Coping with Stress (or not) & Banana Island

Dear Stress-coping Mechanisms,

Where have you been over the past year or so? I miss spending time with you. We used to get along so well, people always used to comment how good we were together. I think we both had to contribute a lot to each other. Please come back. I miss you. Love,

Chantal

I've returned to being the "once a week" blogger and I'm not super pleased with that. However, I've also started to seriously somewhat start freaking out about my PhD comprehensive exams that are now both happening in less than a month. My day has pretty much been looking like the following:

-wake up

-study

-gym

-study

-enforced time to actually do non-brain things (like read blogs, or play mindless Nintendo DS games...)

-sleep (usually not enough)

-start over

Also, because I'm psychotic and strangely operate better under stress (or used to anyway), I've also taken up a part-time job over the weekend over the past month and was previously TA-ing an early summer course. I figured it would actually force me to be more productive during the week. Heh... I suppose I should have expected my summer to go this way.

The other place I've been over the last little while? Banana Island! No, unfortunately not this kind:

This kind:

My transition to LFRV/HCRV/811 has been pretty smooth sailing so far. It's been about a month that I've been 100% on most days and 90-95% on the less good days. I argue that it may be one of the few things keeping me sane and stable recently (minus the crazy levels of emotional detox that I'll get into in a minute). You have no idea how excited I was the day we brought home my very first 40lb. case of organic fair-trade bananas.

Over the past few days, a couple peeps (including myself) over at 30BananasaDay decided to go on a 10 day trip to Banana Island... actually we went to Two Fruit Island. In LFRV parlance, that pretty much means that for you only eat bananas + another fruit and leafy greens for 10 days. It's easier on the digestive system, it's fun, it's easy, and frankly, it's too hot to think of eating anything else. My other fruit of choice has either been oranges (usually about 6) and watermelon (anywhere from a big 1/4 to 1/2), either one always as my breakfast. Lunch and dinner have generally consisted in epic sized banana smoothies (I'm currently totaling anywhere between 14-20 bananas a day, though some would argue that that's not even enough) often mixed with about 1/2 a head of romaine of lots of spinach. It's been faaaaantastic.

Emotionally, on Day 4-6, I kind of went through a random emotional roller coaster of either wanting to punch everyone in their face or bawl my eyes out. I haven't had this extremity of random emotion since my Bikram emotional releases a couple years back (long story short, I would find myself either overwhelmed with sadness and old emotion, and would want to sob through the entire minute class, or be so elated by the present and other good memories that I would smile til my cheeks hurt or laugh hysterically)... sheesh.

I've been able to maintain my workouts and I do have high levels of energy all day... I'm definitely sticking with LFRV for the long haul. Having said that though, I'm also really excited that this island trip ends tomorrow because I'm really looking forward to just being able to eat other fruit. The awesome thing? I've had ZERO cravings (except for other fruit). Andrew also gets a total bonus because he gets to eat all the yummy vegan food I bring back from work, that I know would otherwise disappear on my way home. I've also taken all my vegan/raw baking & treat-making needs out on Andrew... he hasn't been complaining, yet.

Other than that, it has just taught me a lot. It's helped me dispel so many myths about how much or how little we should actually eat to feel energetic, fit, and maintain our weight. It's helping me understand when and what I actually want and don't want to eat. And while so many people would argue that "this is so restrictive," it's actually been one of the most freeing things I've done in a while!

I'll leave it on that positive note for now. Hopefully, I'll make more time to share more more frequently AND actually have recipes for you that go beyond: Take bananas, stick in blender, blend. Tomorrow's friday!!!!