Day 1 of 21

I have not written in 5 months….almost half a year has gone by. Where do the days go?

I was inspired to get back to my blog as I want a record of Natalia Rose’s 21 day “raw food life force energy” detox that I am doing, starting today!

Here is my day 1 log:

Woke up and did body brushing, deep breathing, a little yoga, and dance to one of my favorite songs. Then I drank a green smoothie made from a big bunch of kale, 2 bananas, and frozen cherrry berry fruit mix from TJ’s. Yummy! Don’t usually like the green smoothies with kale–but this was really good.

Lunch was a monster salad of romaine, shredded beets, chopped jicama, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, an ENTIRE avocado, cilantro, and a oil free balsamic vinaigrette. Almond milk chai for dessert. Yummy again!

Snacked on a few grapes and baby carrots while preparing dinner: Pumpkin pie in a bowl made from raw sweet potato, fresh carrot juice made in my new breville juicer, avocado, dates, and pumpkin pie spice. Tasted strange at first, but it is growing on me. Veggie juices are so strange! But I have hope that I will get used to them. I used to not like tomatoes except in the form of heinz ketchup and high fructose corn syrup filled Ragu pasta sauce–now I eat them whole and raw and luv ‘em. I have high hopes for you, vegetable juice!

For desert I had a bit of a Dagoba 70 percent dark chocolate bar, and before bed 1 banana.

I got crazy hungry about 3 or so hours after lunch, so I will definitely need to try and have a snack in the afternoon so I don’t end up eating dinner at 5pm again.

Really proud of myself for not drinking decaf coffee or chewing gum! My body feels so much more peaceful. Tomorrow I am gonna post my reasons for doing the detox that I wrote down in my journal this morning…and I am going to read them before bed tonight so I dream inspired dreams. Tomorrow is a busy day for me, bought some kombuch so I don’t find myself stopping at Peet’s coffee for a pick-me-up.

Felt really down emotionally today, I bet it has more than a little to do with coming off a week filled with frozen yogurt and artificial sweeteners—poison with a pretty package. I expect my mood will be better with time. Feeling inspired by 1 day of success.

Raw Food Diet Update

So too many weeks ago I made a claim that this blog would now be all about my new raw food diet and training for the Bay to Breakers. Well, then life happened. I bought a townhome with my man…and found myself a bit overwhelmed with my new role as a homemaker who also works full-time, etc. The last thing I want to do after a day at work at the computer, and an evening of organizing, cleaning, and erranding–is turn on the computer and blog.

I am happy to say that the Bay to Brakers was first race as an adult without Caffeine or fake “power” food as fuel. I ate a bunch of dates and a banana on the early AM bus ride from the peninsula to the city. I felt hungry for about five minutes during the first mile of the race, and then the hunger faded (or maybe I was just distracted by the nude men). I brought dates, lara bars, and a bananas to munch on post-race while I made my way across the city to meet up for lunch with my girlfriend in the Haight.

I had tons of energy and had a blast enjoying the crazy, counter-culture San Francisco vibes. I made chocolate Raw Ice Cream for a treat after dinner–but had no sugar that day! I used to have to have sugar as a reward after a long run, so this is a big step for me.

Endless Abundance

Here is a selection of the gifts from the Universe I’ve received since I started my no/low impact challenge thing:

Free Beautiful White Couch (from my buddy and ex-roommate.

Almost Free Awesome Shelving Unit from above Goddess

Beautiful Ceramic Pot for my new Veggie Container Garden on my balcony from craigslist.

Almost-new deck storage unit and clothes drying rack from Goodwill.

Not sure that this one really counts. After spending weeks trying to fix a problem with our old TV, and countless hours searching for a used HDTV flat-screen on craigslist, my fiance broke down and bought a tube at a Memorial Day Sale. He had called at least 15 craigslisters over the Memorial Day weekend only to hear “I just sold it 15 minutes ago”… the poor guy even downloaded a craigslist crawler to keep up to date on postings.

 Turns out the store only had a “used” display model of the desired TV! We ended up with a deep discount and a guilt-free purchase of the below beauty.

This new green endeavour is muy time-consuming, but I must say it is a lot of fun going treasure-hunting on the Web and at local thrift stores. I have met so many cool people in my area, given away lots of stuff, and made almost $1000 selling stuff in the past 2 months on craigslist!

 

My First Remodeling Dilemma Solved

When I made my little pact to not buy anything new 2 weeks ago, I had two main concerns:

1. How I was going to find a USED attic ladder that was SAFE

2. How to paint my house?

Solution#1

I have found a NEW attic ladder that someone bought and never used on craigslist. It will be in my hot little hands on Sunday. My handyman actually tried to find a new one at Lowe’s and Home Depot, and they did not even have one!

Solution #2

Kelly Moore Paint 1 block from my house sells YOLO paint: a zero VOC paint made by a female-owned paint/design co. in Portland. Women-friendly, small business-friendly, and eco-friendly–but not USED. This is good enough for me! Plus, their colors are gorgeous and their paint samples are these huge, painted rolls of paper that have adhesive on the back that stick on your wall for you to contemplate. Can’t wait to get home and see how the colors look in the bright, late-afternoon sun.

Doing my darnedest to make my home renovations eco-friendly is teaching me A). patience and B). gratitude that I do have the Freedom of Choice to buy eco-friendly–so many are unaware or without the resources to choose eco-friendly. I am grateful to be living in the Bay Area where eco-friendly resources are much less challenging than most parts of the country to obtain.

No Impact Inspiration

Charity’s Lungs on my Free Hoodie

This weekend I got some get inspiration for my commitment to not buy anything new from artist Charity Romero at my first-ever Swap o Rama at the San Mateo Fairgrounds this weekend. Founder of RemadeInAmerica, an artist’s collective in Oakland committed to reducing textile waste by creatively re-making used garments, Charity donated her time and supplies this last weekend to re-making folks’ old clothes into works of wearable art via her gorgeous screen-printing designs at the Swap o Rama. The Swap was part of the MakerFaire–a huge event for DIY geeks and hipsters. I got fashion/creative inspiration just from the stellar people watching that is lacking in my suburban life.

The Swap O Rama consisted of a bunch of tables in the middle of a room labelled by type of clothing. I had brought a bag of clothing I no longer wear, and dumped my old stuff on the appropriate tables. There was some chaos as people pawed through the abandoned wares, but I quickly found a grey hoodie with orange lining that was just my size. I then turned my attention to the reason I came. At the tables surrounding the edges of the room were just about anything you might need to Re-make your find. I made my way to the silk-screening table where Charity and I made my FREE hoodie into the above pictured prized-possession with the addition of a silkscreen pair of lungs. At the Swap I learned that there are endless SIMPLE things things I could do with all those Old Navy t-shirts that I never wear because they are just too boring. I will have to make my way to Oakland to the ReadyMadeInAmerica studio to get some more tips…

 

 

My first Not Buying Anything Challenge Challenge

I catered a party for 30 people this weekend for a friend with Celiac Disease. She needed someone she can trust to cater the party to ensure she got a gluten-free meal. This experience taught me Lesson #1 of this no-impact challenge: One must plan ahead thoroughly to be successful.

I have been very busy this month moving, working a full-time job, and doing training for a new part-time job. Thus, my planning for all the things I needed to order from the rental company was less than stellar. I accidenally ordered demitasse cups for coffee and tea, and forgot to order saucers to boot. Tea bags just don’t fit in a espresso sized-cup! Further, the salad dressings I made were too thick to pour out of the cute vials I had bought several weeks ago, no matter how much liquid I added to thin out the dressing.

In a panic, I called the emergency after-hours hotline for the rental co. The owner would be happy to meet me to exchange the cups, but he had a family engagement and no one else can do the after-hours exhanges. So I went to the store across the street and bought coffee mugs and half-carafes for the dressings!

I just did not have time to go find 30 used, matching coffee mugs and 8 matching dressing boats. I had many hours of cooking to do. Thus, Lesson #1 was learned: plan ahead, thoroughly.

 

no impact challenge

My fiance came home the other day and casually said he would like to experiment with not buying anything new besides things like food and underwear for one year. Groups like The Compact and people like No Impact Man have brought this type of effort into the media in the past few years and somehow their message made their way to my high techie sweetheart. My heart jumped with glee as I felt an immense feeling of relief wash over my body. I have been having a deep desire to simplify my life for almost as long as I can remember…and now I have someone with whom I get to share the fun of coming out of the trance of consumerism!

I have had a few little attempts in my life to live more green: being and on and off vegan/vegetarian for the past 10 years, spearheading increased reycycling efforts at my high school, and putting up with a lot of wierd stares for being the ONLY person in high school to bike to school when at least half the school population lived less than 5 miles from school. My friends and family barely tolerated my wierd green-ness. For instance, I remember the first time I visited home after I moved away to go to college. My brother went to throw a beer can in the garbage, and glancing at me he giggled as he said, “The recycling nazi is home again,” as he threw away the recyclable can to torture me. I relished the new title.

More recently my green efforts have been limited to buying organic, frequent bike commuting, and living with a family here in silicone valley that traded in their BMW for bikes, and had been living a car-free lifestyle for a few years before they made a New Year’s Resolution to not buy anything “new.”

This family’s efforts inspired me and frightened me. What inspired me was the relaxed pace at which they lived their lives. You would think that they were very busy all of the time from having to bike and take the train everywhere. In fact, when it came to time, they always seemed to have plenty of it. All those last minute errands to go get things that one has to to have NOW were not on their to-do lists. In fact, I never saw them making to-do lists.

What scared me was how threatening this way of living and thinking was to my princess (consumer) mentality. My whole life I believed that if I wanted something I should have it immediately, and if I did not get it I was miserable. And when I did get what I wanted right away, then I would think of something else I needed to make me happy. WANT and NEED were words whose meanings were very confused in my princess mind, and this confusion created an endless cycle of suffering. My fiance’s suggestion to experiment with living a anti-consumerism lifestyle gave me such relief, because he gave presented me an opportunity to end the cycle of suffering.

Our first challenge is to remodel and decorate our recently purchased townhouse that needs some remodeling and definitely some decorating. How do you find a used 25 foot ladder that can reach our attic door in our vaulted bedroom wall so we can at last put all the boxes littering the house into storage? And how the heck do you paint a whole house interior without buying new paint? I am going to put a “WANTED” post on Freecycle for the ladder and go check out other Green Blogs for hints about the paint.  

Green Smoothie Recipes

I am convinced that my daily green smoothie habit is what is responsible for my recent significant improvement in the control of my blood sugar. I used to not be able to eat any carbs after 5pm without having my blood sugar so disturbed that it would keep me up at night. I now can eat any whole-food carb at night, including those yummy Raw food desserts, without any blood sugar/insomnia problems.

There are some really creative green smoothie recipes out there that include things like mint, acai juice, hemp protein powder, etc. I would love to try all that stuff out, but for right now I am benefiting from keeping things simple. I fill up my vita-mix blender with 1-2 cups water, add some green leafy veggies, 1-3 kinds of fruit, a pinch of stevia, and voila breakfast is solved.

My current favorites:

Banana Strawberry Greenshake:

Put all of the below in the blender until desired consistency is reached:

• 1 banana, fresh or frozen
• Handful of strawberries, fresh or frozen
• Very general handful of spinach OR romaine
• 1-2 cups water
• Pinch of stevia or agave to feed my sweet tooth

Blue-Purple Smoothie

Put all of the below in the blender until desired consistency is reached:

• Frozen or fresh mixed berries
• Spinach-big bunch
• 1-2 c water
• Pinch of stevia

Sugar Free Free Makes a Difference

I have been pretty sick for almost 6 days now, and we just got the Internet service activated at our new home a few hours ago. This is why I have not been doing daily food/fitness journal posts as I had committed to a couple of weeks ago.

I have only been sugar free free for a few days now, but it has been making a big difference in how I feel about myself. It does not do anything positive for your self-esteem to be a self-proclaimed health nut and yet completely powerless in the face of diet 7-up and crystal light. I just walked around feeling like a big hypocrite all the time.

Having seriously decreased severity of cravings for junky food is one of the miracles I have found of eating a HIGH raw diet.For the past couple of days I have been finding sugar free candy everywhere! In my desk at work, my car, and my purse. I felt tempted for a few minutes at the most, and would simply turn my attention to something else.

I absolutely suck at fighting cravings, I always just give in. I am an easy victim of sensory stimuli. Whereas in the past if I had made a commitment to not eat sugar free stuff, and found some sugar free sweets in my purse, the commitment would have been blown. I would tell myself “I will start my diet tomorow.” Well, eating RAW is not a DIEt-because there is no deprivation/starvation involved. I am eating chocolate everyday for goodness sakes.

My biggest food-related news is I am making my own alfalfa sprouts for the first time. This is so easy. I bought a sprout jar at the local health food store, followed the instructions, and after 1 day those little buggers have tails. I am not much of a sprout fan in all honesty, but I do want to get all the health benefits one derives from sprouts. The alfalfa sprouts should be ready to eat by Saturday.

Sugar Free Free

For the past two weeks I have been working on writing down every little morsel I eat in a little food journal I keep in my purse. Big pat on the back to me for doing this EVERY day.

This journaling has made me unable to continue my habit of mindless, sneaky eating. Specifically, there are some things that I do not think are really food, so I think that I don’t have to acknowledge I ate them. And these things are actually really bad for me: Diet soda and sugar free candy.

The diet soda, gum, and sugar free candy fulfill my need to have something in my mouth. I want a food or beverage companion to take with me every time I leave the house, and everyime I get in the car. And water just does not cut it for me! I used to always have a cup of coffee with me, and getting rid of that habit was a great first step in the right direction. I feel incredibly guilty about pouring chemicals in my body when I work so hard to eat healthy.

This weekend I gave away my sugar free candy, and drank the last diet soda in the fridge. We still have gum in the house, and I will make sure that gets out of the house today. Writing this post has been incredibly freeing and motivating for me. My commitment to this blog is making me feel that every week I am moving forward towards greater health and happiness.