Tag Archives: bananas

B is for Bananas

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It was about a year ago that David and I went to Banana Island. Banana Island, you ask? Where is that? Well, Banana Island is essentially a cleanse where you eat only bananas. We did it for three weeks and we felt amazing. 

bananaa

I figured it was an easy way to get started on the high carb, low fat, raw vegan lifestyle and I was right. It’s the only thing I ever did where I didn’t have sugar withdrawal.  Now, bananas are a HUGE part of our lives and we go through a lot of them each week.

Because we eat so many bananas each day, we always have to have some ripening. Since we moved, we still haven’t gotten far enough ahead of the game to have some to freeze and make ice cream out of which is a deficiency I need to correct. Soon. Spooning banana ice cream (frozen bananas put through the juicer with a blank = soft serve) off of celery sticks is a taste treat like no other. I also saw a recipe for mint chocolate chip ice cream yesterday that I’d like to try. Anyway, I digress.

rack

Bananas are super good for you. We wait to eat them until they have brown spots on them. This makes them easier to digest and gives you a whole range of health benefits. 

brown

The other day, I got the surprise of a lifetime when I opened a banana and found twins inside! Trust me, I’ve eaten a lot of bananas in my 54 years and I’ve never seen this before. I was so weirdly excited. 

twins

I have blogged about bananas before but in the event you missed why I eat so many, the reason is because they are calorically dense. I’m a pretty large (5’11’ on a large frame) and extremely active person. If I eat a pound of lettuce, which is a lot of food, it’s still only around 100 calories which isn’t good enough. The bananas help to keep my calorie levels up. 

They are also a good workout. When I buy a case of bananas, 15 bunches, it’s somewhere around 40 pounds. I have to squat those babies eight times to get them from the car to the apartment. 🙂 

So, anyway, that’s the story of bananas in my life. I love them, they fill me up, they’re delicious. 🙂

What a difference a banana makes

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And the right frame of mind.

Today, in the 21 Day Kettlebell Swing Challenge, I had a tough 15 minute workout. This workout is the same as Day 4, a day where I thought I had surely killed myself.

I read the Day 4 workout after Day 3 when I went to set my Gymboss. I freaked out at the thought of doing a 15 minute workout with 9 sets of swings. I thought about it all day long.

When I started the work out on Day 4, the first two sets of swings were crap. Because all I could think about was how I wasn’t going to be able to do it. I didn’t want to fail. And by not wanting to so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I almost did.

I finished the workout and promptly threw up.

But I didn’t feel like I deserved mad respect. I felt sick to my stomach all day long, with a blinding headache. When I went to bed that night I prayed that God would let me wake up in the morning. I never want to feel like that again.

I thought a lot about why I ended up feeling that way. We drank an extra large amount of coffee that day before we went for our walk because we got up earlier. I’m not typically an eat before you workout kind of gal so I went into the workout with all that coffee, my system further emptied out by our morning walk, and the sure thought that I would not be able to do this workout.

I think I bottomed out. My blood sugar just went through the floor.

I saw a couple of days ago that the Day 4 workout was going to repeat today. I told David, “I am not going to think about this and let it get into my head”.  And I didn’t.

Because of how badly I felt after Day 4, I wanted to be sure to eat something before I trained today. An early morning google search of just what I should eat turned up a lot of fruit related suggestions. I have been trying to stay away from fruit and focus more on veggies, meat, and nuts so many of the options we didn’t have in the house. But over and over again, I saw the banana as a suggestion. We have bananas.

When David isn’t being

He’s being

I grabbed four Brazil nuts before our walk and, when I got home, I had a banana while I was grabbing my Gymboss, water and kettlebell.

Wow! What a difference a banana makes. My workout was AWESOME! I felt so happy to feel so good.

When I passed the halfway mark, still feeling strong, I thought, “This is why I’m doing this challenge. This is what it’s all about.”

So I’m super excited that I don’t have to pray to stay alive today. I’m thrilled to have had a great workout and to get past Day 8 of the Challenge! 🙂