Raw Challenge Day 10, Detox Day 5

Morning Weight 13st 4.5lbs. I can live with a loss of 1/2 lb a day, that’s 3.5 lbs a week or 14 lbs in a month

Oil-pulling with toasted sesame oil for 1 minute or so. I guess this needs some explanation I read about it on another raw blog and thought it sounded disgusting. However the benefits are supposed to be huge:

Dr. (med.) Karach said the OP heals totally “head-aches, bronchitis, tooth pain, thrombosis, eczema, ulcers and diseases of stomach, intestines, heart, blood, kidney, liver, lungs and women’s diseases. It heals diseases of nerves, paralysis, and encephalitis. It prevents the growth of malignant tumors, cuts and heals them. Chronic sleeplessness is cured.”

The basic method is to hold about a tablespoon of oil in your mouth, sucking through your teeth, for 15 – 20 mins and then spit it out and wash out your mouth with fresh water. Actually the basic method is IT but do read up about it on the oil pulling site, all the info is there free of charge.

Sesame or sunflower oils are the only ones that work apparently, but I’m not sure that they meant toasted sesame oil! However it was all Asda had so that’s what I went with. Nothing like as disgusting as I feared but the flavour of the oil was pretty strong and it lingered …….. I think next time I’ll try the sunflower oil

12 noon    Coffee

1:00pm    3 bananas

4:00pm    1/2 small pineapple, 1 large papaya, 170g raspberries, water, kale
Made 1 litre, quite chewy, drank 1/2 litre

5:15pm    1/2 litre smoothie

6:30pm    2 nectarines, few grapes

I was working in PS and realised at 8:30 that I hadn’t had dinner. I also felt really BORED with the whole detox thing and wanted something other than another salad. Also realised this was part of the detox and that I gave up smoking (another story for another time) so I can do ANYTHING!

Interestingly, found Shazzie (from the old FRESH list) online at shazzie.com – she’s a big name in raw veganism. More about her and my first raw adventure on the main raw diet detox page.

9:30pm    Big salad like yesterday with a few grapes added + 1 banana and peach & tangerine tea

Raw Challenge Day 9, Detox Day 4

Morning weight:  13st 5lbs (186 lbs, 84.5 kgs)

10:00am    Coffee

11:00am    2 bananas

2:00pm    1 apple, 1 pear, 1 mango, 35g curly-leaved parsley, water. I don’t ever want to have mango any other way, this is SO delicious!

3:00pm    Rest of smoothie

5:00pm    1 nectarine

5:30pm    Coffee

7:00pm    Salad of romaine, cucumber, tomato, celery, beansprouts, courgette. Salad works much better than rolls. At least for getting it to my mouth – it’s hard work crunching through it all tho!

9:00pm    Coffee

10:00pm Banana

2:00am    Grapes

Day 8 of Raw Challenge, Day 3 of Detox

Morning weight (8am) 13st 6lbs – 3.5lbs lost since I started the Green Smoothie/Raw Challenge. I’m really feeling so good – no detox symptoms at all. Maybe because I had those “clean” days immediately before (the Green Smoothie Challenge and then 2 days of fairly simple eating)?

10:00am  Coffee and 1/3 Procamel melon

1:30pm    Today’s green smoothie: 3 bananas, 1/2 frozen banana, water, kale – drank one big glass

3:45pm    Finished smoothie

5:00pm    Procamel melon

6:00pm    Coffee

7:00pm    Romaine lettuce rolls with cucumber, pepper, tomato, beansprouts. Not having any more luck rolling the damn things! lol

8:00pm    150g blueberries

Day 7 of Raw Challenge, Day 2 of Detox

I really thought I’d be starving when I woke up, but I wasn’t.

Weight this morning: 13st 5.5lbs so down 2lbs after the fast – that’s pretty cool

General plan for detox is fruit monomeal for breakfast, green smoothie for lunch and a light dinner of salad items plus sprouts. Tera’s suggestion is to roll everything in a romaine lettuce leaf but maybe it’s me – I have no idea how to do that! If I roll it to make a long shape, it’s not wide enough and everything falls out; if I do it the other way, the “spine” breaks and everything falls out! If anyone would like to enlighten me as to how to achieve this feat, I’d be ever so grateful

Anyway, the idea is to have no cooked food (I refuse to count coffee, it’s not food ), no fats (so no avocado) and no over-eating. Basically, keep it very simple and pure.

11:00am    1 cup coffee for the taste

12:30pm    Just under half a Procomel melon

3:45pm      Green smoothie of 1 papaya, 1 passion fruit, 225g blackberries, kale, water. Made about 800ml, had one big glass and refrigerated the rest

5:00pm    Finished rest of smoothie + banana

6:30pm    1 romaine leaf with red pepper, cucumber, tomato, celery. “With” is accurate – it was supposed to be a roll (see above)

7:15pm    Another one.

7:45pm    Another one (I need the practice!) plus 1 large tomato

8:15pm    1 cup coffee

10:30pm    Kiwi fruit

Day 6 of Raw Challenge, Day 1 of Detox

My starting weight this morning: 189.5lbs (13 stone 7.5lbs for the Brits) which is about 2 lbs down since I started the Green Smoothie challenge. I lost 2 inches off my stomach too

I’m now about 19 hours into the fast, and I have a headache but otherwise I’m fine. It’s very interesting to experience real hunger and I know exactly what Tera means when she says that when you’re really hungry you’ll eat ANYTHING and if you fancy something in particular, that’s not true hunger.

It would be good to lose some weight over the next week because I promised myself – actually made it public as well – that I’d be a size smaller when I started back at college and I’m not there yet. Although I NEARLY got a pair of size smaller pants done up last night and I don’t think I would even have got them over my hips a few weeks ago.

… fast forward 5 hours …

7:30pm    I just had 2 big wedges of watermelon and a banana. I thought I would want far more than that, but I feel quite full! I have drunk LOTS of water today tho!

10:15pm    1  peach (more from tiredness/boredom than hunger). I felt irritated because something wasn’t going right and that drove me to the fruit bowl.

Had a couple of glasses of red wine later while talking online. Hmm … my excuse was that I wanted to finish the bottle because I won’t be drinking for at least another week *sigh*

Morning Weight: 13st 8lbs (190 lbs, 86kgs) a loss of 1.5lbs in 4 days. As I wasn’t actually trying to lose weight during this period, I’m delighted. I expect the next week to show a more dramatic weight loss.

9:45am    4 bananas, spinach, water

12 noon    Finished smoothie

2:00pm    Smoked mackerel salad, rose wine and lemonade (out with students for lunch. Impressed myself by not ordering dessert!)

4:00pm    Banana

7:00pm    Chicken, Tilda mushroom rice, tangerine and peach sun tea

Now I’m starting the 7 day detox program and that means a 24 hour water fast. The Raw Divas plan this really well though, because you start the fast after your evening meal and break it with the next evening meal, so you don’t go to bed starving and psychologically it’s easier because you wake up knowing you’re going to eat that night.

I finished eating at 7:30pm so that’s when I’ll break my fast tomorrow night – stay tuned and wish me luck!

I’ve really been loving the last 3 days! I have so much energy, I’m buzzing and the smoothies are absolutely delicious.  As you can see, I celebrated the end of the 3 days with some dark chocolate

I intend to do the Free 7 Day Detox starting on Thursday because the first day is a water fast and I’m meeting some students for lunch on Wednesday. I’ll stick with green smoothies for the next couple of days and that should segue me nicely into the detox.

10:30am  2 apples blended with water, 2 wedges pineapple, 3 inches cucumber, lemon juice, blender packed full of spinach. Made well over 1 litre and I couldn’t eat/drink it all at once.

1:00pm   Finished smoothie from this morning plus 1 banana. I love these smoothies really thick so I can eat them with a spoon lol

1 coffee and .75 litres water so far

3:15pm  1/3 pineapple blended with a little water, 1 large papaya, 6/8 strawberries, 100g blackberries, loads of kale. Mmmmmm

4:30pm  Peach

5:15pm  Finished 2nd smoothie, banana

7:30pm  Portobello mushroom raw – the flavour of these is fabulous.

8:15pm  3 chicken drumsticks, boiled potatoes, steamed veg bag. Lemon & Ginger sun tea (iced). My first attempt at sun tea and I was surprised how strong it was. It’s simply a tea bag placed in cold water and then covered and stood in the sun for as long as you want. Of course it never gets really hot so it’s nicer to drink it iced rather than luke-warm.

4 squares dark chocolate

I woke up around 9 feeling really good. Drank water and meditated and noticed my breathing was clearer. Drank water and coffee until I felt really hungry.

11:30am Made a smoothie with 1/3 Watermelon, 1 papaya, 1 passion fruit, loads of spinach. Poured some in a small glass for my neighbour and offered it to her – she actually went white! After some coaxing though, she tried a  little and loved it! That’s a really big deal because her diet is pretty restricted and she and her husband said they’ve both felt very lethargic for a few weeks. He tried it too and liked it – I might have a couple of converts here

2:15pm  2 wedges pineapple, 3 bananas, few strawbs, blackberries, water, kale, soaked goji berries, flax mix. Made 1 large glass and 1 small so had the second glass an hour later. Gave another taste to my neighbour and they’ve both decided to go for it and have 2 a day!

1 cup of coffee

5:00pm  2 bananas

7:00pm 4 small chicken drumsticks, Tilda rice with beans & chilli

Drank 1.5 litres water during the day – that’s a LOT for me!

So far this isn’t so bad at all – I LOVE the smoothies and I’m not feeling hungry.

It all starts today! The 3 day Green Smoothie Challenge and my first green smoothie – umm,  so what exactly is a green smoothie?

According to Victoria Boutenko who apparently invented the whole concept, green smoothies are blended fruit smoothies (not juices) with added greens. The theory is that fruit alone will cause a big sugar spike as it hits your system but adding greens such as spinach and kale, as well as providing lots of vital nutrients in their own right, also slows down the absorption of fruit sugar (fructose).  The additional fibre from blending the fruit and greens rather than juicing them also contributes to the gradual release of the fructose.

As an aside, on my original raw adventure back in 2000, I used to make a raw “soup” with avocado, tomato, mushroom, sunflower seeds and little gem lettuce, all blended with water. And yes, tomato and avocado are fruit

The plan for the Green Smoothie Challenge is to have at least one, preferably two and even three green smoothies a day as meal replacements. That means they need to be at least 1 litre (2 pints/1 quart) in volume. My plan is to have a green smoothie for breakfast and lunch and have a small cooked meal in the evening, plus drink lots of filtered water.

Although I’m not doing this primarily to lose weight, I do expect to lose some (heck, I’d be pretty disappointed if I didn’t!) so for the record this is my starting point:

Saturday August 15 2009 – Day 1

Morning Weight: 13st 9.5lbs (191.5lbs, 87 kgs)

I got up late (I’m still on summer break) and didn’t get out until around 12:30pm.  I didn’t eat, but went to Asda first and filled a big trolley with nothing but fruit and veg and was amazed it only came to £40.

2pm: Made my first green smoothie with 4 ripe bananas, 2 handfuls of spinach and water. Could have used less water and more spinach but tasted amazing and made 2 big glasses (1 litre total)

Had a passion fruit and a banana about 4pm

6pm: Mango, 2 small oranges, 1 banana, 1 Little Gem lettuce, big handful of spinach. Without water, made just over 1 big glass so not really enough for a meal replacement. Delicious though!

My neighbours saw me drinking a bright green concoction and eventually had to ask! I offered them a taste of the next one I made – funny, they didn’t seem exactly grateful …

8pm: Cold salmon and Tilda mushroom rice

It’s been a beautiful day, I’ve kept busy, feel great – off to bed