Day 13: Fed up!

This is starting to drag me down a little, I won't lie! I actually got really down about it all on Thursday night, and yesterday wasn't much fun either. Today was a little better, as we made the awesome oatmeal breakfast from last weekend, and then I had food out with The Bear and The Bean, getting a Boost ice crush thingie and eating the soy beans at the sushi train place they we went to for lunch.

I cannot wait til it's Day 16 and I'm on the second line of my weight tracker spreadsheet and it's finally the home straight! I think that some of the recipes have been getting a bit OTT with greens (and enthusiasm, eg "tastes just like chocolate milk!!", pfft), and Mum and I have both reached a point where we have decided that we just don't want to eat food we don't really like. So our response? Replace dumb-looking recipes with previous winners and crap-looking smoothies with our own concoctions. Because, honestly, what's the point of it all if it isn't even remotely sustainable?

I'm feeling too down about things to write about my plans for the future post-Challenge, but suffice to say that I have not broken it, and nor do I plan to.

Peace out.

Current weight: 77.8kg (-4.3kg)
Current body-fat percentage: 37.7% (-0.7%)
Current feeling: Blah

Again with the rumbly tummy?

And this time, I feel slightly nauseous, and really can't face even the thought of eating anything. The only thing I can imagine being viable is dry Vegemite toast, which is neither raw nor vegan. But since all I've had today is about 400mL of juice and a salad at around midday, I might need to have some if the situation doesn't improve. I had a cup of (again, medicinal) green tea about an hour ago, which has helped a little, but not much.

Again, I think it might be fat that's the problem. I had an early lunch because I was so hungry, so it was about seven hours before I got to dinner. I did take that apple I mentioned before to work with me, but I didn't eat it because I've become so much more used to ignoring hunger. (I think this is because I am not as satisfied by the meals I eat, and so the desire to satisfy my hunger is diminished.) So tonight when I was making the salad dressing, I licked clean the spoon that had just been measuring the almond butter. That was, I guess, maybe a teaspoon's worth? And soon, I started feeling a little ill. When I sat down to eat the dinner, one mouthful and I was done. Could this be the same problem as before?

I shall have to monitor this situation. It is quite possible that I will need to modify my eating in terms of schedule and menu to ensure that I only eat fats when I have eaten relatively recently.

Current feeling: Somewhat nauseous, and hoping I don't have the break the Challenge

Day 11: Bored

Yuck, juice again today. It wasn't so bad as the last couple, but that was mainly because I upped the apple and lowered the greens... And so not filling! Our juicer gets rid of most of the fibre, skins etc, so I really much prefer the smoothies. I ended up making my lunch at about 11:30 this morning, because I was ravenous. I think I might need to take an apple with me to work this afternoon to stave off the hungers.

I really need some more good meals, because I'm getting a little fed up with the food. They're all "you'll realise how tasty fruit and vegetables are naturally, without all the commercial salad dressings you think you need", but honestly, some things really do need something else to spice them up a bit! I was all gung-ho about how quickly it felt it was going and everything, but just being a third of the way through suddenly isn't enough. The different foods were a novelty at first (even when they tasted awful), but now they're starting to drag me down a bit. I still haven't succumbed to temptation (and it's still fairly easy to do when confronted with it), but I am focusing more and more on the things I like, and less on the things I don't. This is fine, of course, you have to make it work for you, but I feel that although I'm still living within the letter of the law (a medicinal cup of green tea notwithstanding), there are times when I am going against its spirit. This is probably partly why my weight loss has slowed. So I need to find a way to get back into this thing in a positive way, quicksmart!

Current weight: 78.5kg (-3.6kg — up half a kilo from yesterday, unfortunately)
Current body-fat percentage: 36.7% (-1.7% — this is getting more like it! My body fat loss is beginning to near my overall loss, which is a good sign.)
Current feeling: bored of the food now

Day 9: 9lbs in 9 days!

Well, without focusing too much on the wait loss "release", I'm doing pretty well, hey? This is clearly suiting me on at least one level!

Dinner didn't suit me too well, though. As I was finishing my salad, I began to feel a little bit queasy and stomach-rumbly. I decided to have a cup of green tea (not strictly allowed, but this was medicinal), and that seemed to settle things down nicely. Which makes me think: perhaps I had too much fat today? I had an avocado at lunch, some olives before dinner and another half an avo or so at dinner. While that would have been nothing in the normal course of things prior to this, I think maybe that it was just too much for me in this "condition".

Another problem today was that the energy I was feeling on Sunday night (and the experience I had on Monday morning of waking up before my alarm) has not been repeated, and in fact this afternoon I was quite sleepy at times. It's getting late now, and I still haven't had a shower, so I'm not going to keep writing for too much longer...

Finally, though, to end on a good note: every meal today was delicious! A pear, apple, banana, celery and spinach smoothie for breakfast, a cabbage, avocado and lime juice salad for lunch and a super-salad of cos lettuce, capsicum, onion, cucumber, grated carrot, grated zucchini, avocado and lime juice were all fantastic. Honestly, I would be perfectly happy with a smoothie for breakfast and some kind of salad for lunch and dinner, I reckon.

Current weight: 78.0kg (-4.1kg)
Current body-fat percentage: 38.0% (-0.4%)
Current feeling: Okay — strong on convictions and positivity, slightly low on energy and stomachular well-being

Day 8: It's happened - I caved!

Well, only sort of. Today was meant to be a green smoothie-only mini-detox day, and for lunch I finished my oatmeal from yesterday instead of making another smoothie. :( I just couldn't face washing and chopping and blending just then, and so I went for the meal that was already prepared. It's that kind of lazy thinking and attitude that led me to the takeaways instead of the home-made meals, and this is not a good thing. What is a good thing, though, is that I still stayed within the raw vegan and BES guidelines, even if it wasn't today's...

Weight loss is still going well, and I'm starting to see the difference in my body. This is so exciting, and I really want to be able to keep it up! I don't think that this pace of weight loss will continue after the 30 days are up, but that's okay; slow and steady wins the race. This has just given me a much-needed boost in the right direction.

Also, for the first time in a while, this morning I woke up well before my alarm. I think I'm finally starting to get more rest out of my sleeping hours, which is great.

Current weight: 78.3kg (-3.8kg)
Current body-fat percentage: 38.3% (-0.1% — I've added another element to my weight tracker table; I have been working out how many kgs of body-fat I've been losing, and I've lost 1.54kg so far)
Current feeling: a bit sheepish, but otherwise well

Day 7: How socialising affects the Raw Food Challenge

Since I last wrote here, I have been to McDonald's, been in the Terrigal sweet shop, watched the Wilons eat fish and chips, been to a bbq with fantastic home-made burgers and loads of chips and dips (and an outstanding chocolate cake and a pavlova for dessert), observed a quality RSL dinner and lunch at a great beachside cafe. And not once did I reach for a single chip, a nibble of steak, a taste of pav or a bite of a crouton. It's been absolutely amazing how easy it has been to resist temptation on this diet. I know it's still early days (although I am a quarter of the way through already), but it has truly been easy to resist the kinds of things that I love. This is partly to do with the fact that I know myself, and recognise that if I just have a "nibble" of that chip, it will be the whole bowl before I know it. It's so much easier just to say no and kind of "erase" these things from my field of vision than to try and rationalise these things away. That's quite an empowering feeling, actually.

I need to be careful of that feeling, though, because an unintended consequence of socialising on this diet is that I don't always get the time I need to finish each meal (drinking 800mL of a solid fruit/vegie smoothie can take me up to 2-3 hours overall), and so I don't get through enough calories. I have even skipped meals because it's been easier than setting the whole thing in process. In addition, I haven't drunk nearly as much water as usual. This has meant that tonight, after three days of eating 1-2 low calorie density meals a day, I sometimes get headspins or coloured spots when getting up from a reclining or seated position and when I went for an evening stroll my legs were feeling quite leaden. So while I hardly feel that I am a strong candidate for an eating disorder, I also know that I need to listen carefully to my self-talk and the messages I am giving myself about my calorie intake. I also need to get back into eating three meals a day so that I am getting the broad range of nutrients my body needs. If I plan on going to the Wilsons' for a long weekend, I will need to ensure that my day will allow me to eat slowly and over a long period of time so that I am getting all the calories and nutrients I should be.

Tomorrow will provide me with weight and body-fat measures since Friday, so we'll see what's been going on there. My pants are definitely slightly looser, though.

Current feeling: Strong mentally, slightly weak physically