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.

Epic FAIL

Well, the morning started out really well!  Aside from putting ice that was clumped in the blender and almost burning the motor up when it got stuck, I successfully made the first 2 smoothies.  The first was the easiest, but not cold which is why I went to put ice in the second one.  They were both banana, blueberries, and baby spinach.  They were okay, but adding a packet of Stevia to sweeten it made a big difference for the taste.  I made a 3rd one with strawberries and bananas with the baby spinach and it was even better, still had to add a packet of stevia though.  Took a few sips of it, but figured I would finish the blueberry banana smoothie.  


An hour later...how do we say "STARVING"?  I was stark-raving HUNGRY for food for the first time in a LONG time.  The rest of today, I felt like I couldn't get enough to eat!  I fell off the bandwagon really fast :(  I had an apple after that hour and it helped.  But I got hungry again really fast.  Ate a handful of raw almonds.  That helped some.  But by lunch, I not only had a mind-blowing headache, I felt like I was going to pass out.  Got some tea to go with the almonds and with the little bit of tea I had left, took some BC Powder which did help.  However, the "hunger" I felt would not go away and I wound up eating cooked food.  ARGH!  Same for dinner :(


My honey did much better than me.  Being at work with no money, he had like 5 oranges and 6 peaches and some raw almonds along with, in his words, "probably 5 gallons of water"!  He ate the "cooked" meal I made for dinner.  I really bombed today! :(


So, I went searching for answers as to WHY we (yes, he said he had the EXTREMELY HUNGRY feeling too AND the headaches) felt so hungry and at least I found this on a raw lifestyle forum:  "Stress Hunger": The Cause Of Obesity.  What WE thought was hunger was our body TRYING to detox from decades of SAD eating!


Tomorrow, back on track.  I think I will put a little less spinach and more fruit in the green smoothies.  I still have mangos, pears, pineapple, bananas, blueberries, strawberries, and a few oranges, but I bought the oranges for Kenny.  I like them okay, but he LOVES them so I got what he loves to take to work.  I want more peaches though!  Those were sooooo GOOD!  Oh, and I've got to make sure I drink lots more water and eat those apples and/or organic apple juice to prepare my body for the weekend:  liver/gallbladder cleanse.  


Trying to get healthy is extremely hard when you've eaten the SAD diet all your life!  I need LOTS of encouragement!  Not that the food is bad.  Quite the contrary!  The fruit is delicious and the smoothies weren't that bad.  And I LOVE raw nuts and seeds (that will be my problem is NOT overeating them)!  


We WILL do this!

Prologue to the Journey

Raw Food.  Whole Living Foods.  Green Smoothies.  Not your typical SAD (Standard American Diet)!  What could possibly bring a person to this point?  A LOT of things!  Take me:  5'3", weight I will post the day we start, I have Type II Diabetes, I'm Hypothyroid, I ache a lot, and my energy level leaves much to be desired!  And for Kenny:  5'11 1/2", borderline diabetic, knee problems, carpal tunnel symptoms, feet hurt most of the time (he is a shipfitter working mostly 11 - 11 1/2 hour days and he works 6 days a week...in steel toe boots), and his energy levels leave much to be desired too!


So what does that have to do with going raw?  EVERYTHING!  I have been reading and researching off and on for the last 10 years about the raw food way of life.  More and more people are turning to this way of eating.  Why?  Because it works on so many levels.  People with cancer seem to reverse the disease.  People with arthritis no longer suffer from pain and move freely again.  Diabetes (type II in particular but it also helps with type I) ceases to exist.  Weight loss ensues, yet on the other hand, people who have never been able to put weight ON can actually gain weight in a very healthy fashion eating like this.  Sleep problems go away.  Concentration and focusing become so much better.  And energy?  Well, I look forward to it, not to mention getting rid of my irritable digestive system (that in and of itself makes it hard for me to even eat much of anything) and clearing up this eczema that has plagued me off and on for years.  


Seeing these "before and afters" gives me much incentive!