Posts by shanti_11

I have been vegan-vegetarian for the last ten years. i sort of bounce back and forth between the two every few years.  i switched to raw foods this new years.  i am now eating about 90% raw (sometimes at dinner i'll have some cooked edamame or beans or sprouted tortilla mixed in with my salad). i am doing it because i want to lose weight and be healthier, and i'm sick of eating processed foods.  i just have a few questions.  i always see people have these awesome results and all the raw people i meet are incredibly fit and glowing.  i don't have a juicer - just a food processor.  this is what my day looks like usually:

breakfast - a huge bowl of cut up raw fruit with a little chia seed, cacao, coconut, agave and a few walnuts mixed in.  tons of water, and hot tea (i know! but its cold here!)

tons of water lara bar if hungry

lunch  - spinach salad with sprouted beans or walnuts, or sprouted almonds with some fresh veggies, sea veggies, and sometimes raw hummus or a nut pate

tons of water sometimes a larabar if i'm hungry

dinner - spinach salad with raw veggies, sometimes some black beans or edamame for extra protein, nuts, sea veggies

dessert - more fruit salad, or a lara bar.

i work nights so sometimes i'm eating all night at work and sleeping in the day, sometimes its a weird combination of both if i don't sleep after or before i work, and sometimes i just eat in the day.

i'm incredibly active on the weekends and every other week (when i'm off). my husband and i are avid outdoors people we hike, mountain bike, rock climb, kayak, xc ski, etc.  i usually walk my dogs every day, regardless of if its a work week, and i also do yoga about 5 times a week and hula hoop daily. i'm 5 7" and weigh 128 lbs, but 10 of those pounds have grown on me since the last year. 

i lost about a pound or two since starting - but i dont know if its just the water intake thats helping.  do you think my results will be good even if i don't juice regularly or do a detox? thanks!

anna

wow, i had a lot to catch up on. sounds like everyone has been busy! the relationship issues you girls are discussing are quite profound. i haven't really encountered anyhting like that in my marriage yet but its good to know that its a relatively normal occurrence by the sound of it.  carrie i hope things go well for your biopsy. that is never a fun time! quick question though. . . . is your doc ok with you being on birth control if you have hpv? sorry thats the nurse in me coming out.

we've been busy traveling a lot. took a road trip up to san fran (which is a long drive from az!) last week and just got home yesterday. then we are leaving for el salvador this week.  so its kinda like unpack and wash clothes and repack the backpacks!! but its been fun. brian's playing in a band now so we're doing a lot of gigs and stuff.

i'm still hooping every day. you girls gotta get hoops! they are so easy to make and its a phenomenal workout for your whole body. go to www.hooping.org and check it out.  i found a group out here that hoops in the park a few times a week and i'm learning lots of awesome tricks.  

other than that, i just baked a loaf of delicious whole wheat bread and ate about half of it for breakfast this morning! homemade braed is so irresistable. 

off to spinning class....

anna 

i'm back!! i missed you girls! we have been so busy and its been hard to find time to sit in front of the computer long enough to keep current. but i'm back. i need you guys. i've been doing some things really well and other things not so well.  i have been hooping every day and going to yoga and body flow and spinning classes in addition to my usual activity level. but i've been working a lot of nights and that throws my eating off and i tend to eat weird things at weird times and that makes me gain weight. so i need the support of you guys. plus i just missed you all! i'm going to back up and read a few pages of posts back so i can see whats up with you all.

peace

anna

ok guys its thursday and i still need to get ahold of my weekend eating! i'm still doing it!! agh! its all super healthy but its just a lot of calories. 

rennai - i'm so excited about dave #1. he sounds great

carrie - you will love having two dogs. i promise.  my dogs are so much happier being together than alone. it may be weird at first for your dog to adjust to but he'll love it in the long run.  babies will come in their own time.

greta - good job having will power to send the cake home with someone else.  i made an awesome fruit salad yesterday (blueberries, blackberries, apples, bananas, apricots, strawberries) and took it to a pot luck. i ended up bringing the leftovers home and eating it all! grrr.

girls i went to belly dancing class yesterday. it was awesome and fun and my abs are sooo sore! carrie you have inspired me to find a yoga class. i'm very excited about it too.

hope you girls have a great day!!

anna

hi everyone,

yay for geeks and nerds.  i don't think my husband is either, really. i alway hung out with the geeks and nerds in college (possibly becasue i am one too!) and thought i'd probably wind up with one, but i didnt. hubby is more of the outdoorsy/man vs. wild type with a little singer/songwriter mixed in. but he's totally lovable in his ungeekiness. he does read non fiction books, which was my main criteria for selection. 

i hear you girls with the protein. i have been making a huge effort to add more to my diet. i switched from vegan to vegetarian and have been eating egg whites and yogurt in addition to my usual soy, beans, nuts, etc.  my husband eats meat though so i cook it for him (quite well, too, i'm told). venision sounds really different - is that someting you can buy in a store?   i have noticed more muscle tone since i've been eating the extra protein too.

the last few days have been bad for calorie counting.  i worked on saturday and sunday at the hospital and was getting home at about 1am and ravenously hungry.  i spent all weekend going to bed after 1am and getting up by five am, because my body just naturally wakes up at 5 and i can't go back to sleep no matter how tired i am.  i didn't really overeat on the weekend though probably because i was so busy but i kept it to about 1300-1400 calories and got a good hike in.  its my ttom though and i felt so exhausted and yucky i couldn't swim yesterday. today i swam so hopefully i'll get back on track. but had a big breakfast - 400 calories worth of fruit, egg beaters, yogurt, flaxseeds, and soy bacon. well at least it was all relatively healthy stuff. i limited my morning snack to 4 blackberries and a cup of coffee with one packet of creamer. so hopefully i won't have to restrict lunch toooo much!

carrie, how was star trek? recommend seing it?

take care and have a great day!!

anna

Ok ladies,

thanks for your feedback. i have a couple questions, maybe you can help me with. i went to the http://phord.com/cc website everyone recommended to get a good idea of my bmr and calories to eat.  i listed myself as "a little more active" and here are my results:

BMR=1347 :: RMR=1616

Your customized recommendation:
EAT 1347 calories :: BURN 1940 calories :: LOSE 1.19 lb per week

Reasoning:

Deficits: Your deficit is the difference between how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. Your recommended deficit is 593 calories. This is the least of your Activity Deficit (593 calories), your Safety Deficit (625 calories), and your Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (901 calories).

Activity Deficit (593 calories): This is the number of calories you burn in your daily activities (such as being awake, driving to work, exercising, doing homework, etc.). This is an estimate based on the amount of exercise you indicated you do each week in the form above, averaged out for daily deficit numbers. For sedentary individuals this is 20% of your BMR.

Safety Deficit (625 calories): Nutritionists say that you can safely lose no more than 1% of your body weight per week. For the weight you gave (125 lb), you can safely lose about 1.25 lb per week. Because each pound of body fat contains 3500 calories of energy, your safe deficit is 1.25 lb * 3500 calories per pound per week = 4375 calories per week, which comes to 4375 / 7 = 625 calories per day.

Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (901 calories): One study found that body fat in humans can be converted to energy at a maximum rate of 31 calories per pound of actual body fat per day. Any energy you expend beyond this rate comes from your intake of nutrients and the breakdown (catabolysis) of your muscles. Weight loss in most people consists of about 75% FAT and 25% MUSCLE. Since we can calculate the actual amount of body fat in your body using your Body Fat Percentage (if given), we can determine the optimal calorie deficit to focus on FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS. To optimize your FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS, you should choose a deficit that does not exceed this value. (Persons wishing to lose muscle as well as fat can ignore this deficit limit.)

what i don't understand is what is RMR? What is the safety deficit? the max fat calorie expenditure?do i need to try to burn an extra 901 calories to burn fat? or is that something that i'm already doing based on my activity level? if i eat the recommended 1347 calories, and keep doing what i'm doing, will that result in the 1.19 lbs a week they are talking about? thanks for any light you can shed. 

oh and inspired by carrie i actually measured myself today. 

waist - 28 inches

hip 35 inches

weight - still 125lbs.

rlgoodwill- way to go with the weight loss! you go girl!

i am having a bad start to the day. i was awesome yesterday - 1200 calories and tons of exercise. i was up all night with the dogs - they were sick and woke up this morning feeling like a train wreck, becuase i still have all thsi sinus congestion. i went back to bed after walking them - i just could not make myself go to the pool and swim laps.  ate my usual 350 calorie breakfast of ff yogurt, mini vegan bran muffin, 2/3c egg whites with spinach, and a handful of berries.  so far so good. except for skipping exercise. came to work and its a staff breakfast. the berries looked so good so i tucked into a cup and 1/2 of those with watermelon. so i'm guessing i'm probably around 450 - 500 calories now and i haven't even had lunch yet! i brought some soy-eggplant meatballs, salad, and yogurt for lunch today so i'll have to cut down on that. hubby is playing guitar at an open mic tonight so we will probabyl go out for dinner so i want to save some calories for that. 

the good thing is that when i had this total meltdown in the kitchen this morning while i was cooking breakfast ("i'm so fat! and i didn't do my laps this morning! i'm going to get fatter! i feel like a congested elephant!") my sweet hubby was like,  you are beautiful, and i love you, and i'm glad you took a morning off finally and slept in, and if you really feel bad about it we can go swim laps together this afternoon before we go out for dinner.  he's so sweet. he hates swimming laps.

rennai-  i totalyl know what you mean about being frustrated iwth the house. they gave us about 30 days till we can close. my current yard is so tiny and the dogs are outgrowing it by hte minute. i don't know where to put them anymore, they are so big. i can't WAIT to move!!!  i hope they can do it sooner. the bank said they are gonna try to do what they can to expedite things. btw, how's the dating going? we're all dying to hear about it!

greta - you can definitely bake cookies without butter! apple sauce, flax seeds, peanut butter, etc. check out any vegan cookie recipes.  however, i think brummel and brown is an acceptable choice and i give it to my husband all the time.   

hi girls,

wow i've been gone only a few days and i feel like i missed so much!! you girls have been so busy! 

carrie - your old fashioned pioneer lady meals sound awesome. what a neat thing to experiment with.  i'm glad you and your husband still have the flame burning for eachother - it defintely takes effort in a marriage but we try to prioritze it.

rennai - please don't let ray keep hold of any of your emotions. gotta have a clean break and a new start.

avria - when are you inviting us over for a meal? yours sounds so great! i love lentil dal isn't it the best.

i had to go fly to boston (from arizona) for my husbands grandma's passing.  we went for the weekend and it was a very beautiful and meaningful time iwth the family. we road tripped to maine and newhampshire too just to visit places where we had memories of her. the hard part was eating! husband's family can go days without consuming any fruits or vegetables. i can't stand even eating a meal without both. so i think i actually ate less than usual due to this, and being vegetarian the pickings were slim.  but that area is a mecca for ice cream. so i had some encounters with frozen yogurt (Fat free. . . . vanilla...blisss) that were quite memorable. i weighed in today (after eating a huge breakfast with hubby at a local diner) and i actually lost a pound! i'm now down to 125.50 lbs.  hurray for that.    i think the awesome thing about traveling with my husband is how active he is. even in a situation like this, where all the family wants to do is sit round and mourn and eat, he's like, lets go for a hike in the park where grandma used to take us for picnics, etc.  its really quite a wonderful characteristic of his. 

i also got to stop at trader joes in phoenix on the way back to prescott.  i loaded up on their amazing vegan muffins, all their great stirfry sauces and other healthy goodies. i love that store.

hope everyone is doing great!

anna

hi ladies:

weigh in: 127lbs. goal weight 120 lbs. started at 128, dropped down to 126 and now back up. i think it might be ttom for me though, not sure because i'm not too regular.