weekends...

Well, once again, I wake up to good news on Monday morning:  I lost another 3.2 pounds! I'm feeling really good and hope I can keep losing at least 3 pounds a week, possibly up to 5 pounds a week.  However, weekends are definitely turmoil!


Saturday morning wasn't so bad.  Had my strawberry/banana/blueberry/spinach smoothie after going for my walk.  However, lunch/dinner ("dunch"?  "linner"? lol) was another thing.  We went to Golden Corral which usually isn't a problem for me as I tend to stay at the salad bar and get a good, healthy salad and a little fruit (depending on the fruit they have), and I tend to get a small piece of baked fish.  This time, instead of going straight for the salad bar, I decided since I've been doing so well, that I was going to get a little steak since I haven't had anything but chicken and fish in a few weeks.  BIG mistake.  About 4 bites and my stomach kinda let me know that I'd be paying for it in the next 24 hours (I also wound up eating lima beans and a roll).  I did go get a salad AFTER I tried to eat that, but I accidentally got too much Caesar dressing (and I've been using Italian or Greek Vinaigrette) so I couldn't eat but a couple of bites (Caesar has cheese in it I found out recently).  To top it off, Kenny got a slice of Boston Cream Pie for himself and a slice of chocolate cake for me.  I was only able to eat 4 small bites, but because it's been close to a month since I've had sugar, I felt the sugar "high" almost immediately.


Sunday, I paid for that!  Sitting near a bathroom for half my day is NOT exactly the way I like to spend a relaxing Sunday!  But, today, I've tried a new smoothie and this time, it is DELICIOUS!  This Parsley Green Smoothie is SO good and refreshing!  The combination of the pineapple, grapes, and parsley is amazingly delicious.  You should try it!  


Off to finish my smoothie and get dressed to go to Gulf Franklin's GCSC campus to get the last of my stuff done for my LPN course.  Tomorrow, the last of it all:  tetanus shot and TB skin test.  Yuck!  But, then I'll be ready for school!  Well, other than getting shoes, hose, and a stethoscope!

happy days are here again!

Sunday, Monday, happy days....Tuesday, Wednesday, happy days...and it is definitely a happy day!  Gotten in the groove with Jamie of going walking at the mall 5 days a week now, and for the rest of this week and next, 2 2/5 miles is what we've been doing (4 laps).  One problem:  my schedule is going to have to change, like it or not.  Why?  :D  I got a call from my advisor (after playing a little phone tag) asking me if I still wanted in the nursing program.  YEAH!  She said there was a spot open and asked me if I wanted it...HECK YEAH!!!  So, instead of CNA program for 9 weeks this summer, I will be going to school Monday - Friday 7-4 my time (as I am on CST and the campus is on EST) till about this time next year.  She asked if that would be a problem.  NO WAY!


I'm feeling good.  I'm eating different...eating better.  I've started losing weight and I would like to keep that ball rolling so I'm not going back to a SAD diet!  Green smoothie for breakfast,  an apple for mid-morning snack, a nice big delicious salad for lunch, nuts or seeds with vanilla almond milk for afternoon snack, and a low-fat yummy Mediterranean dinner along with drinking lots of water!  I've got this groove going...


Now to decide whether or not I want to get up at 4 a.m. to go walking or wait till I get home in the evening...I have a feeling a good 4 a.m. walk would be the way to start the day, and maybe a short walk after dinner to unwind and release the school stress.....

back on the bandwagon

Okay, so I fell slightly off the bandwagon over the weekend!  I don't think a shot of vodka with orange juice Friday night, and graham crackers with peanut butter are standard for eating healthy!  However, if I'm gonna splurge one day a week, I would rather it be something like graham crackers (chocolate, preferably) and peanut butter!


So today, I'm back on track.  Have read in a number of places that because of the alkaloids in greens and how eating just one can build up in your system and become toxic (arsenic and opium!), I am now rotating them.  Finished off my baby spinach this morning with my favorite:  bananas/strawberries/blueberries...YUM!  That was after mine and Jamie's 2  2/5 miles of walking at the mall (yes, it's official:  with this scorching hot weather, we have become mall walkers).  Thought I'd try something different for lunch and instead of using just a little kale with fresh pressed apple juice (yes, I made it!) and cinnamon, I used a good handful and YUCK.  I used to much kale and I can't drink it.  I mean, I can't even SIP it!  Ugh, it's so nasty :(  I think I'll stick with strawberry/banana/blueberry for now.  For now, I'm munching on raw almonds which are delish! 


For dinner:  Greek Chicken Pasta minus the cheese with this absolutely yummy looking Good For You Greek Salad!  I guess I've never tasted kale before, but I don't care for it.  Next time, romaine or green leaf lettuce is what I'll be getting!

kinda strange...

Okay, so I'm on day 7 of my diet.  Started my morning with the fresh lemon juice (half a lemon)/olive oil in warm water chased by about 2 ounces of orange juice (for the liver/gallbladder cleanse I am doing next week)...yuck LOL.  


Jamie got here by 7:15 and we went walking, I guess close to 3 miles cause it took about an hour or close to it.  By the time we were done, my right foot (the one I broke in 2002) was throbbing.  Not good.  But, I'm glad we even made it cause even an hour later, I checked the temperature:  at 9:30 it was already 87 degrees with a heat index of 94!  Right now, it is 11:30 and the temperature is 94 degrees and feels like (heat index) 102!  UGH!!!  Kenny and I both want to move so badly!  


Finally think we found the perfect place to move:  Sonoma County, CA.  Perfectly fine with me!  But, I digress...


I have discovered since I changed my eating habits, that the first 6 days of it, I was absolutely STARVING within an hour of drinking my green smoothie.  Not today.  I drank my strawberry/banana green smoothie around 9:30'ish.  It is now just after 11:30 and I still don't feel very hungry.  I wonder if my body is adjusting?  Anyways, I'm sipping on my big ol' mug of ice water and not even hungry for my apple, a salad, or anything for that matter.  If it stays like this, I don't think I'll have anymore problems with eating healthy! 


Those first 3-4 days were absolute hell trying to get past the cravings and addictions!  Didn't think I'd get enough to eat I was so hungry, I had been used to having a glass of sweet tea for lunch AND dinner, not to mention coffee (with sugar and creamer) or red bull in the morning, maybe a bagel, a sandwich at lunch...now I'm drinking a large green smoothie for breakfast (about a cup and a half of spinach in it with 2 bananas and about 5 or 6 large strawberries), a salad for lunch, apple for snack in the morning (well, not today), about 1-2 tablespoons of seeds or a handful of almonds for afternoon snack, and a regular cooked dinner (yesterday was baked chicken with red potatoes marinated and cooked in Greek vinaigrette).  I'm feeling great!


Tonight, yes, it is a regular dinner for us:  whip up the boneless skinless chicken breast (diced into bite sized pieces) in olive oil, a clove or 2 of garlic, and Italian seasoning, then tossed in with angel hair pasta and a little spaghetti sauce (unless I can find a different recipe), and frozen whole green beans lightly steamed.  Would love to find something else besides spaghetti sauce.  I'm finding I can do this and am starting to feel REALLY good!

good start to a short week

Hmmm, gonna try this post again.  I lost it and obviously, nothing saved in the draft.  Bummer.


Okay, instead of the whole long thing I had originally typed up, I'm gonna make it short and just say this:  I will be about 80-90% raw for a long time as it seems I'm already reaping benefits in several ways.


I'm sleeping better.  My skin looks better.  My energy is starting to pick up.  Best of all?  I've lost weight (^_^).  I woke up this morning, decided to start working toward The Liver Cleanse.  I will say this:  half a fresh squeezed lemon with a tablespoon of EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) in 8 ounces of warm water is disgusting.  However, I found out very quickly that even just an ounce or two of orange juice gets the taste out of the mouth instantly.  So I am going to persist.


Went walking with Jamie and her little girl at the dog park while Evie ran around and enjoyed time playing outside without me worrying about her and she seemed to have a great time!  Stopped by Walmart on the way home from the park to pick up a handful of things for my salad and to get Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts for dinner.


After I got home and put stuff up and, of course as my mom ALWAYS would ask, scrub my hands, I fixed me a green smoothie (bananas and strawberries MY FAVE) and a big mug of ice water and grabbed Evie's food on the way up the stairs.  


I decided since I forgot to weigh-in yesterday that I would do it today:  lost 4.1 pounds!  Yeah, baby!  That is a good feeling to see those numbers go down!  


Like I said, I will be doing the liver cleanse...next week.  Kenny jumped right in and just drank warm water with the epsom salt straight yesterday over the course of the early part of the day and last night saw the gall stones.  I plan on doing it by the book (I can't drink epsom salts with warm water straight...I gag and it comes right back up) and adding the Black Walnut Tincture (the one at Vitamin Shoppe has the Clover and Wormwood which the 3 together help to drive the parasites out of the liver and body and is reasonably priced.  This time next year, I hope to be a LOT lighter!


p.s.  Yes, I have had some really bad headaches, and I know they come from two things:  sugar withdrawal and caffeine withdrawal.  I haven't had any since last Thursday, and when I did have some then, it was very little!  I think I'm over the hump now...(^_^)

on a side note...

Something that just struck me as strange:  Before I started this raw, whole foods lifestyle change yesterday, there were days that I would wake up feeling simply yucky, and those days were actually numerous.  I would take my thyroid medicine before getting up, but I wouldn't be hungry at all till at least 9, and sometimes, I wouldn't be hungry till nearly lunch.  If I DID get hungry, I would eat either a bagel with peanut butter and drink either milk or orange juice, or I would eat eggs with juice.  Lunch time I usually have and I typically would have a sandwich or leftovers from dinner the night before.  Then eat a regular meal with my boo for dinner, then something like saltine crackers or chocolate graham crackers with peanut butter for a snack.  


Since I started eating like this yesterday (green smoothie for breakfast), I swear it feels like I'm hungrier and my stomach isn't completely irritable like it usually is.  Right now, all I can think about is how glad I'll be to have my honey home and find something to eat (a very LARGE salad sounds wonderful right about now)!  However, I do feel "lighter" and I'm not feeling bloated!

a much better day

Okay, it's day 2 and although it's little more than halfway over (and the start to the Memorial Day weekend), I've done GREAT today.  I must admit, I am looking forward to doing The Master Cleanse and ridding my body of some (or a lot) of stuff!  43 years of SAD is, I'm sure, the root of my health problems, along with being "fluffy".  Yesterday I didn't make it even till lunchtime before I thought I was going to pass out.  At least today, I've felt better.  


Breakfast is going to have to change for Kenny LOL.  I have been drinking smoothies this time of year for a very long time, he has not.  Yesterday was bad.  I made the smoothies better this time and with his favorite fruits, but he let me know that smoothies are NOT his thing!  He asked me if he's going to have to drink green smoothies every day now, all the while producing this twisted face that was saying "ewwwwwww GROSS"!  For me, green smoothies will work.  For him, they will not.


So I did some looking and researching.  I found THIS yummy recipe for a "raw muesli cereal" that we will have to try.  Heck, I'd sure eat it!  


So far today, this has been my diet:  large green smoothie (2 bananas, strawberries, about a cup of baby spinach, and a little stevia to sweeten) early this morning for breakfast, half a pear about 2 hours later with a good handful of yummy raw almonds, organic apple juice (with the pectin...I HAD actually planned on eating the last apple since I put one of the 2 last ones in his lunch along with a pear, but he told me he didn't like pears and I didn't see him switch the pear for my apple...boooo!), been drinking LOTS of water, had another green smoothie mid morning (this time only had one banana left so that with blueberries and spinach & stevia), and now, I'm munching on a very simple salad of baby spinach and a few croutons and a light Italian dressing.  I know, I know, the croutons and salad dressing aren't "raw", but it's all we have right now and yes, I'm hungry.


I will have to post an edit later this evening.  I'm sure my dear hubby (DH) is doing just great since he did fine yesterday!  I probably shouldn't be eating much in the way of solid food since I plan on doing The Master Cleanse starting Sunday and doing it for 10 days.  I want to get a jump start and lose about 10-20 pounds before the CNA course starts.