounce serving is 110 calories, yet when I go online, other sites say they range from 140 to 175 calories? Hmm…
Anyway, I found a couple of other organic markets in my area, one of which I plan to check out later today. It’s pretty amazing to see and taste the difference in organic fruits – especially citrus fruits like oranges, lemons and limes. I mean, take a typical non-organic orange, for example, and it’s disgusting – tons of that white inner rind stuff and tons of seeds. It’s a dull orange color and not very tasty. Yet take an organic orange and it’s juicy, has very little of that disgusting white stuff and virtually no seeds inside! The same goes for limes and lemons. And the taste is SO much sweeter.
Why are regular (non-organic) citrus fruits so full of seeds? If anyone knows the answer to that, let me know!
I’ve been reading up a bit more on nutrition and have learned about the evils of MSG – and how it’s in practically every product on regular grocery shelves. You name it, it’s probably in there – breads, soups, canned veggies, cereal, meats, etc etc. It’s even found in some ice creams, cheeses and yogurts! I am extremely sensitive to large amounts of MSG… it causes me to have terrible migraines and other symptoms. I wonder what all the small amounts of it has been doing to me over the years? Perhaps it is one cause for my previously feeling like sh*t most of the time?
I guess I will find out after going without for a few weeks…!
When one thinks about all of the poison (MSG, aspartame, tons of other chemicals) and genetically modified food found in our grocery stores, one must wonder what on earth is going on in our country? Why is all of this crap added to our foods in the first place? Taste? Convenience? Shelf life?
Anyway, enough rambling for now… here is a before and after photo of the chopped veggie salad I am currently eating with my lunch (grilled chicken breast).
Organic celery, green bell pepper, red, orange and yellow bell peppers, carrots and sugar snap peas:
After chopping it up:
Looks delicious, no?
I am probably going to have baked turkey for dinner along with some more veggies (likely spinach). I’m also going to log at least an hour on the elliptical today…
Later edit: I ended up having 2 omega-3 enriched organic hard-boiled eggs, 1 cup spinach, and an organic boiled veggie-mix (carrots, asparagas, green onions, green beans, cauliflower) brushed with a bit of extra-virgin organic olive oil for dinner. Surprisingly enough, it was filling!
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This is what I ate for lunch (pictured above): delicious whole wheat fettuccine (with flax seed and omega 3), organic four-cheese sauce, a dash or two of Parmesan cheese, a veggie salad and some Pellegrino. The total calories comes out to around 300. The only veggies in this salad are romaine lettuce, carrots, and red and orange peppers. I think I will have another one of these with my dinner tonight, only add in the missing mushrooms, celery and cucumber. The best thing about this salad is that it takes forever to eat, so by the time you are done, you are satisfied!
Anyway, I blew it big-time last night with my diet. Altogether I probably ingested around 2700 calories yesterday. But I’m not beating myself up… today is a new day and I’m back on track! As a matter of fact, it’s already 3pm and I’ve only had just over 500 calories. I’m going to stick to about 1000 calories today to make up for yesterday’s indiscretion…
I went and bought a citrus fruit juicer yesterday, so I’m going to start adding in some freshly squeezed orange and/or lime juice to my daily regime!
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veggies
To say I am excited about these new soups (from Whole Foods) would be an understatement…
Mmmmmmm! This goes right along with my soup-heavy diet quite well.
So far I have only tried the Garden Tomato flavor – I’m eating some of it now in fact – and it’s very, very good.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Whole Foods is simply my favorite food/grocery store EVER. It’s even better than Trader Joe’s.
In other news, I’ve begun my latest antibiotics regime. It’s Augmentin, which is a strong version of Amoxicillin and another drug. It makes me very nauseated and dizzy, but I’m dealing with it. And in combination with hydrocodone, which I’m taking for pain, is a real bag o’ fun. (NOT). For some reason this round of Tonsillitis has been very painful – my neck/throat glands were hurting so bad the other day that it nearly brought me to tears.
Hydrocodone (which is Vicodin and Lortab in generic form) is a narcotic painkiller that some people can get addicted to. Oddly enough instead of making me tired, it actually gives me strange OCD-like behavior. After taking one, I sometimes feel the strangest urge to obsessively clean my apartment or do some grueling and tedious website work. I wonder why it does this to me? About 30 minutes after taking one this morning, I cleaned my bedroom from top to bottom and then organized my book collection. I recall that Percocet (Oxycodone) did this to me too when I was taking it after some oral surgery. Interesting…
Anyway, I’m going to keep up with the vitamins, healthy eating and healthy sleeping hours and I am confident that I will kick this damn infection once and for all!
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Those are, from left to right, cashews, peanuts, raw organic pumpkin seeds, and raw organic sunflower seeds.
Delicious and healthy! These ought to keep my blood sugar stable and help me avoid all of the tempting fast food on the road.
Anyway, I am leaving shortly… and am stopping just outside St. Louis MO for the night. Today is the shortest leg of my trip, only about 5 hours. The place I’m staying tonight has room service, so I am going to order a yummy chicken or steak dinner with veggies.
I’ll be updating this blog whenever I can, hopefully daily!
Time to hit the road…
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nuts,
seeds,
snacks
