100 Squats a Day 30-Day Challenge

Hi!  I'm still here!  Things have been a little crazy lately, and honestly, I just haven't felt like blogging.  To update everyone regarding my previous post, I did indeed pass my NARM!  I am now a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM).  And not only did I pass my NARM, I kicked its butt with a score of 89!  Not too bad, eh?

In less happy news, I had to re-home my dog, Panda "Ru" Bear.  To keep a long story short, he bit my 14-month-old daughter in the ear and drew blood.  This was not a case of "toddler tormenting the dog", either.  She was eating a banana, he wanted her banana, she wouldn't give it to him, and he attacked her.  She was absolutely terrified, and her ear was bruised and bleeding (it's mostly all healed now--yay breastmilk and salt water for wound cleaning!).  He's always been aggressive with children, growling and baring teeth, but never like this. :-(  I found him a forever home with a wonderful couple who has two other little dogs and a few cats, and he is settling in nicely.  I can't really explain with words how much I miss him.  He's been a part of my life for almost 8 years.  He stayed by my side and comforted me while I went through some pretty difficult times.  He was my baby.  But he simply couldn't live here anymore...the risk was too great.  I've wanted to write a blog post about feeling emotions while eating a low fat raw vegan diet...because man, there's no hiding from them when you don't drug yourself with fat-laden, difficult to digest foods.  But, losing him is still too painful at the moment.  Maybe another time.

As far as our move to Sarasota...well, it is absolutely incredible here.  We LOVE it!  After a couple weeks of cold weather, the sunshine is back and warm on the skin.  I've been gardening a lot lately, and my plants seem quite happy (which is a nice change from every other garden I've had).  My little raised bed has romaine lettuce, kale, baby spinach, oregano, basil, grape tomato, zucchini, and scallions.  And a little over a week ago, my husband and I went to a friend's hobby banana garden, dug up a bunch of finger banana "pups", and I transplanted 9 of them in our yard.  One of them isn't gonna make it, but the other 8 are growing like champs!  Then, a couple days ago, a wonderful friend of mine (who is going to be hiking the Appalachian Trail with her partner--powered by a plant-based diet!) gifted us with some beautiful plants including a 3-year-old "Lemon Zest" mango tree, a 1-year-old avocado tree, 2 baby mamey sapote saplings, and some cilantro and microgreens.  Overflowing with green abundance! :-)

Anyway, on to the squats!  Ted Carr, a high carb raw vegan athlete, has challenged THE WORLD to do 100 squats a day for 30 days!  The newest challenge began today, April 1st, and Nick and I decided to go for it.  We took photos of each other before we began our squats, and will be taking a profile photo every day for 30 days so we can create a progression video at the end of our challenge.  We are really stoked about this!  I've watched the body changes that other squatters have experienced and needless to say, some of them are absolutely phenomenal.  I've been walking for about 45 minutes daily since moving here to Sarasota, and Nick has started attending yoga 4-5 days per week.  But this is the first high-intensity workout that either of us have done, so even though it's exciting, it's a little scary, too!

April 1, 2013
Day 1 of 100 Squats a Day 30-Day Challenge

Missy's Before Photos
Scale this morning says 117 lbs (5'1.5").










Nick's Before Photos. Scale this morning says 175 lbs.







 

So how'd we do?  Did we make it?  Did we do all 100?  Or did we collapse into a crying puddle after 40 squats? 

Well, we did it!  And neither of us did too bad!  Nick's time today was 3:12 and mine was 3:38.  It was HARD.  Man.  It was hard.  I had to take a couple breaks.  My legs felt like rubber afterwards, but the soreness didn't set in until later in the evening.  I feel like tomorrow is going to be way harder than today, but I'm determined to do it.

At the end of the week, Nick and I will be filming videos of our squatting to share on the 100 Squats a Day Facebook page to get helpful tips and critiquing on our form.  I'll also be blogging about our progress weekly.  And at the end of the 30 days, I'll post our new photos and stats, and share the progression video. 

On the food side of things, I'm going overt-fat-free for the next 30 days to help re-balance my candida levels, and Nick is doing it for a week or two to support me until I can look at avocado and tahini without salivating.  Because of both this and the intensity of squatting, we're going to have to majorly amp up our caloric intake.  We'll probably both be shooting for 3500 calories per day from ripe, sweet fruity carbohydrates.  That's a lot of mangoes, folks.  Mmm... :-)

The End of Our 4-Week Raw Vegan Challenge

Yesterday was the last day of our 4-week Raw Vegan Challenge! And what a great day it was! Nick, my mom, and I all went to Blue Springs and spent the day there. We brought a delicious Kickass Kale Salad and some lovely mangoes! We drank coconut water, jumped off a high dock into the spring, and canoed lazily down the river. It was a beautiful day.

Nick and I both enjoyed our Raw Adventure so much! The foods were all incredible and the results were just amazing. We wanted to share how we felt about this whole raw vegan thing, so we documented our thoughts below.

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NICK'S THOUGHTS

So, where to begin? We have just completed our 4 week challenge of 100% raw foods...about halfway through we changed it to follow more of the 811 diet (80% of cals from carbs, 10% of cals from fat, 10% of cals from protein). Over the course of the month, I went from 202 lbs. to 186 lbs, a change of 16 lbs. My skin has cleared up on my face and back. I have felt clear headed at work and have had high energy. The foods we have eaten have been very good every day (except the second day, too many mushed up foods). There are many positives to this diet, and lifestyle. As far as I can tell there are almost no negatives to this diet at the same time. It just feels natural and right. For now I want to continue with these eating habits; I do not know if I am ready to 100% commit myself to a completely raw diet, but I will be taking it a week at a time. It feels like a huge change to me, but looking back over this month it hasn’t been hard at all. I don’t know why I am hesitant to commit myself to this permanently, I love the foods, the energy, and being so clearheaded. This feels biologically right to me. I suppose changing what you have known all your life is a difficult choice, coming into this I was happily an omnivore. Going from the Standard American Diet to completely raw and vegan feels like night and day… maybe it’s the change I need. Looking at my thoughts it seems like it should be plain which path I should take. I will give it some time. For now nothing is changing; I will stay with the 811 plan.

Missy's Thoughts

Alright, my turn. I’ll start with the physical stuff. During our Raw Vegan 30-Day Challenge, I lost a total of eleven pounds (going from 140 to 129 pounds). My skin has cleared up, but not quite as much as Nick’s (I still have some blackheads on my face). I have a lot more energy and motivation to get things done. My addiction to refined sugar is GONE. That is probably the best thing I could ever have done for myself…breaking my sugar addiction. Even though we have raw cacao in the house, my chocolate addiction seems to be gone, as well. When we go grocery shopping, chocolate bars, cookies, etc. don’t even really register as “food” anymore. Maybe that’s because they’re not.

As for the emotional stuff…well, it feels good to be vegan again. I’ve been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for about seven and a half years, but I was vegan for the first six months. When I started eating eggs and dairy again, I always bought free-range/organic eggs and always organic dairy as much as possible. But whenever we went out to eat, I didn’t concern myself with whether or not the eggs or dairy were organic. And there was always guilt. When I first went vegetarian all those years ago, I did it because I simply did not want to be responsible for the death of these intelligent animals. Yet, by continuing to consume eggs and dairy products, I felt quite the hypocrite. It is so freeing to know that no animals are dying for the food that I eat.

I also feel like Nick and I have gotten closer throughout this past month. It’s been so much fun to create and eat these new foods together. We have only gone out to eat once (and got big ol’ salads!) since beginning this adventure, so we spend more time together enjoying our meals at home. It feels meditative and intimate. He’s been my support person throughout this whole thing, and I’m not sure I could have done it without him. It’s just so nice to be with someone who is spontaneous and will try new things with you. I love that man.

So, I will be continuing a high-fruit low-fat raw vegan diet permanently (unless the Zombie Apocalypse happens…then I might eat cooked rice or possibly human brains). There is simply no way I could go back to eating the way I was before. I just feel too good, emotionally and physically. I’m really happy! This adventure has literally changed my life!

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And so I don't end this post without including a bit of food porn, our dinner was an amazing mango salsa salad. The ingredients in the mango salsa were ripe champagne mangoes, tomatoes, red bell peppers, one jalapeno pepper, purple onion, garlic, celery, cilantro, and lemon juice...all mixed up in a big bowl. Then we mixed in the zucchini noodles and served it all over baby spinach. It was just incredible. Pure, simple food. It doesn't get any better than this, folks.

Day 20 and 21 - Happy Easter, Happy Spring, Happy Sunday!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day today, no matter what holiday (or no) you celebrate! ♥

I'm going to combine days 20 and 21 for simplicity's sake, mostly because I'm behind on blogging again. Also, Nick had to work today, and I went to my mom's house for Easter, so I didn't get to make any intricate recipes. But I do have a few photos to share.

Hmm...and I also want to mention that while I am trying my best to document breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I am not documenting any snacks at all. Nick and I eat lots of fruit between meals, and Nick snacks on trailmix at work almost every night. Because we're eating so much fruit lately, and fruit kinda speaks for itself, I'm really only documenting and taking photos of the meals that took some time to put together and make.

As for caloric intake, I am consuming about 1600 calories per day at this point, while Nick is consuming 2000-2200. Some days, depending on if we eat a meal high in nuts/seeds, avocado, olive oil, or coconut, we might get a LOT more calories...but it's averaging out to be the numbers above. How are we getting this many calories by just eating fruit and veggies? We've been gradually increasing our portion sizes. When we have fruit, we don't just have an apple or an orange. For example, I ate three mangos and an orange for breakfast this morning while Nick ate a smoothie that contained three bananas, a cup of frozen strawberries, a cup of frozen blueberries, and two cups of chard leaves. It ended up being a full quart of smoothie! And when we eat salads, we don't just have a dinky little salad on a salad plate. We eat a MIXING BOWL full of salad EACH. Yum. :)

This is a prickly pear:



Nick and I bought it from our local grocery store a couple days ago, and tried to eat it for breakfast yesterday. Only, it tasted very bland, and I'm pretty sure I got an itty bitty cactus thorn stuck in the tip of my tongue. Also, it was full of very hard seeds, albeit edible. We didn't like the prickly pear, and so it went in the compost heap. We ate tons of mango for breakfast instead.



Yesterday's Lunch: Just Your Average Salad. Romaine, baby spinach, avocado, tomato, scallions, purple cabbage, sugar snap peas, lemon juice, olive oil, salt & pepper, nutritional yeast. Yum.



Yesterday's Dinner: Green Goddess Smoothie! We blended up four bananas, a cup of frozen strawberries, a few handfuls of baby spinach, and a little bit of cinnamon. We didn't get a photo, but it was tasty. :)

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So today was Easter Sunday, and Nick had to work. I was very bummed that we couldn't spend the day together (probably not as bummed as Nick, though, since he's the one who had to work!), but I did have a wonderful time visiting my mom, her husband, my brother and his girlfriend, and my little nephew.



Before Nick went to work and I left for Mom's, though, we had breakfast. Nick's was that kickass smoothie I mentioned earlier in the post, and mine was the amazing three champagne mangos. Sooooo good!! Then, because Nick would be at work all day and wouldn't get a lunch break, I packed him lots of fruit to eat throughout the day: two peeled and segmented oranges, two sliced kiwis, two apples, two pluots (cross between plum and apricot), and a little baggie of trailmix. He later reported that the fruit was yummy and held him over til he got out of work!

Lunch: Kickass Kale and Chard Salad. I brought my own "Easter Dinner" to Mom's house because they were having a traditional dinner of meat and potatoes, and I knew I'd get hungry eventually. This is key, folks! Bring your own food to things like this and you won't have to worry about whether or not there will be food for you to eat! Anyway, the salad was kale, chard, one garlic clove pressed through the garlic press, the juice of a large lemon, and a little sea salt--all of it squished and mixed with my hands to help the lemon juice break down the cell wall of the greens. This salad was very yummy, and my mom loved it, too!! I also brought two oranges with me, and then Mom gave me an Easter basket filled with fresh fruit. I stayed full until dinner!

Dinner: Zucchini Pasta Pesto. Not much to say about this one other than the fact that it was AMAZING. The only thing Nick and I will do differently next time is make more of it!!



And off to plan the week's meals! Hope everyone had a great day! :)

Day 17 -- Still a day behind!

Yesterday was day 17, but I was too exhausted to blog last night. And I didn't feel good. Wanna know why? Because I didn't listen to my body or my intuition.

So our local grocery store sells these shelled English Peas. And every time I see them, I'm like, "Wow! I bet those are crisp and sweet!" So I buy them. And then when I actually eat them, they are not crisp and sweet. They are hard and bitter. So I drown them in coconut vinegar (which you can get super cheap at your local Asian grocery store, btw), nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. And then, because I have a thing for vinegar, I eat a TON of them.

And so there I was...last night, bored, waiting for Nick to get home, hungry but not wanting to eat another banana because I knew Nick would want them when he got home and I was worried we'd run out before we could get more. So I went to the fridge and looked at the peas. Now, something inside me actually said, "Don't eat those. They are hard to digest. They don't actually taste very good. You're going to get a bellyache." And then what did I do? I rinsed the peas, put them in a mason jar, smothered them in the salt, vinegar, pepper, nutritional yeast, and then started eating them with a spoon right out of the jar. I gobbled down half the jar before I realized what I had done and immediately regretted it. I had heartburn from Hades and my stomach hurt.

No more English Peas for me.

Breakfast: Yesterday's breakfast was almost half of a golden, juicy, sweet pineapple and about two cups of purple grapes. It actually took Nick and I about an hour to get through all that delicious fruit, but I'll tell ya, it was AMAZING. I love pineapple. Ripe pineapple and mango are probably my two favorite fruits... after lychee, of course. We didn't get a photo because I was running a little late for school. I think I'm going to buy another pineapple today. Mmm! :)

Lunch: Strawberry Mango Salad. This was such a beautiful salad! And the jicama added amazing crisp flavor and some heartiness. The pumpkin seeds were a perfect touch. We didn't add the avocado because I wanted to save the only ripe one we had on hand for dinner. We will definitely make this salad again (maybe today because we still have half a jicama left!). Oh, I didn't use any agave in the dressing...Nick and I are finding agave to be too sweet for us lately.



Dinner: Mexi-Fiesta Soup. Sound familiar? That's because it was the first raw dinner we ever made! And it was so tasty that we decided to make it again. Only this time, we forgot the onions (which was fine because it was just as tasty without them) and used a bit more corn.



I am finding myself getting a little impatient with weight loss. I know I am steadily losing weight at a healthy rate (about 1.5 to 2 pounds per week), but I want to hurry and get to my body's healthy weight so I can stop worrying about weight loss and start getting my body to its optimal state of health. But see there? I'm making excuses. Why do I have to wait to lose more weight before I begin building strength in my body? I don't. If I want to build strength, I need to start now. It's so easy to say, "I'll start doing ______ when _______ happens." That is not the way to reach your goals. That is the way to drift further and further from them.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm going to go clean up the house, take a shower, go get the rest of the week's groceries, and then go walk my dog and get some exercise. I think I'll do some yoga and attempt push-ups today. That sounds like a good goal! :)

Day 16

Yesterday was day 16 of our raw food challenge and day 2 of LFRV. I had a paper due for my breastfeeding class today, so I did not get a chance to blog yesterday. But there are definitely a few things I'd like to mention about living a low-fat raw vegan lifestyle.

Alright, remember how I said a few posts back that the main concept of LFRV was to get 80% of your calories from simple carbohydrates (fruits), 10% from fats (avocado, coconut, oils), and 10% from proteins (nuts and seeds)...? So, that's a TON of fruit. I've been using Fitday.com to track our caloric intake, temporarily, in order to make sure we are eating enough calories to prevent low energy and lethargy. And I've quickly realized that we need to eat a WHOLE BUNCH MORE fruit than we originally anticipated. We've bought the fruit...and we're eating it. But here's some things to note for those interested in going LFRV:

1) You will be ravenous shortly after eating your huge fruit meal (because fruit, when eaten by itself, will digest very quickly).

2) No problem, you'll just eat more fruit, right?

3) Well, yes you should, however, it's simply not that easy to eat all that fruit if you're not used to it!! Yesterday, I thought I'd die if I had to eat one more ounce of sweet fruit! I wanted salt, vinegar, and hot sauce to counteract my sugar-abused tastebuds.

4) Keep at it, though. Eat those giant fruit meals (following good food combining rules) and eventually your tastebuds will start craving all that delicious fruit sugar, your stomach will expand to fit all that bulk fiber and water, and your energy levels will soar. This is the theory of the 80-10-10 diet.

So how is it working for us so far? Like I said, it is difficult for us, at this moment, to consume such large amounts of sweet fruits. However, we are only on day 3 of our LFRV lifestyle, so we anticipate that this will get easier. Our energy levels are very good, though...and really, really stable. I was worried about this. I thought if I ate too much fruit, my blood sugar would crash (like it used to do when I ate candy, cookies, chocolate, brownies, or cake), but this has not proven to be the case at all! Also, Nick and I are still steadily losing weight and our skin looks fantastic (especially Nick's...he's always had pretty nice skin, but now he has virtually no blemishes/blackheads/pimples/etc. at all!). I am loving this so far! :)

Breakfast: Green Goddess Smoothie. Only, this smoothie turned out BROWN instead of green because we used rainbow (mostly red) chard. Haha! We blended about 7 rainbow chard leaves, 2 ripe bananas, 2 ripe pears, about one cup of blueberries, and some fresh mint leaves out of our garden. And we each drank a whole pint of it each! It was absolutely delicious, but I'm bummed because I didn't get a photo of the dark brownish purplish earthy color. Next time! :)

Lunch: Banana-Heavy Sweet Fruits. Mmm...the custard-like texture and flavor of banana mixed with the nectar-sweet flavor of the mango and the slight tartness of the fresh blueberries made this one amazing lunch! Nick and I had one and a half bananas each, split the honey mango, and split about a cup of blueberries. Halfway through, though, I had to force myself to keep eating. I was full and my tongue said, 'No more sweet stuff!', but I knew I needed to finish to get enough calories for the day. So I finished it all, and it truly was delicious, and I was proud of myself for finishing. This non-fruit-eater is learning to love her fruits, though it is taking time and patience.



Dinner: Mmm...SUSHI!! Lots of sushi!! So we've been experimenting with rice substitutes to put in our sushi. You may remember that when we first had sushi two weeks ago, we used parsnip rice (fresh parsnip processed in the food processor). It made a lovely sushi, but definitely had a parsnip taste. Then, last week, we made our sushi with Raw Pecan and Swiss Chard Pate. It was very yummy, but far too rich for a sushi, and the pate overpowered all the other tastes and textures. So last night, we tried raw daikon (an asian radish) processed in the food processor as a sort of rice. And it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. When processed up, the daikon smells a little funky...slightly like old cabbage...and the taste once again overpowered the rest of the flavors in the sushi. So, we rolled one more sushi roll each, and used plain ol' sweet clover (you can totally use alfalfa) sprouts as the 'rice bed'. And that, my friends, was absolutely perfect!! It made a very light, crisp, tasty sushi, and all the flavors (plus the tamari and wasabi, mmm...) blended very nicely together. We will keep experimenting, but so far, the sprouts take the cake! (The photo below is the sushi with the daikon 'rice'.)



Speaking of sprouts, here is an update on our sprout-growing experiment. So half the quinoa sprouted, and the other half didn't. The raw sesame seeds did not sprout. Both the quinoa and sesame attracted FRUIT FLIES. Majorly. We keep our windows open most days, and the little suckers would crawl right through the window screen and then into our sprout jars! I had to keep opening the lids to get them out, and then washing the sprouts. But finally, I gave up. I just couldn't handle the fruit flies anymore. And I just got really wigged out by the fact that there were probably fruit fly eggs in our quinoa and sesame seeds. So both went into the compost heap. :(



However, the green lentil sprouts grew like CRAZY and did not attract even a single fruit fly! So I harvested them yesterday and have two more batches starting now, and one batch of red lentils (they are split like split-peas, so they may not sprout, but what the heck, I'm trying it anyway).



I'll be back later tonight with today's meals! Gonna try to make it to the farmer's market between classes to get some fresh, local, yummy produce. Hope everyone has a great day!

Day 15

Today was our first day experimenting with Low-Fat Raw Vegan (or 80-10-10).

Successes: Ate lots of sweet, juicy fruits. Felt great for most of the day. Took Panda for a nice, brisk walk.

Challenges: Did not eat enough of sweet, juicy fruits. Lost energy in the early evening and am really, really tired now.

The concept we're trying to follow is two big fruit meals, snack on fruit between meals, drink lots of water, and eat a big, green dinner that may or may not contain nuts, seeds, or fatty fruits (avocado, coconut).

We realized today that a couple bananas, an avocado, some berries, a pear, and an orange simply ain't gonna cut it. Both Nick and I were very hungry throughout the day, but either ran out of time to eat (before going to work) or ran out of ripe fruits!!

So, to solve these dilemmas:

1) We're going to keep three bunches of bananas in the house at all times, at different levels of ripeness. One bunch will have some brown spots and be totally ripe and ready to eat now. The second bunch will be completely yellow, ready to have some brown spots in a day or two. And the third bunch will be greenish-yellow. That way, we will never run out of bananas.

2) We're going to keep some dried Medjool dates in the cars, so we have something quick to snack on in case of lack-of-fruit emergencies. (I consider dates to be either once-in-a-while dessert food or emergency fare.)

3) We're going to buy twice or three times as much fruit as we bought this week. I solved this one today by going to a couple different grocery stores and buying another bunch of (ripe) bananas, another bunch of grapes, 6 navel oranges, and 2 ripe avocados. That, plus the other fruit we bought yesterday, should hold us off til Wednesday.

4) We're going to eat more fruit.

Breakfast: Nick's breakfast was one large mango, a banana, and a cup and a half of organic frozen mixed berries. My breakfast was a cucumber, a large ripe tomato, a cup of grapes, and the juice of one Valencia orange. (For the LFRV or 811 diet, neither of our breakfasts contained a sufficient amount of food. We'd need to double that.)





Lunch: Nick's lunch was a cucumber, tomato, onion salad with a tiny bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and also a pear, an orange, and about one and a half cups of grapes. My lunch was a banana, 2 cups of coconut water/juice, 2 Medjool dates, a Navel orange, and about half a cup of fresh blueberries. (No photos of lunch, oops.)

Nick bonsai'd another tree today! This one is a little azalea bush. I like the shape of it. :)



Snack: Nick brought about 3/4 cup of trailmix to work and ate it this evening. I snacked on another banana and a small handful of trailmix.

Dinner: Guacamole Salad. We were both absolutely ravenous by dinner time. I made the guacamole and then put it on top of romaine, baby spinach, and sunflower greens with a little bit of coconut vinegar. We had HUGE plates of it, and it was just delicious. Then Nick had an orange and a banana for dessert. I am too full from dinner to eat dessert.



Tomorrow, we're going to eat a lot more fruit! Good night! :)

Day 6

Since I've already made two other raw blog posts today, I'm going to keep this one simple. Raw food good. Yum.

Breakfast: Pineapple Chunks with Cashew Cream. Delicious. Satisfying. Very filling.



Lunch: Sunflower Sprout Salad. No recipe for this one...I enjoy creating tasty, colorful salads. I simply combined baby spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, corn, red bell peppers, sunflower seeds, sunflower sprouts, nutritional yeast, balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil in a big bowl, mixed it well, and served it up. I love a good salad, and this one was really tasty. Nick loved the dressing!



Dinner: Spicy Gazpacho. Well, the original recipe actually wasn't spicy, but I wanted spice, so I added half a medium jalapeno pepper and some chili powder. I also used about five sundried tomato halves in place of one of the raw tomatoes. Our avocado had gone bad, but we did top the soup with some fresh parsley from our garden. I drizzled a little olive oil on Nick's soup, too. It was zesty and savory. Really yummy. I do prefer my gazpacho not entirely blended, though, so next time I will only blend half the ingredients, and then chop the rest and mix it into the soup.



Dessert: Banana Soft Serve Ice Cream with Raw Chocolate Sauce. Umm...I don't really have the words to describe this. FOLKS, THIS STUFF MADE ICE CREAM. Use a food processor, not a blender, and make yourself some DELICIOUS, CREAMY, DAIRY-FREE, SOY-FREE, PRESERVATIVE-FREE ICE CREAM. I'm still a little in shock about this one. Nick's response was, "Really? I mean...really??" Because, seriously, this is what the ice cream industry does NOT want you to know. This dessert was incredible.



And now, off to bed with a full and happy tummy. :)