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! :-)
Monday, 26 March 2012
Thursday, 8 March 2012
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!)
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!)
Thursday, 23 February 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, 19 February 2012
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:
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.
.
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.
.
Saturday, 18 February 2012
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.....
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.....
Friday, 17 February 2012
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.
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.
Monday, 13 February 2012
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! :-)
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! :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)