Melissa Marks aka Mama Orangutan's Blog (13)

My husband and I have decided to do Ted Carr's 100 Squats a Day 30-Day Challenge, and we started today!  Besides daily walking and occasional yoga, neither of us have ever done any high-intensity workouts before, so we are both excited and nervous!  I'll be documenting the challenge, complete with before and after pics and weekly squat videos, on our blog here:…

So somehow in the last month I've gotten myself addicted to an excess amount of fat.  It's most likely stress related, but it has now gotten out of hand and I need to fix it.  I am not one of those 811'ers who is afraid of overts.  I believe that overt fats, when consumed at a maximum of 10% of daily calories, can be quite beneficial.  The problem, of course, is that I've been consuming upwards of 20% fat daily!  I do plan on including a small amount of overt fats for the rest of my days. …

...you rip your date in half, inspect the half without the pit, eat it, and then remove the pit from the other half only to discover a weevil and tons of poop.

I gagged a little.  And then fed the weevil half to the dog. :-)

My husband Nick shares how he first got into raw foods and veganism and how changing his diet changed his life.  Check out his incredible transformation and show him some love. :-)

http://eatinglikeorangutans.blogspot.com/2013/03/guest-post-nicks-story.html

 …

Check out my newest blog post for what we eat in a day, why two giant smoothies and one big salad work best for us as a family, some cute baby photos, and some yummy food porn.

 …

Today has been a long, emotionally exhausting day.

My husband and I have been high carb vegan since the beginning of March, and as far as fat goes, we've never fallen off the wagon.  We are always high carb, low fat (and vegan, of course).  I don't get cravings for high fat foods, and honestly, since I learned that I can eat as much high carb food as I want and still not get fat, I don't see myself ever turning to high fat foods again.  I like to eat...a lot...and I'd much…

Blargh!  Yesterday was a good day because my mom came to visit.  But not so good a day because we ran out of ripe fruit.  Well, actually, our bananas went rotten.  We left them in the case for too many days and they collected water in the bottom of the bag.  Condensation plus bananas equals soft, mushy, rotten bananas.  We had to throw about half the case out. :(

Anyway, we bought new bananas, but they are not ripe yet.  So last night was the first night we had rice in five…

Today was an emotional roller coaster.  Got an email from my school saying that I wasn't getting student loans this summer.  Since student loans are our main source of income right now, I proceeded to freak out.  Started posting things for sale on my facebook and my husband went looking for a part-time job.  Then, my school called me and said that I actually *was* getting my loans.  But when I forwarded them the email, they were confused and are now "investigating" the issue.  So really, I…

Today was a long day.

My baby girl is still sick with a cold, and she didn't get much sleep last night due to congestion.  That means mama didn't get much sleep last night either.  She's steadily getting better though, so hopefully we'll all sleep a little better tonight.

My mom is coming to visit tomorrow.  She lives almost 4 hours away, so we don't get to see her very often.  Every time she visits with us, I secretly hope that our way of eating will rub off on…

My 4-month old baby girl has a horrible cold.  She was up all night trying to nurse, but every time she'd latch on, she'd have to pop off just so she could breathe.  It's just awful...neither of us got any sleep at all.  She's sleeping on her daddy's chest right now...poor baby.



Yesterday was good!  I managed to get through 4 quarts of banana-based smoothies, and they were actually pretty yummy!  Dinner salad was amazing.  I don't know why I've never done it like this before.  It…

Yesterday went pretty well.  Made it to the gym and met my exercise goals.  Then we went to the Asian market and I bought some absolutely delicious Lady Finger bananas.  They are so sweet and creamy...I like them so much better than Cavendish bananas.  Of course, they're WAY more expensive, so even if I could find them year-round, I couldn't afford them, lol.  We ended up changing our dinner because we were out of romaine lettuce.  Oops.  We had Kristina's Deep Dish Lasagna (only in…

I have to make this quick while my 4-month old babycakes is still sleeping. :)



So today I am starting a one-month 100% raw challenge.  Since February 29th, I have been 80-10-10 (no overts, no cooked grains for all of March), and then started introducing cooked grains in April.  Since introducing cooked grains in April, my skin has broken out and my weight loss has pretty much stopped completely (except for a few pounds here and there, most likely water retention and loss).  My…

I've been 80-10-10 since February 29th.  The month of March was actually more like 90-5-5 because I gave up overts completely.  I felt great, was losing weight, and my skin cleared up considerably.

On April 1st, I started reintroducing overt fats and simultaneously started adding cooked white rice into my diet.  We were traveling and didn't bring enough dates, and so steamed Chinese food with sauce on the side was our only option (or so I thought...now, I'd turn to bottled…