Raw Vegan Diet - I bought a Vitamix!

Since I started this Raw Vegan Diet I also started to watch a lot of YouTube videos about Raw Vegan recipes, I'm mostly learning tips and new ingredients used in Raw Vegan diets. One item that I was missing in my kitchen was the Vitamix, an expensive tool that everyone seems loving and worth all the money. But really the idea of spending $600 was not exciting me, so I found one on kijiji, I went yesterday after work to pick it up; it is almost new and I got it for $350, I don't think I can find it for less than that, but in any case now I have an almost new Vitamix that I can start to use to do tons of new recipes.

Yesterday at the end I was able to stick to my plan and avoid eating 8 bananas with tons of peanut butter powder and dates. I just had a giant salad with my superb tahini sauce! I still felt that I was eating a lot at the end of my dinner, but I kept on going into my huge salad bowl, I think I was still somehow binging on my salad, deliciousness though. Thankful this morning I saw a small decrease on my weight, only 400gr but for me a loss is a loss, and if I could count on 400gr every day I'll be happy with that.

Today I should have a smaller dinner though, not sure if I'll be eating out yet, I was supposed to see a friend after work but we didn't keep in touch in the past few days so I might ended up being home with my cucumber noodles, which I like a lot as option anyway. I know I eat too much in my meals but this is what helps me to crave sweets and food in general, some days it's harder I have to admit it, but it would be much harder if I wasn't eating enough or feeling constantly on diet.

I planned to do another short Water Fast on December 5 and I'm still of the idea on doing it, I have some weight that I want to lose, I fell I didn't complete my cleansing and detoxing process and my mental clarity will be definitely thank me after the Water Fast. I'm debating about the number of days, but roughly I would like to be in ketosis for at least 5/6 days, so at the end my 10-day estimation should not be too off from reality, I'm also counting like 3/4 days for a good refeeding process, so in total will last almost 2 weeks, just before Christmas time.

A day for my Raw Vegan Diet

I didn't fast during this past weekend, mostly because my weight really didn't change much, well apart from today that I registered a 1.2Kg in gain! But I know why, that's due to the fact that I had my dinner at 10:30pm last night, eating 4 bananas, insane I know but I'm definitely weak when dealing with banana and peanut butter! But I promised myself to stick to my healthy habits today, lots of greens and water. Nothing sweet for dinner tonight, only vegetables, since I already had my portion of fruits in my breakfast and lunch, I should be ok to stick to the plan….hopefully.

Yesterday I prepared for the first time Raw Vegan Tahini, with a very simple recipe, well I improvised really. I don't have yet a Vitamix so I used my grinder to chop a bit the sesame seeds, then I passed them into the blender, but it was really not working very well without liquids, the blades were running without doing much, so I added enough water to let them spin a bit and work on the consistency of the Tahini, I also added few organic sundried tomatoes, parsley, a couple of celery leafs and a half tsp of nutritional yeast, but don't ask why because I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish, I never used before this nutritional yeast blend. In any case the Tahini came out better than my expectations, it was a lot and I was really pleased of the outcome; I used in my zucchini noodles for dinner adding some greens and diced tomatoes, I was in heaven!

My personal opinion of the vegetable noodles that I made with the spiralizer is that zucchini are the perfect choice for it, cucumbers not so much, they lose lots of water and really cucumbers are so much better when diced, well or at least I prefer them in small cubes rather than a spaghetti shape. From now on I don't think I will use the spiralizer for cucumbers, but I will look around looking for different vegetables maybe, something that can go nicely with the cucumbers, in case I want to mix them. 

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!

One Week after my Water Fast

It's been one week now since I completed my Water Fast and my refeeding process is done too, successfully I would say. I did not experience any issue with my stomach, my BMs are optimal and regular; my weight is being ok so far. Yesterday I noticed that I basically release with my BMs what I ate 3/4 days ago. So some of the weight I gained is due to some water retention and food in my digestive system / colon, which is a normal and expected behaviour.

So far my Raw Vegan Diet is going extremely well, I feel blessed every time I have my huge salad with everything in it, from greens to tons of delicious fruits, I absolutely love it. Today I am supposed to receive my spiralizer so I can start to create more variations for my salads, adding zucchini and cucumbers in a more fun way, enjoying more vegetables to maintain under control my weight as well.

During my lunch break today I went to Winners to buy some Buckwheat but I could not find it, I bought instead Organic Shelled Hemp Seeds; I never had Hemp Seeds in my life I think, and I read online that they are really healthy and with an amazing nutty flavour, so I'm really looking forward on creating my own pesto recipe without using pinenuts, not that I don't like pinenuts or anything – quite the opposite – but I want to try to keep my fat content as low as I can, till my weight is stabilized. I also bought a little bag of Organic Raw Dark Chocolate Nibs and some pitted organic dates (which I already indulged in at lunch having four of them as my dessert).

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of Raw Vegan Vloggers and read few articles about this type of Diet, what I need to do is to create a good 80/10/10 ratio of what I eat, trying to avoid fruits for dinner and having a big salad with anything I want in it, which I'm totally fine and happy to do it anyway. I noticed that most of the people tend to eat mostly fruits in a Raw Vegan Diet, but they also do a lot of exercises or workout activities to consume and earn their own carbs-fruits amount. Sometimes, watching those videos, I really think: WTH!! Is there anyone on YouTube and in the Raw Vegan community that actually has a 9-to-5 job?! Every video that I watch is from a girl that seems having nothing to do during the day that going to the gym or checking Facebook and emails on her computer; nobody that has a regular commute or wake up at 5:00 AM to get ready and go to work? Or unable to come back for lunch and cook for half hour?! WTH!!?! Sorry for my vent but I don't think I am the odd one here, most of the people in the world have a regular daily job, without having always time to spend two hours in the gym and cooking!

Incorporating Water Fasting as part of my life

As a result of my Water Fast experience I lost lots of weight, which it was one of the main reasons why I wanted to do this fast – as well as getting rid of my Candida Albicans, my Binge Eating Disorder and understanding my underlying issues with food. All things that I believe I achieved so far; I do think sometimes that I will ended up binging again one day, but better staying positive for now and thinking that the path to a healthy lifestyle and better relationship with food is a long way with highs and lows but that I should never lose track on what I'm gaining staying straight.

In any case I'm absolutely loving my new weight, I feel a completely different person, I feel younger, detoxed and with a different type of desire when thinking about food. I can say no, I'm full to myself and I have no issues on waiting a bit when meal time is coming; I try to concentrate and understand what my body is telling me, if I'm hungry, I'm bored or simply craving anything - but so far I did not have any craving, apart from healthy salads and fruits, which it feels very different compared the type of craving I used to have before for sugar.

Since I don't want to lose this Nirvana status between my weights, my new whole wardrobe, the way I relate to food, I decided to incorporate in my life Water Fasting from now on. I already planned my next Water Fast, it will be only a 10-Days Water Fast and I'm planning on starting on December 5^th till the 15^th or so, as usual it would be also driven on how my body is feeling so far for that days.

The reason why I planned this 10-Days Water Fast is because I believe my healing and cleansing process didn't get completed with my 23-Days Water Fast, I still have so much to give to my body, give it time to heal and rest. Doing a Water Fast that does not reach Ketogenic status is not much worth the stress really, at least not from a cleansing perspective, that's why a minimum of 10-Days Water Fast will be the best solution for me going forward. I'm thinking on having an n-Days Water Fast here and there during the year coming up, for the prolonged Fast I don't think I will do it more than 2/3 times a year, but let's see how it goes.

Apart from this 10-Days Water Fast I think I will use a sort of IF – Intermitting Fasting strategy as well, but not exactly as IF is supposed to work. I found that IF doesn't really work for me, I like having breakfast or something during my mornings so I don't think I can keep on avoiding this thing for too long without feeling frustrated about it. So I decided to do a 2-Days Water Fast during the weekend, not all weekends but I might start this one if my weight is getting unmanageable, for me maintenance is a delicate period that have to last at least a month so I need to prepare a backup plan in case my weight goes up too much, too soon. So I planned on starting the Water Fast on Friday evening, I will try to have an early dinner, light with no fruits so I can try to get into ketosis if I can, and continue with the Water Fasting till basically Monday morning, when I will have again a regular breakfast – without eating too much to avoid upsetting my stomach after the short Fast. I hope I can find the strengths to do it, but in general doing my prolonged Water Fast didn't bother me at all, I actually enjoyed the whole experience, but it's also true that I just completed one and going back on only drinking water can be annoying, let's see I might have a busy day on Saturday so I will not mind staying just on water for a couple of days.

Water Fasting - Refeeding Process updates after 5 days

I'm still in a refeeding-mode I guess but I stopped counting days, I check my weight every morning, not my ketosis though, with all the fruits I'm having it doesn't make any sense. Today I was like 300gr more than yesterday; I had no bm since a couple of days so it really was expected anyway.

I feel ok with whatever I eat so far, I just cannot have much, my stomach is still in the small amount size type of meal, which is ok I guess, I definitely don't need to overeat. This morning I prepared again a smoothie, this time with half scoop of vegan proteins, similar to yesterday I feel the odd taste of the proteins in my mouth now, not a pleasant feeling, I will avoid the proteins altogether tomorrow. I added various fruits today, like strawberries, mangoes, papaya and 2 dates to give sweetness – all with some baby spinach. It was a delicious smoothie, my mistake was that I didn't want to bring it at work so I had 2 big glasses one after the other in just few minutes - since I was a bit late for work. Well my stomach didn't like it really, it started to hurt me a bit, not much but I definitely felt the pain. Lesson learned I guess.

Yesterday before going home I stopped to do some grocery shopping and buy some fruits and vegetables for dinner and today's meal for the office, I found one papaya that was so ripe and soft, it was absolutely delicious, I used for my salad a bit and today's breakfast as well. I also bought a mango, it was already peeled in a box with some blueberries and a piece of papaya; the mango was kind of hard and difficult to cut but it was delicious, I don't recall I ever had such a good mango. My personal preference goes to those mangoes with darker skin, I'm not a mangoes expert at all but I tried both and this hard one with darker skin, it might be cheaper in price for some reason, but I found it way better than the most expensive one.

After my Water Fast it's coming so natural for me enjoying these true flavours of the nature, I'm not missing at all the junk food I used to eat, I'm missing neither the coffee nor any other drink in general. In the morning, while I do my makeup I just sip on my bottle of water. I'm thinking on buying one of those big plastic glasses used for smoothies or mixed energy drinks, but I really want to remove from my morning routines having this smoothie, it's really not necessary if I can have a normal breakfast once in the office, with some fresh fruits. Maybe if I can start a good workout routine I will add something else to my diet, but for now it's just adding up calories for nothing.

Today for my mid-morning break I had, for the first time after so long, a detox tea  –  caffeine free but I hope it will help me with my detox process somehow; yesterday I noticed that drinking just hot water gives me tummy-pain and I don't want to do anything to my body that could generated uncomforted state in any way. I don't like the tea of course, so I might have next time in a month from now, my sweet tooth is not meant to enjoy these types of tea unfortunately.

Today for lunch I prepared a mixed salad, I literally thrown in the container whatever I had in the fridge: mixed greens, blueberries, papaya, watermelon, mango and cherry tomatoes, no dressing and no spices, just fresh fruits & vegetables. I wish I add spinach and some cucumbers but I will get them this afternoon with my grocery delivery, I will to reduce the fruits as much as I can going forward, it doesn't help with the weight management for sure. Too bad my spiralizer is still on its way and not delivered yet, I wouldn't mind preparing my salad with zucchini and cucumber noodles for tomorrow, oh well I will need to endure it.

My Kitchen tools Ideas for a Raw Food Diet

Yesterday after watching few videos of some deliciously looking raw vegan recipes, I decided to purchase online a spiralizer; I found one for $24 at Walmart so I thought I will give it a try, the zucchini noodles look very cool to prepare with it and the cucumbers too. I'm planning to create some fun in my salads, especially for my dressings, since this type of diet is something I want to continue for long time, so I need to love it 100%, and for an Italian how food looks like is really a key part of the cooking process.

Another thing I did today is my grocery shopping online, with a long list of organic fruits and vegetables that I'll start consuming very soon. So I got my basic vegetables with high water contents, as well as some sweet fruits that I can add to smoothies or – in small quantities – in my green salads. I got a bunch of bananas, my favourite fruit I think, but I have to promise myself to eat it only in smoothies, I can get too carried on with them otherwise and definitely I don't want to go back on binging on food, even if healthy and organic.

Another kitchen tool that I would love to have is the Vitamix, but $500 are way too over my budget for any kitchen tool whatsoever, so I will keep on using my regular blender, even for dressing sauces, at the end it has a pulse button too, I hope it works ok when doing dressing sauces, they usually are supposed to be a bit more thick than what a blender does….of course, without burning the blender.

In my fruits & vegetables list I got some avocados and some basil, what I really look forward to is a dressing with these 2 ingredients, not necessary together but I love them both in anything, I'm sure they will taste amazing, maybe too blended but who cares!