The End of My Journey Semirawkindarawveganforsure!

On the last day semirawkindarawveganforsure my Purple Elephant is really kicking his padded feet up all in an uproar trumpeting and dancing for sure! He says he is hearing the music in his feet and elephants from all over the planet…purple and not so purple…Indian and African alike are sending messages to him through the vibrations felt in his feet! He is no longer having those nightmares after seeing the movie ‘2012’ and he is just all happy! You see the messages he is getting are about the start of the Advent calendar from tomorrow on all three of these blogs:

 Meady’s Musings
 UCP-Universal Collective Prayer
 Books and Films Corner

Also The Purple Elephant considers himself to be a winner! And it’s another reason why he is celebrating. Here are some thoughts from The Purple Elephant and me at the end of my journey semirawkindarawveganforsure! :

I went into this experiment to look at my relationship to food and in particular to embrace the loveliness of fruits and veges! It was part of a side experiment kinda getting off the tracks for a bit and going off on a small expedition with the Intent to take the lessons learnt from it back with me as I carry on with the main journey. It is why I went so strong and intensely into it for a short period. So now the trick is to incorporate these lessons or findings back into my normal life…however as in the past if I go all crazy in my eating again I will have to take myself into a corner and do this experiment all over again! But our society is so results oriented...so let me also tell you some results of the experiment then…

RESULTS

I did not go into this with the Intent of any specific results but just to see how I felt and what I happened to learn. Also as I’ve said on previous posts I do not weigh so I can’t scientifically tell you that result however I can unscientifically do so though! And I believe in combination with my eating habits and my stepping with the lovely steppy thingy…Purple Elephant at my side!




I’ve lost well within 5 to 10 pounds. I know this based on my own feel and perception of my body. The necklace I wear daily with a pendant (given as a gift in UCP from a fellow blogger) feels much looser around my neck…like now it hangs a bit longer down. Also I can see it on my face and in the look and fit of my clothes and the springiness of my step!

Also out of this experiment I’ve learnt how to eat like this and combine my stepping…this is an upping of the ante from previous such experiments as back then I just was getting accustomed to the drastic change in diet! But this time I walked quite a bit and The Purple Elephant and I are proud to announce that just over this last weekend we amassed 6 miles of walking- 3 miles on Sat and Sun respectively!


So to summarize in bullet form as the engineer in me breaks through the results/lessons learnt were:

1. Weight loss: 5 to 10 pounds
2. A better ability to incorporate daily exercise routine into this diet.
3. A better understanding of my relationship to food:
-the amount I need to eat to simply live
-the loveliness of the taste of fresh fruits and slightly cooked veges
-my need or lack of need for dairy products: I can perhaps live without
butter and cheese but I really miss my milk! And sometimes I crave
chocolates and ice cream.
4. The importance of drinking lots and lots of water! So coke please don’t steal that supply from the Indian farmers again…be reminded!


WAY FORWARD

Based on my findings I intend to:

1. Eat less from now on as I’ve found I was eating way more than I needed to…of course there will be the ups and downs (usually related to social events) and I won’t beat myself up over it! But perhaps try to walk more on those days.
2. Continue to eat fresh fruit and slightly cooked veges daily as they can really make up for a lot of my daily food intake without depriving myself in anyway i.e. no hungry feeling etc. Although now that I’m off the experiment I can eat other foods if I can’t get the fruits and veges but I have to keep remembering how good it was to eat them!
3. Start back dairy yes but minimize my use of butter and cheese. Also recall that if I could have had tea and coffee etc. without added evaporated milk for three weeks well I can skip it on some cups from time to time and still live! And if I could have done without chocolates and ice cream for three weeks surely I can have less of it when I do now!
4. I can do all of that and still try to walk 3 miles a day and if not at least 30 mins daily usually after dinner.

But remember what The Purple Elephant said to kick off this blog post!

Elephants world over are heralding the start of my Advent calendar here and on my other two blogs! So let’s get the party started…and yes there will be some fun ‘junk food’ on the calendar as there is simply no fun being a health buff all the time you see!

C’EST NOEL!

IT’S CHRISTMAS!

989D33JGPP2N

The Purple Elephant Vs. Non-Vegan Foods...and The Winner is...

THE PURPLE ELEPHANT! :)


Now I can't say the Purple Elephant has had much of a fight really I mean both events- the birthday party and the charity dinner were already vegetarian in nature. I thought I'd be side stepping paneer (a kinda Indian cottage cheese) at the dinner but none was served...so really at both events I was just knocking out cake,cookies and ice cream really! And well all the questions as to why? Or the confused looks when I kept declining the treats...or at the charity event when someone insisted I try the chai that was all brewed up already milk included! I just explained that I had tried the chef's famous chai at a wedding that he served it at prior to this event and so tonight was having the plain old Lipton tea! Of course I was also ducking from cream in coffee and tea and the likes but at the dinner there was even non-dairy creamer!:) So I made it through...although now I'm wondering if I won on a technicality as was that non-dairy creamer truly vegan? And these are the dilemmas I always face as a vegetarian so just now seeing the new frontiers of that dilemma when being vegan! The way I deal with it though is I try my best not to but if I do well I can't really hold Father Time in an arm lock so I just say what's done is done and move on!

Now remember my point was not to cross the vegan line especially at those events where I knew semirawkindaraw would have been too tough to pull off...but on the whole I'm trying to eat less and mostly be semirawkindaraw...and stay away from lots of sugar and caffeine and junk foods. But I've been having sugary things and some caffeine once in a while as long as they've not been non-vegan. I've also been having some carbohydrates-a bit of rice, roti and bread and on one very rare occasion a bit of pasta. But really I only have them when I can't get my hands on enough fruits (raw) and veges (prepared semi-raw) and I need to have some additional calories to make it through my day.

So sadly no chocolate although I've just had a cup of my favourite Cadbury's cocoa mixed into only boiling water...no richness of loads of cream and sweet like I'm going to be having soon for Christmas! :)But still a slight taste of cocoa for my nerves! :) But yes 'the where I don't cross the line bit' is on being vegan hence the 'veganforsure' bit I've put into the title to describe my current eating habits.

And again rounding to the last week of this experiment in eating I can say it's easy to be vegan I can see it being done and it seems to be a healthier step past vegetarian for sure! Will I become vegan fully one day? Dunno...for now I am looking forward to Christmas treats-cake, ice cream, chocolates...my favourite richly made recipe for Cadbury's cocoa...but I'm sure with time and working at it one can find vegan treats that will substitute...and it does feel lighter...I can't say I miss the cheese...I have more been missing chocolate and cream in my tea, coffee, cocoa etc...in fact thus far I've not had black coffee as I don't like the bitterness of coffee much anyway...so have more been having the green tea with the occassional black tea too...I think there are some rainy cooler times I crave cheesy pizza or some mornings butter on my toast or a bowl of Quaker oats made warm with milk...but is it these things I'm craving or the need for warmth, comfort and joy?

Well my purple elephant just trumpeted! :)He's getting all excited and restless these last few days...dancing as if in the circus as he can't wait for the Advent calendar...you should see how quickly he was walking when I stepped almost 3.5 miles today! :)

Oh dear! He has just tickled my ears with his trunk to say that after seeing the film 2012 he is a bit anxious as he had a nightmare after seeing the film. In the nightmare he is one of the pair of Indian elephants that made it onto that Ark so he is a bit nervous about how he is going to interact with all the other African elephants that he figures survived in South Africa as according to the movie...it seems the flood did not hit most of Africa and in particular South Africa for sure. Also in the nightmare while on the Ark he recalls he had a cousin (elephant) that went from India to the zoo in South Africa and he is hoping to meet him still...so there will be three Indian elephants at least in the new world...the nightmare has been reoccurring for my purple elephant after seeing the film...and he also cries heavily in it as he had to part with the little mouse that is always at his feet...they chose two American rats instead...so he had to leave his Trinidadian one behind...and he always awakes from the nightmare when the female elephant those American scientists tagged him with starts to nag him out of his wits! LOL!

The Purple Elephant Vs Non-Vegan Foods!

It's just about ten days into my journey Semi-RawKindaRawVeganforsure and here is what I'm craving!:

-My cup of Cadbury's Cocoa made like on my Advent Calendar here
-Twinings Voyage Indian Chai au lait (with milk)
-Any cafe au lait (coffee with milk)
-Chocolate in every which way!
-Cheesy Pizza
-Hot Cheesy Pizza
-The Ultimate Hot Fudge Sundae (that really only exists in my imagination and even when non-vegan I can never really find! I think it is a symbolic thing for me...this supposed oasis of extreme satisfaction...hehe ...but I keep chasing after it . .only to find a mirage!)

But the Purple elephant has so far been winning...I've had some transgressions but as I said I've never crossed the vegan line thus far! And for those watching my pounds for me I feel I'm losing some as I can see it in my neck and face...they seem smaller...and amazingly I feel so grand...I feel lighter in a way and very energy filled...so abuzz! :) Yesterday I walked a little over 2 miles and I could have kept on but I had to manage my time to get to bed for work the next day so I had to wrap up...you see sometimes we have the desire to exercise but no time...that fictional 4th dimension that others especially corporations bind us by! :)

Speaking of him...Father Time...I will be doing some metaphysical talks soon to get those talks on stream again...and look for that Advent calendar again as soon as Dec 1st hits on all three of my blogs! :) My intent behind that is to give you a new and surprise blog post every day (if I can keep up). I hope the blog posts will be just as lovely as if you were eating one extraordinarily tasty chocolate each day plucked from an actual Advent calendar...

So yep back to The Purple Elephant versus Non-Vegan foods...I now realise that apart from the charity dinner on Saturday there is a friend's birthday tomorrow and I might have to surprise her (if she is not reading this blog) with a call and perhaps who knows ...and on Friday a birthday party for a family member! So...it's three days in a row back to back of The Purple Elephant VS Non-Vegan foods!

Will my Purple Elephant win?

Tune in to find out...

One Week Into My Journey Semi-raw Kinda Raw Vegan for Sure-Here are some thoughts on which I gnaw!

I’ve spent my last two blogs telling you about what I’ve been eating. However just over a week into the journey I want to share with you some of my thoughts instead. Not really about how my body is feeling or what I’m thinking about the whole journey as it unfolds but just to pause instead for a moment and ask… WHY?

You see I kinda jokingly said it here and there and you can pick it up in my older blogs about last year’s journey but here is where I get serious…for once! You see here on my musings I kinda behave all footloose and fancy free dancing about everybody …you see my bhakti (love) yogic dance from over on my sister blog UCP-Universal Collective Prayer has been really getting the better of me more and more these days…that’s the reason why. So every thing is a dance for me you see! Of course it is very pleasing to me but I also wish to communicate here you see! And even over on UCP there are the times like here when I announced I was going to look at some gyan (knowledge) yoga and stuff too man so here it is the gyan yogic scoop on my current journey…scholarly hat on as I try to be like the character Owl from Winnie the Pooh instead of Pooh! As I think Pooh is a bhakti yogi and Owl a gyan yogi. So here it is me going all gyan yogini on ya!:

MOTIVATION BEHIND IT

This will still sound funny but it really was the teeth for me! I don’t know if the teeth are like some really important marker for the rest of the body like how some people say they check you hair and analyze it and can from that say what your general health status is? But ever since I’ve been on the journey even in the first few hours of Day 1 my teeth stopped feeling this kinda subtly irritating effect. It feels like the equivalent to when there is this slightly buzzing high frequency noise somewhere out there you but you can’t quite pick up where it is coming from…well that was how my teeth were equivalently feeling. And now they are at rest…so calm…

Also it was the desire to savour loads of fresh fruit and to celebrate vegetables. Seriously…on my first journey I got the idea after having an apple one morning about how lovely it must be to drink the water just at the surface of the apple that was slightly flavoured by the apple. I’m a big apple lover (it even makes up a big part of my fav perfume!) and on my good normal days I try to have at least one a morning! So I genuinely like fruits! But in the case of the vegetables I still don’t like to eat them just raw like that hence is why my journey is semi-raw kinda raw and vegan for sure. So I like to slightly cook the veges really it’s like more just warming then up a bit too. Also last year I was inspired by a fellow blogger’s journey into full raw although I can’t see myself there any time soon. But her creations really look delicious but seem to take a lot of time to prepare. I told her if she opened such a restaurant or started catering I’d be a customer for sure!

But these stints I’m on are my way of experimenting…finding out a bit more about this…taking some life notes…a lot like my experiment in UCP…where over there on that blog I try to explore this thing I call UCP-Universal Collective Prayer.

Hey that’s what life should be…exploring for me…everyone is an explorer not just me and not just those people on Nat Geo! So I see it as my responsibility to explore find out have all these lovely little journeys…like I explained on this blog…to me this is why we are here on earth!

The reason I’ve decided to get all gyan yoga on my readers is because one of them commenting on Facebook thought I was on ‘a diet’ and that I’m not. I know it must have led to a bit of awkwardness for her… as I really am not a very slim person especially not by fashionista standards but then most people aren’t! But also I can by medical standards lose some too…although I’ve not weighed in years! So yep I can do with losing pounds but I’m not on ‘a diet’ of course I allow myself in these periods to drop pounds if I do but I just enjoy it. So I’m writing this to also let her know that for sure she doesn’t need to be on a diet especially not on a Special K one! OMG! Hmmm...maybe she should be reading the beautiful Sarah Maria's book?

Now, if I was already very slim like this other friend who went fully raw well then I’d have to be careful to maintain enough calories not to drop weight but in my case I let it drop if it does…but it is just a useful byproduct of this journey. Hence my point is my intent is not to lose weight here but to explore a way of eating that I find can be more healthy and peaceful in many ways. Of course in exploring it I will get closer to my healthy weight range too because having a healthy weight and muscular tone etc is well part of being healthy hence the word healthy in ‘healthy weight’ so…so be it! It’s the same with my stepping and my pedometer …if I walk consistently and don’t over do it on the eating yes I will lose weight and build muscle and tone to some extent…but I walk to be healthier not to be a particular weight, shape or size. To me fat people are just as beautiful as scrawny people as beautiful as tall people as short and so too are people who are ‘just right’. But there is no ‘just right’…although there is a right fit for us all…I guess like how Goldilocks did…always in threes…one porridge too hot…one too cold…one just right…one bed too hard…one too soft and one just right! But it’s just about being me…I recall my theme songs: primary and sub-primary here! ...'I am the One and Only' by Chesny Hawks and 'Wonder' by Natalie Merchant...

So that’s it for the WHY??? really but here is just something too that I think overlaps into the whole healthy …in an overall way kinda thing. Apart from being healthy physically well…I guess here I’m getting all Deepak Chopra on ya …woo hoo!...the whole mind, body, spirit wellness thing. But it’s absolutely true really but you have to find it and discover it on your own. Like I’m already all happy dancing on my UCP blog so I guess that covers mind and spirit in a kinda way along with all the reading and general daily life experiments…like Winnie the Pooh …I think, think, think…on this blog as well. So I perhaps have the mind and spirit thing going on so it leaves the body for work…but you see the whole mind, body, spirit thing is suppose to combine just like all the yogic pathways to well give you something…BALANCE or HAPPINESS! SAMADHI even! ??? But really it doesn’t…none of it can really make you happy you know…happiness to me comes from just being really…it’s a lot like when I asked the question on Intent…Would You Choose Pain Over Non-Existence? And in that gyan yogic discussion the conclusion was that I should…just be…So I’m just being…however I am…But the think about the human spirit and nature is we then want to interact with other spirits you see and that is how we blend universally but here is where my other little gyan yogic discussion comes up…socialization and eating:

SOCIALIZATION

Some people say you must never eat alone…I do it all the time but hey I’m never alone really but I’ll leave that discussion for UCP. But in the gyan yogic sense I’m discussing here…two feet on the ground…us human beings need to interact with each other. One of the most important times it seems for doing this is over a meal. And when one is eating semi-raw kinda raw vegan for sure! Well one has to decline many a lunch/dinner invitation unless one can find something to eat at the restaurant or home of invite. And when it is just a brief experimentation well it’s tough to explain. Maybe I’ll just have to send them to this blog or let them look at my rumbly tumbly Pooh tummy and think…yea it’s a diet!:) I’ve been able to handle being vegetarian and teetotaller too all my life and work around it although even that sometimes depending on the other being can get all weird. I mean some people in some places and cultures still don’t get the whole vegetarian thing even! But it is generally well accepted and engrained here in Trinidad. So it’s no biggie…and I’ve had my whole life and family support to learn about that one…not to mention a whole religion behind me and a line of ancestors too!

But for raw for sure it would be tough! Is why I told my eating raw blogger friend a future business opportunity awaits her! You see and I know this is no big mystery I’m here to reveal but people who have busy lifestyles eat out a lot and they need places to get the food! I’ve been looking at my new follower on Twitter’s advice-RawfoodRepair that you should pack something. But really it’s not the same when you want to network and socialize…in fact I am in a must attend event on Sat where my veganess is going to be heavily threatened…it is why I said Semi-Raw Kinda Raw Vegan for Sure! As I figured I can at least stand up to the vegan bit for all of the three weeks…but I didn’t realize I had this charity dinner thing on during the period…but I realize that it is good too that this is going to be the case now…as this will be my ultimate challenge…being out and about in a setting like this to see how I’ll pan out…I hope I come out of it still vegan for sure! Look out to see how I fare my friends! Hmmm...will my purple elephant win? Tune in to find out... :)

Day 2 into Day 3 on My Journey Semi-Raw, Kinda Raw…Vegan for Sure!

I’m having some internet connectivity issues at home so as much as I wanted to make this a daily update if possible…that has made it just so much harder! Although I really don’t think I need to tell my readers every single day what goes into my mouth or how I feel. But I do want to generally share my experiences on the journey with you…so here it goes…

At the end of Day 1 into Day 2 I was feeling not hungry amazingly but very calm! And my teeth really feel so much nicer some how! Well I always feel that when I have the soda drinks they irritate and somehow well excuse my engineering term...but I feel it somehow corrodes them! So the teeth are no longer howling at me!

My main accomplishment for Day 2 was I was able to have a cup of Twinings Green Tea just with hot water! No sugar or Splenda or any sugar subs galore! I did hear on the radio driving home that there is Stevia and agave nectar (and you can read about that in a friend and fellow bloggers rec. as well in the comment for Mondays’ blog) …and on the radio the man said I should be looking for long chain sugar subs! Well I went without so there!

So here is what went into my mouth…

DAY 2

-three bananas
(I had 2 and a friend having bananas also for breakfast gave me one more so there 2 became 3! Hmm…fraternizing with fellow fruit eaters has its perks)
-two black plums
-two apples
-one cup of Twinings Green Tea (no sugar or cream!)
-one bowl of yellow dhal
-one very large cob of corn boiled in water flavoured with salt and hot peppers
(It was the hard in grain so even boiled it could have been raw)
-16 ozs of Ocean Spray Cran Raspberry Light juice
(Yea it had the Splenda! But it’s more and more looking like a long term solution for those teeth!)

And here’s the news! Yesterday afternoon when I went to the grocers to stock up on more fruit at the back of my mind was a very special kind of tea. It was mentioned to me by my friend and fellow Deliciously Divine Café member (where we virtually sit and shoot the breeze usually over many cups of tea!)- Noreen! Here is that tea!

Now I saw lots of tea on sale at the local Trini grocer quite a few green teas and many organic some even from the UK. But I couldn’t find the tea that my Irish friend Noreen recommended to me! But it did have this offering from Sir Thomas Lipton that I figured I’d give a whirl since I like the flavour of orange in my tea:


Im currently having a cup on my Day 3 semi-raw vegan for sure and it’s quite fine I’d say! So here it is what’s in my mouth so far just at around mid morning on Day 3…

DAY 3

-two bananas
(no fruit friend this morning sadly)
-one black plum
-one apple
-one cup of Lipton Green Tea naturally flavoured (so the pack says) with Orange, Passion Fruit and Jasmine! (no sugar or cream!)

Looking fwd to more! I think my 'Purple Elephant' is dancing forward quite nicely you see! :) Even dancing 1.5 miles yesterday again!

Semi-Raw Yet Again!

It's the first time this year I'm trying a semi-raw kinda raw but vegan for sure diet but if you've been reading me since last year you might recall my similar adventures in eating last year around the same time. Perhaps a year is what it takes to come back to this place but I've decided to give it another whirl. It was suppose to be all November long but I was ill planned for the challenge last week. Although I did generally eat way less last week and lots of vegetable soup only lunches...so I guess I was prepping for this! In case it is also not recalled I've always been vegetarian so my transitionary journey is never as drastic although apart from cutting out the dairy I try to cut back on junk and eat less as a whole. Even last week just like how I felt last year...you get to realise just how little food you really need to live and how much you need water! I'm also saying goodbye to Coke Zero and/or Coke Light and all of the Coca Cola company well except perhaps their Dasani for this! And even today my teeth feel better already! And in the past it was my teeth that prompted me on the journey!

This time around the economics of not buying lunch all three week journey long has dawned on me for the first time! And let's just say if I keep up like this for the rest of November I stand to save a pretty penny...somewhere in the US$100+ range! However the loss of socialization opportunities over meals shared is not ever easy and it's yet another dynamic to eating raw you see!

So here it is!Today is my first day back semi-raw kinda raw again and this is what into my mouth went in the order it went in too!:

-two bananas
-one apple
-a cup of Twinings green tea sweetened with one packet of Splenda (no cream although I usually drink evaporated milk in my tea and I'm thinking tomorrow I can try to drop the sweetener altogether!)
-one more apple
-one black plum
-one more cup of Twinings green tea
-one head of broccoli and six large white mushrooms sauteed
(only very lightly for warmth really just like I did in the past) in one teaspoon of olive oil with a handful of assorted nuts tossed in...seasoned with a dash of salt and some chilli pepper seeds.
-one bowl of dhal (the yellow kind) made thin (the way i like it)and the dhal mashed up
-16 oz of OceanSpray Cran raspberry Light (i.e. also partially sweetened with Splenda and supposedly free of artificially added stuff otherwise)
-lots of water throughout the day!

And that was it for me! And amazingly I was also able to do some walking after dinner too so I've walked about 1.5 miles in all today! That's something I want to focus on this time too...getting in some exercise despite eating like this! :)

So happy day one went this well for me! :) Wish me well to continue on with my purple elephant marching forward please! :)

By the way I check how much I walk with my lovely steppy thingy! i.e. my Omron pedometer! See it below...