salads and fruit

Lately I have been enjoying huge salads for lunch, as the weather is getting hot again and I feel much better when I exist on lighter foods like fruit and vegetables during this time. The salad pictured had mixed baby greens, carrot, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, brown rice balls and a raw beetroot coconut sauce. Yum! And yes, that is a family-sized salad bowl.

Beautiful bright pink sauce!

I have also been eating a lot of summer fruits like mangoes, peaches, apricots and watermelon. I am feeling pretty good in my body at the moment- I have been working out a lot and eating mostly raw, which I think works for my body. 

Tomorrow I am heading to Sydney with Mum for the Wellness Warrior tour! I think it will be great spending some time together, and it will be really cool seeing some of the health and wellness bloggers that I follow in person. We are catching a coach up, so I am going to pack a shitload of delicious vegan snacks to munch during the three-hour drive. Mum, do you want me to pack some for you too?

On another (important) note: today marks exactly two months until Luke and I get married! As the date gets closer I have been having trouble thinking about topics that don't involve flowers, wedding cake, or bridal hairstyles (except the topic of food. I never stop thinking about food). I love you Luke, and marrying you will be hands down the smartest thing I have ever done. 

raw food revised

The raw food week that I spoke about earlier sadly went bust, due to my own poor planning. D'oh.

I stayed on my self-written meal plan for three days, but instead of feeling amazing and energetic I felt lethargic and had zero stamina at the gym. In hindsight, I suspect that I didn't give my poor body enough food or calories.

I have since done a bit more reading on the topic and realised that your portions have to be increased a lot with raw food, because the food isn't as calorie-dense as cooked food e.g. bread, brown rice. I think I also have to increase the carbohydrate-rich foods (e.g. bananas, raw oats) for next time, as my menu mostly featured a lot of water-rich foods such as cucumber soups, green smoothies, watermelon and zucchini noodles. 

I still want to do it though! I will just bulk it up a bit more and maybe save it for a week where I don't have much on, and can treat my body like a temple and rest when I need to. Apparently a strictly raw food lifestyle is fabulous for detoxifying your body, and due to a few lingering (frustrating!) health issues this is something I am very interested in.

Working through a litre of green smoothie

raw food week

It is excruciatingly hot today. 

My poor dog is a hundred degrees

Also, I have started a week-long raw food...bonanza. Cleanse? I don't know. Anyway, I have planned out an entire week's worth of meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks) that are entirely raw! I am actually super excited to try out the new recipes, and see how I feel at the end of the week.

Today I had some raw oats soaked in orange juice topped off with some grated apple, almonds and coconut yoghurt for breakfast, then I "cooked" all morning until I had to go to work. I made cucumber and basil soup with fresh chopped mint (and ate it for lunch), and prepared some cauliflower mash with marinated mushrooms so dinner would be ready when I got home from work after seven. I feel a little bloated after eating the raw cauliflower mash though; could it be because it is in the cruciferous family of veggies?

This kept me full for HOURS

Hydrating raw cucumber and basil soup

During the day I also had a date with almond butter, a delicious green smoothie, some prunes and walnuts, and a peach. Luke and I are going to escape the heat tonight and head to the movies, where I think I will enjoy either a kombucha or a homemade iced herbal tea. Both sound pretty good right now.

Inspired about food again and loving it! Besides this week being all completely raw food, there are a few other "rules" in place to support the cleansing: glass of chlorophyll upon waking, dry body brushing before my morning shower, heaps of water and herbal tea, no caffeine or alcohol, and raw vegan protein shake after every gym workout. I lift lots of weights and I like it that way!

heatwave and six-month veganniversary!

It's my six-month veganniversary today! I can honestly say that I feel ten times better now than I did before I went vegan. I feel happy that I am no longer eating my little animal friends or their byproducts, and physically I have heaps more energy to work, study and hit the gym (hard!). Plus, vegan food is super tasty and interesting. Vegan for the win!

Cheers!

In other news, this heatwave is tough! The rental property I live in does not appear to have insulation of any sort, and thus gets extremely hot and stuffy in summer and frostbite-inducing in winter. The best way to cope with this sort of weather is just to lie back in front of the fan and suck on ice cubes.

Green smoothies are also a staple for me right now, as my internal organs are baking already (I reckon my liver has probably been dehydrated to about half its original size from the outside heat) and can't cope with "proper" meals. I think I have just invented the best green smoothie ever, by the way: cold water, heaps of kale, baby spinach, green grapes, half a banana, a spoonful of coconut yoghurt, fresh lemon juice, and ice cubes. Yum! 

I feel that I want to start a week of eating mostly raw food from tomorrow, and the leftover green smoothie will be an awesome breakfast to kick off the week. I will also be preparing batches of raw cauliflower "mash," raw cucumber and basil soup, zucchini "pasta" with homemade pesto, and some fresh salads. I should get through pretty happily I think! My body didn't cope really well with the alcohol during the festive season so I feel like it needs a bit of a spring clean. Summer clean. Whatever.

Will keep you updated! 

running errands

I had a big sleep-in today because I am a little bit sick, and have since been running errands. This is a big deal because I hardly ever take time to actually sort out my life shit! I have gone to the chemist, bought some much-needed new bras (TMI?), hit up the fruit and vegetable grocer and sat in line for a health fund claim. Exciting stuff, people! 

I also have a lot of house cleaning I want to get done today, as well as making and heating a soup in my Vitamix. I have made a raw soup in it, but haven't tried running it until hot yet. I am actually pretty excited about making and eating this soup- it's a tomato and basil one.

Due to being busy, lunch today is a leftover green smoothie in a jar. Yum!

Green smoothie for the win!

Hello there

My food is still a little same-same, which is kind of disappointing for my new year. But it's only the first week into January, so I still have plenty of time to get into gear and make time for creating new vegan dishes. 

For the past week I have been working a lot, so I have been living on salad wraps (grated carrot, vegan cheese, tonnes of alfalfa sprouts), Subway sandwiches, green smoothies, and dates with almond butter in them. I am SERIOUSLY addicted to those. I might have to start weaning off them before I develop diabetes.

In other news, I have received a High Distinction for two of my classes (Communication and Naturopathic Philosophy), and a Distinction for Herbal Medicine. I am stoked with these results, and I feel even more like this is the path for me. I cannot wait to have my own practice and help people feel as well as they possibly can (the natural way, yay!).

good beginning

It has been a good start to the new year, "resolutions"-wise. I have had a few green smoothies already (vital for curing my two-day lethargy following New Year's Eve celebrations), I hit the gym hard on New Year's Day, I have been dry body brushing, and I have been working hard at my job. All important things to me.

Hello alfafa sprouts, get in me!

Some of the many health-related goals I have for 2014 include mastering an unassisted headstand, starting to practice meditation, experimenting with raw vegan cooking, hitting the gym regularly, trying out a hot yoga class and learning to make my own fermented vegan nut cheese. If I can achieve some or all of the things on my page-long bucket list, 2014 should be a very fun and active year for me!

That being said, tonight I have taken the night off the gym and have been lazing about like a sloth eating delicious Vegusto vegan cheese and brown rice crackers whilst watching "America's Next Top Model." I love that show more than is healthy, and this is the first cycle that guys and girls are competing against each other. I am team Marvin for sure! Uh, for those of you who know the show...

Indulging in some solo cheese-and-cracker time

Mum and I have successfully booked our buses and accommodation for the Wellness Warrior tour in Sydney at the end of the month! My excitement has admittedly waned a little since I first bought the tickets months and months ago (I am very impulsive and hate waiting for things), but I think it will be an awesome evening and I am looking forward to spending some girl time with Mum in Sydney. It is a dang shame that neither of us are in a good financial position to go shopping, but I plan to drag her to a raw vegan restaurant in Newtown and order lots of delicious vegan food so that should help make up for our disappointments. The food was so yum last time I went there I ended up having three courses.

I wonder who the guest speakers will be...in my wildest dreams Kris Carr would be there, but as she is currently doing her own tour in the US I really doubt that she would be able to duck on over. So if Kris is unavailable - as I suspect she is - I would love to hear Natalie Kringoudis, Samantha Gowing, Lola Berry and Adele McConnell speak instead. Pretty please?

Nourishing my body

happy new year!

I cannot believe it's 2014! I love love love a fresh year, anything's possible, and energy is high.

I have plenty of goals for the year, and I am so excited to feel healthy and fresh. Also, I will be married this year, which is beyond amazing. I am so lucky to have met and somehow snared the man of my dreams. My year will hopefully be full of green smoothies, gym workouts, fun with friends, trying new things, experimenting with more vegan cooking (I am thinking of trying out high-raw for a while), working hard and saving my money. Should be good.

As you know, I adore being vegan and am in a pretty good place right now. Apparently age twenty-three is when women are at their happiest- I hope that my best days are still yet to come, but I can vouch that being twenty-three is pretty sweet. None of that crippling insecurity and peer pressure of your teens!

My New Year's Eve was awesome; I spent it with a bunch of friends (and strangers, but they were friends by the end of the night too). We had a house party, then caught three cabs out to the city where we danced the night away. I sang on stage in front of a packed crowd. What?

I woke up yesterday feeling a bit seedy from the combination of alcohol, crappy party snacks and a late night, but rectified it with plenty of coconut water with ice and a big salad wrap for lunch. Salad fixes everything.

Catherine and I

The gorgeous Cheynee, who hosted the awesome house party

Party crowd

Anyway, I am off to work- have a good day everyone, regardless of what you're doing! And good luck getting started on any personal resolutions for the year!