Day 22: 1 hour Raw Pasta Dinner Recipe!

zucchini pasta time again! This time we're doing a marinara sauce with mushroom meat, all raw.

Step 1: Shave it up!

Shave 3 cups of zucchini into a tupperware, and add:

2T garlic
a few twists of fresh ground pepper
a dash of Himalayan sea salt
3T apple cider vinegar
juice from one lemon.

Toss well in the sealed container and marinate for 1 hour.

Step 2: Un-dry the Sun-dry.

Soak 1.5 cups sundried tomatoes in 2.5 cups of water for an hour.
NOTE: TEST YOUR TOMATOES FIRST. IF THEY ARE NOT ALREADY SOFT BUT ARE QUITE DRY, SOAK FOR 2 HOURS.

soaking sundried tomatoes. 

Step 3: Mushing the Mushies.

dice 1 lb mushrooms in your food processor
add to this:
4 T sunflower seeds, raw
1T garlic powder
1T onion powder
1tsp cumin
1tsp paprika
1tsp pepper
pinch of oregano, marjoram and rosemary as desired.

mushroom mixture just added to dehydrator. MMm.

Mix it up and spread it on your teflex sheet to dehydrate/warm for 30 minutes. Toss and respread and warm for another 30 minutes. Done!

Step 4: Getting Saucy!

drain the sundried tomatoes into a measuring cup and put into the food processor along with:

1T Onion powder

1T Italian seasoning 

1T minced garlic

2T nutritional yeast

2T Apple cider vinegar

1tsp red pepper flakes 

dash of salt & pepper to taste

sauce, being sauced. 

mix it up well; it will be a paste. Slowly add water (you can keep and add the drained water if you'd like) until it's the desired sauciness. 

Add sauce and meat to pasta- enjoy!!  

the assembled meal- ready to go in an hour! 

Day 21 Check in: Carrot Top, not muffin top.

Carrots go where? 

Sleep: solid (1-8, no interruptions) 
Mood: energetic and positive 
Weight: 167.4
Body Fat: 23.3%
Exercise: 5km walking, with 30lb knapsack and dog. 10km bicycling. Light walking at work. 
Stats: 79/9/11. WOOHOO!
Money Spent on Food: $24.15. This got me 12 bananas, 10 oranges, 1 lb strawberries, 5 lemons, 9 apples, two flats of sugar snap peas, 4 red peppers. I was sad they didn't have kale. 

Breakfast: (10)
-smoothie

• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 cup pineapple
• 4 strawberries
• 2 cups spinach
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 scoop Green Superfood powder
• 1 ping pong ball of ginger, peeled. 

This smoothie was insanely good and *very* energizing. 

-banana

Midmorning snack: (12) 
1/2 cup each:

• broccoli
• cucumber
• green pepper
• carrot

mixed up with 2 T guacamole. Super satisfying. 

Lunch (2:30)
-10 prunes
-1 banana
-coconut water
-sugar snap peas. 

Just feeling a little snackish, not super hungry. 

Mid-afternoon snack (5) 
-baby carrots. ALL the baby carrots. Probably something like 20-30. I will turn orange soon. 

Dinner (9:30) 
-smoothie (surprise!)

• Progressive Protein
• 2 cups spinach
• 1 cup parsley
• 1 knob ginger
• 1 tangelo
• 1 cup almond milk

-flax crisps with home made salsa (RECIPE HERE)

I'm feeling peckish still so I'm like to make myself more juice and have some raisins or a banana or something later. 

or some more carrots. 

Day 21 Journal: Good Habits- Etiquette for Dinosaurs.

I always think that our bodies are rather like wilful children- I mean, we tend to seat our consciousness, our awareness in our minds, our physical brains. We're a very cerebral culture, in a lot of ways- and we think our brains are in charge. And, they are for the most part; but we also have this whole body we're inextricably connected to that has a whole agenda of its' own. It gets too hot, and too cold, and wants food that we, intellectually, *know* is bad for us. Our bodies fuss, and nag us if we don't pay attention to them. Our bodies demand our constant care and attentive observation- or else!

We're the product of evolution, and trying to rule our bodies is like a tiny scientist sitting on a gorilla that is trying to ride a dinosaur. Don't laugh! Think about it! We have all these conscious decisions that we feel are 'us', the part that's in control, but that foremost part of us is sitting, evolutionarily, on the shoulders of our primate selves and is a tiny newcomer to the decision making party. The majority of our 'conscious' decision are made before they even reach the top of the mental food chain. Made, by our simple happy primate selves. Don't like that person, can't figure out why? It's almost certainly something about their body language or their smell. Oook, ook. In turn, King Kong is evolutionarily resting on the hindmost parts of our brains, our most basic, lizard-like impulses.

Hulk, Smash! Hulk Eat Entire Pizza!

Besides often being comedic,Our bodies have their own ideas of what they would like to do, consume and behave like on any given day.  it's really quite difficult to reign it in if the dinosaur decides it's going to stampede off in the direction of the chocolate cake.

It's *hard* to establish good body habits. They can't exist in the void. They start with the decision, the mental switch to consciously begin to instil a good habit. And because it's hard, our bodies often want to (metaphorically) throw a tantrum in the grocery store aisle. It takes a bit of convincing that, yes, in fact, you actually like this and it feels good, silly. Remember, you wanted this. You have to keep a tight rein on the rest of the brain.

This is what was on my mind this morning when I woke up, and again, found myself having a craving for fruit. Not a mental "hey, I'd like some fruit" kind of craving, but a *body* craving. My body was making it's needs felt loud and clear- and it was for fruit and veggies and nutritioninanglassnowplease. I actually caught myself wanting a glass of mixed fruit juice *and* a green smoothie. All the things. Now. Please.

I think this is a real shift in this diet, where the good habit has caught on, finally, with my body.

Which, of course, would like to be rewarded for this good behaviour with some chocolate.

Maybe it'll settle for a gold star and an apple.

Day 20 Check in: Smooth Move!

Sleep: good 
Mood: upbeat but kinda bloated. 
Weight: 168.2 (see? Bloated.)
Body Fat: 23.3%
Exercise: 3km walk, walking at work all day, total 6+km. Bicycling: 10km
Stats: 80/11/9 

Here's what I ate today, nutrition-wise. Constant Snackings are Us. Any day with two smoothies is a great day as far as I'm concerned. 

Breakfast: (10:00)
-smoothie

• 1 banana
• 1 tangelo
• 1 cup pineapple
• 1 cup strawberries
• juice from 3 medium carrots

Mid 'morning' snack (12:30)
-handful of dehydrated strawberries

Lunch (3:00)

• banana
• apple
• 15 prunes (oops. They are accidentally delicious but pretty super calorific!) 
• 2/3 carton coconut water
• giddy yoyo raw chocolate (vanilla) 

Mid afternoon snack (5:30)

• baby carrots
• sugar snap peas

Dinner (7:30)
-smoothie

• 2 c. spinach
• 1 c. parsley
• juice from 2 medium carrots
• 1 cup whole strawberries
• 1/2 scoop Progressive protein powder (vegan). 

-cauliflower snacks. 

Day 20 journal: Food Math

We've spent a bunch of time today engaging in food science, crunching numbers to maximize nutritional intake in the Ultimate Smoothie; to that end, I bought some of this protein powder and some of this green supplement powder, both of which come highly recommended- and I've experienced first hand the amazingness of the Green Superfood powder through some sample pouches a few months ago.

After 21 days of not getting enough protein, I'm finally going to be able to hit my 80/10/10 stats with ease, even with a half serving of the protein powder in my morning shake. I am unreasonably excited!

I'm enjoying the adventure of tinkering with my food intake to get the perfect combination of caloric intake and nutritional balance. It's pretty fun and a good challenge. The problem being, at least right now, is that I'm supposed to have a smoothie for dinner but I'm still full from my afternoon snacks (carrots and sugar snap peas and *possibly* a piece of raw chocolate.)  I've taken to plugging in sample meals to my food tracker, and double checking my stats and adjusting as I go to keep my balance good and make up for nutritional shortfalls. It's an odd way to organise a dinner menu, let me tell you. It's neat to see the numbers shift around and to work out the relative values in food however.

I have been craving my dinner smoothie all day, as well- banana, spinach and some other stuff. I think I might start blending them and taking them to work in a steel canteen- we have a fridge and I think they'd keep OK for the few hours they'd need to be in there. Then I can have a variety of whatever for dinner later, keeping my options open.

I feel like I'm spending a huge amount of time thinking about food and nutrition and making/shopping for stuff. I probably am not spending more time shopping than I normally do, I just am getting so much more every time that it feels like so much more. I think I'll keep track of what I spend on food, as I spend it for future reference. I hope that once we get the numbers down, I can run on automatic a little bit more and free up some of my mental space for another project. As it stands, it's currently a fun game but I can see it getting old pretty fast if this was what I was doing long term. Of course, if I *was* doing this long term, of course I'd get the hang of it right quick. I certainly did with switching to a vegan diet, which now feels completely normal and stress-free.

If we make the Ultimate Smoothie, I suspect it will make enough for breakfast *and* lunch, which is even better. Reports to follow when we begin the experiment in earnest.

My body feels generally good today- I can definitely see that I've dropped some fat from the top of my hips/waist, so I look slimmer from the front but I feel like my abdomen is a bit distended, surely from the bulk of fibrous food I've shovelled in today. My tummy is making all sorts of interesting digestive noises. The skin on my hands has been crazy dry today, but I can't tell if that's food related or how often I've been washing my hands, or weather related.

It. Is. FREEZING out there, I'm really missing tea today. While I intend to keep many of the eating habits established during this month, I will definitely be integrating hot drinks back into my diet.

Day 19 Check-in: Delicious Smoothies

Sleep: delightfully long (3am-1pm)
Mood: upbeat
Weight: 176.2
Body Fat: 23.3%
Exercise: 3km walk. Damn, it's windy.  Weights: upper body, back and abs.
Stats: 80/12/7 again too damn high on the fat. I keep forgetting almond milk as 2.5g fat/cup. Dammit. But, closer than other days. I also ate about 500 calories more than I normally do, but I feel good and not too full, so success!

Here's what I ate today, nutrition-wise. Food Bonanza Happy Fun Time

Breakfast: (1:30)
-smoothie

• 1 banana
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2 cups spinach
• 1 cup strawberries

Mid 'morning' snack (2:45)
-smoothie

• 3 medium carrots, juiced and added to: 
• 1 cup strawberries
• 2 T ginger root
• 1 banana
• 1 tangelo 

Mid afternoon snack (5:30)

• -flax crisps (RECIPE HERE
• -vegan raw pesto (RECIPE HERE) 
• -raisins
• -banana

Dinner (7:30)
-salad (spinach, carrot, cucumber, broccoli, green pepper with salsa and guacamole toppings/dressing)
-dessert smoothie
The dessert smoothie is worth mentioning!

• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 handful baby carrots
• 1 tangelo
• 3/4 cup pineapple
• 1 apple (organic Fuji) 

It tasted like an orange creamsicle. It was so thick, I think if I had put in a banana I could have eaten it with a spoon! Hello, future healthy pudding.

Day 19 Journal: conspicuous consumption

It's become clear that the lack of energy I often feel at this point is the result of me simply not eating *enough* fruits and veggies. I get a large energy burst after I drink a smoothie or eat a meal but what I'm eating simply doesn't stick to the ribs for very long. The fruit is very quickly processed by my body-which, yes, means that I get hungry again quite soon and if I am not in a position to eat (it's busy at work, for instance,) my energy levels can dip quite quickly.

I've been reading about people eating in excess of 30 bananas a day and such on this diet- my mind boggles at eating so much food! I'm worried I'm not getting the full benefits of the 80/10/10 diet without eating so much, to be honest. I just physically can't eat that much food! On a regular day puttering around, I'll get hungry ever 90 minutes. If I'm busy, or running around, I'll need to eat something ever 60-75 minutes. That's basically eating all day, if I take any time at all to prepare a meal instead of just grabbing a banana or some dried fruit. That's a lot.

Smoothies are brilliant for this because I can cram way more food into a pint glass than I could if I was chewing individual pieces of fruit and vegetables. However, of course because a lot of the fibre is pre-broken-down by the blender, they also pass quickly out of my stomach bag. (Which my brain *insists* on calling my Bag Of Food Holding. Thanks, brain.)

So, eating enough has been a major challenge. I feel like I am ramping up on how much I"m eating but clearly not enough. I have had bursts of the euphoric energy that is commonly talked about on this diet, but not the sustained elevation in energy and mood that I'm shooting for.

However, in terms of a simple raw-fruit-and-veg *cleanse*, this has been remarkably successful so far. I have had quite a few compliments on how my skin looks much better, which is just lovely. My muscle tone is consistent and seems to be more noticeable in the past week. I'm not sure this is a result of fat loss or just that my body does well on vegetables (well, it's pretty used to it, frankly) but I don't seem to have lost any muscle tone which is super. I've shed the majority of the few pounds I gained last year due to intemperate eating and drinking (mmm, whisky.) and that's always nice, but I'd like the energy levels to go with that.

so, over the next few days I'm going to make an effort to eat fruit until it comes out of my ears (which would be quite surprising, so let's watch! ) It's recommended for the 80% part of the diet to get those carbs from sweet juicy fruits. This doesn't not sound like a hardship. Also I am pretty surprised how much sugar carrots have, as they have never registered as 'sweet' to my tongue- but maybe I'm a mutant or something. All I know is that fresh squeezed carrot juice is insanely good and makes me feel like Popeye after I have a glass!

I've already had to packed-full smoothies today and I'm quite full right now but I have some chores to do, and I'm sure it'll wear off very soon.

Having to eat more is a problem I *never* thought I would have, and it's pretty strange to wrap my head around.