Food logs

I know I'm not here nearly as often as I should be and it's high time that I make that change.  This blog is special to me even though I haven't been able to consistently write in it.  My husband asks me if I want to keep it or not and I'm always saying yes and feel bad for not doing enough with it.  Between the two of us, we've had some great ideas to put up on here!  So from now on I'm going to make more of an effort and do that.

When I logged in to make my vent I noticed that I had started a food log.  I've done those so many times and I just can't stick with it in the long run.  Don't get me wrong though!  I think they are fabulous for people who need to keep track.  For example, if you're new to losing weight or the 80/10/10 diet.  I think it's important to be able to show yourself what you regularly eat, how many calories, fat, carbs, and protein you're consuming.  I even liked to add how I was feeling after every meal or just anytime I felt the need to write what was on my mind.  Exercise is another great one to keep track of.  Food logs are also great for making your daily meals up ahead of time.  For some people, if they write it down like it's already happened, it's easier to follow through instead of having a slip up.  The thing is, for me, I've been doing the food log thing for years.  And now that I'm sticking with a high carb, low fat, vegan to raw diet, and exercising regularly I pretty much have a handle on how many calories I'm eating.  For example, my 10 banana smoothie in the morning is about 1000 calories.  And with eating such a healthy diet I don't need to watch my calories as in restricting so when I'm hungry, I just eat, and it's all good.

So overall, sorry for not staying on top of things.  I'll be working on that and I'm really excited about it.  See you soon!

Peace and Love
Cass

Diets...

Maybe I should be a little bit more lax on how others eat, but between what I know from school and what I'm learning about how the way I choose to eat, it drives me nuts seeing others choose these crazy ways to eat.  It's no wonder their losing weight...they are starving themselves!

I understand that not everyone is going to want to choose to eat like I do and I respect that.  When I start counseling people on how to become healthier and may need to lose weight, I would never tell them to eat at such a low carbohydrate and calorie rate.  It can be hard to believe how people can eat such a huge amount of meat and cut out foods like fruit because they're too high in sugars...  Honestly, I think there's a higher chance of gaining weight on meat than fruit.  Right?  Fruits have such a huge variety of vitamins that the body needs to do what it does best.  Whereas meat doesn't, not to mention the animal cruelty, heart disease, hypertension....

I don't know.  I tried posting a link or two to this person about why what she's doing is not safe and that eating healthy foods are the better way to go.  She didn't like that and it's kind of sad.  I stopped following her page.  Should I have tried harder and explained a little differently?  Or did I do enough?

Done venting...thanks!

Other diets like the paleo diet and what not, to me, just aren't realistic.  I don't think people are putting enough thought into when it comes down to the required nutrients that our bodies need.  Sure everyone is made up differently, but we all need nutrients and where's the best place to get them?  You can get them ALL from fruits and veggies!  To me it's a lifestyle change that is important to make.  And it shouldn't be about losing weight all the time.  That's the bonus in my opinion.  It's supposed to be about being healthy.  When we eat healthy and get the exercise we need, the weight will come off in it's own time and our body will shape itself the way it should be.

Peace and Love
Cass

Day 3

Here's what I ate yesterday, September 6th:

BF: 8 bananas, 450g strawberries, 1 cup blueberries smoothie

Lunch: 4 organic fuji apples from farmers market, 10 medjool dates blended with a sprinkle of cinnamon.  The flavor was great, the texture was NOT.

Dinner: 6 banana smoothie

Snacks: 3 bananas, @ 10 baby carrots.  

Total calories: 3177

Water: more than 4L

Exercise: Did upper body strength in the morning, then jogged/walked 2 miles in the evening.  I beat my 1 mile record time!  The day before it was 11 minutes and 55 seconds.  Yesterday it was 10 minutes and 54 seconds!  Woot!  So super stoked.  

Sleep:  I got about 9 hours

Feelings:  I have been feeling so great!  Everything is just going very well.  My mood is in check, there's plenty of fruit, and it's just all good.  I've been thinking about why it's so much easier this time around (which I probably shouldn't do) and it's like, it's just simple.  I get hungry, I eat fruit.  At dinner, eat fruit, then salad.  I have so many options right now that it couldn't be easier.  And I realized too that I'm not trying anymore.  I'm just doing.  I'm not making it a challenge anymore.  I'm making it my life.  And it just feels so good and right!  

Today is my day 4.  Last month I crashed on this day.  Went to family's house and just couldn't hang.  Ended up doing everything possible wrong.  Tomorrow I'm going to the same place for a house warming party.  I will succeed.  Just bought some fruit this morning and will be taking enough with me tomorrow.  We're not going to spend the night there this time too so it should be that much easier.  I'm even planning on going to the gym tomorrow morning before we leave!  I never go to the gym on weekends.  On Sunday I suppose I'll do a small workout at home.  Or maybe I'll go to the gym.  We'll see!  

Happy Friday Everyone!!  I hope you have a great weekend!

-Cass-

Doing Good

On Facebook Freelee has set up a Banana Girl's Diet group and I joined at the end of July to start an 80/10/10 challenge.  August didn't go well for me so I'm back for Septembers challenge.  The rules are to be raw vegan the entire month and see how I feel afterwards.  In August I made it 4 days.  This month I started a little late, am here none the less.  I'm posting everything I eat in the group, but also wanted to post it here.  It is my blog after all :)  I'm basically copy and pasting everything, but also editing it as necessary.  :)  This is my post from yesterday, September 4: 

Since it was a holiday weekend I've been snacking the entire time. I didn't write anything down, didn't worry about how many calories I was eating...I didn't keep it raw the entire time either...At dinner I would have cooked veggies. Sorry,

 but zucchini "steaks" are bomb. And I have so many zucchini's to eat... But today it's back to the daily grind and I've been keeping track. I think I'll consider this day 1 since I haven't been raw the past few days. The day isn't near over yet, but I wanted to kind of get a head start and write down what I've eaten and what I plan to eat for the rest of the day. 

BF: this one's kinda tough because I don't eat much since I'm about to head to the gym. But I have to eat something before I go in. I made a 10 banana smoothie. Drank most of it then drank the rest when I got home.  

After the smoothie I knew I would get hungry soon so decided to make a date banana smoothie. I used 15 medjool dates and 5 bananas. I suppose this can be considered as lunch even though, technically it's not lunch time yet. I'm still working on the smoothie. 

Dinner - I plan on eating 2lbs organic strawberries I got from the farmers market :) (so excited!) Then I'm going to follow that with a head of red leaf lettuce. 

So far with this smoothie I'm drinking I'll be at 2572 calories. With dinner I'll have 2909 calories. Not including exercise...
At the gym this morning I was there for 30 min doing strength exercises. Later I will go back and do some cardio. I've been smoking...and it's taken a toll. I'm mucousy and working out has gotten harder. When I'm with my trainer it's gotten harder and it just darn right sucks. So, I'm quitting! Like I told my husband, I'm trying to progress, not regress. So with that I'll go back this evening and work on strengthening my heart and lungs. :)

I'm not sure how that second round of exercise will effect my hunger. I'm thinking I'll be really hungry when I get home. I'll be going before dinner, so hopefully dinner will be enough...

Water - so far I've only had 1.5L, but like I said, it's not even mid day yet. So I'll be sure to get in at least another 1.5L. Usually on average I get in 4L total. Aim for 3, try for 4 :)

Sleep - last night I got about 9 hours. I was very tired until after the second time I pushed the snooze button then got a lot of anxiety. Today is my daughters first day back to preschool and the first day that I had to get everyone ready and out the door since school was out.
Well, I think I got it all in...please let me know if I missed anything so can add it on. :) I hope everyone else is having a great day!

I finished what I had posted. At the gym, walked/jogged 3 miles. Took me 43 min 35 seconds. Whew! I have a long way to go! lol I got in at least 4L of water and those strawberries turned into a smoothie with 2 large peaches and 1.5 cups of OJ. Drank it with dinner. But the salad ended up being smaller (maybe 2 cups) with a fresh tomato from the garden. After dinner the whole family went for a bike ride.

I felt really good before bed last night. Stayed up a little late I think, but all is well. Tonight I'll hit the sack a little earlier.

As for today, here's what I had/did:

BF: 11 banana smoothie

Lunch: 5 banana, 15 medjool date smoothie.  

Snack: 3 bananas

Dinner: 2 large peaches, small handful of baby carrots, about 2 cups green leaf lettuce, and some chopped tomato from the garden.  

Overall, I consumed 3183 calories.

Exercise:  I went to the gym this morning and did strength training.  This evening I jogged/walked 2 miles.  I also beat my one mile record!  Before it was 13min 26sec.  Today I did it in 11min and 55sec!  Yay me!

Sleep: Last night I got between 8-8.5 hours of sleep.  I don't think I moved hardly.  Usually I wake up in the middle of the night for some water or to pee, but not last night.  Like I mentioned before though, I will be trying to get to bed a little earlier.  

Feelings:  Been doing really well today!  There was at one point I was feeling a little grumpy and short tempered, but I ate a few bananas, hit the gym, then started eating dinner and felt like normal again.  I feel I have easily conquered two days!  

Still haven't gotten the camera up and running yet.  I've been taking pictures, but haven't been able to get the plug in to work.  I'll keep trying!  Would really like to add some pictures on here to break up the text a bit more :)  

Be Fruity!!
-Cass-

Updates

Constantly I remind myself that I really need to post something up here!  I love having my own blog and I think I over think what to put up on here.  Well, I'm going to try not to do that anymore.  I've thought about doing some vlogs as well, but I think first I need to try to keep up on this blog to start.  Also, I have realized that I spend too much of my time bs'ing around the internet with things that have nothing to do really about what I care about usually.  So that stops as well.

As far as it goes with being vegan and raw, I struggle.  So I decided to take a couple steps back and somewhat start again.  I can't push myself too hard or I'll fall back as I've seen time and time again with myself.  I find it kind of funny how I want to eat raw vegan along with the 80/10/10 lifestyle and yet it is such a struggle for me.  So steps back are taken.  Since I love the raw vegan lifestyle so much it is something that I will keep striving for, but in the mean time, I'll be eating cooked vegan as well.  It's especially easier that way because everyone else in the house is eating cooked foods and aren't vegan.  So I guess considering that I'm not doing too bad.  But I would like to do better.  

I'm going to just start taking pictures of everything I make and post them up.  I've been exercising like I should, too, so I'll start putting some updates on that as well.  So far one of my goals has been to do 20 push ups and I just did that not a few minutes before starting this blog  :).  Yay me!  

Another update that I'm working on is I want to start helping people with changing their diets to be more healthy.  I'm doing this because this is what I would like to do as my career.  I have one more year of school left and would like to get some experience in before I get my degree.  Once I'm done with school I'll have my Bachelor's in Science for Nutrition Science.  But so far, I'm working with family.  With a disclaimer of course.  :)

That's about all for now.  I'll be writing more often :)  

Til next time!

Eating Enough

I was reading a post from a group I'm in on Facebook and they mentioned that they are only eating 500 calories per day for about a week to try to lose a few pounds. This made me a little sad and I commented that that is just not enough calories and gave a little bit of facts to try to help this person out a little, but also not be too forward or pushy or even a "little-miss-know-it-all" of some sort. Then a day or so later they had mentioned that they are at a plateau. Not gaining, nor losing and someone had mentioned to them that they should only eat six apples and some water for the day and they'll be back on track.

 ... My first thought was, "I could probably eat six apples in one sitting and be hungry within the next hour".  So I wanted to give a few tips about eating and what is enough and what isn't.

For an averaged sized woman (say about 5'7" or so) the body uses up about 1200 calories per day just to sit around on the couch and get some sleep at night. If you're taller, you'll need more. If you're shorter, you'll need less. The same goes for men, but I'm pretty sure their average height is taller. And please keep in mind, that's just to sit around all day! If exercise is involved at some point more calories will be required. Depending on how active a person is and how strenuous the activities are, even more calories may be needed. This is just to make sure that the body is fueled to do what it needs to do. Even for the things that seems so small. For example, it takes energy to metabolize the foods that are eaten or send signals to the brain that something is uncomfortable (the bum on the couch?). Say you get a cold. You're body is going to use up more energy to fight that cold. Hence the saying, "Feed a cold".

When you don't give your body the calories it needs to do what it needs to do it will go into starvation mode and start storing the foods you do eat to fat and start eating away at the muscle. When trying to lose weight, this will only make a person fatter because the muscle will turn into fat as well so the body can use that as an energy source later.

So you see, it is extremely important that a person gets in enough calories every day. It seems like these days people become so concerned about eating less and less. Sure, many of those people may have been consuming over 3000 calories that were burgers, chips, and sweets. Those are the foods that are calorie dense and not nutrient dense. Losing weight doesn't have to be about starving yourself. It's just making better choices of how you consume those calories. For me, fruits and veggies are the way to go because they are low in calories and full of nutrients that the body requires. In my opinion, there is no such thing as eating too many fruits and vegetables. I also eat a wide variety throughout the day.

I hope this was helpful, especially to those who feel that they need to eat so little to get the results they want. Eating so little doesn't make anyone happy. So eat up and feel good!