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[monkey]

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.

[monkey]

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.

[monkey]

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.

[monkey]

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.

[monkey]

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'.

[monkey]

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!!!

[monkey]

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.

[monkey]

SUN25JUN2017
my weight is now 64.5Kg.  somewhat less than i'd anticipated, though there can be a fair bit of variability in weight measurements.  possibly eating less avocadoes has resulted in me burning more fat.  i've also taken to eating cherry tomatoes.  these, i find, are a nice change from sweet fruit.  i don't actually have much of a sweet tooth.  i'm more partial to spicy foods, which are obviously out, given that i'm following a fruitarian diet.  now, i took the plunge a day ago to buy a juicer.  i wanted a hand press, however, i couldn't find one that i felt was suitable.  so, i ended up buying a food mixer attachment, as i already have the food mixer.  i'm not convinced this was the most ecologically sound decision that i've ever made, however, my rationale hinged around wanting to juice the eating apples that i'll have very soon as a result of a fairly productive apple tree in my back garden.  there are a couple of other apple trees that are produce cooking apples.  these are quite useless to me, as they can't be eaten raw as they're much too sour.  so, my intention is to juice the eating apples.  a hand press may have struggled with that.  i'm also intent on using this to juice fresh oranges in order to stop buying pre-squeezed orange juice.  i'll be curious to see if it still has a slight tang to it, which i suspect is coming from the zest of the orange.  i'll avoid squeezing that by just squeezing the orange segments themselves.

[monkey]

SUN02JUL2017
my weight is now 63.5Kg.  i'm expecting it to level off at about 62Kg, so that will probably happen next week.  at the moment my life is unbelievably stressful, mainly with family problems.  i'm finding it very difficult to cope.  everything has become very uncertain indeed.  keeping a journal here just isn't a priority at the moment.  the next couple of weeks will be critical.

[monkey]

SUN09JUL2017
my weight is now 62Kg.  this is where i thought it would drop to based on my previous experience of being fruitarian, however, judging by the amount of fat still left on me, i actually think it will drop further still.  i'll guess that i could easily loose another 2Kg yet.  now, i feel that i must emphasis here that weight loss isn't my intention.  it's just something of a side effect.  i'm only really keeping a close eye on it because i don't want it to go too far.  my intention is better overall health.  and, on that subject, i noticed recently that the hearing in my right ear had improved significantly.  both my ear drums are perforated, however, my right ear drum has about a third of the drum itself missing.  this shifts the balance of what i hear significantly to the left.  that shift now appears to have disappeared.  whether the right ear drum has healed over, i can't say but i guess it's possible.  and now to my tale of woe about the fruit press that i recently bought.  this is, or was supposed to be, an attachment to my food mixer.  but, alas, it doesn't.  it turns out that the model of my food mixer is too old and there is, and was, no such attachment ever made available.  to cut a very long story short, i've ended up buying an adaptor, which still doesn't get me where i want but is a step closer.  hopefully, i'll be able to modify said adaptor to actually do the trick here.  strangely enough, my mind is also toying with what modifications i'd need to make to my mincer attachment in order to use it for juicing, after all it has the necessary screw to provide for pressing.  blocking the mincer holes would undoubtedly press the juice out of the fruit.  it's just the juice and pith separation that might be a bit tricky.  and, because of this little fiasco, i've ended up buying a hand operated fruit press too, which works well enough even though i've a few qualms.  it's undoubtedly intended for oranges, rather than lemons, which means that i have to top and tail the lemons in order to get them into the jaws.  and the lever handle is offset and outside the base, which means the top has to be held stable as pressure to the lever handle is applied.  and finally, i've had to grease the rack and pinion, as i was getting swarf off the pinion onto my working top, probably because it's made of relatively soft die cast metal.

[monkey]

SUN16JUL2017
my weight is 62Kg again.  i'd have expected another 1.5Kg drop, based on passed weeks, however, obviously not.  i'd still say that i'm carrying some fat, however, perhaps that's a consequence of having a diet that's high in avocados.  my life has also been very stressful over the past few days.  consequently, i've not exactly been restraining myself in terms of eating them.  i bought some sweet peppers a few days ago, which made a nice change.  i'm also drinking about 1.5L of freshly squeezed orange juice a day.  so, overall, i think my food consumption is increasing, as might be expected now that i've used up most of my fat reserves.  this is stretching my food budget, which is only £50 per week, even though i buy as much discounted fruit as i can.  i have to admit that any pretensions of being organic have very much succumbed to this reality.  it just isn't possible on such a meager budget.  and i'll just add that my hand fruit press is working well.  i still have my qualms but it's far more efficient than trying to grind the juice out.  i've also had a fairly good look at the modifications that i need to make to the adaptor for my food mixer.  these seem straightforward enough.  it's just a matter of finding the time to do them.  and finally, one of the lemons that i squeezed had a seed in it that appears to be sprouting, so i'm trying to coax that into life.  if i'm successful, i'll plant it in my garden and hope for some lemons!

[monkey]

SUN23JUL2017
my weight is now 61.5 Kg.  i suspect this measurement might be a bit spuriously high, as i got a reading of 60.5Kg but i couldn't reproduce it.  it seems that sometimes my scales don't zero properly.  i've not written more here because this weekend has been particularly taxing in terms of caring for my elderly parents.  the truth here is that i fell asleep whilst trying to do so.

[monkey]

SUN30JUL2017
my weight is now 59Kg.  this is consistent with last weeks measurement being high, as i suspected.  i'm starting to wonder just how much lower my weight can go before it starts to increase again.  at the moment i'm still seeing about a 1.5Kg per week drop.  i must admit that even i'm beginning to think that maybe i've lost too much weight.  my 30" waist cargo pants are distinctly loose.  and that's with having my belt at 29" too.  i think i'm at most 28" around the waist at the moment, and possibly less.  i'm keeping a very close eye on my food budget, as i know that i'm going over-budget and i quite simply can't afford to do that too often.  i did say that budgeting isn't the way to go fruitarian and it isn't, however, the reality is that i have a very tight budget that i can't easily change.

[monkey]

THU03AUG2017
over the past week or so i've had extremely itchy skin.  initially, i thought it might be due to nettle stings, as i've been clearing out the hedge line and it was only my arms that were affected.  but when it spread to my legs it was clear that wasn't the case.  having looked on the internet, the most likely cause is some form of deficiency, possibly vitamin B12.  consequently, i've had to take the reluctant decision to supplement.  as such, i've been taking a vitamin B12 supplement since this monday.  i've also ordered some multi-vitamins, as it could be due to some other kind of deficiency.  so much for having a 3 to 5 year vitamin B12 buffer (if, indeed, it is that)!  oh, and my weight has slipped to 58Kg now.  and i need 2 new holes in my belt to get it down to 27".  eek!!!

[monkey]

FRI04AUG2017
i've read on the internet that itchy skin can be caused by too frequent bathing.  now, i must admit that i like to have a long hot bath at night in order to relax.  and it does seem that this makes the itching much worse.  the strange thing is that this isn't something new, per se.  so, why now it might be affecting me, i can only guess at.  possibly being fruitarian has made me more sensitive to the chlorine in tap water.  it sounds far fetched but that's all i can think of at the moment.  if supplementing doesn't resolve this, i'll have to give a lot more thought to other possibilities, such as this one.  also, just to be completely honest, it could be that i've been binging on avocadoes too much and too long.  i've read that too many avocadoes can affect the ability of the bowels to absorb nutrition.  i did sort of imagine that mixing an avocado with lemon juice effectively broke down the fats in the avocado so that they weren't so indigestible and prevented them coating the bowel with a fatty deposit.  perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my behalf.  i do like my avocadoes, and being mildly autistic will certainly make giving them up, if that's what i have to do, difficult to say the least.  oh well, we'll see.  a month on the multi-vitamins should tell me whether it's a deficiency or something else.  i'm beginning to wish that i'd been more cautious and supplemented to start with.  i guess i was just a little too optimistic.  it does now seem that it takes much longer to become adapted to a fruitarian diet than i'd expected.