garden salad

thank you all sooooo much for your wonderful supportive comments since my last post. what an amazing bunch of people you are. i have and will continue to praise you all to everyone who stands still long enough to listen. i'm so very grateful to have found such a lovely, warm, non-discrimating community. but enough with the schmaltz ;)

we've spent lots of time in the allotment, weeding, planting, sowing, watering, tidying and having lovely picnics, with homemade salads and a few shop bought bits to go with them. it's been fabulous. we have three potato plants now peeking out of the sandy, dry soil, the onions are sprouting and i'm now waiting for the carrots to show themselves. we've got five tomato plants in the soil and about a dozen still growing at home. the peppers are nearly ready to plant out. there are peas, beans, corn, lettuce and wild flowers sown straight into the earth, then cucumbers, cauliflowers, dozens of herbs and a few flowers all in little pots, waiting to germinate. over the next two weeks we have another huge bunch of stuff to grow/sow/plant. it's been scorching hot and working outside for 6 hours a day means, despite copious high-factor suncream, we're both suffering a little from over-exposure. YummyHubby just goes from his lovely milky coffee colour straight to a fetching shade of guinness while i'm sporting a golden glow, and some bright pink bits on my shoulders. tomorrow we're only having a half day in the allotment as we need to get on with some other chores, so that should give our skin time to recover.

so, food. cos that's what it's all about.

i really don't want juice. well, i'd love a pint of orange juice, and made some for breakfast this past weekend, but i think i'm a bit juiced out. i know i should have some, but i just can't face it right now. i have got green smoothies on the dinner list, though, so at least if i have a couple of those a week i know i'm getting some nutrient-dense food into me. if i leave it a while i'm sure the urge to juice will return.

i've made a few things in the dehydrator - some worked, others didn't - and i'm trying to keep it varied, with different styles of food, and remembering to occasionally make light dinners to leave room for dessert. some of the things we've eaten this week: 'sushi' and vietnamese rice paper rolls; pizza with salad one day/ different topping and jicama 'fries' another day; banana ice-cream with raspberry-cacao sauce; creamy curried coleslaw; almond-cacao milk; sugarloaf pineapple and indian mango salad; 'falafel'... on the upcoming list are kale-avo salad (yes!); zucchini hummus; grawnola; apple cookies; soups; green smoothies. see, that should keep us going for a while.

things i've noticed. i'm starting to see how if i don't get enough greens i get hungry quickly and if i eat anything cooked no matter how much salad i have with it, it just doesn't satisfy my hunger.  how odd. i don't have much of a sweet tooth at the moment. fruit for breakfast is fine, but even then sometimes i'm wanting savoury for breakfast. it's kind of tricky to work out what i could do about that. i'm trying to keep my oil intake down but i do know i'm having a bit too much right now; it's so easy to slosh the oil on the salad... flax crackers rock. i'd forgotten how tasty they are, easy to make and they keep so well. 

i've got lots of energy. on cooked food, after dinner i don't usually move much - if at all - but now i'm back up and in the kitchen, tidying, preparing stuff for the next day. or pottering around the house tidying, sorting, doing light chores. this is great news :) i can reclaim an hour or so of my day back this way :)

YummyHubby is mostly joining in with my food at the moment and having the odd meaty thing, usually as a snack or appetiser (tonight he had some smoked venison - of all things. he picked it up at whole foods) so that makes it easier in some ways, but it does also mean i have to think about what i'm preparing in advance. i'd quite happily just eat salad five nights a week :) but perhaps this is one way to keep things varied, knowing that i'm prepping food for him, too. except he's not keen on cauliflower and i love it. so he can buy fish and chips for his dinner the night i do cauliflower cous cous ;)

belated stats

i said i'd post my pre and post juicefeast stats, so here you have them.

weight: BEFORE 169 pounds AFTER 141 pounds
height: 5' 6"
fasting blood glucose: BEFORE average 4.9 AFTER 4.3
cholesterol: 3.9

urine ph: 7-7.25 AFTER 7 (? still not terribly convincing result)

i also measured myself at strategic points. here's how much i've lost from each measuring point.

bust: 3.5"

spare tyre: 3"

waist: 3.5"

belly: 3.5"

hips: 3"

thigh: 2"

arm: 1"

(spare tyre = the bit between your bust and waist; belly = between waist and hips)

i'm really happy with those results. just to prove it, i ordered some clothes last week. they arrived today and are too big. i'm sure it's just the retailer chooses a generous cut... but if i go by their sizing, i've gone down 2-and-a-bit dress sizes. yeehaa! 

now to get back into my exercise routine and firm up all this soft, squishy flab that needs shifting.

i'm moving back to my other blog. like many before me, i'll keep this online as a testimony to juicefeasting. and you never know, i might do it again next year. (never say never, right?) but i miss my lovely theme over at princessloulou.net and i'm going to blog more about my lifestyle, food choices and the learning process that YummyHubby and i are going through as we strive to be as sustainable as is feasible without packing up our current jobs and buying a farm... 

thanks for being with me so far. come and join me over at princessloulou.net soon.

love to you all xxx

photo credit: thanks to 'wrestlingentropy' for this pic, see the original here.

the week that was

hello all. so, some of you know, cos we're twitter buddies, and some of you don't know... i broke my juicefeast last weekend.

i'd had enough. i tried to explain myself to YummyHubby and the thing that i kept coming back to was that 'my heart's not in it' then went to look at the feastbreaking protocol on juicefeasting.com and what was the first reason to quit on their list? your heart's not in it (and you know you're going to eat something) so i'm sure it was the right thing to do. so i kind of feel rubbish because i didn't stay the course, but you know what, i juiced for an amazing 65 days, and the last 15 days were really tough, so i say 'go me!'

i broke the feast with the prunes - which i didn't enjoy so much. the first 5 or 6 were fine but i struggled to eat the whole 8oz. YummyHubby helped out by picking at a few and i left three in the bowl.

on my first fruit day i had a charentais melon for breakfast, which was divine, and the second day i made papaya whip (i love this: blend coconut meat, papaya, mango and passionfruit. eat. worship at the altar of tropical fruit) which is soooo decadent for breakfast. i love that.

my first salad meal was a soft green lettuce with a few bits of tiny chopped up pepper, tomatoes, spring onion. my alfalfa sprouts are still sprouting. not ready yet. i added half an avocado, thinking i'd need the fat for my crinkly skin but i ended up picking it out and leaving it as i really didn't want avocado. i've been all over the place all week. one minute craving salty things then the next thing tastes too salty. wanting fat then feeling sick, because i don't want fat. hmmm. i'm a bit out of whack and need sorting out. 

it's kind of disappointing that i'm tempted by some cooked stuff, too. ben's comment on my previous post is inspiring and yet doesn't seem to be working 100% for me. no, i don't want beer or curry(!) but cheese and, bizarrely, chargrilled artichokes are still tempting. i could say that perhaps if i'd stuck it for the remaining 27 days i might have dealt with the rest of the cravings but i think that's unhelpful conjecture and i'll spin it around and say that i know i will still have stuff to work through and deal with during my raw life. hell, even uber-raw karen knowler continues to up the ante with her raw lifestyle at regular intervals, so why should get a different paradigm? it's a spiral. onwards and upwards. cyclical and metamorphic. it's a journey i'm looking forward to.

when i knew i was going to quit the juicefeast i saved some juice pulp and i made some flax crackers. i split the 'dough' into two batches and added piles of fresh herbs to one half and to the other i added curry spices (a generous present from a house guest - i have an awesome collection of yummy fresh herb and spice blends.) i made the herb ones into thick rounds for pizza bases and the spicy ones for crackers. then i took a couple of crackers and some hummus to work for elevenses, which worked really well. i made a bruschetta topping for the pizzas and had them for dinner. yesterday i added a pile of rocket on top and then tonight i had a big green salad separately. it was tasty both times :)

i've got a few plans for food and i'm looking forward to making stuff. the optimism is there, which helps. i don't feel defeated at the thought of organisation and preparation. after a juicefeast, this is just a walk in the park.

i've been happy about not having to spend so long in the kitchen each morning. i've had a couple of lie-ins compared to the ridiculously early hour i got up at during the juicefeast. i've taken shopping bags to work and prepped a big lunch salad there, which only takes a few minutes, not like prepping and cleaning up after juice. this is all good :)

i'm trying to be more aware of the food as it goes into my mouth. the temptation to shove it down quickly is still there, so i need to get a handle on that. don't think i'll go quite as far as fletcherism, but i do need to concentrate, taste everything, and chew thoroughly before i swallow. i'm still learning.

oh, right, before i forget. those vital statistics. i wrote down my various measurements at the start but haven't measured myself since, so i'll do that tomorrow and let you all have the final weight loss and size loss figures. in non-specific terms we're talking substantial :)

top photo: pizza bases about to go in the dehyradator. they're slightly pink from beetroot. YummyHubby thought they looked like meat patties. gross. bottom photo: tonight's pizza. both taken by YummyHubby.

day 63: smells

the week after i started the juicefeast i also started a new job. my previous job was just under two miles away, so unless the weather was horrid i would walk to and from work (yes! great exercise!) with my iPod belting out, marching along, in my own little world.

then i started working in an office a train ride away and my life changed. i don't like commuting. i don't like people when they're squashed together on a train or a platform. pushing each other, standing in front of the doors so they can't get on and those who want to get off struggle to do so. it's so counterintuitive, the whole thing. horrendous. anyway. i'm here to talk smells.

so i'd walk up to the station with the smell of damp pavements, the odd waft of cigarette smoke from someone walking ahead of me and then i'd head into the station and be assaulted by the overpowering smell of bacon sandwiches from the on-platform cafe. i swear they just leave a bit of rind burning all the time, hoping to entice people to buy a sarnie because i have yet to see anyone actually eating one. so on the train we get and then off at the other end... where it gets much worse. there's the roasting coffee and the sweet, caramel aroma of danish pastries. and onwards i go, hauling 2 litres of juice in my bag, shoulders groaning.

on the way home i pass two indian restaurants (my favourite comfort food) and then back at the station the smell of various south african meats hits me first, and the coffee and pastries have been displaced by the strong smell of cornish pasties, hot dogs and pizza. off the train and i'm hit by the divine fragant calling of the fish and chip shop (so hard to resist!) and i turn the corner into the enticing wafts from the noodle bar. approaching home and one last struggle as i pass the italian cafe on the corner. phew. made it through all that temptation.

fast forward to today. this morning the train was very full. i was squished into a corner next to a woman having her breakfast of coffee and croissant and the smell of the croissant was positively nauseating. i don't know why, but i was so unbelievably turned off, the thought of ever eating a croissant/danish pastry again is so alien to me. amazing. then, on the way home as i passed the two indian restaurants i conjured up what it would really be like to eat some of my favourite dishes. all i could think of is how oily they'd be. the magic had gone. just like that. no longer appeals. wow. that's HUGE for me.

good job i found some amazing curry recipes on gone raw ;)

image credit: Indian thali at Jaipur, Milton Keynes by Scorpions and Centaurs on Flickr. attribution-non-commerical-sharealike.

day 62: modifying

so, it's time to admit it, to myself as much as to you, dear readers, but a one-off has turned into a mini-habit. i started off having half an avocado one evening as my skin is terribly taut and dry. not flaking, but papery and unhappy. then a couple of days later i did it again. this time i chopped a tomato into it. then a few days later i had a whole avocado with chopped tomato and, go on, why not, a spring onion. all the while knowing i had to stop before it became a habit. then yesterday i came home staaaarving. i ate three olives (wow. since when were olives so salty!)  then chopped up a carrot into sticks and dunked them in houmous. oh dear. that's almost real dinner.

i'm torn.  i want food. i just don't fancy juice any more. yet here i am, over two-thirds of the way through. i'm so very nearly there and yet my heart's not really in it. what to do... do i get some prunes and call it a day (or two months, in fact) or do i try to get back on the wagon?

doesn't help that my juicer blew up last week. YummyHubby wonderfully went and bought a supercheap juicer while i get the real one repaired (it has a six-year warranty, so i get it repaired/replaced for free. hurray!)

i definitely need to lose more weight - though i'm immensely grateful for the huge weight loss i've enjoyed so far on this juicefeast. but honestly think i could do that better by getting some exercise. since the second week of the juicefeast i've given up on running. it was too hard while i was going through intense detox at the start and since then i frankly haven't had time and energy during the week to prep my juice and exercise. 

so, my juicy friends, i'm considering, for the zillionth time during this journey, packing up and heading back out to solid foods land. watch this space...