The last two weeks have been insanely busy, keeping me away from home, eating healthy and even blogging.
I have now had 3 sessions of personal training. My trainer is very kind and not pushing me too hard yet, she must be playing “nice”! The first session was great, and I felt so incredibly energised after it - even if I was a little achy. The second session was good too, and I wrote down what equipment I used and the exact exercises… but I can’t find it right now. Both those times, I didn’t have much solid food before the session. First one, I had a mango and a celery stalk and for the second one I had a green smoothie. Both times I had extreme reflux-like feeling in my throat after the workout, and went home and vomited.
Before the third session, last Thursday, I had a vegan nut bar that was mostly raw - raw nuts, agave nectar etc - before the session as I was running late. I had little sleep the night before and not much chance to warm up on the treadmill beforehand, so I felt incredibly weak and tired. I had also eaten cooked food the night before - long story about that, but I so don’t want to be doing that anymore. However, afterwards although my whole body felt a little shaky this nut bar actually stayed down and I didn’t feel as sick as before. I’m on the hunt now for some good raw breakfast bar recipes!
I haven’t lost any weight yet while exercising, in fact I haven’t lost anything for a few weeks - if not gained some grams (not kilos thankfully). As this fortnight has only been about 50% raw foods, I attribute the weight stagnation to that. I’ve also had a thick head and sore throat, been phlegmy and even had people comment that I sound like I’m getting a cold. I am in major need of a detox, and would so love to go on retreat again.
One reason I’ve been eating so badly is because the kitchen, pantry and fridge have been a mess and I haven’t been able to prepare anything, and we’ve been getting home from work late and too tired to sort things out. So today has been my catch up day: I’ve reorganised the pantry, accounted for whats “in stock”, and cleaned the fridge. I’m now waiting for Chris to slowly plod through the dishes so I can prepare some foods for dehydration.
When Chris and I first went raw last July, we cleared out the cupboard and fridge of all non-raw foods (ie: everything) and went on a raw food cooking retreat. This was fantastic for discipline as on the way home we stopped by a fruit a veg market and, with recipes fresh in our minds, bought everything we would need for the week.
This went well until recently when it became so messy that we couldn’t find anything, and looking in the cupboard to decide what we wanted to dinner resulted in us depressed and completely uninspired.
Here’s the before shot:
As you can see, it had some non-raw products remnant in it - namely the Optifast on the top shelf, which I tried once a long time ago when I was still vego, hated, but haven’t thrown out.
I’m relatively short (163cm-ish) and so need to step on tippy-toes to reach the top shelf, and crouch to get to the bottom and second shelves. That leaves me with little space to reach the things I may need to quickly get.
Check out the transformation:
On the bottom shelf, I have some picnic gear including a basket which I also use for our grocery shopping. I keep our other non-plastic bags in there also, so I can easily grab it and go to the shops.
Second shelf is for liquids: oils, vinegar, a couple of jar items (mustard and jalapenos) and agave nectar. The things I often need are visible when looking down from my height and easy to grab if I’ve also got a hand full of vegies on my way to the cutting board. Beyond that are unopened bottles of olive oil (we have 3 bottles at the moment, which should last a while) and other things not necessary on a daily basis.
The third shelf is for our herbs and spices, and powered items. Here we have our Maca, Mesquite and Spirulina - all together ready for breakfast (green smoothies). We bought a box of Maxwell House Spice Jars, to compliment a spice wheel that we received for a wedding present. To keep things nicely arranged and so they don’t fall down, I’ve kept the box and have put the jars I don’t need regularly in there (as I cannot see the labels). I didn’t want an ugly branded box in the cupboard, so I have covered it with some hand made paper that I had left over from a Christmas present I received.
I’ve got my dried fruits, sea vegetables, cacao and carob on the next shelf. There is also space if I do need to chuck something in quickly, as you can see in the before picture once you start chucking things in you can’t stop - so by making this area for it hopefully I’ll be inclined to keep it tidy!
Top shelf is padded with a couple of cane baskets to put in excess produce (like the last of Chris’ 3kg bag of Macadamias) and to stop the front containers from pushing backwards out of my reach. I’ve got our bulk nuts like Almonds, Walnuts etc on this shelf.
After doing all this, and cleaning out the fridge, we went and bought some lovely fresh fruit & veg, so now I feel inspired to do some (un)cooking! I think Chris’ is done washing the dishes!
