Green Monster: Raw and loving it!

I have always been a big fan of Lars Trier.

Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville and Manderlay — the stories are always thought provoking, acting is always top notch and the cinematography is amazing and moving.

Holy crap — the only thing I can say about this movie is that the initial 5 minutes…albeit sexually graphic and violent is really beautifully filmed.  From that point on it turns into pure drivel.  Willem Dafoe feigning interest in his wife’s sanity as a pyschiatrist.  Charlotte Gainsbourg is paranoid and losing touch with reality.

The whole movie went from bad to worse until I had to push pause and seriously think about whether I wanted to continue watching the movie or just junk it and demand my money back from Time Warner Cable.

I’m honestly not sure what LVT was trying to do here.  The story was incomprehensible — the violent images became increasingly gratuitous and just simply horrific.

D+

Comment: I’m not giving this an F because the child falling scene was dramatically beautiful

It’s only 3 pm and I feel good.  I have my usual worries about “the” economy and its impact on my economy but I can’t boil the ocean.  Work is well and I’ve had a pretty productive morning — not too many calls and I was able to get a lot of busy work off my plate. Yay!

So my little kid is back home safely from a visit to her father’s and is doing well with her new gluten free diet. She was recently diagnosed with celiac disease so she’s been on a pretty strict gluten free diet.  I feel strongly against incorporating all those overpriced gluten free products into her diet because it doesn’t teach her about danger foods — I don’t want her eating GF bread at home and then assuming that everyone eats GF bread.  But I digress…she decided to make a green smoothie for a snack last night.  She put on her little chef hat and pulled out the blender and she picked the following ingredients:

In an 8oz blending cup, she added:

• kidsize handful of baby spinach
• 1orange juice ice cube (I squeeze fresh OJ and freeze them into cubes as a snack)
• 1/2 frozen medium banana
• 4 slices of frozen peach

Nutrition Facts

• Serving Size: 1 dessert
• Calories 106
• Calories from Fat 0.5
• Total Fat 0.06g
• Total Carbohydrate 27.22g
• Dietary Fiber 4.39g
• Protein 1.88g

This was so amazing — it actually tasted like old school rainbow sherbet…remember the kind that they would float in Sprite at middle school mixers.  Delicious.

I was feeling not very hungry today so I had a giant Maca Green Smoothie for lunch, green mint tea and a sliced plum tomato with fresh basil and balsamic vinaigrette.

For dinner, I am planning on making a giant salad and this warm tomato soup that I saw in Carol Alt’s Raw Food cookbook.  I’m making some cinnamon almonds and tamari wasabi almonds and will be finishing off tonight’s meal with a big bowl of green ice cream while watching Frost/Nixon.

I fast tomorrow so I would like to finish my last meal at 7 PM so I can return home from the gym tomorrow and be able to enjoy a nice meal.  These 24 hour fasts are pretty amazing — definitely feel a lot of clarity in thinking and also a burst of energy.  BUT I need to get more sleep.  Seriously.  I do.

So yesterday was day 5 and I successfully completed my 24 hour fast and started Saturday out well.  I treated myself to a nice cup of green mint tea and had a gigantic green smoothie.  This morning’s smoothie wasn’t a great success because I made the mistake of adding broccoli. Ick.  But I drank it anyway since there were so many other yummy fruits and veggies in it.

At lunch I had a very large fresh mango and a raw spaghetti.  The raw spaghetti was a bit of a cheat since the shirataki (tofu noodles) is cooked before they package it but since I’m not some crazy hard core Raw Food cultist - I say…who cares!  It was very very good.

• 1 serving of angel hair shirataki well rinsed and warmed with hot water for 10 minutes
• 2 heaping TBS of fresh salsa with loads of garlic
• 1/2 avocado with large chunky sea salt on it

This was really really good.

The rest of the day I grazed on another blended salad, handfuls of almonds and cashews — pigged out on pineapple too.  I’m going to buy some coconut so I can eat the meat — it is supposed to be really great for your hair.   Who knows — it can’t hurt.

SUNDAY

I decided to have a similar day as yesterday.  I was exhausted. Picked up my daughter from the airport late last night and we didn’t arrive home until well past midnight.  Slept in and woke up to a nice huge mug of barley tea (awesome) and then had a similar lunch to yesterday.  Shirataki with salsa, a huge mango and fresh pineapple and 1/2 avocado.  Haven’t decided what I’m eating for dinner but it will most likely be a green smoothie, nuts, maybe some tofu/miso soup and cauliflower.  Yum!

Ah — the beauty of the Eat Stop Eat fast — unlike religious fasts which start from when you rise to when you sleep, the Eat Stop Eat technique is more science based so I only need to fast for 24 hours. 24 hours meaning from my last meal +24 hrs soooooo….since I had my last snack at 8PM, my fast officially ends at 8 PM today!

I am going to break my fast with a green smoothie made of kale, peaches, pineapple, maca, coconut milk and a little broccoli and wheat germ.  I just might throw in a few strawberries and blackberries too!  I don’t even bother counting green smoothie calories because within 3 hours the green smoothie has already “returned home”.  Haha.

Looking forward to a peaceful night of giant green smoothie and a movie before driving to pick up my little kid from the airport! She’s a green smoothie drinker too.

Today is fast 1 of my 2 fasts of the week.

These are NOT water fasts but a liquid fast so I’m still consuming calories but only in the form of coconut milk, coconut water, almond milk and some other nutrient dense liquids.

I’ve been so busy with work that I didn’t even realize that it’s already noon.

I’ve selected a coconut “beverage” by O’Soy — I’ll let you know whether it takes good, it’s supposed to be a great milk substitute for us non-cow milk drinkers.

I’ve also decided that green tea and almond milk will round out the day.

Ok - so for the last 3 days I’ve been eating raw. Here’s what I ate today …which is pretty typical of what I eat on a daily basis.  Here are some rules that I’ve put together to structure my plan.

1. Eat 100% raw vegan 5 days a week
2. Eat avocados and nuts only twice a week and not both on the same day
3. Keep fat percentage of total calories to 20% or lower (this may be very difficult)
4. Fast 2 days a week with coconut water and green tea - not consecutively

Breakfast 8am - Green Maca/spinach/peach/cherry smoothie

• 1 C baby spinach
• 1/2 C frozen peach slices
• 11 frozen cherries
• 1 tsp maca powder
• 1 C Ultra Soy milk

Lunch 12pm - okra and tomato stew

Snack 3pm - 2 celery sticks with 1 TBS almond butter

Dinner 5 pm

• 2 C cauliflower with 1 TBS Patak’s hot lime relish
• Radishes with supremely spicy hummus

Snack 8pm - 1C fresh pineapple spears with 12 almonds

Friday and Tuesdays are my fast days — so tomorrow it’s all about the liquids!