My 2nd day, september 2013

My second day was quite similar to my first day, I just met more families. 

I took the tram to Beyazit again. I went to the T shop outside the tram stop and bought 5 packs of nappies, about 50 toothbrushes and toothbrushes. The cashier wanted to know what I was doing so I explained. She said it was very nice and wished me a good day. I walked all through the markets. I stopped at the shops I had been to the day before and bought all the same items.

Just three times as much :)

By the time I reached Eminuno I was weighed down with bags and bags and bags. My hands felt like they were gonna fall off !

I separated everything again into mini packets. I found one lady stood right outside the spice bazaar. She wasn't begging. She was just letting her children play. I gave the children some toy cars and moved onto some families who were sat around.

I found so many families in need. They all had children and a lot of them had young babies under a year. I handed out the milk and nappies to the families with children under 2 years old. 

Parents pushed their children forward to take the bags off me. The children were poorly dressed. Winter was approaching and most of them just had too small t shirts on and thin trousers. Their skin was filthy. The skin on their feet was cracked and dry from wearing no shoes. 

I gave all the children a bag each filled with bread, water, cheese, tooth brushes, toy cars, tooth paste, hats, gloves, vests and wet wipes. 

All the parents thanked me. I carried on doing the rounds and giving more bags out. Every single family was extremely grateful. They accepted the bags with gratitude and couldn't thank me enough.

One family invited me to sit with them. They said I could play with their two daughters. Both under 3 I assume. I asked the father if he would use my camera and take photos of me playing with the children and he was happy to do so. The children and the parents loved looking through the photos afterwards.

I tried to teach the little girl a simple clapping game. I played this simple game with her over and over again and she was just so happy. I will always remember how happy she looked while we played that silly little game. Her young sister, about 18 months, took my lip salve out of my hands. That was that gone. She gave it to her mum and her mum showed her how to use it.

I moved on to more families.

I found one family that consisted of one man, two women and about 10 children. I gave them the rest of my bags. They had a young baby girl who was not dressed suitably at all. They asked me if I had anything warm for the baby with long sleeves.

I didnt but I offered to walk with the babies mum to the markets and buy her a few warm baby grows. I bought 5 warm baby grows for 15 lira. Absolutely nothing to me.

I stayed with the family a little longer and played with the children before heading to sultan ahmet to meet my friends.

Day 2 and day 3...

I'm determined to keep this blog up. Its hard. Even though Im currently off work it takes time to sit down and type. Thankfully once I actually get started it all just flows so easily.

Yesterday, day 2, of this new health malarkey went well. I have a really stiff left hip that's doing my head in. Part of fibromyalgia I'm afraid, and 2 days of fruit and veg isn't going to fix that. Its been bad for a few weeks but seems to be getting worse. I can feel the bones grinding, its aching, and the skin is really sore and tender. The skin and the muscle I guess, apart from that my body is alrighty. 

I started the day off with another pint of lovely green juice. Minus the spirulina, so it was super lime green. No filter, this is really how lovely and green it is. I had a full avocado too. Oh I do love an avocado. 
This is the Jason Vale super green juice, full of Ginger ( Natural pain relief for my fibro). I add ginger to all of my juices, so if your reading this and suffer with fibro or any other pain disorder, you may wanna introduce ginger to your life. It does help me, in the long run you'll notice a difference.

• ½ lime – peeled
• 2 Golden Delicious or Royal Gala apples
• ¼ pineapple
• ¼ medium cucumber
• ¼ ripe avocado
• 10oz of fresh wheatgrass
• 1 level teaspoon of spirulina
• 1 capsule of acidophilus bacteria powder
• Ice cubes

For lunch I had some of yesterdays dinner. The yummy spicy morrocan tagine I made, check out the recipe, here.

I was heading out to my vibration shake plates, they are supposed to tone you up, so me and mum were going. I took my lunch in the car. New meaning to fast food, hey ! I really love this dish, its spicy, fruity, crunchy and just bloody delicious. Give it a go ! 

After the vibration plates I was going to my friends house for a 'vegan feast'. Three of my friends are vegan, we had decided the week before to have dinner, before I decided to make these changes to my lifestyle. 

We had a feast indeed. 

I made another spicy chick pea dish but without all the fruit and served with with Quinoi, pecan nuts and pomegranate. I made chili and rosemary sweet potato fries and an avocado and spinach salad with grilled peach, orange, apple and pecans. 

I had made home made hummus but didn't have time to go home and get my hummus after my Anne summers vibration tables so we had shop bought Hummus and carrot / cucumber / celery sticks.

I don't have any particular recipes to give for these dishes, as I pretty much made them up, but heres the ingredients I used :

Sweet potato

Avocado

Spinach

Quinoi

Pecan Nuts

Peaches

Pomegranate

Hummus

Carrot

Cucumber

So that was day 2. Easy peasy no problem.

Day 3, today. Woke up way to early to take a friend to hospital. That time in the morning, you know before 7 am, should just be illegal. We left the house at 6.50 am. I haven't seen that time in ages, since doing early morning 7 am shifts. Really, there needs to be a new law. A law that states no one should leave their warm cosy bed before  8 am... or 9 am. 

I had a green juice in the hospital. The SAME recipe all my green juices are, this one just has spirulina in, that's why its darker. Drinking it I was starting to feel ill. and weak. and dizzy. and ill. I then realized I had missed 3 of my pain relief tablets. I left the house in a rush this morning, I went to bed exhausted last night so forgot them.

Two hours or so later, I had my next juice. 

Ingredients

• 2 carrots
• 2 apples
• 1 inch slice of lemon – where possible, wax free and with rind 
• ¼ inch of fresh ginger
• 2 ice cubes

I always add extra ginger and extra lemon. I use the ginger as pain relief  and the lemon makes it have a more citrus taste. 

This is my absolute favorite juice. Its so tasty and goes down so well. I have always loved this one, when I first did the 7lb in 7 days this was my favorite. I wasn't a fan of the green juices, but after perfecting the green juices I now love them too. 

Later on today I started feeling really ill. Nothing to do with the juices, definitely just Fibromyalgia related and pain related. Smells and lights started making me feel really ill and I was sick... Uhhh I hate being ill. I slept from 2pm till 8 pm...

I am fully aware this is going to be a long journey. Im not going to feel better in 5 days or even 5 weeks. I know this will take a good 6 months to a year to get my Fibro under wraps and be able to work full time again, but im being patient. 

This is a bit of a boring post.

Heres my dinner. Nothing special. Im really tired. Its my home made Hummus and carrot / cucumber.

Sorry for the boring post. I really feel for you if you read THIS far. I promise I'm not always this boring. 

DAY 1 Of my new healthy lifetsyle

So day 1 is well and truly over. Its nearly midnight so time to type out a quick blog.

So I woke up and Mum made me a very very tasty green juice consisting of cucumber, ginger, lemon, apple, pineapple and turmeric with spiruilina, wheatgrass and acidophilus. I was surprised at just how tasty it was. I had a pint of that and half an avocado with salt and pepper. Its funny people think im crazy for drinking juices, especially green ones. But I am never gonna sit down, no matter how hungry I am and eat half a pineapple, 4 apples, quarter cucumber, a whole lime and  a big ole chunk of ginger, am i ? No, no im not. Unless im a nutter. I'm not overindulging by having this much fruit and veg, im nourishing my body.

Once the juice had kicked in I had tonnes of energy. Considering I had just woke up 30 minutes before I was pretty hyper.  I was dancing around the house and jumping about. I had my shower then took my fat photos. Haha, I love to call them my fat photos. All lovely 12 stone of me.  I probably don't look that big to some people, but to me im big. I know im healthier smaller, more toned less fat. Less chunk. 

After my shower, and fat photos I had my second juice, well some of it, then headed out shopping and took it with me. This one had pineapple, apple, broccoli, ginger, beetroot and lemon in. Its not as tasty, but still nice. By no means is it yucky. 

Myself and Mum have started using these funny vibration plates for toning. You stand on them for 15 minutes then sit for 15 minutes and its meant to help tone you. It does make you wee. It does make you feel like your in a sex store, using 1 million vibrators. ON . YOUR. NOSE. 

Did I mention it makes you wee? I went for a wee before I got on then as soon as it started I needed another wee. Another damn wee. Bloody bladder.

This afternoon I had a mono snack of blanched broccoli. I have always loved broccoli so it wasn't hard for me to eat a whole bunch. Mmmm tasty greeny goodness.

I whipped up some hummus to take to my friends house tomorrow.

Here is the recipe . Serves 8.

 Ingredients

2 tins of chickpeas
Tahini
1 lemon
1 clove of garlic
Salt 
Pepper
Paprika

Method

Finely chop the garlic and add it to the blender. Add two tins of chickpeas and 3 / tbs of Tahini and blend. Blend for 4 minutes. Check the consistency. It will be pretty thick. Add more tahini, the juice of a whole lemon, some salt and pepper and a healthy kick of paprika. Continue to blend. Continue to add Tahini and blend until you get it to the consistency you want.  Its really so quick and easy.

Serve with Carrot sticks, cucumber sticks and peppers. 

For dinner I made a Delicious chick pea and spinach Moroccan spiced tagine served with cous cous. I surprised myself, cos it was fantastic. Who'd have though, me , a good chef ?

Ingredients

For the Tagine

2 tins of chick peas
1 bag of spinach
2 onions
1 garlic clove
coconut oil
Turmeric
Mint
Paprika
Salt
Pepper
Cumin
Tomato Puree
Apricots
Dates
Currents

For the cous cous

Cous cous 
Pomegranate
Nuts
stock

Method for the tagine

Finely chop your garlic and onion and fry for 10 minutes on a low heat in coconut oil
Chop your carrots, apricots and dates and add to the onion and garlic
Add 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1 teaspoon of ground Turmeric, 1 teaspoon of paprika and stir.
Drain two tins of chickpeas and add to the mix with two cans full of water. Add 2 tea spoons of tomato puree and leave to simmer.

Leave to simmer for 30 minutes, adding more spice if need be.

Once your chick peas are cooked and the carrots are no longer raw add your spinach, stir through for 30 seconds and serve with your cous cous.

For the Cous Cous.

Cover the cous cous with a pint of vegetable stock and leave to simmer for 6 - 8 minutes
De pip one full pomegranate and roughly chop a handful of nuts of your choice. I chose almonds. All I had in the house you see.

Leave it to one side.

Serve your cous cous and sprinkle the pomegranate and nuts on top.

This dish was seriously tasty. Full of flavor, spice with a nice fruity tangy touch from the apricots and raisins. A sharp burst of flavor from the pomegranate and a crunch from the nuts.

Cant wait for tomorrows lunch... Guess what it is :) 

• 
  

So thats day 1 over with. Pretty easy. Very filling. Very satisfying. Here I am going to bed at 23.56. I really need to get those timings down. Need to sleep earlier ! 

Why Im going Raw / Vegan / Veggie on Monday

                                                                        

So, the burning question. WHY am I going Raw / Vegan / Veggie on Monday, am I crazy? Yes, yes I am. But no, really I'm not crazy, in that sense anyway. I have Fibromyalgia, that's why. Not why I'm crazy, but why I'm changing my diet.

When I use the word diet, I don't mean a two week crash fad rubbish diet like that. I mean a lifestyle change. A forever change. I'm 24, its about time I took care of myself.  I don't want to be on pain medication my whole life, I don't want to have fun for two days then need to sleep for three days, I want to be able to go out all day and all night and not worry about when I can fit my nap in cos of damn chronic fatigue. I don't want to be in agony all the time, I don't want to hurt any more, I want to be pain free and live the life a 24 year old should live.

I want clear skin.

I want strong, healthy long hair.

I want energy.

I want to loose weight.

I want my life back.

In 2013 I went into heart failure and gained a massive amount of weight. Two years on I still haven't shifted it. I'm currently 12 stone. That's way too much. I should be around 9 stone. Two years before the heart failure I developed, (can you develop an illness?!) Meh, you know what I mean. Fibromyalgia. My life has never been the same since.

Not long after getting sick I traveled Israel and Jordan and I slept 50 % of the time. If I wasn't sleeping I was planning my next nap.  My travels were wonderful but they were very different to my travels around Australia and South east Asia when I was a healthy normal 19 year old.  I wasn't able to party as hard as I did before, I wasn't able to do as much as I did before, I was just exhausted.

All the doctors I have seen over the years have just looked at me with pity and said ' Yeah you have fibromyalgia, nothing we can do' No one ever told me to look at myself. Look at my diet. Look at what I'm putting into my body. Do some exercise, do some yoga. Its only now, four years on, after I have done my own research that I have found out that food effects Fibromyalgia massively. Its only from support groups online that I have found out I shouldn't eat Tomato, Peppers, Chillis, Aubergine. I figured out myself that dairy and gluten caused my bones and muscles extreme pain so I cut that out a couple of months back, ( minus a trip to turkey, oh the bread was good, oh so naughty).

I am going Raw / Vegan / Vegetarian for MYSELF. To give me my life back, to improve my health and to give me a better quality of life. I know I'm going to get shit for this, but I'm not going vegan for the animals or the planet. Yet, anyway. Lets come back to that point in 12 weeks time. Im doing it for me, and right now that's not going to change.

People are going to think I'm crazy, I know. If the people who think I'm crazy had to live with this awful pain disorder, chronic fatigue, rapid weight gain due to illnesses, then they would try any kind of diet aka lifestyle to improve their life's.

I have done plenty of research and I honestly feel this lifestyle is going to benefit me most. Guess what ? Im well excited. I have always been obsessive about food. I used to use food as control. It started when I was 14 or so, and after years and years of bullying I used food as a control thing. I ate all the wrong things, became obsessive over all the wrong things, I would hide food, I would label food with menacing labels ' DO NOT EAT MY CHOCOLATE YOGURT' and I gained weight over time. In my teens it was fine. My early twenties it was fine. Then the heart failure hit and the fibromyalgia got worse and my weight just got worse and worse.

So now I'm going to use my food obsession in a positive way. I'm going to use my obsessive personality and my passion to learn about food and health and exercise to improve me. For once, my obsessive, impulsive personality is going to do me some favors and I'm so looking forward to it. I'm taking my Mum on this healthy journey with me and aim to post weekly body photo's to show my transformation and daily food posts to show what I have eaten.

I guess its about time I should mention my love for Juicing. Yep, juicing !

I was bought a juicer for Christmas and mid February I started juicing. I started by doing a 7 day juice detox and by the end of it I felt amazing. I had so much energy, my hair was stronger and no longer greasy, my skin cleared up and I just felt good.

I then went onto ' Clean eating '. I was super organised. I had all my food for work organised in little pots, i prepped all my meals and juices for work the night before and everything was going well. I was loosing weight and feeling great.

Then I fell into a fibromyalgia and Depression relapse. I was in pain, I slept a lot and I had time off work. I had a holiday abroad approaching. I slept for days approaching my holiday then started to feel a bit better. I flew out to Turkey, Istanbul. Food in Istanbul is healthy, or can be, if you choose it to be. The places I love are small and tasty, but, spicy. It was then I realized spice caused pain. It took me ages to realize why I was in so much pain. At one point I was in so much pain I took myself off to hospital. I was also missing my juices. I hadn't realized how much juicing had helped me. Helped my health, helped keep my fibromyalgia at bay and helped my energy levels.


So , anyway, lets wrap this up. In short terms :

I want a life.
I want to be pain free.
I want to have enough energy I can jump from the rooftops. Or maybe not, cos I might hurt myself. But jump at least.
I want to loose weight.
I want to live the life of a 24 year old and that's why I'm going Raw / Vegan / Veggie.  My diet will be a mixture of the three, I don't want to limited to just 'one diet type'.

I hope you follow my journey and watch my progress.

Anastasia x x x

                                                                                   

Sweet Potato, Chilli and Coconut soup

A while back I made a sweet potato, chili and coconut soup and never blogged about it, I just posted it on Facebook. Today someone commented on Facebook asking for the Recipe so here goes.

It was a nice soup and delivered a real punch with a sweet taste.

Ingredients :

1 large sweet potato
4 large onions
1 tin of coconut milk
Fresh or dried chili
Vegetable Stock

Method :

Chop your sweet potato into 1 cm chunks. Try to keep them all the same size so they cook at the same amount of time.

Dice your onions and start to fry them with a little bit of coconut on a low heat for 10 minutes or so, not letting them brown. Add your sweet potatoes once the onions are cooked and continue to fry for a few minutes. Add your fresh chili or dried chili and fry. By frying your chili you'll release the flavor.

Make up 2.5 pints of vegetable stock. Pour in 1.5 pints of veg stock and leave to simmer for 30 - 40 minutes.

Check the potato is cooking.

Continue to simmer if the potato needs to cook longer.

Add the rest of the stock then your coconut milk.

I'll be honest I made the mistake of adding too coconut milk. The whole tin. It was too coconutty. I love coconut but i made a little mistake with that. It was still delicious, I just feel it would be better with half the tin.

So add as much coconut milk as you wish, but id say half a tin or less ;)

You can either serve the soup like this so its lumpy or grab your hand blender and get your blend on.

If your using a hand blender, I feel sorry for your kitchen. In a few minutes you'll have bright orange stains all over the wall, counter, floor, and your face. Of course you will. I did.

Blend, serve. YUM.

Let me know if you make this soup and how it turns out, follow me on facebook and instagram and stay in touch !

Enjoy.