Water Fasting and Exercise

I started to go to the gym again since last week and I really didn't want to stop for my 3^rd Water Fast, so I have planned on keep on going, trying to listen to my body if I feel good or too weak to exercise. This morning I took really 20 minutes and went upstairs for a quick walk on the treadmill and few reps for my abs, it was late though so I left pretty soon to start to work. For some reason I don't enjoy waking up early in the morning anymore, not sure if I'm having a lack of Vitamin D lately, I should take some blood tests after this fast.

I did some researches regarding exercising during a fast, mostly are referring to the IF – Intermitting Fasting, which is a different thing if compared with Water Fast. I do believe that for prolonged Water Fast – like more than 15/20 days – it's almost impossible keeping an exercise regimen, too weak to barely walk so not in discussion strenuous activities. But overall for short fast I don't think is so negative keeping a moderate physical activity, without going crazy obviously. One thing that I found though, that was interesting, is that in terms of body response a fast is very similar to a workout, for the glucose level and things like that, the body reacts similarly; I'm not a doctor though so I can't comment on this for sure, what I believe though is that we should always listen to our bodies, without stressing it too much. Even in the past men were supposed to have strengths to hunt and get food, those strengths might have been required in situations when food was scarce so similar to a fast.

I didn't feel going more than those 20 minutes today though, I will try again tomorrow early in the morning – since I have an interview during lunch time I won't be able to take the usual break, but as long as I do a decent workout in the morning I am happy; I still have the lactic acid in my legs from Sunday class!

48hrs into my 3rd Water Fast - Importance of Colon Cleansing

I'm doing another Water Fast in these days, I was thinking to stick to my plans on doing a 10-Day Water Fast and see how it goes. My cravings were going nuts lately and I wanted to take a break from all the banana ice cream, dates and nuts I was having. I don't know any better way than doing a Water Fast.

One thing I discovered from my many researches was the reason why I was having back pain during my previous fasts; it was my colon and the difficulties I had with my BMs. This time around I bought enemas at the drug store. Apparently is recommended to do at least one enema per day while fasting. Cleansing the colon is an important part of the detoxing process, we don't want any bad stuff kept in the colon, we want to get rid of it as soon as we can, so it won't keep on negatively affect the results of the fast, contaminating the body.

So far I just completed 48 hours of my fast, I'm drinking mostly distilled water and – although I had natural BMs in the past couple of days – I did do an enema this morning. It was painless, quick and I felt much better after. I will definitely do it again tomorrow morning, and most likely once a day till the end of my fast. I even made an appointment with a local clinic for a colonics, they gave me an appointment in a month from now but I got a great groupon offer for half price so overall I'm not complaining.

Talking about bowel movements might not be a pleasant thing to do but it is an important part of the detoxing process during a Water Fast. Since I'm not having any food is normal that the digestive system gets lazy in these days, but I still have bad stuff/toxins in my colon that I want to get rid of, so we should always consider doing an enema, it's extremely easy to do and really takes just few minutes.

I sincerely hope I can complete my 10-Day Water Fast as planned, the reason why I'm having doubts is not due to my willpower but more for my social events coming up. Christmas is 2 weeks away basically and there's so much going on lately, plus dating doesn't help when Water Fasting. I have a date with this amazing guy on Friday and, although I asked him to do an activity rather than sitting to a table just eating, I'm not sure he won't ask me to do both, like first the game and then grab a bite. It's extremely hard to let people understand what a Water Fast is and why I do it. Most of the time people think I'm crazy knowing that I am drinking only water for days. I usually don't say anything to anyone, maybe just a close friend, but definitely I don't want to explain the whole process to someone that doesn't know me enough to have proofs that I'm not actually insane but there are scientific reasons of the benefits of a Water Fast. I'm also concerning about my bad breath for my date night! Water Fasting creates a bad breath and white coat on my tongue, I feel disgusted myself so not sure how my date will react to that…I might drink some strong herbal tea to avoid this issue. Oh well wish me luck for this date!

Raw Vegan Diet - Too many snacks

Today I've been fasting all day, my last meal was yesterday at around 8:30pm or so – a huge bowl of banana ice cream with dates and powdered peanut butter. I find myself always indulging in sweet fruits and nuts and I firmly believe that this is what jeopardies my weight maintenance, together with a lack of a strict eating plan.

Good news though is that in the past 3 days I've been going to the gym every day, actually twice a day. Since I worked from home, I had the chance to wake up a bit later and go to the gym in my building for half hour of thread mill and weight machines, nothing crazy but I'm trying to be disciplined with my exercise routine, I even went once to GoodLife gym for my favourite class and 10 minutes of steam room – it was great I'd admit it.

Overall I feel great, the scale went up almost every day since I completed my 7-Day Water Fast. Something might be a normal reaction of ending the fast, something else is due to the extra snacks I'm having here and there for sure. In my defense I would say that being home bored all day doesn't actually help on staying strict on diet. Even if I'm working I should find an activity that keeps me busy in the moment my cravings are hard to control, I should do proactive things like cleaning or knitting, that might help.

I was debating of having a fruit salad today for lunch, but I'm glad I didn't so I can save those calories for tonight's supper and dessert. I'm thinking to do a similar thing tomorrow, since I'm supposed to have a dinner date in the evening. Yesterday for breakfast I prepared some wraps using the one I bought at the healthy store last week, I think I ate 6 of them including a seaweed one, it was too much for breakfast; although delicious the amount of calories for each one was excessive for a single meal.

Few days ago I soaked some cashews thinking on doing a creamy sauce for my salads but I still didn't use it, I'm afraid they will go bad if I don't do anything with it. There are a lot recipes with cashews, I can even do some energy bars with dates and a pinch of pink salt; but really I don't need any extra snacks that I don't have already in my overly full cabinet! Most likely I'll do a sauce and use it for dinner tonight.

Water Fast - Refeeding Day #1

My 7-Day Water Fast is completed and today's my first Refeeding Day, so far I had 250gr of watermelon for breakfast and going to have same amount for lunch. I didn't register any weight loss this morning but my ketosis was still in large traces at 80mg/dL, so – to quote Dr. Simeons - if I'm not losing pounds I'm losing inches.

What I believe could be the reason of not seeing changes on the scale, is the fact that I basically didn't sleep last night; I added few sips of green tea in the afternoon that might affected my sleep, I know it sounds crazy but I cannot think of any other reason why I could not sleep at all; yes I always have hard time sleeping during fasting or strict dieting, but not completely for the entire night! But again, mine are just assumptions; let's see tonight how it goes.

After ate and digestion started I felt very weak and with no strengths, I know the feeling because it was even more evident after my 23-Day Water Fast. It still surprises me to see how much energy the digestion process takes from my body, and I would assume from my brain too.

Yesterday I ended up buying some Raw Organic Almonds and some Raw Cashews, my cabinet is completely full, I don't even know why I keep on buying things! I'm getting crazy with the idea of preparing so many recipes that somehow buying the ingredients is a bit like executing the recipe itself. But I have to be conscious on preparing too much food or doing all these gourmet recipes, especially because 99% of them are with nuts and seeds, which hare rich in fat and I know for fact that fat makes me fat pretty quickly.

One thing I want to do this afternoon after work is going to buy a food processor; since today's Black Friday today there are few deals out there and I found a refurbished good food processor for $60, which is good for the brand and size of the processor. The reason why I want to have it, after buying the Vitamix is mostly for chopping and shredding vegetables. I would like to cut my vegetables in smaller pieces, I found that the thick and creamy dressing sauce that I prepare get better into the vegetables while mixing all the ingredients.

Yesterday I took out from the freezer the container with I believe was cut papaya, it was hard to see frozen from outside, but I'm pretty sure it was papaya or I'll have a surprise tomorrow for breakfast. I also took from the freezer one container with a green sauce, which I'm not sure what it is and the 2 Chinese zucchini that I bought a couple weeks ago. I left all this food in the fridge to thaw, adding this morning my lemon container with few slices of lemon, to use in the morning in my water, not yet though, I will start in a couple of days to have citrus, to avoid upsetting my stomach.

Water Fast Day #6 - How am I feeling so far and a morning struggle

My Water Fast Day #6 started very badly this morning. My weight and ketosis were great but I struggled a lot with my BM, I have to say that similar thing happened in my first Water Fast, but this time around was way more painful. I know that lots of people don't always feel comfortable talking about BMs, but it's a natural thing, it's a response of our body on how we process food how our digestive system is working. So I hope my experience can be helpful for who reads and is going through my same difficulties.

So I didn't feel good since a couple of days and my mistake was really not doing anything till today, I should have had an action plan that I can execute while at home and with plenty of time. Unfortunately I didn't, so this morning I had one of the worst half hour of my life! In short I took 2 probiotic as soon as I woke up and a glass of hot water, it didn't seem helping at all so I decided to try again with the salty water and the Shank Pashlanka exercise, well it really took little time for me and just a cup of water to have some relief. I am happy to say that I felt like a new person after that!

Today I have much more energy compared the previous days, my cravings are less than before and I'm good in terms of weight loss, so I guess tomorrow will be ok to stick with the initial plan and end my fast. After that I will start my refeeding process with just watermelon, this time I don't want to buy the whole fruit but I decided to stop by to a local store downstairs and grab just a couple of containers of pre-cut watermelon, it will save me time and avoid wasting anything; I had way to much watermelon in the past weeks, so I'm not looking forward to feed myself all day with this fruit. I will switch to papaya the day after with no regrets.

My back still hurt me today, still don't know why, I never had any issue with back pain, just wondering if could be related to my fast or I'm crazy thinking that this could be the cause.

Usually when we do a Water Fast chances are that the sleep will be very little, sleeping becomes an issue while fasting, maybe because we save so much more energy taken from digestions, but I might be wrong. This second Water Fast for me is a bit different though. During the first one I really had hard time sleeping, I forced myself to stay in bed and close my eyes to let my body rest and heal. This second one instead I have no trouble sleeping; sure sometime I wake up in the middle of the night but I can fall asleep back again in no time, which is good for me.

Another common symptom of the Water Fast is associated with being in Ketosis – I'm feeling always cold. I have the heater under my desk in the office and when I'm home I have to turn on the heater almost all day and night, which is very unusual for me that I like to sleep with chilly temperatures, to enjoy the big blanket - a small price to pay when burning fat though.

I was thinking to buy a recipe book today of Raw Vegan recipes, so I went downstairs during lunch time to check out Indigo store and see if they had good Black Friday deals. They didn't have much really, the only 2/3 books that I found they were not really fully Raw but mostly Vegan, plus the price was a rip off, $30 for a tiny book, full of dessert recipes that I could easily find online…for free. I know they pay for printing and branding and so on, but why then switching to eBook and make it more affordable? I would love to buy a Raw Vegan recipe eBook for $10, as long as it has ONLY Raw Vegan recipes and doesn't talk for half of it about the author Raw Vegan Diet transformation or a classic useless explanation: What is a Raw Vegan Diet?

A Water Fast to reveal my reasons to binge

Here another great discovery thanking my Water Fast that gives me the chance to use my brain and have a great mental clarity about my life, my reasons of binging: I realized that my life is lonely, I'm happy overall because I got accustomed to this lifestyle, but it's lonely. Being alone every day home is bringing me to look for distractions, cooking is one of these. I love to cook and I feel I have to eat what I'm cooking, I have the obsession of not wasting any food so I cook more and I eat more, of course I eat even food that has no chance of being wasted and I do buy things that I really don't need.

Cooking and eating is my night-out, my happy date, my fulfilling relationship, my get-together with friends, my hobbies altogether. It's everything fake of course, but my mind needs it and that's why I will still continue to binge, till all those fake feelings will be replaced by real life events.

7-Day Water Fast - Day #5

Day #5 for my second Water Fast, this is my first short one of just 7 days, but still good for my body to take a rest from food and heal itself in some way. Fortunately today I don't feel all those cravings I had in the past few days, I still look forward on completing this Fast but overall I'm good, I think I'll be even better in a couple of days.

During my lunch break, here at the office, I went downstairs to go for a walk and check out the Black Friday Week deals. I ended up buying a package of Organic Unsweetened Shredded Coconut, a fairly large container of Nutritional Yeast and a big jar of Powdered Peanut Butter the one with no sugar added. I know I'm a shopaholic and I can't help myself, but in my defense I have to say that not having lunch and work to do is not helping my shopping habits.

This morning my ketosis was between moderate and large amount, I would say around 60mg/dL, which is still pretty good plus I believe the amount of water I had yesterday might have changed the real results. I don't feel hungry at all know, I guess also due to the ketosis, but I had difficulties with my BM this morning; I guess not eating anything is not helping me, so I decided to take a probiotic, hopefully will not compromise my fast and will just help me on being regular during this fast, I really don't want to do again a Shank Pashlanka, it takes too much time and effort.

My back still hurt me a bit today, better than yesterday for sure but I have still difficulties on getting ready in the morning, not sure if the heels could be a reason why this pain. I usually don't walk this much during lunch time so maybe walking around with high heels is not good for my back, but today I have just my boots and not high heels.

I wanted to have hot water to drink today because in the past Water Fast I noticed that as soon as I was drinking it, I was going to the washroom! But too much to wait for in the kitchen so I gave up, if the probiotic don't give me any relief, I'll try with the hot water at home this evening.

Raw Vegan Diet and my alarming food cravings

It's Monday today and doing nothing here in the office makes my day feeling longer than actually is, just looking at the watch every 5 minutes or so to see when it's time for me to leave. If my co-worker is working from home tomorrow I will do too for sure. I have a slight back pain today, not sure if it's due to my shoes, the posture or anything else, it's a lower back pain and I can barely bend or staying sit, I'm usually pretty resistant to pain, never complained much, unless is really killing me, but it's uncomfortable definitely – just wondering if it could be part of my detox process in my Water Fast.

Without eating I have of course more time, since I'm cutting the cooking part, the eating and organizing dishes in the kitchen. The good parts are: saving money, keeping kitchen clean, losing weight, detoxing and less trips to the grocery stores. I like shopping in general but not grocery stores, I would rather go to a mall or healthy food stores but supermarkets don't excite me so much; sometime I think I would go back on receiving the organic basket that I use to receive from MamaEarth once a week, the choices though are limited for me so not sure it will be convenient, especially eating so many tropical fruits as I like to do.

So far I can say that being Raw Vegan it is expensive, I cannot eat everything organic or I'll be broke, but fruits in general are expensive, if I combine different types of fruits is a lot of money. I tried to shop in Chinatown to save on my grocery, and I did save some for sure, but my tomatoes tasted like water and the cantaloupe was terrible, I did not enjoy one bite of it. So saving on the pocket to lose on the taste? I need to find a better compromise for it, plus I definitely don't trust fruits and vegetables bought in Chinatown.

I'm doing better today with my water intake, I bought another bottle of my vapour distilled smartwater  but still thinking on buying the pure distilled water at Shopper - I think it might be more convenient for me, even going forward. So far I drank 1.3L only though but I'm usually less than that so I will say is an improvement for the day, plus it's 3:00pm now so I have time to reach at least 2L for the day. One thing I noticed this morning though was the colour of my urine, not dark yellow as it should be, that's why I also think the Ketostix on moderate Ketosis could be inaccurate; the ketosis might be diluted and not precise in terms of measurements.

This time around I have lots of cravings for food, I didn't have it during my first Water Fast, I guess is true when they say that each fast is different from the other one. I'm resisting on the cravings but just looking forward to the day that I'm done with this fast and going back on eating whatever I like, still Raw Vegan of course, I'm really happy with this choice. I hope this is not a sign that my binges are coming back as soon as I complete the Water Fast….or I might need to start a new one again! I thought many times on going back on counting calories, it's the only way on keeping me accountable on the food, instead of loading my salad bowl of 2Kg of vegetables and dressing sauces, not to mention my desserts indulgences. Another thing that I want to do is staying away from doing too many gourmet recipes, it increases my cravings, watching all those videos or posts on Pinterest, and they just make me crave more and more food. I hope this Water Fast will help me to get rid of my cravings so I can go back to a normal and healthy Diet routine without being obsessed by food.

Raw Vegan Diet - What's in my pantry?

Yesterday I bought for the first time Raw Vegan wraps, I checked online where to find them and I found out that my local health store had them so I went there and I bought 3 different types: one dry Raw Vegan wraps made with Spirulina and vegetables, two different types from the live organic brand – a new healthy restaurant that sells also products in various stores in the city – the wraps are one type with spinach and other ingredients and the second one with sundried tomatoes, contrary to the Spirulina ones, these wraps need to be stored in the fridge. I think they are handy to prepare a good snack to bring with me; I can use it with some dressing sauce like guacamole or tahini and mixed vegetables. I noticed that there was also one with coconut, maybe I could do a sort of crepes with that – but I didn't buy it yet, just wondering how they taste first and if I really like it then I'll experiment new flavours.

Before starting my Water Fast I frozen a lot of food, even sliced lemons, so I would not waste anything – well apart of half cucumber that I really could not save. I have already planned a defrosting time for all this food I frozen, well not for all really, I might need to go slowly in the process and maybe use some of the stuff for smoothies; in the past weeks I never prepared smoothies, not that I don't like them – quite the contrary – it's just my crazy idea that I feel I eat more food if drinking and not chewing. I also saw a YouTube video that was negatively commenting on drinking rather than chewing food, since the digestion can start in the mouth when we chew food, if we drink this doesn't really happen so we lose this important step for our digestive system, giving it extra work basically. Not sure if this theory is really true but somehow makes sense, maybe I could start with eating a small amount of solid food and then proceed with the smoothie. Too complicated though…

I'm thinking on buying a food processor, to make those dates dough that I've seen in many recipes, still dreaming about food and desserts! This coming Friday is Black Friday so I'm hoping to find good deals and buy a new food processor with a good price. I don't want to spend too much money but also I don't want to buy anything that will result on being useless. Talking about kitchen accessories I'm also thinking on buying a smaller wet container for my Vitamix, either the 32 or 48 ounces, not sure yet. Actually I've seen it the Vitamix Dry Container as well, but if I buy the food processor I think it will suffice for whatever dry food I need to process. The smaller Vitamix could be useful, I usually do small batches of food, since I'm cooking just for myself. Sometime I do bigger portions but for ice cream for instance, I really don't need any extra amount. At the moment I'll hold on all these purchases though, I'm spending too much money in food!

I'm also fully stocked on dry food; every time I see those Organic Pitted Dates at Winners I buy a little bag. I also have dry organic figs, organic raw almonds, organic raw cashews, organic cacao powder, shredded coconut, organic sundried tomatoes, and I even found the organic dry mulberries – I bought two bags since I don't find them often. I bought few days ago in Chinatown a couple of little bags of goji berries to mix in my salads or in any smoothies, I thought they will be with a lower fat content than any nut I can buy or eat and they're sweet. Yesterday I bought a bag of Raw Organic Kale green chips, made with kale and a mix of vegetables and spices; they're very low in calories and great for a quick snack. I got tempted and bought a bag of my favourite Raw Organic Chocolate macaroons, made with all Organic ingredients and coconut, the only thing I don't like tis the agave in it, but if I'm disciplined once in a while is not a big deal. I still have some white sesame seeds that I can use to make tahini, but I also want to buy just a small quantity of black sesame seeds, to use on top of my dishes, or to make black tahini who knows. Other seeds that I'm storing in the fridge are: chia seeds, hemp seeds, grounded chia seeds and Organic Flax seeds; I also have Raw Organic Almond flour, Coconut flour, Vegan Chocolate Protein powder and Spirulina powder. You would think that I should not shop for weeks now, but I'm always looking around and thinking of something that I miss and I need to buy it!

7-Day Water Fast - My updates on Day #4

Today is Day #4 of my 7-Day Water Fast and I'm happy to report that I've been in Ketosis since yesterday with large and moderate traces, good to know that I'm already burning fat and not muscle.

So far I'm doing ok, my weight this morning was 55.7Kg so it's going down with a good pace, but I would also say that the first few days are always good in terms of losses. Let's see by mid-week since I don't have too much to lose in my opinion, I'm hoping to reach the 53Kg by the end of the fast.

Sometimes I look my body in the mirror and I can see that I'm really out of shape, when I was running or going to the gym I had a completely different figure, it really hurts and I'm always thinking that I should go back to my gym routine once my fast is done. I have in my mind good intentions but I never feel the strengths to do it, I'm wondering if I'm exhausting my adrenals and feeling often tired and demotivated. I'm planning on taking some supplements for the adreno-fatigue once completed the Water Fast and refeeding process – maybe it will help.

Saturday I spent all day mostly in bed, except for a movie date that I had in the afternoon, so I did at least 1 hour walking that day. I really felt tired of doing anything, I didn't even want to go to the cinema, hoping my date will cancel for unforeseen reasons….but he didn't so I went. Before going though I decided to do an injection of Vitamin B12, since the Raw Vegan Diet is usually low in B12 and it could help in giving me energy. The injection itself was not pleasant, I had for the first time lots of blood coming out from the injection site, the needle was very small though, not sure what happened really, not a big issue anyway, it stopped in few seconds after that.

This time around I don't want to drink hot water, I'm satisfied with regular room temperature water, I do feel I'm not drinking enough though, I try on sipping here and there but at the end of the day it never gets up to 2.5L, I just can't make it!

Another thing I noticed that is different for this second Water Fast is my desire of eating; I'm looking to so many new Raw Vegan recipes on Pinterest and buying new Raw Vegan food. During my first 24-Day Water Fast I wasn't thinking much about food, at least not like this. Does concern me a bit really since I don't want to be addicted on food or gourmet recipes, I just want to live an healthy life with a good relationship with food, without being obsessed about eating or losing weight. I really hope I can achieve this goal once forever!

In my first day of 7-Day Water Fast - How am I?

My first Water Fast day is going well so far, right now I feel less hungry than before, I noticed that if I drink water I have the emptiness feeling that we always use to associate to the hunger – which is not, it's just the water rolling into my digestive system and finding its way down.

I went downstairs to buy a couple of bottle of vapour distilled water, it's not exactly pure distilled water but I think it's a good compromise while fasting, it also tastes really good.  One of the key component on being diligent during my Water Fast is finding some time to do things instead of having a meal, I have to say that I can always find something to buy instead of eating - but my 23 days Water Fast done in October really made me spent so much money that now I have to be more conscious on what I really need to buy!

The first 2/3 days of a Water Fast are never fun, especially knowing that I'm losing muscle – since I'm not into Ketosis yet. I should have switched to a low carb – low sugar regiment before starting the fast, but who does it? Yesterday I ate whatever I wanted, I didn't feel great with my stomach and my heart palpitations were raised almost the whole day, I have better willpower when avoiding food altogether than sticking with a specific meal plan. I wasn't always so bad, the large amount of Diets made me like this really.

I'm still the idea of doing my planned 10-Day Water Fast on December the 5^th, I like Water Fasting, I don't mind it – it really gives me a break from my obsessions, my fat, my cravings, my mind works better, I have more mental clarity, I feel confident I can manage my weight, I like the idea that my body is healing itself and I'm cleansing it. The reason why I want to do another Water Fast in 2/3 weeks from now is because I believe my body still needs to detox, to heal and I did not complete this process, it will require some time; I cannot achieve this goal without multiple extended Water Fasts. I'll be fasting often in the coming months, not sure yet the length of each fast, most likely a long one like my first, I would do only a couple of times in a year, spaced out with shorter Water Fast like 7/10 – Days total – less than that there's no point on doing it, my body gets into ketosis around 3/4 days into the fast so I need to burn fat or the Water Fast will just make me lose muscles and it's definitely not what I'm looking forward to.

I started my 7-Day Water Fast today

I started today my short 7-Day Water Fast; it's the second one that I'm doing so far. Since it's just the first day, actually first hours – I'm feeling hungry a bit at the moment – nothing crazy though.

I've not been feeling good in the past few days, not sure if was for the probiotic that I took or the ones I used to prepare my vegan-cheese, in any case my stomach really bothered me lately – I've been also eating a lot, so it might be just overwhelmed for all the food that I stuffed myself with, especially the peanut butter and cacao powder used with my fruits, not to mention the tons of dates I had with them. I really needed this Water Fast, to let my body heal and my digestive system to take a break.

My weight this morning was 58.5Kg, so basically I gained like 5lb in 4/5 days because of my cravings, I was doing so well and suddenly I got crazy dreaming about nuts and peanut butter and bananas, it takes so little to be off the wagon really, so I better be under Water Fast control until I'm back on track.

Today's Friday and I'm back in the office, I took care of most of my food – my fridge is empty now, I have left only a couple of apples and pears, and 4 big mangoes. They are not ripe yet, once I can see that they're good I'll chop everything and dispose in the freezer with the rest of the stuff. The other day I prepared an amazing marinara sauce with my tomatoes, it came out in two jars and I froze them directly. My freezer is full now, I guess the only thing I won't be able to freeze are some cucumber slides left in the fridge, oh well I will throw them out today, I don't like frozen cucumber, even in the smoothies it tastes awful anyway.

One thing I have done with the huge amount of carrots that I have is shredding them all, I washed and peeled the whole bad and I shredded with a cheese grater that I have, I want to use them for a carrots cake, once I'm done with this water fast. But I promised myself I should be good on doing too many gourmet recipes and stick with max once a week, otherwise it's easy for me to get caught in this vicious circle of cooking and eating. I should eat more mono-ingredient meals, more watery food as well as good smoothies; for some reasons I believe I would eat more drinking but I have to give it a try and start to learn on understanding my body on when I'm really hungry without eating on a schedule. It will help for sure to keep my weight under control.

Taking care of my Fruits & Vegetables - Getting ready for my 7-Day Water Fast

Today I just want to give few updates on how I am doing with my Raw Vegan Diet and my cravings. I'm working from home today so it is generally bad when I do it, because it's just me and my kitchen temptations. I love cooking and I always look forward to find a new gourmet recipe that I want to try, new flavours to taste and so on. So in short I ate like a pig all day basically.

Since I planned to start a 7-day Water Fast very soon, I wanted to be sure I will not waste any of the food that I bought in the past few days, so I started to organize all my fruits and vegetables. Let's face it fruits are very easy to freeze comparable vegetables. So I cut all the ripe fruits and stored in the freezer, so they can be ready to thaw or to use in any smoothie, at the end anything that is frozen does not expire and can be used any time in the future – I'm sure I will have plenty of opportunities, so I'm not worried when I can freeze produce. For the vegetables it's a little be tricky, I had to do a sort of preparation, especially for the tomatoes that I really don't feel confident on just freeze them like a do with the blueberries. To avoid wasting my Roma tomatoes I prepared my first delicious Marinara sauce; I found an easy recipe on Pinterest and turned out very tasty. I used the Roma tomatoes, some extra sweet cherry tomatoes and my organic sundried tomatoes (with no oil). At the end I filled 2 containers that could be used for my zucchini noodles in the future, plus is a very low fat sauce and I like low fat so far.

For the huge amount of carrots that I have a had a different solutions, I saw a recipe of a Raw Vegan carrots cake that I would like to try so I shredded all my carrots and stored in plastic bags in the freezer, so they're ready for the recipe once I'm good on doing it, the only thing I regret of not doing is taking note on how much carrots I had in each bag, I should have weighted and labelled each of them so I had an easier way using it during the recipe execution, oh well I guess I will figured out once I'm doing it the cake.

The 2 odd zucchini that I bought at China Town the other day I just washed and put them in a bag, I didn't want to do noodles really, I might just use them for sauces or something like that, to make the sauce creamer as I do with regular zucchini sometimes. I do have also some chopped carrots and zucchini in the freezer as well, I can always use for smoothies or other blended recipes done with the Vitamix, if I thaw them in the fridge for a couple of days I'm sure they'll be ok….hopefully.

Today I prepared for the first time the vegetable wraps that I always see on those Raw Vegan recipes, I had a bunch of organic red Swiss Chard and I used my veggie-cheese with some carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini noodles, it was delicious! It is really not easy to eat them since they were falling apart but overall the taste was great, I might not do often though, not because they're complicated to do it but just for the general mess while eating, well unless I improve my skills as wraps-eater.

I still need to take care of some of the fruits left behind; I have mangoes, apples, pears, bananas and three persimmons. Once they're ripe enough I'll chop everything and freeze, ok maybe I'll eat a couple of apples or bananas before then. The persimmons are in season right now and although I always hated this fruit growing up, I wanted to give them a second chance this time and use it for my pumpkin pie recipe. I might cut them and freeze for now though since I'm not planning to do any pie before I complete my 7-Day Water Fast; maybe I'll prepare a good pie to bring for my Christmas dinner invitations, let's see – this year will be a challenge eating Raw Vegan in an Italian dinner family setup!

Raw Vegan Diet - Fats make you fat!

My experience so far, with my Raw Vegan Diet has been good; the only thing I complain to myself is the introduction of nuts and seeds in my everyday food. Nuts especially have a high fat content, and I noticed that as soon as I started to eat them, my weight went up immediately, not to mention the cravings that I started to have, dreaming about my banana ice-cream with insane amount of peanut butter powder! I guess I underestimate myself thinking I could resist to the temptations. I did partially to be fair, but not last night. I believe I ate 20 dates with almond milk, 10 dried figs and 2 chia seeds pudding in cacao powder, not to mention my huge salad with tahini and guacamole dressing! All the food I had caused me a sharp pain on the left side of my abdomen and huge belly that I still have. The Binge Eater that is in me is back in "shape", somebody please save me from the dark side of my inner self!

I felt very depressed after and I went to bed, I was having purging thoughts, thinking to go to the gym at 5:00 AM and then again this afternoon to the Body Attack class, also having second thoughts on when to start my next Water Fast. So I started to put some of my food in the freezer, so I can start my Water Fast sooner and I don't have to throw away anything. This afternoon I planned to chop some vegetables and freeze them too, as well of some of the fruit that is already ripe.

My plan originally was to start my second Fast on December 5^th, but I want to get rid of these cravings as soon as possible, so I might start sooner. I feel sick today, I had way too much food; my body doesn't like it at all. I just had my breakfast, and although I split in two parts the amount of fruits that I was supposed to eat this morning, I also had the last chia seeds pudding that was in the fridge and I brought with me the little macaroons with pecans and dates that I bought yesterday at the supermarket, just so I can share with people here and I won't eat them all without shame.

It's been a couple of days that my bowel movements are not anymore the same as before, I think is because of the fat content that I'm eating, it's true that doesn’t help digestion and makes feel you like crap, I have the proofs really.

If you are looking for a Raw Vegan Diet that will help you maintaining weight and makes you feel good: avoid as hell FATS!! Fats are not your friends in a Raw Vegan Diet – unless you are trying to gain weight. That's why is called: HCLF Diet, High Carbs Low Fat Diet. I cannot believe what a big difference I personally experienced introducing fats, especially nuts really. For things like seeds or avocados, I didn't have much problems, neither cravings really – but nuts became a nightmare. Every time I was going to a store I was repeating to myself not to buy any type of nuts whatsoever, but for some reasons I was leaving the store full of almonds, walnuts and cashews, unbelievable the Binge Eater that plans the binges again, I hate myself sometimes.

Why Raw Vegan?

I want to give a brief explanation on why I decided to choose a Raw Vegan Diet rather than Vegetarian or Vegan. Since I was around 20 years old I started to be vegetarian, growing up in Italy is really hard avoiding cheese and mozzarella products, which I absolutely adore by the way. I lasted something like 15 years or so, with some exceptions here and there along the way. Since I moved to Canada I started having issues with my weight and my health in general – tell me about the North America food please!

My diet changed so I started to eat most of the chicken meats and any type of sea food, with exceptions more often than generic episodes. But my weight problems increased drastically, not only I wasn't able to manage my weight anymore, I had an eating disorder, I was taking tons of supplements, injections, anything that could help me heal from my insane food obsession. I was taking drugs thinking that could help me with my addiction but maybe it was the opposite results.

So I thought many times to go back on my vegetarian lifestyle, mostly because I love animals and I never felt "right" on eating them, but again being vegetarian I thought doesn't make any sense. I would still eat animal derived products, so still helping this cruel market doing whatever is doing and eating products that in any case will enable killing animals. Not to mention all the hormones given to animals and their food that I would be exposed to. So I thought ok maybe I could be vegan, but this option sounded non-sense to me as well. Maybe there are some extents on being Vegan that are ok, but where do you draw the line? I mean an Oreo cookie is Vegan, should I be ok with that? No, this was not what I was looking for; I wanted to start a diet that I could enjoy what Mother Nature gives us, just like it is; no processed food in any form.

The answer for me was only one: Raw Vegan Diet, nothing that comes from a box, no oil, no salt, no caffeine, no pops, nothing coming from animals or fish, no supplements, no sugar, no artificial sweetener, no grains, no Stevia, no starch, very small amount of fat, nothing that's been fried, boiled, baked or processed in anyway at high temperatures – that could potentially destroy what are the natural benefits of the food itself. This Diet so far is keeping under control my cravings, this alone is the best benefit I could ever ask to a diet, and I know I often overeat but I don't feel miserable, my weight is doing fine so far, I have 2/3 bowel movements a day, I feel happy eating what I eat, I love the food, I don't feel on diet for the first time since I don't know how long. Do I miss anything? Probably I miss a warm pizza sometimes, a warm soup; I will miss my grandma pasta recipe but nothing that will ever make me regret what I'm doing for my health.

Raw Vegan Diet - I bought a Vitamix!

Since I started this Raw Vegan Diet I also started to watch a lot of YouTube videos about Raw Vegan recipes, I'm mostly learning tips and new ingredients used in Raw Vegan diets. One item that I was missing in my kitchen was the Vitamix, an expensive tool that everyone seems loving and worth all the money. But really the idea of spending $600 was not exciting me, so I found one on kijiji, I went yesterday after work to pick it up; it is almost new and I got it for $350, I don't think I can find it for less than that, but in any case now I have an almost new Vitamix that I can start to use to do tons of new recipes.

Yesterday at the end I was able to stick to my plan and avoid eating 8 bananas with tons of peanut butter powder and dates. I just had a giant salad with my superb tahini sauce! I still felt that I was eating a lot at the end of my dinner, but I kept on going into my huge salad bowl, I think I was still somehow binging on my salad, deliciousness though. Thankful this morning I saw a small decrease on my weight, only 400gr but for me a loss is a loss, and if I could count on 400gr every day I'll be happy with that.

Today I should have a smaller dinner though, not sure if I'll be eating out yet, I was supposed to see a friend after work but we didn't keep in touch in the past few days so I might ended up being home with my cucumber noodles, which I like a lot as option anyway. I know I eat too much in my meals but this is what helps me to crave sweets and food in general, some days it's harder I have to admit it, but it would be much harder if I wasn't eating enough or feeling constantly on diet.

I planned to do another short Water Fast on December 5 and I'm still of the idea on doing it, I have some weight that I want to lose, I fell I didn't complete my cleansing and detoxing process and my mental clarity will be definitely thank me after the Water Fast. I'm debating about the number of days, but roughly I would like to be in ketosis for at least 5/6 days, so at the end my 10-day estimation should not be too off from reality, I'm also counting like 3/4 days for a good refeeding process, so in total will last almost 2 weeks, just before Christmas time.

A day for my Raw Vegan Diet

I didn't fast during this past weekend, mostly because my weight really didn't change much, well apart from today that I registered a 1.2Kg in gain! But I know why, that's due to the fact that I had my dinner at 10:30pm last night, eating 4 bananas, insane I know but I'm definitely weak when dealing with banana and peanut butter! But I promised myself to stick to my healthy habits today, lots of greens and water. Nothing sweet for dinner tonight, only vegetables, since I already had my portion of fruits in my breakfast and lunch, I should be ok to stick to the plan….hopefully.

Yesterday I prepared for the first time Raw Vegan Tahini, with a very simple recipe, well I improvised really. I don't have yet a Vitamix so I used my grinder to chop a bit the sesame seeds, then I passed them into the blender, but it was really not working very well without liquids, the blades were running without doing much, so I added enough water to let them spin a bit and work on the consistency of the Tahini, I also added few organic sundried tomatoes, parsley, a couple of celery leafs and a half tsp of nutritional yeast, but don't ask why because I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish, I never used before this nutritional yeast blend. In any case the Tahini came out better than my expectations, it was a lot and I was really pleased of the outcome; I used in my zucchini noodles for dinner adding some greens and diced tomatoes, I was in heaven!

My personal opinion of the vegetable noodles that I made with the spiralizer is that zucchini are the perfect choice for it, cucumbers not so much, they lose lots of water and really cucumbers are so much better when diced, well or at least I prefer them in small cubes rather than a spaghetti shape. From now on I don't think I will use the spiralizer for cucumbers, but I will look around looking for different vegetables maybe, something that can go nicely with the cucumbers, in case I want to mix them. 

Raw Vegan Diet - Loving the big portions

So this morning I woke up wondering if all the food I'm having in these past few days affected my weight, well I was extremely happy to report that my weight didn't change a bit, I almost cried. I'm following this raw food diet and I eat a lot, and when I say a lot for me means that the binge eater that is in me, is super happy on how things are going here. I feel really happy in the morning having my huge bowl of fruits; it leaves me happy till lunch time without any issue. Then for lunch, again I have a super-giant salad with anything I want in it – same thing for my dinner. I cannot be happier than that and it's amazing to see how raw food finds its way through the digestive system so easily and quick. I have 3 times a day bowel movements, I cannot ask for more than that really.

This morning my breakfast was a big bowl of fruits with a cup of strawberries, 3 cups of papaya, 1 apple, 1 mango, 3 dates and a tbsp of shredded coconut to give some colour. It took me more than half hour to eat it all! For lunch I prepared something even bigger than my breakfast, already excited thinking about it. Yes, because yesterday I used my new spiralizer to cut my veggies and also my apple, it works wonderfully and it's so easy to use and clean really, actually it saves me some time in the cutting vegetables process. So my salad will be: tons of zucchini noodles and cucumber noodles with some diced tomatoes, spinach and lettuce. For the sauce I created my own pesto version with basil, shelled hemp seeds, lemon, a tsp of coconut oil and a clove of garlic – all raw. I can't wait to taste my new recipe, but not now though I'm so full of my fruit salad that I can't even move…and I'm already in the office!

Yesterday evening I went with a friend to one of those vegan restaurants, he knows I'm always dealing with food concerns so that was not a big deal for him, in any case it turns out really well for him too, he enjoyed the meal. Initially I thought that I could not trust a restaurant 100% when it comes to eating fully raw, but I wanted to give it a try since this vegan restaurant is very well-known in the city anyway. Everything was good, I had a big salad with everything in eat and some peanuts on top with a raw tahini sauce with it; it was really delicious especially the peanuts of course, it gave the salad an amazing flavour. For this reason I'm thinking to buy some raw cashews this weekend, pass them into my food processor and keep it as salad topping or for here and there maybe for other meals too. I thought I would see my weight creeping up this morning for the huge salad and the peanuts but life is good and my body appreciated the meal as I did.

Another thing that I want to try is the reduced fat raw peanut butter; I got this idea from a video I watched yesterday on YouTube. So basically I have my peanuts powder with no sugar added or anything is just 100% peanuts, not organic though, I cannot find this type of product organic yet. Anyhow, with the powder the fat content is reduced up to 90% so that's a good news for me that I'm trying to eat low fat at the moment, so to eat it I will just add water to the powder until I reach the consistency that I like and it will become like regular peanut butter but without the fats. It is clever in my opinion for who wants to indulge in this type of sweet without the guilt; obviously everything should be eaten in moderation, that's me that I just had a huge fruit bowl saying it, no kidding!

One Week after my Water Fast

It's been one week now since I completed my Water Fast and my refeeding process is done too, successfully I would say. I did not experience any issue with my stomach, my BMs are optimal and regular; my weight is being ok so far. Yesterday I noticed that I basically release with my BMs what I ate 3/4 days ago. So some of the weight I gained is due to some water retention and food in my digestive system / colon, which is a normal and expected behaviour.

So far my Raw Vegan Diet is going extremely well, I feel blessed every time I have my huge salad with everything in it, from greens to tons of delicious fruits, I absolutely love it. Today I am supposed to receive my spiralizer so I can start to create more variations for my salads, adding zucchini and cucumbers in a more fun way, enjoying more vegetables to maintain under control my weight as well.

During my lunch break today I went to Winners to buy some Buckwheat but I could not find it, I bought instead Organic Shelled Hemp Seeds; I never had Hemp Seeds in my life I think, and I read online that they are really healthy and with an amazing nutty flavour, so I'm really looking forward on creating my own pesto recipe without using pinenuts, not that I don't like pinenuts or anything – quite the opposite – but I want to try to keep my fat content as low as I can, till my weight is stabilized. I also bought a little bag of Organic Raw Dark Chocolate Nibs and some pitted organic dates (which I already indulged in at lunch having four of them as my dessert).

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of Raw Vegan Vloggers and read few articles about this type of Diet, what I need to do is to create a good 80/10/10 ratio of what I eat, trying to avoid fruits for dinner and having a big salad with anything I want in it, which I'm totally fine and happy to do it anyway. I noticed that most of the people tend to eat mostly fruits in a Raw Vegan Diet, but they also do a lot of exercises or workout activities to consume and earn their own carbs-fruits amount. Sometimes, watching those videos, I really think: WTH!! Is there anyone on YouTube and in the Raw Vegan community that actually has a 9-to-5 job?! Every video that I watch is from a girl that seems having nothing to do during the day that going to the gym or checking Facebook and emails on her computer; nobody that has a regular commute or wake up at 5:00 AM to get ready and go to work? Or unable to come back for lunch and cook for half hour?! WTH!!?! Sorry for my vent but I don't think I am the odd one here, most of the people in the world have a regular daily job, without having always time to spend two hours in the gym and cooking!

Incorporating Water Fasting as part of my life

As a result of my Water Fast experience I lost lots of weight, which it was one of the main reasons why I wanted to do this fast – as well as getting rid of my Candida Albicans, my Binge Eating Disorder and understanding my underlying issues with food. All things that I believe I achieved so far; I do think sometimes that I will ended up binging again one day, but better staying positive for now and thinking that the path to a healthy lifestyle and better relationship with food is a long way with highs and lows but that I should never lose track on what I'm gaining staying straight.

In any case I'm absolutely loving my new weight, I feel a completely different person, I feel younger, detoxed and with a different type of desire when thinking about food. I can say no, I'm full to myself and I have no issues on waiting a bit when meal time is coming; I try to concentrate and understand what my body is telling me, if I'm hungry, I'm bored or simply craving anything - but so far I did not have any craving, apart from healthy salads and fruits, which it feels very different compared the type of craving I used to have before for sugar.

Since I don't want to lose this Nirvana status between my weights, my new whole wardrobe, the way I relate to food, I decided to incorporate in my life Water Fasting from now on. I already planned my next Water Fast, it will be only a 10-Days Water Fast and I'm planning on starting on December 5^th till the 15^th or so, as usual it would be also driven on how my body is feeling so far for that days.

The reason why I planned this 10-Days Water Fast is because I believe my healing and cleansing process didn't get completed with my 23-Days Water Fast, I still have so much to give to my body, give it time to heal and rest. Doing a Water Fast that does not reach Ketogenic status is not much worth the stress really, at least not from a cleansing perspective, that's why a minimum of 10-Days Water Fast will be the best solution for me going forward. I'm thinking on having an n-Days Water Fast here and there during the year coming up, for the prolonged Fast I don't think I will do it more than 2/3 times a year, but let's see how it goes.

Apart from this 10-Days Water Fast I think I will use a sort of IF – Intermitting Fasting strategy as well, but not exactly as IF is supposed to work. I found that IF doesn't really work for me, I like having breakfast or something during my mornings so I don't think I can keep on avoiding this thing for too long without feeling frustrated about it. So I decided to do a 2-Days Water Fast during the weekend, not all weekends but I might start this one if my weight is getting unmanageable, for me maintenance is a delicate period that have to last at least a month so I need to prepare a backup plan in case my weight goes up too much, too soon. So I planned on starting the Water Fast on Friday evening, I will try to have an early dinner, light with no fruits so I can try to get into ketosis if I can, and continue with the Water Fasting till basically Monday morning, when I will have again a regular breakfast – without eating too much to avoid upsetting my stomach after the short Fast. I hope I can find the strengths to do it, but in general doing my prolonged Water Fast didn't bother me at all, I actually enjoyed the whole experience, but it's also true that I just completed one and going back on only drinking water can be annoying, let's see I might have a busy day on Saturday so I will not mind staying just on water for a couple of days.

Water Fasting - Refeeding Process updates after 5 days

I'm still in a refeeding-mode I guess but I stopped counting days, I check my weight every morning, not my ketosis though, with all the fruits I'm having it doesn't make any sense. Today I was like 300gr more than yesterday; I had no bm since a couple of days so it really was expected anyway.

I feel ok with whatever I eat so far, I just cannot have much, my stomach is still in the small amount size type of meal, which is ok I guess, I definitely don't need to overeat. This morning I prepared again a smoothie, this time with half scoop of vegan proteins, similar to yesterday I feel the odd taste of the proteins in my mouth now, not a pleasant feeling, I will avoid the proteins altogether tomorrow. I added various fruits today, like strawberries, mangoes, papaya and 2 dates to give sweetness – all with some baby spinach. It was a delicious smoothie, my mistake was that I didn't want to bring it at work so I had 2 big glasses one after the other in just few minutes - since I was a bit late for work. Well my stomach didn't like it really, it started to hurt me a bit, not much but I definitely felt the pain. Lesson learned I guess.

Yesterday before going home I stopped to do some grocery shopping and buy some fruits and vegetables for dinner and today's meal for the office, I found one papaya that was so ripe and soft, it was absolutely delicious, I used for my salad a bit and today's breakfast as well. I also bought a mango, it was already peeled in a box with some blueberries and a piece of papaya; the mango was kind of hard and difficult to cut but it was delicious, I don't recall I ever had such a good mango. My personal preference goes to those mangoes with darker skin, I'm not a mangoes expert at all but I tried both and this hard one with darker skin, it might be cheaper in price for some reason, but I found it way better than the most expensive one.

After my Water Fast it's coming so natural for me enjoying these true flavours of the nature, I'm not missing at all the junk food I used to eat, I'm missing neither the coffee nor any other drink in general. In the morning, while I do my makeup I just sip on my bottle of water. I'm thinking on buying one of those big plastic glasses used for smoothies or mixed energy drinks, but I really want to remove from my morning routines having this smoothie, it's really not necessary if I can have a normal breakfast once in the office, with some fresh fruits. Maybe if I can start a good workout routine I will add something else to my diet, but for now it's just adding up calories for nothing.

Today for my mid-morning break I had, for the first time after so long, a detox tea  –  caffeine free but I hope it will help me with my detox process somehow; yesterday I noticed that drinking just hot water gives me tummy-pain and I don't want to do anything to my body that could generated uncomforted state in any way. I don't like the tea of course, so I might have next time in a month from now, my sweet tooth is not meant to enjoy these types of tea unfortunately.

Today for lunch I prepared a mixed salad, I literally thrown in the container whatever I had in the fridge: mixed greens, blueberries, papaya, watermelon, mango and cherry tomatoes, no dressing and no spices, just fresh fruits & vegetables. I wish I add spinach and some cucumbers but I will get them this afternoon with my grocery delivery, I will to reduce the fruits as much as I can going forward, it doesn't help with the weight management for sure. Too bad my spiralizer is still on its way and not delivered yet, I wouldn't mind preparing my salad with zucchini and cucumber noodles for tomorrow, oh well I will need to endure it.

My Kitchen tools Ideas for a Raw Food Diet

Yesterday after watching few videos of some deliciously looking raw vegan recipes, I decided to purchase online a spiralizer; I found one for $24 at Walmart so I thought I will give it a try, the zucchini noodles look very cool to prepare with it and the cucumbers too. I'm planning to create some fun in my salads, especially for my dressings, since this type of diet is something I want to continue for long time, so I need to love it 100%, and for an Italian how food looks like is really a key part of the cooking process.

Another thing I did today is my grocery shopping online, with a long list of organic fruits and vegetables that I'll start consuming very soon. So I got my basic vegetables with high water contents, as well as some sweet fruits that I can add to smoothies or – in small quantities – in my green salads. I got a bunch of bananas, my favourite fruit I think, but I have to promise myself to eat it only in smoothies, I can get too carried on with them otherwise and definitely I don't want to go back on binging on food, even if healthy and organic.

Another kitchen tool that I would love to have is the Vitamix, but $500 are way too over my budget for any kitchen tool whatsoever, so I will keep on using my regular blender, even for dressing sauces, at the end it has a pulse button too, I hope it works ok when doing dressing sauces, they usually are supposed to be a bit more thick than what a blender does….of course, without burning the blender.

In my fruits & vegetables list I got some avocados and some basil, what I really look forward to is a dressing with these 2 ingredients, not necessary together but I love them both in anything, I'm sure they will taste amazing, maybe too blended but who cares!

Refeeding Process - Day #4 - What am I eating so far?

Today is for me the 4^th day of my refeeding process after my 22/23 Days of Water Fasting. So far is going well, I have had basically only watermelon the first couple of days and then I bought a delicious papaya, but the rest of the 3 days was just watermelon, carefully increasing the amount. I did not have any side effects for the food, actually yesterday I even had a BM, which I would define unpleasant but I guess is part of the whole process, reawakening my digestive system. This morning unfortunately my ketosis was gone, it gradually disappeared since I started refeeding, I'm assuming because of the sugar in the fruits, since I'm eating only that. But today I had a completely different meal plan; since I felt a bit down and weak yesterday – and the absence of ketosis worried me – I wanted to get some proteins, so this morning I prepared a smoothie with a scoop of vegan protein powder, an handful of strawberry, a cup of spinach and half slide of pineapple to give some sweetness. The proteins tasted really bad, I think one scoop was too much, but I felt ok after so I didn't actually regret having it.

My breakfast was with roughly 400gr of watermelon, this little one was tastier than the one I had on Friday, it was juicy and sweet; I had at around 9:30am this morning, trying not to drink too much water before or after my meal. It felt a lot of watermelon. I can tell that I cannot eat too much; my stomach gets full really quickly.

Lunch time was more on vegetables, I did not have much with me so I went downstairs to buy something; initially I thought it would be nice to try one of those place where they serve organic raw food, but all of the dishes were either with nuts, beans or fats, so I opted for the self-service isle at the grocery store. I got a tray of mixed greens (mostly spinach) with some cucumbers and cherry tomatoes; for the sweetness I added watermelon and cantaloupe. I tried to maintain the ingredients all with a high water content, nothing dry or with high fat. It was a very nice salad, but it took me sometime to eat it all, I had like half – then waited half hour – and finished the rest of it.

In these past 2/3 days while refeeding I can definitely tell how my body becomes extremely weak once the digestion starts, it's really unbelievable for me, all my strengths are gone in few minutes; yesterday I had to lie down for a little while, every time I was having a meal – this to confirm that really digestion gets a lot of energy from the body that could be used to do something else! I also notice a change in my thoughts clarity when I'm eating or when I'm digesting my meals, something that really I don't like so far.

My weight so far didn't change, I finished my Water Fast at 54.1Kg (119lb) and this morning I was stable again at 54.0Kg (118lb) – so pretty much as before, I'm expecting a weight increase for sure in the next few days, mostly due to the food that will be deposited in my whole digestive system but some retain of water as well. I have planned on maintaining a raw food diet for now, until my weight is good and stable at least. I do have a lot of small portions of chicken breast in the freezer that I really don't want to throw away, but it doesn't really expire frozen – I might think to have it once or twice a week, just to consume it, I really have no rush though.

Water Fast - Refeeding Process and my second meal of the day

Ok, so my second meal of the day is done; I just had again 2 ounces of watermelon and so far so good. This piece was cold, it was in the fridge since this morning but I was eating it in very small pieces, chewing slowly so it did not affect me much, in other circumstances I wouldn't be happy to eat cold fruit while I'm freezing here in the office. It took me another 10 to 15 minutes to eat it all, so I will resume my water around noon; I'm estimating another meal around 1:30pm and the next one I might have at home – since I'm supposed to eat every 2 hours between 9:00am and 5:00pm; not sure if I might ended up eating another 2 pieces of watermelon home or not….let's see.

Again, I wasn't blown away from the eating experience really, it was not even tasty, I'm wondering if I just bought a bad watermelon since it's almost November here. But for tomorrow I planned to buy some papaya and continue my refeeding process with another fruit, I'm not even sure I can find papaya in Toronto! I wish I was living in a tropical country…mostly because I would be on the beach right now.

I'm somehow getting impatient for this refeeding process, it feels so slow and boring, thinking that I'm not able to eat whatever I want it's frustrating. Not that I'm thinking on bingeing or anything, I'm actually fine but I would prefer staying an extra couple of days with just water than eating this tiny small piece of watermelon; but I guess I have no choice, I need to let my digestion system wake up again gently without attacking it with lots of food or anything hard to digest.

Tomorrow my papaya meals will be every 2.5 hours, so basically I will start at 9:00am ending at around 6:00pm, depending on how the eating process goes, I'm not sure I like papaya so it will be a new experience for me, I hope I will, or my frustration will be greater than today! Wish me luck!

Water Fast - Refeeding Day #1 my experience so far...

Today is the day - I started my refeeding process. This morning I brought in the office my 3 meals of 2 ounces of watermelon. First meal I had at 9:00am, I stopped to drink water at around 8:30am; I took roughly 15 minutes to eat my watermelon – chewing it very carefully - and had some water again at around 10:00am, waiting 45 minutes after my meal.

My first meal was not as I was expecting it, I've watched so many videos on YouTube on people refeeding after 21 days, or even less than 21 – and everyone was like crying while eating the watermelon, almost as it was a mystic encounter never experienced before, the burst of sensations and taste was from another world! For me….it was just like eating a watermelon really. I mean, it was good sure, sweet enough but nothing that I would cry for.

So far I'm not experiencing any sort of side effect from my stomach; I don't feel hungry nor full, I'm sipping on my bottle of water, trying to be conscious today on drinking enough liquids – I feel I'm being really bad with my water intake, yesterday definitely I was under the 2L and while doing a water fast is definitely a negative thing to do. In fact this morning my weight was same as yesterday, my Ketosis was between small and moderate traces, definitely the sugar content in the coconut water impacted my ketosis and my weight, but I want to think that also not drinking enough didn't help the whole process.

My next meal will be at around 11:15am or so, depending on how I feel but I don't think I should have any problem, let's faced it 2 ounces are really nothing and watermelon is almost all water anyway. I think tomorrow I'll register a gain in my weight, I don't think I'll have any bowel movement for what I eat today, but it's not that I'm gaining fat or anything so I'm ok with that. I guess this rule will apply for the next 2/3 days, even more going forward since the food intake will increase day by day; I don't want my body feel that I'm in starvation.

Today for some unknown reasons my skin is really dry, maybe is the cold weather and Canadian winter coming but it feels really dry, and I always wonder if it could be due to the amount of water I'm drinking, in any case I'm constantly sipping today; the key is to do small sips every now and then. I also feel always cold – apart from the weather and the office temperature – I'm sure the Ketosis doesn't help either, but I don't really feel anymore drinking the hot water, I got bored of it. I might have some decaf tea or chamomile tea after the full refeeding process. I need to do some researches to see which one is the best decaffeinated beverage I can have in the morning, I like hot drinks so I hope I can find something that will not make me miss my morning coffee; sometimes I think on buying that odd tea that the acupuncturist gave me a while ago, it was tasting like chicken broth but it was definitely tasty.

Ending my Fast - Coconut Water disappointment!

It's officially started somehow my refeeding process after 23 days with water only, so today I had a can of coconut water. I have to say I was expecting a more engaging experience from it but in the contrary: I was disappointed. I really don't like coconut, even less the water; it was like feeling forced to drink down some sort of disgusting medicine, I'm here thinking that I should have the second can but I would rather fast for another week instead!

My original plan was to drink coconut water for the first two days then during the weekend to go on real food, 2 and 4 ounces of watermelon, but…hey plans can change, especially when the experience is the first ever. So tomorrow I will have my three meals with 2 ounces of watermelon; I'll stop by to a grocery store on my way home this afternoon, I hope I can find some organic one, not easy in this time of the year in Toronto though. I will prepare 3 portions of 2 ounces each, I'm supposed to start the first meal at 10:00am and from there every 2 hours another meal, counting by the end of my meal I guess, since it might take some time for me to carefully chew and eat my fruit, that's all I will have for the day.

This morning my ketosis was still very high, I believe more than 80mg/dL, the Ketostix was extremely dark, that's a sign that I'm still burning fat, and I can believe it since I still have lots of fat to lose anyway.  I know I might go longer on this fast but I really feel it's time for me to end it, I'm getting bored of drinking only water and some days my energy levels are not great, so I don't feel doing much, mostly I feel slow in whatever I do, especially when I walk. I want to be able to go back to the gym, I lost lots of weight so quickly and my body shape is terrible at the moment, so a good exercise routine now is really needed.

Water Fast Day #23 - Ready to break my Fast

Today is my 23^rd day of my Water Fasting journey. I can't believe it's been 23 days without food, only water. Some people might think I'm crazy but overall I think this experience was amazing, I reconnected with my body, I discovered my deep emotions driving my binge episodes, I healed and cleansed my body and I found back my perfect weight. Now I have plans of a healthy eating and I hope I can be disciplined with my goals. I find that the weight I'm right now (~54Kg) is the one I'm more comfortable with, it's a couple of Kilos over my original goal weight but I don't mind at all, and I'm personally not concerned about the number on the scale rather than how I feel in my clothes or how I see the shape of my face in the mirror. I planned also to go to the gym once my energy is fully back, overall I don't have much of muscle mass so I need to build it back somehow, I'm thinking to go at least 3 times a week.

In the past few days I had a lack of energy but today I feel good, not weak at all but at the same time I'm ready to break my fast. Some time it's just the brain preparation that pushes us in the direction that we planned in advance, not necessarily because it's the right time to do it. In any case, I bought two little cans of pure organic coconut water during my lunch break, I left it in the fridge here in the office for now; I might take one home and the second one I will use it tomorrow as my "lunch", but not the pure coconut though, I'll add some distilled water, just to go slowly with the refeeding, but I may drink here and there in the afternoon, I don't think it will harm my system if it's diluted.

Saturday and Sunday will be my first 2 days of real food for my refeeding process, I think I'll buy some organic watermelon on Friday afternoon, not sure if I'll be working from home on that day, but I can definitely go to the grocery store and buy a small piece; I won't have much for those 2 days so I guess a small half will suffice. Depending on how those 2 days go I'll decide what to do on Refeeding Day #3; that will be in the office so I hope the digestion will not drown me down too much by Monday. 

After a Water Fasting - The good intentions

Today I was thinking that there's no better way to start a healthy lifestyle than having a clear list of all the good intentions once the Water Fast is completed (bear with me and my lists – I am a real example of a person with OCD).

So I came up with a list of things that I hope I will be able to avoid for good going forward, mostly because in the past they triggered my binge episodes and also – more importantly – because not in line with my idea of healthy Diet. In summary here's my food-to-avoid draft list:

• No coffee / caffeine
• No sugar (this is really tough but I have no choice)
• No sweeteners (maybe one or two drops of stevia once in a while)
• No processed food
• No alcohol (I don't really mind this one since I never been a drinker)
• No meat
• No animal derived food (another tough one especially when it comes to cheese and eggs, but I'll try my best)
• No nuts (extremely tough, I might allow myself to some raw nuts in rare occasions)
• Highly reduce root vegetables (I don't mind onions or garlic but carrots are rich of sugar and I should be careful with those – I don't care about potatoes really)
• No salt
• No oil (I might try to create my own recipe for dressing with raw apple cider vinegar)
• Highly reduce dry spices (they might help on developing dehydration in my body so better avoid them as much as I can)
• No supplements (I'm still debating on the MSN and the D+Calcium though)
• No drugs (unless really required – I never abused them but I will try to be more careful going forward, I believe those are toxics for my body, especially antibiotics)
• No gluten (this is another tough one and I might have some carbs inevitably here and there somehow)
• No fish or sea fruits (tough but doable)
• No breakfast (I want to try to maintain an Intermitting Fasting regiment IF, at least for a certain amount of months following my Water Fasting journey)

Ok, so reading at this list the first question that comes into my mind is: What else's is left really? But soon I'll post a list of what I will actually not deprive myself adopting my new healthy lifestyle. I do want to think that going forward, when my relationship with food is stable, as well as my weight; I will be able to allow myself anything I want, in moderation and just as exception.