new beginnings

... and changes. So, I started this blog as a way to talk about my experiences with a fruit-based raw or high raw vegan diet. As someone loving fruit, I chose to call myself "Fruitfay" - however I see that I am gravitating more and more towards a diet based on vegetables (especially the green and orange stuff) and cooked starches. This is why I changed the header of the blog.

At first I thought about changing it to "Veggiefairy" or "Vegfay" - but then I realized that I find it limiting to choose a name according to my momentary dietary preferences. I have just completed a Yoga and Meditation Retreat in the North of Thailand. It was one of the best experiences of my life! I had the most wonderful and powerful yoga teacher and the setting was just breathtakingly picturesque.

The idea was that we get to the yoga platform (surrounded by green mountains) and choose a yoga mat. On the backside of each yoga mat was written a word - like gratitude, awareness, peace etc. This word could also be found on each cup and water bottle for the yoga students. Long story short: I chose simplicity and simplicity chose me. My yoga family started calling me "Miss Simplicity" and I really like that! Hence, the new name.

Namaste!

tracking my progress

Hello beautiful people :)

I've just come back from going fruit shopping once again - it is raining today and the air is super fresh and I enjoy the cool breeze. I carried home four hands of bananas, four kilograms of green grapes, a head of lettuce, 4 bags of mixed greens, a kilogram of tomatoes and two kilograms of kiwis. :) After that I blended some bananas, grapes and a bunch of mixed greens into a beautiful green breakfast. It was so good, I highly recommend it!

These are my new special friends, grapes:

This is the beauty of bananas, grapes and mixed greens combined:

And here is my bowl of goodness topped with greenness:

So, I figured that it would be a great gift to myself to track my progress like my fruity friends Lissa and Michele. I think their blogs are so beautiful and inspiring, thank you, ladies!

I also want to say thanks to Barb, who was so nice to mention my little blog in one of her posts. I feel very honoured - now I feel like I need to work on my blog to make it better! :D

I wish everyone a nice day,
I'm off for class (Walther von der Vogelweide, I'm coming!)
Jasmin

time to post again, huh?

i kind of re-discovered this blog of mine yesterday and i thought that it was a pity that it was forgotten for such a long time! much has happened since my last post... where to begin?

in february i had a hard time dealing with my bulimia. when i came back from thailand to austria, i felt like an alien coming to a new galaxy. i didn't care much about my old 'ideals' (all ego anyway which doesn't really matter, so... what the heck?!) anymore... i went out with cool people, i kissed food dogmas goodbye (stayed veggie though), i tried to go back to uni again. yes. i tried. didn't work. (i found that out in the beginning of march which changed everything).

so, january and february were all about not giving a damn, partying, shopping, losing weight (well, with not eating much and/or purging it actually worked a bit), meeting people... oh. yeah. and i had a short affair, too. that was interesting! i wanted to do the ABC so bad. wonder what 'ABC' means? it's short for Ana Boot Camp. i actually made friends with ana and mia again - i felt betrayed by 811rv/30BaD. i did it for 3 months and the results were frustrating, and i want to see results, people!

but then i started to feel bad, life was so meaningless, there was no-where to turn to ... especially not inwards, there was simply too much pain and too loud a silence. i checked out 30BaD again... only to receive attention from people who wanted to support me. i was so grateful. people cared about me! and my sanity! and i realized that i couldn't do ABC for the rest of my life. i thought that maybe fruit is the answer. i could see myself sticking to 811rv/30BaD lifestyle. i threw ana and mia out of the window and started the hardcore 30BaD lifeystyle. 100%. no slip-ups. for 6 freaking months!

what did i get? i gained weight. my skin was still not flawless. my mood was still not as stable as it could be. i got a few cavities in my teeth. more cellulite than ever. sleep could still be better. and i really, really followed the plan! i worked out daily - an average of 60min, i stopped using shampoo/soaps etc., i ate mostly big mono meals of fruit, i ate fat very rarely and never got about 10% of my daily calories of fat, kept a food diary (alas, cron-o-meter deleted it for no reason), tried to talk good to myself, relaxed, went to 3 fruity workshops/festivals, i even stopped studying at uni, left vienna and moved back in with my parents to start a distant study course in natural hygiene! what else can i do?!

6 months. no sign that it would become better. where are the results? why am i doing this? isn't this supposed to work and give me the best health ever? i decided to jump off the wagon to see what it feels like. i ate a sandwich (grains, salt, fat - not the best option, but anyways). had some tea. didn't feel as bad as feared. didn't feel much like repeating it either. heck, i love fruit and veggies. i felt a bit toxic afterwards, but not too bad. i could blame my chubby cheeks on the puffyness creating cooked food. went back to eating 811rv.

i fasted for 4 days. that was a nice experience! eating the bananas after the fast was very special, it felt really, really good. ate fruits and greens for a couple of days. didn't feel as good as i hoped. went to buy green tea. felt better after drinking the tea. (: [no. i'm not a 'good hygienist' and i doubt that i will ever be. as doug says, ' the philosophy is always ahead of you'.]

i re-discovered Dr Joel Fuhrman's 'Eat to Live'. i will order and read it asap! i read some of his articles. saw some of his vids on YT. i'll give it a shot. this weight i'm carrying around needs to come off, guys. i don't feel like being 'my self'. i started working out a lot more (which makes me feel better). i incorporated cooked veggie dishes back into my diet. i don't care about any dogma. (back to basics, that's how this blog started *lol*). high fruit, high raw, low cal, no salt, no oil, mostly whole plants. vegan (of course). direction: fruitarianism/frugivorism. guess, i'm considered a frugivore already anyway. i've been eating most of my calories from fruit for over 1 and a half years now.

let's face it: i simply eat too much, yes, too many cals and yes, that means too much fruit. deal with it, 30BaDers. restricting calories is the key to weightloss, i simply didn't want to see that. you need to build a caloric deficit in order to lose fat. easy. simple. true. and restricting calories on 811rv simply doesn't work for me (feel to deprived and binge on junk - well, i guess i could simply eat cooked veggies then instead), i tried it many times. but restricting calories on a cooked vegan (high vegetable) diet, seems to work for me. high volume low-calorie foods, savoury tastes (which i missed on all fruit), different textures, some spices and condiments (won't kill me).

fruit. fruit. fruit. is and will be my favourite. but eating lots of it caused me to gain even more weight (and i wasn't skinny to begin with).

i'll let ya know how it goes!