6th January 2017.

Well, Fiddlesticks!  The year began dubiously, Rye came home on the 1st, his birthday, and had a marvelous day.

Yup skateboard...

Ugliest Cake, ever!

January 2017 is suppose to be a big push toward a healthier, (haha yes ok, there's a sweet infested cake photo up there...trust me, that was not a cake for adults!  Probably shouldn't be for kids either, really),  more mobile, more adventurous me.. so naturally I fecked my left knee up.. walking across my living room, no seriously, crossing my living room - I took maybe 3 steps, CRUNCH, followed by much swearing.  Initially, though it seemed ok - sore and a bit tender, but otherwise ok...woke up the next day couldn't walk.

Whatever day it was after the New Year Bank Holiday, I bit the bullet and went to the GP, there was little improvement after about 4 days, and I was beginning to get fed up of the pain, which over the counter painkillers were barely touching.  Further dismay - though admittedly, not entirely unexpected; knee badly bruised, possible long term damage, knee surgery probably likely, suspect arthritis.  Bleurgh.
There is a chance, with losing some weight, strengthening the muscles around my knees etc that I may avoid knee surgery...so yeah, we'll go for that then.. I really do not want to go under the knife if I can at all avoid it.    I'm deflated but trying to be positive - use it as further motivation to eat better, do the yoga, (though, of course, my new mat is defunct...I'm resorting to chair yoga for now) and with some bloody luck - PLEASE, be much more mobile by the end of this month.    The GP prescribed Naproxen, bugger scary side effects, it's a relief not to be in agony - there's still some pain, and it feels like my knee is about to cave in every step I take..but at least I can get about...and I can sit and crucially GET UP again - yes I got stuck on the sofa, the knee had swelled up further, making it even more painful and stiffer..so I just couldn't get up...I spent about 10 minutes rocking back and forth to propel myself upwards.  Bah!

Next week all the home ed activities start up again, along with other trips I've popped on the calendar, and I'm hoping my knee will hold up to the increased work out.  I have been juicing and eating high raw food diet to help reduce water retention in my body and drop some pounds which would help with the lower lumbar pain I suffer with too.  The hobbling has fecked that up, the unnatural gait of hobbling is playing havoc with my back - so as much as I was hoping to be able to use buses again, next week I will be forking out for taxis.

Hopefully, public transport will be accessible for me  by the 16th, when Rye has Forest School at Delamere Forest, which is a bus ride/train ride and fairly short walk to the area in the forest where the group meet.  And my knee better be up for the 2 night stay in York for the Viking Festival in February I'm about to pay for!

Not the best start to 2017.

I'll sign off with this photo -  I was the not so secret elf for one of my housemates, and he loves goats and rabbits, so I crocheted him a rabbit...it's pretty realistic too, and at one point I found it a tad disturbing because I had the head and half a body of a rabbit on my lap..it was just odd, is all.

Why mostly raw?

Simple.  It's working for me, and I feel amazing.  Week and half in, and a sneak peak at the scales tells me I've lost over 14lbs now  and oh, how nice it is to potter without needing to constantly sit down because the pain in my back is doubling me over.  How lovely not to be nearly crying in pain as my left knee crumbles under my weight yet again - the joint becoming ever more sore, my right knee aching from taking the extra pressure of me hobbling.

How lovely to swim with my son, go on, albeit a short, bike ride.  Wonderful to sleep properly at night and wake up feeling rested.  Lovely to feel energy and once again have it affirmed that a lot of the lethargy that dogged me was food related.  For sure, the weight I carry does not help, effectively, I am giving a constant piggy back to two full grown women... and I was constantly telling myself I'd do this and that when I'd lost a bit of weight and felt better....

Well 3 days into juicing and raw eating and I felt better...  I'm doing things I thought I'd need to loose a fair bit of weight before I'd be able to.

I'm also enjoying creating new recipes for Rye and myself.  Tonight we ate mostly raw chilli.  This is what I did - and wow it was tasty.

Rice:  1 finely chopped (processed) cauliflower & 1/2 spanish onion, finely chopped.

Raw veggies of choice cut up into bite sized pieces.

Dressing:  

4 ripe tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

3 spring onions

large handful of cashew nuts

tbsp of creamed coconut.

1tsp of chilli powder

1tsp of cumin powder

1tsp of ginger

1tsp of corriander powder

1.5 tsp of paprika

1/2 cup of water

1 roasted pepper (Jarred, add some of the jar juice too)

Mix raw veggies with the "rice" and blitz the dressing ingredients in the blender or processor, until the cashews are well processed.  Pour dressing on top of veggies and rice, mix through thoroughly, and leave to marinate for at least half an hour.    

To serve, chop up an avocado and pop on top of the chilli, with sliced lettuce, and a dollop of yoghurt, or cashew cream, and nom.  I also lightly steamed 2 mini corn on cobs too.

Oh, yeah, I added some of my marinated mushrooms too, as a kind of side dish.  Gosh this was tasty - the dressing with cashew nuts had a real hint of chilli mince flavour, it was really delicious.  

A typical day is beginning to look like this:

Late breakfast:  

A green juice, and an avocado, or I blend the avocado into the juice and have a smoothie.  

Rye tends to make his own fruit, sweet juice and then have a small glass of my green juice.

Lunch/afternoon snack:

 I normally make fruit "ice cream" in my vitamix - but to do so, one needs to add some liquid... well my masticating juicer is able to deal with frozen fruit, so for the first time I decided to use it to make ice cream.

Frozen banana mixed with frozen raspberry.  Delicious.  Rye also had a chocolate fudge chopped up and added to his ice cream.  (the fudge is the old pinterest recipe of a can of condensed milk, 2-3 100g bars of dark chocolate and butter, microwaved for 3 mins - except I simply melted it in the Kenwood chef, used most of it as a frosting for birthday muffins, and what was left over I popped in mini muffin silicon cases and froze.. I confess to trying one, and gosh, very fudgy, freezing really improves the fudgy texture)

And then tea is a high raw veg meal, perhaps the chilli above, or courgette noodles, with a tasty dressing or sauce, I've also had a nut pate and crudites.   I have to say the noodle salad below is one of my favourite meals, and I've had it LOT these past few weeks.  I do sometimes add a cooked component, perhaps some roast chicken, or prawns, one evening we had vegetable omelet with raw veggies accompaniment.

There's lots of other flavours, and recipes I'm looking forward to trying and so far Rye has enjoyed the raw meals too, tho his meal was a little different to mine tonight, as I wasn't sure he'd like the chilli:

This was his tea:  some of the chilli with yoghurt on top, cucumber sticks, 2 corn on the cobs, and some grapes and a buttered seeded roll.  And for supper he's had a veg chocolate muffin (i.e. normal chocolate muffin with the pulp from juicing added to the mixture).  The real joy here, is that Rye is mostly eating what I eat, no need for a separate meal - sure he has other things I'm choosing not to eat at the moment, bread, potatoes, cheese, chocolate...in the main, he is eating what I eat and it is just making it so much easier to changing my eating habits - plus of course he is also eating a super healthy diet.

This is how I choose to nourish myself going forward, I'm not claiming to be vegan, vegetarian, raw foodist etc, I simply acknowledge that for myself personally, I am feeling bloody amazing eating a diet that is predominantly raw - and the happy side effect is weight loss.

Its probably taken me a year to get to this point, mind, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the the rest of this year takes me :-)

Btw, quite a few people have been asking about my spiraliser; I have this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lurch-210215-Spiralo/dp/B002USUAH8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1369255880&sr=8-2&keywords=lurch+spiralizer

Health.

I promised myself once the funeral was out of the way, the excuses would fade away and I would continue my journey on learning to live a more healthy and wholesome life.

So, the ciggits have gone. 
A large shop has been made - no excuse for reaching for the phone for takeaway now.
And I shall once again commense with the yoga and this time add in the belly dancing too.

I also plan to treat myself to a bike for my birthday on the 4th June.   Rye is on the cusp of riding a pedel bike, and I would very much like to take him out on bike rides. 

Oooh and I must start taking Rye swimming again.  Ok I may not get to actually swim much, but still walking around the training pool and chasing after Rye etc is still exercising and toning my body!  All good stuff.

LOL and yes, the photos of the family taken after the funeral once again opened my eyes to just how much space I inhabit.  I do know really of course, but after a while that wee protective part of me that is very good at convincing me I'm not that big, wins out and that's when the weight starts to creep upwards again.

The weight has now become a great burden and is affecting my health. 
I would really rather the next funeral I have to attend is not my own.  I want to live, I want to see Rye grow up, I want to cuddle grandchildren, I want to raise merry hell in the nursing home. 
And right now, I want more energy, I want to enjoy playing with my son, I want to be able to run around with him, kick a ball, chase him, leap over waves down at the beach.


I want to live.