Update, It's been a while...

Wow, seems like so much time has past since I began my blog,

And somehow life has been running from me, and I'm struggling to keep up.

It terms of my diet, a lot has changed. The first, most major symptom, I have stopped gaining weight!

And, I have stopped weighing myself. But hang on, how can you tell that you have stopped gaining weight then? I can just tell, all my clothes still fit and I am eating more abundantly then ever! And I can feel that things are starting to even themselves out, my skin is clearing, I don't suffer from night sweats on any sort of sweating, I energy (for the most part) and I am just thriving.

Also, my boyfriend has cut meat and dairy out of his diet. Wowzers, this has come from the man who has lived, and I truly mean LIVED, for steak and a big ol' glass of milk (not at the same time, of course.) for all his life. Until now. So what changed?

We watched Earthlings. If you don't know what Earthlings is, then please, search it up on youtube, it will change your life. I know it did for me.

The most evident thing that has changed is my mind set. When I started this blog, I did it in the hope that I would find the day, (hopefully sooner rather than later) that I would effortlessly loose weight, feel great, and possibly even be the next 'Freelee the Banana Girl'. How vein, right? Well, I let go of that mindset long ago, I couldn't care less what I look like (within reason, I wouldn't let myself become a 500lb woman) but, If I just stayed the same as I am, I would be happy. My priority lies with the fact that I know I am not contributing anymore to animal cruelty and child hunger. And that means the world to me. I actually feel for the first time that I have purpose in life. And this has led me to question a lot of things, but mainly;

What am I doing with my life?

What am I going to become?

And I realised, that this is the time in our lives where we choose what we stand up for and believe in, and what place we take in the world, who we want to be, and what our identity is. I want to be seen as someone who loves, and is kind, and supports equality and freedom for all people and animals, and then maybe I can inspire people to look at their lives and what they believe in, and if they decide to change, then I feel like I've accomplished something, that's my purpose in life.

What's yours?

Have you ever wondered what you are REALLY meant to do, and how you are going to get there, I feel like these upcoming years are going to be very testing, mainly due to the fact that you have one shot to make something of yourself, or else.. or else??? That's the scary part, the 'or else'. What if I wasn't at Uni? What if I decided to take a different path. And although I do feel like Nutrition is still a path I want to take, is it the most full-filling path?

These are the questions that swim around my head at the moment, and I feel like I am in the midst of a lot of critical decision making. Decisions which can alter the whole course of my life, I just wish I knew the outcome in advance!

So I wanted to ask, where are you in your life? Have you made decisions which you regret, or taken a risk that has turned out wonderfully?

I'd love to know :)

The best healthy Sweet & Sour sauce

This recipe was a pure accident, I had some kale and home-grown silver-beet (woohoo!) and I was looking for a way to make them tasty...(yes, kale and silver-beet don't taste good normally!) and I thought about an Asian style stir-fry, but I knew that those usually contain lots of soy sauce and other salty ingredients, so I thought, maybe I'll go for a sweet option, and the best sweet and sour sauce was born! and it's 80:10:10, NO salt or oil! I can't believe it either..


 I had already put rice on when I came up with this recipe, but I'm definitely going to try this with some noodles as well!

The best healthy Sweet & Sour sauce

Ingredients;

- 1 onion, diced
- 2 stems of red kale, chopped (optional)
- 1 leaf of silver-beet, chopped (optional)
- 1 fresh red chilli, finely sliced
- 1 tomato, roughly chopped
- 1 can of no salt canned tomatoes
- 1 tub of no added salt tomato paste
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground chilli
- Sprinkle of black pepper to taste
- Around 2-4 heaped tablespoons of coconut sugar, to taste!
- 1/4 of a cup of water

Method;

1. Heat up a large pan on high heat, add onions and stir continuously until slightly brown and translucent
2. Add the kale and silver-beet, or any other vegetables that you choose and sauté until wilted
3. Add the water and cover to allow to steam for about 2 minutes
4. Remove lid and add the chilli, and the fresh tomato, continue to sauté for a further 2 minutes
5. Add the canned tomato and tomato paste and stir through, reduce the heat to a simmer, add the ground chilli, pepper and coconut sugar and stir.
6. Simmer for another 2 minutes and your ready to go!

Enjoy!

P.s I could not taste the silver-beet or the kale whatsoever, success!

A little story about Hypoglycaemia, plus my 30 day challenge that I want you to join!

So, as the title suggests, recently on my rawtill4 journey I have come across a couple of other symptoms that are very interesting to me.

Before I continue with this I may have to make another confession, I had been slacking off a bit, and what I mean by this is that I wasn't eating enough.

During the day I was sipping on a couple of 400-500cal banana smoothies and then having a 1000cal dinner, not quite the recommended 2500cal minimum. This mentality was brought on by my old anxieties around eating and wanting to see results faster then my body was dishing them out. Old habits die hard it seems.

Anyway, what I found from doing this is that after I went to bed at night I would wake up for my routine nightly pee, except that I would be in a sweat, this sweat could range from a slight dampness to full blown ‘I've-just-been-for-a-run-sweat.’ Gross!

Now I had done some research into why I was sweating so much by this point and all resources pointed to hypoglycaemia;

'But how could this be??' I thought, 'I'm eating a high carbohydrate diet!'

I was feeling rather confused and slightly sceptical, until this one particular afternoon when I was just about to tuck into a big bowl of pasta, I was just waiting for it to cool down when I started to feel hot and sweaty, and to be quite honest it was putting me off my food, I thought to myself;

‘If I'm all hot and sweaty now, how much sweatier and hotter will I feel after a 1700cal bowl of hot pasta!’ 

Nevertheless, my love of pasta took over and I began to eat…and to my surprise the sweating stopped! I actually got colder after my meal, very interesting indeed...

I was then convinced me that what I was experiencing was hypoglycaemia due to being undercarbed! How crazy is that! 

Now I have to tell another story, the story of ordering 168 bananas from the supermarket!

Basically after scolding myself for not being motivated enough to nourish myself properly I found out that freshchoice was advertising bananas for $1.69NZD per kilo! (a.k.a VERY cheap!)

My eyes lit up immediately and when I arrived at the supermarket, I rather nervously went up to the checkout;

“Hi, can I please have 168 bananas?” hahah I don’t think I will ever feel normal at the supermarket again. 

Anyway the point is that for the next 30 days I am challenging myself to consume 20 bananas a day as well as a cooked dinner, and I challenge you to do the same!

I am already at Day 2 and I actually feel amazing, more amazing then I expected to feel!

What I want to try and get across to you guys is to please please PLEASE make sure you all eat enough on this diet! I believe it is paramount to your success!

There is definitely a reason why the recommendation is at least 2500 calories a day of low fat high carb vegan food, it really is what you need! I am definitely going to monitor how I feel over the next 30days, but so far so good!

I hope you all join me for this amazing experience and let me know how you all go and remember...

SMASH IT IN! 

Is 80:10:10 right for you?

Should everyone in the world eat 80:10:10?

This is a controversial subject for most people.

Being a high carb, low fat vegan makes sense to so many people in so many ways, both in terms of how they feel and the fact that this diet refuses to pay into the market of caged and abused animals. I love and respect these reasons (they are my own too!). 

However, I also understand that this diet may not be for everyone. Some people struggle to gain weight as it is, and being on this diet would see them vanish before our very eyes! Some people find the most pleasure in life from eating meat. My partner is one of these people. Now whilst I don't necessarily enjoy the smell of egg or meat or milk on his breath (no kisses please!) I'm not about to force my way of eating on him.

It wouldn't be fair on me to expect this of him, and even though, in an ideal world he would be vegan with me, I am still respectful of his choices to eat meat. I feel that, as a student studying nutrition, a one size fits all diet is quite unrealistic. 

Not to mention, people experience such a variety of symptoms coming to this diet, which just further speaks out about how much every-ones bodies are different from one another. I have extreme envy for people who are able to start eating this way and drop 40lbs just like that! I know that when I first started eating this way, it was just not the case for me. 

I remember experiencing some not so friendly symptoms as my body transitioned into my new way of eating, some of these included; 

- Night Sweats 

- Sore throats in the morning 

- Headaches 

- Bloating 

Just to name a few.. luckily, most of these have cleared up now (although it is still a work in progress) but my goodness I can imagine other people throwing in the towel after a few days of these symptoms! and who would blame them! They are a pain in the butt! For me, the only reason I pushed through was because I was determined not to go back to starving myself to be skinny, I wanted to be like freelee and durian rider, living the life of abundance! 

But I can also understand that some people might not want this, some people might look at the amount of food I eat and be repulsed! The take home message here is that everyone is different, and we all need to work on finding our own personal 'sweet spot' in which our bodies function at their optimal level and we feel absolutely fantastic! I just want to say good luck on your own personal journey's towards the best health you have ever had! 

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise!

We all gotta do it.. 

That's right, exercise is important! 

That doesn't mean it's easy though right? Hell no. Hands up if you would opt out of exercising if you could be healthy without it? yea, exactly. 

But the truth of the matter is, we can't live without it. Exercise is essential not just to burn calories, because lets face it, if you just cut your calories enough you can loose weight without the need for exercising, however this is not healthy! Many people can be thin, but be unhealthy internally at the same time. Their are so many benefits of exercise that go beyond the aesthetic values. 

1. Mood/Emotional well-being 

Exercise has been shown in numerous studies to be able to lift a depressed mood, and also help with depression, a study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research concluded that "both clinical and non-clinical subjects may benefit acutely from even a single bout of exercise." This study was referring to subjects who fit into the category of being older men and women living in southern California. 

The reason for this is that exercise releases  endorphins which act as your bodies 'feel good' hormones. This hormone has also been shown to help us cope with stress, and with the ever increasing amount of stress that we are told to cope with on a day to day basis, I think a little exercise is the perfect kind of medicine! 

2. Circulation 

Humans are not stationary creatures, we have evolved to function best when we are moving around our environment. There are a lot of biological benefits that arise from regular exercise.

Circulation is an important one of those benefits. Blood needs to be pumped around our whole body, even down to your little pinky toe, and all of the pressure which pushes the blood down to your little toe is generated from the heart muscle. Even though the heart is a very powerful muscle, it isn't able to defy gravity, what I mean by this is that, once the blood from your heart has reached your little toe, it needs to be able to be transported back up to your heart, and how does it do this? Well, there are a couple of techniques that help blood get back to your heart, one of them is little valves which are present inside your veins which basically stop the back flow of blood that is trying to get back to your heart. Secondly, the muscles that surround these veins constrict when you walk and help to push the blood up to your heart. 

This is why regular exercise is beneficial for circulation! I think that's pretty neat, don't you? 

3. Heart Health 

Just as with all the muscles that surround your body, the more you work out your heart muscle, the stronger and healthier it gets. For me, this fact is the one that motivates me to fill my life with regular exercise, I want my heart to be the healthiest it can be so that it can do its job more effectively! 

Although I have only touched very briefly on some of the benefits of exercise, I hope you can appreciate that our bodies are a machine that needs to be moved and worked out in order to perform at its best. The body is an amazing and complex creation that deserves to be treated with respect, love and care, and it's the only one you've got! So look after it! 

http://www.premierfitnesscamp.com

Good Morning

Good Morning (In New Zealand) 

Morning everyone, here in New Zealand it is 10:43a.m. at the moment :) 

I hope you are all having or have had a wonderful day! Today I started my day off with a big ol' glass of vitamin water! I find that it really helps to have at least 1L of water before your first meal, to help your digestion and just get you started on the right hydration foot in the morning! 

I would like to talk a little today about the issue of scientific back up for the 80:10:10 lifestyle, and how some people may think there isn't much of it floating around, it is true that a lot of people that have come to this lifestyle and advocate it openly do not have the common qualifications that are found when giving dietary advice. 

However, I am of the growing belief that science is limited. What I mean by this is that at one point it was believed that a way to cure a headache was to either smack the 'victim' on the head, or release some of their blood in an attempt to let the bad demons escape. Looking back on this ideology we can surely laugh a little about it now (and feel sorry for all the victims of the medicine in those days), however no one thought twice about it back then. 

I like to think that in another 100 or so years, humans may be laughing at all of our mistakes, which we so firmly believe in at this point in time. So in a way, even though in today's world there is not a lot of research or evidence behind 80:10:10 or veganism vs omnivorism in general, doesn't exclude the possibility that one day there might be a scientific reason behind the success of this diet.

This way of thinking has helped me to have faith in something which may not make sense to modern day science, but that so many people have been able to experience a number of health benefits from. 

This is how I view health, as much as it is a scientific subject, it is also a spiritual journey, which each individual needs to explore for themselves, to find what they best thrive on. 

Welcome

Hi everyone. Welcome to my blog! 

First off I would like to introduce myself, my name is Debbie and I live in Dunedin, New Zealand.

I have fairly recently made the switch to a vegan life style, and in particular, the 801010 lifestyle! I am not 100% raw, as I prefer having a cooked meal at the end of the day.

My inspiration for this lifestyle came definitely from Freelee the banana girl and her boyfriend, Durianrider, you can find these two inspiring individuals on you tube just type in the names above :)

I am also inspired by people in the field of nutrition as this is what I am studying at the moment, such as Dr. Libby Weaver.

I have always been a little scientist at heart and so experimenting with food (among other things) has been the centre point in my life for a long time. I have tried every diet on the market, in fact, for quite a few months I was on a protein only diet! This involved eating fish and meat or eggs with every meal! I have also tried fasting and paleo diets and I have also made the unfortunate fall into severe calorie restricting (under 1000 calories a day) all in the pursuit of being thin!

However recently I have been trying to make the mental shift from a restrictive to a more health-conscious diet and this is what led me to discover Freelee and the 801010 diet!

So follow me on my journey to find optimal health and happiness!

Debbie