Day 63 Week 9

photo credit ratterrell@flickr

I'm just gonna run on by and update 'cause I'm working on something else and gotta get back to it.

This week I ate 20 bananas and 60 oranges. I did not get any treadmill or swimming in. Today I have a terrible headache. I'm not eating quite enough and I'm a little dehydrated. My weight is the same though I am feeling a bit thinner in the hips and bum area!

To date I've walked 31.15 miles, swam 7.5 miles and have eaten 233 bananas and 322 oranges. The banana and orange count amazes me!

9 weeks down, 43 to go!

Day 58 Banana Date Yummy

photo credit calafellvalo@flickr

I mostly like eating my food separate so I can taste each thing. A lot of raw foodist make smoothies out of bananas and greens. I'm not fond of them. I like those things separate.

But one yummy and satisfying thing that I do make occasionally is a banana date smoothie. It couldn't be simpler.

5 large dates
2 bananas
water

In either a blender or a blender cup (for a wand blender) add the 5 dates and enough water to cover them. I sometimes use warm water. Not hot water. Maybe 80 degrees. Blend the dates either in the blender or with the wand blender. Add the bananas in pieces one at a time and blend thoroughly. Pour into a glass and drink. You can change the quantities of any of it. More dates, more bananas. Whatever you like. Depends if you like it more banana-y or more date-y. LOL

Day 56 Week 8

Wow week 8. Who knew?

Being sick this week and all meant I didn't get to the gym. So, no walking or swimming but I did some hard slave labor week that was pretty intense, at which point I ended up straight in bed for hours, aching and freezing. I spent a huge amount of time sleeping this last week. I'm feeling a little better energy-wise now.

This week I ate 21 bananas and 65 oranges. I had a few days where I ate very little. That's bad but I'm back now. To date I've walked 31.15 miles, swam 7.5 miles and have eaten 213 bananas and 262 oranges. I think Sunkist would be proud.

8 weeks down, 44 to go!

Day 49 Week 7

photo credit lusitania.etsy.com

For week 7 I walked 4 miles and 1.5 swam miles. Actually, that surprised me because I thought it was less. More would have been nice. The snow didn't help. I had other exercise in terms of physical work that is really taking a toll on my very stiff and sore arthritic spine. I actually burned more calories today (over 900) than I did even when I walked 2.5 miles and swam a mile all on the same day (600). If it didn't debilitate me so much I'd do more physical work but it really is hard on me. I crashed for 3 hours this evening. I couldn't help it - I was freezing and hurting and I just fell asleep where I was sitting.

This week I ate 27 bananas and 76 oranges. Wow. Just like trombones! To date I've walked 31.15 miles, swam 7.5 miles and have eaten 192 bananas and 197 oranges. Looks like the oranges are winning. I ♥ oranges.

I noticed in my weekly reports I have difficult weeks every week. I don't mean with food but with stress and things in my life. As I said, I'm working on it. Depression is starting to loom due to the longevity of it with not many rays of light ahead. I don't ♥ winter right now.

It doesn't feel I've made many body changes this week, or month for that matter. Not weighing leaves me feeling rather ungrounded. I'm not fond of it. Maybe it's part of my old anorexia days where it's one of the few stabilizing factors my little brain thinks I have. I think it's not a good idea for me and I probably won't do that next month.


7 weeks down, 45 to go!

Day 42 Week 6

photo credit Jennifer Chait

For week 6 I walked 1 mile, did not get any swim time in, which is not to say I had no exercise at all. I did. It just involved the clean up of an enormous mess which pretty much ate up 16 hours of my life in the last week rather than the preferred walking and swimming I usually do.

This week I ate 23 bananas and 54 oranges. To date I've walked 27.15 miles, swam 6 miles and have eaten 165 bananas and 121 oranges. Since my orange consumption is so high I thought it'd be fun to track it. Thank heavens no one is asking me to track baby spinach leaves! In other news, yes, Lori's bananas did come from the same farm as mine. I bought both batches but on different days. Hey, it was fun for me!

Well another difficult beyond belief week. Not having food on Monday just kicked my butt and I continued to live the after effects the rest of the week. I'm trying to get a grip on my food and exercise and sanity. I'm determined to win despite most days being pretty tired and needing a nap. My sleep is really messed up at night. I'll sleep 3-4 hours and BING! I'm done - up all night! Then I crash at 5pm for 2 hours. Yes, it's perpetuating it but honestly, that 5pm sleep is like the BEST sleep ever. I am so warm and happy and I sleep SO well. I decided to go with it today and hopefully things will sort themselves out over time. Maybe I just need to start counting sheep.

My goal is to start to get to the gym first thing in the morning, after my daughter gets on the bus. I'm usually so messed up from not sleeping all night that I just come home and go back to bed, then the day gets away from me and my daughter gets home and that's all she wrote. I'm told I 'have' chronic fatigue syndrome but I don't really like that label. I'd like to think I can FIX it, despite the medical profession being useless other than to assign labels to people. I am not doing that great with it right now but I've not lost hope. I have to wonder if a better label would be 'chronic bullshit' instead of chronic fatigue. Yes, I think that's a better title. The crap that goes on in my life wears me out. Like I said last week, I need some changes. I'm working on them. Maybe God will smile upon me soon.

6 weeks down, 46 to go!

Day 38 YES They Had NO Bananas Today!

OMG I absolutely could not believe my eyes when I finally got through the crowds at Whole Foods to discover that YES they had NO bananas today! I just stood there in astonishment, blinking away, while the sign that loomed over the deserted lot came into focus and said something about their inability to get fresh produce due to the weather conditions at their warehouse in Washington, D.C.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

My daughter reminded me we needed to get water, too, so it wasn't a total loss but it certainly felt like a total loss. I can live without water. I can't live without bananas!!!

So, off to Paul's Fruit Stand I went. The locked gates reminded me they're closed on Sunday. What are they some puritanical fruit eaters - they don't eat fruit on Sunday? Holy freaking cow.

I begrudgingly drove to Kroger where they had plenty of bananas. Sadly they were mostly green and pathetic looking. I grabbed 3 big bunches since another storm is due. I then stopped at Costco and stocked up on oranges. Truth of the matter is I can just eat more oranges. I actually like them better, they're just not as user-friendly and I'm staring down the day from hell tomorrow and I need user-friendly food. Such is life.

I texted Lori (BFF) to casually inquire about her banana stock...and she said she had 3 left. Well, that's not going to do anyone any good at all! LOL - thank you Lori for sensing the panic in my text and offering me your last 3 bananas. It might have been the all caps that gave me away.

I'll be okay. I just want to carry on about it :D

Day 36 Week 5

YES I'm a day late and a banana short on this one. I don't know what I was thinking last night but I'd had the longest day that never ended and to add insult to injury, I was up all night. Which then made me sleep half the damn day today. I hate that.

For week 5 I walked 9.25 miles, swam 1.5 miles and ate 37 bananas. To date I've walked 26.15 miles, swam 6 miles and have eaten 142 bananas. Is that a bushel? Who knows. But while you're here, go visit the farm that my bananas came from today. Pretty wild! This farm has really big bananas compared to some other farms I've gotten bananas from. I'm wondering if Lori's bananas came from farm 633 as well. Though she did report that the bananas I gave her were definitely better than other bananas she's had. Can't wait to find out which farm she had. Keep those stickers woman!

Again I've had a stressful week and I'm pretty unhappy with parts of my life and I don't mean my diet. Things need to change. I can't keep doing things like this to myself, I'm destroying my body. I also need support from other people who eat like I do and I think I'm going to get that now, which will help.

If you're following this and serious, it will help you to connect with others on the same path. I did discover there is ONE other person in my city (that we know of...) who ascribes to 80/10/10, also called LFRV - Low Fat Raw Vegan. Maybe I can meet him. There is a girl another city away and I hope to get together with her as well.

5 weeks down, 47 to go!

Day 33 Bananobsession

photo credit mondopanno @ flickr

I remember thinking there was no way I could eat a banana everyday much less anything more than that on a continuous basis. At most, I ate 2 bananas a month. I'd read about other raw foodists eating 30 bananas a day. I love this site: 30bananasaday.com and Harley Johnstone is da bomb but there was no way I could conceive of anymore than 2 bananas a month. I remember when I first read Steve Pavlina's blog and didn't understand the whole 80/10/10 thing thinking that he was eating way too much fruit. I thought if I was to become a raw foodist I'd eat more vegetables.

WELL that's not the way it works and now while I don't eat 30 bananas a day, I'm absolutely obsessed with them. They are the most important thing I eat everyday. They are the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about on my way to bed. Then of course all day long I'm thinking about bananas. When I'm really hungry it's the first thing I want. I average around 6 bananas a day, which is actually very light for most raw foodists but there's so much more to it than that...

Banana Management
One of the things you learn right away is that you need to maintain a steady supply of ripe bananas. Sounds simple enough but one snowstorm and the banana supply chain is broken. You find yourself either cut off from access due to the weather or find your store only has hard green bananas or worse - there are no bananas. "Yes, we have no bananas today" is NOT funny during these times. Pretty quickly you learn that PANIC is your friend and you start to worry about your banana supply on a regular basis. Everything from inclement weather to truckers on strike and world trade agreements stand in the way of you and your main food source: Bananas. I can't even begin to face the fact that the bananas we currently eat today are not expected to be available in 20 years. IT'S STRESSFUL!

Even with ideal weather, trucking and trade agreements there are days you walk in the market to a sea of only green bananas. HOW CAN THAT BE?! This results in visiting multiple stores to see if they have ever-ready fruit. This is a real step down for me because if they're not Whole Foods organic bananas they don't taste as good and now you're settling for second best on your most important food.

By then you're so tetched that regardless of the fact they're not the bananas you really desire and despite being successful at the next store, you'll still drive to others just to verify that there is still food available for you on the planet. While there, you'll go ahead and buy another bunch and then continue on, arriving home with 4-5 bunches of ready to eat right now bananas. Oops. Mostly, it works out. To date I've never been bananaless but it's been close. I can tell you though I've yet to waste a banana!

If you've survived the supply chain problem and can buy the bananas you like in various degrees of ripeness to keep you going, you still must address ripeness on a daily basis. This goes hand in hand with banana demand but basically you're always overseeing your lot for ripeness and guesstimating when the next batch will ripen and if you have enough in between all that to make it through. You contemplate how many you'll need over the foreseeable future and weigh that against the varying shades of bright green to yellow before you. Your job is to make a determination worthy of the psychic network in terms of just how yellow they will become in a given amount of time. Despite sucking at math, I find I'm fairly banana psychic but it's not fool proof.

Banana Obsession
You thought I just described banana obsession above? No, my friend. The obsession has to do with having a ripe banana or two within your grasp at all times. At any given time there is a ripe banana in my car console, my purse, my swim bag, next to my computer and so on and so forth. Of course they're not just traveling, I'm frequently eating them as well. I'm driving, I'm online writing, I'm helping with homework, you name it.

This morning I was faced with the reality of just three mint condition bananas remaining and a huge bunch of still super green bananas. OMG! What the heck happened? Those three bananas would be gone by mid-day and the other bunch was inedible. What were the banana stores like at Whole Foods and when can I fit a trip into Whole Foods? GAAAAAAAAA! I managed it after my run/swim but I was down to my last banana at the pool. I bought two big bunches and the other ones should be ready in a couple days. Whew.

Banana Complications
A friend of mine recently asked me if I'd go on a water rafting trip with him this summer. I admit my first visualization was the bananas in the raft. I'm serious. I was thinking how would I keep them in the raft and how would I keep them from getting bruised? The idea of the water rushing over them was appealing to me, no pun intended. All I could see was me and a big bunch of brightly colored bananas bobbing through the rapids. Not him, not him and me, just me and the bananas. Is that bad? He mentioned there was a base camp but holy cow - we'd be away from camp all day. I am seriously going to need to EAT during the day. He then mentioned how the ranch hands would be cooking up more food than anyone could eat at all the meals. Ahem. Cooking? I realized I'd have to pack in 3 days worth of bananas as well as the other fresh food I eat. Plunging into a cooked food camp out on the first night would be suicidal. I'd be as green as the unripe bananas on my counter hanging over the side of the raft the entire next day. Now this doesn't mean I can't travel or do things but it does bear some thought. I think I'll wait til I'm further along in the program to make any life altering decisions.

Bananas & Your Friends
Basically your friends (who aren't raw foodists or at least vegan) think you're insane. My daughter thinks I'm insane. But to your good friends they're a gift of the highest honor. I recently gave a very beautiful bunch of organic bananas from Whole Foods to Lori, my BFF, who launched her vegan lifestyle just yesterday. YAY Lori! And now I'm obsessing over her bananas, contemplating when those will be exactly ripe and when she'll need more...

Day 27 Beautiful Dresses & Stocking Up

The month is coming to a close in just a few days. I know I've lost more inches despite maybe just having lost only another pound. Bodies are so weird. I put on an article of clothing today that was formerly tight and binding and was so surprised to simply have it fit - aaaaah! I'm looking forward to the month end measure thing.



A friend of mine sent me this beautiful dress - size 8. It doesn't fit right now. In fact, it fits my daughter. Life just isn't fair sometimes. It was so stunning on her I actually cried. Heaven help me. I estimate I have two dress sizes to go before it fits. Not that long off. Even if I had to wait 3 dress sizes it'll be worth it. I've never had a gown like this. Kinda fun!

Today I stocked up on bananas, oranges, peaches, pineapple, honeydew melon, little round seedless watermelon and spinach. I bought some tangelos to use as dressing. All those things sound really good to me right now.

I'm looking forward to the new month ahead and what changes I'll enact in the next 30 days - in many realms!

Day 23 Fruit Phobia and Other Psychosis

You may not realize this, I hadn't even realized this until I entered into this, but most people are fruit phobic. Don't think so? Okay, how much fruit did you eat today? One piece? None? Do you rarely eat fruit? Why is that? It's because we've all been conditioned that it's too much SUGAR. Even the food pyramid doesn't allow for much fruit. But I bet you'll freely eat a donut - heck the grain section of the pyramid is way bigger! And you may regularly eat dessert at a restaurant if not after dinner at home frequently as well and if you're me - you want (wanted) dessert after every meal. That's right, breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks.

Well gosh, you've just got to get a grip and have more willpower! Don't you? But day after day we sadly fail. We can't help ourselves. We crave sweets like they're going out of style and as of 1999 Americans consume a little over 158 lbs of sugar a year, and the number increases every year. Even more interesting is that fruit is not part of this tally.

So, we eagerly consume 158 lbs of sugar a year - that's 13 pounds of the stuff a month or almost a half a pound a day yet I bet very few people reading my blog eat 13 lbs of fruit in a month.

The reason you crave SO MUCH sugar is we're designed to eat sweet fruit and lots of it. But, we don't allow ourselves to, so instead we consume 13 lbs a month of other sugar to try to fill the genetic need. I mean, you can't be going eating 6 bananas a day and 4 oranges and several apples and who knows what else! Who does that? That's NOT okay in our society. I've had people write me and say 6 bananas a day are waaaay too much and I'm going to do bad things to my blood sugar and become very sick. People get really passionate about it, nearly as passionate as the protein issue, which is coming up tomorrow, but no one says a word if I consume 13 lbs a month of sugar in the form of cane, beet, or corn, now do they? No, they don't.

Couple this with being a woman, and if you're a woman in this society you come up against the fact that we can never eat what we want or as much as we want or we'll be fat and to be fat in this society is the social and often professional death knell. Most women fall into this category. Yes, there are the skinny girls who can eat anything and everything and never gain and we hate you. Okay, not really - LOL - but most of us fall into the other category and my point is that we are always restricting our food in some way, all the while being out of our minds with cravings. If we don't, we weigh ungodly amounts and we suffer atrocities at every level - personal, professional, you name it. We're treated differently by men, women, doctors, lawyers - everyone - including ourselves. So, even if you refuse to 'play the game' and don't restrict yourself, most people still feel it and it's ugly.

So, here I am, able to eat as much fruit as I want and I'm having trouble with it. Why? Because of the whole frickin' paragraph above! I'm conditioned by society to NOT EAT and in particular, not eat FRUIT.

I know I'm not eating enough everyday and so I have to work at it. Imagine that! I've spent years restricting all my food but especially fruit! I'm having to work at eating all I want. Maybe Lori would say this is another one of my non-problems and she may be right as she usually is, but it's something to witness.

I know my weight stands still when I don't eat enough and I know the fact I was tired the last few days is because I haven't eaten enough, coupled with a lot of stress. I have to wrap my head around the fact I get to shed a lifetime of ugly and unfair rules about food, except I feel ill-equipped! You'd think I'd dive right in.

Conditioning runs deep so I'll have to keep working on it. I have all year to 'get it right' but hope to arrive there a little sooner than 12/31!

Day 22 Going Bananas

Seems like a good time for some interesting info on the #1 fruit in the world - Bananas.

A banana tree isn't a tree at all. It's a giant herb.

Bananas are believed by many to be the first fruit cultivated by humans. I'm not surprised at this given how primates are so obsessed with them. Include me in that.

Bananas were first introduced to the U.S. at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Celebration. They were wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents. Wow that seems pricey, but I'll take 4!

The average American consumes 28 pounds of bananas per year. I think I'll exceed that this month. You?

The banana peel is edible. Hmmm, really? I don't agree and don't see primates eating them, either. Next!

Half the people who are allergic to latex are also allergic to bananas. So, like no bananas in surgery I assume for the latex-free people as well. Bummer.

India produces the most bananas in the world. I never would have thought that.

The Cavendish banana is the most often stocked banana in stores. It has a name? Who knew?

They think the Cavendish banana will be eliminated by disease in the next 2 decades. Okay, that's scary :/

Scientists are trying to develop disease-resistant bananas. Hmm perhaps even scarier.

Chiquita was originally called the United Fruit Company. UFC? Sounds like a mens boxing/fight thing, probably good they changed it to something no one can spell.

In Uganda, bananas are such a big part of the their food source that the same word is used for both bananas and food - matooke.

Apparently Britain keeps track of banana related injuries. Again, who knew? Most of these injuries involve people slipping on banana peels.

Okay, now I ask you - how often do you see banana peels underfoot? I mean, never. I've never seen a banana peel anywhere that might have caused me injury. I've never had to watch my step to avoid becoming a banana statistic. What's up with the British and their bananas? Frankly, I wasn't even aware they had fruit in Britain much less it was causing such a ruckus that their government has to track their banana related injuries. ROFLMAO!!!

And a shout out to my skinny bitch friend Jsallee who said, "Who came up with that saying, 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away.'? I say we change it to a banana a day. What do you think?"

LOL! Jsallee, I agree! For anyone wanting to jump me for the skinny bitch comment - she writes a blog based on the Skinny Bitch cookbook - Becoming a Skinny Bitch. Check it out :)