The World is our Oyster!

There are new beginnings and fresh chapters looming on so many fronts for us!

Work. There have been huge changes in our work over the past 3 weeks. My husband now works in a bike shop, and I have a wonderful new job tutoring primary and high school students in English. Of all the jobs I have ever had, teaching is definitely the best 'fit' for me, and as cliched as it sounds, I really feel that it's my 'calling'. I still photograph, but it's turning more and more into a 'paying hobby' and isn't so much a 'career' anymore. It's wonderful for me that after 7 years studying my teaching degree I have only a year left until I will be fully qualified. At times the study has seemed never ending, and with 7 subjects still to complete I'm by no means finished yet, but the end is in sight. I'm energised and excited by thoughts of my new career.

Home. We are planning a move back to my childhood home! Nothing is set in stone as yet but it's looking pretty good. My Dad still lives on the 10-acre property on which I grew up, and we are contemplating moving back there. We can rent out our unit and can live at Dad's rent-free. That will leave us lots of extra money for improving the property: building vegie gardens and an orchard, keeping chickens and bees, dogs and cats and cattle. While all of these used to be well established, Dad has spent at least 6 months away every year for about 20 years, so some work is needed to reinstate the food-growing side of things. 

I'm thrilled beyond measure by this possibility. Not jumping-up-and-down excited, like I would be for something like an overseas holiday, but deeply, quietly joyous in my heart. So many happy memories are wrapped up in that home for me and the surrounding area is still just as I remember it from my childhood. I am delighted at the thought of raising my children in a rural environment. This morning we woke up there are I was able to send the kids outside to play, unsupervised, and I could never do that where we live at the moment. I really hope that this plan comes to fruition.

Tomorrow the Garden Diet 28-day raw program begins again. I didn't go through with the 21-day cleanse that has just finished - the work upheavals and associated pressures took all my energy and motivation way from my diet. In fact, I almost relished eating badly, hurting my health and energy levels with food - weird and sad and not something I really want to analyse right now. But all the changes that are happening at the moment make it seem like the right time to change my diet again too, for the better. A positive energy is flowing through my life and I realise it's always there, I've just started to become more aware of it and tap into it. This energy will help my 28-day program efforts, and will be strengthened by them as well, I'm sure of it.

Tomorrow: Breakfast will be a vegetable juice. Lunch will be Tabbouli and dinner will be gazpacho. Note to self: go shopping early!

Soon I could be growing some, most, or even all of my fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds. It will truly be *my* garden diet then! What a possibility!

Annual 21-day Cleanse

My most recent approach is not working. Not at all. I'm not sure why, but it's just not right for me. I crave the light, energetic, easy feeling that I had when I did the Garden Diet programs last year. I've decided to do the 21-day cleanse again, starting today, as a way of rejuvenating myself and getting back on track.

A couple of things are inspiring me at the moment. One is my sister-in-law. She recently did a 6-day 'lean and clean' program by James Duigan. I briefly considered doing it as well. She talks about feeling light, clean, and alive: 'I felt like I was dead before, now I don't think I'll ever stop eating this way.' It was really hard for her to do the program - she felt hungry and uncomfortable and craved fruit and coffee - but she persevered and she looks and feels amazing as a result. I have the book as well and gave it some serious consideration after her spectacular results. But the 'Clean and Lean' approach isn't at all for me. Seriously, meat at every single meal and snack. Meat meat meat meat meat. I gag just thinking about it. I believe that difrerent approaches work for everyone. My sister-in-law doesn't digest raw food well, particularly salads, whereas I feel great with raw food and unwell if I eat meat! So I don't think that what works for her would be particularly good for me.  What inspires me, though, is her determination to stick it out and make it through the 6 hard days in exchange for feeling wonderful at the end. She is really amazingly focused. I'll be drawing strength from her example when the 21-day prorgam gets tough for me!

I'm also inspired by this article. I've been avoiding discomfort with eveything I've got for a long time now! Which is crazy, since the things that have given me the most joy in my life - cycling, climbing, having children - have been distinctly uncomfortable! I'm drawing incredible inspiration from the reminder that embracing discomfort leads to amazing rewards.

So today is Day 1 of the Garden Diet 21-day program for me. I've had my breakfast juice - I had orange and grapefruit instead of just orange juice. It was fantastic and, just as I remembered from last time I did the cleanse, it filled me up completely. I've got some Sun Tea brewing and I'm looking forward to the adventure ahead - discomfort and all!

Today's happiness exercise is focused on bulding awareness with all of our senses. It's a great practice and today I'll be focusing it on my children - really focusing on them with every sense. They are such a delight!

A New Normal

Finally our household has emerged from the ravages of gastric infection. On the plus side I lost a kilo! :-) On the minus side... well, I don't think I need to go into too much detail there.

I can eat like a normal person again, so as from now I am living according to my 'new normal'. Sticking with the plan I designed a couple of posts ago.

Right now it's actually evening and all of my eating and activity are over for the day, so tonight will be all about actually doing the meditation thing (it's sooooo difficult for me - I tried it a few days ago and wow, do I have a chatty scatty brain!) and building a new habit of having herbal tea instead of snacks in the evenings.

Tonight's dinner was so yummy. A Farmer's Plate: tomato, cucumber, cos lettuce, basil, fetta, prosciutto, olives, boiled egg. A very tiny drizzle of olive oil and apple cider vinegar. It was delicious, colourful and completely satisfying.

Gastro!

Three days I'm not really going to talk about.

It's been a constant race to keep ahead of the laundry. Ugh.

Needless to say there's not been much eating, exercise, or meditation!

Getting back to normal now.

Hello again!

So it's an anniversary of sorts... a year (and a bit) since I completed the Garden Diet programs and got me some 'afters' to be proud of. I remember the experience with (mostly) pleasure, but it's also a bit of a blur in my mind. I remember that it was hard sometimes to be organised and have raw food when we were out, and that eating at other people's houses required forethought, planning, explanations, and bringing my own food. It was really great but also quite the challenge at times.



So a year on I've pretty much gone back to a 'normal' Western way of eating, with a few extra raw recipes thrown in. I had a few half-hearted and failed attemptes to re-do the Garden Diet programs, but they generally got to about day 3 or 4 before lack of motivation derailed me. I eat generally healthily, but too much sugar for sure. I'm addicted to sugar! I also eat at odd times and seem to be hungry a LOT! There's sometimes not a huge distinction between morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea - just a trail of snacks taken every half hour or so. It's easy to lose track of what I'm eating, and often it's whatever the kids leave behind. The kids, unfortunately, also eat less well when I do.



Improvements in my 'wellness' have also plateaued in a big way, despite several attempts to get some forward motion happening again. I'm still not particularly fit and I've got a few remaining kilos of 'post-baby weight' to which I'd love to say goodbye. I get frustrated by my failed attempts to improve my lifestyle - Starting again, always starting again! Every darn week I seem to start again. Feelings of deprivation are a big hurdle for me – I'll 'start again' at breakfast, brand spanking new beautiful healthy lifestyle plan in place, only to revert by 11am because 'it's all too hard and I just don't have the emotional energy at the moment and, quite frankly, I'd feel so deprived and sad if I didnn't eat that (insert name of unhealthy snack here)...'



I'm not sure why I feel that this time will be different, but I know that during the Garden Diet program blogging seemed to really help me stay on track. It's a great reflective tool and the knowledge that someone might read this keeps me a teeny bit accountable.



So what's the plan?



I'm basing my new habits on the Garden Diet's three-fold strategy: Diet, exercise and 'happiness'.

The exercise bit is easy to formulate. Three times a week I'll do a program of strength exercises that I have - it's quick, challenging, and doesn't need any equipment. I can do the exercises during the kids' half hour of tv... oh, who am I kidding, I'm not a perfect Mum and they have at least an hour of tv time most days into which I can schedule a few squats and lunges! Three times a week I'll do something aerobic - running, cycling, boxing (there's a boxing gym near my house and I'm itching to give it a go), swimming, windsurfing, kayaking, whatever I can get to. Running will probably be my staple - it's quick, easy to do from home, and I can take the kids along.



The diet part is pretty much worked out. After years of experimentation I'm putting into place what I've learned works best for me. Breakfast is a glass of water with lemon juice, then a plain glass of water, then two glasses of freshly squeezed vegie juice. I know, it sounds really lame and model-starvation-y and not like a meal at all. 'I need to chew', etc. But I've been doing this for several weeks now and to my astonishment it keeps me full and happy till about 11:30am. It's the one meal of the day that I really feel I've nailed. Then another vegie juice fills the gap till lunch. Lunch and dinner will be a combination of raw meals and small portions of the cooked food that my family eat, including eggs, dairy, very occasional meat. Yes, meat. Variety. Lunch and dinner will include homemade fermented foods - I'm a dab hand at sauerkraut and look forward to expanding into kefir, kombucha, kimchi and more. Lunch and dinner will also include greens. Greeeeeens! I do love eating leaves. And sprouts. Babies of goodness. Snacks: I'm really trying to take my snacking in hand and get over the need to be constantly eating. I've begun to build the habit of snacking on iskiate: Chia seeds, water, lime juice and a dash of maple syrup. Looks like pond scum, tastes divine. Hydrates, cleanses, fills, and has the zinginess of a Mexican cocktail. What's not to love? Iskiate is my new snack-attack friend. I'll make a big batch every morning.



The biggest change and challenge: quitting sugar! I blame Sarah Wilson for this: www.sarahwilson.com.au
She's big into the quitting sugar thing and backs up her convictions with some compelling arguments. I have her ebooks - two of them. I don't agree with everything she espouses, but vive la difference. I agree with a lot more than I disagree with, and anyone can see that the SAD (Standard Australian Diet) contains waaaaaay more sugar than it did only a generation ago. And it really can't be good. Keen to give that stuff the heave-ho. I expect withdrawals and cravings and feel some trepidation, some fear of failure, but whatever. Suck it up sunshine and reap the benefits.



The 'happiness' part of things is more of a challenge for me to decide on. I don't really know what questions to ask myself, what exercises to do, how to get this part of my self-designed program up and running. So I'm starting with something basic - five minutes of meditation a day - and I'll take it from there. I'm sure that as the days progress I'll find inspiration and direction in this area.



So, here we go. Sugar free, mostly raw, hold onto your hats. 'Before' pictures coming tomorrow.

My new blog:

I have a new blog! One chatting about not only food but also life in general and the things that make me happy. It's at:

http://thebeautifulblues.wordpress.com/

Day 3

Ewwwww, I am sick. A tummy bug is doing the rounds of our family - my son had it first, then my husband, and now my daughter and I have succumbed. Ew. I seriously can almost not keep up with the laundry.

I did a really indulgent thing today - I had a half hour sleep mid-morning! Thank you husband. xxxx

I've been thinking a lot about my photography over the last couple of days. I've been contracting to studios for over 10 years now, and it's been great. I've learned an incredible amount, worked with amazing people, and gained confidence, nous, and lifelong friendships.

For the last couple of years, though, I've been contemplating 'nreaking free' and starting my own studio. It's scary! If a client has a problem, it's up to me (and only me!) to fix it! And what if noone books me? What if I'm not good enough? In my rational moments none of this worries me, but at 3 in the morning it's another thing entirely.

I'm finally feeling ready to go for it, though, and one big reason is that I've taken the last year to shhoot a lot of personal work and really try and find out what makes me 'tick' as a photographer. As pretentious as it sounds to 'take time out to find myself as an artist' (cringe), it's been really helpful and my confidence has soared. I've discovered that while I admire many, many photographers (and other artists), all of whom have very different styles and approaches, I also have my own style and approach that's every bit as good and valid! And I'm sure there are people out there with whom my style will resonate, and who will be excited to book me to photograph them. So as I continue to build a body of work that represents my own vision, not that of a studio I'm shooting for, I'm also getting ready to order stationery with my logo on it, get a website live and kicking, and have a stand at a bridal fair to see what the reaction will be. I hope it;s good. I hope people will like what I do. But the fact is that I love shooting the way I want to, and I love it so much that I'm prepared to give it a shot. If nothing else I've got some great photos of my kids to treasure as a result of all my experimentation, and if I get nothing else, that's good enough.

So that's it for today. Noone wants to read about me eating cooked pumpkin soup and toast while I'm sick :-)

And of course I didn't exercise because I could seriously sleep all day. Tomorrow, or whenever I feel well again. Instead I'm just indulging in daydreams about cycling in the Swiss Jura. Mmmmmmmm....

28 Days Take 2: Days 1 and 2

I'm enjoying being a part of the 28-day program again! I haven;t done it perfectly - I'm getting lots of rpactice at not beating myself up! Actually, not beating myself up is pretty well ingrained as a habit now, and I'm happier for it.

Yesterday, day 1, I decided not to follow the program menu exactly, since I've started the program several times now and am kind of bored with the recipes! So I winged it. I had greapefruit juice for breakfast - yum! - and some grapes for morning tes. At lunch I had an avocado, cut in half and filled with a drizzle of olive oil and vinegar, and I had some mroe grapes as well. By mid-afternoon I got quite hungry, so I had a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes and olives. Dinner was more salad, with cucumber added as well.

I didn't exercise yesterday! I was feeling quite 'off' and exhausted, so my mental energy wasn;t quite up to the task of dragging me off the couch in the evening! Today I'll get it done, I feel much better.

Today I had to be up and out of the house early, adn after a very disrupted night with the kids I didn't get up in time to prepare food to take with me. Instead I bought a fruit smoothie for breakfast, and when I got home I had grapes and some sultanas for lunch. In between I also nibbled on the kids' bread rolls and had a couple of bites of my son's leftover biscuit. Not raw or remotely healthy, but I've eaten lots and lots of raw healthy food and I feel great anyway!

I've been taking photos each morning, and weighing myself, and I'm interested to see the change in me by the program's end! I'll post the photos when the program's finished. Seems easier than uploading one every day!

Happiness-wise I've made sure I've done something fun and not-food-oriented each day to keep me feeling indulged. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours gardening, which I love, while my baby girl sat on a blanket and watched, and smelled the lavendar and sage I pruned. Today I had my hair cut - always a treat! So I'm feeling overall positive, well and happy.

28-Day Raw Clease, take 2

Hello! Tomorrow is the first day of the 28-day transition to raw, again. Again. Again. Again. I keep doing this, and keep feeling like I'm starting and giving up, starting and giving up, but actually I'm getting closer and closer each time to making my very own 'normal' be the healthiest that it can possibly be.

Each time I do the raw cleanse - well, each time I start a raw cleanse and give up after a few days - I learn more about myself and I learn more ways to behave to make the clease work better for myself.
My helpful diet habit this time, and the thing I'm planning to focus on most, is to eat cut-up vegies as snacks if I get hungry bewteen meals. Seriously, I eat all the time and I'm so over it! It's a really uncomfortable compulsion and I'm just ready to let it go! Hopefully by just snacking on vegies I can wean myself off the unhelpful things I snack on. Often they're raw, but still make me feel glugged up, like date and coconut rolls for example. I can eat about 10 of those at once if I don;t watch myself! It's the old 'making myself feel pampered by eating treats' trick.

Tomorrow morning it's orange juice for breakfast and onwards from there. I'm looking forward to it! It's nice not to have to think about what to prepare. I've shopped for the first couple of days' ingredients, so I'm all set to go.

I've been riding my bike more regularly, in rpreparation for a big ride and a return to racing later in the year, but for the exercise component of this 4 week cleanse I'm planning to alternate between Koya's workout and Jules's yoga video every day. A nice way to do something for myself before I go to bed each night!

For the happiness component of this cleanse I'm going to start meditating. Every day! Meditating! I'll see how it goes and how I feel it helps me.

Until tomorrow!

Back to square one

I wish I was still eating raw food, and finding it easy, but the truth is I'm not. I have this idea of what I'd eat in 'the perfect day', and I usually start really well, then by lunchtime it's crumbling, and by evening it's all over red rover. I'm sick of wishing it was easy! It's not easy to eat a raw vegan diet, of course when I think logically it's not, but the more cooked food I eat the worse I feel, so that's a pretty strong message about how I should be eating.

The eve of my brother-in-law's wedding is not a great day on which to begin a 100% raw vegan diet anew. Their catering is long since organised and there won't be any raw food there. Not a problem, I'll do the best that I can and take it from there.

Tonight I ate pasta with a bought tomato pasta sauce and I now feel awful, so sick. But my baby just grinned at me in delight, so life is still more amazing than I can express! What a great way to regain some perspective :-)

Doing 'mostly raw' is really hard. It involves a lot more thinking than 100% raw because it involves always thinking about how much cooked food I've eaten in a given day, and what kind of food, and you'd be amazed at the excuses I can find to label a particular day as a 'special occasion' deserving of celebration via chocolate cake. I don't even like chocolate cake! The more I reflect on this, the more Jinjee's talk of food addiction makes sense. So I'm drawing the line and as from now I eat only raw food.

And the wedding? I'll do my very best. I'll drink only water, which is my favourite drink anyway, and I'm sure there will be a raw salad or two at the buffet, so I'll focus on those. I'll make sure I hve a  big salad for lunch beforehand, and maybe take some nuts to discreetly snack on.

Friday will be my birthday, and for that I hope I can get hold of some of the raw spiced fig balls that a company called Super Food Revolution sells at the loal farmer's market. My birthday is before the next market, but I'm going to emal SFR and see if I can get hold of some fig balls instead of a cake. If I can't then I'll make a raw cake.

I'm also interested in experimenting with different varieties and blends of herbal tea (made as sun tea) to see what effect they have on me, and whether their effect is different between raw and cooked. I've had various sun teas before, but not really focused fully on their effects (and to be honest I've loaded them with honey in the past, which I have now stopped eating).

Wish me luck! :-)

I'm ba-ack!

So after finishing the Garden Diet programs I was uncertain as to whether or not to continue this blog. I mean, I'm studying, working, raising my kids and all the rest of it! So by not blogging I thought I'd get a few minutes back in which to attend to some of the other stuff I do. Plus it seemed so neat and tidy finishing the blog at the end of the programs.

But.

Life's not neat and tidy, is it? And neither am I. So I've decided to continue. One day, in years to come, I may read back over this blog. I hope I'm not too embarrassed if I do!

For the last 3 weeks I've been kind of muddling along, making menu plans and not sticking to them, shopping for meals I haven;t ended up making, and eating more raw food than before the programs, but some cooked food (and junk food at that) too.

Enough, I decided! The way I've been eating during these last 3 weeks hasn't made me feel good, so I'm continuing the blog as a way to keep tabs on myself and pay attention to how I'm feeling.

My basic idea for how I'm going to eat is: A green smoothie for breakfast, a salad plate for lunch (lots of cut up vegies, some sauerkraut or sundried tomatoes or olives and some nut or seeed pate, all topped with a squeeze of lemon or lime), a drink in the afternoon (like a green juice or nut milk or blended watermelon) and a raw meal for dinner, which is when I'll try out lots of new raw recipes and share them with my family. My family will eat the same as me except that at lunch they can have bread as well, and at dinner they'll have a cooked dish as well as the raw one. So I've written a menu for the first week... let's see how I go!

(I also found the 'before and after' photos really motivating last time, so I'm going to keep going with them... updated photos coming tomorrow!)

Post-Diet and I can't eat unhealthy food!

I am never drinking again.

Not that I actually drink, or drank, any alcohol. I haven't drunk alcohol since I was pregnant with my 4-year-old, and before that I never drank much, just a glass of wine with dinner a few times a year. No, it's just that 'I'm never drinking again' is the classic post-party phrase of the seedy, and I kind of feel that way at the moment with some less good cooked foods.

So, the programs are over and I thought I'd relax a bit - still nothing like the way I used to eat, but just treat myself to some special yummy treats because I'd been avoiding them for so long. Over the last few days I've had a few Mint Slice biscuits and some of my husband's Indian take-away, plus about a quarter cup of pasta. Well, my body is reacting violently. I have a killer headache, sore throat, my glands are swollen and my body is stiff and aching. It's got to be the food. That can't be a coincidence. So it looks as though I'm going to stay eating raw foods for the forseeable future. I need that energy back, and the good feelings, and the feeling good!

There is a Free Guide to Raw at raw-pleasure.com.au and I'm working my way through the recipes in there. They all look super, and the ones I've had so far have been great.

From now on, then, tthere's no point messing around. Some cokoed foods seem fine for me (wholemeal bread, rice, pulses) in very small amounts, but it's all going to have to be healthy wholefoods and almost everything raw. I feel great about it actually, because I can see that here I definitely have a way to keep myself feeling fantastic for the long term.

My next challenge is designing foods to take with me on the bike on long rides. I'm thinking dried fruit balls, chia seeds in orange juice... I'll try some options and see what works.

Day 28! Last day of the 28-day program... and photos!

Day 28. The last day. I feel fantastic! Today I am revisiting the goals I had for this cleanse to see how well the program really worked for me. The day I began the Garden Diet programs I wrote:

Firstly, I want to lose the remainder of my baby weight, a couple of dress sizes, so that I'll once again fit into all the beautiful clothes I wore before I had kids.

Well, not all the weight is gone, but a lot of it certainly has. I fit into almost all my pre-baby clothes - just my jeans are a bit too tight to comfortably do up. But I'm continuing to lose weight and I have no doubt that I'll get there. I have no idea of my weight in kilos, but as far as fitting into clothes (and looking at photos of myself!) can tell me, I have lost siginificant weight. Yay me!

I also wanted this program to Change my perceptions. I want to move from viewing raw food as part of a healthy diet to considering it as a complete cuisine unto itself, which offers everything I need both nutritionally and spiritually, without me 'missing out' by not eating cooked foods. I want to walk past cooked foods without even considering them as applicable to me.

Again I'd say I'm well on the way to meeting this goal, without being completely there yet. In the raw diet I missed eating Japanese food, Indian food, Thai food, Middle Eastern food, Mediterranean tastes, and many other cuisines that I usually relish. During the next few weeks I plan to make raw food versions of these cuisines. For example, I miss Italian food, but if I add oregano and basil to a tomato and avocado salad, there's and Italian-inspired dish right there. And I'm sure the same is possible with the signature flavours of all the world's cuisines. I certainly had many days of 100% raw eating when I didn't feel that I was missing a thing, so my goal is within reach.

I wanted to Glow glow glow and feel vibrant, healthy and energetic.

This goal is definitely met in the way I feel, if not in the way I look. My eyes still look tired but then again I'm a very busy lass and I really am tired! A lot less tired than I was before the programs, and I do feel glowing and vibrant, healthy and energetic, and am feeling more and more so by the day.

I wanted to Integrate exercise back into my daily life - I was once fairly fit and I long to recapture that feeling.
Hmmm, I'm still working on that one. That's my fault, not the program's! And I am definitely moving in the right direction in this area as well. I went for a run today and felt amazing!  Quick and light and fast, my blood was pumping and I felt on top of the world. Yeeha!

Finlly, I wanted to Get over thinking about food all the time in a negative, guilty, deprivation-oriented way and instead bubble with joy at the beautiful raw foods I am lucky enough to be able to enjoy.
Done. Tick. Accomplished. Tonight we had dinner at my borther-in-law's house, a barbecue. I had salad and some bread, and it was so much less satisfying than the wonderful, varied, creative recipes on the program. I love food and am really enjoying it, completely free of guilt or any other negativity, whether I am following the program properly or not! Incredible!

A major strength of the program for me was its three-pronged focus: food, exercise and happiness. While I suspect that for most people the happiness bit is a cute little add-on, for me it has been the most transforming and enriching part of the program for sure. As a result of doing them I feel more centred, more present, more alive, and, yes, happier!

Some photos from today (I did some in the clothes I wore at the start, and some in my running clothes, which I now feel confident to wear! Yeeha! Check out how loose my previously stretched-tight t-shirt is!):

So I'm still a bit uncertain about where to go from here. I do love eating raw food and I'd love to take the raw diet with me into the future. I do feel ehalthier, better, and much more energetic on raw foods. I also suspect that over time if I eat cooked foods I will eat more and more, until my diet is back to where it was before Is tarted the Garden Diet. At the same time I can't see myself excluding all cooked foods long-term - it's just too restrictive for me right now. So for the next three weeks I'm going to do the 21-day Garden Diet cleanse, but alter the meals to incorporate more varied flavours, and eat occasional really healthy cooked foods if I need to. So sushi is fine, muffins are not. Vegan Dahl is fine, lasagne is not. It's generally pretty simple to work out which cooked foods are okay for me and which aren't, so I'll see how I go and I'll take stock again in another three weeks. I'll give exercise a red hot go again, and plan that this time it's here to stay.

Gotta go! Thanks for reading!

xx

Mich.





.

Day 27

The second last day of the 28-day program. It's a bit of an anticlimax actually. The raw diet is now something I can carry forward into the rest of my life, and because I still eat tiny bits of cooked food, it's no hassle to adopt raw food as a permanent lifestyle change.

Exercise really needs to be my next big focus. I'm just not doing it, and I'm frustrated because I love the feeling of being strong and fit, and the activities I do to get and be fit! I really need to start making the time and just going for it. It's definitely easier not to - everything from life logistics to keeping my hair tidy are easier when I stroll with the pram instead of running - but I know that once I',m properly into an exercise habit again I won't be able to imagine living without it. I find it hard to believe, actually, how easily I've fallen into being a non-exerciser, since I used to define myself so much by my active lifestyle.

Today I ate raw food until dinner. Breakfast was a smoothie - orange juice, silverbeet, and plums. Lunch was a bowl of greens from the garden, with hot water poured over them (as hot as it could be without burning my hand, so the dish was still 'raw'), and chilli and ginger and pepper. Like a green soup. I also ate my son;s leftover mashed avocado and carrot sticks. I snacked a lot on fruit, and drank oodles of water. For dinner I ate cooked food, because we visited friends for dinner and I've decided to eat cooked food socially, so as to make the raw diet easier to maintain in the long term. After all, our social calendar isn't so wild that we're out very often!

Tomorrow is 'during' photo day again. I'm kinda nervous about it because I really haven't stuck to the program at all religiously, but my waistbands are telling me that I'm still losing weight, albeit slowly. Slow and steady is fine with me anyway! However, I'm not quite where I want my weight loss to take me - I still can't do up the (admittedly very small) jeans I wore before my most recent pregnancy, although I can put them on, which I couldn't do before I did this program! I am toying with whether or not to do the 21-day program again, as I thought I would, or whether to try and 'go it alone' for a while. At the moment I'm still tempted to do the program, and stick with it fairly closely, but experiment with adding different herbs and spices to change the flavours of the dishes. Extending their variety even further can't be a bad thing!

Photos coming tomorrow.....

Days 23, 24, 25 & 26!

Four days to catch up on. It's been chaos here! We've been so busy, my little ones have been awake at night, I've barely slept until last night. Nothing in particular is happening, we're just really busy! My husband's had some late nights working from home, there seems to have been more housework to do than normal for some reason, and the kids are waking at night in tag-team so that one night I was up for four hours straight. Usually they both sleep all night so it was a rude shock to be back in the weird world of sleep deprivation again!

I've stuck with eating mostly raw food throughout, and it's not been a problem. I haven't been using the program's recipes - with our busyness it's been easier to grab simple salads and fruit and handfuls of nuts rather than concentrate on new recipes. I am, however, looking forward to making the recipes over the next few weeks until I've tried them all.

As for exercise, are you kidding?? Tomorrow. Tomorrow is Saturday and I'm not working, so there's plenty of opportunity to get back on the bike. I've re-jigged my goal for Around the Bay in a Day. Doing the full loop (250k's) this year is going to be a huge stretch. If I'm going to do it I want to enjoy it, which means I'd need to train properly, and realistically with uni and the kids and work I'm not going to be able to pump out 6 or 8 hour rides on the weekends. It's a bigger training time committment than running a marathon. So I'm going to do the 100km option this year. My husband will do the whole loop and I'll catch a train to Sorrento, meet him, and try and hold his wheel back to Melbourne :-). I know I could go out and ride 100kms tomorrow with no training, I've ridden my bike enough in the past to know what to do and how to pace myself. This decision has taken the presure off hugely, I feel really happy with it, and I've still got something to train for (so I can do it fast!!). I'll do the 250k option the year after I finish uni. Those roads aren't going anywhere!

Some of the happiness exercises from the past few days have been:

--- Write about a dream you had for your life that you gave up:
 Mountaineering. For years I dreamed of climbing big, technical mountains. Peaks over 8000 metres. Remote, technial, no-rescue-possible stuff in Patagonia. K2. I read everything I could and I had my plan and when I was 21 I joined an expedition in Nepal. It wasn't anything fancy - it was a trip run by a tour company, and while I needed to have clearance from a doctor, basically anyone who was fit and healthy would have been allowed to sign up. It wasn't a technical climbing trip and no climbing experience was necessary. I did it because someone I loved had died in a climbing accident and I realised that life is short, and if there was something I wanted to do I had to do it immediately in case the chance to do it was taken from me. So instead of starting with a technical moutnaineering course in New Zealand and working my way up to bigger and more difficult climbs, I decided to spend my trust fund to get to the Himalayas asap. And rather than go to the places I could manage on my own, I signed up with the tour complany to go somewhere I lacked the experience and knowledge to get to myself. Somewhere more challenging, more remote, and more 'raw' (!!) than the places most tourists visit.

So why did I give up on my mountaineering dream? Well, on that trip I had issues with altitude - I couldn't go over 5580 metres, and the smallest of the two summits we attempted was 5950 metres, so I missed out on both summits. After that I realised that mountaineering wasn't for me what I tought it would be. It wasn't a transcendental experience, and it had little relationship to rock climbing (which was my passion at the time). It was basically walking slowly in very little oxygen, and feeling sick and hurting the entire time, for weeks at a time. The spectacular scenery grabbed my heart, it's true, but since that trip I've had no desire to climb peaks again. I'd rather walk quietly among them in a quieter, less aggressive, subtler manner. I now dream of going back to the Himalayas, and just sitting, watching.

 --- Write about a dream you still have for your life.
Oh, so many! Travel is a huge passion of mine and I dream about travelling to all sorts of places, speaking lots of languages, staying for ages, and getting to know places that most people don't. 

Another happiness exercise was to listen deeply, and write about whatever that activity motivated me to write about. I focused on concentrating deeply (taking the term 'listening' rather metaphorically) on the way I felt after eating anything. It's enlightening! It turns out that honey, raw honey, doesn't make me feel great. It's subtle but I noticed it, where I'd never focused enough to notice before. And it turns out that hommus made from cooked chick peas is fine for me! so is wholemeal bread if I don't eat much.

One really interesting happiness exercise was directed at those wanting to transition into their dream career. The exercise is to spend the first hour of each day working on that career. I am three quarters through a teaching degree. It's taking years because I'm doing it part time, but I'll finish at the end of next year. My semester starts next week, and I love the idea of getting up an hour earlier each day and doing uni work (will I love that idea when the alarm rings? I'll have to go to bed earlier). We'll see!

I'm making one more change to my life. I'm a list writer. Give me a goal and I'll give you a list of steps to get there. I love lists. They make me feel in control. Writing a list gives a warm, satisfying feeling of having done something tangible and constructive. I've written lists of things I'd love to buy or make to transform our little place into an organisational oasis. Lists of things to do to make my photography business a reality. Lists of races to enter. And hundreds of meal plans and exercise programs that I've never even begun to stick to. I'm realising that these lists are actually doing me no favours. Instead of writing the blessed list I could be doing something concrete and positive to actually get to the goal! The list is not a thing that achieves the goal! It's not a real thing, it;s a crutch that distracts me from the fact that I haven't actually done anything! And writing the list feels so good that once it is written, I bask in the satisfied glow of having completed the list, mentally congratulate myself, set the list neatly aside without doing a single thing it says. So, no more lists! Whenever I'm tempted to write a list I'm instead doing something that will lead to results. So now my house looks like a bomb has hit it as I am in the middle of 'spring cleaning' and reorganisation! The lounge room is a calm oasis, the hallway cupboard is an organised joy to behold, the rest of the place is a work in progress :-).

Whether that last paragraph is relevant to raw food or not I'm not sure, except that having the program has freed me from writing my own shopping list and menu plan, and the liberation I feel caused me to reflect on lists in general and their role in my life. So I bid them farewell.

Day 22

There are so many possible green smoothie combinations! They are wonderful! Extremely tasty and satisfying.

Breakfast today was orange juice, a peach, and apple, and silverbeet, all blended up into liquidy goodness. Lunch was another smoothie - orange juice, pineapple and silverbeet. My green smoothie week is very handy for using up the silverbeet that is everywhere in our vegie garden at the moment! I snacked in the afternoon, on nuts and a nashi pear and some grapes. Dinner wasn't a smoothie... I am a smoothie cleanse cheat! I made ratatouille for the boys and it smelled so extremely beautiful that I decided to go for it and have a bowl full. It was great and I feel great now too. Back to smoothies tomorrow :-)

I had some knee pain this morning after yesterday's ride, so I've cancelled today's ride and I'll do some yoga and pilates tonight instead. My knees are not in great shape. They are tracking strangely as a result of weak quad muscles and tight hamstrings and ITB. The bike riding should help enormously, as it will strengthen my quads quick smart, but I'm happy to ease into it and let my body adapt before getting too full-on with training. I do love it though - I'll be back on tomorrow for sure.

Today's journal exercise is to reflect on things I've learned about myself through facing challenges. I find this a really difficult exercise and I'm not satisfied that my answers so far are in any way 'complete', but I'm giving it a go and so far I feel that I've learned:

That life is short, a lot shorter than I really understand, and to make the most of my life it is important to be authentic, to be true to myself and my desires and my values and beliefs. If I want to do something I only have one short life in which to do it, so I'd better get going!

I've never been glad that I didn't do something because I was afraid of it, but I'm so glad for all of the things that I've done despite intense fear! Facing fearful situations has led me to some wonderful jobs, wonderful friendships, wonderful outdoor experiences, I've seen amazing places an dI've been let into amazing lives thta I otherwise wouldn't have encountered. So fear alone isn't a good reason not to do something - the 'comfort zone' isn;t always the most fulfilling place in which to be.

I'm a lot stronger and more capable than I might think. I'm brave and calm.

The gretest challenges that I've undertaken have led me to the greatest rewards of my life.

A challenge can be welcomed, and by welconing a challenge I am invigorated and I enjoy the process of facing the challenge and I learn and grow a lot more than if I simply struggle through the challenge to get it over with. Take that, childbirth and uni assignments! :-)

Day 21

Green smoothie day! There are a million variations on green smoothies so I'm not bored after one day. My favourite one was a tie between lunch (watermelon with mint) and dinner (orange juice, nectarines, banana and silverbeet). Both delicious and over far too quickly! We ate at my parents-in-law for dinner tonight, but rather than make my smoothie there I had it just beofre we left home. I didn;t feel awkward eating nothign at the dinner table though, because I sat my daughter on my lap and fed her, so I was occupied anyyway. Plus I nibbled on salad bits from my son's plate when he was finished, so I blended in with hat everyone else was doing anyway.

I am noticing though that I just can't seem to stay full, at least I couldn't today. I was constantly hungry! I ended up eating a few nectarines and two raw 'spiced fig balls' that I bought at the farmer's market - wonderful. Really wonderful. I tried to see what was in the fig balls - it looked like dried figs, dates, various nuts, pepitas, some other dried fruits, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and more. Absolutely devine. I'll be trying to make some myself, they were so good.

I finally got back on the bike today! Just 45 minutes on the home trainer, but it's a start. My knees both 'click' when under load, and it bothers me so much that I've stopped runing until I fix this issue. I'm focusing on  cycling to build the muscles around the knee, and yoga to increase those muscles' flexibility, strategies which I hope will allow it to track properly and eliminate the clicking. I really enjyoed being back on the bike - my inertia was lifted and I feel both physically and metaphorically 'in motion' again.

Today's happiness exercise is to notice and get excited about our thoughts about ehat we want to create within our lives. I've been focusing on thiniing about an exciting new venture - after 10 years of working for other people I am about to launch my own photography business, and that is exciting and scary as anything! My thought all revolved around light today - the endless search for perfect light and new perfect ways to use it in my work. I'm committed to being reall authentic to my own vision and not being driven by market demands. I'm going to be a teacher when I finish uni in 2 years, so I don;t have to rely on making lots of bookings with my photography. I can just stick to what resonates with me and then the clients to whom that appeals will find me. It's a thrilling and liberating prospect and one that has occupied my mind for weeks!

Days 18, 19 and 20

Over the last few days my raw diet has felt really 'settled in' and I'm starting to feel quite independant from the transition-to-raw program. There's still the rest of this week and next week to go, and there are heaps of new and delicious-looking recipes, but I'm deviating from the menu a lot and designing my own meals. Most of my meals are quite simple at the moment - a salad with leafy greens, avocado and tomato, or an OJ smoothie, or fruit, and I'm eating far fewer nuts than I was when I began the raw programs. I'll definitely try all the recipes in the program at some stage, but I've been really busy these past few days and it's been easiest just to grab fruit or make a simple salad when I'm in a rush, rather than make an unfamiliar recipe. One I do have to mention, though, is the avocado and kiwi salad. Simply devine, and my 4 year old and 6 month old both loved it too!

My health has been a bit sub-par these past few days, with mild headaches, a sore throat and tiredness. It seems like a detox reaction to me, so I'm just rolling with it for now and hoping that soon I'll feel great again. It's meant that I haven't done any exercise, and today when the opportunity arose I had a sleep instead!

I think that sleep is the next part of my lifestyle to address. I really don't sleep enough. By the time the children are asleep it's usually already 10pm, then my husband and I both really need some time together, so it can be midnight before we go to bed. Well, I've always preferred to go to bed at 10 myself, so I'm planning to try and get to bed by 10 each night and get up at 6am. That would give me time for some yoga first thing in the morning, and fit in with my 'body clock' much better than my current pattern. I tend to get quite 'snacky' at night and continually wander into the kitchen for dates or fruit. I'm sure this is because I'm trying to get energy to stay awake, and the staying up late messes with my body's hungry/full chemistry, and I'd really like to lose more weight and get off the plateau that I feel I've been on for a couple of weeks. An earlier bed time will keep me out of the kitchen at night!

Another thing I'll be doing to get off that plateau is a green smoothie cleanse. It's not part of the program but I'm burning to do it in the same way that I was burning to do the raw programs before I started. I'm starting tomorrow, and I'll do a 5 day green smoothie and raw green soup cleanse and then ease back into eating non-blended foods. I don't even really know why I'm doing it, because I'm sure I could lose more weight and still eat solid foods, but my body is craving green smoothies and I'm going to listen to what it is telling me! It's great to feel this fired up about something so good for me.

I smelled a lolly today - someone opened a bag of jelly snakes near me - and all I smelled was offensive chemicals. I can't believe I used to eat those and think they were a yummy treat! This diet has helped me easily give up a few things I have tried to give up eating many times, previously without complete success: chocolate, lollies, cakes, biscuits, hot chocolate, soy products, cheese, wheat products. A pretty impressive list I reckon!

I haven't been doing the program's happiness exercies these psat few days, instead I've been really involved in directing my own thoughts and meditations. I've been noticing, and amazed by, the extremely close relationship between my attention and my children's behaviour. When I focus all my atention on them, gee they behave well. I know that; a well known parenting fact, but I'm really aware now of the extent to which it is true. Not that I usually ignore the kids (!!), but increasing the intensity of my focus upon them is really rewarding for all of us. My son has been particularly affectionate and loving lately, which is a gratifying reward for my increased awareness!

Day 17

Raw was easy and breezy today, thank heavens. Cravings aren't really bothering me at the moment and I'm feeling good. I haven't been doing exrecise though. Once again I'm not booking it into my day - not scheduling it properly. That big bike ride is getting closer so I'd better get back into it!

My food today was awesome, but I felt hungry all day! It happens from time to time when my daughter is going through a growth spurt and breastfeeding mroe than usual. Breakfast was an orange, banana and blueberry smoothie, and while a smoothie usually keeps me full until lunchtime, today I was hungry again by 9:30am! I snacked on fruit throughout the morning, then had a celery soup for lunch. It was fabulous! I didn't blend it all that much - I didn't want it totally liquified, more like a mushy salad. I loved it. For dinner I deviated from the program's menu to make a fennel salad. I love fennel and haven't eaten it for ages, so when I saw the fennel bulbs in the shop I grabbed one with glee. I had raw broccoli and cauliflower with it, just because there aw some leftover when I rpepared my family's dinner. They had stir-fry, which is a great meal to make raw and cooked simultaneously. I chopped ingredients for everyone and just kept mine aside while I cooked theirs. Through the day I've also snacked on dates and nuts - super hunger busters!

Today's happiness exercise is to live our lives in a spirit of contribution. Well yesterday I did something I've been wanting to do for years and never got around to doing - I sponsored a child! So today when I bought some things I wanted for myself I made sure I spent a bit less, so that I can pay for my sponsorship. And doing that, contributing to improving the life of someone so much less fortunate than me, made me incredibly happy and I felt high on that all day. I was very patient and gentle with my kids, and gave them lots of attention, thinking all the time of children who are not so lucky. I feel so fortunate that I'm in a position to do something that can bring such joy to me as well as to others!

Day 16

The deep cleanse week is over and we're back to 'normal' raw vegan food - richer, more filling and varied than the deep cleanse menu. And I love it! Raw vegan eating is suddenly really easy again, now that I'm discovering new recipes again and eating with what feels like no restriction. I love it! The fact that a raw vegan diet seems unrestricted to me now shows the extent to which I have adopted a new normal.

Breakfast today was supposed to be a green smoothie, and I bought the ingredients but was halfway through my morning, and away from home, before I realised I forgot to make breakfast! Preschool days mean busy mornings :-). I bought myself a watermelonjuice instead - fresh, invigorating and so yummy! Lunch was fantastic - a recipe I've never had before - a sprout salad with avocado and the most delicious cashew nutdressing. The quantity was big enough that I had the leftovers for dinner! It worked really well having my dinner already made so I only had to cook for the boys rather than making two meals - I might try and do that more often. In between meals I snacked on fruit - lovely fresh plums :-).

The rain kept me off the bike and stopped me from running today - I like to run in the rain but it's not really fair on my baby to take her with me in the pram when it's pouring! Instead I'll do Koya's workout tonight when my son is asleep, and yoga as well if I'm not too sleepy.

Today's happiness exercise is to contemplate how I can live more lovingly, and to make a list of questions related to my life and related to loving. It's a challenging one but so far I have come up with the following:

How can I be more 'in the moment' to turn my whole focus on my husband and kids? How can I best show them how much I love them?