Best news in a while!

I have such gratitude today.

I woke up with a headache two days ago, have not been sleeping well, and have been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster in the past couple days but...

I was so used to waiting 40+ days in between periods that it surprised me...I got my period this morning!

Yes, I have been tracking my cycles with Clearblue for the past 3 months and this time it was day 34. By my calculations that means it's been 28-29 days. Regular cycle for me after about two years of irregularity!!!

Coincidence that I've been playing around with the Raw Til 4 diet for about a month or two? I THINK NOT. :)

Picking Myself Up

After my second day all raw (fruit) during the day I am finally feeling better.

Here was part of my lunch yesterday:

Unfortunately, I drank too much at a work party and then went to a low-grade Chinese buffet afterward with my s.o. I guess I can't be "normal" and eat like others and I'm officially okay with that. On the ride home, we had to pull over so I could find a bathroom to vomit. SO NOT WORTH IT.

This diet is the way to go. I need to forge ahead.

Food

I definitely believe I can do the high carb low fat vegan (Raw Til 4) lifestyle because it not only makes sense, but it's about FOOD.
If I could do an all fruits n veggies diet right now, I would because I know it would be optimum. However, coming from a life of pasta, bread, fish, chinese, indian, etc. etc. etc. it makes so much sense to do Raw Til 4. I've mentioned that there is a great group on Facebook of the same name and it has a guidelines document, but this is essentially it:

Fruit until 4pm - A LOT of it, preferably calorie dense like bananas, dates, etc. "Monomeals" - one kind of fruit at a time - are the best for smooth, effecient digestion.

Carb up for dinner! AT LEAST 500 calories of rice, potatoes, corn pasta, veggies, and low sodium sauce. (no overt fats like oil)

I remember a Raw Group event that I attended in NYC at least 4-5 years ago. It was held at Bonobo's, actually, and I do still love their food though I always thought their presentation/eating space was bland. I had worked a long day at work and was quite hungry. I used to get the little salads at Hale and Hearty (place where they toss a custom salad) but always the cheapest ones with the "basics" (onion, cucumber, and one more veggie I can't remember, and sometimes croutons when I was "treating myself") so I'm sure I'd had one of those at least 5 hours previous to this. So I wait around and everyone's just sitting there, not really talking. So I'm like "well, I guess I'll order real quick" and I ordered the largest salad with some veggies, maybe some of the nut pates (yummy) but not much.

I went back to the table and only one or two others had any food and everyone stared at me. Gawked. And I'm like okayyyy, I'll just nibble. Slowly, the latecomers showed up and people finally got food. Little salads that they poked their forks in and played with. Overall, there were nice people and one very large woman who was doing a juice fast (I thought how brave she was and what a warrior). No one got dessert - amazing fruit sorbets and honey ball thingys - so I didn't (mostly due to my wallet).

Later, I mentioned something online on the forum about "nice to meet you" and I must have had a question and the "leader" responded: "Oh, you're the one with the huge salad". -I was salad shamed! It seems funny now, but really, what kind of bull$hit is that?

The other Raw Group event I attended, not the same group, mind you, was at some kind of holistic meeting center with a bunch of small spaces for rent. The "leader/speaker" talked for a while and made us repeat "cooked food is poison". He went on to say a lot of good things, as I recall, about raw fruits and veggies, etc....and then his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell over. I hope I didn't scream but I might have. After they revived him, he said he was sorry and that he hadn't eaten for a few days. *Now, I am not necessarily condemning fasting for spiritual growth because who am I to question the ways of people who have done it for thousands of years?* BUT it perturbed me. A LOT. Some of the group somewhat angrily rebuffed canceling the rest of the workshop just because he had collapsed. I did not and I left.

I am recounting these stories because I (thank god!!!) do not have an eating disorder. I have wonderful self-esteem (I try), am loved, and am a staunch feminist in a society where women kowtow in mind, body, and spirit on a consistent basis. I want to eat and I want to be healthy. PERIOD.

Yes, I hope to be much more fruit n veggie based but this lifestyle (Raw Til 4) is so awesome right now that I am just trying to focus on staying with it! I fell off the wagon this weekend and my body is very unhappy. But I am back and forging forward.

Also, for example, eating a bowl of corn pasta (WAY better than the whole wheat or brown rice stuff in my opinion) just makes me happy. Granted, it took me 33 years to realize it's not the PASTA I adore, but the fat. Okay, so I like the pasta a lot, but I ADORE the fat. I never put that together, if you can believe it. Even now, my s.o. is having problems eating a large bowl of pasta with low sodium sauce. This is a man who, before meeting me, in his singledom, ate entire Stouffer's (Hungry Man?) lasagnas. Yes, the big frozen ones. It's the fat and salt, hello???! It makes so much sense now. Salt is so goddamned addicting. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I can't have any. The actuality is much harder, but we'll see.

So far today for breakfast I've had 10 bananas. (split into 2 smoothies, one with some frozen blueberries) Lots of water (sorry, not sure how much)

I'm having the very practical problem of not having large enough containers. The other day my husband's container exploded out of the fridge when his coworker opened the fridge door [too packed --> 80 employees one fridge (sounds like 2 girls one cup = DISGUSTING! Lol)]. One container down! I'm looking for mason jars and big glass jugs that can measure my water effectively.

Love to my mother on her birthday. I miss you so much <3

Trying to Post More

So after a couple weeks high carb low fat vegan (Raw Til 4 group on Facebook is great), I fell off the wagon this weekend.

I have realized a few things:

I thought there were cravings and hunger. But honestly, once I have gotten back to bananas and fruit, I realize that what I have always thought of as hunger are also cravings. Not I need chocolate now! Not salty or sweet crazy cravings. But rather, "I'm hungry. I'd like a ___." When I eat bananas, for breakfast for example, I never crave them but when I'm drinking my smoothie it feels RIGHT. It's a different kind of hunger and sense of being satiated. So if I stay on fruit and high carb, I hope this will be a way of life.

I've also realized that it's harder to go back to a SAD diet filled with fat because every time I fall, my body rejects it more. I.e. my stomach hurts, my body aches, and I feel generally crappy.

I Needed to Hear This!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGGQxJLuVjg

CSAs

My lunch banana smoothie is one I left in the work fridge form yesterday for time-saving. It seems to have separated into foam (which I've gotten through) and juicy banana liquid. Blech. Almost spat that out onto my keyboard but restrained myself. What is up with that, fair bananas?

There are these cashew cluster things at work that I believe the office manager gets at Costco. Man, are they good.

I hope they're not insanely bad for me, but I don't think so.














I am thinking about joining a CSA. The commitment scares me but I've gotten over that in life so why not with vegetables? :)

This one I have bought from at the farmer's market, as well as attended their pot luck/pig roast which was so awesome.

Johnson's Backyard Farm

This one is the oldest in the state, supposedly:

Tecolote Farms

And this one is just cute and in a "blighted" neighborhood which I love:

Green Gate Farms

I wonder if there are a lot more pros than just buying what I want at a farmer's market.

Hmm...

Lunch piccy

Thought I'd throw this in here. My second banana smoothie for lunch and my apple snack. :)

I've never been preachy

But I had to share this. I've been pescatarian (strict) for 20 years now and vegan for a bunch of those.

This really brings it home for me.
Gary Yurofsky's Talk on Veganism

Ups and Way Downs

But yes, the ups are prevailing!
So I've definitely fallen way off the wagon a couple times. What can I say? I have a rebellious nature.

Friday was the worst so of course I'll start with that. I was feeling hormonal and I decided to be "naughty" and eat snacks while I was off work early. Cut to cheese puffs, combos, and Quizno's. I loved the chippy stuff, I admit. But it was so grainy and it stained my hands ridiculously. The Quizno's, a tuna sub (which I haven't had from them in years), was of course good because it was DRENCHED in salt. I don't know if it's my new found taste buds or if it's just the store (or both?), but man, my mouth was tingly by the end of it. So of course I didn't feel good about my choices but I thought, meh, I'll do better tomorrow.
WRONG.
My fear of becoming a person who eats one bad thing and turns to a quivering bowl of jelly was realized. I AM THAT PERSON. Sure, I see skinny people scarfing fast food all the time. People older and worse looking than anyone in my family (comparatively speaking) who are walking around at the age of 80 (most of my family did not make it to that age). I try to follow the "don't judge a book by its cover" saying but it really does get hard. BUT these people could be in pain as soon as they get home. Or not. Maybe they have way better genes. Who knows.
All I know is...I am who I am. And I am obviously not supposed to eat "normally". By the time I went to bed I started having flu like symptoms. I was literally a quivering mass of jelly the whole night. I got up, heaved a bit but didn't throw up too much, and was unable to sleep. I finally dozed off mid-morning and woke up with a TERRIBLE headache. I took pills and it cleared but it came back two times that day.
I wish it weren't so, but it's true.
Then yesterday I went to an Asian fusion type buffet for Father's Day. I didn't eat as badly as I could have, but again, SALTY. I felt lethargic but nothing too bad. My husband passed out, but he's another food story. (Crohn's, etc.) This morning I COULD NOT PUT ON MY WEDDING RING.
*Sorry for the caps but it still amazes me that this stuff happens.
Today I've had a papaya smoothie (half a papaya and some coconut water for alkalizing - pleeeeassseee alkalize me lol), and a 5 banana smoothie with water. The latter really tasted like a milkshake. I don't know if it's how long I blended it for but it was awesome. (Go Ninja! Love that blender)
I feel good and am going full Low Fat Raw Vegan this week! xox

Red Red Wine

Yes, I am spontaneously dancing to this 90s song. :P I think the bananas are working!! Yayyy. I woke up feeling not so great, couldn't sleep in again, but once I was up and showered, I started to feel great. The fog is lifting a bit.

meals today:

4 bananas in the car ride to the store

strawberry pie

not sure what's for dinner yet

The strawberry pie, I believe, was first drooled after by moi on the Raw Food Sisters blog. But this recipe also inspired me.

I drizzled honey on top so I suppose it's not vegan, but besides that it is.

I didn't use almonds or any nuts and no hemp seeds or anything. I used about 2 tbsp of coconut oil, the coconut covered dates you can buy in bulk, and some alcohol-free vanilla extract drops. Also, at the end I drizzled some local honey on top. Yummm.

lunchtime 6/7 12pm

Here I am enjoying my 6 (or 5, whatever fit into the container) banana and half a carton of bluerries smoothie that I referred to in the last post.


I have an overall crappy feeling still. I feel quite tired as well. My sleep wasn't as great last night as it has been the past couple nights. Insomnia is a bitch and is not just sleeplessness, but rather the inability to fall back asleep once one has woken up. I definitely experienced that a couple times last night. Plus, my dog's wet nose graised the side of my body shortly after I woke around 5 am. Lol. Thankfully, my husband got up and walked her quickly because I knew that if I had, there'd be no way in hell I'd fall back asleep. I think I may have gotten light sleep until I awoke at 7am.

My lunch smoothie is too thick (not enough water) and I'm having visions of a Dickensian child gulping down porridge and wanting more. BUT, lemme tell you, I miss it when I don't have it because IT MAKES ME FEEL GOOD.
And that's what matters most, right?

Not so great feelin'

The title says it all. I woke up this morning feeling like I had a bug or a flu. My stuffed up nose and throat have gone away (it's 9am now) but I still have body aches.

I ended up eating mostly cooked yesterday and although I felt fine until nighttime, I guess it could be that. I ate:

6 banana smoothie

salmon, kale salad, rosemary potatoes (I had a surprise lunch date and the salad bar looked gross, what can I say?)

rice noodles, tomato sauce, carrots

air-popped popcorn (I know I need to do away with this habit)

All in all, it's hard to believe it was the cooked food, but who knows.

Anyway, I'm sipping my 6 banana smoothie for breakfast, and I brought a blueberry and banana smoothie for lunch.

I hope I feel better. Banana island for me this weekend.

Lunchtime

My bananas were in the fridge and turned brown but they are sweet and delicious. I added two nectarines and a clementine. ;) Oh, and a drizzle of honey.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Things to know about me so you can understand this raw food journey :)

- I am not a morning person. I never have been. I love coffee (doing okay giving it up though!) and sleeping in. I am a creature of the night who now works 8:30-5ish. I have to get up very early and I TRY to be okay with it.

-I have been vegetarian since I was 13. I kind of switched to pescatarian somewhere along the line because I really love sushi. I know, slightly hypocritical, but I do like seafood in general.

- My cycles have been off. I hope this helps with that.

- I am not even close to an athlete. Grief, life, etc. has made me pretty sedentary. Sure, we try to fit in a 5 mile walk with our dog every now and then but that's about it. I used to do yoga years ago and I love it, but I can't find the motivation again. I also like Nia, but, again, cost and motivation.

Some raw food blogs that are giving me inspiration this morning:

The Raw Sisters
Raw 10 dollars a day


I have started tracking my food on cronometer.com mostly because I am curious but also because I know that getting enough calories on this diet is important.

Yesterday I had a swing in mood for sure. I had probably 4-5 cups of strawberries with a cut up orange thrown in and a drizzle of honey for lunch and it was surprisingly really outstanding. :) But then my dag dragged on (work's fault, I suppose) and I became pretty grouchy and hungry. I ate most of an apple but it didn't help too much. By the time I was home I begrudgingly made a salad and some rice noodles with a homemade carrot ginger sauce. I had to scarf my salad down without waiting for Ric to eat just to satiate myself. I know, rude.

In general last night, I didn't feel great, but I am sleeping slightly better each night.

My lady problems haven't improved yet but more on that in the future.

xox

Sunday to Sunday

Day one on my 7 day cleanse. We really started yesterday. After having a nectarine, we had some spinach pakoras in the freezer and since those were tempting us, we toasted 'em up and ate away. They didn't leave me feeling great, we had a big fight (not related), so I decided I would start my raw cleanse early. My s.o. agreed and we were on our way.

For lunch we decided to stop by Whole Foods so we grabbed a juice. I'm quite sad to report that they've upped their juice bar prices. :( They used to be relatively cheap compared to "juice places" but no longer. I had he chlorophyll up and Ric had the Sea Horse (his was yummy, mine not so much, but I gulped it down. I had some samples around the store, all raw except for two bites of a coconut curry soup. It had lentils and wasn't that great anyway so I ditched it. Later in the day, I got a pretty terrible headache that lasted pretty much until 5pm. And there's my day, folks. So terribly sad to suffer from ailments like this.

For dinner we had yummy "nacho cheesy" tomatoes and red basil. the dandelions on top were too bitter and we got so full that we didn't eben finish! Usually we eat giant bowls/plates of food, FYI. Oh, and that tomato dinner was inspired by Dan the LifeRegenerator here.

So I didn't sleep great by any means but I slept okay. We had a huge storm with hail that started tickling my windowsills and ended up shaking my world. I'm sure that didn't help.

Today I ate:
Half a cantaloupe 6 banana smoothie with water and a dab of alcohol-free vanilla extract Bites of tomatoes I didn't eat from last night Half a watermelon

This morning I woke up and actually walked the dog around our block. The walk ends uphill so it's kind of not just an easy stroll. And I am NOT a morning person lol. So that's a good sign, I think. And Lola appreciated it. (adding an old cute pic of her) Oh, and I plan on doing straight up fruits and greens for 7 days and try to be fat free for the purposes of this cleanse.

I'm also adding before photos. This is to document changes, but I hope to not get caught up on the whole weight thing. I HATE fat phobia, let's get that straight, and I think I look pretty good. I would like to feel a WHOLE lot better, that's for sure. Oh, and the face ones show how bad my skin has gotten. Can't wait for that to clear up! And be glowy, of course. Glowwwyyyy...

BEFORE, Me and my husband:

Here I am again...

C'est la vie. :| While I've been very interested in the idea of a raw foods diet and 811, I keep coming back to it and (mostly) straying from it. Here I am again. I hope those words will have renewed meaning and passion. I need to be led on a path of greater things. Who's going to do it if not me? I will lead myself. I will be strong. I'm writing this first and foremost to remind myself how I was (am!) because I know when I feel better, I won't really remember how miserable I felt. I was reading the fibromyalgia symptoms yesterday and they really sounded like me. My husband too. We have often been in situations - just sitting together - where we simultaneously complain about pains and issues, just like old people. It's awful and yet I've almost become accustomed to it. But even now, when he winces in pain, a deep part of me clenches in anxiety and fear. I really am wrapped up in a chemical sandwich. I don't like to think it, but I am. I have major cravings and always feel hungry. In the rare instances when I'm not hungry, "I could eat", as my lovely Jewish ancestors would say. (joke - I love my heritage! But we are eaters of bad things, no doubt) An easy segue presents itself to mention the passing of my mother. (I figure this will get personal regardless). She passed away 2 years ago at the age of 58. Her mother passed at 52, about 8 years before my birth, and obviously I never got to know her. I'm not blaming my health on this but I have certainly witnessed the power of grief. My best friend is not here. In bodily form, anyway. I do believe she's with me. There were a few months right after her surprising and tragic passing where I was alone (husband in another state) and taking care of my father as well as their beautiful villa condo. By taking care I mean being there for my father during surgery and in patient hospital visits. For their home, I mean packing everything up, getting rid of a ton of stuff, and finding a place in the world for my father. He has since recovered well and moved with my husband and I to a completely other state where I now live. Fresh start, if you will. Anyway, during these few months, as you can imagine, I didn't eat very much. I'm sure my weight dropped but it's all kind of blur. I was running on pure adrenaline, so to speak. Since then, the grief has enveloped me and let go of me several times. It grows and certainly evolves. Time doesn't heal, honestly. I miss her more and in different ways as the days go by. But, magically, my natural love of food and eating has taken me to my present state. Very overweight, really. But with so much feminism and love of my self and my body, it's hard to really see a negative in that. It's much much more about how I feel. Some issues I've been dealing with in the past couple years: Migraines - I've had them my entire life. Just in the past week to two weeks, they've gotten extremely bad. My head hurt on some level about every other day. 50% of my life. On one evening, I got a really terrible one. Anyone with migraines knows what I'm talking about. They are memorable ailments. I have very recently stopped drinking coffee (I was having 1 cup almost every day and I should know better - but I love coffee!!) and started sipping on energy drinks when I feel a headache coming on. I know, gross, but my husband pointed out how bad analgesics are for my organs. (My mom had liver failure) Insomnia - My poor mother dealt with this for about 20 years. I believe it took its toll on her over time. I have always gone through sleep phases. For a while, I sleep heavy, for a while I wake up every hour or two, and then for a while I have light sleep where I toss and turn. Well, I'm in a "I can't get to sleep!!" phase and it's lasting longer than my normal phases. I dread the idea, on a physiological level, of knowing I need to sleep. It's a ticking clock until the time where I know I need to be up for work. It's terrible. Lately I read (which helps), get drowsy, turn off my lamp and close my eyes. Then, nope, no sleep. Turn the light back on and Repeat. Two to three times. Suckyyy. Body aches - Um, I haven't exercised, wtf? (see below) Lethargy/Sedentary-ness - As my husband calls it, sedimentary. It's really hard for me to do stuff. We started doing 5 mile walks along our trail with our dog but we stopped due to other things taking our time. And for about a year (hard for me to admit), I was unemployed and very lethargic. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't laying around eating bon bons, but I felt really lethargic and unmotivated a lot. It has continued even now. I can't blame it on grief. My mother would plotz.