Day 21: is it habit now?

Hello!

      It is Friday!! Rejoice 🙂 and Eid Mubarak to all of you. Please send me some delicious biryani. I have had a tumultuous week where food is concerned. My stomach is about to give up on me right about now. Like, “WTF are you feeding yourself? I don’t even recognise that food.” Anyway, I started my Thursday with some workout. One hour of fitness blender workouts – kickboxing is my favourite. After that I had some green juice, not much green this time – a pear, a carrot, pomegranate (very little), very few leaves of mint and spinach and half a cucumber and of course cranberries and prunes.it was good! I never thought I’d like pears this much. 

         And then I had some breakfast which was the same avalakki (flattened rice) and some lemon rice. I went to office and ate some more avalakki, because cucumber makes me so hungry! It really does – bad idea to eat it in the night. Soon after, i got to know that thee was cake, someone’s birthday at work, so I had to have it. Rude not to eat according to Indian customs, just made that up!

         After that I didn’t eat much for the better half of the day, some chicken curry and rice, that also was very little. I don’t like coconut in curries. If it’s just coconut milk, it’s all right; but the group up coconut is a no-no. I had to attend a meeting and then head straight out for Eid shopping for a friend. In the mall, I had a Belgium waffle. Except for the Belgium chocolate sauce, not much else was yummy. My stomach starting acting up right after, I think it was the baking soda in it.  

 
It looks like a beaut though.

  
      This was sort of my dinner, but I couldn’t shake off that weird feeling in my stomach and for a South Indian, any problem with your tummy will be fixed by Curd rice. So it’s become a physiological thing, where I feel I’ll  be better after a cup of curd rice. And probably I was. I came home and had just that around 11 PM. 

      That was my day. How have you been holding up? If you’re on a similar juice diet/ cleanse, comment below and I’ll check out your story. And it’s been 21 days since I started drinking juice and I feel great. I’m not gonna stop. I was hooked pretty much the 3rd or 4th day. And blogging about it sure helped me keep it up. 

     Hope you have have a great Friday. Enjoy yourselves and always be kind 🙂 

Love,

Pooja. 

Day 19 and 20 : craving and curbing

Hey Guys!

       The weekend is almost here, I can smell it! I had an okay week. I made plans to study every morning but didn’t. I have had green juice ever single day and worked out everyday except yesterday. Some people have a problem going back to sleep when they get up; not me, I have trouble falling asleep the first time, but once I do, I have trouble getting up as well. 

     Coming back to the story, on Wednesday, I woke up at around 8:30 AM and had a glass of lemon juice in warm water and honey. After that I worked out for An hour with fitness blender and made green juice. Green juice was the usual – spinach, pear, prunes, cucumber, ginger and mint leaves. Then I had breakfast – rice cakes again. 

     Then I came to work and didn’t feel like eating much of what I had, so I waited till I was really hungry and went out to have Kerala food – wish fry and biryani. Heaven! 

 

  I love fish prepared this way. It’s yummy, it’s spicy and it’s delicious! Also healthy. I then had some black tea. 

    Cut to dinner, I had to have quinoa and sambar, although this Kerala meal did me real good. I had to finish it. Overall, a good day 🙂 

WEDNESDAY 

     I did not want to wake up. I’m not a morning person at all and if I had a choice if stay in bed till 2 in the afternoon. I did that a few years back and it didn’t bode well on my health, obviously. I dragged myself out and prepared the green juice, with beets and apple this time. I still don’t know how to take out the taste of mud from beets, but I balance it with two prunes and some cranberries. I couldn’t work out that day, I had to leave for work early. I had breakfast after half an hour of drinking the juice, it was two rotis and lady fingers stir fried in masala. It’s called bhindi fry and is crazy yummy!

  
      Work was a blur. My stupid laptop is so messed up. It’s taken me several attempts to fix it, but it’s still not working. I’m still reconfiguring it. Also, I’m a techtard. So that helps. *poker face* 

         I had a late lunch, which was curd rice, avacado shake, and break butter jam. I was craving so much sweet! Jam was the only way to go. I didn’t have anything until dinner time and dinner was a bowl of broccoli, the same roti and bhindi fry. I had a glass of plain lime juice and some peanuts after. That was that. Not very successful according to me. I hate having to come to work when I’m  on a diet. It’s some or the other persons birthday, they get cake and cake is my kryptonite, I have it and feel guilty and drink loads of green tea. Pfft. So annoying to be me soemtimes. My stomach had this natural reaction where when it senses that there’s cake, it’s expands two folds. It’s called ‘Gluttonitis’ and it’s a lifelong struggle.

I hope you have a great Thursday. Will check back in later. Take care of yourselves and be kind 🙂

Love,

Pooja. 

 

Day 18: Cupcakes and cardio

Hello Everyone! 

    Hope every body had a good Monday. It’s only the worst day of the week, followed by Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It was awesome for me! I reached office and was told, to my dismay(not), that my laptop is screwed for the next 4 hours. So I was just getting my work done and a colleague mails us about cupcakes at his desk!!! Whaaaaat!! I swear I could smell it when I entered. Anyway, he got us cupcakes that were eggless, not that it matters. I had 4 mini cupcakes (emphasis on mini), 3 chocolate and one strawberry.  Here are the pictures –  

    
 
     But before this, I woke up somewhat early and made a batch of green juice – spinach, mint, Apple, carrot and ginger. And then I worked out for an hour almost and had tender coconut water. Never miss Mondays. Let that be your mantra. Then I had 3 rice cakes on the way to work, with coconut chutney. 

        At around 3:30 PM, I had a little bit of rice and a cuppa joe. Coffee is always good. But I don’t drink it everyday. After that, I had a bowl of pomegranate at around 5PM. Then at 6:35 PM I had a veg sandwich with a single fried egg. 

        Cut to 8 PM, I had a small amount of flavoured rice and banana chips. I tell you, work place makes dieting a lot harder. After this I didn’t have much until I came home. Then I had 3 biscuits and a little bit of leftover festival food. I then had a glass of buttermilk. That was my day. How has your day been? Any evil cupcakes? 

Hope you have a great week! Remember to always be kind. 

Love,

Pooja.

Day 12 through 17 : Festivals and feasts

Hello Everyone!

    Sorry, it’s been one hell of a week. My work timings are skewed, so I don’t find enough time to write AND my laptop’s hard drive crashed, so that took two days to fix. I couldn’t exercise on Tuesday, what a guilt trip! Anyway, let me just off by saying that my eating habits have gone for a toss since its festival season here in India. And let me tell you, it’s a big deal. It’s sweets galore! I don’t have a sweet tooth, that helps. But there were some yummy fried stuff too. And I caved. But I still haven’t given up on the green juice. 

DAY 12 – On Tuesday I had spinach, parsley, Apple, mint and prunes. Simple does it, people. After this, I had a fried egg and roti with lady finger palya (stir fry masala). I then had my lunch, which was yogurt rice with pomegranate. I then got very hungry around 5:30 PM and ate a veg sandwich. I also had two veg fried kababs with that. 

     I had my dinner at my seat, the same roti and lady’s fingers palya. Then, my crazy teammates asked me if I wanted to try this new restaurant for biryani. I said, “I do”. So we went at around 10 PM and ate like pigs. So much food was ordered and everyone had a 3 pound food baby by the end of it. I get really full and disgusted really. To think that i ate like this, on a regular basis, not so long ago scares me. No one should eat like that! That was that. 

DAY 13 – I was working from home and it was festival time. Although we don’t celebrate as grandly as some other people do, it still involves a lot of food. I woke up early and had to have some special breakfast, after taking bath of course. I had to start work and I thought I’ll have the green juice once I finish my exercise. I worked out for 2 hours with Fitness Blender videos and I was beat. Just made green juice and drank almost a litre of it. It was so worth it. Used beetroot this time. And I’ve forgotten what else I put. This is why I need to write everyday. For dinner, i had quinoa and broccoli. 

DAY 14 : This was the day of the festival. I had to wake up early and take head bath (which I am doing everyday anyway). Then there was prayer time and I finally got to eat the delicious sweets and junk my mom had made the previous day. I’ll put all the stuff in a post later. Anyway, after eating all the food I had to exercise. I worked out for 2 hours again and let me tell you, kick boxing is the best exercise for upper body – it hits all the muscle group that you didn’t think you even had. I love it! Just a 25 min session can get you sweating like crazy! I then made a green juice which mostly had beet root. This post is not going to be of much use since i don’t remember much. So sorry. 

Okay this is getting embarrassin and frankly quite annoyed myself. WTF, Pooja, why can’t you control what you eat for sometime. Ugh! Let me just save you sometime and say that I had green juice everyday. But what I ate the rest of the day didn’t help at all. I ate garbage for Saturday and Sunday. Very delicious garbage, like below – 

   
   
That’s chicken biryani, chicken (boneless) shorba I think and a chicken roll. But I’m quite happy coz my appetite for said garbage has reduced! Let’s drink to that! Probably not a good idea. Anyway, I’m starting on a clean slate tomorrow. I’ll do this as long as it takes and how many ever times it takes. I have to do this for myself. Hope you guys have had a good week! 

Thank you for reading. Be kind, always 🙂 

Love,

Pooja. 

Day 11 : where did my weekend go?!

Hiya!

   Mondays amirite? I didn’t want to get up at all. But then I remembered my juice journey and woke up, made a large batch of green juice – spinach, parsley, mint and Apple. That’s it. It was all right. Not great, but good enough. 

    Then I had breakfast @ 1030 AM, which was a friend egg and two rice cakes with coconut chutney. My mum is a magician in the kitchen. She makes my resolution disappear with her cooking 🙂 Before breakfast, I worked out for about 40 minutes with a fitness blender cardio kickboxing video. 

    I had lunch at 2:30PM, a bowl of quinoa with rasam (a spicy stew with pepper, very tasty). I also had a small cup of coffee after such a long time and it was like kissing someone you love after a long time! Bliss. 

   I then had dinner @ 6:30 PM , the same rice cakes and chutney combo, with two and a half idlis and a bowl of broccoli. I finished that off with an avacado milkshake. 

   I didn’t have anything else until I came home. I was very hungry and I had 3 biscuits and buttermilk. And I had a few raisins and a bit of micture (masala condiment). That’s it. And now I’m listening to Justin Bieber’a ‘What do you mean’ on loop! Such a nice song 🙂 

    I hope you had a good start to your week. Carpè diém! As always, stay kind 🙂 

Love,

Pooja. 

Day 10 : Rain and gloom.

Hi guys! 

     Hope you’re having a great weekend. It’s almost done for me here. Tomorrow is Monday. Yuck. Anyway,I talk a lot and digress quite a bit. Before I start talking about ingrown hair, oh, too late! Let me just say this – the only thing worse than an ingrown hair is an ingrown hair near your crotch. Like women don’t have enough problems already.

   Now back to my day, I had a decent Sunday. I woke up at 10 AM. Then made the worst tasting green juice. It had coriander leaves, mint and spinach (tiny bit), an inch of ginger, one carrot, cranberries and two prunes. My God! It was so spicy and not easy on the taste buds. May be I needed something else to mellow it down. May be I can only have small shots of this concoction. Anyway, it was too strong. 

    Then came breakfast at 11AM : one fried egg, two dosas (crepes) with coconut chutney and honey. 

     Lunch was at 2 PM, I went out with my parents and had a Punjabi thali. Which basically had a bread of your choice with a lot of different curries, which were loaded with paneer (cottage cheese) and I had a cup of flavoured rice. The taste was all right, but I didn’t really enjoy it much. 

     Then we had snacks at 6PM – banana bread and lemon tea. I almost don’t want to be honest about my eating choices but I feel that would be cheating. I want to write a post where there would be no mention of any unhealthy stuff. 

     Dinner will be right about now, 9:45 PM – broccoli and brown rice with some garlic infused yogurt (it’s a South Indian dish, again delicious). 

    Anyway, I’m ending this post on a helpless note. I promise that I will eat healthier from tomorrow. I changed my screensaver to a motivational quote. The first and last bit don’t even fit the screen. What was I thinking. Okay then, wish me luck! 

    Wish you a not-so-blue Monday! Have fun and be kind 🙂 

Thank you for reading,

Pooja. 

Day 8 & 9 : Threat level midnight.

Hello! 

    Any Office fans out there? I just finished watching the entire series and I’m reevaluating my life choices. Anyway, I’ve not logged in anything for the past three days and I’m very sorry for that. Just too much happening with the weekend and tooth ache. My tooth situation is nothing short of hitting your little toe by accident. Before I forget what I used for the green juice, let me just list it down – 

Day 8 – a small beetroot, mint, an apple, a carrot, half a cucumber, parsley and two prunes. This recipe was really good! Beets have the loveliest color, while different story when it oxidizes. 

 
And then, I don’t exactly remember what I ate he rest of the day, I don’t want to give an incorrect account. But I remember eating rusk and a muffin. And I also ended the night with yummy chipotle salmon from Chili’s. It costed a bomb, but couldn’t have been happier. It was delicious! 

  
Day 9 – I woke up and had a glass of lemon juice with honey. I then had an intense Zumba session. What a way to start a Sunday. Then I got back home and had about 750ml of green juice. It had one pear, one carrot, prunes, parsley, a teeny beetroot. Looked like this –  

 
I also had a banana bread. Ugh. I’m seriously just annoyed at how littler self control I have. Just. Feeling. Hopeless. Anybody knows what I can do? I also had a lot of lemon tea throughout the day. And had a McDonald’s McVeggie for dinner. That was because I didn’t have any other option. Besides that I had a pretty good diet the rest of the day. Brocolli, fried egg, brown rice. Good day. 

I’ll write in greater detail from tomorrow. Just in a weird funk. Is this what they call a quarter life crisis? May be. I hope you’ll have been good. Thank you for reading.

Any tricks to keep yourself in check, I’d love to hear! Please help 🙂

Remember to always be kind. Take care of yourself. 

Adios, 

Pooja. 

Day 7 : Bannnaaannnaa!!

Namaskara,

   That means ‘Namaste’ or ‘Hello’ in Kannada, my mother tongue. Today was quite all right. Woke up late, around 9 AM. And I had to wait an hour to make my green juice because there was no power. So I rolled around and ironed my bed for half an hour. Then I made the green Juice with a handful of spinach, some mint, a prune, a pear, an inch of ginger and a carrot. Honestly, it was a bit too green for me, if that makes sense. It lacked something. Will improvise on it. 

   
It was just not as tasty as some of the other juices I’ve made is all. Anyway right after that I had brunch (@ 12:30 pm, I don’t know how the time passed that quickly) which looked like this – a rava idli (kind of rice cake) and coconut chutney and a fried egg. My mom is a chutney expert. She makes the meanest chutneys. If you’d like to know, please do ask 🙂 

  
And then I worked out at 3:15 PM for about two hours, a combination of Fitness Blender and dance. Felt really good.

   And then I had my actual lunch at dinner time. I know, what the hell right? I need to change that. I’m on leave now, so my routine is amuck. And I also got a free pimple with the cake I had yesterday. Today morning it was like,”Hey gurl, your skin seems like it’s getting better, so I thought I’d check it out. I brought my cousin Missy White Head for company.” It’s a different kind of messed up when what you eat manifests in your skin the very next day. Why doesn’t that happen with the healthy stuff I eat? For example, I will have a glass of green tea and a pimple disappears? Nope, not on my watch. Sigh. Anyway, I had some pongal and a banana bread for lunch. With some lemon tea. The banana bread needs to stop. That’s the gateway drug to all things batter and butter. But look how pretty-  

 
   I LOVE the crust, especially when it’s hot.  Ummm ummm. I’m not gonna have it for at least 10 days. Let’s check in on day 17 and check, yeah? Cool. 

     After my snack/lunch, I took a shower and then I had my dinner at 9:45PM which was the same pongal and a cucumber. Pongal is basically lentil and rice stew, with spices. It’s a hearty, comfort food for me. I love having it in winters.  

 
I’m not sure if I should include pictures of my meals here. Let me know what you think. That was all for today. I will check back in tomorrow. Till then, stay healthy. If you have a strong will power, hug that lil bastard and never let him go. And remember to always be kind 🙂 

Tata bye bye (also a kannadiga way of saying ‘bye’, nothing to do with boobs)

Love, 

Pooja. 

Day 5 and 6 : double trouble.

Hi guys!

     I couldn’t write in yesterday because I took a pain killer for my tooth ache and it knocked me right out. Human body is so complex. So terribly frustrating sometimes. I have like 3-4 different problems at once. It takes a lot out of you, you know. Anyway, I haven’t slacked off my green path. I did drink green juice today and yesterday. I had a somewhat controlled diet the rest of the day. Let me start with yesterday – 

    Breakfast – green juice @ 10:15 AM – a pear, half an apple, mint, parsley, coriander, half a cucumber and some pomegranate. Very refreshing and be vary of the water you add, pear and cucumber are high in water content anyway. And then after sometime I had a fried egg, half an Avacado, one and half roti with some bitter guard palya (stir fried with some masala).

  
Lunch @ 330 PM, I had some curry with Ragi ball. And some dessert – burfi, an Indian sweet. *looks down with shame* 

And then I went to the doctor for a knee appointment coz guess what, I have Osteochondritis Dessecans and some patella femoral something. I don’t know. I went through a surgery in December of last year and unfortunately hasn’t worked. Sigh. Once I got back from that appointment, I had a veg sandwich and basically passed out @ 10 PM.

DAY 6 

     I had some lemon juice with honey as soon as I woke up. And shortly afterwards I had some green juice. Today I had cucumber, spinach, parsley, mint, a pear and cranberries. This was amazing! Better than yesterday. Pears and cucumber make a good pair. Pun intended. 

Breakfast @ 11AM – one fried egg, half an Avacado, avalakki (the flattened rice dish)

Lunch was at 2:00 PM after I worked out for an hour with Fitness Blender videos. It was the same as yesterday. 

For snacks I had a cake and a muffin with some rusk. I was just really sad about getting another surgery. That’s how my stupid brain warrants me cheating. 

Dinner was at 830 PM and I had quinoa win curry and half a pomegranate. And a glass of psyllium husk. For fibre. \m/ 

That’s it. If you’re on a green journey yourself, please do leave a comment. I’d love to check out your blog and recipes. Thanks a lot guys, for reading.

Be kind 🙂 

Love,

PGB.

Day five : guilt and regret

Heylo! 

     I woke up with a tooth ache and let me tell you, it’s a biatch! Seriously, doesn’t seem like they can cause than much anguish but my whole left ear and jaw were aching. I woke up to this and quickly made some green juice – spinach, parsley, mint, ginger, carrot, cranberries and prunes. I need to switch up my game and change the recipe soon. I want to try pineapple and aloe Vera juice.  

      After the breakfast at 10 AM, I had some breakfast at 11AM – a fried egg, one Avacado and a rice cake (idlis, is you’re interested) with sambhar – South Indian goodness 🙂 

       I did a one hour workout from Fitness Blender and had my lunch at 4 PM – millet (Ragi) ball and sambhar. Oh, I also had two banana cakes and  a lot of lemon tea around 1:30 PM. That’s the guilt I was talking about. Then I saw this on Instagram and felt the weirdest discomfort in my stomach. Also know as guilt and regret. Guilret? Reguilt? Let’s just stop mashing up words, yeah? Anyway, the combination of the two is devastating for your morale. 

  
   The post that made me queezy ⬆️ This is so true. 70% is what you eat. I don’t know why that particular number but what I mean is mostly your health is in what you put inside you (hehe). Excuse my pervert side. But yes, diet is the most important aspect of anyone’s health. And it takes a lot of willpower to have persevere. 

     I slipped and I feel terrible. Well, tomorrow is another day and I will strive harder to restrain maself. Coming back to what I ate – dinner was at 9:45 PM and I had quinoa with sambhar and another avacado. Can two avacados in a day be bad? I’m thinking, yes. Well, I hope you’ve had a good day. See you tomorrow! 

    Stay healthy and stay focused. Keep your eyes on the goal. Upgrade yourself. And don’t forget, be kind 🙂 

Buh-bye.