Day 32

[ Home ] [ Month 1 ] [ Month 2 ] [ Month 3 ]

My Raw Journal ~ Month Two

Monday ~ July 26, 2004 ~ Day 61

Not much to write about today, just another crazy Monday at work.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
red delicious apple
iced coffee
handful raw cashews
cuke with raw french dressing

Sunday ~ July 25, 2004 ~ Day 60

I woke up around 8:00am which suprised me since I stayed up until midnight. But I woke up refreshed.

I chatted with my cousins wife for a bit then showered and hit the road by 10:30am. I wasn't in a huge rush to hit the road but I didn't want to hang around all day either, even though I could have. It's so beautiful and relaxing up there, I wish I could go up more often.

I fueled up my car, grabbed an ice coffee and headed out. The drive home was a lot faster than the drive up. I got on the road and never stopped until I hit the Wells Beach area, about 4 1/2 hours. I stopped to fuel up again and grab another coffe then made it home by 5:45pm, I have no idea how but I made it home in 7 hours. I guess it's because I only stopped once and did about 80-85mph the whole way...........hehehehhe.

Food Intake:
iced coffee
banana
iced coffee
a couple handfuls of Humpty Dumpty potato chips (I got a bag to bring home since you can only get them in northern Maine and I ended up opening them on the road)

Saturday ~ July 24, 2004 ~ Day 59

I slept until about 9:30am and headed upstairs. My cousins wife had gone to school, she's in hair dressing school and they go in on Saturdays to get some of there hours in. My cousin headed off to a side job, he was helping painting a house or something. So I showered and got their two kids ready and brought them up to my aunts house where the party is going to be. I helped set up for a bit. Then my grandmother showed up and she was so suprised about the party. Most of the kids ran to her when she came into the house and then I walked up to her and she started crying and said it's been too long. I haven't been up there in about two years so it was great to see her and see how happy she was to see me.

Most of the day was just hanging around and chatting and stuff. I wasn't able to stay raw, I munched on some raw veggies and then had a egg salad finger sandwich then splurged on a piece of birthday cake. Not a good day but oh well, I won't beat myself up over it.

I headed back to my cousins around 6ish and we all just hung out, watched some tv then watched a movie. I headed down to bed around midnight, way too late for the long drive I have ahead of me tomorrow but we were catching up and chatting.

Friday ~ July 23, 2004 ~ Day 58

I went to work for a half day today and as I was pulling up to the building I saw my boss and her nanny out front walking around looking at the ground. When I got out of my car and walked up to her she said she found a baby bird on the ground. The front of the building is concrete but there are a couple of holes in the walls and there have always been birds that live in there, they've made nests in the holes. Anyway, she saw the baby bird wiggling around on the ground below one of the holes. It was sooooooooooooo tiny, it didn't even have hair on it and it's eyes were still closed. We didn't know if the mother dropped it while trying to move to a different spot or if it fell out of the nest while mom was off finding food.

We didn't know what to do so we found some grass and stuff and put it on the ground under the hole and put the baby there hoping that mom would come back looking for baby. She didn't touch the baby with here bare hands because we knew that if mom smelled humans she would leave the baby.

We kept checking on the baby every hour or so and it seemed to move a little bit but it was still there. I then called the Wildlife Society and asked them if we could bring the baby to them, they said they would take it but we should leave it for a few more hours just to make sure mom wasn't going to come back for it. But she also said "I know this sounds harsh but sometimes if the baby is sick they are pushed out of the nest, and you need to let nature take it's course". We were horrified, I guess it's true but we were sad at the answer.

So at noon time when I was leaving to head north we went back to check on it one more time and the baby was now moving around a lot more and squawking and stretching it's mouth up looking for food. It was a lot more active so we gather that in the morning it was probably new born and now it was several hours old and making more noise. I was so sad to leave it, I wanted to take it home with me and nurse it with an eye dropper or something but I was now heading on the road for an eight hour trip.

So I got on the road and everything went well, the trip wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I've never made this trip alone so I was worried that I'd be bored and tired but I seemed to have plenty of energy and just sang to the radio the whole way up. It was kind of nice to take a road trip by myself and just enjoy the freedom, something I would definately do again sometime. I really enjoyed it.

I finally got to my cousins house about 8:30pm and we chatted for about an hour and then I went down to the guest room, changed into my jammies and read a book in bed for about an hour then went to sleep.

Food Intake:
coffee
fuji apple
salad from the fruit market
iced coffee
watermelon
cucumber with raw french dressing

Thursday ~ July 22, 2004 ~ Day 57

Work was fairly uneventful and went by slow. On the way home I went food shopping because I'm going up to Presque Isle, Maine tomorrow for my grandmothers suprise 85th birthday party. I needed to go shopping to get hubby food for the weekend and I also wanted to get stuff to prepare for the eight hour drive that I was going on by myself since hubby was unable to take work off.

I prepared some sliced cucumber with raw french dressing, cut up a half of watermelon and rawcualmole. So I had these in bowls and put them in the fridge with an apple and banana and several bottles of water all set to throw in the cooler in the morning for the road.

I figure it's going to be hard over the weekend to eat raw so at least I can eat raw on the way up. I'll do the best I can but it won't be easy but I'll do the best I can with the resources I will have.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
salad with cold pressed olive oil and organic vinagarette
red delicious apple

Wednesday ~ July 21, 2004 ~ Day 56

Uggggggh what a yucky day! Work was just the same but at lunch I had to run to my attorney's office which is about 20 minutes away to sign some paperwork to get some bills and stuff paid from a car accident I had about four years ago. Now when I talked to the parallegal she said everything would be all set so I could just run in, sign the paperwork and head back to work. Well, when I got there she was out and the girl she said would help me had apparently left for lunch so I waited about 10 minutes for my attorney in the lobby. Finally I went up the the receptionist and said "I'm sorry, I have to head back to work so I would like to reschedule". Oh my word, this chick copped an attitude for absolutely NO reason. She called back to my attorney and said "She wants to know if she should just come back another time because she's just gotta leave now" with a major sigh and attitude. I didn't say it with an attitude so I don't know why she relayed it that way. Anyway, I said something to the affect of why is she being rude and she sighed again and said "Ya know, I have no idea where your paperwork is ok? I'm just doing my job". Omigod, I wanted to strangle her!!! So now my attorney came out and had an attitude with me because he obviously thought I had and attitude and said "just come back anytime and it will be set", yeah sure it will be. I was fuming by the time I got back to my office, a half hour late from lunch for nothing. What is wrong with kids these days, I can't imagine ever acting that way towards a client. Kids these days just are not taught respect in the workplace at all. This chick works at the front desk of a law firm and there she is all in skimpy clothes, chomping on gum and sunglasses propped up on the top of her head............now there's a great representation of the company.

Today was also not a good day for eating right, some raw and some cooked and not tracked very well so below is what I can remember.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
iced coffee (this is what I grabbed for lunch on my way back from the nightmare)
handful of raw cashews
corn muffin (was so hungry by the time I left work I grabbed it on the way home and ate it in the car)
a sliced cucumber with raw french dressing

Tuesday ~ July 20, 2004 ~ Day 55

We were still short two people at work today but it wasn't as bad as yesterday. Not much to write about today, just a blah kind of day and now I'm just reading email and message boards before I head off to bed.

I found another raw web site and read on it that some people have a hard time going raw 100% right from the beginning. And because they have a hard time they get discouraged and start to slip back to cooked food. It said that some people just need to ease into it gradually and not get frustrated if you eat "cooked" food here and there. Sometimes it just takes time but you will get there if you really want to. I think this might be whats happening to me, I dunno why though because I was feeling great in the begining but lately I've just been doing bad. I really really really need to snap out of this and get back to doing as well as I was the first month. I would think once your a month into it you wouldn't slide backwards but I definately have been.

I guess I need to figure out why and fix it. I don't even want to step on the scale next week because I know I have done aweful this month as far as losing weight. But I haven't gone backwards as far as the size of my cloths so I guess that's a good thing.

I haven't eaten dinner yet and probably won't, I feel kinda yucky with pms and just generally aggrevated with myself.

I just went back and looked at my progress pics side by side and can't believe the difference in the first month. This months pic won't be as drastic but it just really gave me a kick in the pants to back on track ASAP.........tomorrow I will be back on track.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
handful of raw cashews
another banana
garden salad
handful of raw cashews

Monday ~ July 19, 2004 ~ Day 54

We were short two people at work today so it was pretty crazy, but somehow we still managed to get everything done and left on time.

I forgot my lunch in the fridge at home so I ran out at lunch time to grab a garden salad at a nearby sub shop. I got back to my desk and jabbed my fork into a tomato and as I was bringing it toward my mouth I noticed it was all moldy.........eeeeeeeeeeewe! I am so anal about my food that if I see one thing wrong with it I can't eat it at all, so I ended up throwing the whole damn thing out. I was so pissed. So I ended up eating half of the pocket bread that I would have normally thrown out but I was starving. That'll teach me to forget my lunch.

When I got home I was starving but didn't feel like making anything so I took half a brownie that hubby was eating and called it a night. I was pms'ing big time so I figured after that I didn't want to eat anything else. I did a little work on my puter then went to bed fairly early, I was beat.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
red delicious apple
half a pocket bread
slice of watermelon
half a chocolate brownie

Sunday ~ July 18, 2004 ~ Day 53

As I've mentioned before, I'm president again this year for my VFW Auxiliary. But, for some reason I also accepted a nomination to be the Conductress at the District level. I think I might have bit off more than I can chew but I'll give it my best shot. Anyway, we had the District Reception to go to today so that tied us up most of the day. They had a buffet dinner and I was starving because I hadn't eaten yet and by the time they served the buffet it was already about 3:00pm. We got in line and when I got up there all they had was small bowls of salad, a big tin of Penne with sauce that had ground beef in it and another big tin of meatballs.................what?????????? Omigod I was so bummed out, so I grabbed a salad and a roll then went back up and took another salad..........hey they were small anyway.

We hung around for a while after eating and then headed home. By the time we got home it was late evening so we just chilled for a bit before going to bed.

Food Intake:
coffee
2 small salads and a roll
a handful of raw cashews

Saturday ~ July 17, 2004 ~ Day 52

Today was just a mish mash of all sorts of little things I wanted to get done. I did some house work then started making a photo album for a wedding gift, I didn't finish it but got most of it done. It looks pretty, it's the white satin for the covering and black lace, yes the wedding party wore black. Then I ran out to get some pool supplies and went to the super market.

We are redoing our kitchen ourselves so I decided to start peeling off the old gross wallpaper and patch up some holes that our german sheppard decided to make. We thought it was just her being a puppy but it seemed she was having major separation anxiety then we decided to crate her. I felt bad crating her but it ends up that she LOVES her crate so I wish we did it six months ago before she destroyed out kitchen. Anyway, we are slowly reparing and ripping down wall paper and stuff. So I decided I want to do a textured type wall treatment, I figured this would best hide and inconsistencies due to patching etc. I went to Home Depot today and got a huge jug of joint compound and started putting it on on one of the smaller walls to see how it would look. I used a large putty knife and textured it rather than smoothing it out, it came out really good, better than I had expected. So I'm definately going to do the rest of the walls this way and then paint it and it will look awesome. I can't wait to finish now, but it's going to take time since time is something I'm short on these days.

I was so busy running around all day that I realised mid evening that I hadn't eaten all day. So I grabbed two slices of leftover pizza from the fridge. Grrrrrrrrrr.......I really need to stop this, I've been so bad lately.

Food Intake:
coffee
2 slices of leftover pizza

Friday ~ July 16, 2004 ~ Day 51

Wow, I really went overkill on the coffee today........sigh. I read back on the last couple of weeks in my journal and I've noticed that I am slipping. This really aggrevates me because I don't want to be eating the crap that I have been. I guess I've just been so busy that I haven't made the time or effort each day to prepare meals. Sometimes I'm doing ok but others I'm not.

I seem to be stressing too much lately about silly things and it's affecting my mind set and eating habits.

Food Intake:
coffee
medium iced coffee
large salad from local fruit center
medium iced coffee

Thursday ~ July 15, 2004 ~ Day 50

I met up with my two long time friends tonight for dinner. The three of us have been friends for 28 years now and over the last several years we've each got married and moved to different parts of the state. So every couple of months we get together for dinner to keep in touch. One of them is six months pregnant and she's been trying for years so it was really nice to see her and her little baby belly, she looked great. The other just adopted her nephew who she's had custody of since he was one year old, I think he's turning 11 soon. So we ate and yucked it up for a while, it's always nice getting together and I wish we did it more often.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
red delicious apple
taco salad = lettuce wedge, tomatoes, little bit o rice and black beans with salsa and gaucamole (I was really craving this)
steamed veggies over penne

Wednesday ~ July 14, 2004 ~ Day 49

Today was a pretty boring day, not much to write about. Work was kind of slow and then I just came home and did some house work, browsed the web and went to bed.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
fuji apple
cucumbers marinated in raw French dressing topped with Rawcamole

Tuesday ~ July 13, 2004 ~ Day 48

Today I seemed to be hungry all day, I kept eating fruit every two hours or so. I don't know what that was about, maybe I'm PMS'ing or something. However, I don't seem to be hungry now so I'm not sure if I'll bother with dinner.

This morning I got on the scale and my weight loss has seemed to slow down. I'm hoping to have another substantial weight loss on month two so I really need to crack down for the next two weeks before my next weight post.

I had the stuffed portabella mushroom that I made last night at lunch time. It wasn't bad but I shouldn't have drizzled the Bragg's Aminos on it last night, it definately needs to be done at the time of eating. The mushroom was marinating in it all night and it was way too strong for me, too salty. So I only ate half the mushroom but all of the stuffing and it was yummy. Oh well, it's all learning by trial and error here. I don't know why but it went right through me about an hour later, I haven't really been having that problem being raw but this meal affected me bad for some reason.

It was a pretty slow day so I did a lot of web surfing, reading message boards and finding new raw recipes.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
fuji apple
stuffed portabella mushroom
slice of watermelon
red delicious apple

Monday ~ July 12, 2004 ~ Day 47

As usual, it was another crazy Monday at work. On a good note, other than my morning coffee the rest of the day was completely raw. That's the best I've done in a week or two. I even went to the supermarket at lunch to get some fruit to keep at my desk and I saw these fudgy brownies, omigod they looked soooooooooo good. I wanted them so bad but didn't want to eat them, so I ended up buying them just to deal with the craving but I brought them back to the office and told everyone they had to eat them. And believe it or not I didn't eat any at all............woo hoo..........very proud of myself!

I prepared the stuffed Portabella Mushroom caps from Alissa's book for lunch tomorrow, I can't wait to try them because it looks so yummy.

I haven't eaten anything since I finished my left over greens from lunch at about 4:30pm, and I'm not even hungry. It's 9:30pm and time to head to bed.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
red delicious apple
romaine lettuce, cucumber and raw caesar dressing (I ate about 3/4 of it)
a handful of raw cashews
finished greens from lunch
a spoonful of the stuffing for the mushroom I made for lunch tomorrow

Sunday ~ July 11, 2004 ~ Day 46

It was a beautiful day out today sunny but breezy. Hubby and I went to a VFW chicken bake, they have one every year. So unfortunately it was another day of cooked food. Since I'm the president of my auxiliary, the ladies paid for mine and hubbies ticket to go so I couldn't' show up with my own cooler. I know, in the future I will need to adjust these type of things to my lifestyle. But at least I gave hubby my chicken to eat........hehehehe.

The chicken bake went until late afternoon so by the time we got home we just chilled for a while and I checked my mail and message boards.

Food Intake:
coffee
corn on the cob, baked potato and cranberry sauce
romaine lettuce with the raw French dressing (this was so good, definately one to make again)

Saturday ~ July 10, 2004 ~ Day 45

I did some house work today then ran up to a health store that I found was closer to my house. I needed to pick up some more nuts, raw honey, cold pressed olive oil and Braggs Liquid Aminos. This place is about 20 minutes from my house as apposed to the one I go to during the week near work that is about an hour from my house, definately more convenient. I need to look for another one around though because they were a bit more expensive.

I didn't do much the rest of the day, just hung around since hubby had to work.

I decided to go through a bin of old clothes that I have been holding onto, that bin of "I just might fit in these again some day" clothes. Some nice clothes, not old and ratty clothes. Some of the stuff I barely ever wore so I didn't want to throw them away. Anyway, I was trying on some of them and I came across a couple pairs of size 14 shorts and decided to try them on for shits and giggles. I actually got them on and zipped up, they are a little snug so I wouldn't necessarilly wear them yet but they should definately be comfortable in another couple of weeks hopefully. It really amazes me the difference that 15-20 lbs. can make in the way clothes fit. It's not a huge weight loss but somehow the body seems to shift around just right and feels like I've lost more than I actually have. It's times like these that really keep me going.

I did make two of the salad dressings from Alissa Cohen's book, the Caesar and the French. The French dressing looks really yummy, I'm going to have it tommorow though. The Caesar dressing came out lumpier then when I had it at Alissa's dinner event. I followed the recipe but it didn't come out the same so next time I'm going to adjust it a bit, maybe less pine nuts. I think another problem is that I need a better food processor, I had the same problem when I made the Alfredo sauce a couple of weeks ago it wasn't creamy like it's suppose to be.

Food Intake:
coffee
a handful of raw walnuts

I didn't track what I ate today and since I didn't write this until late evening I don't remember everything I had.

Friday ~ July 9, 2004 ~ Day 44

Today is my birthday, I turned 35.........ugggggggggh! Oh well, just another day. Work wasn't too bad and then I ran a couple of errands on the way home then hubby and I just chilled out and ordered pizza. I know, that's aweful but I didn't feel like preparing anything or doing anything.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
huge salad from the local fruit center (yummy)
2 slices of cantaloup
2 slices of green pepper and onion pizza

Thursday ~ July 8, 2004 ~ Day 43

After work I went by my friends house to finish painting the play house I made, it didn't take me too long to finish. When I came out front from the back yard I found that her husband and daughter had washed my car for me, sweeeeeeet.

I hung out with them inside for a bit. Her friend and son were over too and they had cooked on the bbq so they were all eating. They kept asking me if I wanted anything but of course I didn't, I wasn't even hungry anyway. They were so funny though, the kids were like "Cheli, there's watermelon in the fridge" and "Cheli, there's blueberries in the fridge" but I didn't want anything. So of course that brought up the whole raw diet conversation. My friend had mentioned that she could tell I'm losing weight and that I looked good. It's great to hear positive feed back from people, it just make me want to do better at this. Shortly after when I was leaving I stood up and must have lifted the front of my shirt to get my car keys out of my pocket and her husband looked at me with a look of suprise and said "yeah I guess you are getting skinnier, geez". So I looked down and saw that he noticed my jeans were hanging down and baggy all around me. That made me feel good too. Usually guys don't notice stuff like that, of if they do they don't usually mention it.

So now I'm home just reading some mail and going to check out some bulletin boards before I go nighty night.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
a huge salad from the local fruit center
peach
medium iced coffee
fuji apple

Wednesday ~ July 7, 2004 ~ Day 42

Work was kind of slow but made it through the day. After work I picked up my sister at her work and we swung by the supermarket to get something to eat before heading to our monthly VFW meeting. It was a good meeting and a lot of great ideas came up. I got home about 10:pm and went straight to bed, I was beat.

Food Intake:
coffee
banana
red delicious apple
1/2 c. raw cashews
greek salad
raw corn on the cob
medium iced coffee
red delicious apple

Tuesday ~ July 6, 2004 ~ Day 41

I noticed a cool thing this morning. I usually use a beach size towel when showering because the standard bath size towels don't wrap all around me. I can wrap them up under my arpits but usually hangs open down my body with my fat hips and arss hanging out.....hehehehhe. I usually don't get dressed right away, I just wear the towel while I brush my teeth, dry my hair etc. so having a towel that wraps around me is important. Anyway, this morning I didn't have any beach towels clean so I grabbed a regular bath towel. Well I'll be damned, the sucker wrapped all around me and even overlapped where my hips were. I couldn't believe it!!!!! I've obviously been noticing the weight loss and my cloths are getting loose but this just blew me away. It made me realize that even though I've been hoping the pounds would shed faster that my body is definately moving and shifting on me.

I also noticed today when I went to the ladies room that I can pull down my pants without unbuttoning or unzipping them. Not to get too personal there but I had been noticing how these specific pair of cargo pants have been hanging down to my hips so I figured I'd try for the hell of it.....hehehehehe. I better be careful because I had my car keys in one pocket and my cell phone in the other and I thought I was going to lose my pants. It my be time to get some smaller clothes but I don't want to waste money because I plan on losing a lot more weight, maybe I'll just get a belt for now.

There was nothing to do at work for the first couple of hours because we were having problems with our computers. When they came back up we were crazy busy, we didn't leave until 7:00pm. Ugggggggh, I'm pooped. By the time I got home (I have an hour commute) it was just about time to go to bed.

Off to read more email and browse some message boards before I go nighty night.