Raw Vegan Diet - Too many snacks

Today I've been fasting all day, my last meal was yesterday at around 8:30pm or so – a huge bowl of banana ice cream with dates and powdered peanut butter. I find myself always indulging in sweet fruits and nuts and I firmly believe that this is what jeopardies my weight maintenance, together with a lack of a strict eating plan.

Good news though is that in the past 3 days I've been going to the gym every day, actually twice a day. Since I worked from home, I had the chance to wake up a bit later and go to the gym in my building for half hour of thread mill and weight machines, nothing crazy but I'm trying to be disciplined with my exercise routine, I even went once to GoodLife gym for my favourite class and 10 minutes of steam room – it was great I'd admit it.

Overall I feel great, the scale went up almost every day since I completed my 7-Day Water Fast. Something might be a normal reaction of ending the fast, something else is due to the extra snacks I'm having here and there for sure. In my defense I would say that being home bored all day doesn't actually help on staying strict on diet. Even if I'm working I should find an activity that keeps me busy in the moment my cravings are hard to control, I should do proactive things like cleaning or knitting, that might help.

I was debating of having a fruit salad today for lunch, but I'm glad I didn't so I can save those calories for tonight's supper and dessert. I'm thinking to do a similar thing tomorrow, since I'm supposed to have a dinner date in the evening. Yesterday for breakfast I prepared some wraps using the one I bought at the healthy store last week, I think I ate 6 of them including a seaweed one, it was too much for breakfast; although delicious the amount of calories for each one was excessive for a single meal.

Few days ago I soaked some cashews thinking on doing a creamy sauce for my salads but I still didn't use it, I'm afraid they will go bad if I don't do anything with it. There are a lot recipes with cashews, I can even do some energy bars with dates and a pinch of pink salt; but really I don't need any extra snacks that I don't have already in my overly full cabinet! Most likely I'll do a sauce and use it for dinner tonight.

Water Fast - Refeeding Day #1

My 7-Day Water Fast is completed and today's my first Refeeding Day, so far I had 250gr of watermelon for breakfast and going to have same amount for lunch. I didn't register any weight loss this morning but my ketosis was still in large traces at 80mg/dL, so – to quote Dr. Simeons - if I'm not losing pounds I'm losing inches.

What I believe could be the reason of not seeing changes on the scale, is the fact that I basically didn't sleep last night; I added few sips of green tea in the afternoon that might affected my sleep, I know it sounds crazy but I cannot think of any other reason why I could not sleep at all; yes I always have hard time sleeping during fasting or strict dieting, but not completely for the entire night! But again, mine are just assumptions; let's see tonight how it goes.

After ate and digestion started I felt very weak and with no strengths, I know the feeling because it was even more evident after my 23-Day Water Fast. It still surprises me to see how much energy the digestion process takes from my body, and I would assume from my brain too.

Yesterday I ended up buying some Raw Organic Almonds and some Raw Cashews, my cabinet is completely full, I don't even know why I keep on buying things! I'm getting crazy with the idea of preparing so many recipes that somehow buying the ingredients is a bit like executing the recipe itself. But I have to be conscious on preparing too much food or doing all these gourmet recipes, especially because 99% of them are with nuts and seeds, which hare rich in fat and I know for fact that fat makes me fat pretty quickly.

One thing I want to do this afternoon after work is going to buy a food processor; since today's Black Friday today there are few deals out there and I found a refurbished good food processor for $60, which is good for the brand and size of the processor. The reason why I want to have it, after buying the Vitamix is mostly for chopping and shredding vegetables. I would like to cut my vegetables in smaller pieces, I found that the thick and creamy dressing sauce that I prepare get better into the vegetables while mixing all the ingredients.

Yesterday I took out from the freezer the container with I believe was cut papaya, it was hard to see frozen from outside, but I'm pretty sure it was papaya or I'll have a surprise tomorrow for breakfast. I also took from the freezer one container with a green sauce, which I'm not sure what it is and the 2 Chinese zucchini that I bought a couple weeks ago. I left all this food in the fridge to thaw, adding this morning my lemon container with few slices of lemon, to use in the morning in my water, not yet though, I will start in a couple of days to have citrus, to avoid upsetting my stomach.

Raw Vegan Diet - What's in my pantry?

Yesterday I bought for the first time Raw Vegan wraps, I checked online where to find them and I found out that my local health store had them so I went there and I bought 3 different types: one dry Raw Vegan wraps made with Spirulina and vegetables, two different types from the live organic brand – a new healthy restaurant that sells also products in various stores in the city – the wraps are one type with spinach and other ingredients and the second one with sundried tomatoes, contrary to the Spirulina ones, these wraps need to be stored in the fridge. I think they are handy to prepare a good snack to bring with me; I can use it with some dressing sauce like guacamole or tahini and mixed vegetables. I noticed that there was also one with coconut, maybe I could do a sort of crepes with that – but I didn't buy it yet, just wondering how they taste first and if I really like it then I'll experiment new flavours.

Before starting my Water Fast I frozen a lot of food, even sliced lemons, so I would not waste anything – well apart of half cucumber that I really could not save. I have already planned a defrosting time for all this food I frozen, well not for all really, I might need to go slowly in the process and maybe use some of the stuff for smoothies; in the past weeks I never prepared smoothies, not that I don't like them – quite the contrary – it's just my crazy idea that I feel I eat more food if drinking and not chewing. I also saw a YouTube video that was negatively commenting on drinking rather than chewing food, since the digestion can start in the mouth when we chew food, if we drink this doesn't really happen so we lose this important step for our digestive system, giving it extra work basically. Not sure if this theory is really true but somehow makes sense, maybe I could start with eating a small amount of solid food and then proceed with the smoothie. Too complicated though…

I'm thinking on buying a food processor, to make those dates dough that I've seen in many recipes, still dreaming about food and desserts! This coming Friday is Black Friday so I'm hoping to find good deals and buy a new food processor with a good price. I don't want to spend too much money but also I don't want to buy anything that will result on being useless. Talking about kitchen accessories I'm also thinking on buying a smaller wet container for my Vitamix, either the 32 or 48 ounces, not sure yet. Actually I've seen it the Vitamix Dry Container as well, but if I buy the food processor I think it will suffice for whatever dry food I need to process. The smaller Vitamix could be useful, I usually do small batches of food, since I'm cooking just for myself. Sometime I do bigger portions but for ice cream for instance, I really don't need any extra amount. At the moment I'll hold on all these purchases though, I'm spending too much money in food!

I'm also fully stocked on dry food; every time I see those Organic Pitted Dates at Winners I buy a little bag. I also have dry organic figs, organic raw almonds, organic raw cashews, organic cacao powder, shredded coconut, organic sundried tomatoes, and I even found the organic dry mulberries – I bought two bags since I don't find them often. I bought few days ago in Chinatown a couple of little bags of goji berries to mix in my salads or in any smoothies, I thought they will be with a lower fat content than any nut I can buy or eat and they're sweet. Yesterday I bought a bag of Raw Organic Kale green chips, made with kale and a mix of vegetables and spices; they're very low in calories and great for a quick snack. I got tempted and bought a bag of my favourite Raw Organic Chocolate macaroons, made with all Organic ingredients and coconut, the only thing I don't like tis the agave in it, but if I'm disciplined once in a while is not a big deal. I still have some white sesame seeds that I can use to make tahini, but I also want to buy just a small quantity of black sesame seeds, to use on top of my dishes, or to make black tahini who knows. Other seeds that I'm storing in the fridge are: chia seeds, hemp seeds, grounded chia seeds and Organic Flax seeds; I also have Raw Organic Almond flour, Coconut flour, Vegan Chocolate Protein powder and Spirulina powder. You would think that I should not shop for weeks now, but I'm always looking around and thinking of something that I miss and I need to buy it!

Raw Vegan Diet - Loving the big portions

So this morning I woke up wondering if all the food I'm having in these past few days affected my weight, well I was extremely happy to report that my weight didn't change a bit, I almost cried. I'm following this raw food diet and I eat a lot, and when I say a lot for me means that the binge eater that is in me, is super happy on how things are going here. I feel really happy in the morning having my huge bowl of fruits; it leaves me happy till lunch time without any issue. Then for lunch, again I have a super-giant salad with anything I want in it – same thing for my dinner. I cannot be happier than that and it's amazing to see how raw food finds its way through the digestive system so easily and quick. I have 3 times a day bowel movements, I cannot ask for more than that really.

This morning my breakfast was a big bowl of fruits with a cup of strawberries, 3 cups of papaya, 1 apple, 1 mango, 3 dates and a tbsp of shredded coconut to give some colour. It took me more than half hour to eat it all! For lunch I prepared something even bigger than my breakfast, already excited thinking about it. Yes, because yesterday I used my new spiralizer to cut my veggies and also my apple, it works wonderfully and it's so easy to use and clean really, actually it saves me some time in the cutting vegetables process. So my salad will be: tons of zucchini noodles and cucumber noodles with some diced tomatoes, spinach and lettuce. For the sauce I created my own pesto version with basil, shelled hemp seeds, lemon, a tsp of coconut oil and a clove of garlic – all raw. I can't wait to taste my new recipe, but not now though I'm so full of my fruit salad that I can't even move…and I'm already in the office!

Yesterday evening I went with a friend to one of those vegan restaurants, he knows I'm always dealing with food concerns so that was not a big deal for him, in any case it turns out really well for him too, he enjoyed the meal. Initially I thought that I could not trust a restaurant 100% when it comes to eating fully raw, but I wanted to give it a try since this vegan restaurant is very well-known in the city anyway. Everything was good, I had a big salad with everything in eat and some peanuts on top with a raw tahini sauce with it; it was really delicious especially the peanuts of course, it gave the salad an amazing flavour. For this reason I'm thinking to buy some raw cashews this weekend, pass them into my food processor and keep it as salad topping or for here and there maybe for other meals too. I thought I would see my weight creeping up this morning for the huge salad and the peanuts but life is good and my body appreciated the meal as I did.

Another thing that I want to try is the reduced fat raw peanut butter; I got this idea from a video I watched yesterday on YouTube. So basically I have my peanuts powder with no sugar added or anything is just 100% peanuts, not organic though, I cannot find this type of product organic yet. Anyhow, with the powder the fat content is reduced up to 90% so that's a good news for me that I'm trying to eat low fat at the moment, so to eat it I will just add water to the powder until I reach the consistency that I like and it will become like regular peanut butter but without the fats. It is clever in my opinion for who wants to indulge in this type of sweet without the guilt; obviously everything should be eaten in moderation, that's me that I just had a huge fruit bowl saying it, no kidding!