Saturday, December 6, 2008

Christmas!!

I got a Blendtec Total Blender for Christmas!! AHH I'm so excited!! It works like a dream. We've already made 8 things in it and we've only had it for one day. It's so easy to clean that it makes me want to cry with the amt of time I've spent cleaning my other stupid blender. Green Smoothies and raw recipes - here I come!! :D

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Start of a new RAW week!

So my husband has agreed to do all raw dinners this week - Monday through Friday. I'm planning on giving him a green smoothie for dinner and then hopefully find some raw desserts to make for him too. I don't want him falling back on cookies or candy or ice cream or anything not raw for this week. It's an experiment to see how we can help his heart burn at night. It's doing way better with the fruit juice for breakfast but we still aren't up to 100% with it. He says he wants to try to have it under control without meds by October when we go to Disney World. I really, truly believe it will help him a lot, but the real question will be if he will have the will power to do the raw dinners. He's going to have his choice of whatever he wants for lunch at work. If he wants to go out, fine, if he wants to bring stuff from home, fine. It's all up to him.

But breakfasts will be juice (strawberry, pineapple, grapefruit, romaine, tomato, cucumber, orange, pear, plum, watermelon mix). For the green in my green smoothies, I picked up a collection of kale, collard greens, romaine, and a spring mix. Fruits will probably be just bananas, strawberry and honeydew melon. Everything else is a little too much for my cruddy blender and we'll be left with ickie chunks. I'm so excited for this week and I'm going to be STRONG and not give in when he pouts and wants other food. This is just an experiment for one week! We can make it through one week without cooked dinners. I'm also hoping for no wine! No alcohol! No beer! That one is always a mighty big struggle. Wine just makes dinner so much more enjoyable.

But I don't care how much he pouts, how much he begs, whines, makes sad faces. He's eating the danged green smoothies and staying raw after work. It's just one week! We can do it!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Menstural Miracle?

I get horrible menstrual cramps. It's been a problem since I was around 13ish, so definitely a big, huge, long-term problem. In my quest to become more healthy, eat more raw, eat less junk and crud and synthetic stuffs, I have cut out Ibuprofen. Previously, I was taking 3-6 every day, starting right when I got up in the morning and then as needed through out the day. I started this routine at the recommendation of my doctor who was trying to help me control my cramps. She said if I built up drugs in my system, it would help during that time of the month. And she was right, it was helpful. It didn't solve the problem but it helped. I also tried pretty much any other cure anyone said might work and bought all sorts of products and pills. Nothing was great. I also tried a bunch of prescription drugs over the years. One of them prescribed to me was Vioxx (now pulled from the market) and I had a horrible reaction to it. Basically, I've been suffering for years and trying every possible thing under the sun, and still in pain every month.

Except for this month.

What changed? Well, I'm not 100% sure yet. I've been struggling with my amount of raw food intake. I'm down to about 30% at this point and some days I'm not even making that. I'm planning on making a big push starting next week to be near 100% but these last few weeks were just a bit of a struggle. I was expecting raw food to help reduce some of the pain for me, but last month, where I was at a much higher raw %, I am not sure I've never had more pain. I knew giving up the Ibuprofen was going to be difficult but I had no idea it was going to be that bad. So last month raw was definitely not helping me. But it is possible that with another month of more raw foods that it's finally starting to help.

The other thing I changed in the last week or so was to start taking pH pills. I recently finished a book called The pH Miracle for Diabetes. I'm not worried about diabetes, I was just interested in the pH part of the book. It pretty much goes hand and hand with raw foods. The more raw you eat, the better your pH level should be. Your pH should be around 7.3 ish. I tested my pH this past Friday and was at 5.5. I thought mine would be way, way better after several months of so many more fruits and vegetables than I usually eat. The book recommended adding pH drops to your water but I couldn't find them in stores, so I got pH pills to take in the morning and before bed. I want to wait a full week of the pills to test my pH again so I don't know how it's changed, or if it's even changed at all. What I do know is I have no pain and it is so unusual and wonderful.

I'll keep updating about this pH situation as I learn more about it and how my body feels. No woman should have to suffer through what I've been going through for days out of every month for the last 15ish years and if I could find a cure for it, I would love to share it with everyone! :)

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Day 2 of my Green Smoothie Fast

Day 2, completed! I'm kinda getting ready for real food again. Part of the reason I was so interested in doing just green smoothies for a week was because I was fed up trying to make raw recipes that took me forever, seemed to dirty every dish in the house, and didn't really come out tasting all that good to me. But now, I'm ready to try some again, hahaha I miss avocado... and onion... Mmm...

Today I was really successful because my mother wanted to go out and about and go try fun places for lunch. I told her up front what my dietary requirements were and said that I'd be happy to go with her but I'd be drinking my green smoothie. She fussed about it at first but when I didn't back down she gave in. I made my smoothie, put it in a pitcher and packed it into an ice chest. We went out and did stuff, she picked up what she wanted for lunch, and we had a lovely picnic in a forest preserve. Her sandwich did look really good though. Mine was another from Green for Life. It was an orange, a banana, a cup of grapes and romaine (and sprouts, not part of the recipe). It was actually really tasty, but again, due to owning a poor blender, it had scary chunks in it that made it kind of unappealing. At least I chewed my smoothie a lot!

For dinner, I made a smoothie with half of a honeydew melon and a head of romaine (and sprouts, not part of the recipe again). I tasted after blending and it was wayyyy too green for me still. I added a peeled lime.. now it was just bland nothing... some pineapple for sweetness... not much change... I gave in and added raw agave :P It was pretty good then, but chunky from the lime/pineapple additions. It would make a very refreshing drink on a hot day though. My husband (thankfully feeling better today!) made his wonderful, delicious, tasty, yummie homemade fried rice. It's really just amazingly good. I grabbed his bowl a few times and inhaled deeply but didn't taste! Yay for willpower, haha. I really want to complete this whole week raw though so I didn't let it stop me from my green smoothie drinking.

I hope some of this solid food cravings go away for tomorrow though.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Day 1 of my Green Smoothie Fast

I've decided I want to do a full week of nothing but Green Smoothies! Green smoothies have totally clicked with me and I can't get enough of them. So from today through Sunday, I'm only going to have green smoothies. Oh and some juice in the morning. I make some for my husband to drink on his way to work and I always finish his left overs.

I'm extra excited to start this today because I ate soo bad and nearly 100% SAD food over the weekend! We went to a Ribfest and the Taste of Chicago and 2 different 4th of July parties... and ... well... I guess I'm just weak, I don't know. I couldn't even imagine of a way to keep raw through these events. Hopefully by next year I'll be more experienced and ready to deal with these sorts of challenges! But I ate crap and I gained 3 lbs so it's time to get it all out of my system and go 100% raw green smoothies for the week!

My first smoothie I made today is from Victoria Boutenko's book Green for Life. I made a Blueberry Pudding smoothie. Previously, I've always just done banana and mixed greens but this week I am going to try a bunch from her book to branch out in new directions. Her recipe calls for 1 banana, 2 cups of blueberries, 1 stalk of celery and 2 cups of water. It's supposed to make a quart of smoothie but some how I came out with 6 cups, which I think is like a quart and a half. I was excited to try this one because I *hate* celery and so far in the other smoothies I've made, I would never have guessed their were greens in it from the taste, just from the color. So I thought this one would completely hide the celery and let me trick my taste buds into eating it.

Wrong!

I definitely taste a LOT of celery with this smoothie. So much so that I ended up adding some raw agave nectar before I could drink any of it. If I plug my nose and just choke it down, I can drink it though, at least at the beginning. On my last cup or 2 of it, I'm actually noticing the celery less. I hope this means my taste buds are already changing to enjoy more greens!! I've got another celery-based smoothie scheduled for later this week so I am sure hoping I can tolerate that one also. I would love to learn to love celery!

For dinner, my husband wanted to go out and get food from one of my favorite Chinese buffets. It's a cool buffet because they allow you to take out food also. They charge by the pound, and it's actually pretty cheap. I am committed to my green smoothies but this seemed like it was going to be a bigger challenge than I was ready for. I went with him to get the food and everything smelled soooo good. So I allowed myself to look and smell and drool but then not put any of that ick into my body.

Sitting next to him at the dinner table with his delicious smelling food was seriously difficult. Thankfully this is only the first day so I at least had some will power built up. I tried not to drool too much into my smoothie. I made another out of Green for Life. This one was 5 cups watermelon, some romaine and some water. The important part I messed up here was forgetting that I don't really care for watermelon all that much. I'm sure if you like watermelon, it'd be tasty. But it's not my favorite thing. Plus my blender is just one of those cheapo kinds so I still had a bunch of seed bits I had to keep spitting out. Not horrible but definitely not a delicious experience like take-out Chinese buffet.

I feel fine though, full enough, and now that I can't smell the food, I'm not really craving it or anything.

My poor husband though just got SO SICK. Lots and lots of throwing up.. and if I hadn't been adamant about eating raw today, I'm sure I would be in the same position! I guess that's probably the last time we go to that buffet. I suppose now isn't the best time to lecture him on the virtues of raw food, lol

My first day at 100% raw! I can't wait to see how tomorrow goes

New raw food only blog!

Okay I'm moving my raw/living food blog stuffs here. I just like the title :D Anything from before this point can be found at deannakyre.blogspot.com.