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.