Chocolate

I love chocolate! Today was a good day for chocolate. After church we ate the Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake that I made. Yum. Being in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I think they were surprised that you could make a cheesecake out of something other than cheese. This was the Black Forrest cheesecake recipe that I found on the Sunny Raw Kitchen Blogspot. 

For dinner tonight I made a yummy soup. I went to the store with my mom and just picked things that sounded good to me. I knew that there was a juicer and a food processor at my parents home so soup was a good idea. I got dill, avocado, tomatoes, green onions and zucchini. I juiced some carrot and put the other ingredients in as well as some spinach, garlic, salt, a bit of tahini, cayenne and mushrooms. I topped it with torn nori, green onion, mushrooms, sprouts, a couple avo chunks and a cherry tomato. Yum! I think my dad even liked it. He asked me if this was good for him! Hehehe.

I had a great day with family and as I left their house there was a mist over the field. It had rained all day and become warmer throughout the day and right there at the end the sun came out. It was set as I left. 

xo,

Elizabeth

Home again!

I'm back! I'm Engaged! My trip to Italy was fabulous. I had the most amazing time with my boyfriend/fiance and my friends who came along for a week. I really loved showing my friends around the city and enjoying long Italian meals. I did well with eating salads everywhere we went. They were good and I brought along raw crackers and even some raw pizza that I made one night. It worked out well. 

For Easter Sunday we went to a friends house. There were six of us. I just made my own food. The roast lamb, pheasant, potatoes, spinach quiche, crostini, and home made biscotti looked and smelled amazing, but I was prepared with some raw spaghetti and an avocado! I even made a raw cheesecake and was happy that everyone loved it!

I went to the gym for yoga today and was finally able to weigh. I lost about 22 lbs since I started my juice feast. Pretty amazing. 

I haven't been doing as well as I thought I would since I have been home. I haven't been making juice every morning like I thought I would. I only have once so far! I am planning to juice all day on Monday. I think I need it to help get me on track. I have been eating all raw but feel that I've been eating too much since I got back from Italy. My tummy feels overly full when I eat. I am not sure how or why I am doing this. I thought it was just a pms sort of thing. I was thinking I would get my period and it would be over but it hasn't come yet. We'll see what happens.

I made a big raw chocolate cherry cheesecake for my church for tomorrow. It is birthday Sunday and my mom asked me to make the cake for her. I will share pictures soon when I take them. I can't wait to bit into it! Yum!

I have been having a lot of interesting salads that my friend has been making with papaya seeds and the meat blended for dressing. Delicious! The papaya seeds taste like radishes. I love them. I made a fruit salad for dinner tonight with papaya, mango, strawberry, goji berries, dried mulberries, and chia seeds soaked in fresh squeezed orange juice. I saved the papaya seeds for my lunch tomorrow. I can't wait. 

Well, I am still feeling jet lagged and tired so I am going to bed.

Buona notte (I miss speaking Italian!)

xo,

Elizabeth

Better the second time around..or third

Last day of transitioning and doing it in style. Italian style that is. It's been a Raw spaghetti day for me again. It was so good and I had enough left to make lunch and diner of it. I loved it. The second picture was after adding my "parmasan" nutritional yeast.

Today I decided that the flavor would be better to put the mushrooms, olives, spinach, sauce, and noodles all together and let the noodles soak up the flavor. Last night the dish was a little bland by adding the noodles to the sauce right before eating and having all the mushrooms and olives not mixed in already. Lunch however was an amazing flavor sensation. I was so happy with it. It was hard to believe that is was raw and also that I was eating this delicious dish.

 I was so happy and hungry come dinner as well to return to this dish. I just added some sprouts, some extra spinach leaves and a few olives for presentation. Perfetto!

I had a wonderful day of cleaning and packing my things. I also had visits from three friends, the last of which was my juice feasting partner who will be stopping her feast come Monday. I am very excited for her. She wasn't excited to stop but when she saw my food pictures she knew she would be ready. I am very excited for her. We have both experienced so much and so much the same. It is so strange to think about all the juice feasters out there and how they all experience the same effects around the same days. My friend knew that if I was experiencing something one day, she would be 9 days later.

Can't wait to get into full scale raw food mode. There are so many recipes out there to try and so much to make up for myself! I better stop talking about it, I am starting to drool and feel hungry and it is too late for that.

Ciao a tutti!

Elizabeth

Last day of feast breaking! I meant to do a day by day of this last six days but time slips away and I find myself too tired and up too late each night. 

It's been really good. The first two prune days had me hating prunes. The first time I ate them it was swell but after that it went down hill. They gave me so much gas and loose bms that were constant throughout the day. It was really uncomfortable. 

On the first fruit day, I ate prunes and some strawberries as well as a big juice but I did a liver flush that day so I stopped eating and drinking after 2pm. I skipped the 6pm epsom salts drink because I had been going to the bathroom so much. At 8pm I did the epsom salts. Yuck! I put lemon in the mix and bit a lemon before and after drinking it. That helped a lot. At 10pm I drank my olive oil and grapefruit juice mixture and that was delicious. The only problem was that I didn't take a natural sleep aid. I had a hard time falling asleep and I woke up at 4am feeling nauseated. I had a hard time sleeping in the morning after that too. I got up at 6 to drink more epsom and slept a bit before 8 when I drank it again. When I started to go to the bathroom, my liver had flushed and out came the green goblins. That's what I call them anyway. They are little wasabi-looking balls that get dumped out of your liver. I have no idea how this works but it does. I felt great after my flush. No ill side effects other that those green goblins all day. The first time I did this flush was about 2 years ago and I had so many green goblins. There were considerably less this time and they were mostly much smaller. 

The next day I felt great, no gassy feelings from the prunes I ate either. It was a great day of fruits. I ate a strawberries again and some orange. I went to work on a raw cake for my mom for her birthday. I didn't use a recipe so I cannot give perfect amounts for anyone interested but here is it roughly. I made a base cake layer from almonds, mesquite, vanilla, salt, soaked dates, cinnamon, and coconut oil. I made a batch of a cheesecake mix with cashews, vanilla, cinnamon, agave, coconut oil and salt. for one cup worth I added carob. The second cup was plan and the last amount I mixed in blueberries and Strawberries. I added extra agave and coconut oil to this layer since the berries were juicy. I layered it up and froze. It was for wednesday night. I knew I would be eating salads so I prepped some mushrooms in marinade of feast safe items: garlic, olive oil and apple cider vinegar.

Wednesday was not such a great day to start. I woke late and had to run to class without juicing. I brought a container of black berries instead. When I got to painting class I started to get out my things and spilled paint thinner all over my chest. I hurried to wipe it off and clean my shirts. I wore my sweat shit that I brought along after that. I got to work and after a while I started feeling a burning on my chest and below my breast. I went to the bathroom to give it a good wash but it was too late. The paint thinner had soaked into my bra and was giving me a chemical burn. I rushed home to shower and called a friend who said to use castor oil and salt on it. That did the trick. The salt and the castor oil help to draw things out. I was no  longer burning but I was in a lull for the rest of the day. I wanted to nap but couldn't sleep because of too many things on my mind... Like my first salad that I was so excited to make. 

It looked more like spaghetti than salad but for raw spaghetti, it is only veggies! When I prepped my dinner I put noodles made from zucchini that had been stirred up in a sauce of blended tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil, and a dash of lemon, salt, and pepper over a bed of spinach and sprouts. I decorated it with olives, minced red bell pepper, onion, and parsley and the mushrooms that I marinated before. I used nutritional yeast as my parmesan only I didn't photograph that added on. It was very good. It felt very clean and it was so light on salt. I wanted more but decided that the olives were enough. I may make the sauce with celery next time for the natural salt content. I couldn't finish it which felt great too, I knew I wouldn't be able to because it turned out so big.  I saved the rest for today. I can't wait for lunch! 

I have felt so good. I have been able to stop eating when I find myself full which was not something I could do before the feast. I could just eat and eat and way too much. I really never felt full. I am happy to be kicking this over eating issue in the butt. The thing that surprises me the most is that once I went on solids again, it was so easy not to eat too much. I felt like I wanted to over eat and that over eating sounded so appealing during the whole feast. I was so scared to come off. As soon as I went off those feelings just disappeared. I feel like I have totally been reset. 

As promised, here are the before and afters. The first one was taken before the feast. The second was on day 31 and the last is on today, day 67 and my feast ended at 61. I have some other bikini shots that show the changes better but I am a little shy there still...

I lost so many inches! Here are my calculations: 

I lost:

bust-2.75 inches

waist-2.75 inches

belly- 4 inches!

hips-3.25 inches

thighs- 2.5 inches

calves- 1.5 inches 

arms- 1.25 inches

That is 20.75 inches in total counting all limbs! Wow! I went down a dress size and a bra size. That feels so good. I actually enjoyed shopping on Tuesday. I usually hate it. I remember liking it way back when I was 21 and everything looked good on me. I was the same dress size now as I was then, only I looked way more fit then and I think I was almost a size 9 then. But still, it feels good to be on that track.

I am excited to have my zucchini pasta again for lunch today. Even more excited to try my moms cake that I made her tomorrow for lunch! It may be a little early for sweets, but I figure it's nutritional enough. I'll eat a bit of salad after too! Tomorrow I am also leaving for Italy. I cannot wait! I probably won't be posting for about 10 days at least since I am sure I will be spending every moment I can with my boyfriend. I miss him so much!

Happy Spring Break for those who live by semesters!

xo

Elizabeth

Feeling Pruney?

What a day. I was glad to wake to beautiful sun shining though my windows instead of the expected continuation of the snow storm. However, I woke with dry irritated sinuses. The heat was turned up too high last night and I felt like I was getting ill. I was worried that I was having a detox symptom and that eating the prunes while having a detox symptom was going to be a terrible thing.

I worked through my morning and had my lemon water and then my morning juice and used my netti pot. I decided to eat my prunes around one. So around noon I started preparing myself. I got out my journal and wrote and wrote and came up with some good new dreams for the future since my old dreams have been coming true. I feel so blessed! I wrote down my goals with food and started to drink my prune soak water. While drinking the soak water I started to

 have a euphoric feeling sweep over my body. I became more and more excited to eat contrary to not wanting to stop the feast yesterday. I watched Angela Stokes' prune eating video and then read her blog entry for that day when she broke her juice feast. 

I loved this process of thinking so much and so clearly about my overeating habits of the past and how I will not continue them in the future. I won't beat myself up if I make mistake either. I am excited to be raw and keep up the healing process. Before I ate my first prune I said a prayer and gave thanks for the feast, the prunes, all I've learned about myself and all the growing I have done. It felt so good. I ate my first prune. Surprisingly squishy. I liked it. I got more of that euphoric feeling and I was so happy. I went from my desk to my chair that was showered in sunlight and ate my prunes and enjoyed the moment. I couldn't finish the prunes and that was a first in a long time for me. I was the person who never left a crumb on her plate. I never wanted to waste food. It's funny to me now because I used to be the girl who never could finish everything. My life has been a roller coaster until this point. It's time to stop it and become regular. 

So I ate about 5 oz of prunes and put the rest in the fridge for tomorrow. 

Late in the evening my tummy had a strange and unpleasant feeling for about a half hour. I was relieved that it went away but I didn't like it. I hope it doesn't happen again tomorrow. I also had a tremendous amount of gas. I did an enema with probiotics and am feeling well. We'll see what is in store for tomorrow.

Buona notte,

xo

Elizabeth

P.S. I will be posting some before, midway and after shots shortly.

Twas my last day of juice. What a day of mixed feelings. I'm okay now though, I've come to terms with finishing my feast and getting on to the solids. I'm ready. 

The day started out a little clearer than I expected. 

What happened to all the snow that was supposed to happen over night. There was a sprinkling beginning to happen on my car outside my window when I looked out. If you can get your attention past my S&P hula shakers, you can see the snow forming on my car. I was hoping for a snow day, but alas, I had to go to school and paint, then swim. Leaving the building with wet

hair and a few stops to make on the way home was not fun. 

This mornings juice was particularly bella. I had to take pictures of it and here they are. 

It was giving me an eyeful fair-well. Well, it's not fair-well, only see you later. Or like see you every morning from now on. Whatever, I liked how it looked. 

The snow kept coming, and coming and now it's probably still

 going. It's too dark to tell anymore. I am thankful for snow. It is kind of fun to get snowed in like this. Especially on my last juice day. I had to stop and think about things around the house. I thought I would share my lovely pineapple plant.

To make your own plant, buy a pineapple. Cut off the top leaving some of the meat on so that the seeds are in it. Place it in a dish of water. I think it works well with a clear dish. Put it in a window sill, preferably a west facing one. When I started my pineapple I was living in detroit and my kitchen window faced west onto Woodward ave. I would watch the Thanksgiving day parade from my balcony. I miss those days. Anyway, back to pineapples. I have tried this a few times in my east facing window and they never grow roots. After the pineapple sat there for a while with the water changed or filled from time to time, it grew roots. They came out of nowhere so I decided to plant it. Four years later I had a fruit. The pineapple loves to be outside in summer but keep it in and warm in the winter. When my pineapple had it's first fruit it was extremely put out and died. I started a new pineapple plant from it's baby pineapple. The pineapple was very small and I was actually studying in Italy when it fruited and my brother ate it. He said it was amazing. Anyway, here is the picture of the child of my original Pineapple plant. I keep it in the bathroom right now. It likes the moisture much more. The leaves were drying out when it was in the living room. I water it whenever the soil is totally dry. 

A great think I discovered today was African ginger soda that I saw a demo of on Greenchefs(www.gliving.tv/greenchefs/). I watched them make this soda pop but I didn't take down the recipe. I just winged it. I used the juice of one grapefruit, one orange, one and a half lemons, some agave, coriander, cloves, and lemon lime perrier. It was so good. I can't wait to make it again tomorrow. 

Ahhh. tomorrow. Prune day. I think I can sympathize with Angela Stokes in her prune video finally!

I'll be posting tomorrow on how it all goes. until then,

Ciao!

Elizabeth

60 Day Juice

Well, I would be two thirds of my way done were I to finish out the 92 day juice feast and at this point. I actually would like to finish it. My last post was a bit of whiny on my part. I think it was the detoxing talking. Today I actually decided that I would finish my juice feast with today as my last juice day. That felt good to me when someone suggested to just stop a day early because I had been talking about how ready I was to be done with it. I thought, yea, I can do that. Who has cemented me to 61 days? So, this morning, that was my verdict. As the day went on I felt pretty good and like, I liked being juicy and I didn't feel like today was my last day. I decided to keep on for one more day. Actually, that decision made me feel like I didn't want to stop at all. I could manage my 9 hours flight overseas if I brought a bunch of lemons on board with me and my ounces limit of liquid sweetener and cayenne but that would be pretty darn hard. And who wants to be in Italy and not eat?! So, I will be breakfasting with prunes on Saturday. 

I haven't managed to stop myself from reading great food blogs like Heathy of Canada. She makes amazing looking foods. I am actually planning some raw nachos with a bunch of recipes from all over the web. Chips, salsa, guacamole, cheese sauce, sour cream, refried beans, veggies and all. Maybe even a little fake raw meat. It's going to be the works but I am going to have to wait a few weeks until I am transitioned into solids. My idea to make raw nachos comes from watching my mother and sister devour beautiful vegan gluten free nachos in Chicago at The Chicago Diner. I need to recreate that for myself. 

Something interesting I learned lately is that you can use some very simple household items as a natural deodorant and not stink all day. I tried it for the first time today. When in the shower 

or tub, make a paste of baking soda with water and put it on your armpits. Let it sit there for a few minutes and rinse. When you get out of the shower, sprits some apple cider vinegar on your pits and let it dry. Your done. I am excited to see how this works in the summer.

It is going to snow tonight again. What weather we've been having. They expect for all day snowing tomorrow as well. I am hoping that classes are cancelled so that I might spend some time alone in reflection over my feast on the last day of it. I already have creative ideas for my salads that are not too intense on the digestive system. I plan to make noodles out of zucchi

ni on my salad days and blend up some things like tomato, basil, olive or hemp oil and salt as a sauce and put avocado chunks and maybe some olives on it. Yea, I am definitely ready for food. I am too into the creation of food to be held back for so long. As an artist I feel my creativity shifting from canvas to plate. What is so different about the two anyway? Both white and empty and waiting for me to put something on them. An artist can express themselves in so many ways, especially outside the common realm of art. In the constant changing art world, a new medium is what everyone is looking for. I choose to be creative in all aspects of life, whether it be canvas, plate, valentine card, cd insert, costume ideas or the rules to a clue murder

 mystery party(Yea, I've done that and it was the best most fun party I have ever thrown where everyone was a suspect and everyone had to work to find out who was the murderer). Hmm, how did I get from raw foods to murder mystery parties? Anyway, art is everywhere and everything if you look at it in the right way and I love that. I think these ramblings are my way of dealing with the fact that I think

 a lot of people are going to be disappointed with me when I don't do as much fine arts after I graduate from school. I think a lot of the people that I know think of me as a fine artist before anything else. I think of myself as a person of many interests and creative in all ways. I want to continue that into the starting of a family and I don't think it is a cop-out to become a house wife and mother. It is the best thing one can do in my opinion. I want to grow a garden and home school my children and feed my family in the healthiest most balanced and creative way. The feminists are going to hate me. Well, I can't not be me so I am sticking to what I want to do. I do hope to do my fine arts as well, but they don't stand number one in my mind. 

Phew, I think I needed to admit all this to myself. Thanks for reading if anyone out there is reading.

xo,

Elizabeth

What a day!

Only three days left of juice. Hard to believe I am having my second worst detox only now. Actually it was a little self induced. I went to have a one hour massage last night which turned into an almost three hour massage. He said that I really needed it and that he liked his job so he just went on. I was grateful to only pay for one hour but I doubled the tip. I wish I could have given more! I asked for a detoxing massage, boy did I get it. I started feeling low when I was trying to finish up my drawing and sculpture on time to get them to their critiques today. I was dissatisfied with both and in a huge hurry. I made it to school on time and luckily I was being hard on myself. Everyone liked both things. A bit of PMS is added to this equation as well. I am happy to be getting on a normal schedule for myself and the warnings that are showing that my cycle is working properly again. So, I will be thankful. 

I woke today to snow covering the ground. Hard to believe because two days ago I was in my bikini on the roof sunbathing in 70 degree weather. The cold made my detoxing and shivering worse. I soaked in an epsom salts tub for a while and kept reheating the water. That warmed me up for now and I am ready for bed early.  So, this is a short post as I am tired and wanting sleep and relief from this day. Hopefully I will be able to write some more in the next days before my prunes!How exciting. 

Buona notte,

Elizabeth

A quick update on my composting worms and wheatgrass, The wheat grass is tall and wonderful and I have been using it each morning. I turned up my worms when I arrived home from Chicago. When I opened the container there were many little sprout. I wish I would have thought to save them and see what came out of them! I turned up the soil and saw all the little worms. I even saw teeny tiny ones and hope they are new. The deep down stuff in the container was rank and I hope that it is not too low for the worms. I may have to turn all that stuff up to the top so that they work on it too. Yuk. Not looking forward to that smell again. Like horse manure but worse. ciao!