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.

Daily Struggles

So yeah, as most of us know, once you're "off the wagon", it's a struggle to get back on. This holiday wknd was one full of fairly unhealthy foods and it's funny how much my body actually feels the difference these days. This week was hard getting back on, but I really am taking it meal by meal, day by day. Today I am getting a green juice from a place near my job.
It's crazy how little options of this sort there are in Times Square. I guess tourists and the like are happy with pizza all of the time.
Luckily I found one place and it's pretty great:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/green-symphony-new-york

Green juices are great for filling you up and flushing out toxins, as well as beginning the process of stopping any cravings all over again. I have high hopes for the future.
I had some ups and downs over the wknd. Personal issues, family health issues, good times, bad times. I went to the beach after nearly a year which was awesome, but the whole bathing suit thing is always tricky. I'm usually okay about all that stuff, but this time I wasn't. Ironically enough, the next day I had a bbq in my s.o.'s backyard and I had some bear friends over. I wore jean shorts and my one friend commented how I was wasting away, lol. Not that wasting away is a good thing, mind you, but it was nice to hear after my beach experience.
More pics to come soon!

In Progress :)

March:


May (much more raw starting late April):