Chapel Chatter: Ringing

This beauty arrived this morning.
It's gorgeous, and fits so well that it's lit a fire under me to get my engagement ring resized and reset (I don't like how high the stones are, they get caught on things, and I want them nestled down into the band more).

But, rather than focusing on what I need to do, I'll do a little text-based jump for joy that my ring has finally arrived.
hear that? It was my imaginary feet hitting the imaginary floor after my imaginary jump.
Yay.

I promised T that I wouldn't try it on again (after the initial check to make sure it fit), so here's another, not-trying-it-on view:
Right now I have a doctored up version of these, with more herbs and some minced garlic added, and the crust for this in the dehydrating oven. Gonna make this guacamole tonight, and once I pick up some more almonds, I'm trying this for the first time. Deliciousness.

Happy Friday!

Body

...from my personal writings, usually separate from blogging...

Our bodies are changing. And I don't mean just because we're losing weight, which is definitely happening too. We arrived in Texas pudgy and unhappy, feeling stuck and stiff physically. Terry had terrible dark circles under his eyes, and my body had curves which it may never have had before and that I certainly did not want there. We began to eat healthier, quickly jumping back into a vegetarian diet (which had been compromised by dinners and lunches at Mom-mom's, Terry's maternal grandmother who loves via food's, house on Thursdays and Sundays), then into a vegan diet, which hadn't been particularly firm or consistent to begin with, and had flown in Richmond and Pennsylvania through pizza and french fries with cheese and ice cream and such. We discovered hazlenut milk (delicious) and are still working on the perfect cashew cheese, which is narrowing down. And we started nearly daily yoga.

That said, we were feeling healthier, but not losing much weight. Then, after more reading, we decided to go raw. And not only that, but we decided to do that adventurous apple fast/gall bladder cleanse of two weeks ago. And that's when the pounds started melting off.

Daily we'd lose weight, and during the apple fast, we weren't even exercising, to avoid overtaxing our bodies (we figured they were working hard as it was). Terry shed pounds and so did I. At the end of the fast, he was at about 153 and I was at about 92. I haven't weighed that much since high school. And I'm not even trying to lose weight!

When we eat, we eat living foods, ones that naturally have digestive enzymes that haven't gotten killed via cooking so that our bodies can convert easily to energy and that we don't store as fat. No dairy means none of the associated mucous production that was so obvious within ten seconds of when Terry had a sip of chocolate milk a few weeks ago.

Usually, when I would give in to my sweets cravings (which I have LOTS of), I'd bargain with myself, figuring out just how bad this was for my body, thinking of how I'd offset that. Today, after lunch, as I was walking back to our room where we were watching Star Wars (it makes much more sense to me now, and what creativity George Lucas had! He was on the mark about so many things!), carrying our dessert of two chocolate mockaroons and a big glass of creamy rice milk, it finally hit me. My mind started to do that bargaining and figuring thing, and I realized. This was GOOD for me. I was about to eat superfoods. The mockaroons are called that (instead of macaroons) because they're made with organic raw cacao powder, shredded raw coconut, honey and/or agave nectar, and coconut butter (there may be other things, I can't recall right now). The ingredients are formed into balls and dehydrated for a day or two, but Terry and I grab them out of the dehydrator along the way and have delicious gooey chocolatey treats reminiscent of half done brownies, which I've always loved. And not only do I not have to pay for it, my body THANKS me! Those are all good fats and beneficial nutrients! A completely different approach to food, this is. And I'm loving it.

Slowly, I'm beginning to not recognize things like bread and meat as food. Seeds and nuts and fruits and greens are food, and what is bread? Grass seeds cooked and ground into powder, then mixed with a bunch of other things into a goo, and cooked until tiny holes foam up and it stays frozen that way, permanently, and is considered yummy. Meat? Muscle tissue. Of abused and tortured and poisoned animals. Not exactly delicious.

And we're still losing weight. Today Terry weighed in at 148 and I weighed in at 90. I think we'll probably even out soon, and our bodies will form the way they're supposed to be formed – after all, I eat plenty of fats. Today, so far, I've had an entire avocado (loaded with good fats), a mockaroon, which is the same, and for dinner I'll have cauliflower doused in spices like salt, pepper, dulse, cumin, and dipped in organic barbecue sauce and vegenaise, followed by a dessert of chocolate pudding made from greens, avocado, organic coconut milk creamer, agave and/or honey, and raw cacao. It tastes just like chocolate pudding and it's a recipe that Terry and I came up with ourselves (and are very proud of!).

In his Superfoods book, Wolfe says that at some point it's a good idea to go on an extended (two weeks or a bit longer) juice fast to clear out ALL toxins. That would also clear off all body fat, because that's where toxins are stored, so we'd be looking pretty emaciated. But afterwards, once you reintroduce fats, your body builds itself again from the bottom up, the way you SHOULD be. So, there are 7 weeks til the wedding. If we do the juice fast soon, we'll have a month to put back on healthy fat and not terrify everyone at the wedding by looking half starved. I like it.

Yesterday we walked through the grocery store and I saw a headline on one of those check-out rack magazines that said something about celebrity diets, ones that REALLY work. I laughed, thinking of how many women try and cry and weigh and measure, when they could just be on a raw diet and see the pounds fall off, as they ate delicious and satisfying food. Lately I've been stuffing myself every night, around 9:30pm, when my hunger kicks in if I don't go to bed, and I'm still LOSING weight. How far we've come from what the Heavenly Father and Earthly Mother intended for their children...

added note: you may be alarmed by my pound report. However, we don't look unhealthy at all. I'm 5'3" and Terry's 5'8". We look lean, thin, and toned. Because there's a shortage of info about raw eating from people who aren't already extremely well versed in it, we plan to start blogging pretty soon and posting pics of our weekly bodies, to show the changes. Wolfe says that, after all toxins are removed from the body, the bone structure of the face may even change as potentials for health and form turn into realities in health and form. So we'll see. But don't worry. We're not anorexic :) And we feel amazing. More energy and joy than ever before experienced, for my part. Maybe there's something TO this stuff, huh?

Checking In

I've been a terrible blogger lately.

Yes, I know.

And I'm sorry. I know that my internetey friends may have found greener and wordier pastures and my 3-D life friends are probably wondering if I'm still alive, because I'm not all that great at the phoning thing lately.

As I type this post I'm waiting for my veil to dry - every 20 minutes I go into the bathroom where it's spread on the floor, freshly cut, waiting for that glue stuff that keeps the edges from fraying. A little less than classic, yes, but I like it. My dress is so ornate that I think the simplest veil possible will be perfect. And this one is white and shimmery and gorgeous in fabric alone - why mess with a good thing?

As I wait I'm also shopping for wedding earrings. Blue roses have a special significance for us, and I've seen so many lovely choices! For example, here are a few that caught my eye while searching on google:

I just got a message back that this shopkeeper may be making me a special, personalized pair. Can't wait!

T is across the room, working on our wedding slideshow. Here's a little preview for you (yes, the second one is me. I didn't have hair til I was 3....let's hope the one-day children get T's follicles...)
Tomorrow I'll have more updates, if I get around to writing. It's a busy one, this life!

Happy Week Start!

Today's quote:
"Human beings, you and I, are goal-centered organisms. We are teleological in that we are motivated by purposes, by desired end states. We are engineered mentally to move progressively and successively from one goal to the next, and we are never really happy unless, and until, we are moving toward the accomplishment of something that is important to us."
~Brian Tracy

Awesome Apple Fast: Days 4 & 5

Alrighty so let's discuss how this went.

On the morning of Day 4, which was Thursday, I woke up filled with energy and optimism.

It was a great day.

The sun was shining (or would be soon...I get up early).

My body felt amazing - I've never felt so clean and good!

Today was the last day of the cleanse, so, after some unpleasantness in the afternoon,

I'd be able to eat tomorrow.

Awesome.

So I went on my merry little way, preparing for the wedding, sending out emails, working on lots of new and very VERY exciting changes going on around here (stay tuned, lots of posts to come), drank some apple sauce/juice (which is what you get when you juice apples yourself), and then 3:00pm rolled around.

It was time.

(scary)

T and I filed into the kitchen. I meticulously measured out our olive oil - 6 ounces for me, and 8 for him (he was optimistic).

He squeezed lemon juice for us, the same amounts for each.

I went and got his computer to video record this momentous occasion (which video promptly deleted itself - weird, but true, and I'm kinda glad about that).

We tried to wrap our arms wedding-toast style, but were too paranoid about what we'd do after taking the first sip of olive oil, so we just faced each other instead.

After a clink, and a count down, bottoms up.

Oh.

My.

GOSH.

Seriously? Seriously. I am all for cleanses - with how amazing this one felt, I'm all about doing a different cleanse a month til all my body organs are spic and span, but I will not lie to you.

It was probably the worst thing I've ever experienced.

If I believed that Hell was a place where you have to do the most unpleasant thing imaginable forever, I'd be sitting there with a never-ending glass of amber olive oil.

It was really THAT bad.

I can't even describe it. It isn't that the taste is terrible, I mean, it tastes like olive oil. If you've ever taken a tequila shot (guilty, of course) then this is child's play. The problem is the TEXTURE. Your throat doesn't like it. And after 3.5 days of only apple juice, your stomach isn't a fan of the incredible richness either.

Really, it was horror of horrors horribleawefuldisGUUUSting. I asked Terry (only half joking) whether he thought David Wolfe put that in the book just to make his readers feel inadequate compared to him - I mean, he didn't even warn you about the terribleness, does that mean he can just sip it with a smile? If so, I suck in comparison. Maybe this is his raw foodism scheme to take over the world, psychologically.

I don't believe that. But, if he can drink that with no problems, he's a better human than I. Or a worse one. Depends on how you look at it.

We tried straws. (which worked better for me than T)

We tried to, since we were filming, pretend that we were doing a commercial and that the drink was delicious. I mean, I'm sure people have to do that sometimes. What about cooking shows? They ALWAYS look like that stuff tastes amazing. And I know from experience after trying their recipes, that those faces are faked at least some of the time.

That didn't work.

In the end, Terry downed his entire glass (I'm getting queasy just typing about it). I, on the other hand, could only get 4 ounces down. We figured that since I'm pretty small and light (under 100lbs), this was probably fine.

So we followed up with the lemon juice, during which T made faces I've never seen on a human before and that were highly entertaining, and put on our inventive liver compresses, which consisted of cloths with warm castor oil on them, against our livers, under a layer of plastic wrap that wound twice around our torsos. Awesome. (and sweaty, ew).

We laid in bed, on our right sides, with the mattress heater on, and watched movies - a little of Alien, then some of As Good As it Gets - about then T got sleepy so I watched some Gossip Girl and videos on wedding hair (very interesting, notsomuch, but necessary).

As the sun went down, we got lethargic and weird and T got downright sick. He was bad off. Just goes to show you, listen to your body! Don't force yourself to finish the doggone olive oil! Be like me, and once you start dry heaving, PUT THE GLASS DOWN.

Anyway.

And, as for the passing of the gall bladder stones, did it happen on the morning of Day 5?

Yes.

No, it wasn't painful at all. I won't go into specifics cause that's a little TOO much detail for a random googler who's ended up on my blog, but feel free to email me if you have questions.

We spent the day Friday in the city, going to a dress fitting for me and running errands and breaking our fast with Mexican food over at Ruby Tequilas -

-NOT a good idea. I felt so polluted after I left that place. No offence to RT, I just think I'm off cooked food.

I've been so spoiled with my mental acuity and mood and energy and physique, and now that I've successfully formulated a delicious flax cracker recipe to curb my tortilla chip addiction (for a later post, that), I'm on my way.

I will miss that quinoa bread though. Make a loaf, have it with honey for me. YUM.

I'm off to google raw bread recipes....

Happy Weekend!

Awesome Apple Fast, Day 3 report

Well, another day has passed on the fast!

(and it went by quickly too)

I spent the day cross-legged on the floor, embellishing invitations and tying ribbon (pics to come soon).

This morning, upon awakening, I felt amazing. I'm serious. I wasn't hungry at all. The interesting thing about eating raw, fresh, organic food and doing cleanses and such is that after you go through the withdrawal, you feel great. Energy is up, mood is great, body rocks (I have "flu abs", or so I told my friend Bebe today - you know when you get the flu, but look awesome afterwards? Yeah, I have those, but healthy.), thoughts are clearer, and there are a whole bunch of other great side effects.

NOT, however, that you should fast all the time - that would deprive you of stuff you need. But, once in a while? As a cleanse? To give your digestive system and such a break? Very smart.

Toward late morning I'd get a little light headed if I stood up too fast - there was that low blood sugar. I'm also not doing my daily morning yoga (which I loooooooooooooooooove) during the cleanse to give my body lots of time and energy to clean out everything that ought to go (acne included, we hope), and that could be part of the lightheadedness. I miss the yoga though, and can't WAIT til Friday when I can do it again. I've only had this practice for a couple of weeks, and already my body is changing, no joke. Who'd've ever thunk I'd be able to do the wheel pose these days?

image source

And yet, after a few days, I could. Amazing. My balance has improved, my mood certainly has, and I just don't feel right when I miss it in the morning. Not to mention the fact that it's a challenge, and I know that by the time I can do this series without breaking a sweat I'll be in fanfreakingtastic shape. That day has not arrived. Maybe in a month. Or two.

But, back to the cleanse.

So this evening, after our last apple juice glasses were empty for the day, T and I laid in bed with the mattress heater on (I was shivering, which was better than this morning, where I felt as if I were drunk after my first glass of apple juice on an empty and lightheaded stomach - I celebrated St. Patty's day after all!). We were fantasizing about food. We talked about recipes for Friday (which will be the first day off the cleanse, and also when we get to go and take a look at my dress, to see if the alterations are done! YAY!). We're planning to make lots of delicious things to welcome us back to the eating person's world.

I'd never done a real fast like this before, and although I was excited, I was also a little nervous. Could I do it? Would I turn into a bitchy monster?

The answers were yes, and occasionally. (Sorry, T.)

Tonight we have to take herbal laxatives (not attractive, but we're all honesty on this blog), and tomorrow at 3:00, after not having any juice for at least two hours, we have to drink 6-8 ounces of straight olive oil followed by the same amount of straight lemon juice.

Scary?

yes.

Am I fascinated too, to see what the heck happens?

absolutely.

Then, we take another laxative, lie in bed for the rest of the day on our side with a compress over our livers, and wait it out (we'll be watching James Cameron movies, if you're wondering. Random, I know. But we saw a TED talk of his today and made the decision then.

Then, Friday morning, supposedly we'll eliminate gall bladder stones from our body. Apparently anyone who's regularly eaten meat and dairy over the course of their life has them. You have from 300-1500, and they range in size from smaller than a bell pepper seed to the size of a (freaking) brazil nut, according to David Wolfe. (Again, scary, and strangely fascinating). My only thought is, good lord get that outta me! So there you go. Looking forward to Friday.

And tomorrow as well, other than guzzling down a glass of olive oil. Gulp.

Happy St. Patty's Day! Have a green beer for me!

Awesome Apple Fast: Days 1 & 2

image source

I don't know if y'all would automatically know what a fast is, at least in the sense that I'm doing one right now. Of course, Lent is upon us so I'm sure some of you are familiar with the concept of fasting (which isn't why I'm doing it, but it is a charming coincidence).

Just in case, answers.com defines a fast as simply "abstention from eating." (that's an awfully hard core definition, and no, obviously cause of the picture above, I'm not going that far...). Antonyms, according to the same site are "binge, eating, engorgement, and feast." So there you go.

So back to the fast. T and I have been reading an excellent book by David Wolfe (a nutritional guru) when it comes to raw, living, and super foods. Here's the link on Amazon.

This particular fast, which is officially a gall bladder cleanse (which supposedly supercharges liver function and other things that are healthily awesome), consists of first, three days of eating nothing but freshly juiced apples and water.

That's it.

We're currently on Day 2, and so far, it's not that bad. Of course, gorging on Mexican food and chocolate chip cookies (gluten free, of course) on Sunday night due to a fear of the cleanse's start on Monday morning probably made yesterday an easier day than it might have been otherwise. Our bodies were still going off of the huge overeating Sunday. That's cheating, by the way.

But back to the cleanse - yesterday and today I spent all day (and I do mean All. Day.) working on wedding invitations and reception invitations - all in all, I have to make roughly 200 total, and there's lots of ripping and gluing and stamping and embossing and ribbon tying and such involved, so my fingers are tired and the rest of me is slightly cranky.

For me, right about now is the hardest part. My clock reads 7:23pm, and right now is my "hungry time" because I ordinarily do my major eating at dinner time. In fact, that's usually my only real meal of the day - the rest is made up of grazing here and there - a handful of sunflower seeds or pine nuts, a date, an apple, a handful of spinach, that type of thing.

You may be wondering WHY in the heck we're doing this, but actually I'm pretty excited about it. We're mostly raw anyway already, and this type of cleanse helps you get out the yuckies in your body that have accumulated over a lifetime of eating meat and dairy. In this case, it's gall bladder stones, that should be eliminated on Day 5, or Friday, morning. On the afternoon of Day 4, the fast is broken by a glass of olive oil followed by a glass of lemon juice. I'm thinking that'll be the hardest part. But eating raw food makes me feel amazing overall (as it will you too, after the initial struggle) and I'm painfully aware that these feelings I'm having about potato chips and guacamole and cookies are basically drug withdrawal. (If I sound crazy, buy the book - it explains everything).

All in all, it's a good thing. I just happen to be in my hungry time. Ask me again tomorrow morning :)

Chapel Chatter: Unofficial Wedding Song

No, this isn't our actual wedding song. That's a surprise.

Instead, this is the song that, if it weren't so corny (sad, but true), would probably have won the wedding song contest.

Enjoy!

(no, the video isn't my favorite, but Jeffrey Gaines' version of this song rocks. Don't deny it.)