Raw & Vegan

I’m proud to be an Australian, despite being embarrassed often by our politicians or media representation. I think we’re a bloody good mob with individuals who do a lot to help their fellow people and wildlife. I have the greatest respect for our Indigenous people, for whom tomorrow is in some circles seen a day of pain in rememberance of the invasion of this country and injustices against them.

For my international readers, tomorrow is our national holiday Australia Day. It is many things to many people: officially it represents the day the “nation” was declared, to most in the last few years it has meant getting pissed at the fireworks and turning the family events into a huge brawl. It is also a time when marketers proclaim that eating lamb is the done thing and anyone thinking otherwise is “un-Australian” grizzle grizzle… I know it’s supposed to be funny, but a ridiculous amount of people see it as a springboard to take the piss out of vego’s… grizzle grizzle… see what I’m talking about on You Tube. (I’ll duck the flames now too…)

I myself will be chilling out by travelling “down south” with friends to see two great Western Australian (and internationally recognised) bands, The Waifs and John Butler Trio, perform. Click on the links to listen to their music.

And this Australia Day we should remember Heath Ledger, who suddenly died this week. I’m not a celebrity watcher, but Heath was a local boy and I think alot of West Australians were quietly proud that our city could produce the talent that is his. He’s the same age as me, and every time I saw him on telly or a magazine I used to think back to our year 12 “playground” (final year of secondary school, and the grassed quadrangle we sat in) and us group of girls gushing over him in the little known series he starred in. I feel so sorry for his family, and just hope the media circus isn’t descending on them too badly.

Seeing this is my raw food blog, I had better make this post relevant — I’m eating all raw food while we are away of course, planning on going berry picking (yay!) and have prepared ourselves by stocking lots of fruit from last weeks plum picking expedition (still need to blog about that…) and bringing along flax crackers.

I’ll leave you with the song I’d like to see replace our paltry national anthem. Our national anthem is rather… boring, our national song is… about a sheep thief (but was so beautifully incorporated into a Tom Waits song).

This song covers the breadth of people in this country, is rousing, and more people know the lyrics to it than the anthem. Shame it’s been corrupted by advertising though, and this’ll be the only time I hopefully listen to it this long weekend as it gets overdone a bit! Still, I do like it.

I give you The Seekers, We Are Australian

(Edit: embedding the video broke my site, so I have to link to it - sorry!)

(Edit #2: the pictured flag is the Western Australian state flag)

I just want to give a great big thank you and lots of hugs to the lovely people who have commented on my previous post, shared virtual hugs, and given your words of wisdom.  I feel truly blessed to have wonderful friends and the companionship of people around the world who are not only sharing my journey but are on one themselves.  We are all in this together!

I woke up this morning
I suddenly realised
We’re all in this together
I started smiling
‘Cause you were smiling
And we’re all in this together

Ben Lee

I don’t smile that much, I don’t think. I would do subconsciously but I am more conscious of when I am not smiling, mainly because I don’t want to be interpreted as someone moody.  I also don’t meditate often, having done some when I was a child as we often went to spiritual groups, but I have not done much as an adult.  However, on Monday night I had some time to myself and after tidying my home, I decided to meditate.

Now, any one who knows me in real life would know I’m pretty down to earth and quite scientific about things. I have some belief in something, but it is beyond our human capacity of understanding, so I don’t go out of my way to find any kind of deity to explain it (I must disclaim, I have no judgement of people who do believe in deity and hope for the same respect in return). I don’t see meditation as being about deity, although some people may see it as a form of prayer. I prefer to consider it as a way to get past the noise of my mind and give myself (my ego?) a good talking to.

Our lovely Christmas hosts had gifted us their special retreat Meditation CD, and I put that on the stereo. By far one of the most beautiful meditation CD’s I have heard, with gentle nature sounds accompanied by guitar and flute (I think) and a musical score which rises and falls in perfect timing with gentle breathing.

I sat down on a mat with some incense and a candle burning, and tried to quiet my mind. It took a while, about 15-20 minutes actually as I always have something going around whether it be a song, a new idea, or replaying the day. When I was a kid, I attended a workshop on the Silva Mind Method - which I didn’t really benefit from, I was about 13 and didn’t pay enough attention. The one thing I vividly remember is that we were guided into making a place in our minds, a sacred room with a place to store memories, a mirror, and other items of interest.

My room is a treehouse. I can picture it in vivid colours, and it is massive for something in a tree - but that is the imagination isn’t it. There is a desk at which I can sit and contemplate what is before me, filing cabinets and bookshelves to store and retrieve my memories, and a large window looking out onto the forest.  At that age, I had just finished reading the TS Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, and when the film came out last year what was pictured as Narnia (after the frost) is what this world in my mind looks like - I was obviously influenced, and very surprised to see it in life!

Anyway, moving forward. I was meditating and brought myself back to this place. It has been a long time since I have been there and it took me a while to remember where I had placed things.  I found a lengthwise mirror tucked away behind a cabinet, at one point maybe I had purposely put it there to hide from myself - or maybe it was something metaphoric.  I took it out and placed it on the wall to the right of the large window, so I could see my reflection but with forest behind me instead of a room.

What I saw ahead was not as I appear today, but possibly what I am inside or how I will appear tomorrow. The vision was almost rendered, as in a 3D graphic or something from Second Life (so maybe I’ve just been online too much!) and - do I dare to bare - naked.  I could see the figure but not in great detail, and I tried hard to look at myself in the face, in the eyes but my other self would just cheekily smile and glance away.

I noticed she had wings as she spread them out and stretched her arms, and - now you will think I am completely mad - I had a physical feeling down my back that wings were there too.  And I smiled.

I became aware of the muscles in my face, and shocked myself so greatly that I had to open my eyes.

I was smiling.

I have dubbed this year - Kate ‘08 - inspired by the cheezy election slogan of our prime minister.  What it means is that this year will be focussed on me, in getting healthy, losing weight,  becoming more spiritually connected.So far, apart from the last week, I’m going very well. I have lost about 22kgs from my largest weight. That is 22kgs in 6 months, the only change being my diet. So I figured if I could do that just with food then with exercise I should be able to lose 20kgs by May 1st, and yet another 20kgs by September 1st. That would take me to a weight I haven’t been since I was 16! In the first 2 weeks of January, picking up my exercise but still not doing it daily, I have lost an impressive 4 kgs! If I keep this up, I should have no problem achieving my goals. I’m also only weighing myself on the set dates above, and instead going to measure my weight loss based on how I’m feeling, my body’s reactions to foods and environment, and my clothing.

Which brings me to a painfil admission…

I have always felt that openly admitting your weight is the hardest thing to do, because once you verbalise it you can no longer deny it or say it is slightly less than it is. I’ve been putting off blogging my weight until now because I was embarrased. But, here’s the story of my revelation (or is it rawvelation?!)

I knew how large I was, but ignored it. Leading up to my wedding last April, we had a terrible lifestyle with little sleep, and living on chocolate and Red Bull to push our bodies through the monolithic pile of stuff we had to do. I look back and honestly don’t know how I didn’t have a nervous breakdown.

I’m very ashamed to admit that on my wedding day I was at or just under my largest weight. I put on weight between buying my wedding dress and the day and had to have two 1 inch peices put in the side of the dress, and on the day wore a tight corset and shorts - and was so uncomfortable and could barely breathe! But still, the revelation didn’t happen then.

In May, I had a terrible fall in the city. We had been shopping late on a Friday and at that point I could not walk for long without getting a pinched nerve feeling in my tailbone, making my legs numb, and therefore unable to walk well. We were tiredly shuffling back to the car when I tripped over a raised slab and went down slam! into my right knee. In front of a group of emo kids too… I was so embarrased. I practically had to crawl to the nearest bench to see the damage. I was pretty beat up.  But… the revelation didn’t happen then either.

By May 15, Chris’ birthday and celebrating the first one since we were married, I had been shuffling around on this painful leg for 2 weeks and could really feel muscle damage. I’m not a doctor kind of person so hadn’t been to get it checked. We were enjoying some birthday cake when I mentioned the hot red lump that had appeared on my calf that day. I wasn’t concerned but Chris freaked out that it was thrombosis or a blood clot! (Oh, and this is what had happened the night before too!)

We took off to a late night doctor, who told me to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. So Chris’ birthday night was spent sitting in emergency waiting to be seen to. I was taken to a bed about 1am, and they had to give me something in case it was a clot, and that something’s dose (some kind of blood thinning medication, can’t remember) was dependent on weight. So they had to weigh me.

The scales were back out in the emergency room,  so I shuffled out there and got on those scales. They read:

147.5 kilograms

Sorry to curse, readers, but holy fuck. I almost broke into tears then, as did Chris.  That’s 23 stone or 322 pounds. That is just absolutely disgusting.

I was left in the hospital overnight, and Chris went to sleep at his Mum’s house. I had plenty of time to reflect on what had brought me to this point. What made a happy child turn into a depressed adult carrying years of fear and pain in a pile of lard on her skeleton? Was it the years of bullying for being fat (I was a stocky tomboy, not fat at all in reality), holding in my emotions to put others first, having been called a selfish bitch for years no matter how much I put others needs before my own, being emotionally abused by drunken loved ones. Bottling it all up, and the bottle had to expand to contain it all.

The next day my leg was scanned for clots and thankfully there weren’t any and the lump was put down to being an infection.

Within a month, we had moved house so we weren’t travelling so far work, had more time to cook better food, went vegan and both dedicated ourselves to going raw, which happened a few weeks later.

On the 23rd July 07, after the raw food retreat and 3 days of being 100% raw, I weighed 143.1 and I continued to lose the first 12kgs quickly - but I’d say most of it was water. There was a time around September where the scales weren’t going up or down but I was beginning to feel better.

As of New Year’s Day, I was down to 127.8kgs. I’ve hopped on the scales since then and its around 123kgs but I’m not taking an official reading until May 1st. So I have lost about 24.5 kgs and have to lose a half of myself (63kgs) to get to my goal weight of around 60kgs (58 - 63kg would be good). I honestly can’t even imagine myself like that. I can’t remember ever weighing less than 70kg, thats how long ago it was.

You know, writing this has been the first time I have really reflected back on “the revelation” and I can actually see what changes have happened. I have been telling all my friends openly where I’m at, so they can keep me motivated and because it feels good to see people being proud of you.

It just shows the importance of why I need to be eating a raw food diet, a cooked food diet just wouldn’t work for me as I’d too easily slip into old habits.  Last week was an awful week because we really let ourselves go, having only a few hours sleep over 2 days and being too tired to cook - well, we could have eaten an apple so why did we buy Japanese takeaway instead?  Dedicating yourself to being raw vegan is so much tougher that becoming vegan - the ethics of meat eating are plain and clear to see, but enzymes and “live food” isn’t as visible - so its easy to return to a lifelong conditioning that a bit of tofu on rice with some veg isn’t bad for you. But it is, I feel it hit my stomach like a brick! However the difference you feel when you eat only “live” food, uncooked, freshly picked (that’s another post) and organic is undescribable - you have to live it to understand.

And, if I have this much energy and I still weigh 123kgs, then I’ll be unstoppable when I’m down to 60kgs.  I’ve still got a long way to go, but the road is firmly set in front of me and I’m happily running, not shuffling, along it.

(now I’m struggling to hit the publish button… do I really want to expose myself like this?…. here goes… ) 

Last week was a bad one, with very little sleep and a slipping out of raw foods.  The three habits I want to get into over this 21 Day Challenge is drinking 1L of Green Smoothie each day, exercise for 30 mins per day and become an early riser by waking up at a set time each day despite what time I go to bed.

I have been exercising every day in some form - going for walks in the fresh morning air and actually getting a feeling for this new suburb Chris and I have lived in for 6 months. I don’t know if it is only us, but when we were still at university we walked a whole lot more and were very in tune with our local environment. However, when we started work and then moved 56kms from our workplace we developed a very insular relationship with our home and especially the car - being in it at least 3 hrs a day as roadworks meant 30 of the 56kms were travelled at around 10km/hr. As a child, I knew my suburb inside out, all the back streets and parklands, the nuances, the neighbours. After living in our new place (thankfully only 7km from work now) I realised as we did our first walk through the neighbourhood how foreign it looked, and how much more detail you digest by walking past rather than driving. So walking is not only good exercise but it is bringing me a sense of place that I haven’t felt for a long time, I’m feeling less detached from my environment.

On Saturday I started a Pilates class - I had started it last year but other things I was involved in got in the way so I have started afresh this year.  Even with my big belly (getting smaller now) I was able to touch the floor much easier after learning the stretching techniques. It’s awesome, and makes me feel so great!

I have also inquired about getting Personal Training and have been in contact with a lovely gym manager about what I want to achieve. Something I haven’t told you, dear readers, yet - but I’ll get to that! I just haven’t been able to catch up with her yet and see the gym, but I will be taking it up as soon as possible. In the meantime, apart from walking I’ve been using the cross trainer with Moby blaring forth from the stereo! What a great way to exercise!

Horray, our dehydrator is fixed! The repairman was a lovely fellow who lives around the corner from us and sells/services Ezydri Dehydrators as his retirement work after being an electrical engineer. He fixed our dehydrator in 24 hours for $80 (AUD) which pretty much just covered the circuit board.

Yes, the circuit board had shorted… and Chris dropping it on my mum’s front path was not the only thing which caused the problem. The repairman said the whole base was filled with a strange yellow liquid and that the Ezydri had been working under capacity and the drop just finished the problem off.

A strange yellow liquid, eh? In our first week of being raw, Chris decided to try and make some Corn Crackers. I was in another room and heard all these expletives and crash! bang! wallop! coming out of the kitchen. I came out to find corn mixture everywhere and Chris looking very annoyed. I told him to stand aside and “let the pro’ handle it” and proceeded to clean up the mess. That is when I made the discovery…

Chris had put the dehydrator sheets on upside down (picture), so the cracker mixture just poured down through every tray, all over our stove and all through the dehydrator!

I quietly chuckled to myself and proceeded to make another tray perfectly fine, leaving him completely perplexed as to what had gone wrong! Of course, I had put the tray the right way up.

So for six months our dehydrator has been a disaster waiting to happen! A yellow liquid indeed :)

Thanks for finding that, Mr Repairman!