Getting back in shape

Hey everyone,

So, the Christmas and New Year holiday is a horrible time to stay in shape, right? And if you have work to do during the holiday....yep!.....and if your family doesn't eat like you......heck yeah! Staying in shape is pretty much impossible.

I haven't checked how much I currently weigh. However, from looking at my body, especially from side-view, I knew I had gained a couple of pounds. This holiday, I have had quite a bit of dairy (and yes! I have suffered from my milk allergy, boohoo), I haven't had as much fruits and vegetables as I would normally buy back at school as I haven't done my own grocery shopping since I got home and I have just been forced to eat things I normally wouldn't eat. Yeah, so the weight gain was a pretty unhealthy one.

Guess what! If you're not happy with what you see when you look in the mirror or how you feel, you need to work on it. So, 6 days ago, I started working on getting back in shape and I am seeing the results already. I took on Casey Ho's 30 days Flat Abs challenge (I'm on day 6 now), I have done some belly dancing, pilates (I usually would do the a day of the challenge followed by some pilates then some cardio), a latin inspired dance workout.... I feel good after working out and that's awesome.

I'm also drinking more and more water and in large mugs. I have a mug that takes up to 3 cups of water and I drink all that at once and prefer to use that mug whenever I'm drinking water to ensure that I drink a lot of water during the day. As a snack, I have come to love eating circular slices of apple with either cayenne pepper or cinnamon sprinkled on them. When there are clementines around, though.....oh my.....I run out of count with how much I am eating. I LOVE CLEMENTINES!

Another thing I did (before I actually fully got back to working out daily) is to drink a lemon and cayenne pepper tea. Basically, I just squeezed out the juice and every thing inside (apart from the seeds) of an entire lemon followed by a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, then another teaspoon, then....you can tell I love my pepper :) and then poured some hot water over it, stirred it all up and drank it. I started drinking this before actually reading up on it because I knew of its detoxifying properties (and I had heard about it, the word, 'pepper' stuck out to me so I wanted to try the drink), but here's something I read up on it to summarise what it does:

Lemon is a natural detoxifier as vitamin C transforms toxins into digestible material. In addition to vitamin C, lemons are also packed with antioxidants and electrolytes including potassium, calcium and magnesium. Lemon is also known to stimulate the liver’s natural enzymes by helping to oxygenate the body.
Cayenne pepper stimulates the circulatory system by opening the capillaries, aids digestion, and helps regulate blood sugar. Furthermore, and very importantly, it increases the temperature of your body and kick-starts your metabolism, which, yes, can help you to lose weight over time. ~ By Nadia of Body Unburdened

So, yeah, I stopped drinking the lemon and cayenne pepper mixture (I ran out of lemons, boohoo), but I am still working out and drinking a lot of water to flush out nasties that get into my body and I am seeing some pretty good results.

~Sammy

p.s Heading back to the west country soon. Can't wait to go grocery shopping on Saturday and get all my fruits and veggies (and lovely lovely Medjool dates! :) )

Day 7: 10 Days Raw Vegan Detox

Picture gotten from AdoreMagazine

So, you must have noticed that I switched this detox up to 10 days long. Why? It's not because I miss cooked food so much. It's because I miss eating with my family, my mum heads over to Nigeria in 2 weeks and on the same day she does, I head back to where I live when school is in session (I'm getting back a few days early). I don't want to have just a few days of eating with my mum and the rest of my family here this month. My sister is also coming over in a few days and I would love to eat with her. Also, I feel like I have fully detoxed. I feel really good right now, I look really good right now, so I don't really see the point in going that much longer with this. So, day 8 is going to be raw till 4, day 9 is going to be raw till 4, day 10 is going to be raw till 4 and day 11 is going to be 'eat-raw, eat-cooked, do-what-you-feel-is-best' and so on. I really enjoyed this detox, believe me.

Anyways, breakfast was 7 English plums and a handful of blackberries both freshly picked from my garden and a banana, my snack during the day consisted of 3 English plums and a large orange later in the day (around evening-ish) and my dinner consisted of.....this was SWEET......some nature's candy.......about half a medium-sized water melon, two large oranges and 2 slices of lemon (ate up, and then I made a lovely, awesome, drink which I poured into a wine glass with a lemon over the side of the cup. The drink consisted of some watermelon, 2 large oranges and about half a lemon. Nothing went in a juicer or blender. Everything was either squeezed out with my hand and a far in the middle (the citrus fruits) or by just mashing it up in a cup with a fork (the watermelon). IT TASTED AWESOME!!!!

My mum said that raw vegan was not interesting, but that drink was beyond interesting. She had a taste before she went to bed (and I hadn't even added the lemon yet at that stage) and she absolutely loved it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tah-tah for now
~Sammy

Day 6: 14 Days Raw Vegan Detox

Picture gotten from Robyn-Cooks

Heyo!

So, for breakfast, I had a peach, a nectarine and about half of a medium sized watermelon. I would've eaten more, but someone ate the fruits I was dreaming about when I went to bed at 5am earlier today (there were at least 5 more peaches). I had a late breakfast because I woke up just before 2pm because I slept so late (work) so my breakfast was basically my lunch. I had a banana or two as a snack after my mum got back home with bananas for me and then 5 bananas, some layers/sheets of cabbage (which was used to make rolls with some of the banana slices) and 2 freshly picked, organic English plums from my garden. I feel like I just had a heavy dinner, but the feeling's only in my tummy. I don't feel that tired or groggy like I would feel if I ate a cooked meal at this time and to the point that I feel full in my tummy.

I worked out in the morning again today and it felt good, what felt better is that I just have 6 days left of Shaun T's Rockin' Body! Woot! Woot!

My tummy (abs) looks good, my arms look good, my skin looks good.
And the weight loss has stopped.....ish.....I lose and add less then a kilogram like plus/minus 0.3kg now. Nothing below or above that. It is a good enough weight and I'm just happy with the results from this raw vegan detox! :)

~Sammy

Letter to the People Against my Vegetarianism (and Raw Vegan Detox)

Picture gotten from Meammarketing

To who it may concern,

I have never been the healthiest of people like, I can not remember a year in my life that I hadn't been to a hospital or to a school clinic at least once because I wasn't feeling too well or because I was downright sick. I have never been much of an eater. I detest quite a number of things most people like to eat (because of their taste), but most of those things are actually not the best things for anyone to eat.

I went vegetarian 7 years ago due to not liking the taste of meats anymore (starting with beef). During the early stages of my vegetarian life, I became highly overweight and I became rather anaemic so I had to start depending on iron tablets on a daily basis.

You see, it wasn't my not eating meats that caused the anaemia or caused me to be rather sickly. Don't forget I had always gotten sick as a kid and had an immunity that was so low and as a kid, I was a meat eater so don't blame it on me not eating meats. I had those health issues during my early years of being a vegetarian because I wasn't informed on anything that had to do with vegetarianism. I cut out meats and didn't get the nutrients that people get from meats from other sources - plant based sources, to be specific. I started depending on things doctors could prescribe to me instead of things that were both clean and healthy and could cure whatever I was living with. I also was consuming a lot of the wrong things. For example, breakfast everyday consisted of dairy, most meals were cooked with unhealthy oils (or just a lot of oil), there weren't many vegetables around in the house (especially the ones I liked) and I didn't know much about clean eating (I was totally okay with eating things with artificial flavours and colours, et cetera).

Although I liked dairy products and I still eat a bit of cheese every now and then and ice cream once in a while or things with other dairy ingredients, I do not consume as much dairy now as I used to. Did you know that humans are the only animals who feel that they are to consume the milk of another animal? Cats and puppies aren't even meant to consume cow's milk like some of us have been made to believe. The more dairy products are consumed, the bigger a person is and that added weight is not the healthiest.

I have been asked countless times where I get my protein from and until this year, I never knew the full answer to that question. I always answered with just, "milk and eggs," because those were the only protein sources I knew (apart from nuts and seed which I'm not a fan of). I didn't realise that fruits and vegetables contained protein in them. Even now that I answer with, "milk, eggs, fruits and vegetables," people still have a problem with it and I get a lot of replies with things like, "fruits and vegetables do not have protein" and I'm sorry to say this, but the only reason anyone would reply with that is because the person is misinformed. The people who say that my body NEEDS meats and MUST have meats in order to be healthy are also misinformed because my body does not NEED meat. Whatever I can get from meats, I can get from plant-based sources which are healthier sources, in my opinion.

Since I went on my raw vegan detox, I have felt like I have more energy than before I was off it, I have felt more comfortable as I have not been bloated (even once) these past few days compared to being bloated ever so often eating vegetarian versions of whatever my family was eating, I've head headaches less often (I've only had a headache once which went once I lied to rest a bit because I had been working all day), et cetera. Despite the assumptions that I am not getting the nutrients I need, I know that I am getting them because I did my research on what I'm eating raw before I started eating them. Despite the assumptions that I am not eating heavy enough for my active lifestyle and to support my bones, muscles, et cetera, I know that I am because I endeavour to consume as many calories as possible a day and the backaches I had ever so often are not as bad and seldom occur. Despite the assumptions that my bones will not grow well, my brain will not develop properly and I will look sickly, I know that my bones will grow well, my brain will develop properly and I won't look sickly because I have seen people my age who have never eaten meats or animal products, who haven't even eaten cooked foods EVER and look amazing and healthy. I have seen a little boy named, Elvis who has been raw vegan his entire life (not even vegetarian or a vegan who eats cooked food) and he has never had to go to a hospital, he has never had the flu or a cold and he is one of the healthiest and happiest toddlers I have ever seen. He's also growing and developing excellently.

I was told a while ago that I do not need to detox because I only need to worry about toxins when I'm older. I'm sorry, but why do I need to worry at an age when I'm expected to be slower and less capable of doing things myself? Why do I have to wait till I'm older to care about my health when I can care about it now and live a healthier lifestyle? It doesn't make sense to me. I am living my life, I am happy, it's not like my vegetarianism or raw vegan detox is stopping me from living. It's actually making me feel much better because I don't feel sick on a daily basis anymore and I can think more clearly which is awesome.

Please don't forget that I was OVERWEIGHT, I WASN'T HAPPY, I pretty much HATED MY BODY, I WAS MADE FUN OF BECAUSE OF MY BODY and I GOT SICK MORE OFTEN before my lifestyle became healthier. If you truly care about me and my health, would you really want me to go back to that?

Before you judge me and condemn my lifestyle or my detox, inform yourself and don't just get informed by meat eaters or by people or institutions sponsored by the dairy industry or any industry that deals with animals. Don't just look for what is wrong with this or that. Inform yourself properly.

I am not saying that I am the most informed on this, but I know how I feel better than others do, even though I might not be able to put a name to things, I know what my body is going through better than others do. I know the pros and cons of what I do and how I live and there are actually way more pros than cons to it. I am still learning everyday, I am still becoming more informed everyday. So, do not just try to get yourself informed in one day, one week or just a couple of minutes or hours a day. Inform yourself properly. Read books, do your research online. You could even try going a week eating like I do or living like I do to see how you would feel. Inform yourself.

~Sammy

p.s Cancer and how many other diseases are affecting people at a faster rate. Look at trends and look at what the people affected by those have in common.

p.p.s My grandfather didn't live the healthiest of lives, he died young and he suffered till he died. I don't want to have to go through what he did. I choose to be healthier because it is what is best for me and best for my body.

p.p.p.s People do not just see me on the street and go, "oh that girl's unhealthy," or whatever, no one comments on that or on what I eat till they find out that I'm vegetarian and it's usually the Africans who have an issue with me not eating meats and I'm not picking on Africans, I'm just saying that it is in the African culture, it is normal for Africans to eat a lot of meat and they find it hard to let go of meats and create their own theories about the goodness of eating meats and why our bodies depend on them so, I'm saying, push culture aside and inform yourself before you judge or assume.

p.p.p.p.s Do the baby test - once a baby starts eating solid food, set in front of the baby, bowls containing fruits, vegetables and meat and have the baby pick what to eat him/herself. My hypothesis is that the baby will pick the plant-based items first, but my reasons for this would be explained in a whole different blog entry.

Day 5: 14 Days Raw Vegan

Picture gotten from SparkPeople

Just had a late dinner about a half hour ago (it's 00:07) because I fell asleep after getting back from church and didn't wake up till about and hour or two ago.

So, for breakfast, I had five servings of a cut up watermelon which I think should've been just under about half (horizontally) of the watermelon. I would've had more, but I was running late for church. As a matter of fact, I had to eat in the car today.

Once I got back from church, I had about 3 peaches and 2 nectarines before I tidied up a bit then went to bed.

Like I said, I slept till quite late so, when I woke up, I shredded up a courgette (using a peeler), chopped up a tomato, a third of an onion and a third of a yellow bell pepper, mixed it all up and ate it. It tasted awesome, but I'm not used to eating this late and I'm also a tad bit tired so it was a bit of a struggle to eat at some point and it didn't help that I had quite a lot of water too which brings about that full-feeling.

(Basically, I had too little calories today because of that long sleep)

So, anyways, what I've learnt so far (mainly today):

1. Fruits taste awesome the riper the are. Like bananas are not really ripe till they're speckled and I didn't know that a month ago. I've started eating speckled bananas and they taste good! Ripe (soft, but not mushy) peaches and nectarines are awesome too and not so acidic. Watermelons also taste better the riper they are!
2. A watermelon is ripe and ready to eat when you tap on it and hear a hollow sound, when the little stem on it falls off easily or is not curly and when it has a whitish-yellow colouring on its side.
3. I'm good at sticking to a raw vegan diet which shows discipline. I mean, at church, for the first time, we had vegetarian (and also vegan) meals! We eat together after church and usually, the only thing that's vegetarian is the mashed potatoes. I really wanted the vegetarian samosa because I haven't had one in years, but I stuck to my raw vegan diet (detox) and didn't even taste a tad bit of the samosa. When I'm done with this detox, I'll try to get my hands on a vegetable samosa (and maybe some sushi too). I most likely will get the sushi when I'm doing the raw till 4 again because unlike the samosa, which has whey protein (from milk) in it, the sushi's vegan.
4. I can feel perfectly normal eating raw vegan. Actually, I feel a bit better eating raw vegan.
5. It takes less time to make a raw vegan meal than a cooked meal. Yesterday, my aunt was like, "I would eat raw too, but I'm too lazy to cut up what to eat, I'll have to get someone to do that for me because it takes too much time." My aunt cooking yesterday and it took her over an hour to cook. Meanwhile, it took me less than ten minutes to cut up the fruit (three different fruits) I ate for breakfast and to bring the pineapple I cut the day before out of the fridge, peel two bananas and blend them as a breakfast smoothie yesterday. Less than ten minutes to eat all that. It takes ten minutes for me to cook some pasta let alone cooking pasta sauce to eat the pasta with (I love my pasta.).
6. This detox is working pretty well! Before I started it I had headaches every Sunday and I started feeling really sluggish and crappy after eating. I also felt sick quite a bit. Since I started it, well....I didn't have a headache today, I haven't felt sluggish or crappy after eating (as a matter of fact, I feel energetic), the sickish feeling is not there anymore and when I ate cooked food last night (remember, I was on a 'raw till 4' last night) I didn't feel sluggish or crappy which was good! :)
7. I can maintain my active lifestyle while eating raw.

Gaah! I don't miss cooked food that much even though it smells good, but I can't wait to eat some cooked foods again. 

~Sammy

p.s My cousin's girlfriend is the only person who seems to be supporting me with this detox. She's pescetarian (vegetarian who eats fish) and although I'm not going to start eating fish, I'm going to take on how she eats. She has like a smoothie or salad for breakfast and then cooked food for the rest of the day and I think that's good. A raw meal or two a day is pretty good :)

Day 4: 14 Days Raw Vegan

Picture from Dig

So, yesterday, I ended up having a zucchini salad with one shredded zucchini, a chopped tomato, a third of an onion (chopped) and a third of a yellow bell pepper chopped too. It tasted awesome! For my main dinner, I had a banana and 3/4 of a pineapple. I couldn't finish the pineapple to I saved it for my breakfast. Unfortunately, I didn't get any breakfast till 1:25pm because I woke up, worked out and started getting ready for the day. My breakfast was an extra large peach, an extra large nectarine and an extra large pink lady apple with about 500ml of a banana and (leftover) pineapple smoothie. Yum! I dipped some of the fruit in the smoothie and it totally transformed their tastes. It was amazing.

So, today, I ate raw till 4 because of a family event that expected to eat cooked food at. I managed to eat vegan  by having some fried plantains and a salad so that was good. For a snack before dinner, I had raw spinach with a small clementine and a couple of grapes about 30 minutes later.

I would say that today went pretty well. I'm going back to eating raw tomorrow and on Wednesday, I'll switch back to raw till 4.

My body's still detoxing well and I lost less than a kilogram overnight last night.

~Sammy

p.s I'm really craving vegetarian/vegan sushi, but it's not like I've ever had it before. Dunno, why.

Day 3: 14 Days Raw Vegan

Picture gotten from RawOn10

Today started off well! :) I had a salad which contained a quarter of a gigantic watermelon, 2 peaches, 1 nectarine, a few freshly picked blackberries and freshly picked basil and on the side, I had a plate of  spinach and kale (stems on! :) ). I had over 699 calories just for breakfast! That's a good start! :)

For lunch, I'm going to have zucchinis with fruit and I need to remember to soak the zucchinis this time them leave them to air dry (drain out the excess water). I might sprinkle some seeds over them, dunno, I'm not a fan of nuts and seeds.

For dinner, I'll just eat fruit or depending on how busy I get, I'll drink a green juice!

What I've learnt from this so far is that raw foods are not just healthy but awesome and they're like the perfect fuel. Instead of having the groggy feeling after eating loads of processed or cooked foods (especially the rather unhealthy ones), you become so awake and full of energy - read to take on the world! You can also get all your calories and all your nutrients from eating raw and you learn more about what you eat and more about your body and mind and how simple things like the quantity you eat affects your feelings or appetite. For example, I struggle to eat in large quantities. It can take me over 2 hours to down half a watermelon if I'm eating the entire half and I know that I'm eating the entire half because I see it right in front of me and I'm eating it out of the fruit with a spoon. It takes me a little less than that amount of time to eat zucchini pasta made with 3 zucchinis and a raw pasta sauce because I'm eating it all at once in a big bowl and that freaks me out (I don't know how FullyRawKristina eats so much at one go). However, if there's cut up pieces (like wedges cut in half) of watermelon in a tupperware or whatever and it's in the fridge (I didn't cut it, but I know a whole watermelon was cut) and all I have to do is pick one out and eat it and if I feel like having more, pick out another one and so on, I am pretty sure I can eat over half a watermelon in less than 10 minutes.

Being raw vegan is awesome, but I'm not going to stick to it. However, once I'm done with this, I'm going to go back to being vegetarian, but as I always have, I'm going to eat more like a vegan (cooked meals) than a vegetarian. I am also going to incorporate more raw meals into my diet 'cause they're awesome. Maybe I might even become a vegetarian who eats raw till 4. Who knows?

I'm happy.
Keep Smiling!

~Sammy

p.s I have lost about 3kg these past 3 days.
I'm not really concerned about my weight, what I'm concerned about is my health and my weight changes as my health changes. So....that's that :)

Day 2: 14 Days Raw Vegan

Picture gotten from YoungAndRaw

Today was better than yesterday, but I don't think I had enough calories especially with my active lifestyle. I had a little over 1045 calories today.

So, for breakfast, I had a nectarine, peach and pink lady apple salad. Yum! And for lunch/dinner (was too busy to eat anything between or after), I had over 1.25 litres of a green juice that had peaches, nectarines, a quarter of a watermelon, spinach, kale and basil. I seem to have a newfound love for basil like it's AWESOME with strawberries and it's just amazing with everything when used raw.

Anyways, today, I didn't really feel sick. My body is still releasing quite a lot of liquids and their clear now like as clear as water (tmi, sorry).

I stepped on the scale today and I've lost about 2kg. Like what, 2kg in 2 days?! Wow! My aim for this is a detox not really weight loss, but I don't mind the weight loss as long as I don't lost more than 4kg more.

Oh! and I've decided that for 7 days I am going to eat fully raw and then for the other 7 days, I'm going to eat raw till 4pm. I changed things up a bit because of issues with my family, getting my calories in quickly, social issues with family (I have to go to a family celebration and I'm expected to eat cooked food there) and....well....I'm not used to eating a lot at a time or eating many times in one day so this is a struggle for me. It's hard to get all my calories in. I'm going to continue eating fully raw for 7 days, maybe drink my calories in a homemade green smoothie every now and then because I pack in LOADS of calories in those just so I'm sure I have enough calories every day without having to return to the kitchen every couple of hours to prepare something to eat.

One thing I don't like right now is that there is little to no variety in my house so I'm pretty much eating or drinking the same thing daily (or just switching up or excluding one or two things each time) and that is pretty annoying.

I still plan on eating raw maybe once a week or for most of my meals in a day in future, but then, I would have variety to help because, I am a vegetarian who loves her fruits so give me as many fruits as possible (apart from cherries, I'm allergic to those) and I'll eat them gladly! :)

Day 3 tomorrow! :)