TUE20JUN2017
my experimentation with open footwear has brought a rather unexpected result.  i'm now rather too aware of the surrounding air temperature of my feet, particularly around chiller cabinets in supermarkets.  now, you might wonder what a fruitarian is doing around a chiller cabinet in the first place.  the truth here is that i buy pre-squeezed fresh orange juice.  i know that i really ought to squeeze my own, however, i've never got around to buying a hand squeezer.  so, i'll really have to do that some time very soon.  the weather is continuing to cause me problems.  i really need to wait until the cool of the evening to venture out.  now, life oughtn't be like this.  i ought to be able to enjoy this lovely sunshine.  but, alas, i can't at the moment.  maybe next year, when i'll have substantially detoxed.  i'm getting impatient to loose the last of my excess fat.  there's not much of it now but it clearly needs to go.  i want to see how much weight i actually put on, in terms of actual muscle, after i get rid of this fat.  i've always had very poor musculature.  indeed, i have the muscle weakness form of dyspraxia, courtesy of my ASD (autism spectrum disorder) to which it's comorbid.  and that, of course, brings me on to whether 3 months into this diet my ASD is any better.  i'd have to say that, at the moment, i'm just not sure.  possibly it is but it's difficult for me to form an objective opinion.  there aren't any obvious signs of improvement, just the suspicion that i might be a little more verbally communicative than usual.  i do know that last time i was fruitarian i found myself involuntarily smiling at things.  that just didn't happen previously.

MON19JUN2017
it's been another very hot day here, and despite not having gone out yet my poor nose is twitching badly.  i suppose it'll be interesting to see how bad my hay fever is next year, when i'll have been fruitarian for 15 months, however, for now i'm just going to have to grin and bear it.  i managed to get a pair of open sided trainers from a charity shop for £9 recently, so i'm trying them out whilst the weather is good.  in theory a bit of fresh air will be good for my feet.  in practice i'm not so sure it'll make much difference, however, i'm willing to suspend my disbelief and just see if this is an agreeable experience.  this is actually a product of having read 'destination eden' by mango modzac.  i won't, however, be taking all my clothes off - the world isn't quite ready for that yet!!!

SUN18JUN2017
it's now 3 months since i went fruitarian.  and, apart from a fairly substantial weight loss, nothing particularly dramatic has happened at all.  i now weigh 67.5Kg.  exactly 1.5Kg less than last week, as i predicted.  i will confess that with the high pollen counts and high temperatures my poor nose has been dripping like a tap.  obviously just 3 months on this diet hasn't been enough to protect me from the worst of hay fever.  i will add that sun light is actually a powerful detox agent.  so, perhaps, combined with all the fruit i'm eating, there's an element of that here.  now, i've been sort of contemplating just how long it will take before i can say that i've 'made it' as a fruitarian.  i would have said 1 year, however, i did that last time only to lapse.  as such, maybe 2 years would be a better target to aim for.  of course, i know why i failed last time.  stress in my personal life was the main factor, coupled with the perceived need for certain comfort foods.  but possibly the biggest factor was that i wasn't as confident then, as i am now, that fruitarianism was, for me, 'the way to go'.

TUE13JUN2017
i've been trying to reduce my avocado consumption a little, not least of all because of my very tight food budget.  but also, i do suspect i'm not getting an adequate balance between them and other fruits.  now, i know that their fat content is having no meaningful affect on my weight loss, as i'm still fairly rapidly loosing weight, however, what concerns me a little is that i've never heard of another fruitarian that relied so heavily on avocadoes as a staple of their diet, whereas i have heard of fruitarians that are a little wary of avocadoes because, allegedly, too much fat affect the uptake of nutrition.  so, i'm down to 4 a day instead of 6 to 8.  this is still rather a lot, i think.  i must admit that i've always found avocadoes to be slightly addictive, though i really don't know why.  i certainly like sweet and juicy fruits as well.  there's just something about avocadoes that really hits the mark for me.  it's summer now, or what passes for summer.  and i've started to notice my nose twitching as the pollen levels increase.  so, i hope that i won't get hay fever too badly this year, as being fruitarian usually reduces the symptoms significantly.

SUN11JUN2017
my weight is still drifting downwards.  i'm now 69Kg, which in 12 days is a loss of just over 1.5Kg per week.  i'll try to check my weight fairly regularly now to see where it levels off at.  certainly, i've still got quite a bit of weight to loose.  i'll guess about 7Kg.  so, at this rate it'll be about a month before it's gone.

WED07JUN2017
just of late my provisioning has gotten a little out of control.  i've been buying fruit very much on a whimsical basis, probably because of a desire to be instinctive about my eating, and, not too surprisingly, some of it has been getting over-ripe and going to waste.  now, it has to be said that i hate wasting food, and not just because i've paid for it,  it's one of those ingrained attitudes.  consequently, i've been scavenging what i can.  however, a few days ago i went much to far and ate quite a lot of over-ripe pineapple.  this act of folly led me to get a burnt mouth, mainly the lips.  i'm not quite sure what it is that does this.  i suspect it's the alcohol from the fruit fermenting.  that said, i'm not going to do this again, if i can help it.  so, i'm trying to organise my fruit storage better.  really, i need a bigger fridge, in order to keep fruit for longer in better condition, especially during the summer months.  but the other problem is simply visibility.  i buy fruit, put it somewhere and then i sometimes forget that i've got it, until i find it again in a rather degraded state.  very frustrating.  at the moment i only have one window sill for displaying my fruit.  i'm trying to optimise this with fruit trays that can be stacked.  i've sort of done my avocadoes this way.  i've got a 30 avocado capacity, in other words plenty to provision for ripening.  i intend to keep this topped up on a daily or bi-daily basis.  and, on the subject of avocadoes, i've been reminded of late how difficult it is to shift avocado stains from clothing.  you really have to wash it off immediately with cold water.  failing that, when it dries it leaves an ugly dark brown stain.  the problem i find is that i don't always realise that i've got it on my clothes until it's too late.  i'm trying to get such a stain out of a pair of buff stone coloured trousers.  after more washes than i can now count, it's still there.  aaagh!!!  i'm trying lemon juice to see if that'll shift it, since the commercial stain remover that i have has, so far, failed.  and that brings me on to preparation of said avocadoes.  i used to just cut them in half, take out the stone, fill the hole left with lemon juice, mix it in with a spoon and then eat it.  however, mixing it in the avocado skin has proved to be rather haphazard.  the beauty of this is it minimises washing up, as there's no bowl to wash.  but post my latest experience, i'd rather it was a bowl than clothes that i can't get clean, so i'm now using a bowl.  i suppose, for completeness, i should mention that my favourite place to eat my fruit is in the bath, as there's nothing for the fruit to get on.  this may sound a bit weird but it works for me.  i can relax in a nice warm bath and really enjoy eating my fruit.

FRI02JUN2017
a few people have now mentioned that i've lost weight.  too much weight.  one seemed to think that i might be starving.  i'm certainly not.  so far, i'm taking all this in good humour.  i know i now look a little on the skinny side, however, that's how i used to be in my younger days.  anyway, i feel fine, so i'm not remotely concerned about this weight loss, especially as i expect to loose another 10Kg. hopefully, these people will get accustomed to the thinner me.  perhaps if the weight loss had been more gradual it might have been less alarming to them.  i guess it's a reflection on modern western society that most people have a very distorted idea of what being healthy actually looks like.  i had a very enlightening conversation with a dietitian that came to see my mother not that long ago, because she's struggling to eat adequately.  said dietitian just wanted me to get my mother to eat more fat and protein, despite the fact that her diet already has way too much of these in it.  and, i might add, she's on anti-cholesterol medication.  my protests that what she really needed was more nutrition were met with aloof dismissal.  said dietitian knew best and wasn't going to give any consideration to what an ignorant person like me might have to say.  yet, in reality, said dietitian had no idea whatsoever, and was just peddling the conventional wisdom without any actual understanding of whether it was correct.  perhaps it's a bit much for me to expect an admission that the advice given was non-sense.  but what really struck me was the complete inability to enter into any sort of dialogue.  people don't like admitting that they haven't a clue what they're really talking about, dietitians included.  and that's why, more often than not, should you challenge them in anyway, all you get back is silence.  there's nothing, or next to nothing, behind their claims of expertise.  it's all an illusion.

FRUIT: THE ULTIMATE DIET by REJEAN DURETTE (ISNB 0-9679515-1-8)

this is my favourite book on fruitarianism.  i've actually read it many time now.  it's also the book that i always recommend to people.  it's basically a down to earth and common sense approach to this diet.  it doesn't try to guilt-trip the reader.  it simply states that all animals have a natural diet, that mankind is no different and, for us, fruit is that natural diet.

this certainly accords with my own beliefs.  mankind, partly through ingenuity and partly through necessity, had deviated substantially from this diet and the consequences aren't difficult to see.  unfortunately, we live in a world where this deviation is the norm and people are, thereby, blind to these consequences.  however, we also live in a world where we can make choices about our diets.

also, this isn't just a book about what you eat.  it's also about how you obtain what you eat.  it advocates breaking away from the consumer driven culture of supermarket dependency back to growing your own food.  i have to say that i greatly admire the author for his self-sufficiency.  this is something that i hope one day to aspire to.

i could continue heaping praise on this book for quite some time.  hopefully, it'll be sufficient for me to say that if you're looking for a good book on fruitarianism, start here.  you won't regret it.

WED31MAY2017
just out of curiosity, i tried on a pair of 30" waist trousers yesterday.  i was a little surprised to find that they fitted.  this prompted me to weigh myself, as i don't usually take much interest in my weight.  72Kg.  so, my guess that i'd lost about 20Kg was about right.  possibly 24Kg.  in the space of 10 weeks, this seems to me to have been fairly rapid.  i know there's still some fat left on me, so i imagine this will drop further.  possibly by another 10Kg.  it's worth noting that i've lost this weight whilst eating between 4 and 6 large avocadoes pretty much every day.  i think the critical part of this weight loss is simply consuming the nutrition necessary for the body to burn the fat.  that's what a fruitarian diet does very well indeed.

SAT27MAY2017
it's hot here.  really hot.  just the kind of weather for enjoying sweet juicy refreshing fruit.  now, my recent musings over my diet have led me to think about supplements.  when i was previously fruitarian i was taking a high quality multi-vitamin.  this time i've decided not to supplement.  ultimately, i just don't feel i ought to need supplements if a fruitarian diet is an adequate one.  however, i do think that supplementing can be very helpful when transitioning to a fruitarian diet, especially if doing so from a significantly less refined diet, for want of a better expression.  part of the reason for this is that it takes time for the body to rid itself of toxins and regenerate, and this is the time when supplements can be beneficial.  but after such a time they shouldn't be necessary.  when i last looked at this issue i found an utterly baffling number of opinions, primarily on the internet.  the subject of vitamin B12, in particular, is quite scary, with people telling you that you must supplement or risk nervous system damage.  my own opinion is that provided you're aware of the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency, you can quite happily not supplement until such symptoms arise, if ever.  i actually believe that the body does have the ability to create and absorb sufficient vitamin B12 for its needs, however, this isn't apparent because most people have lost this ability through their dietary choices.  that said, i do suspect that the way we fail to re-cycle our own waste is not ideal.  if we used it as fertiliser to grow our own fruit, that fruit would absorb the vitamin B12 that we produce in our gut but don't absorb and we would then consume it.  my dream is to have a smallholding sufficient to meet my own needs, and do just this.  maybe one day.