Chaos. Bliss. Life.

I am so excited!! Today is the day I begin my raw food fat loss 12-week program….woo-hooo! I am super duper thrilled to know that from this day forward, there will be changes in my body, both inside and out. I’ve been looking at my goal pictures a lot as motivation (the one of that fitness model’s stomach a couple of posts down and a picture of Michele Reid, a beautiful and totally ripped African-American fitness model) and telling myself I can and will look like them. The only thing that would hold me back is me and, because of LOA, me holding me back is no longer an issue. God, it feels so good to be FREE!!!

Now, since fat loss is my focus here, I’m going to be checking and logging my BF% every Sunday at 5:30pm. Today, I’m using my last BF% and weight measurements as a starting point because Aunt Flo is here and any measurements I take today, be it weight or BF%, will be skewed due to hormonal stuff. But again, dropping BF% is the main thing I’ll be focusing on, not weight fluctuations, because I’ll be doing a lot of weight training and building beautiful raw muscles, which will have an impact on the scale.

Today, fitness-wise, I’ll eat a piece of fruit, wait for about an hour, then have an easy-breezy yoga session right after I’m done here. I’m starting my day off this way only until after Aunt Flo leaves. My body needs more to help cleanse it during this time and I have to go easier on it until its done. Once its over, I’ll proceed as suggested By Patenaude: exercise, then have a wholesome green smoothie consisting of 1-2 cups greens and 1-4 cups fruit. I’ve had a couple of these already this week. Very filling and satisfying to say the least!! Then it’s nothing but fresh food from here on out: nice leafy green veggie-filled salads, tons of fruit/veg smoothies and a teaspoon of FermPlus daily in a smoothies to keep intestinal flora balanced. Minimal to no salt. No refined fats or oils. Just bare-naked raw food goodness!

So, as I’ve been telling my hubby for the last three days, WATCH OUT!! Changes are a-comin’!!

Starting stats:
BF%: 36.6%
Weight: 171.6 lbs

Okay, forgive me. I’m a stay-at-home mom and days and dates tend to run into each other on me. I, for some reason, thought the Fourth of July fell on a Saturday, and so thought July 5th was a Sunday, the perfect day to start my twelve week body transformation project. Found out today that it does not.

So my official start day is Sunday, July 6th, not 5th. I told my hubby all about what I’m working on and how excited I was. He lost about 40lbs earlier this year (he had a bout of some stomach virus and even after he got better didn’t have much of an appetite) and is loving being smaller. He wants to spice things up a bit and make it a competition of sorts to see who can lose the weight they want the soonest. I’m going to blow him out of the water, but not with weight loss. If I lose my pounds in fat, rather than muscle as I’m sure he’s losing it, I’ll look a lot leaner and toned than he will. I’d have lost five pounds, but I’d look like I lost a lot more. So, I told him…BRING IT ON, BABY!!

He has no idea what he’s in for. Poor dear….

Looks like my inital body fat stat was wrong, wrong, wrong!

I’ve got a Tanita scale, and according to the instructions, the best time of the day to check your body fat is between the hours of 5 and 6pm in the afternoon. This is because your body’s levels of hydration affect the accuracy of the BF% number on the scale. Dehydration or over-hydration skew the results. The afternoons are best because at that time you’re most likely properly hydrated and not full of food. The readings should be more accurate. Well, as accurate as they can be (they allow for a 4% margin of error in either direction).

When did I do my pre-post measurement yesterday? In the middle of the day, less than a half hour after chugging a monstrous cup full of water. So, of course, I didn’t get an accurate reading. I checked it today around 5:30pm and the scale said my BF% is 36.6%. Better than 39, but still in the obese range (but of course, I knew this already). So it appears that I’m going to have to check it again on the first day of my fat loss training, just to be sure I’m giving an accurate starting point. Then it’s full speed ahead from there.

I’ve decided I’m going to approach this as if I’m an athlete training for an event, like a race or competition or something. When they get down to it, they train rigorously and faithfully, pushing their bodies to the limit until they get the results they want. That’s just the kind of mindset I need. Besides that, the Universe decided to bless me with a bit of extra help today. When I was cleaning out a closet today, I stumbled across some workout DVDs I didn’t even remember I had. How fortuitous!! Those will definitely come in handy, adding variety and spice to my routines. Thanks, Universal God!! He knows I need variety, variety, variety, not only for my mental stimulation, but so my muscles don’t get used to any one set of motions and keep growing. Isn’t he cool!!!

Oh, man, I’m so excited!!! July 5th, here I come!!!

I’m so happy to have found out about the Law of Attraction that I’m starting to look for more and more ways to implement it in my life, besides saying daily affirmations and re-training my brain to think positive thoughts. I’ve decided that since I love myself so much, I DESERVE to be healthy, trim and fit. I DESERVE to have the body I think is ideal. Today, I set about making a plan that I will not only look at daily to remind myself of my goals, but one that is easy for me to implement now that my mind is finally in the right place.

I’ve decided that the raw food lifestyle is the one for me. I feel like so much of a hypocrite when I eat fast food now because I know what’s in it and what all those chemicals, preservatives and high sodium levels do to the body God gave me. I’ve recommitted myself to freeing my body from it’s addiction to those substances because I love my body and I want to give it only that which is nourishing and healthy and I want to keep it in optimal condition through exercise.

The Universe helped me to change my perspective on my struggle with weight as well. He brought raw food motivationalist Frederic Patenaude into my life in the form of three free raw food reports. I’ve read them and they’ve inspired me to alter my approach. Obviously, what I’ve been trying to do isn’t working, so I needed to shift gears, change focus and approach this from a different angle.

First, per Frederic’s instructions I’m going to stop saying and thinking I’m trying to lose weight. What happens when you lose something? You tend to want to find it and I don’t want to find the pounds and inches I lost after working so hard and long to get rid of them. Instead, I’m making my focus fat release. I’ve been a slave to the number of pounds I weigh when, in reality, weight is not an indicator of health at all. Body fat is. So, my aim is to lower my BF % from 39% to 15% by my next birthday and maintain that for the rest of my life. Thank God, my scale measures body fat as well. How fortuitous!

I also went ahead and decided to set some interim fat loss goals. I figured, eating raw exclusively, my body fat should drop dramatically. I broke my goal up over 12 weeks, starting July 5, but if I don’t get to 15% in three months, I still have several more months before my birthday, so I won’t freak out about it. I’ll just keep at it until I hit pay dirt. Here’s how I broke it up:

1st goal: Bring BF% down from 39% to 29% by August 1
2nd goal: Bring BF% down from 29% to 19% by September 1
3rd goal: Bring BF% down from 19% to 15% by October 1

Next, I’m laying out concrete goals for what I want my body to look like, not weigh. I’m going to go out on a limb, ignore that voice in my head and the voices of all the people in my life that have ever called me fat or chubby or solid, and I’ll say this loud and clear: I WANT A FITNESS MODEL BODY!!! I want:

* A flat, toned stomach with a bit of ab definition (like the pic accompanying this post)
* Trim, toned thighs and a high, tight butt.
* Trim, well muscled arms (no jiggles)
* To wear a bikini with confidence
* To fit into designer clothes easily and comfortably (size 4-6)
* To look like I’ve never been pregnant (we all know women who look like that!)

Really big goals, I know, but for the first time in my life, I feel they’re totally doable for me! I feel really good about not worrying about the scale numbers so much. I already know I’ve got muscle underneath my fat. I can feel it there. Once I peel all that fat off, I won’t have much to do to get the physique I want. It’s so great to know that I can set my mind to something and have it be done rather than wait for or hope for it to happen. Ain’t life grand!

Okay, so I attempted to fast my way for five days. The results? Well, I wasn’t perfect. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. But, I still managed to fast most of the day, before I’d end up eating in the early afternoon. And I still managed to drop about 3lbs of excess water and impurities, so I’m feeling pretty darn good about myself. I want to try this again, this time doing it properly, but only for one day…today.

I’ve found a great tea that helps my metabolism keep moving, supports my digestion and helps me not feel hungry for many, many hours. And it was right in the supermarket aisle…who knew?? I already love the Yogi Teas and found that they have one specifically for fasting and weight loss called…uh…FASTING. It has all the great thermogenic spices like ginger and cardamom, but it also has gardenia fruit and red clover to help suppress the appetite, aid in digestion and keep you energized. I’m really digging it.

Another thing I’ve found helpful this week is affirmations. It’s a well-known and oft-used tool of those who believe in the Law of Attraction, but I, at the time, didn’t feel the need to use it. I figured I’d just make my vision board and look at it every day to remind me of the things I want to have manifest in my life. After a while, though, it got hard to stay focused on it. Slowly, negative thoughts, words like “can’t” and “maybe” started to slip back into my internal dialog and with it, the old frustrated feelings.

Enter the Universe, who saw fit to have me sit down and watch Oprah AGAIN, who had the same Law of Attraction ladies on AGAIN (how cool is that?). This time they were doing part two of their discussion and during the show kept pounding into viewers the need to speak positive things about ourselves and about our lives because what we speak eventually manifests. The bells immediately began chiming in my head. Yeah, that was the piece I was missing. The only way I can permanently change my negative inner dialog to to continually speak positive dialog. Doing that will eventually change my inner thoughts because the more I speak it, the more I believe it. It was a lesson I feel the Universe needed me to get. Well, I got it!

Throughout the show, the ladies dropped small sample affirmations and a couple of them really felt like what I needed to help shift the tides of my life. The gist of both of them was that the “Universe is conspiring in my favor” and that “all experiences in my life end up being for my good and for the good of those around me”. These were key because I’d begun to feel and operate in the spirit that the world was against me and bemoaning the bad experiences I’ve had lately (eg. having a son with autism, financial issues, living in a place I hate, not being able to work, etc.). Those two affirmations shifted my thinking. Yes, much has happened to me, but all have produced good in some form in my life and I’ve been forever changed for the better by each situation. Each one has made me drop false parts of me and really focus on what was important and appreciate the simple things in life. So now, rather than bemoaning everything, I am grateful for all that’s happened to me because each situation has given me gifts that have made me a better me than I ever was.

So, of course, I went looking for additional affirmations to use and found a lot of great ones on one of those ladies’ site. It’s a long list, but each one speaks to me in different ways and reshapes my inner dialogue to one that’s positive and full of love, gratitude and appreciation. So far, I’ve said them every morning for two days and I can literally feel the shift happening. I feel happier, energetic and positive and that’s what has been missing in my journey.

Well, I’m off to have a cup of my new favorite tea, make some banana bread and oatmeal cookies for my kid, do some laundry and finish off the rest of my housework.

Once again, since I’ve been trying to change my thoughts, the Universe has proven true to form and has been providing me with the info I need to conquer the hurdles I’ve been facing in my life lately, especially those related to diet and spirtuality.

According the Ayurvedic principles, someone like me (of Kapha dosha) should not fast, as we already have a slow digestive system and not eating would slow it down even further. This created an issue for me because, though I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom of the ancients, I also know the benefits of fasting and really wanted to start my new attempt at raw by cleansing myself so that I wouldn’t be such a slave to my body’s cravings for sugar, chocolate and starchy, processed carbs. Why the concern? Well, after a good first day of fasting with nothing but water, today my wayward mind and body mutinied and I tucked into some baked mac and cheese and Hershey Kisses. Of course, my stomach really started to hurt an hour or two afterward and now, I’m pretty flatulent. Yep, there’s a trumpeting elephant living under my chair! I know that fasting it the best way to help conquer your vices, but how am I to fast when constitution-wise I’m not supposed to?

The solution came in the form of an article I was reading on the primal diet, which I was interested in only because I’d never heard of it before (I’ve learned people that follow the diet are raw omnivores; besides fruits and veggies, they also eat raw meat, raw milk, eggs, etc.), but ended up reading that a person can actually fast on water with lemon squeezed into it and/or fruit. I’d always thought that it had to be water only for it to be effective, but I knew I couldn’t hack that, which is why I was attracted to the Raw Divas 24-hour fast in the first place. This is perfect for me because my body gets to have nutrients so it doesn’t think its starving and my mind doesn’t feel like its dieting so I won’t be obsessing about when I’ll be able to eat a meal again, which has derailed many a fast for me. It’s so apt for my situation. Thanks, Universe!

So I’m going to embark on a five day fast of lemon water and various fruit. I’ll end it on Sunday at 6pm. I plan to have me a nice blender-warmed raw summer soup of apple and avocado. I wanna break the fast nice and easy. I expect this fast to help me break my addiction to certain foods and help my body and mind cleanse. After that, I’ve decided I’ll be going for high-raw rather than 100 percent for now. I want this process to be easy on my mind. I’ve learned from past attempts and failures that I tend to try to be a perfectionist if given too rigid a goal and that makes the process stressful rather than an enjoyable learning experience for me.

So here’s to my fast…I’ll be posting about how its going and any changes, good or bad, I encounter. Namaste!

How many times has it been now? Two? Three? Well, yet again I’m starting over going raw. In true Raw Diva detox fashion, once the clock strikes 6pm this evening, I’ll begin the fasting portion of my plan and break the fast with fresh, juicy fruit tomorrow at 6pm. From that point on, it’ll be just fruits and vegetables for me. No salt. No fat. Plenty of fresh water. For seven glorious days. All to let my body purge itself of old habits, old food, old chemicals and old routines and make way for a new, fresh, vibrant way of thinking, eating and living.

I know you’re probably asking why the heck I keep trying if I keep crashing and burning so much. Well, it’s because I WANT to live a healthy, raw vegan lifestyle. The benefits are so great and I really want them for myself. If there’s one thing I never want for myself, it’s, when I get into the retirement age, to be one of those folks who’re on several different meds, none of which make them feel better. I want to have a vibrant, healthy, man-made drug-free life, straight up until my soul and my breath leave my body. Plus, and this is vanity talking here, I think I look and feel so much better when I’m eating raw and drinking lots of fresh water. My skin glows, I’m not bloated, my clothing gets looser and looser. Oh, man do I love that!!

Besides all that, I’m really sick of the way cooked food makes me feel. As I’m writing this, my stomach feels like it has a bag of cement at the bottom of it. Why? Well, because I ate Chinese takeout for lunch. Wouldn’t you know it? Three hours later, it’s still there. I hate feeling heavy and sluggish because of my food. I want that light, airy feeling I had when I did the raw food diva detox. I want that vibrant, energetic vibe I had when I was eating high raw. And you know what? I’m gonna get it back. I deserve it, dammit!

The good thing about failing is you get a chance to figure out how and why you failed, so you’re better next time around. I can say for sure that what made staying raw hard this time is not stocking the fridge with enough produce each week, not eating enough greens and not eating enough calories. I realize now, if I go by my hunger cues, I’m chronically undereating. Looks like I’m going to have to start tracking again. I stopped calorie tracking ages ago because I tended to get obsessed about the calorie count and soon began to feel like it wasn’t normal. Now, I see that I have to know how much actual raw food I have to eat to get the right amount of calories, then, once I’ve got a good handle on the amount, I can stop tracking.

I will succeed at this. You know, I already am a raw vegan in my heart and soul. I’m gonna have to do the work to make that change manifest itself in my body. Yeah, it’s hard trying to change all the habits and ways of life you’ve been living since birth, but the body is highly adaptable. It can get used to anything. I’m gonna put it to the test!

This week, the One Who Is Known By Many Names, but whom I call God or the Universe, laid some serious knowledge on me, information I know was designed to teach me some valuable lessons: how much ancient principles about the body still hold true today, how my innermost thoughts have the power to shape my reality and how my ego has gotten in the way of the blessings and guidance the Universe has been trying to implement in my life all along.

How did I come across these wonderful truths? Well, I didn’t have a vivid vision, nor did someone read me psychically, prophesy to me or read my palm. Nope, the Universe used the internet and the television….yeah, He’s up on all the latest technologies…how cool is that!

It all started with me reading an article by the host of the Renegade Health site Kevin Gianni that mentioned the ancient way of exercising and eating according to your ayurvedic dosha. There are three main doshas: Vata, Pitta and Kapha, each with their accompanying body and personality traits and there are specific ways of eating and exercising for your type that helps bring balance, peace and health to your body. Now, I had read something about this a couple of years ago and soon after, was dazzled by another new-fangled exercise diet or contraption and promptly forgot. The fact that the Universe brought me back to these simple, ancient ideas made me feel a little chastised in a way, like He was saying, “you silly girl, I was TRYING to tell you earlier, but you didn’t listen”. Definitely brought my know-it-all, do-it-all ego down a peg or two.

But He wasn’t done with me yet. A few days later, He had me turn on the television, which I hadn’t watched in days, and catch Oprah’s show where she had guests talking about the power of the Law of Attraction. Now this was a totally new concept for me, so my ears pricked up like animals do when they hear something. Apparently, once again ancient wisdom holds true. All those Bible verses I’d read that said “as a man thinketh, so he is” and “there is power in the tongue” was represented in the Law of Attraction, which says that your very thoughts determine your reality. We humans, by our very thoughts, influence what happens to us in our lives. Constantly fixing your attention on what you don’t want, causes it to manifest in your life because you’ve put your power and energy into creating it and making it reality. And that works the other way, too. Think only good, positive, personal growth inducing thoughts and guess what? You’ll get that back in your life.

That so hit home, because I realize just how often I think about how many bills we have, and how I don’t know how we’re going to pay for things, how I think my hubby works too much and how that may be affecting his health and blah, blah, blah. I’ve unknowingly been creating all the financial struggles and problems with my weight because of my negative focus. I realize I need to turn off all that internal noise and just let the Universe take care of everything. He so aptly cares for flowers and the trees, who don’t think or reason, but only serve mankind by cleaning the air, providing us food and delighting us with their beauty. How much more can He take care of me, who He made in His own image?

So for the last couple of days, I ignored the scale, turned off that tape of worry stuck on repeat in my mind and began living to balance my Kapha dosha. I chucked all my old food rules and just paid attention to my body’s natural cycles and ate mostly foods that would balance Kapha. Every time an errant worry bounced into my head, I swept it away and started thinking about something else. And I set about thinking what it is exactly that I want in and for my life so that I can write them down and focus all my powerful energy on making them reality.

And the verdict? Life is much better this way. I’m not feeling stressed. I can now see the value of the events of my life, both the good and the bad, and I feel more powerful and in control, but not in that nervous, control-freaky way I used to have. I feel more like a person writing a book or story. I have control of writing and forming the characters and a general plot, but inspiration can strike at any time and take me in a totally new direction. This time, though, I’ll follow that inspiration and see where it leads me instead of stubbornly holding on to the original plan. I expect only wonderful things from here on out. Why? Because I’ve made it so!

Lately, I’ve been devouring tons of info on RenegadeHealth.com (I find the host Kevin Gianni loads of fun and full of info) and I came across an article he wrote about how diet blogs can often sabotage weight loss efforts. I find this quite serendipitous as I’ve been blogging my attempts at going 100% raw and losing weight pretty regularly and lately I’ve been struggling quite a bit, my weight yo-yoing between 171 lbs and 176 lbs. I’ve been feeling like a failure because I thought by this time I’d have been nearly out of the 160s, but yet, here I am, still inchworming along. I have all the information I need to succeed, I have the motivation and the time. I’m doing everything I should to lose weight, but I’ve still stalled. It’s massively frustrating and a bit infuriating as it seems so easy for other folks to just up and shed it all.

In reading the article, though, I realized I was committing one of the sabotaging traits: daily weigh-ins. The body fluctuates so much on a weekly basis that weighing daily actually makes you a bit paranoid about everything you eat. I can definitely agree with that. I find I’ll get on the scale several times a day to see where I’m at. And realizing I’m not where I thought I should be when weigh in in the morning, can make me feel like I’m fighting a losing battle. All of that is not good. According to Kevin, I should “continue to blog, but not make a habit of getting on the scale. One of the most telling habit of people who lose weight is that they stop focusing on the weight loss and start focusing on the other benefits of the process like better stamina, more energy, less aches and pains.” That simple statement really resonates with me. I should just ease my mind, to let my ego fall into the background and just allow what I want for myself – healthier, slimmer body, sharp mind, glowing skin – come to me naturally.

So as of today, I will no longer be posting my weight daily. Rather, I’ll pick a day of the month to report how much I’ve lost. I’ve chosen the 26th day of every month as the day I’ll record my weight. I’ve chosen it because by birthday is on the 26th (of January) and I hope that when the next year rolls around, when I step on the scale on that day, I’ll have achieved my health and fitness goals. It would be a phenomenal present!!

Today, I’m taking the time to look at my progress so far, to acknowledge my successes and the areas I still need to work on and to make the changes necessary to continue my personal growth.

First, I have to say how awesomely proud of myself I am to have gone six days predominantly raw. I think allowing myself to not be perfect the entire time really made a huge difference. I actually wake up wanting fresh food now and I only think of actually eating cooked food at dinner time, which is a big step. Before, it would be a mental struggle to choose a fresh fruit or a crisp salad over the pancakes and eggs, bread and sandwich meat and dinner leftovers calling to me from the fridge. Don’t seem to have that problem anymore. I’ve also realized the importance of water and how just drinking enough of it can make me feel so much more energized and present. I’ve learned that in order for me to keep growing in raw, I have to listen to my body and take things slowly. No more gung-ho. And I have to do it my way and not stick doggedly to a set of rules about it because each raw journey is extremely individual. And lastly, I’ve learned that weight training RAWKS! I’ve only been at it a week, but I can see positive changes, so it’s definitely in like Flynn!!

Which leads me to the best part of this post of all: the results. I’m happy to say that after six days of predominantly raw and exercising with weights and walks for five days, I’ve lost 3.4lbs (there was a day or two when I made a few mistakes, but I’ve realized what they were, but that’s to follow in the next paragraph). And that’s not just water weight, friends. I can SEE the difference in the mirror. My face looks slimmer, my stomach is flattening and the little pooch below my bellybutton is shrinking. The flabby part of my arms, where the triceps are, is shrinking as well. I can actually feel the muscle underneath when I flex now. I’ve definitely lost weight in my rib cage area because that area is visibly smaller. Yeah, it looks like I have an hour glass figure after all….who knew?? With all this, I’m definitely amped to keep going.

I realized with this week that I have to make some changes. I’ve already addressed a few of these, but I’ll mention them anyway, just to bring home the difference between my original plan and this new approach. First, I have to start eating breakfast. On the days I did, I noticed the most change in the scale. Why I’d stopped was because I was trying to let my body tell me when to eat. Problem with that is it’s been trained NOT to eat breakfast!!! So, no wonder I’m not hungry until 11am most days. Just like I have to train it to prefer fresh, living foods, I have to train it to replenish itself early in the morning, so it has enough fuel and so it doesn’t resort to fat storage.

Second, I have to find a support group. I originally was hoping for support from the hubby and my family, but have found none. I tried to do it on my own but doing it that way just made it seem so tedious and lonely. I solved that problem by becoming a part of the GI2MR online community. I can’t tell you how good it feels to chat with and read the comments of people who are at the same place I’m at, who are still trying to find their way in raw and who’ve learned so much from their own personal journeys. I’m on there every day, mostly reading, but often participating in lively discussions from the nutritional validity of blended meals to shaving/not shaving. It’s really wonderful and I definitely do not feel alone now. If I need support and need to have questions answered, its all right there with the click of a mouse and a few keystrokes!!

Third, I have to stop obsessing about being perfectly raw and just enjoy the journey. My body and mind will adapt and follow. I watched Dhurmil’s lecture on letting go of seeking the other day and it really spoke to me. I have been seeking to be perfectly raw and that’s caused a lot of problems for me when I realized I couldn’t be. What I’ve learned to just to enjoy the experience, stay consistent and conscious and present and the rest will follow. In just the few days since learning this, I swear eating raw doesn’t seem like such a big feat to accomplish. I realize my MIND had to change before anything else.

So, I’m looking forward to the week ahead. I’m sure from this point on, things will be so much easier and the changes will keep rolling in. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead…

Food log: (so far)

Breakfast smoothie: 2 bananas, three leaves of kale

Starting stat: 175.8 lbs
Current stat: 172.4 lbs
Loss: 3.4 lbs