Hi there everyone, well today is day 40 for me and yes I checked the calendar first this time, lol.  Only ... the rest of mylife to go.

I hope you feel better soon Kebbster.

Waterberry I'm sure you'll find your own balance that you are comfortable with for this moment in time and I'm glad you are enjoying your assignments, that makes alot of difference in the learning process.

Eve, I hate it if my hubby goes away too, it very rarely happens thank goodness and when it does I try to keep myself really busy and do things with the kids I wouldn't normally do.  I hope the time goes quickly for you.  Oh yeah and congratulations for hitting 40 days.

Beau - I used to always cave in if my kids had hot chips, it was my weak point all the time but thankfully this time seems to be so different for me.  I'm trying to make every experience a positive one so if they have a sad dish that I may have liked before I look at it as 'well at least I'm not cooking it and I now have more time to make my dinner extra delicious.'  I also try to plan ahead and make sure I have something REALLY nice on my plate when we eat dinner, 90% of the time they are asking to try mine, lol.

Take care ladies and please keep posting otherwise it will get very lonely in here.

Ohh, good.

I've been "off the air" and off the boat too, for the last few days. Was a little scared to come and post, but it looks like most people here are doing their own bit of swimming. 

Hey, you know what? I'd like to bet that nearly everyone here's diet is HEAPS better than before they started this challenge. I know mine is- even with the chocolates that my children AND my mother in law gave me for Mother's day, and the coffee, and the few biscuits, and the white bread that have slipped in there the last few days. My diet is still a lot better than it was. I'm still having my fruity breakfast, my lemon water, my salad for/with lunch, my green smoothie (mostly) in the afternoon, and lots of salad or lightly cooked vegies with/ for dinner, still having a lot more water during the day.

And that is all truly GOOD.

Happy swimming- hope everyone brought towels with them. Will someone get me one please? I'm just about ready to get back on board now- those sharks that took missgiggles are circling.....

Love to all xoxoxoxoxo


 

lulu, thanks for the encouragement hun   I'll be keeping posting as I drag myself out of the water & back onto the boat!! That's for sure.

Rawfairylady... towels, that's a great idea!  Big fluffy comfy towels that make you want to get back on board!! 
And if you want to take that idea into reality..... perhaps getting on board could involve some kind of enticing new raw adventure.  For me the 'fluffy towel' is going to be a whole box of persimmons, all for me. Yep, that's enticing.

Eve... yaaaaaaay!  That is incredibly a cute and loving and wonderful feeling when you find out that they have missed you as much as you missed them, hey   So gorgeous   Glad you're back on track too!  Another good feeling there.

Missgiggles, thanks for popping in!  I adore your posts    I'll have you know though, I love sharks... such wonderful creatures - I hope they took care of you well wherever it was that they took you to

I had a chat with Lou on msn last night about the junkfood I'm craving with study stress.  She's threatening to kick my bum if I go back to chocolate   Also threatening to kick my bum if I have lollies instead of chocolate.  SO I didn't have any today.  Small successes, one day at a time, will add up.  I didn't have raw chocolate or any raw cocoa powder in a smoothie either, I'm not sure if that's feeding my addiction of the non raw stuff? Hmmm.

Today: plain ole bananas for breakfast instead of a GS.  Salad with tomatoes for lunch.  Fresh fruit, almonds, some rice crackers & dip for snacks.  Haven't done dinner yet, will have a think on what to have now...  Maybe start with a GS since I didn't have one earlier, then a salsa or dip perhaps.  Or I can read a recipe book and get inspired.   Oh, and I also just got back from my second jog for this week, as I did one Sunday:  3 times per week is my jogging goal.

Ha ha Miss Giggles!  And now for something completely different....

I'm finally here again to post an update.  Interesting that we all have been going through something kind of similar with stress and such.  I was doing all great until I ate a watermelon that wasn't so good.  I can't afford organic melons and choose my organic produce that would otherwise have more pesticides.  That made me want to eat more nutrient dense foods, and so I ended up overeating.  Then, I unfortunately made flax crackers for the first time in my new dehydrator (that I was hesitant to buy because of the whole added yummy factor) and forgot to make them half or 3/4 sprouted buckwheat and the rest flax (I followed a recipe but at least lowered the salt), and wow, were those addictive and constipating!!  I ate so much fat that day and then decided I ruined my healthy raw plans so ate some junky cooked food (what sabotaging thinking that is common and ridiculous!!).  My tendencies were bad again, and I totally identify with what you said Waterberry with then thinking, well, I did it yesterday, so why not again today?  Therefore, I surprisingly but wonderfully felt strong to do a water fast.  The epiphany came 4 nights ago when I saw that I do not see a future for myself but have been on survival mode my whole life.  I want a happy future with a loving husband and a good place for work and other wonderful things/people to come my way (maybe a kid too?), so I need to now prepare myself for something ahead of me instead of living day by day, which in theory is true to do, but not in practice always. 

I at first didn't want to fast because it seemed to disrupt my metabolism in the past, and I then would be so hungry to break it early with crap.  Because of my better realization, it just felt right to do, and I needed to show myself again that I can be strong.  Recently, my weight wasn't budging, and I was getting depressed, especially since I got laid off of work and have had a few unsavory semi-relationships with men who ended up not being as great as they proclaimed.  Where's the love in this world?  When I challenged one of the guys who said he wanted love (which originally led me to open up to him), I said I actually gave it, but he rather defined love by lust and his unrealistic view of a woman.  After he thought about it, he then said that maybe he doesn't want love!!  I just knew that I had to draw into myself because I felt I would just lose it otherwise with keeping up my prior coping mechanisms and still not having progressively proper results in my life.  I did this fast for the right reasons instead of weight loss or a bad body image, which always seems to backfire into eating more soon enough!! 

So, I'm on the tail end of day 4 and plan for at least 6 days, hopefully longer.  I craved so much the last few days, but I also want to do this fast in order to see if it really does disrupt my metabolism.  I also have worked through the cravings--yay!-- and have exercised to burn off the extra excitability, although today was the hardest day so far with feeling the stimulating chemicals released from my fat into my bloodstream.  I just couldn't sleep much at all (and the other days weren't optimum, so that makes me think fasting isn't the greatest, but there are more benefits so far to me), so I got up to go for a strong walk for a while and little jogs that I could only manage doing for like 10 seconds at a time, and then I went back to sleep for a couple 2 hour increments. 

I am happy to see good muscle definition again and have some areas being worked on internally, and with the crazy cravings subsided, I looked at the food channel and fast food commercials (which I limit but am sometimes bored) and finally see how disgusting it all is.  I do want health and to be leaner/stronger, and now that I see results, especially psychologically, I feel that I want to be more disciplined with raw.  I also think I will incorporate more greens and veggies, even in juices (that I hate cleaning from the machine also!!) because I am questioning if eating the massive amount of fruit is optimum for me personally.  I also don't like undereating, but I will do a bit of this more instead of overeat.  I also will exercise, as I have done, when old habits want to creep up and have me turn to food to comfort me instead of myself.  Oh, along this line, I heard the presenters on the food channel say so many times how the meal was the perfect comfort food.  This showed me more how food to everyone, even men who supposedly aren't as emotional as women, use food as an emotional crutch.  And some guys are even proud to call themselves "foodies" and be fat from their indulgence!  I see food in a healthier light now, and I really want it to stay this way. 

My love to you all,
Theresa   

Hello everyone! I have thoroughly enjoyed playing catch-up on this thread. My demons had me paranoid about coming here after bowing out but of course I knew deep down that y'all just wanted me to be healthy hahahahaha! Silly Jungle

Thanks to beautiful women here with kind words. Love, love, love

I want to post in mass but will be called to babe very soon I imagine so I'll see how far I get and try to continue later if need be...

So a big journey of late for me. A long week of nature, wilderness, peaceful surroundings, emotional whirls and some indulging my emotional pain by numbing with cooked food. After absolutely breezing through eating a near 811rv diet for over a month without much struggle I really lost my footing. Y'know when it began? When I let myself have some raw cacoa as a treat. Immediately after I had a MASSIVE emotional freakout and all of a sudden there were way more important things than staying raw just for the sake of it. I had devloped a very unhealthy attitude where lots of foods, combinations and various habits were "bad" or "wrong". Once I had allowed myself to have some steamed veggies from m y mum's organic garden I allowed in a host of "bad" and "wrong" things I was now allowed to do. So it somehow felt healthier all of a sudden to let myself have what was previously off-limits just to get it reinforced that I can have what I want.

NOW....I am focusing on being able to create and have whatever I want. I know healthy raw food (to me this is lots of organic raw fruit, especially mono, and lots of greens)gives me life. I don't want to feel like crap! But as I heal my mind and overcome emotional attatchments I am not stressing about being raw, but healthy. It has been healthier for mind and emotions to focus on other areas than details about food. I will get it right with time!

I hope to be 100% starting from this morning for the rest of my life but I also hope for health in all the important ways...health for the whole of Gaia.

Now soon in about half an hour I will receive my huge deliv of organic fruity treats....13kg bananananas, 12kg bosc pears, 10kg crimson red grapes and 18kg valencia oranges  I am going into mega green production mode. I am planning by research which fruit trees to buy. This 811rv thing is a lifechange. It's big! It's taking time but the change is gonna be here to stay I believe.

Ah, release!

So much love to beautiful beings walking similar paths all over the world

Blessings xoxo

It's a good way to look at it there, kebbster

I got my box of persimmons yaaaaaay!  I ate all the orange ones already too, nom nom nom.  Then I checked them hourly to see if any more had ripened (no, not really).

Humm what else did I have today.... a giant carrot-apple-celery juice.  Then some 'apple pie' type stuff out of the apple pulp (added sultanas, honey, coconut, lots of cinnamon, steel cut oats).  Froze the carrot pulp for later.  Can't have too much cake in one day    Seemed to have missed my green smoothie oops.  I'm vague today.... oh well.  Still dancing!

Aww, thanks so much for that post, PrincessBee.  I was struggling on the fast last night, and with your added wishes as well as Jim's, it helped me feel more empowered with loving positivity.  I felt all warm and fuzzy.  I lasted throughout the difficult night, and I'm glad I did because now I'm finally more tired/weak, and I can rest more instead of break it tonight due to my previously needing food to calm me down.  I will follow through with my original plan of 6 days, ending tomorrow night with a small smoothie.  Yay for this accomplishment! 

Californiaglee, you are inspiring to me too. You are so strong! Keep it up hey