I woke up at 7 feeling good, which is great since a normal Sunday morning at my boyfriend's house is I wake up a bit hung over at 9 or 10 and often refuse to leave the bed until he brings me some juice and promises we'll just do Yin yoga. Then, by the time we do yoga and maybe make a green smoothie and shower it's some time in the afternoon and we've missed brunch and farmer's markets and garden centers and so many other Sunday type things.
So I had water with lime and my boyfriend had grapefruit juice with Super Seed, then we did some power yoga and had pineapple-garlic juice. By the time we were done showering and getting ready, we still had time to go to the Jack London Square farmer's market! They have some cool stuff there like candy cap mushroom and dill kraut juice, but it was a little late and they'd sold out of that, otherwise I'd have had a shot. Still, we got everything we needed, three pounds of pickling cucumbers, garlic, 5 big heads of romaine lettuce for me to take home and juice during the week, 3 russet potatoes (hard to find this time of year at the farmer's market, but the best for making samosas) some stuffed naan type breads with some spreads for my starving boyfriend, 3 pounds of raw almonds (actually, I worry they aren't 100% raw, the girl at the booth didn't know and it didn't specifically say "unpasteurized" on the label, but I'm going to go with the idea that they are and then shop more carefully next time) and a half dozen eggs.
My boyfriend and I have been vegan for over three years now but he's been craving eggs that whole time. My thought is that eggs could be a healthy part of a diet but from both a health and an ethical perspective it just depends where they come from. I myself might eat eggs if...I don't know...maybe if they came from rescue hens that we were taking care of in our big backyard garden. Then I'd know exactly what they ate and I'd know the chickens were happy and healthy and I wasn't responsible for any male chicks killed because they just aren't useful or whatever. So these eggs we got, I probably wouldn't eat them because they come from a farm that has 1500 chickens and I'm sure they eat mostly chicken feed and not as much grass and bugs plus raising that many hens they must be killing a lot of male chicks and now they are raising "meat birds" too, so there's more killing for you.
We are talking about getting chickens some day. My boyfriend would get them now-ish, but he'd really like to get little chicks and hand-raise them, and if we're really going to live together I figure we may as well be living together first, otherwise it'll be like our garden when I miss half the stuff that goes on there and don't get to spend nearly as much time on it as I'd like. Even then, with our own chickens, I can't imagine using eggs for things like baking. We've spent several years making cakes and cupcakes and so many other things that often have eggs in them but making them without eggs and they taste exactly the same. If I'm going to eat an animal product, I want it to be special. I want to celebrate and honor it.
Anyway....
After the farmer's market we just sat by the water and talked a while. We were talking about weekend trips we might take and how that would work with juice feasting - like what if we want to go to Mendocino or Las Vegas or Las Angeles. We're also talking about taking a trip to Guadalahara. He goes for business a few times a year anywayy, but I've never gone with. That won't happen while I'm still juice feasting, but Mendocino certainly could. Hopefully we won't go to Las Vegas because there are a few more okay vegan options there than there used to be and I would be sad to miss those. I would like to see The Phantom of the Opera. Los Angeles I would like to wait a bit to visit because I'd like to lose more weight and then go shopping. Mendocino would be the best because there is a raw restaurant there and places that serve juice but mostly because there is plenty of kayaking and mountain biking, wonderful beaches to do yoga and walk on and it's a pretty drive up there. There is a nice vegan restaurant I'd miss out on but that's about it.
Dinner was quite a bit of work. I think I may have used my boyfriend's Blendtec about 20 times. It was cool to compare it with my Vitamix, though. I can't decide which one I like better, but I'm starting to lean towards the Blendtec. It doesn't have a tamper but any time I think the ingredients just aren't going to blend, suddenly they do and it all goes very fast with those huge blades.
We made some posole for lunch right before we started cooking the other stuff. Since it was all just vegetables, I blended some up and strained it and had some myself. I don't know if I'm supposed to do that but I have to say it was delicious. My boyfriend liked the flavor of my blended/strained version better than the plain version, so next time I think we'll blend up half the soup when it's done and then add it back in to the pot.
Dinner was a hit. My boyfriend told me afterward that he was afraid the juices would be terrible, but all three were delicious and everyone had their favorite. He had made samusas and of course everyone loved those. Isa's recipe is wonderful. I think the secret is all the spices in the dough. They liked the soup as well - I had just the broth and I thought it was a bit weak and lacking flavor but for some reason his brother loved the soup enough to beg for seconds. If I made the soup again, I'd have to find some way to punch up the flavor. Also, I think some kale added to it would be good. For dessert I made cantaloupe sorbet and everyone loved that, too. I just blended/strained a cantaloupe and threw it in the ice cream compressor. I've seen cantaloupe sorbet recipes that call for adding lime and/or simple syrup, but I don't know why. It wasn't even the best, ripest cantaloupe and it was fantastic.
At the start of the meal, my boyfriend's brother was like "you're not having any wine?" and everyone was like "WHAT????" Haha, me not having any wine. I can be making everyone have a melange of fresh juices for an appetizer, I can have no samusas and only broth instead of the regular soup but NO WINE??? ME? No one could believe it. I had mint tea, though, and it was delicious. His brother also wondered why I would need to do a juice feast when I'm vegan and my diet must be so healthy already. I explained there are plenty of less-then-healthy things that as a vegan I have consumed quite a bit of, coffee, wine, chocolate, bread, pasta...haha, not sure how many people I can convert to veganism telling them all those things are not that healthy for you. Not that it's even that simple, I mean bread, for instance, has so many variables you just can't make a blanket statement like "bread is bad" or "bread is good".
By the time I got home, it was late but I still had to take out my (stinky) trash, force feed my cat, drink a quart of water/lime/msm and take my Intestinal Drawing Formula (which I hadn't been taking at my boyfriend's) and I did an enema, too, so I was up very late.
Weight: ?!?!?!?
Monday, May 2, 2011
Raw Juice Feast, Day 16
It's no surprise my weight was up when I weighed myself this morning. First of all, yesterday I started taking the Intestinal Drawing Formula and it seems to still be there in my intestinal tract, drawing up water. I guess, anyway. Plus, I'm up three hours earlier than the last few days and something I almost forgot - when I weighed myself I still had the at least a half a pound of henna that I applied to my hair sitting on my head.
I missed my local farmer's market for the second Saturday in a row, which is really too bad since the lettuce prices were so good AND I noticed the lettuce I purchased there before stayed fresh significantly longer than what I got at Whole Foods. *sigh* I guess it was worth it, though, since the reason I missed it was to go see the opera. Well, not the live opera but a live simulcast. Since we are on the west coast and the simulcast is of the matinee in New York, I had to leave at 9 am. I thought if I was up early enough and ready in time I could go to the market - which opens at 8 am - and be back in time for my boyfriend to pick me up but with the henna and having to drink so much liquid and trying to prepare for what is basically an entire weekend away from home, I would have had to get up about the same time I went to bed. As it was, I was up too late for the hair stuff and I have to have an awfully good reason to get up before dawn.
The opera was good. We were pretty much the youngest ones there by about 20 years, yet I think I may have been the only one in the audience to get up and pee when it wasn't even intermission. Hey, what can I say...I'd had a quart of lemon-msm water and then a quart of pineapple-garlic juice.
After the opera we hadn't really made any plans, but we were hungry so we decided to drive to Judahlicious near the beach in Outer Sunset, since we knew they had a big juice selection. I got some crazy kind of juice that had stuff like burdock root and nutritional yeast in it, and it tasted kind of weird. I also got another juice to go but I never ended up drinking it, which I felt kind of bad about since it was expensive. My boyfriend had a Half Nekkid burrito which I've tried before and it looked really good but I know it's a little too spicy for me even if I could eat it.
Afterwards, we didn't really know what to do with ourselves...going to a wine bar was out and we usually get together later on Saturdays than this. We ended up driving around some interesting neighborhoods and then finally driving to Oakland and walking part-way around Lake Merritt, which was kind of cool because we always say we are going to walk around it but we always find something else to do or run out of time. If only we'd worn better shoes we might have walked all the way around. Oh, we also went to the hat store he's obsessed with. He's always wanting to go there but Lake Merritt we run out of time, otherwise it's closed when we go by. He got a great hat - I was dubious about it at first because I've never known a hat to really enhance his appearance, but the guy at the store helped him pick one that really does look good on him, so that's pretty awesome.
We spent some time talking about things like maybe moving in together at the end of the year if he buys a new house by then and how it's been really hard for him not seeing me as much lately - I think the juice feast has gotten more than its share of the blame for that, since a lot of it has had to do with my cat's medication schedule, the part where I was a little mad at him and the fact that he went out of town on business, but it's true that the juice feast is somewhat disruptive to the way we've been spending out time together. Maybe not in a bad way, but the fact is that *I* decided to do this juice feast and didn't really consult anyone else or give much advance notice and all these other things happened at the same time.
After the lake, we went to Whole Foods and I had my menu plan for tomorrow but not really a proper shopping list, and I was a bit anxious about getting everything we needed. It was a lot of produce, and I needed to think about what I needed and felt a bit panicked and stressed about it. I had everything I needed, though, by the time we left the produce department. Well, I got some Dr. Bronner's liquid soap and my boyfriend picked up some coffee and a beer, but other than that it was like here's this whole big rest of the store and we're done already. It was a bit expensive, too. I mean, it was maybe what we would usually spend if we are planning to have his family over for an elaborate meal IF we also got a few bottles of wine while we were there.
For dinner, I made my coconut-curry broth and my boyfriend had some of his soup from Judahlicious (which they'd forgotten to bring to the table so we got it to go) and a bit of chocolate and his beer. He'd had some bread in the car but overall he really didn't eat enough for the day. Or maybe it was enough if it was just that day but it's more like he hasn't been eating right or enough of the right foods lately and my juice feast doesn't make it easier. He feels bad that he "gets to" eat solid food and I don't. I think he's feeling better about it, though, especially when he tried my broth and was like "wow, that's really good, much better than my soup!" I thought of maybe giving him a little bowl of it, but being out and about all day I really hadn't had that much juice and was pretty hungry.
Weight: 201
I missed my local farmer's market for the second Saturday in a row, which is really too bad since the lettuce prices were so good AND I noticed the lettuce I purchased there before stayed fresh significantly longer than what I got at Whole Foods. *sigh* I guess it was worth it, though, since the reason I missed it was to go see the opera. Well, not the live opera but a live simulcast. Since we are on the west coast and the simulcast is of the matinee in New York, I had to leave at 9 am. I thought if I was up early enough and ready in time I could go to the market - which opens at 8 am - and be back in time for my boyfriend to pick me up but with the henna and having to drink so much liquid and trying to prepare for what is basically an entire weekend away from home, I would have had to get up about the same time I went to bed. As it was, I was up too late for the hair stuff and I have to have an awfully good reason to get up before dawn.
The opera was good. We were pretty much the youngest ones there by about 20 years, yet I think I may have been the only one in the audience to get up and pee when it wasn't even intermission. Hey, what can I say...I'd had a quart of lemon-msm water and then a quart of pineapple-garlic juice.
After the opera we hadn't really made any plans, but we were hungry so we decided to drive to Judahlicious near the beach in Outer Sunset, since we knew they had a big juice selection. I got some crazy kind of juice that had stuff like burdock root and nutritional yeast in it, and it tasted kind of weird. I also got another juice to go but I never ended up drinking it, which I felt kind of bad about since it was expensive. My boyfriend had a Half Nekkid burrito which I've tried before and it looked really good but I know it's a little too spicy for me even if I could eat it.
Afterwards, we didn't really know what to do with ourselves...going to a wine bar was out and we usually get together later on Saturdays than this. We ended up driving around some interesting neighborhoods and then finally driving to Oakland and walking part-way around Lake Merritt, which was kind of cool because we always say we are going to walk around it but we always find something else to do or run out of time. If only we'd worn better shoes we might have walked all the way around. Oh, we also went to the hat store he's obsessed with. He's always wanting to go there but Lake Merritt we run out of time, otherwise it's closed when we go by. He got a great hat - I was dubious about it at first because I've never known a hat to really enhance his appearance, but the guy at the store helped him pick one that really does look good on him, so that's pretty awesome.
We spent some time talking about things like maybe moving in together at the end of the year if he buys a new house by then and how it's been really hard for him not seeing me as much lately - I think the juice feast has gotten more than its share of the blame for that, since a lot of it has had to do with my cat's medication schedule, the part where I was a little mad at him and the fact that he went out of town on business, but it's true that the juice feast is somewhat disruptive to the way we've been spending out time together. Maybe not in a bad way, but the fact is that *I* decided to do this juice feast and didn't really consult anyone else or give much advance notice and all these other things happened at the same time.
After the lake, we went to Whole Foods and I had my menu plan for tomorrow but not really a proper shopping list, and I was a bit anxious about getting everything we needed. It was a lot of produce, and I needed to think about what I needed and felt a bit panicked and stressed about it. I had everything I needed, though, by the time we left the produce department. Well, I got some Dr. Bronner's liquid soap and my boyfriend picked up some coffee and a beer, but other than that it was like here's this whole big rest of the store and we're done already. It was a bit expensive, too. I mean, it was maybe what we would usually spend if we are planning to have his family over for an elaborate meal IF we also got a few bottles of wine while we were there.
For dinner, I made my coconut-curry broth and my boyfriend had some of his soup from Judahlicious (which they'd forgotten to bring to the table so we got it to go) and a bit of chocolate and his beer. He'd had some bread in the car but overall he really didn't eat enough for the day. Or maybe it was enough if it was just that day but it's more like he hasn't been eating right or enough of the right foods lately and my juice feast doesn't make it easier. He feels bad that he "gets to" eat solid food and I don't. I think he's feeling better about it, though, especially when he tried my broth and was like "wow, that's really good, much better than my soup!" I thought of maybe giving him a little bowl of it, but being out and about all day I really hadn't had that much juice and was pretty hungry.
Weight: 201
Raw Juice Feast, Day 14
Today I slept until 9:30, several hours later than I have been. I guess I stayed up a bit later than I have been as well, and also my cats woke me up a number of times during the night, but I think it also has to do with all the walking I did yesterday and also with the fact that I started taking the water-msm-lemon at night now as well and I've gotten back to using my magnesium oil (which actually has nothing to do with the juice feast, it's something I started before that.)
When I got up I realized I didn't have enough water left for water-msm-lemon, plus I thought I was out of limes (errrrr, I've been using them instead of lemon because I like the taste better) so I had to trudge to the water machine before I could do anything else.
Weight: 201.4
When I got up I realized I didn't have enough water left for water-msm-lemon, plus I thought I was out of limes (errrrr, I've been using them instead of lemon because I like the taste better) so I had to trudge to the water machine before I could do anything else.
Weight: 201.4
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