Eat Fruit, Be Happy!

I know it's been a ridiculously long time since I posted on this blog - ridiculous and outrageous things have been happening. It's been wonderful, actually, but is calling for a change - a change in identity, a change in blogging, a change for the better, a change for the best.

The purpose of this post today is to let my blog followers know that as of midnight on July 1, 2009, this blog will be no more. I will export and archive the posts (in case there were any so thrilling that you want to see them again!) and delete the blog! This is an exciting step for me, because the other purpose of this post is to direct you to my new blog:

http://eatfruitbehappy.blogspot.com/

I'm very excited about this and all of my new endeavors, and I hope to see you there!!

With love,

rebeccaj

100% 811 Day 6

I've been off-blog for awhile, but not really off-program. Well, sort of off-program. I slacked off during the "recovery week" 2 weeks ago, and then struggled to get back in the groove last week, and this week, I'm off to a rockin' good start, except that I'm too tired tonight to do my Plyometrics. That workout is so friggin hard!!! And I've got swing dance class tonight, and I ran this morning and took a super-mega-long walk in the park after spending an hour at the pool in the sunshine! So I'm all happy and sunshiney, but I'm also pretty tired and want to save something for dance class.

The big thing right now is that I'm back to 100%. Something clicked. We were having a great chat on RawFu about addiction, and I recognized (again) how addicted I am to certain cooked foods, and how it doesn't take much, just one bite, and I'm hooked. My behavior with those foods is dangerous - I hide it, I sneak it in the house, I'll steal from my BF's stash if he's got something I'll eat, I binge on it, I throw it away and retrieve it from the garbage, I'll go out of my way to go get some if I don't have any in the house, I'll even go to different stores so no one selling it to me thinks I'm going to eat all of that at once! This is not normal, healthy behavior. This is a junkie getting a fix! And I realized, being full of crap and disgusted with myself is NOT the way I want to live my life!! what's more, I realized I was at a turning point: I could quit raw - give up the illusion that I am a raw foodist, let go of all my knowledge, stop trying and go back to a SAD vegan diet - or I could quit cooked, once and for all. Here's the picture each option painted:

I give up eating raw. Not that I give up eating fresh fruits and veg, I just give up the illusion that those foods make up a significant portion of my diet. Instead, I eat whatever vegan foods I want, which includes a lot of chips and bread and soy products. Eventually, over time, perhaps I even get sloppy with the vegan part and start eating dairy and eggs again and go to being a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I gain about 20 pounds, maybe more. I don't really have the energy to exercise, but I do, because I'm constantly trying to lose weight, but it doesn't budge. I look terrible, and the ageing that I've been so successfully avoiding, catches up. I don't have the energy to go out and adventure, and I don't have any sexual energy either, plus I hate the way my body looks and feels. This has a negative impact on my relationship, so I lose that too. My life is in a tailspin, I'm incredibly unhappy.

I give up eating cooked. Wow! All of a sudden, I have boundless energy that has been released from somewhere deep within. I lose those pesky last 10 pounds and keep it off. I exercise not just every day, but all the time. Sleep like a baby. Love my body, feel like the sexiest thing on the planet, and my BF appreciates this! Even more, he appreciates how happy and full of life I am, and how ready I am for any adventure he dreams up. He loves his little fruit bat! What's more, my life is so full of integrity. Top to bottom, nothing is out of alignment, because I am so clear about my direction and my inner authority.

Gee - between the 2 options, it wasn't a hard determination. And the first one is not much of an exaggeration. It's just a mild extrapolation from where my life is when I'm eating mid-raw.

So - April 15, 2009 was the last time I ate cooked food. I'm not changing the date.

P90X Challenge Day 17

2 weeks under my belt, and yet my belt remains unchanged. what gives? I'm ready to see some results, and I haven't seen any yet.

That's not true. I'm a lot stronger already. I just completed my 3rd session of the arms and shoulders video, and the first week I used the 3 pound weights, the 2nd week the 5 pounds, and today I used the 8's. that's some rapid progress! I'm also getting much greater depth in my pushups, and I've started doing the ab ripper this week like a good girl. so, I am seeing results, just not in the mirror or in my jeans.

It's getting easier, and so therefore it's getting harder. I'm increasing my strength and range of motion, so I'm able to start to get into the intensity of the program. up to this point, I've done what I could and then waited until it was time to do the next thing, and now I'm working the whole time. If only I could finish a Plyo!

P90X Challenge - Day 7

I've made it through a whole week of doing the P90X! I'm not quite done yet - I've still got my KenpoX video to do today, but other than that I've done all the workouts and I've actually survived. Barely. I swear, I was so sore yesterday by the end of the day. I feel a lot better today. I actually rode my bicycle this morning, and that's my next phase of my challenge. In addition to all this yoga and exercise, to ride my bicycle around the neighborhood instead of the car or the scooter. That means that soon, very soon, I am going to brave the big hard world out there and ride my bike up to Whole Foods to go grocery shopping.

I've wanted to do that for the 2 years I've lived here, but there have been 2 things stopping me: once you cross the pedestrian bridge over the river, you've got 2 big obstacles when you're a scaredey-cat girl like me, and that's the traffic on Lamar and the HILL you have to climb. In traffic. There is a sidewalk, but it's not a wide one, and that makes me nervous, too. So I'm going to have to walk my bike up the hill, which increases the overall walking time of the trip, but I suppose in time it will get easier. I'd love to be at least a little more like DurianRider and say "this is my car" and point to my bicycle with a trailer hitched on back. In time, in time.

I had some weird cheats yesterday, speaking of DurianRider. He'd never cheat. I wonder what his transition process was like? He seems like the kind of extremist who can go 100% no problems. And I'm not saying "he's an extremist" in a negative way, I totally admire the dude, I think he's incredible - he just seems to have that hard-core personality type that doesn't need socialization and external affirmation and comforts, and who can look at his emotional struggles and just say, "eff it, I don't give a f_-_" and man, there just aren't a whole lot of people out there like that. Most of us need it a little easier, a little softer. So I'm sure that DurianRider would look at my cheats yesterday and he'd be like, "what the f_-_ did you do that for? that's not FOOD. That's garbage and not fit for human consumption!" But it did taste good. lol.

So I'm still doing tiny cheats, but not for long.

Day 6 update

I'm really tired. Like, mega, mega tired. It's the 2nd day of my cycle, which may have something to do with it. It's been an intense week. I'm choosing to make today my rest day instead of tomorrow. I thought I'd have way more energy this weekend, and I just don't. I did good to take my walk. I'd like to get to bed early and get up nice and early every day and get more early morning time in; that's more productive for me.

I allowed myself some food "cheats" today. I don't really know why, I just did, and that hasn't helped anything. I feel better when I keep it clean.

P90X Challenge Day 6

I'm wrapping up this first week of the P90X - 811 challenge, and I feel GREAT. I really do. I'm still sore, but nowhere near as incapacitated as I was the first few days. Yesterday I did a power yoga class in addition to doing the Legs and Back vid for the first time - 2 new things, both fairly leg-intense, both about an hour of fairly leg-intense work - and then attempted to walk about 2 miles to go to an outdoor concert. Ummmm... Nuh-uh. My legs turned to jelly. I felt like I was walking through water. I felt like I was riding a bicycle, without the bicycle. It was weird. I needed to go home, be boring, and not move my legs for awhile.

So what I'm doing now with my P90X challenge is that I'm doing yoga every day, not just on the yoga days or the rest days. I'm doing this for a few reasons. 1) because doing yoga is what I do, or at least it has been, and the reason I'm doing the P90X is to help improve my yoga practice. So it's like an athlete doing strength work. I want to be an athlete - a yoga athlete. 2) my muscles naturally go tight, and so by doing extra flexibility work, I'm hoping to counteract any shortening and tightening of the muscles. 3) Tony talks about "X-ing it up" in the videos, so to me, that means you keep doing the rest of your physical life! You don't just stop because of the P90X, you keep going. So if you're a runner, keep running. If you're a dancer, keep dancing. In order to be able to do the P90X anyway, you've got to already be in pretty good shape, so keep going. Keep it up.

What I'm noticing now, after the initial deep soreness and tightness is wearing off - big improvements already. I can squat deeper, lunge deeper. I'm moving more into my range of motion. I think my recovery time is speeding up - I don't feel super sore this morning at all. And I feel like my flexibility is improving.

And! Saturday morning is weigh-in time! Woo-hoo!

Last week (pre-P90X, still eating cooked): weight 120.5, bf 25.5%
3.20 (Day 6 P90x-811 Challenge): weight 117.8, bf 23.5%

2.7 pounds lost!!! bf dropped 2 whole % points!

When I was setting up my scale, I couldn't figure out what one of the little icons meant, so I just set it. Got on, weighed myself, and it came up with 14% bodyfat! holy moly! I thought my scale was defective, and then I realized that my scale thought I was a Man, baby!

P90X Challenge Day 5

Yesterday was Day 4, and it was an "off" day, sort of. The only workout I had to do was yoga, so that was just normal! And fun. I put together my own practice and did it at home. I thought I would go to a studio, but I wanted to try out what I had composed, and I liked it very much.

This morning, I am running out the door to hit a Sunstone class - I want to try their 90 minute Earth class, and this is the only only only time! rats!