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Day Eight and my relationship with pavement

Breakfast: apple, banana, coffee
Lunch: kidney beans cooked with crushed pinepple, small zucchini, whole wheat toast, both with butter spray.
Snack: Bag of 'natural' popcorn.  Dairy and meat free.
Dinner: 2 vegan burgers with mustard, brussel sprouts, whole wheat toast, both with butter spray

Well, today has been very good.  Today I went jogging for the first time since May 1.  All last year I had a great relationship with pavement.  I faithfully went jogging three times a week.  I loved it.  I have successfully run 4 10Ks since Thanksgiving. However, during my last 10K, the pavement and I had an argument and we 'broke up.'  The race sucked.  It was the slowest I had ever run; I had to walk a third of it because my legs were just done.  It was like a colossal argument between best friends; the kind where both know they are in the wrong but neither wants to say sorry first. 

Well, today I told the pavement 'I'm sorry.'

I did forty minutes around the neighborhood.  I was slow, lumberous, and really struggling.  I was easy on myself.  No one comes back after almost 4 months of nothing at they same level they left.  I just want to get back into good enough shape to run the Thanksgiving 10K that I ran last year.  I plan on running again on Tuesday.

Facing Facts Day Seven

Well, as of this morning the scale is down 8 pounds. I'm sure lots of it is water weight and whatever else happens that fast but it certainly is motivating and a very tangible way of measuring progress.

I fell off the bandwagon. I'm not going to write about what I ate. Publishing the fact that I did not eat what I should is enough; no one really needs to know what I ate.

Today was my 90/10 day. So tomorrow through Tuesday is through the rest of the ten days.

This has to be a learning process. I cannot hate myself or berate my self-worth because I couldn't change old habits that have had 28 years to develop. The best I can do is correct myself tomorrow.

I will tell everyone how I feel though. First, that whole wading through pudding feel is back. Also, I noticed immediately that because I ate dairy I had a thick, mucous feeling in my mouth. Also, I didn't really enjoy most of it. I through a lot of it away because it did not taste; it was too rich.

Maybe I can make this a learning moment: the food did not taste as good as I wanted it to; I do not feel good now; it was a waste of money; I may have cost myself days of progress. I hope I can remember these things next time I feel so out of control.

Day 6

Well today has gone well and I cannot believe I am already done with the first week. After tomorrow the rules change a bit. I will be able to have fish once a week and if I want I can have lowfat dairy once a week. I don't think I will add the dairy back though unless it is some kind of special treat.

Breakfast: 1 c rolled oats, raisins, coffee
Snack: nectarine
Lunch: mashed black beans, celery sticks
Snack: pear
Dinner: two Taco Bell fresco bean burritos, carrots with 1.5 Tablespoons of hummus.

Tonight I went to a party for a friend that is about to spend a year in France. I brought the hummus and carrots. I checked the ingredient list and it was all good. Tomorrow I will blog about what Dr. Fuhrman says about hunger.

Day 5

First, let's talk about what I ate today:
Breakfast: 1 c rolled oats, raisins, cherries, coffee
Lunch: leftover bean burrito, brussel sprouts
Snack: Pear
Dinner: 1 zucchini and small potato with butter spray, 2 vegan burgers with mustard, 1 c cranberry juice with my club soda.

So today I did not get enough fruits or vegetables in. I think my dinner was pretty good but I should have had more greens with my sprouts. I should have had more fruit too but I just never got to it.

Second, I would like to take a minute and tell everyone about Kris Carr. She wrote and starred in the documentary Crazy Sexy Cancer. A few years ago Carr was diagnosed with a kind of cancer that attacks the blood vessels in the liver and lungs. Despite this diagnosis Carr takes a very proactive approach and, in supplement to her doctor's help, she used food to cure her body. This was my first experience with the concept that food was curative. I'd always heard that saying about apples and doctors and also that oranges help colds but this was a revelation. If food could cure, could it also make you sick? To boost her immune system, Carr adopted a vegan diet and underwent a variety of alternative medical practices. Her optimism is inspiring. Today Carr is living with her tumors; they hold steady. She calls them her 'beauty marks.' I find her story so inspiring. She was my first real taste of this idea of thinking of food not only as fuel or emotional comfort but also as medicine.

I tried to embed this video but I'll link it to you instead. The video is of Carr's visit with Oprah and includes a trailer for her documentary. I really hope any readers I have take the time to watch the video and see a woman who refused to be labeled and chose to look at all possibilities for health.

Day 4

Breakfast: 1 c rolled oats oatmeal, raisins, coffee
Snack: pear, apple
Lunch: Black Bean and Mango Chili, salad with vinegar
Snack: Strawberries, nectarine
Dinner: 2 Taco Bell fresco style bean burritos, an entire box of steamed vegetables, 2 c cranberry juice with my club soda

Feeling pretty good today. I'm over the hump over the first week. No headaches today at all. Lots of hunger but I just tried to ride it out. The soup I had for lunch was terrible. I mean, absolutely awful. If I could describe it it would be like saying I ate bowl of gray colored paste. It was labeled 'spicy' and it was incredibly bland. The texture was mushy. Never again. It even somehow made my salad taste bad too. Tomorrow I plan on linking to one of my favorite websites that I think everyone should see.

Day 3 and the 90/10 Rule

Day three going well. I have never wanted bacon so much in my life.
Breakfast: apple, leftover pineapple mixture that was designed to stuff inside an acorn squash, raisin coleslaw, coffee
Lunch: mashed kidney beans on toasted whole wheat bread, plum, 'immunity blend' steamed vegetables of broccoli, red peppers, and carrots
Snack: Pollo Tropical black beans, balsamic tomatoes
Dinner: mashed kidney beans on toasted whole wheat bread, baked potato with butter spray, salad with balsamic vinegar, 1 c cranberry juice mixed with club soda.

Hungry again. The pollo tropical, well, who knows what was in their black beans ultimately but they were the best choice to eat on campus. The balsamic tomatoes were a bust. I ate some of it but most of it wasn't 'good' for the diet. The description was just tomatoes in balsamic vinegar but when I opened the container it was more like tomatoes and onions soaked in some kind of balsamic vinegar/oil combination. Don't know what kind of oil it was. Don't know how much I ate. I drained each piece of tomato but I could tell it was very greasy.

No headaches today.

Okay, in Fuhrman's book he has this thing called the '90/10 rule' This rule is that 90% of a person's diet should be outlined as he describes: plant based with unrefined grains and legumes. The other 10% is more flexible. That is when someone could throw in some meat/poultry/fish, maybe some sugar, fat etc.

I am trying to figure out the best way to utilize this 10%. There are mulitple ways to use that 10%. I could, for example, eat perfectly nine days and on the tenth day eat what I wanted all day. Or, instead, I could eat whatever it was I wanted every tenth meal. The third, and least interesting, option is to pepper every couple of days with some kind 150 calories of my choosing. I like this option least because it seems like a waste. 150 calories is not really anything. Any snack worth 100-150 calories is usually diet something, a 100-calorie pack, or something like that. Is it worth it? I like the idea of following the diet plan for 9 days and then taking one meal out of the tenth day to be more liberal for things like red meat and dessert. Obviously right now I am not abiding by the 90/10 rule; I am going 100% for this first week and hopefully the five weeks afterwards.

So far, aside from the headaches and hunger, I feel pretty good. When I eat rich meals I tend to feel slow the next day, like I'm walking around campus in a pool of pudding. That feeling is ebbing away. I feel a bit more energetic despite the heat; kind of like all the energy it took to digest steak and potato dinners has been freed to do other things. It feels pretty good.