Blog / Category_daily live food blog

today I ate buckets o'veggies. I couldn't even finish them. How nice.

for breakfast and part of lunch: 64 oz green smoothie: banana, local blueberries, a whole bunch of collards, VM green, e3 live, rice protein powder, hemp milk and water.

for lunch a decent size salad with baby spinach, radish sprouts, nori, dulse, a couple pieces of marinated eggplant "bacon", raw marinara and 5 flax crackers that I broke into the salad. yum

drank nearly 2 quarts of water throughout the day

dinner was a bunch of brussels sprouts and cooked broccoli, about 1 oz of radish greens, 1 oz of mixed green sprouts, hummus, 3/4 cup rice. I ate all the veggies and got down to the rice and was pretty darn stuffed.

*yawn* sleepy now. good night,

xoxo,

Linda

I'm having fun doing the fuhrman thing. Well fuhrman a la linda breakfast was a big smoothie: banana, local blueberries, a WHOLE lot of mesclun mix, VM green, rice protein powder and e3 live. I did a lot of running around, sorting, organizing. I got home at 5 and was hungry. I ate a lara bar - lemon - it tasted like my lemon balls that I make. Very yummy. I did nearly 10 miles on the stationary bike as I read my book. dinner was the HUGEST salad: baby spinach, dulse, nori, brussels sprouts, 1/2 cup brown rice, with some raw marinara sauce. I put it in a big serving bowl and ate it. *BURP* Fuhrman suggests we eat almost 2 lbs of vegetables. This helps to fill us up and the greens are very healing. VERY important to VARY your greens! Eat to Live is a great book: http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=55_2&products_id=76 I'm going to get things ready for my full day tomorrow. more later, love, me

Wanted to list out the rest of the day so far:

It is snowing outside and accumulating fast. I went to do some orders and pick up some produce for this week and part of next. I got mesclun mix, spinach, kale, radish sprouts, bananas, strawberries (on sale) and zucchini (so the kids can make their "paleo" brownies - this cracks me up because nobody was making brownies in paleolithic times.) :-) Oh yes, and more brussels sprouts. I've been loving brussels sprouts so much these days.

I made the kids a vegan mac/cheese with quinoa pasta and a cheesy sauce that they seem to like a lot. I ate a few bites of it and then made my lunch of:

nori
raw cheddary cheeze spread
dulse
lettuce
a few pieces of marinated eggplant bacon.

Rolled it all up and ate it. YUM. That is yummy and satisfying. We went to walk the dogs after lunch. It is slippy out and very cold. The temperature is WAY warmer today than last week, but the wetness of the snow makes it almost as cold to bear as -10-20 degree weather (almost). So I didn't stay out long - just long enough for one of the dogs to pee. (My son stayed with the 2nd dog because they both had a need to run around.) Then I went to do the orders and take them to the post office.

Got back with all the produce and needed to make room in the fridge so I made a green juice of:
a bunch of parsley
a bag of pea shoot sprouts
1 head of kale
1/2 head lettuce
3 carrots
2 green apples

The three of us drank it and it was very good, although heavy on the parsley taste.

So that's the food update so far. I feel pretty good today. Greens and veggies always feel the best to me. I'm delighted about the morning smoothie, too - it was good for my kids to get some fruit in them and I'm tickled pink that they drank the juice, too.

Life is pretty full lately, with lots of changes and transitions coming. I've had many years of emotional eating under my belt and the last 10+ have been changing the pattern a bit. In some ways, I've come full circle: when I used to raid the fridge if I was experiencing sadness or anger or frustration, etc, now I find that I can't eat if I'm feeling a big emotion. That's both good and very foreign at the same time. It's good because I think this is how "normal" people react: they hear awful news and they can't eat until their insides are settled down. It's also very foreign: there is a loss of what to do when something big happens. I have many tools in my toolbelt and I'm still learning how to take inventory of mind/body/spirit when change happens or stress happens or excitement happens, etc. There's always much to learn and I don't think I'm totally out of the water yet for emotional eating. Since we got the big Vitamix order, I was super excited and stressed (good stress) to make sure we had all our ducks in a row. Coincidentally, I had had a physical/blood test that showed some hormones that were extremely low - almost not existant. Could be my age, and doc suggested I try DHEA to help bring some hormones back. I did a little bit of research on DHEA and found a full spectrum of information ranging from no bad side effects to terrible side effects. I did some experimenting with it and on the one hand, I felt more "myself" in my body and there were other things that happened too, namely: having difficulty sleeping, getting BIG pimples on my face and gaining weight. In retrospect, I can't say for sure if it was solely the DHEA that made me gain weight, or the stress of the big order, or the problems experienced in relationship. I recall that I felt pretty darn hungry when I was taking DHEA - I typically don't wake up very hungry, for example, and when I was taking DHEA, I was waking up pretty darn ravenous. Whatever it was (and probably a combination of the three), I put on weight - about 20 lbs, which is a lot. This has been the norm for me, though. It's been rather easy for me to put on and take off the same damn 20 lbs for the last 10 years. What a habit. I'm longing to break this. It's a mental and emotional habit, I'm sure of it. (My 20 lbs is like average size people's 10 lbs. I'm six feet tall, which is why I don't refer to myself as average size. So I mean to say where it is easy for some folks to gain/lose the same 10 lbs, for me it has been 20.) Anyway, I went off the DHEA after 3 months or so of being on it. The major difference is that I'm sleeping better and the mad pimples are gone. The weight, however, is still there. Holding on. The good news is that I'm doing strengthening exercises and using weights to try to up my testosterone naturally. I'm able to hold the plank pose (yoga pose) for well over a minute now! I do feel stronger and so my overall health and well-being is good. I don't, however, feel good when it's time to wear my clothes and I no longer want to have a "fat" wardrobe" and a "thin" one. So, it is time yet again to step into this eating pattern and weight-holding-habit and see what I can do to get down to a healthy weight AND STAY THERE LONG TERM! I'm going to be working with Lauren Walker with this, she does energy medicine and so much of this for me is like a habit in the mind/spirit. I eat very well and I exercise. There is the mind of a fat chick in there, though. And the mind of a non-deserving person. These are the things to work on. I've been contemplating this for a while now and it occurred to me that the last couple of weeks I've been pretty stumped about what I want to eat, how I want it to look like. In the past, when I felt the best, I did a green juice in the morning, a green smoothie in the afternoon and a BIG salad at night with some added cooked stuff like brown rice and some Rhapsody tempeh. It's time to reboot the system here - the salads at night have turned into more cooked than raw and ending with desserts. I've also been snacking on raw chocolate during the day and that's also not a good habit for me to get into. Recalling the 10 days or so of eating lots of fruit this past summer, I remember how attractive fruit is. I remember how nice it felt to eat fruit (I had so many guilty feelings associated with fruit from books and raw foodies in the past that I associated fruit as being BAD!) I tend to have to gear myself up to green juicing (don't ask me why) and so I thought I would start the day with a fruit smoothie today and see how that feels. In the Vitamix pitcher (64 oz), I threw in: 4 ripe bananas 3 mangoes 4-5 honey dates (FRESH! What a treat in January) 1 blood orange Whirled it around in the blender and then poured into 3 glasses: 2 16 oz glasses and 1 32 oz glass. I had the 32 oz glass. It was yummy and a light yellow color. Very pretty. Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have similar experiences and what things work for you to get out of your own way to living your best healthy life. (I'm referring to energy and mind/spirit aspects of food here please!!!) Love, Linda

I had an excellent Sunday. I'm very grateful to be able to slow down on my days off now. Before it was difficult - always felt guilty or pressure to do something, finish something, clean something, produce something. Today I moved my body, cleaned up my desk, did some bills and then did some painting. I also set out today to change just a bit in the way I'm eating.

I love all the food I eat, I just don't necessarily like the order in which I eat it. Let me explain. When I feel my best, I'm drinking the majority of my meals: I'd have a green juice in the morning, a green smoothie in the afternoon and then a big salad with some cooked veggies for dinner. The dinners end up feeling the heaviest and I go to bed feeling very weighed down. For a long time I've wanted to make my biggest meal be in the afternoon but wasn't sure how to accomplish that exactly. Too many variables with work and what about social events?

I came to a realization just a few days ago that there's no need to wait anymore. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, so it's time to just do it.

The morning green juice was delicious and I shared it with my family:
collards
parsley
green apple
celery
carrots
orange

I then did almost 10 miles on the stationary bike and did a few hand weights. I felt hungry though, so it was time to have lunch. I had:
baby greens
some of the cottage pie that I made in class on Saturday
some of the cooked sweet potato that I had made a couple days ago
sprouted sunflower seeds
a tiny bit of miso dressing

The kids looked at me and said, "Wow! You are hungry?" I told them that I wanted to switch dinner time with lunch time and see how it felt.

I went through some items and organized/cleared off my desk. Paid some bills. Dinner time came and I made a big green smoothie:
banana
cranberries
goji berries
rice protein powder
strawberries
collars
sprouted sunflower seeds
VM green
water

It was pretty darn thick. It tasted good but was too heavily citrusy for me. I drank about 3/4 of it and felt very very full but not heavily full. It's 10:30 pm and I still feel quite good.

I'm going to adjust QTYs and continue on seeing how this works. I'll be interested to see how this works while traveling as well as working. Wish me luck!

of course you can get all the creamy deliciousness of milk by making your own nut and seed milks. go HERE for videos and recipe how-to's. Created by: www.learnstuff.com

So I had leftover almond mash from making almond milk today and decided I wasn't going to put it in the freezer, I was gonna make some FUDGE with it. This is what I did (to the best of my memory:) 1 cup leftover almond mash from making NUT MILK -OOO! 1 jar artisana cashew butter (so creamy) 1/2 cup cacao powder (maybe more, I wasn't paying attention and was talking to customers) 1/3 bottle coconut nectar 1/3 cup rice protein powder a good dozen or so AFA green powder capsules, emptied into the fudge 1/2 tsp vanilla powder a small pinch of himalayan salt 1 tsp orange oil Combined everything together by hand. This is absolutely beautiful and soooo YUMMY. I'm flying high right now. In cacao bliss.

after a week of switching things up, I want to take a moment to think about what I've noticed and what I might to switch up even more this week. it's a big experiment and I'm grateful to take the time to do this.

I notice that by day 6, I was not so hungry as I was previous days. Could be a part of my cycle and it could be that I'm still eating more fat than I really need to. I definitely notice that I've got an emotional connection to fat in food. Well, hell, I guess I have an emotional connection to eating in general! I mean, don't we all? We have to eat to survive. But I notice that if I bring back grains to my life, I'll start out really well, eating 1/2 cup and no more. Then something happens, I'll get a little lazy or a little hungry and I'll add a cup instead of 1/2 cup or I'll go for seconds. Then I'll read about how amazing brown rice is and will just go gangbusters! I used to make 1 lb brown rice (dry) to last for the whole week. We would go 7 days with it and in more recent times, the 1 lb dry brown rice after it was cooked would last us 3-4 days! (Granted it would also get put into the kids lunches) but this was surprising to me and I thought we were over consuming. Some days it would be gone in a little over 2 days and that's just craziness!

So this week I'll have to see if I can reduce the fat even more. **gulp**

It's the dinners where we have the biggest habit of over eating. It's the only meal that we typically share together and I am the kind of person that makes a lot of food in order to have some left over for the next day. This sort of invites overeating from the get go. The food always tastes great to the question of "Can I have seconds?" arises from the kids and I find myself thinking that too.

I would like to move more, too. I am finding that I'm both relaxed and energized this week and exercising helps me to use up some energy reserves so that I fall into a really good sleep. There were 2 days that I didn't move much and sleeping those nights were not sound.

My body has felt pretty good this week so that is encouraging.

I noticed by day 6 and 7 that I was wanting more savory veggies than fruit, particularly in the evening. This is what happens, I've noticed, even when I do juice fasts. The sweetness at first is excellent and then I want less sweet. So it will be interesting to see how this week goes.

I did a lot of paper writing for school last night and was too tired to write anymore so my apologies for missing the day yesterday. Yesterday was a really good day and I went to bed feeling grateful for a lot. Here were the highlights:

1) despite getting very little sleep the night before, I had a very productive day and I felt really good in my body. I'm not sure why it is so, but it doesn't matter. I was very grateful to be able to function

2) I met with 3 inspiring women who are creating in their hearts some pretty magical lives. We met with the intention to help each other with support and to keep each other accountable. It was a really nice hour in the morning.

3) Work moved along very fluidly and while the cafe traffic was slow, I was able to get other things done and move along to another item without getting my focus broken.

4) We received 7100+ yards of fabric! We've been waiting for this for nearly 2 months or more and this past week we were under the impression we'd get it on Wednesday, then Thursday, so to get it on Friday was great!.

5) It was excellent to see all that fabric but to move it around felt great, too. This was over 3 tons of fabric and the physical activity of this felt very satisfying to move around. I did it without tweaking my back or hips so for that, I'm extremely grateful. I'm also very happy and thankful for the 3 people that work with us that helped lug the fabric rolls, too: Mary, Meg and Cat.

6) My body has felt very fed this week as well as relaxed but alert and able to be productive. Winning combination for me.

7) I was able to get 3 papers written and posted last night for 2 classes.

8) Also very grateful for the chocolate samples that Katrina from Liberty Chocolates left for us! All 7 or 8 of us plus customers really enjoyed them!

So all-in-all, an extremely fruitful day. My kids had a good day, too. Matt got the most exercise moving the heavier rolls of fabric but we all got sweaty which was great.

This morning begins with the juice from a young coconut. I'm not very hungry yet and don't want to eat just because it's time to eat. The juice is hella refreshing though.

That's my story from yesterday. Many blessings to us all for a great day today!

xoxo
Linda

So this is day 6 and I have to reiterate this is SO much easier than doing a juice fast! LOL

The day began well enough. I woke up hungry again, which is nice. I had 2 bananas and a mango and felt pretty darn full after that. I posted up a paper that I had written the night before and since the house was quiet, wrote another paper. I went to work and had my usual smoothie (which was delicious.) I gave some to Meg to try and she seemed to really like it. She said she wished she had a longer tongue to lick the sides and bottom of the cup! :-)

I had to leave work early to pick up the kiddos. They were at an outing in the day. It was a long drive there and a long drive back. I took the highway to get there and absolutely hated it. Even though the views are beautiful, I just didn't like it. I found myself having a mental tantrum. I realize how much our thoughts create our environment because no matter how pretty the day was, I was not happy because I told myself I don't like to drive on the highways. Interesting.

I took the back roads to get home and felt way more relaxed. Then suddenly the day felt magical again. Isn't that some shit?

Got home and it was time to close up shop. Went home and made dinner. We made a vegan pizza for the kids, loaded with tons of veggies. For us, we moistened some rice paper and filled with hail to the kale, fresh salsa and fresh guacomole. It was HEAVENLY! Seriously - whomever it was that created the recipe for guacamole was an absolute angel. So yummy. I felt so satisfied from this tasty meal.

I drank 2 liters of water today but I didn't get to do much movement. But it was a good day. I watched What the Bleep do We Know? for my class. What a LONG film! OMG! Interestingly enough, they talk about intention and creating things out of our thoughts. How's that for synchronicity? :-) I just figured that out on my car drive when I was thinking myself miserable! LOL

Anyway, I wish you a good night. I hope you had a great day today.

xoxo,
Linda

Day 5 - September 5th I slept extremely well last night. I felt super tired in my bones and literally crashed. I don't remember falling asleep. I woke up feeling pretty well rested however I could have slept longer. I woke up HUNGRY this morning! I had 3 bananas and 1 mango. I looked this up on fit day - that's 450 calories, 1.7 g fat, 116 g carbs and 4.9 g protein. I felt quite satisfied to say the least. If I have breakfast, it's usually a green juice so somewhere in the neighborhood of 300-350 calories. By the time I got to about 1 pm, I was really hungry but didn't eat right away. Had a green smoothie which we've figured out is somewhere around 550 - 600 calories, about 20 g protein but I don't know the amount of fat or carbs. I'll have to ask Matt what he figured when he did the calculations and get back to ya. Was totally satisfied all day however I ate a bit of chocolate around 4:30 or 5 pm. It sounded very good to me. (I'm ovulating!) :-) I know that for many reasons but the general hunger is a clue for me. I don't usually have a growling stomach. Dinner was a whole bunch of vegetables. This is the time of year when farmer's markets and CSAs are fully abundant and I go a little crazy when I do my ordering. I got corn and broccoli and tomatoes and zukes and cucumbers and kale and oh boy I ran out of room in the fridge from all the plant life. I steamed the broccoli and the corn. I cooked up leeks with zucchini for the kids. We made Hail to the Kale salad. So dinner for me was hail to the kale, a small bit of the kelp noodles that was left, broccoli and corn. I am totally LOVING broccoli and corn with umeboshi paste on it. (Just a little bit) OMG! So good. A few hours later I made the fruit pudding again. Used the meat of 2 young coconuts (wasn't a lot of meat in there) plus bananas and the super ripe peaches. It's a hella yum dessert. Would be a hella yum breakfast or lunch or snack too. As I write this, I still feel pretty darn stuffed. I'm getting things done for my homework, for the housework and for the kids for their outting tomorrow. My energy is pretty darn ample right now which is good because I want to write a paper or two tonight, if I can. Other observations: did I mention the poops? Well um, it's still wonderful! I was seeking to eat fruit to have a little roto rooter action and it's working! OK, not that graphic or as bad as it sounds. I think that if it's possible for you to eat fruit - even low and medium glycemic fruits, then please do so! I'm really interested in this carb from fruit and veggies thing. I've always eaten lots of vegetables (well, in the last 11 years for certain) but like I wrote on an earlier blog entry, I wasn't eating lots of fruit because I thought fruit was not good for me. There's so many differing viewpoints on what's good and not good to eat. I seek to have my body tell me what's best and what isn't but I really did let peer pressure tell me that fruit wasn't good. I'm still apprehensive about this and yet, I'm just noticing some very nice positive things going on for me. Maybe it's the energetics: taking in the sweetness of life. Maybe the carbs and/or sugar help a person feel really good. I'm not blissed out like I get on a lot of raw chocolate (I can really feel kind of ecstatically high on raw chocolate) but I do feel pretty darn good. I hope it continues! :-) OK, I really want to get to my papers. Thanks for reading! smoochies, Linda

day 4 - sept 4th well today was a rather nondescript sort of day. nothing too spectacular to write about. well, that's not entirely true actually. breakfast was 2 bananas and a mango, 1/2 liter of water and went off to yoga class. We did a lot with our hips today and a lot on gratitude. I had walked so much yesterday that I was grateful for the yoga class. At some point, my hips got very tired with the poses and started to stiffen up - just the opposite of yoga! We stretched so much that my hips actually felt TIRED. The last time my hips felt worked like this was when I was doing physical therapy recently after some spasms occurred last May. My hips and legs just gave in by the time the class let out (well, not really but they felt spent.) I recalled having a deep relaxation experience during one of the poses and it sort of startled me. I typically feel invigorated from yoga and today I felt relaxation. It was good! I went home, cleaned up, then made some food for the kiddos and then went to work. lunch was a 32 oz smoothie that was tasty and went down all too quickly. I was rather slow moving all day after yoga. I'm usually got the yoga bliss mood going on after class, and am happy to report that I had it today too. Today though it was more a sense of exhaling: I've been able to really really relax. The past week or two, I've been so grateful for a deep sense of calming down within my body. I haven't relaxed in probably 17 years. I was very grateful for it although I have to be honest and say that I got a little nervous to relax. (Isn't that crazy?!) Then I talked myself out of that nonsense realizing it's the very thing I need to be doing more of. Still, it is a bad habit so I have to be mindful of this. I had another liter of water and got some work done. It wasn't a busy day at the cafe today and I was also grateful for that since it was gray outside (the first gray day in a long time) and my energy was that of a slow moving mammal. My legs were still mildly cramping up here and there - what they really wanted to do was rest. I'm on my feet a lot during the day and I was trying to be efficient with my movements but that didn't really work because I'd drop something or forget something as I was headed upstairs. I sorted out some chocolates from the other day and ate a bit. Really! It's just a habit! I didn't have any awareness - I just put the chocolate in my mouth. Amazing! (It was yummy though!) I made this without agave or honey - used lucuma and coconut nectar. So it wasn't super sweet. I also added a pinch of salt so that tasted nice, too. Flavors are definitely enhanced these past couple of days. Dinner was the same as last night. I was very hungry when I got home and ate a big serving of greens with kelp noodles and kim chi. A couple hours later the kids and I made a pudding of banana, strawberries, avocado and ripe peaches. It was very damn tasty. I had more water a bit later and here I am now. I realize that technically I should eat the fruit first. I'm just not in the habit of eating the dessert first. Maybe I can work on that this week. Some observations: 1) Even though my muscles are tired, I'm feeling stronger. This is major for me. I'm using muscles and they are letting me do it. *knock on wood* that this continues. 2) My body is relaxing and I think my adrenals are calming down. They've been maxed out for such a long time. I really hope I can get back to homeostasis. Well, actually, I'm sure I can. 3) The poops when eating a variety of fruit are great! Same for when eating only raw foods, to be honest. Fruits are the cleansers. I wondered today why people say, "oh, I couldn't eat fruit - it would go right through me." I thought, "well, what's wrong with that? it might take a whole bunch of garbage along with it?" LOL 4) I'll have to do a day on fitday.com so I can see the nutritional intake. It's way more food that I'm used to eating. I feel good though.Still, I'm very curious. 5) This is way way way WAY easier than doing a juice fast. Good night and sweet dreams, Linda