Personal Development for Smart People^TM

This was another very positive day. I finished editing another chapter of my book this afternoon. This was one of the most difficult chapters to get right, mainly because it’s the first chapter, so I’m glad to put those 7,000 words behind me. My physical energy was steady throughout the day, and my mental focus and concentration seemed better than usual.

My cravings for cooked food were nearly nonexistent. When it was time to eat, I automatically thought about raw foods and didn’t really consider any non-raw possibilities. Right now when I think about eating cooked food, it doesn’t seem as attractive to me as it did last week. I can take it or leave it. I actually feel much more attracted to the idea of eating a wider variety of raw foods, especially some of the heavier items like flax crackers or nuts.

The dry skin problem still plagues me. The middle finger on my right hand has a cut that isn’t healing well — the skin is so dry it keeps splitting open again each time the wound closes.

Change in Blood Pressure

I didn’t monitor my blood pressure throughout the entire trial, but it I measured it for 5 days in the beginning, and I’m measuring it for the final 5 days as well. I’ll take an average reading for each grouping and see if there’s been any change. So far the past two days’ readings were 116/73 and 118/71 mmHg, which is lower than all of my initial readings. My average reading for the first 5 days was 131/76, so it looks like my blood pressure may have dropped a little during the course of this trial, about 14 points on the systolic and 4 points on the diastolic. I’ve no idea if that’s considered a big deal or not. Hypertension runs in my family, so a diet that can lower my blood pressure may be rather useful to me in the long run.

Keep in mind I haven’t consumed any salt since the start of this trial, so I’ve been on a low-sodium diet as well.

Weight Loss

My weight remained unchanged at 178.8. Net weight loss is 7.2 pounds in 26 days.

Breakfast

1. green smoothie: 4 bananas (540g), spinach (100g), 1 cup water
2. red grapes (208g)

647 calories, 3g fat, 165g carb, 10g protein

Lunch

1. green smoothie: 4 bananas (546g), spinach (84g), 1 cup water
2. kohlrabi (268g)

578 calories, 2g fat, 144g carb, 13g protein

Afternoon Snack

5 bananas (456g)

406 calories, 2g fat, 104g carb, 5g protein

Dinner

1. green smoothie: 4 bananas (560g), spinach (100g), 1 cup water
2. blueberries (190g)
3. blackberries (134g)

687 calories, 4g fat, 172g carb, 12g protein

Evening Snack

1 small watermelon (832g)

250 calories, 1g fat, 63g carb, 5g protein

Daily Summary

2568 calories, 11g fat, 648g carb, 45g protein

315mg sodium, 87g fiber, 375g sugar

4% of calories from fat, 6% from protein, 90% from carbs

I managed to avoid eating any overt fats like avocados or nuts today, so this was my lowest fat day of the whole trial — only 11g of fat total.

I think I’m addicted to green smoothies. Everyone else in my family is afraid of them, but I really like them. I’d never have guessed that bananas and spinach tasted so good together.

I’m 90% of the way through this trial now. I can pretty much coast across the finish line from here. I’m really glad I did this. Without a doubt it’s been the hardest 30-day challenge I’ve ever done. It will take me a while to integrate all the new insights I’ve gained.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 9:33 pm and is filed under Goals & Goal Setting, Health, Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.