Year older again

My birthday has passed as business as usual, went to work, came home, spent time with Maya and had tasty dinner. I made a quick and easy dinner - tuna steak with spinach salad and rice noodles. I made delicious dressing for the salad (which I also used to marinate the tuna with) from one the raw food cook books: sesame oil, garlic, ginger, liquid amino's and agave syrup.

Oh, and I did indulge today, it's my birthday after all:

Oscar has come!

My new juicer has arrived - Oscar 900! What a difference, I get about the double amount of juice from the amount of veggies I used on my old juicer. And the taste is so much better. Today I had carrot, apple, celery and ginger juice - delicious!

Birthday weekend

That’s what we call crisis! The weekend has been fun, but so much naughty food. It was our birthday party this Saturday (me and my husband have 1 day between our birthdays), which meant drinking alcohol. Saturday was a bit stressful anyway, went shopping and ended up in Nando’s where I had vegetarian burger with chips. We had dinner at the pub, smoked haddock risotto again, which was lovely. And lot’s of wine! I was quite tipsy by the end of the night, and fell asleep around midnight, if I remember right. And had a baaaad hangover day after, which called for egg and bacon sandwich and Sunday roast later that day. I even had crisps with dip. So very unhealthy weekend, but I’m now back in track, had fruit salad for breakfast and thinking of Googling some lunch ideas… After that much naughty food I might have to do another bowel flush, this is last week of bowel cleansing program, next week I’ll start with liver flush.

I wished for a new juicer for my birthday, Oscar 900, apparently the best single gear juicer out there at the moment. Hasn’t been delivered yet, cannot wait to try it and see the difference to my current centrifugal juicer. I also bought a good juicing book, The Juice Master, and few raw food cook books, as I need inspiration for some tasty raw food.

Week Two Crisis!

I have Week Two Crisis! I read somewhere that when changing your lifestyle or when on any diet for that matter, the second week is the toughest, and that’s when many give up. Yesterday some friends came for a visit and we went to the pub. I managed to squeeze in some veggie juice before we left, and had fish risotto for dinner (I kept eye-balling the fast-disappearing huge steak on my husbands plate – who, by the way, was rebelling against all the rabbit food he has been forced to eat and got the biggest steak in the house – but resisted to have a bite). I didn't have any afters either, but I rarely do so no biggie. But once back at home for coffee and a nap cap, I just couldn't resist the lovely Baileys! It was delicious.

As we didn’t have time to prepare the fruit salad last night, eating whole fruit for breakfast just did not appeal at all, and had no time to peel and cut. So I had one slice of toast. With cheese. It tasted gooood! And it kept me full for ages (before I’d have to have at least 2 slices with lot’s of fillings). But I promise I’ll be back in track tomorrow, bought some more fruit to add to the salad.

For lunch I had raw salad with baked salmon and couscous, but as I’d had it for 2 days in a row, I just couldn’t eat it. So I had afternoon snack of celery and packet of crisps (bad girl!). And no idea what to eat tonight. So as you can see I’m slipping, slipping baaad. Well, not that bad, I haven’t had bread, meat and cheese orgy yet, so I guess a bit of setback is not end of the world.

Week two

The weekend went ok, not bad not good. On Saturday I had porridge and toast for breakfast, salmon for lunch and quorn fajitas for dinner. On Sunday I had huge exotic fruit smoothie first thing in the morning (and managed to break my blender in the process), and smoked salmon with egg and piece of bread (oh dear, I had bread!). Lunch consisted of huge salad, and dinner of potato wedges, salad and veggie sausages. And no alcohol! (That’s a biggie for me, habit has it that weekend starts with half a bottle of wine on Friday evening…)

So, the flush… I started on Thursday, but nothing happened, Friday rolled by business as usual, and so came Saturday. I got hold of the consultant, and he said that there might’ve been an issue with the patch, and told me to take 2 bowel conditioner tablets. I took these after 8 pm, and around 11 pm my belly started to rumble. I managed to fall asleep, but at 2 am Maya woke up screaming (nightmare?) and I had to rush to toilet, where I stayed for around 20 minutes, emptying my stomach. Finally I got back to bed thinking that there couldn’t possibly be anything left, but had to go back to toilet at 3 am. Then Maya wouldn’t sleep, and I stayed up with her until 4 am, hoping for sleep-in in the morning. She woke up at 8 am (that’s the most sleep-in we’ll ever get), I went to toilet again, followed by another 5 times during Sunday. It was a weird feeling, like my stomach really was empty. That night I weighed myself and had lost nearly 3 kilos. I started then with fibre solution, quite horrible, but getting used to now, 3 times a day. The fibre expands and helps the bowel to move, getting rid of any remaining waste. And I also started with bowel tonic, most vial thing ever! Have to take this twice a day, am and pm, but every time I drink it (mixed with water or juice), I start gagging and want to vomit. Not sure how I can do this for remaining 2 weeks, it’s disgusting. But apparently very powerful cleanser of whole system, including the blood.

Otherwise I feel quite ok, except that I’ve has this flu lurking around, not quite biting, but making me cough, sore throat and so on. Maybe it’s the veggie juice I drink every evening that won’t let it break me down. That reminds me, I need a new juicer, the one we have is not up to the hard core juicing I’m demanding from it, and it leaves wet pulp for me, which I usually put back into juicer to get more juice out. Must find some flavours that are more palatable, but I was told that no fruit and sweet veggies in the evening… =( That leaves celery, cucumber, spinach and other green leafy veggies and few other. Very nutritious, but not best tasting juices.

First day of week two has gone well, fruit salad and raw salad with butter beans so far, and I managed to get some raw fruit and nut bars with cocoa from Planet Organic. Considering there is no sugar in these, they are very delicious. And all RAW!

Week one of my journey towards raw food

I have been struggling with healthy eating since I was a kid. I’ve grown up on diet high in pork, bread and potatoes. During my adult years I’ve learned to cook delicious food, but it’s also been high in saturated fats and other unhealthy ingredients. My favourite foods are meat and cheese! As you can see, I’ve set myself an almighty challenge, which I know I cannot tackle on my own.

Last week I met a Natural Health Consultant. I was recommended to him by my colleague who has done his life changing program of various organ flushes. I felt that this was something I needed to help me to change my lifestyle to a healthy one. We did a Bio Scan, and it was quite interesting. It turned out that my digestive system was quite healthy despite all the “dead” food I’ve been eating all my life. Apparently this is typical for North Europeans, they have sturdy digestive systems. Lucky me! But my liver wasn’t too good, apparently it’s clogged up and cannot break down fats as it should. This explains why I can’t loose weight. I also had “tired” brain, as due to low blood pressure my brain doesn’t get enough oxygen; this explains the headaches and tiredness. And also very high levels of cortisone and low levels of ACTH (one relates to another), which explains the round belly and itchy skin. So very interesting!

So how am I going to tackle these health problems? The best way is to become a raw foodist, but considering I have meat eater for husband and 17 months old toddler who is used to cooked food, I have to find a middle way, which is 70-80 % of my food intake should be raw.

Started this Monday, and so far I have managed fairly well. I’ve had fruit salad for breakfast, raw salad for lunch and fish and veggies for dinner. Have had bad headaches, but this might be meat withdrawal syndrome… And I’m dreading the weekend, my weakest time for healthy food!

Today I’ve received Part 1 of my cleansing program – Bowel Flush. To be able to be healthy you need to have clean bowel. I’m going to start tonight, as I’m off from work rest of the week, and this is a must considering the “side effects” of the flush. I’m a bit excited and scared at the same time.

I’ll update after the “flush”.