life with booyaa

since moving back to london and moving in with boo i have managed to gain a scary 2 and a half stone. after crisis point last week i finally decided rather than the odd half-hearted attempt at weight loss it was time to go back onto the slimming world diet. i've done this before and lost a stone and a half in about 6 months. but i did that with my mum and for part of the time with my sis too. lots of support, recipe sharing and turn-taking for cooking. we all went to class together too. it was hard work, believe me, but easier and doable for the support.

this time i'll be on my own. boo is willing to join in but he doesn't have the motivation for himself (as he doesn't need to lose any weight) so the temptation is harder to resist. and if i came home exhausted and the only food in the house would need time and effort to cook etc. i think he would cave in and phone out for pizza. or if i asked for wine he would just say yes. i'm not criticising him here, i'm just trying to face up to how this time losing weight is going to be harder and i will need lots of willpower.

so on tuesday this week i started my diet, after spending monday planning and shopping for the week. and, also on tuesday, i joined the gym down the road. this is also with boo on board. we had talked about it, and about going walking or maybe even buying bikes to get some exercise at the weekend. boo offered to pay for our membership and he will come with me. so there's a problem with the induction and we can't start full training prgrams until next week but hopefully i'll be able to start yoga classes next tuesday.

so far so average

tuesday was entirely syn free. very good indeed. wednesday i had 1 sin for my squeezed orange juice and another 2 syns for some pine nuts on the otherwise free pasta dinner. saving up healthy extras through the day reaps great benefits for olive oil and cheese at dinner time. thursday was fine until dinner. went out with [banjax] and his friend simon. had a great night but we ended up going to pizza express so although i had a salad and used healthy extras for the cheese and olive oil, i also had a pizza and a large glass of wine. so i think i may have overdone it. friday was only 1 syn (for breakfast juice) all day, which is very cool. saturday, for the first time ever, was a 100% diet day. i'd always dieted monday to friday and had free rein at weekends. but no more. sunday, too was virtually syn-free. there were 2 syns (sesame oil) in the dinner but that's all. today, monday, is last day of my first week and apart from the 1 syn for OJ looks to be syn-free throughout. the test will be tomorrow, when i get on the scales.

yoga starts this week and gym - aerobics and weight-training, with perhaps some kai bo or spin classes too a bit later - starts next week.

my first target is to lose 2 stone and 2 dress sizes by christmas. watch this space.

also, good time to remind my sis she promised to buy me a dress if i get to target. there, it's in print now ;)

update: morning weigh-in was disappointing. my scales are evidently not particularly accurate. so i think i've lost between 2 and 3 pounds. but a wiggle of my big toe can change that to just half a pound. so who knows. i guess we'll know better in a couple of weeks. will hunt a set of scales in the gym, bound to be one, they do weight management courses.

it's been pretty much the same as last week. preparing food in advance for work and home. taking packed lunch plus snack in tupperware every single day. having lots of nice things around to pick at when the temptation of the packet of biscuits/cheese and crackers bites hard...

it's been worth it. after two weeks i've lost half a stone. (dodgy scales taken into consideration)

talking to steve yesterday and he asked for more "fat stats". so here you go.

i'm actually pleased he prompted me to do this, as writing things down is a good way to focus. you can let the weeks slip by without making progress but if you have a weekly check-in, which, in my case, involves getting weighed, totting up my weekly syns and writing it all down here, you keep yourself focussed on progress and goals. so that's a long-winded way of saying "thanks, steve."

more fat stats

another week gone by...

got weighed ce matin and have lost another pound and a half, maybe two pounds. so that's 10 pounds in total since i started five weeks ago. yay!

went shopping briefly on sunday (got business trip coming up and wanted a smart but summery skirt) and the skirt i ended up buying is a smaller size than last time i went shopping - a month ago. but even so it's too big!

now this is what i was looking forward to. the rewards of hellish dieting. bring it on!

wot no fat stats?

yeah, yeah, i know. yesterday was fat stats day. but the scales have mutinied. or got some evil computer virus. or perhaps they were "having a moment". but they reckon i've put weight on! so i'm sulking.

it could be true. we've been out for dinner a couple of times and then of course there was the work summer garden party. which was fab, btw. that involved champagne before dinner, wine with dinner and port (something really lovely at first, will get the name of it later, and when that ran out it was onto the Taylor's LBV) after dinner. also lots of slimming world unfriendly food, roasted aubergine dripping in olive oil, super smelly cheeses, garlic bread...

where was i? oh yes. i'm not talking about it.

on a related - but less touchy - note, we went to the gym a whole three times last week. see those halos shimmer! starting to feel it in places and certainly able to go longer, further and faster on the cardio machines like the treadmill. boo is starting to get biceps. blimey. he'll be able to defend himself soon ;)

the background

a long time ago there was a young student - let's say she was called lou and was studying french at the polytechnic of north london - who got all stressed out and suffered from something which at the time was a relatively new phenomenon and unmonikered but we now know as IBS and CFS or ME, but that was the yuppie flu way back then, so nobody used the term anyway.

right, so the heroine of our tale was distraught and distressed by the illnesses that threatened her final exams and had completely obliterated her life as she knew it. she barely ate as food never stayed inside for long and whichever way it came out was painful. she couldn't remember her phone number or her address. she left the house on rare occasion to go to the unhelpful GP for a sick note. and the rest of the time was spent in bed and attempting to study between headaches. she was miserable, to say the least.

right, are you with me so far?

enter doctor latto, naturopath

a helpful young man suggested a visit to a doctor who had miraculously cured a friend of the family from similar complaints. this doctor was a naturopath who worked from his house in a rather nice area of reading (yes! there are nice areas of reading) and by all accounts a bit odd. so our fair heroine was plonked in a car and driven off to visit doctor latto.

yes, yes, i'm getting to the point.

doctor latto prescribed a revolting herbal drink to be taken each morning on an empty stomach plus strict adherence to a raw food diet, as set out in leslie kenton's raw energy book. neither of these things were easy but she did as she was told and within 3 weeks was back on her feet and going in to lectures and remembering things she'd been studying. truly amazing. around about this time she also, thanks to her mum's sponsorship, started learning autogenic therapy to keep the stress levels down. another few weeks passed and she was almost back to normal. stick thin, it must be said, but very nearly mended.

skip to the end...

so... after 5 weeks of being unwell with bronchitis i've decided to return to what i know. i've given up on the doctor's persistent response of "it'll take time. your immune system is very low" and taken my health into my own hands.

we splurged on the best food processor we could find, shopped around for the best small juicer (some of these things are mammoth and we just don't have the space) and stocked up on kilos of apples, carrots, pears, kiwis, mangos, herbs, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, ginger etc. started growing alfalfa sprouts and chick pea sprouts, too.

i started off gently. i did a 36 hour juice fast and felt unwell, headachey tired etc. this is normal on any type of fast. but having felt so ill for so long i wasn't really up to the full-on cleansing extravaganza. this should have its own post, but briefly and simplistically. when you do a fast your body starts eliminating toxins. this leads to a phase of headaches, tiredness and, on prolonged fasts, spots, bad breath and many other unpleasant side effects. then, once the "cleansing crisis" is over, you feel truly fabulous in body and mind. but, as i say, that's a bit much for me to deal with right now

so what i am doing is attempting to eat at least 75% raw, with the other 25% being live yogurt and the odd nibble of cheese or cereal. days like today, it'll be something like 90% raw as i have the time and ingredients to make nice food that i enjoy that just happens to be raw. i've bought a juice recipe book and a raw gourmet food book to guide me. more on each of those later.

i've started doing my autogenics again too. i think back to when this was all just a part of life, i took it for granted. it's sad that i gave it all up. i let things slide until i was no longer doing any of it. but it is hard to keep up in these days of not having much time, where much of our social life revolves around drinking and eating. where a sandwich for lunch is standard procedure. it's hard to go against the grain, swim against the tide, contra-corriente. working from home means i can do this easily and as we hardly ever go out the whole eating out thing won't be an issue. but when i start working from the office again it is going to make things really difficult. if only there were a juice bar i could drop into...

i was going to make this into a daily diary post of what i'd juiced and what i'd eaten. but that's unrealistic. i'll post good recipes and give you all a run down on the juicer and recipe books for if you're interested in having a go yourself.

several weeks down the road. how are we doing?

the juicer

i chose a L'equip compact juicer from a specialist online shop, as i needed to know it would deal with several kilos of carrots a week. lots of juicers struggle with hard vegetables. i'm happy with it, it looks quite cute (it's black and the top looks like darth vader's helmet) and juices very well. it's a bit of a pain to clean - as are all juicers i've come across so far - and on days when you're making three or four glasses of juice it seems like you've spent half the day washing the juicer. i've heard very good stories of the "champion" juicer which, apparently, will last forever and is a dream to clean. the reason i didn't choose that this time round was the price. a champion will set you back £250 while we paid £99.

the juices

i've tried a few recipes from super juice by michael van straten. he certainly knows how to sell you the good-for-you but slightly out there flavours. and he does make some great tasting drinks. they aren't always quite as awful as they might seem. plus, you really get used to some of the odder flavours. my favourite has got to be orange, lemon, carrot, apple and ginger. fab stuff. but i'm trying hard to have more vegetable juices. so, as i type, i'm sipping a beetroot, lettuce, cucumber and apple juice. the earthy flavour of the beetroot is calmed considerably by the watery cucumber and the apple juice helps make it more palatable. tonight i'm going to have one with tomato, radish, red pepper and greens. if i add some garlic it'll be just like gazpacho.

so why have juice if you're not that keen on it. and how weird is that? drinking beetroot juice?! well, it's good for you! i'm choosing fruit and veg with specific quallities to help me get over a prolonged bout of bronchitis and ensuing post-infection fatigue. i'm not just drinking juice, i'm eating 90% raw, too. between the two of them i reckon it'll boost my chances of recovery faster than anything the GP can suggest.

90% raw

why 90%? well, cos i pinch a forkful of saute potatoes off boo's plate or have a biscuit with my tea, or add some cheese to the not-pasta and pesto we're having, toast some sunflower seeds and so on. i find it's easier to aim to be completely raw and then allow some treats, than to go for the 75% raw which seems to be what most raw food advocates, er, advocate. i did try it, but it's like going on a diet where they allow a tiny amount of treats - it sometimes works. but it can have the opposite effect, in other words, it tempts you more. one biscuit is never enough. the taste reminds you what it's like so you sit down and eat the whole packet...it's sometimes just easier not to have any at all. that's how it seems to work for me, so that's why i'm doing this the same way.

treats for the raw fooder in london

woo hoo! number 1: there's a raw food cafe in primrose hill (doh! of course. where else?). the little earth cafe is in the triyoga centre and has a juice bar and small selection of raw snacks. already have it on my 'wants' list to go and visit. check it out

woo hoo! number 2: i'm loathe to share this really... but there's something called the raw food dinners which i'm excited about. but as it's fairly restricted numbers i don't want too many people to find out or i'll never get a ticket for the next one! it's only just started, the first one happend last month. they have a theme for each. last month was italian and the next one is mexican. we won't be able to go to that as it's next weekend and we have things arranged. but i'm trying to get sorted for the following one - which is indian. yum! read all about it

feel the benefit

so far i'm all about getting better. i noticed after only two consecutive days on this almost 100% raw regime that i was feeling considerably better. i have more energy and i don't need as much sleep. these are two things i've particularly been struggling with during my convalescence. a month ago i was struggling just getting through the morning routine (get up, make tea, shower and hairwash, breakfast, tidy up, dry hair, get dressed, do makeup, get packed lunch ready - actually that's sounding like quite a lot) and i'd have to have a rest at least once in that process. now, though, i can get through a day - though only just. it's still a vast improvement. i've also lost weight. i don't know exactly how much as my scales are at best unreliable and at worst useless, but i think it's about half a stone since i started three weeks ago. that's a very positive side-effect.

when we got the juicer we also bought a magimix food processor and a few bits and pieces to make food prep easier. it's all very well having gorgeous risotto pans but for raw food you need extra salad bowls (tip: small salad serving bowls are just the right size for one person to eat dinner out of!) and big chopping boards, jars for mixing dressings, lettuce spinner, spiraliser, sprouting trays, mesh bags...

i already had a couple of books from last time, both by Leslie Kenton (try this one) but I wanted more ideas. it's hard not to get bored when you're using nothing more than raw veg. with juices, it's easy to go for the obvious carrot and apple mix. well, with raw food there's even more of a case. if you don't want to feel like you're eating salad every day then you need some inspiration from somewhere.

so i read the amazon reviews and chose the raw food gourmet. unluckily the majority of the recipes rely on a dehydrator so it's not much use. besides not having the equipment i don't have all day to make dinner either. impractical to say the least. however, we have managed to find a couple of interesting recipes. getting completely away from the reworked salad recipe is the not-spaghetti and sauce. quite groovy. you make the spaghetti using courgette and a nifty machine called a spiraliser (or a veg peeler if you want tagliatelle) then you make a raw tomato sauce. lots of basil and garlic. we used some real parmesan, too. just didn't seem right otherwise.

since then i've bought a bunch more books (more about them in a later post) and added not-meatballs to the spaghetti spectacular. i also tried using butternut squash instead of courgette for a change. and to replace the parmesan we have the not nearly so tasty, but not a bad rip-off, nutrional yeast flakes. see photo courtesy of booyaa

one of my favourite recipes so far is the romaine wraps. easy peasy. take some avocado, apple, mango, peppers, spring onions, fresh corn, alfalfa sprouts and chop everything finely. add some fresh herbs (my fave is basil) and make a creamy dressing with natural yogurt (not strictly raw vegan, ahem. but it provides good bacteria and B12, which is notoriously difficult for vegans to get in their diet) garlic, soy sauce, spices, mustard... whatever you fancy really. then you mix it all up and spoon onto romaine leaves, then roll. stick a cocktail stick in the middle to hold together. really yummy!

another really easy one is based on an old warm salad recipe that anna introduced me too aeons ago. break a cauliflower into tiny florets, chop red pepper, chunky grate or julienne carrots, finely chop green beans (i use 'helda' beans, which i knew as vainas in spain) and some spring onions. make a dressing (this is the good bit!) with a dessertpoon each of oil (try walnut and sesame) honey and soy sauce plus crushed garlic and ginger (the more ginger the better, as far as i'm concerned) and shake all that up. you can add a bit of finely chopped chilli or a drop of hot sauce, too, for more zing. toss the salad and leave it to marinate for a while. sprinkle with flaked almonds or sunflower seeds and eat.

there's loads of information out there on teh intarweb, some of which one should probably not trust... so i'm checking stuff out carefully. here's a summary of what juice fasting is all about.

the human body is not set up to digest much of what we eat these days. our physiological make up and lack of appropriate enzymes make for a tough time of it when a load of pasta, meat and dairy hit your gut. bad food combinations also add to the mess, where only one set of enzymes can work on digesting food at any one time but different types of food require different enzymes. and there's the depleted enzyme situation to remember. so, over time, we end up with badly digested food sitting in the, um, lower end of the digestive tract. these denatured foods are treated by the body as toxins and the story goes that these toxins remain in the body, trapped in cells. especially in the liver. to make it easier to understand think about cellulite. what you're seeing there are the visible effects of cells full of toxins, trapped under the skin. massage and lymphatic drainage can help shift the toxins, but you do have to make sure they all get out or the toxins will end up floating around in your blood again and make you very ill indeed.

obviously that's a very simplistic version of things but basically we eat the wrong stuff to be healthy. the only stuff our body is equipped to digest are raw fruits and veggies and living foods (sprouted or fremented seeds, grains and pulses) and that diet will maintain optimum health. however, having followed a crappy diet for years you have all this fat and toxins and what leslie kenton refers to as meso-health: 'just gettting by' health. so you need to rid the body of all the built up toxins, clean out your colon and start afresh on a raw vegan diet.

still with me? so, to get rid of all that stuff you drink only fresh raw fruit and veg juices. the idea here is that you are getting tons of vitamins and minerals so you have all the nutrients you need (and loads more than your average diet would provide) but you get no solid food so your digestive system can shut down. the nutrients from the juices go straight into your bloodstream and your stomach has no solids to contend with. so now your digestive system has some downtime and all the energy it usually saps from you can go into cell repair. and that's it really.

you need to juice fast for a minimum of five days for your body to start the repair work and you'll get quite unwell from time to time as toxins are released from the cells they've been trapped in and flood back into your bloodstream. headaches are the most common ailment but as you go on for 8 days or 2 weeks you'll get weirder things happen. for a start you'll start to expel the stuff that's been stuck in your colon. nice. you won't be hungry, amazingly, after ten days. but old injuries will come back and hurt and your skin will be dry with such a lack of fat in your diet. you'll get spots or boils, go dizzy when you stand up too quickly and more. then, at the two to three week stage you'll have bags of energy and not need to sleep as much as you're used to.

to come off a juice fast, which is normally recommended as a 30 day programme, you need to be careful too. no good going down pizza express and scoffing everything in sight, plus a bottle of their finest pinot grigio. you need to eat very lightly for the first two or three days. lots of people recommend eating an avocado or a mango, with nothing else for your first meal. then maybe an apple or some tomatoes. after that start shredding some lettuce and go for a light salad. then build up. if you plan to return to your regular diet then take it very slowly with no cooked food/dairy for a week and even then have a tiny amount of cooked/dairy compared to the raw fruit and veg.

so that's what i've been doing. i didn't want to post this until i'd finished the fast, so family didn't get worried. i know it's not considered normal to most of the world. i've read up on it and i'm convinced, it makes a lot of sense. next few posts are little updates of my journey.

so, having tried a four day juice fast and coped considerably better than i'd expected, and, even, with very few side effects, i did some more research and found that to really get the benefits you should juice fast for 30 days. *gulp*

it seems that 30 days is pretty much the standard. further reading proved that two weeks is fairly doable and most people get considerable health benefits from it, and the minimum fasting period to achieve tangible results is 8 days. so, i'm going to aim initially for 8 days but then try to get to 14. then we'll see how things look and consider another week. once i'm at 21 days i'll make the decision whether to go for 30 days. step by step.

what follows are the notes i made on my palm pilot every day for the first ten days of the fast. *warning* some gory personal details will be shared

day 1 slight headache started midday but was bad enough to send me to bed at 6pm

day 2 headache was very faint and didn't bother me much. was fairly hungry but not so much that i worried i might cave in

day 3 woke up feeling hungry and had a headache. felt a bit sick after juice. all symptoms disappeared soon afterwards

day 4 supposedly today is the day my digestive system shuts down and hunger pangs stop

day 5 woke up starving! so much for day 4 being the end of hunger pangs

day 6 bit snotty. getting fed up of washing the juicer two or three times a day

day 7 ewww. stuff coming out. loads of energy compared to other days

day 8 still hungry headache on and off all day and tongue furry. period started. don't want to get weighed until that's finished for more accuracy

day 9 ...

day 10 had a bit of a headache in the afternoon, but it never got to the stage where i couldn't cope with it. used a bit of temple balm and had some chamomile infusion, massaged my neck and got on with work. it's amazing how dependent you get on painkillers. now that i can't take any (they're counterproductive to detoxing) i just find a way around using them. i'm quite impressed. so maybe i've broken my reliance on ibuprofen to get me through the week...

also had a long chat with boo about what i'm doing. now that i've passed my first mini-goal, and can't really tell whether i'm feeling better than a few weeks ago because time is passing and i'm recovering or because this is really helping me, well, i need to know if i'm doing the right thing. back to my fasting resource, curezone, and i found there was a blogger there with a very similar situation. until she got past the three week stage she was not really convinced it was doing her any good. and at around day 32 she finally hit the high.

posts are every two or three days from now on. there wasn't really that much to say.

day 11 got weighed. still a bit bloated from period so not sure how accurate it is, but lost another 3 pounds. that's a total of 8 pounds so far, which is a little disappointing, it has to be said

day 14 tiredness mostly gone, back to normal weekday tired. no extra energy as yet. occasional hunger pangs but mostly craving for egg mayo and salad on granary! got weighed today but only lost 1lb since saturday. very disappointed

day 15 got oxypowder in the post but will wait till friday to use it so am near the loo! tongue icky again plus have some big spots on back of neck - luckily they're above the hairline. have noticed in general my skin is feeling smoother. face is still quite dry

day 20 ent appt meant i spent most of the day at the hospital, which rather messed up my schedule so when i got home had a mug of bouillon. it's comforting and tasty, really quick and no juicer to clean afterwards, plus i get some oil for my poor dry face

day 21 headachey all day, was worried i'd get a migraine but it cleared in the evening. various aches and pains, little bit tired. trying hard not to wimp out and have bouillon for dinner. had veg juice for dinner. weight loss now 1 stone and that's over 2 stone total since i went raw - only another 2.5 stone to go...

day 23 well, i'm still waiting to feel the energy & find god (jk) but i have got one breakthrough to report - i finally got the whites of my eyes being whiter and the blue bluer. it's not so much that they're bluer rather that they're clearer. if you check out shazzie's before and after snaps (scroll down to august 2001) i'm sure you'll agree that the eye colour in the after pic looks like someone's been playing with photoshop. nevertheless, clearer eyes and smoother skin are big plusses in my book

day 27 lost 2 pounds in 2 days just by increasing my greens - as revolting as they are, i'm going to have to go green these last few days. although i was hoping to get the 'high' i don't think i want to keep going much longer. i'm bored of juices, bored of washing the juicer and it's time to get to the gym and exercise my flabby belly into submission but i really don't have the stamina at the moment

i do think i've achieved a great deal so far but there's still a long way to go and i think exercise is a big part of that - to lose more weight and get more healthy.

i've been all over the place for the past year and a bit. i've done juice fasts, eaten near-as-dammit 100% raw for months and in between gone on complete benders of very rich, cooked food and lots of wine. over the past few months i've been pretty rubbish. not just not raw, but not even up to my usual 'fairly healthy' standard. and it certainly shows. i am struggling to recover from the stomach bug i had at the end of last week. though my skin is not as bad as it was 18 months ago it has also been better. my energy levels are low. i get tired and have sugar crashes. i've put on most of the weight i'd lost, too. all in all, i just don't feel great. and when i'm raw i really do feel fabulous. and i miss that feeling. so i've decided to keep the bar fairly low, so i can't really miss it, basically. if i aim too high i'll disappoint myself, but if i have an achievable goal then it should keep me motivated. so here's what's going on.

boo has said he'll join me for a couple of weeks, as moral support, which is very groovy of him. makes the temptation to say 'let's have a take away' much hazier.

also, i've circumvented my usual biggest failure. i tend to think 'i'll start after [insert big social event here] cos otherwise i'll undo the good work and it's not worth it..." but we're going away this weekend and i won't be eating raw for three days, then there's the summer party where i will undoubtedly drink far too much veuve clicquot and madeira... but i've started anyway. i just decided after lunch today and here i am, committing to it in public.

today's tally
home-dried fruit with muesli and rice milk, coffee (this is my usual not-raw breakfast)
big green salad, mustard dressing, nuts and seeds, shredded cabbage, pepper, various veggies
apple, banana, two dates
white tea (lots)
biccy at work
green smoothie (banana, chocolate, romaine, spinach, misc flavourings)

so other than breakfast, that's pretty good going.

ah, the joy of prep in advance. well, it's also the scourge of variety in your food. it means you eat the same two days running. i've tried to change the dressings, chop things slightly differently and add the odd thing to make it feel like it's a different dish.

there's also the wimp out on the green smoothies. i add maple syrup (neither vegan nor raw) and vanilla, coconut butter and sometimes nut butter (raw) to make it more palatable. haven't quite got to the victoria boutenko stage of loving pretty much neat kale purée.

good thing today was that i wasn't as hungry as usual. if i have my standard non-raw breakfast i'm frequently starving by 10.30 but today i just didn't get that mid-morning hunger attack. i had a pumpkin seed bar around 11.30 so i wasn't hungry enough for lunch until after 2. i didn't even eat all my dates and macadamias which is a first! this is good news for me, i'd like to eat less and feel fuller for longer. i like getting enough nutrients to keep me going but staying spare on calories. (note to self: dig out link about low calorie intake being super good for you)

so today i've eaten way over 50% raw. yippee!

thursday's tally
pineapple, mango, bramble smoothie (as yesterday)
small cup coffee with dash milk. yes, yes, i know.
big green salad (different leaves from yesterday) avocado, carrot, sweetcorn, spring onion, red pepper, seeds with mustard and mayo dressing
non-raw pumpkin seed bar
apple, few grapes, 1 date
green smoothie with romaine, spinach, mango, blueberries and dollop of cashew butter

so that's four days eating over 50% raw.

but how do you calculate x% raw? lots of people go the 80-20 route. how do you know? is it by weight, volume, what? i had some mozzarella with my lunch salad today and by weight it was about 50% of my salad, by volume less than a third, so i don't know if that means my lunch was 50% raw or nearer 70%. and surely you need to consider nutrional density. i mean, if you ate carefully selected, raw vegan food, really healthy, optimal nutrition choices, for 4 days then ate at pizza hut/mc donald's/kfc on the fifth day... surely that's worse than adding a little cheese or yoghurt or a jacket potato to your daily food. but it would still be 80-20. there. one to ponder.

there's definitely, for me, a downside to eating raw. you end up having to eat the same thing for three or four days because it lasts so long. one head of romaine lettuce and a bag of spinach have lasted me all week. it'd be great to have more variation but eating raw for one (boo joins in occasionally, but not enough to make that much difference) means i get bored. for all the wonderful recipes out there, and i have a big pile of fabulous raw recipe books (my first ever, from 1990, Leslie Kenton's Raw Energy, and since then: Karen Knowler's ebooks, Shazzie's Detox Your World, Sarma Melngailis and Matthew Kenney's Raw Food, Real World, Gabrielle Chavez's The Raw Food Gourmet, Jordan Maerin's Raw Foods for Busy People....) as well as the wealth of info out there on the www (Freshtopia, WLIR, multitude of blogs) you know, you're only able to make recipes with ingredients you have to hand. I just can't have something different every day without having to throw away unused produce at the end of the week. i do try to dehydrate leftovers, or fruit that's going to go soft before i get round to eating it but that's not always feasible. dehydrated carrots anyone?

then there's the time it takes to make everything. making nut milk, which i love to drink, is a painful process. it takes a lot of cleaning up afterwards, but the milk disappears in seconds. sprouts require lots of attentionm so it's more worthwhile sprouting in batches, from a time point of view. but they need eating in the space of two days, and i find there's always too much.

so a solution is definitely needed. and i can't work out what it might be.

i've got three days of eating out coming up, but then i'll spend a few weeks trying to answer my own questions. getting that mix of variety and speedy meals.

today's tally
pineapple, blueberry, mango and spinach smoothie
coffee with milk
grapes, apple, mandarin, date, few macadamias
big green salad with radish, sweetcorn, turkish green pepper, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and balsamic vinegar dressing
green smoothie (mango, spinach, bit of chocolate)

well that's the end of raw for a few days, just a quick round up.

did i lose any weight over the four days that i was mostly raw?
yes, i lost a kilo (two pounds)

do i feel better now after four days mostly raw?
i think it's too short a timeframe to really get the benefits. i feel better than when i first started and have a bit more energy but there hasn't been a phenomenal difference. i haven't cut out coffee which i would need to do to stabilise my mental energy and my ability to focus. i haven't increased my exercise levels which i need to do, too. still, four days of healthy food can't be bad.

what did i learn?
i can eat a lot less without being hungry. i get bored easily, but a little willpower goes a long way.

will i do it again?
hell yeah. next week, after the party by the park (work's do) there will be more green smoothies for dinners and raw lunches going around. i'm so into getting fit, slim and healthy.

i haven't had any coffee since friday afternoon. i've had a headache for three days now. i'm getting through as best i can with a headache roll-on, lavender oil and in extreme cases i'm getting the nurofen out. i can't align raw food and caffeine intake. it just doesn't make sense. much as i love coffee i know it's bad and wrong in lots of ways. and then there's the sugar and milk i have with it. so i'm going to get the monkey off my back this week. oh yes.

other than that i am taking on karen's advice and thinking more consciously about what i eat. i'm going to add in a couple of things each week to be more conscious of and see if i can't train myself into better habits. so, drum roll, please...

my two aims this week:
1. don't eat if you're not hungry
2. reduce fat intake

i'm writing down everything i've prepared or think i'm going to eat in the morning and the plan is to try to not eat all of it! that doesn't mean starve, it means i won't graze all morning, as i usually do, and to choose not to eat the things i'm trying to cut down on, like nuts, and choose better options if i really do need to eat.

i also read a short article recently on life changes which says that by changing 75% of your lifestyle you achieve what you aspire to but don't completely change your life. i think that's a good goal. realistic, achievable and pragmatic.

food diary

quarter pineapple, few blueberries
white tea throughout day
apple
big salad (spinach, peppers, romaine, onion, tomato, sprinkle of seeds, oil-based dressing but less oil than usual)
1 date, 1 pecan and 1 macadamia
banana
carrot & almond pate, zucchini hummus with flax crackers, green salad with oil-based dressing
white nectarine pudding (made this up, yet to be officially christened. 2 nectarines, 2 dates, few macadamias, few cashews, vanilla. blended as smooth as we could get. next time needs chilling)

not bad, fairly balanced, less oil than usual but then you get to dinner and see all those nuts. the pate and pudding made for a fairly heavy combo, too, we found about an hour later, as we were going to bed. must learn to think about that more carefully. particularly good, though, is that there is no coffee on that list and i was 100% raw! (tea doesn't count, it's sundried, not fermented, the water's hot but, look, i just don't care.)

my headache has receded, it's still floating about but is very much in the background and isn't stopping me from concentrating, so hopefully that's caffeine cold turkey phase over. i was hungry again today, despite the heavy nut dinner we'd had. but still trying not to graze. if i can do breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, with gaps in between, then i'll start cutting out completely or reducing the amount i eat for my snacks. sounds easy.

food diary
mango
apple, dates, few nuts
little bit of the pate, hummus & flax crackers from yesterday, spinach & romaine salad with tomatoes, fresh corn, lemon and oil dressing (less oil than usual) no seeds
cucumber soup and almond & carrot scones (i made the pate into little rounds and dehydrated for just over 8 hours - truly yummy)
one square raw chocolate

i often read other raw blogs and think 'why would anyone want to read everything some total stranger ate on a day-by-day basis?' but then i think back to when i first started out, way before the blog was born, and i think it would have been useful to see the immense variety of food intake, recipes etc that raw foodies eat. so for those of you who find this boring: skip it, it's easy. it's for me to keep track and those n00b raw foodies out there who might find it useful.

work today was great until just gone 11 when it all went to the dogs for a while and got me extremely riled. but i regrounded myself eventually after venting with a friend, and the rest of the day passed by so smoothly. a colleague said at the end of the day - she gave me a lift home - that my weekend retreat must have really worked because despite the midday chaos i was an oasis of calm. heh. not how i would ever describe myself! but i thought about it. by this afternoon i was feeling so good about everything that i had my first glimmer of hope that i might regain my raw food bliss soon. i'm sure it'll ebb and flow for a while before it settles in for good, but i'm enjoying these golden moments.

the cucumber and avocado soup is even better for lunch today. it was easy peasy to make, from jordan maerin's raw food for busy people. you blitz cucumber, avocado, fresh herbs, lemon juice and seasonings in the food processor or blender and you're done (for exact quantities you'll have to buy the book!) last night we had it with a few of the 'scones' that i'd made by dehydrating pate and today i had the same for lunch. the soup's flavours have come through a bit more and the scones are completely addictive.

food diary
green juice (apples, oranges, carrots, kale, mint, spinach, ginger)
two apples
soup and scones
1 square chocolate
sesame vanilla shake

i had intended to make romaine wraps tonight, but our blender arrived (more on that tomorrow, when i review and rave about it) so we had to try it out. the sesame shake recipe caught my eye in karen knowler's 'how to get started with raw foods' ebook, so we had a go of that. personally, i found the sesame a little bitter, so i'll put some nuts in to soak and try pecan or almond milk tomorrow.

today was a good food day. i enjoyed everything and felt full of beans! or full of greens, more likely :)

a couple of months ago, boo and i realised we'd left it too late - yet again - to plant seeds to grow our own tomatoes. i'd already raked through heirloom seed catalogues looking for something to grow in pots on a not-always-sunny windowsill. i must have spent hours, and all for nothing. but i decided not to be defeated and persevered. and it was worth it. i managed, miraculously, to find a uk company who supply organic plant plugs. they're small plants, just two-three months old, raised organically and ready to pot on. hurray!

when they arrived we were just about to go away for the weekend and only had enough compost for one of the large pots, so boo potted out the two strongest looking plants before we left and a week later he sorted out the rest of them. and now, three weeks on, we have two fabulously fat plants overtaking the whole windowsill from the first lot he planted, while in the other bedroom the other four plants are looking about two weeks' behind. the ways of nature, eh?

so, here's a pic of the pretty papery yellow star flowers...

and here's a close up of the first tomato. isn't that sweet! i'm so looking forward to eating it :)

food diary

strawberries
salad, same as yesterday, and mashed avocado with herby flax cracker (reinvented pizza base)
italian praline chocolate (couldn't resist. it was yummy!)
big fat mango, pear, watercress, parsley and hemp smoothie

i've been feeling for a few weeks that i need to do some clearing out, cleaning up. a wonderful new friend who serendipitously came into my social circle is helping me with the emotional clearing and i'm going to juice fast to deal with the physical clean.

my goal is to juice fast for between two and three weeks. my boundaries are to allow the occasional green smoothie and bowl of miso when i need the weight or warmth. it's getting chilly in the evenings now, with autumn drawing the nights in, so hot miso will be very welcome from time to time.

i decided to do this about a month ago, but i've been postponing it for one reason (excuse?) or another, and today was still considering postponing for a few days. i recalled reading something about good times to detox being around the equinox and of course that's later this week. so i think my body has been holding me back, waiting for the 'right' time to detox. fabulous. i love it when everything flows.

so... i started the beginners' training plan about 3 years ago. ok, so it wasn't quite that long back, it just feels like it. i started a 9 week plan in september last year, and i've just completed week 6. no, my maths is fine, i've just been stuck on week 6, groundhog day-style, for what seems like months. and probably is...

i've repeated one off sessions here and there where there's been a bit of a lapse in training, so that slowed me down. then two weeks in november were crossed off while i was on honeymoon. and in december i got my annual chest infection so didn't run for most of the month. in january i started again, repeating the whole of week 6 to try to get back to where i was in terms of stamina and speed. i have to say i'm really struggling. and mostly it's my own fault. i have really noticed my asthma's worse than it has been for months. it had dramatically improved during spring-summer-autumn last year, and we all know why...

... most of december i ate cooked food, not raw, and now i'm suffering the consequences.

it really is that simple.

tomorrow i'm going to sit down and work out a transition regime for the next 3 months and get a menu plan sorted for the next few weeks, where i can mix and match and be flexible, as i need that if i'm going to stick to it. then i'm going shopping to stock up for the week ahead.

right. i've said it in public, so now i'm committed to it.

oh yes, and i'm going for a run in the morning to try out week 7, run 1 (2.5 miles in 25 minutes) for the first time!

just to let you know that i'm charting my ups and downs of the global juice feast on a separate and dedicated blog on cheapskate blogspot. so if you don't hear from me much round here, that's where you'll find me.

http://juicyloulou.blogspot.com

(warning: some topics on the other blog might put you off your dinner.)