Journey, Days 4 & 5

Yesterday (day 4) went well!  I did hot yoga in the morning, and sweated buckets.  Morning smoothie was tasty and the salad was pretty good (although I realize now that I'm not a fan of capers!).  This morning's smoothie was probably my favorite (the banana shake).  Walnuts + banana + cinnamon = yum!  I soaked the walnuts overnight (soaking nuts is not my forte, I tend to forget that I'm supposed to do it).  It's good to soak the nuts for a couple of reasons:  1) it releases the enzyme inhibitors (which are basically the things that keep the nut from sprouting without water), 2) they're easier to digest, and 3) they blend a lot smoother when their soaked, especially for people like me who can't afford a fancy-schmancy high speed Vitamix.

I am snacking a bit during the day (sorry, Ani!), but I'm sticking to 100% raw, even when snacking.  Yesterday, for example, I had a teensy raw chocolate bar that I split in two, had half in the morning and half in the afternoon.  Then, before dinner, I had a small banana cut up and drizzled with agave and sprinkled with dried coconut.  Agave is simple sugars, so it's a good idea to keep that as an "every once in a while" treat.  I also had some raw sprouted sunflower seeds with cacao and cayenne (it was branded as "mole" but it didn't taste anything like true mole.  Whole Foods is awesome for raw vegan snacks, but you have to be careful.  I was seriously digging Hail Merry's coconut macaroons (this was a couple of months ago) until I flipped the bag over and realized that only one ingredient in the whole thing is raw.  I think it was raw coconut oil, but I'm not sure, but I was kind of shocked because on the front of the bag it's touted as being "RAW".  I guess since there's no agreed-upon rules for what constitutes raw or not, people can say anything is raw (just like the term "all-natural" is heavily abused today).

A word on snacking:  I know that I'm not going to lose the maximum amount of weight by snacking.  That being said, the instructor from the raw foods meetup the other night made a great point: you shouldn't have to suffer.  Eating raw is not about suffering, it's about being healthy and having fun in the process.  I'm sticking to raw, definitely, and I'm trying to be smart about my snacks.  I don't want to eat 3 raw chocolate bars and 5 cups of cashews, then cry that I'm not losing weight.  I'm trying to listen to my body.  It'll all work out in the end!

Today's lunch is another salad, this time with the "Thermo Dressing".  I had a little taste of the dressing this morning, and it's AWESOME.  Can't wait to try it on my salad.  I'll update a little later today and let you all know how the rest of the day went!

Everything's A-OK!

Journey, Day 3

A nice message from my green tea bag this morning!

Today went pretty well, I wasn't really hungry or anything most of the day.  For breakfast I had the pina colada and I doubled up the recipe, just in case I would be hungry later.  Unfortunately I put a LITTLE too much hemp seeds in the smoothie and it tasted funny, so I didn't drink all of the 2nd batch.  I made the spicy avocado for lunch and that actually turned out pretty good.

Awesome raw blueberry pie!

I went to the new Whole Foods in Wexford, PA for a raw food class, and the food was actually really good!  So I did deviate from the plan, but I stuck to unprocessed, raw, organic foods.  Tomorrow it's back to the plan!

Janet McKee

Making a green smoothie

More green smoothie

Journey, Day 2

I can tell today might be a little tough.  It's my nephew's birthday party this afternoon, and of course there will be food.  I'm going to make sure I blend up a smoothie before I go, and not linger around a table or anything so that I won't be tempted.  I'll update later to let you all know how it went.

In other news, I weighed myself this morning. 186.4.  What???  Since we got back from Mexico over a week ago I've been eating really well, and I've been going to yoga every day.  Again, I hate weighing myself because it's depressing, and I tend to focus a lot on that number.  I'm fairly certain that I gained weight from starting the yoga program.  I know my muscle mass is increasing, and that's probably really influencing my weight.

The brand spanking new yoga studio around the corner from where I work.  Homepage here.

I'm going to give it some time and let it work itself out.  In the meantime, I'm not weighing myself again anytime soon!

Today's breakfast smoothie was a simple strawberry smoothie.  It was pretty good, but not as good as the blueberry smoothie from yesterday.  I'm going to be whipping up another one (my mid-morning snack) in a few minutes, then I'll be back on later today to wrap up my review of today!

*Update*

Today went well overall diet-wise.  It was kind of emotionally taxing for some reason, and I'm not entirely sure why.  I'm on Celexa, which is an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication.  I used to cry pretty easily, but since I started taking the medication I hardly cry at all, even at things that a "normal" person would cry at.  Today I cried 3 times!  I'm just feeling overwhelmed.  I want Cheetos.  And a cheeseburger.  And solid food.  It's hard!

My nephew's birthday was tough, there was lots of food there, and, of course, cake.  I wanted cake sooo badly.  But I didn't eat anything, I just drank water.  I went slightly off the plan because I couldn't stomach the thought of ginger, and lunch was a ginger-laden soup.  So I had a smoothie with strawberries, frozen blueberries, hemp seeds, coconut oil, kale and water.  This brings me back to the snack for this morning, the Mar-tea-ni. I literally had to gag it down because of the lettuce.  It also included ginger, and now I'm turned off the stuff, at least for the time being :-(.  For dinner I made a repeat of last night, the tomato bisque.  I plan on following the menu exactly tomorrow.  Tomorrow's also a raw food class at the new Whole Foods in our area, and I'll write about that as well!

Journey, Day 1

I'm starting on a journey to make over my life, both physically and spiritually.  I don't know yet where this'll take me, but the important thing is getting started, right?

I'll be doing my best to update via YouTube as well, but I'll be sure to post the videos here on my blog (scroll down to the bottom for the Vlog!).

Me, very pregnant and very heavy.

A little background:  After my daughter was born in March 2010, I lost a lot of weight.  My last weigh-in when I was pregnant saw me at 242 pounds. At 5'2" that's really overweight.  So after she was born, I started the Couch to 5K (you can Google it, it's free), and was careful about what I ate.

After my weight loss

I ended up at 141 lbs.  It's not really goal weight, but it's not far off.


Then around September of 2010, I stopped running.  It was getting dark earlier and staying dark later in the morning, and that was really the only time I had to run.  After I stopped exercising, something in my mind snapped and I really started overeating, big time.

Now I'm about 40 lbs. heavier than I was in September 2010.  It's really depressing to me, but I've tried to come to terms with it.  I know it's hard for people who've lost weight to keep it off.

*sigh* Me in May of 2012.  Kinda sad.

One thing that has really appealed to me is the raw vegan diet.  It makes a lot of sense to me, although I know it's not for everyone.  I've purchased a couple of Ani Phyo's books in the past, so when I saw this one, I was thrilled:

You can buy it here on Amazon!

So, I've just finished day 1 right now.  I decided to start it on a Saturday, just because I don't want anything to interfere with me doing it correctly, which work tends to do.  The smoothies/soups are pretty tasty, although having room-temperature soup does take some getting used to.  The first 3 days are liquid days, that is, all of the meals are blended.  This aids in absorption of the nutrients and gives the body a little rest because it doesn't have to break the food down as much.

I've avoided weighing myself because I always get depressed and I don't think it's fair that a number can have such an effect.  Nonetheless, I think it's important that since I'm reviewing the book that I let you know what my weight is.  I weighed myself this evening, and decided that since the scale says 187.2 that I'll wait until tomorrow morning.  That's because I weighed myself after drinking 2 smoothies (*ahem* the input has been greater than the output today, if you know what I mean).

I like to think of it as serendipity, but there is a new hot yoga studio that opened right around the corner from my work.  I went 4 days this week, and I'm excited about how it makes me feel.  I'm really thinking that between eating well and exercising, I might be able to finally get off of my anti-anxiety meds.  I'd love to be med-free!

Note: I am NOT being compensated in any way for my review of this book/program.  All of the views expressed in my blog and vlog are my own.