new blog to be launched on tumblr and a bunch of other things mainly on eating
Let me just put this out there, in case my inactivity around LiveJournal baffles many, that I'm not ready to give up on LJ just yet. This still serves as sanctuary, some sort of haven for me from the flurry and drama on most social media sites. I'm not on facebook anymore and nor do I plan to go back there but twitter, instagram and a few others, probably even including tumblr can get pretty dramatic at times, too. E-mails can also get pretty dramatic at times but they're better than nothing and then there are dating sites which...I've had a fair amount of experience with but people there are the ones I mostl find lame so I've quit. It's a try and tire out of it process in every site I seem to go on, Facebook included. But I'm not here to talk social media painful experiences and what not. Okay, partly because it seems, from what I hear/read from fellow social media friends on twitter mostly, LJ has undergone a huge-ish change and yes, that. It might signal a time for many to leave LJ and work on other blogging platforms but for me...I'm not ready to give up on LJ just yet however I am putting up a third tumblr blog for random lifestyle thoughts. Mostly impersonal ones concerning health, home and beauty stuff or just whatever occupies my thoughts in the early to mid-morning part of the day. It's different from the photo inspiration tumblr blog and the fangirling tumblr blog and it's mostly to assure myself that whatever happens to LJ in the near future---I'm currently getting flashes of LJ getting closed down due to mismanagement but I really, REALLY hope not---I have somewhere else to go to.
I'm currently known to not update the blog for a long while after the last blog entry because there's really not much I can post on here. Couple that with the fact that I actually have another blog I maintain which is on blogger/blogspot. Other than maintaining my twitter and my instagram account, these blogs actually keep me preoccuppied most days.
Now that, that's out of the way, let's get back to the business of living the (boring?) life...
*****
Black coffee with sprinkles of nutmeg and cinnamon powder in hand this morning, my head was full of thoughts regarding how to transition gracefully into a raw vegan foodist among many other things and then I get reminded that I currently converted a Christmas gift of a notebook into a scrapbook of sorts. I swear I don't drink a lot of coffee but only reserve it for occasions when I get too sleepy and I direly need to be wide-awake to do whatever. I'm really more of a tea person lately and I hardly sleep later than 12 midnight now unless I obsess about a single thing and watch videos and read stuff online until 5 a.m. in the morning on some days. No, just don't ask anymore. My close friends are well aware of my crazy sleeping habits when I obsess about something.
Those thoughts in my head came down to these pointers and a snapshot of a page of my scrapbook that has my 2014-2015 health, wellness and fitness goals:
My diet, as of the moment, is far from being very healthy though I try to eat healthy meals one to two times a day. This normally means a plate-full of salads of different kinds or a cooked pasta (mostly, aglio e olio and other vegetarian/pescetarian pasta varieties) with a raw salad side dish and a bottle of green smoothie or mixed fruits and vegetable smoothie for breakfast or dinner. Even though most of my diet now is a dash of seafoods and mostly fruits and vegetables, I still go really unhealthy for snacks like a bowl of cheetos unhealthy here and there coupled with maybe a cup of tea or, like today, a glass of cold lemon grass juice courtesy of mum---most of the time, I do make my own meals and snacks because no one really goes for the healthy lifestyle I aim for when I'm at home or anywhere else. The Philippine archipelago is a country of omnivores and mostly carnivores. I go for traditional rice and meat sometimes when I feel like doing so but it only ever happens sometimes now or when I have no choice but to eat meat.
Let me just put it out there that I've wanted to be fully vegan (now, raw vegan) for a long time since having encountered Carrie Underwood in American Idol season 4 at 17 years old. Now, though, my reason for wanting to go there is because of my health. I'm not sick or anything but I'd like to keep a light and healthy body and form. I'm not even looking to lose a lot of weight as most people would think one is looking to do so when they go on a vegan or raw vegan diet. Other than that, I may be a pet lover but I'm otherwise more of a humanitarian than a huge animal lover enough for me to want to be a raw vegan just because I don't want to bring harm to a lot of those in the animal kingdom. I hardly have issues against people who eat meat regularly nor am I the type who can't stand being at the wet section of the supermarkets because of the butchered meat stuff there.
Focusing on the first photo, I actually had a stroke of genius (?) and wrote it in the early morning after having my occasional meat (market bought chorizo that's fried) and rice helping for the week or couple of weeks. That's how rarely I eat meat these days. If I need some sort of protein dose, I'd go by way of tofu or some fish on most days. I wrote it because I felt like I needed a sort of reminder on how I can keep my meals simple, plant-based on most days so I can transition gracefully into a raw vegan foodist. I don't need to be a strict raw vegan foodist but just mostly a raw vegan foodist so do I need to expound on it? I suppose I'll keep it brief in this one post...
Disclaimer: I am no health expert, licensed nutritionist or dietician but having grown up with a dad who's a doctor, a mother who started out as a medical technician and a bunch of aunts who are nurses among others, I'm pretty health conscious despite not following them into the medical profession. Ok, so I did about 2 years and a half of nursing school in college but I never finished it anyway. Hospital work wasn't really for me. Going into nutrition or diet might be better for me...or even better, homeopathy. Also, I do a lot of research on food preparation now among others but in no way are my posts and theories on it on this blog tested on others other than myself so I leave this up to you, the readers' discretions whether they would take me up on them or not.
Pointer 1: DON'T PUSH YOURSELF.
Just like the way I transition my beauty and health products from the processed ones to the organic ones commonly found in the market, grocery stores or the firms that make them organic and less processed, I need to be reminded that the process of changing diets doesn't happen really quicky. For most who aren't sure of it, they mostly end up not changing at all or doing the yoyo diet thing. Some would even jump quickly into fad diets that do not at all work anyway.
Raw salads and other kinds of raw food here and there two to three times a day is enough then I'd eat something cooked at least once a day. My taste buds and my transitioning body is something that needs to be taken good care of so hurrying myself to turn full raw vegan will most likely hurt them and give the human body and organ system in general an unhealthy, irreparable jolt.
Pointer 2: EAT A VARIETY OF SALADS 1-2 TIMES A DAY.
This is the equivalent to the go vegetarian/vegan once a day rule that many dieticians and nutritionists would advice their clients with along with other health professionals that focus on one kind of diet among others. Instead of once a day, I'd push for myself having raw salads twice a day even if it means just eating spiced and herbed tomatoes and onions as a side dish next to the main dinner, breakfast or lunch of mixed frutis and vegetables smoothies or juice. For lunch or dinner then, I'd normally have a mix of a variety of lettuce, tomatoes and others with a variety of dressings (it's fun to experiment with them, really) on a (medium-sized?) plate. So that's basically 2 raw vegan meals a day.
If a plate-full of vegetables and fruits is not possible to have one day or two in a week then a mix an apple, an orange or any fruit would do.
Pointer 3: HAVE A SIDE DISH OF TOMATO OR RADDISH SALAD (including atchara, a local salad of ripening papaya)
Side dishes are easy to make and they're usually just spiced and herbed tomatoes, raddish and cucumber. I love pairing them with smoothies I make or juices for detox purposes. It's good to have a daily stock of these so you can snack on them or eat them with any type of meal throughout the day.Pointer 4: ALWAYS HAVE A (mixed fruits and vegetables) SMOOTHIE or JUICE ON HAND FOR BREAKFAST OR DINNER
This is probably the one key to transitioning into a raw vegan diet that almost everybody is into today. Weirdly, I've even gotten two friends into this. The thing about smoothies and juices is that they are easy to make if you have juicers and high-powered blenders at home. They can be stored in refrigerators for a day or two as well however they are best drunk quickly after having been made. They're also an effective way of liquefying solid fruits and vegetables you'd like to eat raw and mask weird bitter tastes of with something sweet like coconut water, almond milk, soy milk, honey, agave and more. I'd even like to bring them with me when I'm out although not a lot of restaurants here offer these much to my (and possibly other raw vegans-to-be and pure raw vegans) dismay. The juice detoxifying programs here are sparse and most of them cost 2500 Php to 5500 Php if you would like to get into those types of programs. Juice presses aren't easily available here as they are in Los Angeles, New York or even in some areas of the United Kingdom, Europe as a whole and Australia. I'd wish they were but it'd happen maybe in 5-10 years time in which case, I really have no patience for, for waiting. Thank you very much, eternally backwards third world country with crap everything.
Other than that, smoothies and some juices (I swear I'll get a decent juicer one day next year once I've saved enough for one from my work's salary) are doable even in this tropical part of the world so that's all good to me. Just one or two bottles of it or tall glasses of it a day is enough. I abuse the oster blender downstairs for those I made on a daily basis. Even that one needs to be replaced soon, however. I suspect that thing is about to fall apart...soon.
That's about it for the brief explanation of how I want my diet to go down. Haha. "Brief" but it doesn't seem like it.
It's kind of funny for people to think that one is going raw vegan or vegetarian/vegan because she or he wants to lose weight like what a friend shared to me a couple of nights ago on Twitter. She is into modifying her diet because of her allergies. Her list of food that she could eat is getting narrower and narrower due to her allergic flare-ups everytime she eats a certain food like chicken and even seafoods like shrimp among others. Call it carefully restricted eating. Again, diet modification due to health implications. Either way, I still maintain that whatever one chooses to eat, others should not judge or whatever. I keep getting stares myself whenever I am out because all I'm eating are salads or vegan/vegetarian food options on the menu. I don't ask my meals to be modified like most vegetarians and vegans but I do choose the ones with the least to none at all meat products. I also choose carefully the places I eat out in. In most places, I get questions like: "is that all you're eating, ma'am?" which is, frankly, getting tired, tried and just downright annoying---stop it, people, please. I don't judge others for what they eat, who gives them (you) the right to judge what I eat and drink? Oh, and contrary to the popular belief of many an omnivore, some vegetarians or those with restricted diets do not really preach that theirs is the best and healthiest diets because like all other things, a certain diet may not fit everyone at all. Think, personal preferences and what the body is most attuned to when it comes to preparing meals and stuff. What fits for one may not fit for another. Not all of us would think or say 'ew' out loud when we see others eating meat at a restaurant here and there.
Until the next post then as this is getting longer and I am probably not making any more sense now.
kg*
I'm currently known to not update the blog for a long while after the last blog entry because there's really not much I can post on here. Couple that with the fact that I actually have another blog I maintain which is on blogger/blogspot. Other than maintaining my twitter and my instagram account, these blogs actually keep me preoccuppied most days.
Now that, that's out of the way, let's get back to the business of living the (boring?) life...
*****
Black coffee with sprinkles of nutmeg and cinnamon powder in hand this morning, my head was full of thoughts regarding how to transition gracefully into a raw vegan foodist among many other things and then I get reminded that I currently converted a Christmas gift of a notebook into a scrapbook of sorts. I swear I don't drink a lot of coffee but only reserve it for occasions when I get too sleepy and I direly need to be wide-awake to do whatever. I'm really more of a tea person lately and I hardly sleep later than 12 midnight now unless I obsess about a single thing and watch videos and read stuff online until 5 a.m. in the morning on some days. No, just don't ask anymore. My close friends are well aware of my crazy sleeping habits when I obsess about something.
Those thoughts in my head came down to these pointers and a snapshot of a page of my scrapbook that has my 2014-2015 health, wellness and fitness goals:
My diet, as of the moment, is far from being very healthy though I try to eat healthy meals one to two times a day. This normally means a plate-full of salads of different kinds or a cooked pasta (mostly, aglio e olio and other vegetarian/pescetarian pasta varieties) with a raw salad side dish and a bottle of green smoothie or mixed fruits and vegetable smoothie for breakfast or dinner. Even though most of my diet now is a dash of seafoods and mostly fruits and vegetables, I still go really unhealthy for snacks like a bowl of cheetos unhealthy here and there coupled with maybe a cup of tea or, like today, a glass of cold lemon grass juice courtesy of mum---most of the time, I do make my own meals and snacks because no one really goes for the healthy lifestyle I aim for when I'm at home or anywhere else. The Philippine archipelago is a country of omnivores and mostly carnivores. I go for traditional rice and meat sometimes when I feel like doing so but it only ever happens sometimes now or when I have no choice but to eat meat.
Let me just put it out there that I've wanted to be fully vegan (now, raw vegan) for a long time since having encountered Carrie Underwood in American Idol season 4 at 17 years old. Now, though, my reason for wanting to go there is because of my health. I'm not sick or anything but I'd like to keep a light and healthy body and form. I'm not even looking to lose a lot of weight as most people would think one is looking to do so when they go on a vegan or raw vegan diet. Other than that, I may be a pet lover but I'm otherwise more of a humanitarian than a huge animal lover enough for me to want to be a raw vegan just because I don't want to bring harm to a lot of those in the animal kingdom. I hardly have issues against people who eat meat regularly nor am I the type who can't stand being at the wet section of the supermarkets because of the butchered meat stuff there.
Focusing on the first photo, I actually had a stroke of genius (?) and wrote it in the early morning after having my occasional meat (market bought chorizo that's fried) and rice helping for the week or couple of weeks. That's how rarely I eat meat these days. If I need some sort of protein dose, I'd go by way of tofu or some fish on most days. I wrote it because I felt like I needed a sort of reminder on how I can keep my meals simple, plant-based on most days so I can transition gracefully into a raw vegan foodist. I don't need to be a strict raw vegan foodist but just mostly a raw vegan foodist so do I need to expound on it? I suppose I'll keep it brief in this one post...
Disclaimer: I am no health expert, licensed nutritionist or dietician but having grown up with a dad who's a doctor, a mother who started out as a medical technician and a bunch of aunts who are nurses among others, I'm pretty health conscious despite not following them into the medical profession. Ok, so I did about 2 years and a half of nursing school in college but I never finished it anyway. Hospital work wasn't really for me. Going into nutrition or diet might be better for me...or even better, homeopathy. Also, I do a lot of research on food preparation now among others but in no way are my posts and theories on it on this blog tested on others other than myself so I leave this up to you, the readers' discretions whether they would take me up on them or not.
Pointer 1: DON'T PUSH YOURSELF.
Just like the way I transition my beauty and health products from the processed ones to the organic ones commonly found in the market, grocery stores or the firms that make them organic and less processed, I need to be reminded that the process of changing diets doesn't happen really quicky. For most who aren't sure of it, they mostly end up not changing at all or doing the yoyo diet thing. Some would even jump quickly into fad diets that do not at all work anyway.
Raw salads and other kinds of raw food here and there two to three times a day is enough then I'd eat something cooked at least once a day. My taste buds and my transitioning body is something that needs to be taken good care of so hurrying myself to turn full raw vegan will most likely hurt them and give the human body and organ system in general an unhealthy, irreparable jolt.
Pointer 2: EAT A VARIETY OF SALADS 1-2 TIMES A DAY.
This is the equivalent to the go vegetarian/vegan once a day rule that many dieticians and nutritionists would advice their clients with along with other health professionals that focus on one kind of diet among others. Instead of once a day, I'd push for myself having raw salads twice a day even if it means just eating spiced and herbed tomatoes and onions as a side dish next to the main dinner, breakfast or lunch of mixed frutis and vegetables smoothies or juice. For lunch or dinner then, I'd normally have a mix of a variety of lettuce, tomatoes and others with a variety of dressings (it's fun to experiment with them, really) on a (medium-sized?) plate. So that's basically 2 raw vegan meals a day.
If a plate-full of vegetables and fruits is not possible to have one day or two in a week then a mix an apple, an orange or any fruit would do.
Pointer 3: HAVE A SIDE DISH OF TOMATO OR RADDISH SALAD (including atchara, a local salad of ripening papaya)
Side dishes are easy to make and they're usually just spiced and herbed tomatoes, raddish and cucumber. I love pairing them with smoothies I make or juices for detox purposes. It's good to have a daily stock of these so you can snack on them or eat them with any type of meal throughout the day.Pointer 4: ALWAYS HAVE A (mixed fruits and vegetables) SMOOTHIE or JUICE ON HAND FOR BREAKFAST OR DINNER
This is probably the one key to transitioning into a raw vegan diet that almost everybody is into today. Weirdly, I've even gotten two friends into this. The thing about smoothies and juices is that they are easy to make if you have juicers and high-powered blenders at home. They can be stored in refrigerators for a day or two as well however they are best drunk quickly after having been made. They're also an effective way of liquefying solid fruits and vegetables you'd like to eat raw and mask weird bitter tastes of with something sweet like coconut water, almond milk, soy milk, honey, agave and more. I'd even like to bring them with me when I'm out although not a lot of restaurants here offer these much to my (and possibly other raw vegans-to-be and pure raw vegans) dismay. The juice detoxifying programs here are sparse and most of them cost 2500 Php to 5500 Php if you would like to get into those types of programs. Juice presses aren't easily available here as they are in Los Angeles, New York or even in some areas of the United Kingdom, Europe as a whole and Australia. I'd wish they were but it'd happen maybe in 5-10 years time in which case, I really have no patience for, for waiting. Thank you very much, eternally backwards third world country with crap everything.
Other than that, smoothies and some juices (I swear I'll get a decent juicer one day next year once I've saved enough for one from my work's salary) are doable even in this tropical part of the world so that's all good to me. Just one or two bottles of it or tall glasses of it a day is enough. I abuse the oster blender downstairs for those I made on a daily basis. Even that one needs to be replaced soon, however. I suspect that thing is about to fall apart...soon.
That's about it for the brief explanation of how I want my diet to go down. Haha. "Brief" but it doesn't seem like it.
It's kind of funny for people to think that one is going raw vegan or vegetarian/vegan because she or he wants to lose weight like what a friend shared to me a couple of nights ago on Twitter. She is into modifying her diet because of her allergies. Her list of food that she could eat is getting narrower and narrower due to her allergic flare-ups everytime she eats a certain food like chicken and even seafoods like shrimp among others. Call it carefully restricted eating. Again, diet modification due to health implications. Either way, I still maintain that whatever one chooses to eat, others should not judge or whatever. I keep getting stares myself whenever I am out because all I'm eating are salads or vegan/vegetarian food options on the menu. I don't ask my meals to be modified like most vegetarians and vegans but I do choose the ones with the least to none at all meat products. I also choose carefully the places I eat out in. In most places, I get questions like: "is that all you're eating, ma'am?" which is, frankly, getting tired, tried and just downright annoying---stop it, people, please. I don't judge others for what they eat, who gives them (you) the right to judge what I eat and drink? Oh, and contrary to the popular belief of many an omnivore, some vegetarians or those with restricted diets do not really preach that theirs is the best and healthiest diets because like all other things, a certain diet may not fit everyone at all. Think, personal preferences and what the body is most attuned to when it comes to preparing meals and stuff. What fits for one may not fit for another. Not all of us would think or say 'ew' out loud when we see others eating meat at a restaurant here and there.
Until the next post then as this is getting longer and I am probably not making any more sense now.
kg*