17/04/2013

You see that? You see that shiny delicious brownie? Ugh so fattening, definitely not clean, and super unhealthy, right?

WRONG!

It’s a raw brownie!!! Made with pecans, dates, raw cacao powder, shredded coconut, honey and salt! And holy cowbells it was SO delicious. If you gave that to me and said ‘here is a normal brownie from a normal bakery with normal sugar and normal chocolate’, I would start grunting like a pig and eat it in one mouthful. It literally tasted no different to a normal brownie! I am so impressed with the raw foodist community. They are magicians!

Breakfast (at 2:40pm, waking up far too late!): green smoothie

Snack: coconut water and meat, raw brownie (shown above)

Lunch: Tuna with lettuce, spinach, cucumber and flaxseed oil

Afternoon snack: 3 squares of raw blue-green algae chocolate, a pomegranate

Dinner: green smoothie

Water: 1.5L

No exercise.

I had a boring day today but I am SO excited about tomorrow!!! I’m going to see a clairvoyant! I have seen this lady a few times before (years apart) and she was consistently accurate, so I completely trust and believe in her abilities. I saw her just before I went to India and everything she said came true (unfortunately!). She is so lovely, I can’t wait for tomorrow!

Yesterday, I went to a lady who read my chakra. I have never really paid too much attention to chakras, not because I don’t believe it, but just because I was too lazy to read up. But after hearing how insanely accurate the lady I saw yesterday was (she is also a clairvoyant), I am completely fascinated. She told me that she thinks I need to do some work with my inner child. I’m trying to think of a way to explain it simply, but it’s a bit tricky. Basically, from when you are concieved, your DNA is retaining every second of life. So the circumstances under which you are brought into the world stay with you for life in your cells. If you had a less than perfect upbringing (during a divorce for example, like me), this can affect the rest of your life without you even knowing it. So next week, she’s going to help me to have some past-event regressions, and then teach me how to nuture myself thus re-writing my DNA. She told me that she lost 2 stone when she began to nurture her inner child. Plus, she’s 70 but looks barely 50! She said it’s because her inner child is healthy and keeps her youthful. She also told me that when she was 40, she had an iridology scan done (eye scan). And then after doing all her inner child work, she had another scan done (at the age of 60). Apparently the iridologist was baffled because her cells had changed so drastically (in a positive way), it was like looking at another eye altogether. I am so interested to see what effect it has on me. She told me that my weight is 100% related to my inner child, so I hope it has positive results!

I’m not a nutbag, I swear.

Sending you all lots of love! I hope you’ve had a wonderful day.

☮ & ❤

Asha

Breakfast:

• Green superfood smoothie
• A few chunks of roast chicken
• Handful of trail mix

Lunch:

• Scrambled egg, spinach and bacon (just the 1 rasher) in a wrap - I was at lunch with a friend so this was from a cafe.
• Peppermint tea

Afternoon snack:

• Handful of trail mix
• Coconut (juice and meat)

Dinner: (pictured above)

• 2 fish patties - no potato or anything in them, just fish and herbs squashed together and cooked in coconut oil
• spoonful of quinoa salad
• spoonful of potato salad with avocado dressing

Dessert:

• Fresh strawberries dipped in melted dark chocolate. About 10 medium-large strawberries

Water: I forgot to take count but not nearly enough

Exercise: 60 minutes on the stationary bike

I had an okay day today but I think I ate too much. Although the breakfast wrap was not the healthiest option I could have chosen, it was far from the worst. I caught up with a friend that I haven’t seen since christmas, and we found this cute little organic restaurant just down the road from our university. They had all sorts of things on the menu from amazing looking cakes to burgers with chips and salads. Usually, I would go straight for the burger and chips, but this time it didn’t even cross my mind. I couldn’t afford to get one of the salads because they were $25+ for some reason and I had just given my friend a ton of money because she shaved her hair to fundraise for leukaemia. So I went for the wrap and a tea, and they were both quite pleasant. I wish I had just opted for a raw-ball and the tea to be honest but I’ll know for next time.

How amazing does my dinner look?!! It was really delicious too. My mum made it all and she’s a total processed food nazi so I can be 100% sure that what she buys is completely healthy.

The only thing I am not happy about is the chocolate fondue I had after dinner. I went shopping after uni because I needed to pick up some incaberries and some snowpeas, and unfortunately the incaberries (dried physalis berry) were right next to the cooking chocolates. And it was then that I spied the dark chocolate melts. And I just bought them without a thought. Then, after dinner, although I was already full, I popped the chocolate in the microwave and whipped out the strawberries and had a fondue party for one. I need to keep reminding myself that I won’t lose weight if I keep overdoing the treats. Every now and then is okay but I think at the moment, I am doing it too often.

But change is definitely possible :) and that is what I plan to do.

I hope you all had fantastic, healthy and successful days.

☮ & ❤

Asha

This is a picture from my 18th birthday party in August 2011. 

I had started on a lipolytic diet in January 2011 run by a supposed expert in the area of obesity and weight loss. It was basically a starvation diet. 190g of protein, 190g of certain vegetables a day, 1 piece of fruit and 1 packet of Melba toast crackers. It definitely worked but was not sustainable. I lost 15kg and my lowest weight was around March, about 95kg (209lbs).

Then I went on holiday and completely fell off the wagon, and just couldn’t bring myself to get back on. I started piling the weight on hard and fast and soon I was 5 kilos bigger than when I started! (+20kg!)

This picture makes me a bit sad because I had bought this beautiful Aqua couture dress for my 18th a few months before, and it had fit nicely when I bought it. Then on the day of the party, I put it on again…and it wouldn’t do up. So I had an hour before people started to arrive and nothing to wear. So I just chucked on this monochrome dress which made me feel like a diner waitress.

I also felt sad about wearing it because it showed so much of my breastygals. I felt like because I was the fat girl of the group, I had to show a big bit of cleavage otherwise I had absolutely nothing going for me at all, if that makes sense. People would always comment on my boobs and whilst I didn’t particularly like it, at least they weren’t ignoring me altogether. The Aqua dress was the first dress I felt confident enough to wear without having to have a mile-long cleavage on show to detract from the rest of my body, and then it didn’t fit.

It put a dampener on the night, knowing that I had gotten so much bigger.

I never want to feel like that again!

This time I am doing things properly, nothing can throw me off the wagon. :)

☮ & ❤

Asha

How incredible are these! My aunty bought them today as a welcome-back gift for my mum returning from her vacation. I couldn’t believe them when I saw them, I thought they had to be silk flowers for sure but apparently they split the stems and put them in different coloured waters and the flowers drink it up and turn into rainbows! So beautiful.

No breakfast (I woke up at 1pm!)

Lunch:

• 2 salmon and vegetable patties (croquettes)
• 1 satay chicken lettuce leaf taco with carrot

Dinner:

• 2 salmon and vegetable patties
• 5 chicken nuggets

Water: 2.5L of water

Exercise: 1 hour of cycling to be done when I get home, ran out of time before work.

Eating was better than yesterday but still far from good. I’m starting to feel it too, like I don’t have all the energy that I did before. I am working ALL day tomorrow, 6am to 6pm, so I’m going to make my breakfast smoothie tonight and chop up some vegetables that I can have with dip for lunch. Then I’ll make a cool smoothie for dinner.

My mum gets back tonight and I know this sounds so childish but I eat 100x better when she’s around. Mainly because she bitches me out about everything I eat so it’s just easier to eat healthily to avoid a lecture.

I am taking the child I babysit to the movies tomorrow to see Oz (it’s so great having a legitimate excuse to see all the kid movies without looking like a bit of loser trudging in alone!), and I am a bit worried about how my eating is going to be because movie food… drool. I think the best plan of action will be going to the shops beforehand and picking up some junky foods for the kid and then some healthy options for myself. Any suggestions for healthy movie snacks? I’m thinking of a little trail mix because it takes years to eat.

I hope you have all had wonderful days. I have to go back to watching Diary of a Wimpy Kid and getting paid for it. Ugh, such a hard life! :)

☮ & ❤

Asha

26/2/13

Breakfast:

• Green juice
• Green smoothie

Lunch:

• Salad nicoise (no tuna and a few cheese chunks)
• Banana yoghurt

Afternoon snack:

• Homemade maple walnuts
• ‘Raw’ shots (this local company called Raw makes these awesome wheatgrass shots. They come with a big bottle of blended coconut (the milk and meat), which is just a creamy bottle of deliciousness. So you do the wheatgrass shot, and then chase it with the coconut shake. It’s delicious!)

Dinner:

• 6 carrots with hummus
• A bunch of green grapes
• A coconut water

Water: 3.5L

Exercise: 25 minutes on the stationary bike

Average day. I am really baffled and upset by my little weight loss. 1kg is ridiculous. I have been drinking at least 3.5L of water a day, exercised most days, did all my visualizations and ate super healthily. So why isn’t the weight flying off? It’s really frustrating. My mum said it might be because the other diets I have done have been basically starvation diets, but this one is like permanent weight loss so it’s slow. And I guess it’s kinda true. On the other diets, I had absolutely no energy but on this one, I have endless energy. Oh well. If I lose 1kg a week for a year, I’ll be 52 kilos down and very close to my goal weight!

I babysat from 7-1 today, which was good because the child was really good today. Plus I earned $70 for basically just watching the Dinosaur Train and the Lion King for 6 hours lol.

I am proud of myself for one thing though. I was feeling crappy today because I didn’t lose as much as I thought I would. Usually, I would give up at this point. I would get McDonalds on the way home and drown my sorrows in a Quarter Pounder with bacon. But I haven’t given up. In fact, this afternoon I really didn’t feel like exercising because it was 36°C (96.8°F). But I did it :) the whole 25 minutes. It’s just like giving up is not an option now. This is the first time in my whole adult life that I have exercised some discipline. It’s crazy and foreign but so far, I like it a lot. :)

So my lame day became an alright day. I hope you all had wonderful days!

☮ & ❤

Asha

25/2/13

Breakfast:

• Green smoothie

Lunch:

• Green smoothie

Afternoon snack:

• 6 pieces of sushi (I stopped at the shop on the way home from uni to get some chicken salad but they didn’t have any appetizing ones and I was just starving, so I thought this would be the next best thing.)
• A couple homemade maple walnuts (my mum covered organic walnuts in organic maple syrup and then put them in the dehydrator for the day, they are amazingly delicious!)

Dinner:

• Homemade tandoori chicken salad (pictured above)

Water: 4L

Exercise: 20 minutes on the stationary cycle!!!

Okay I had the best day ever!!! Which is bizarre because it was my first day back at uni today. Let me tell you how it went. I woke up before my alarm so I got that glorious roll-around-the-bed and check-all-forms-of-social-networking time. Then I did my morning visualization. Then I drank my apple cider vinegar and had a big old green smoothie.

And then I popped on my Cougartown DVD and did 20 minutes on the bike!!! I am so proud of myself. Last Tuesday, I didn’t think I could manage even 10 minutes, but here I am, 6 days later, knocking out 20 minutes!! I have never exercised in the morning either, it’s always been an afternoon thing but morning exercise is the best! I had so much more energy and I had that great endorphin rush all day. But when I got home this afternoon, I kept thinking ‘oh I’d better not get too comfortable because I’ll have to exercise soon’. But then I’d remember that I had already done it! It was the best feeling.

Then I had a great shower and got ready for uni. My friend cancelled lunch because she ‘didn’t have enough money’, which is BS, she’s saving for a tattoo which wouldn’t bother me but if you’re saving money, why make lunch plans with someone? And by then I didn’t have enough time to eat a proper lunch so I just put a huge green smoothie in this great reusable milkshake cup I bought and drank it while I’ll drove to uni. Then during my lecture, I felt so alert and focussed. I paid attention the whole time and took real notes which is huge for me because usually I just do online shopping during lectures.

Then after the lecture, I got really hungry so I stopped at this nice shop on my home to get a chicken salad but all they had with chicken was Caeser salad which I am not a huge fan of. So I just picked up a packet of mixed sushi and ate it on the drive home. And then when I got home, I chopped up some chicken and marinated it in tandoori paste. And then at 6pm, I cooked it and popped it on a salad!

It has just been the best day. For so long now, I have wished to be the sort of person that exercises in the morning and does well at uni and eats well. But it was like I was just stuck in a rut, in the same bad old habits. This may sound crazy, but this is the first time since I was 14 that I have felt like I have truly recovered from depression. For the past couple of years, I’ve been relatively happy but I was still treating myself badly which would imply that it’s just a bandaid solution. But now I feel like I’m doing things properly. And it is so easy and empowering. It’s wonderful!

I hope you are all as happy as I am today :)

☮ & ❤

Asha

ps. Weigh in day tomorrow!! I am nervous but excited. Any progress is good progress!

24/2/13

Breakfast:

Banana and grapes

Lunch:

Cashews, cherry tomatoes, organic pot noodle

Dinner:

Went to a big buffet, pigged out!

Water: 3L

Okay so today I was babysitting from 7-3 for this single mother who is in the same situation that my mum and I were in like 19 years ago. Unsupported, and barely surviving. It breaks my heart to see. I told my mum about the lady and because she knows what it feels like, we’re going to give the lady loads of things because she doesn’t even have a toaster! Her husband was killed in South Africa and she’s come to Australia with literally no family and she knows noone and she has to work full time and she has a little 4 year old boy who I’m pretty sure has autism. It really makes me upset because my mum went through the same thing (but instead of a dead husband, my dad just chose to be absent). And noone helped my mum at all. But through sheer will and hardwork, my mum has clawed her way up to being a little bit wealthy, and now we live in a nice house and we have nice things. So I want the lady I’m babysitting for to know she isn’t alone.

Secondly, so I went out with my gay boyfriends tonight. We have a tradition of going to this buffet, then to the casino. I didn’t restrict myself at the buffet. I had what I wanted, and I savoured each bite. I remember I was dieting last time I went to the buffet as well. And because I ate so much, I just decided to give up on the diet and I ended up buying a whole bunch of chocolate on the way home. And then that diet was over. But this time, I acknowledged the fact that I ate unhealthy foods. I enjoyed what I had. And then I came home and drank 1.5L of water. And tomorrow, I’ll be straight back on the healthy wagon.

I really feel something has changed this time. This new lifestyle is effortless. It’s not all like, ‘oh I wish I could have this and that’ which is how I usually feel a few days into a diet. This time it’s like, ‘I’m just a healthy eater now’. I haven’t ever felt like this before. But I feel like nothing can knock me off track! :)

I hope you all feel the same! 

☮ & ❤

Asha

22/02/12

Breakfast:

• Apple cider vinegar
• Banana egg pancake (just the one pancake because I only had 1 little egg left)
• Left over home made french onion dip with 5 whole carrots (!), some celery and some cucumber

Lunch:

• Couscous (Ainsley Harriott’s tomatoey flavoured one) with tuna, this was SO tasty!

Afternoon snack:

• Handful of pizza flavoured cashews
• Handful of grapes

Dinner:

• Sludge smoothie (flaxseeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, cacao powder, maca powder, spirulina, chlorella, honey, pollen, Schindele’s enzyme powder, banana and mango)
• Colon cleanse tea

Water: 4L

Exercise: 15 minutes on the stationary bike!!!

Very successful day! I can’t believe I did 15 whole minutes on the bike. I only planned to do 10 minutes today but as I was programming the bike, I just added another 5 minutes and told myself giving up was not an option. I was sweating properly by the end of it too! I know 15 minutes probably sounds like just a warm up to you gorgeous gym bunnies, but to me it is the most I have done in months!

The rest of my day was alright too, I watched the whole series of My Mad Fat Diary which was just brilliant. I definitely recommend it :) here is a link to free streamings of the show (click the episode you want and choose either putlocker or sockshare) *link here*

I hope you have all had a lovely day!

☮ & ❤

Asha

muchlargerthanlife.tumblr.com

Goals for tomorrow:

• Cycle for 10 minutes non-stop
• Morning and evening visualization
• 30 minutes of meditation/visualization
• 20 minutes of tai chi
• Banana and egg pancakes for breakfast
• Drink colon cleansing tea
• Tuna and couscous for lunch
• Apple cider vinegar before breakfast
• Sludge smoothie for dinner
• 3.5L of water
• Finish writing letter to my father

☮ & ❤

Asha

Breakfast:

Apple cider vinegar

Green juice (kale, silverbeet, cucumber, apple, avocado, lime and celery)

Lunch:

Honey soy garlic chicken with salad. I bought a premade simmer sauce which was foul and so sugary, it was unbearable! I originally went to buy a tandoori paste but it was so much more expensive, so I went for a cheaper option. Big mistake!

Afternoon snack:

Sludge smoothie (flaxseeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, cacao powder, maca powder, spirulina, chlorella, honey, pollen, Schindle’s enzyme powder, banana and mango)

Dinner:

Homemade french onion dip (light sour cream mixed with french onion soup mix) with like 6 million crudites (carrot, raw broccoli, celery and cucumber)

Water: 4L

Today was alright but my morning plan was completely messed up by my douchebag uncle. I’ll tell you why he’s d-bag in a second. But anyway, my plan was to have my apple cider vinegar, and then my green juice. And the green juice gives huge amounts of energy so I was going to drink it, wait 30 minutes and then start on my morning exercises. But just as I’d finished my juice, I got a call from my uncle saying he and his wife would be over in an hour to do some gardening (my mum is having to pay him to do it, he wouldn’t do it without pay! her own brother!). So basically that meant I had an hour to shower, get dressed and tidy up the house because I was home alone. And I can’t stand being around these people because they are painfully ignorant (they are homophobes), so as soon as they arrived, I just went for a drive. So I didn’t end up completing a few of my goals from yesterday, which is crapola. But I am going to just roll them over into tomorrow’s goals.

Okay, so my uncle is a knob because a couple of weeks ago (in the middle of a family dinner) he gave me an hour long lecture about how I need to lose weight. He basically told me that because of my size, I will always be undesirable to men and the ones that will have me will be desperate freaks, and that I won’t be able to look after my children properly because I’ll be too fat to play with them. I am not even close with my uncle, so it wasn’t like it was coming from a close trusted family member. It really hurt. Especially as he is one of the unhealthiest people I know, yet he felt he had the right to criticize me. I smiled and nodded along but inside I wanted to hit him. This was shortly after my dad told me he was disappointed in me as a daughter, so I was just really over men at this point!

Now, with exercise. I really don’t want to exercise. I think this is going to be my biggest hurdle. However, I showed the insanity shred to my mum today and she said that I am not fit enough to be attempting that sort of activity yet because it will be too hard on my joints with my current weight. And to be honest, I do agree. My knees felt like they were going to snap when I was doing star jumps, and my wrists really really hurt when I did the downward dog position in yoga. We both agreed that until I have lost at least 20kg, I will just use the stationary cycle for exercise because it takes the weight off my joints but still raises my heart rate. I feel better with this arrangement.

I also realized today that I am not ready to go to food shops yet. Although I didn’t buy anything junky, it really was a struggle. It occured to me how easy it would be just to pick up a chocolate bar, hide the wrappers and pretend it never happened. Also, it’s literally impossible to walk through a food shop without seeing some form of confectionary or fattening food somewhere, and I found myself begining to crave the foods I was seeing. I think that I will avoid food shops for a while, just until I am well into my weight loss. Too far to just throw the towel in!

I am sorry for this essay, if any of you actually read this stuff, I think you are too great for words and am sending you goodluck vibes.

☮ & ❤

Asha

muchlargerthanlife.tumblr.com

Goals for tomorrow:

• Attempt insanity shred
• 20 minutes of tai chi
• 30 minutes of meditation/visualization
• Morning and evening visualizations
• 3.5L of water
• Green smoothie for breakfast
• Chicken salad for lunch
• Couscous with tuna and tomatoes for dinner
• Apple cider vinegar in hot water before breakfast

Wish me luck :)

☮ & ❤

Asha

20/2/13

Breakfast:

A splash of apple cider vinegar (good for metabolism) in hot water with honey

Banana pancakes - these were fantastic! i posted a picture of them earlier, it’s literally just 2 eggs and 1 banana, all mashed up together and cooked like normal pancakes. insanely tasty and quite healthy!

Lunch:

Zuccini and haloumi fritters, just grated haloumi and zuccini (aka courgette) mixed with 2 eggs, and fried. I cooked them in coconut oil too because it’s the most stable oil at high temperature which means it can get very hot without becoming carcinogenic like other common oils.

Dinner:

Almond crusted chicken and steamed cabbage.

Water: 3.5L

Today was good! I haven’t felt any cravings or urges to resort to junk food as of yet, I’m hoping this is because my body is being properly nourished.

I didn’t do any exercise today, and I don’t feel good about that. I woke up and my thighs, calves, arms, shoulders, back, even my intercostals were in agony!! They haven’t been used for so long, they don’t know what to do with themselves. I am cutting myself some slack today because it was the first time I have had this sort of pain in a long time, but tomorrow I will definitely attempt the insanity shred again.

I’m going to post a list of tomorrow’s goals in a second, just to set it in stone!

I hope you have all had happy and successful days!

☮ & ❤

Asha

muchlargerthanlife.tumblr.com

I saw a recipe on tumblr for pancakes that only contained banana and eggs, so I thought I’d give it a go! The result = FABULOUS! 2 small eggs and 1 banana made 6 little pancakes, which was plenty for breakfast. It was so quick and easy to make, and I am a terrible cook, so if I can make it, you definitely can!

I urge you all to make these straight away :) *recipe here*

☮ & ❤

Asha

muchlargerthanlife.tumblr.com

Breakfast:

Just lemon in hot water, I woke up at 11:00am so it was too late to have a proper breakfast.

Lunch:

Healthy crispy chicken (‘batter’ made from ground almonds and paprika! Nothing else!) in a salad with kale, tomatoes, feta and snow peas.

Afternoon snack:

Home made smoothie with almond milk, raw cacao powder, chia seeds, blueberries and raspberries.

Dinner:

Steamed salmon with brussel sprouts and broccolini.

Water: 3.5L

Very successful day! I almost achieved all of my goals! The only ones I fell behind on were the exercise ones. I was only able to do 10 minutes of 30 day shred, 7 minutes of Insanity and 10 minutes of yoga before I honestly died. I have written my times down though so each day, I’ll try to improve them until I’m able to complete the whole workout.

I did do my morning meditation/visualization, and another one after lunch called ‘get fit or get eaten’, which is where you have imagine yourself at your ideal weight, being chased by a big scary animal. You imagine yourself being able to easily outrun the animal. This activates your primal instinct to drop weight in order to be able to outrun danger. I’ll do one more visualization before bed too.

I realized today that for the past few years, I have been letting a little voice in my head dictate everything I do (I’m not talking about a schizophrenic voice telling me to strangle people, don’t worry!). Everytime I start to feel the burn in workouts, this voice tells me I can’t do anymore, that I should just give up. Whenever I’m driving past fast food places, this little voice encourages me to go and order enough to feed an army. I have listened and obeyed this voice for so many years now, but I decided today that I am going to create a new voice. One that says giving up is not an option, and that even one fast food meal will create irrepairable damage to my organs.

I am feeling empowered and happy :) I hope you all are too.

☮ & ❤

Asha

muchlargerthanlife.tumblr.com

Goals for tomorrow:

• A glass of warm water with lemon upon rising
• 10 minute visualization upon rising
• Do 30 day shred - attempted
• Do 20 minutes Insanity fat burner workout - attempted
• 30 minutes of yoga - attempted
• 30 minutes of meditation/visualization
• At least 3L of water
• Make a green juice for breakfast
• Chicken salad for lunch
• Almonds and fruit for snack - didn’t get hungry!
• Salmon and vegetables for dinner

Let’s see how it goes! Wish me luck :)