Weirdly full

I’ve felt full since I woke up. I don’t know why. I’ve eaten despite total lack of hunger because things still taste good.

I might be coming down with something, my head has been throbbing today. I suppose I’ll find out in the morning. That’d be the cherry on the week wouldn’t it? The day I’m supposed to have my first nonraw thing. My one cheat meal in a month. Pancakes. I want you.

But if I do wake up ill I’ve decided that I won’t go into work and I’ll cancel all three of my plans and stay in bed with my juice and tea. 

Regardless, this weekend i’ll post up my last raw measurements and see what up.

I’m looking forward to chicken. Fifth element style

chicken…gooood.

is it friday yet?

I woke up this morning not feeling very well. I think I’m just a bit under the weather from the whole change of…weather. I am exhausted though and ready for friday’s final food fest before a delicious juice fast.

I know it’s really weird to think but I actually felt more satisfied in some ways juicing than I have certain days on just raw.

BUT I must say this whole experience has been a success if only for one thing. Kale.

Whole Foods does this summer kale salad and it is…so amazing. SO amazing! And I think I found a passable replica on pinterest! It’s a sweet, crisp and delicious salad and today, after many failed searches, the Whole Foods express had it!

When I arrived there was a knot of women debating over the salad case. To my horror there was only a little bit of that beautiful kale salad left. It wasn’t even noon yet! I wanted to push them all out of the way and yell KALE! GIVE ME ALL THE KALE!

Luckily they just decided on fresh fruit and left it all for me! So guess who ran off with all of it?? THIS GUY!

Delicious.

Meanwhile, this week I’ve been amazingly hungry and full at the same time. I blame hormones. Yeah, it’s about to be that time again. You know how it goes, ladies…

I really want some delicious juice now.

sigh.

hormones.

 

The home stretch

So sorry no post yesterday. I spent the majority of my time at home without power yesterday due to a downed power liner. Awesome, right?

Well no, it made me incredibly grumpy. I therefore spent a good portion of that time being grumpy and shoving clementines in my mouth.

As my friend James rightly pointed out though, at least I didn’t have to worry about cooking anything!

Today was much better though and it ended with a nice sashimi dinner with my friends Amy and Dan. I haven’t gotten to see them in a few years! They’ve both been deployed in Afghanistan and well, that can put a damper on home visits.

AH! I missed them! So now I’m in a fabulous mood of course 🙂

Only a few more days committed to 100% raw. It’s been a good experience overall, I think. It’s been a little more socially isolated  that I’d have liked to be but I have to ask myself if that’s such a bad thing or if maybe I should have made more of an effort to bring others into the experience.

Friday I have a lunch date with my co-workers at Beet’s, and I’m hoping that they like it. A few are skeptical and only one has expressed excitement and he’s the last place I would have expected it from.

Eating healthy, not eating flesh at every meal, and ENJOYING fresh raw vegetables shouldn’t be seen as weird, unlikely or somehow shameful. It shouldn’t feel like you’re doing something wrong because you’re not being ‘normal’ but I’ve encountered that a lot. “oh…it’s vegan?” , “wait, there’s no meat?”, “what do you mean? salad isn’t a meal” etc

I love meat, I love poultry, I love (some) fish. Eggs, cheese, milk! Delicious sure but wow there really is a whole world out there full of flavorful and delicious things that aren’t from animals or tofu for that matter.

Nuts, dear nuts! I’ve never been a big fan before. I don’t know why really. I don’t like them in baked goods and I’ve never really liked trail mixes and all that but I love them in raw recipes. Cashews! I NEVER ate cashews before, but now I see them as incredibly versatile. Same goes for seeds, it’s incredible. Flaxers! Flax seed crackers! Sturdy and delicious and perfect for thick dips.

There is an incredibly flavorful and vibrant world outside of salted processed microwaved crap that we call ‘normal food’ and the best part is? It just happens to be good for you too.

There are def some products and styles I will adopt forever because they taste so much better than the conventional counter parts. Isn’t that crazy? ‘Health food’ that is better than the so called ‘real thing’ (Hail Merry’s tarts, I’m looking at you!).

Madness, I know.

That being said here’s how the next few days are going to go down:

Friday I have lunch set up with co-workers as my last ‘raw meal’ on this experiment and that night I’m getting myself PANCAKES from Kerbey, remember those cinnamon roll pancakes? Awww yeah. But then for the next three days (maybe longer we’ll see) I will be back on the juice before I begin my proper mix of raw and clean.

Clean will hopefully be less expensive lol.

I’ve spent way way way more than i ever planned on this, but my health is worth it 🙂

 

 

…and btw Beet’s superfood clusters are insanely addictive and delicious and omg i ate three of them this afternoon all at once. AH so good

Clementine oh clementine

Oh but where have I been this weekend? Eating my weight in clementines, that’s where. Look at it! Look at the pretty little citrus! I’ve eaten about 30 this weekend. Why? Because they’re delicious. Juicy and sweet and tart and perfect little snacks… ugh. Get in my belly!!

Anyway, this weekend has been a lot of house work. I’ve been feeling a bit icky lately and I blame the weather so the only way I could get myself to move and do anything was to clean and do some food prep.

I’ve been all about cutting, slicing and dicing and all that good stuff for my last whole week raw. I’m going to have my last solid food day be Friday since my friend Elizabeth has promised to try Beet’s cafe and Friday is payday.

From there? Juice mania!

I’m aiming for three days but we’ll see how I feel, I might go more 🙂

And then, DUN DUN DUN! We begin the clean!

But this week I think I’ll be partially juicy…in part because I sort of…kind of…juiced all my grapefruits. SO 😀

I also found out that coconut doesn’t juice well. BUT if you blend it up, drizzle a bit of honey, and toss in some chia seeds you can make a nice pudding! NOM!

Meanwhile,

Today I’ve eaten all the things! In the past few days I’ve actually gained a bit of weight, but that could just be hormones. I’m not worried about it and had a nice off day today which of course lead to me not even getting this tart in the fridge before it was in my belly. Didn’t even bother to cut it up into portions, just bit right down in it. Delicious!

And then…Rox Chox.

And 5 clementines.

All before noon.

I like food.

Thundah thundah thundah birds!

My Internet is being insane. So much so that I can’t post on my laptop. It’s really really frustrating especially because I missed posting yesterday.

Anyway this is from my phone. #dedication lol so I just want to post up a quick thing. One, Thunderbird Energetica bars are delicious
So good! And so are beard bros 🙂

Also!!
Seven days til my next juice fast and I’m really excited about it. There’s something a bit peaceful about them. They’re simple and easy and they feel good. I hope to do about 3 days or so and then move on to the clean/raw.
I feel like a lot of my meals will remain raw and plant based. Honestly I wasn’t buying a lot of meat before, but a lot of cheese and microwave meals and while that’s cheap it’s not a great basis for your diet.
But being plant based is nice. I don’t want to be vegan or vegetarian but I feel that I have certainly shifted more that way and feel better for it 🙂

Hopefully tomorrow my Internet will work.

Dates are delicious!

Tonight I tried to recreate some healthy raw date balls from a vegan cooking class me and Misha took last year.  They’ve turned out quite nicely for estimating!

RECIPE!

Ingredients:

1 oz caco nibs or some coco powder if you prefer.

1 cup raw almonds

1 cup coconut flakes, unsweetened

2 tablespoons tahini

2 tablespoons honey, raw

13 dates, whole but seeded

Food processor

Method:

Step 1! (skip if you use powdered coco/cacao)

Toss those nibs in your processor and powder! Once they’ve been good and pulverized put them in a bowl for later swirling

Step 2!

Take your nuts! Put them in the food processor and spin it until they’re nicely chopped, don’t go so far as to make almond butter though of course, you’ll be processing these for a while yet

Step 3!

Add in the coconut flakes and pulverize a little more!

Step 4!

The wet stuff

Now add the dates and  tahini and make sure everything is nicely blended before adding the last bit, the honey and give it a few pulses until things are nicely sticky

Step 5!

Transfer all that goodness into another bowl where you can pick off bits and roll them in your hands into little balls. As you make them you should roll them in that cacao powder until they’re coated and place them on a plate

VIOLA!

I made 28 of them and this is the breakdown for the whole recipe:

So about 55 cals for each. 🙂

Meanwhile, today was kind of miserable at work because I sorta kinda forgot to bring enough food and they sort of kind of CATERED IN BREAKFAST TACOS AGAIN.

But they also brought in fruit, which I had a lot of. It was delicious.

But still, I was cranky.

I’m finding raw to be very socially isolating from some people. Going out for drinking and eating at crappy restaurants  is just not an option for me and I feel a bit judged for it.

But my health isn’t worth some weird guilt or peer pressure.

period.

On another note, there’s a series on Netflix called Feeding Time and it’s literally documentaries of animals eating. Just adorable animals eating. Meercats, pandas, giraffes, monkies, bears etc. It’s the cutest tv ever made. SO FLUFFLY!

 

Breakfast tacos are Texan kryptonite

In today’s episode superfood girl is confronted with the most diabolical of all breakfast temptations!

BREAKFAST TACOS

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNN

Look at their evil goodness, white flour, processed meats, lardy beans, cheese ALL THE CHEESE, chunks of fried taters, and eggs…oh you eggs slathered in oils and scrambled up!

Ugh, who am I kidding? They’re delicious.

They’re also a Texan breakfast staple. I don’t know why we love our omelets wrapped in tortillas as much as we do but by golly we do. Sigh. Seven dozen of those beauties were brought in from taco cabana (where that pic is from btw) for the office at large.

I did not cave.

But I was quite grumpy for the remainder of the day for another reason.

I didn’t sleep well last night. In fact I got only about 3 hours of sleep and spent the rest of the night trying in vain to get comfortable or drowsy. I don’t know why. I haven’t had any caffeine except for the occasional green tea cup (which i didn’t have yesterday), it was just one of those nights.

To add to that, I ventured the (much longer) walk to Whole Foods express in the hopes of finding a dinner for myself so I could take a run with a co-worker AND do trivia night with other co-workers and not starve (I work on the other side of the city from home). ALAS no love. I found a nice kale salad with an asian dressing and got a thunderbird bar but not enough to be dinner.

Those Thunderbird’s though? LOVE THEM!

But alas, that was one thing too many for me to not be all grumpy cat so I ventured home for a nap and a workout. Well the nap didn’t work out but the workout did! Not bad if I say so myself, but I’ve done better. Still though, pretty good.

My dad called and asked how it was all going and I told him pretty well, down almost 16lbs from my work weigh in, lost an inch all around, and my blood pressure is currently in a normal range.

Can’t argue with that.

He asked what was hardest. Giving up candy? I said nope, oddly, as much as I love candy, raw desserts are SO good and SO easy. I don’t miss any sweet. I do miss salty things though, pizza and such. BUT I don’t need these things. My cravings are not physiological, they’re all mental, social, emotional. For once I really understand the difference between real hunger and emotional hunger. I’ve been SO full since starting this, but have had many food lusts. Want and need…they are different.

My plan after being 100% raw is to be largely raw but all clean. Plant based, treating animal products as the exceptions not the rule. And believe me, there will be clean breakfast tacos. You can want what you need too ;p

Chick fil a and ninjas

This morning my company moved to their new building and to celebrate they brought in Chick Fil A for brunch.

I have to tell you, I LOVE Chick Fil A. LGBT issues aside (i know, i’m a traitor to my own people) they’re delicious. But they’re also awful for you.

And they’re far from raw.

I stayed strong, in part because of my raw chai protein shake and in part because I was too busy being neurotic Nancy about my new space. I don’t like change!  Trying to get situated and ninja proof my cube is difficult. It’s a very open floor plan and there’s no way I can prevent people from being able to surprise me. and there’s no where to put a mirror but I think I might have to make one…and shelves. Ugh, I hate ninjas. In a past life I think I was a mob boss that got shot at a restaurant when his back wasn’t against a wall. Seriously.

But all that upheaval meant today’s eating at work was not ideal. My nanogreens, broccoli and beet salad got eaten but not much else and that meant by the time I got home I was starving.

Answer? Guacamole! And flax snax for chips, which are delicious. Hindsight says I should have made it with some kale or spinach to make it more complete but hmmm maybe tomorrow

That combined with fruit and rox chox  puts me about 300 cals over my calorie goal for the day.

I’m ok with that. Why? Remember those rules of mine? Thou shalt not freak out about calories.

I could have worked out but when I got home and back into my own space all that stress of mine went away and I realized how exhausted it made me. A two hour nap later and I was like meh…off days are good for you now and then.

SO I painted my nails instead.

Good use of my afternoon if you ask me.

 

Viva la Rawvolution!

Wow, 20 days without the following:

Beef

Poultry

Goat/lamb

Wheat/Gluten

Various grains

Soy

Salt

Eggs

Alcohol

Artificial coloring

Artificial flavoring

Preservatives

White sugar

a microwave

That is momentous.

I’m two steps from being vegan and that has been literally three instances in the past 20 days: saag paneer (see when I caved), sashimi dinner, and my raw cheddar made from local whole unpasteurized milk.

Crazy, right?

What I have eaten in abundance?

Chocolate!! Wow chocolate!

Aside from the most wonderous Rox Chox I’ve also had my own cacoa nibs for munching and blending in almond milk and the super food clusters from Beet’s cafe that are amazing!

I’ve had so many desserts, Merry’s tarts, super cookies, raw macaroons and fruit all kinds of fruit!

I have never eaten so many nuts and seeds in my life combined as I have this past 20 days.

Flax, chia, almonds, cashews, macadamia, brazil, hazel, pine and more! Delicious guys, delicious.

It’s kind of awesome.

Now, I know this isn’t for everyone but I’d like to challenge everyone to have one raw day, or even maybe a weekend and try it. See how it is.

Now I have to warn you, if you’ve been on the conventional American/Western diet you might experience some discomfort at first. I didn’t. I don’t know if that’s because I started with a juice fast but I’ve seen some people struggle to suddenly digest that much fiber and plant matter at once.

So Challenge! maybe a juice fast day, maybe a raw day, maybe a weekend, try it.

Here’s how easy a raw day can be:

Breakfast: Fruits! either all chopped up or maybe just whole one at a time. A banana, orange, apple, whatevs, as much as you’d like

morning snack: try flax snax or super cookies or chopped veggies like cucumber or carrot or Go Raw’s products are available in even HEB and ship easily

Lunch: big salad! spinach and tomatoes with onions and cucumbers and whatever your little heart desires. Dressing? oil and vinegar, maybe balsamic? or I like to use stone ground mustard and apple cider vinegar, or you can even use avocado as a creamy dressing and if you’re super cool, toss on some chia seeds

dinner? Easy peasy go for some sashimi or if you want to stay vegan whip up some raw alfredo (it’s ridiculously easy) and zucchini noodles or use sea tangle kelp noodles

dessert? Uh…ROX CHOX  ;p But if you’re not feeling chocolate and don’t have access to Merry’s tarts try any of the dessert recipes from Rawmazing

or, great idea– get out your blender or food processor, get some almonds, some dates, a little honey, dried coconut flakes, and blend it all, then take that and roll out little balls in cacoa powder. BOOM delicious.

See? Ridiculously easy. Not a whole lot of prep, that alfredo? The longest part of it is soaking the cashews if you so choose. You don’t actually have to but it makes it smoother. Super easy.

Yeah sure you can complicate things with your dehydrator and sprouting and all that but you don’t have to.  And I bet if you look locally you can find a raw restaurant or a grocery/farmer’s market that has prepped raw products. My friend James even sent me a txt today that there’s now a raw restaurant in Denton, Texas. DENTON!

viva la Rawvolution!

Raw-mazing!

First off–Today I weighed in at my lowest weight in a LONG time!  BIG honesty coming!

So from day one til now this is where I stand so far. Not bad eh?

BUT from my work weigh in I am down a total of, drum roll plz:

FIFTEEN POINT EIGHT

15.8l

bs. Yup. So I’m hoping for another 15 by March? That’d be cool. But more realistically, a total of 20-25 I think would make me a contender for my work competition.

Anyway! Today I had an awesome experience at Beet’s Cafe!

Picture avalanche is a coming! I went with my dear Misha, her husband and my friend Megan for some good gourmet raw delights and wow! It was really great. I’ll let the pictures do the talking now, although I TOTALLY forgot to get a shot of my own burger before chowing it hahaha I have no idea how I managed to do that, but it was delicious!

 

Spinach guacamole with corn chips

Nori rolls with mock tuna

Tim’s tacos with wild rice and sprouted beans.

Pizza rustica and ceaser salad

Raw reuben, veggie chips and beets

Orange vanilla cheesecake

chocolate cheesecake

super food chocolate cluster. Not photogenic but DELICIOUS

 

I tasted everything! And it was all delicious. I decided on the tacos for takeaway for tomorrow’s lunch and they were quite helpful giving me a broken down takeaway box

some assembly required

So thanks Beets for an awesome lunch! Not a single thing was less than awesome.

Did I mention that aside from being raw, Beets is also vegan? You know what’s awesome about this place? My Meg is a real meat and potato kind of girl. She was a little wary of this place at first, opting for a salad before we talked her into a Ruben that she ended up enjoying quite a bit. But this was her and the cheese free cheesecake

I think she liked it.

( I had to nibble off Misha’s slice, Meg’s was spoken for ;p)

Beets, you’re my new favorite spot!