Update!

I really think it's about time I did a post. I know, this year I have been a complete failure when it comes to blogging, but... life has taken it's own turns, so I've just had to cope with it. I'm going to do an honest post. I want to share with everyone the struggles and triumphs after the earthquake, and how I'm dealing with everything.

Am I still 100% raw? Unfortunately no. Organic food is verrrrry expensive in Wellington. I am about 70% raw throughout the day. This is what I usually eat day to day.

Breakfast (9:00am)

2 kiwifruit

1 glass of Kombucha

Lunch (12:30pm)

1 glass of freshly squeezed juice (usually contains carrots, apples, wheatgrass/kale/silverbeet, oranges, pineapple)

Afternoon/Dinner (4:00pm)

Small bowl of homemade cooked vegan soup (usually contains leek or pumpkin, agria potatoes, onion, organic olive oil)

Or if I'm eating 100% raw for the day I'll either have

More juice from lunch, or a small bowl of miso soup.

*Throughout the day I also snack on seasonal fruit, and occasionally raw treats like cake and ice cream.

I usually have maybe 3-4 days a week where I try to be 100% raw. But the strange and funny thing is, I don't even care about percentages anymore. I measure things by how my body feels.

I resented cooked food for a long time. I hated the way it made me feel. I was convinced it would hurt me. I still support those ideas, though. I know the way processed foods make me feel, it's no secret that they don't support the body. Since moving, I tried to comfort myself with foods from my past (that were vegan, but when you binge it makes no difference), in the mistaken idea that they would make me feel better. BIG MISTAKE, I gained about 28lbs. Not cool, at all. I ate a lot of bread, rice, oats, chips, and flour that really just made my life worse. I don't blame me though, I was confused, depressed, lost, torn, and just really screwed up in general. It was also because we were staying with someone who had these foods easily accessible. I also got into some unhealthy patterns of fasting. I want to warn people (especially young people) about their intentions when it comes to fasting, and also urge people who are or want to fast to seek proper support. I didn't have good intentions while fasting, and bingeing on cooked food immediately afterwards just confused my body even more.

When we moved to our little flat in the beautiful Aro Valley, I immediately tried to go 100% raw, but after eating so much 'white food' all I could eat was muesli, nuts, seeds, and as much fat as possible. It really made no difference. I was upset about the way my body looked and felt. I wasn't used to being 'fat' again, especially after being so comfortable and happy in my old slim figure. I relapsed off being raw, and then of course I tried to go raw again, and then relapsed. This continued for awhile. I got very depressed, not just about my completely ridiculous eating habits, but also because I felt like the earthquake had ruined my entire life. I'm not going to lie, I was crying every single day, and seriously contemplated suicide. I was behind in schoolwork, and I couldn't concentrate at all, which for me was difficult, as I was a straight A student. I still got As surprisingly, but I still found myself depressed, and being away from Josh (one of my best friends) upset me all the more. I didn't want to go to a normal high school, because I felt it would distract me more, and the only person I saw for about 4 months was my mum and her boyfriend, and I hardly even left the house, because I actually stopped fitting my clothes for awhile :/

I discovered after visiting the doctor that I had low iron. It was true, if we went out I would come home and end up being able to do nothing for about 5 hours afterwards, yet, at the same time I also had insomnia, where I couldn't sleep till about 2 or 3 in the morning.

We bought a Hurom juicer. Possibly one of the best purchases ever made! We started having juice everyday, and I did start losing weight again, but I had an insatiable appetite for cooked food and craved it madly. When I was raw vegan before the earthquake I would eat hardly anything, which I couldn't help, because I wasn't really hungry often, and I didn't need much for unlimited energy.

Now for the event that changed my life. My mum (who had suddenly become the social butterfly) had made a friend while gardening in the community garden called Lyndsey. My mum told her our plight and Lyndsey, who was very interested in EFT (also known as tapping) suggested that we come round to her house and try some. My mum went, but I didn't. I was a recluse at that stage haha. She came back with a spring in her step and a twinkle in her eye, which I'm aware sounds rather strange, but she told me it was great and that we should try it together. So we did. My food issues were the principle stress in my life, and I knew exactly what I didn't want. I didn't want to be tempted by cooked food, I didn't want to binge on cooked food, I didn't want to be thinking of food constantly, I didn't want to be bloated, I wanted to be raw, I wanted to weigh the same I had before the earthquake. We tapped on these issues. At first it didn't work, and I started crying again. We tapped again a few more times, without much change, but we started to change up the issues a bit more.

Then it was like I woke up. Something changed. I don't even know what it really was. I stopped needing to eat all the time, I stopped craving foods, I stopped bingeing, I stopped stressing, I stopped telling myself how much I hated myself. As of today I have lost about 20lbs. We continued tapping on other issues in our lives, and I feel as though I've left behind so many issues that were constantly plaguing me my whole life. I had a whole new energy about me.

Something else exciting happened after that, but I think this post is already too long, so I'm just going to leave that till next time.

Peace,

Felic Pear x

Blood Tests, all has been revealed!!

A week (or two) ago, we went to the local doctor's to get ourselves 'signed up' should the godforsaken happen and we actually need their help. They were really lovely, anyway, and I was really impressed when they were impressed by my raw veganism. To quote the doctor, "I personally wouldn't recommend milk myself."

Sadly for me, since the earthquake very very strange things have happened to my body. First of all, I gained 10kg, which is about 20lbs (or a bit more), and I have had quite bad depression, lack of concentration, and low energy, among other things. Strangely, even though my mum and I eat the exact same diet, she has not gained any weight and doesn't suffer from any of these symptoms.

I have also been having completely random episodes of bloating, where I feel like my stomach is about to burst, and then a very painful stomach that's impossible to sleep on.

When we received the results, everything on my mum's were perfect, but then I found out, shock horror, that I had low iron! Though we were happy that our B12 were great. I have heard that sometimes earthquake trauma can cause iron levels to be depleted, as I never had this problem before this whole thing, but oh my word, I am so over this. It follows wherever I go.

After 6.3

Some of you may know that on the 22nd of February a 6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch -- AGAIN. Yes, about five months earlier we were hit with a 7.1 earthquake, so we were pretty confident lightening wasn't going to hit the same place twice, then BOOM.

Me and my mother have moved cities, moved islands in fact! Now we live in Wellington -- the capital city of New Zealand. I am really sad about this of course, Christchurch is a beautiful city (which is now destroyed) and it was my home for 11 years. Not to mention I went to an amazing school (the best school in the world) and had my BFFL Josh.

The thing about earthquakes is that there is the initial quake, which is terrifying, and afterwards everyone's emotions run wild and it seems difficult to stay sane.

During the earthquake I was at the University Library. Suddenly the room started shaking violently, the power went out, and people started screaming. A pipe broke and it started raining inside. I grabbed all my stuff (no way was I going to leave it behind) and we evacuated. Outside, I was lucky to find someone I knew and decided to stay with her. The unfortunate thing about the University is that it is an hours bus ride away from my house, which I estimated would take maybe 3-4 hours on foot to get home. I always promised my mum that if there was a disaster that I'd walk straight home, but when it actually happened I was way too scared to voyage out there on my own! I told her I was going to stay with my friend, and try to eventually get home. We walked for 2 hours, and during that time I managed to contact a couple of people and check that they were fine, and of course we were hearing all sorts of rumors, such as certain streets and roads were destroyed, including one that I would have to go down to get home. So I txted my mum and told her I was going to my friend's house and was going to stay there with her. The cellphone coverage was really bad, but when I eventually got her replies 1 hour later, I could see she wasn't happy about my decision. But I knew that attempting to get home with all these aftershocks on my own would be dangerous, possibly resulting in who knows what...

I kept trying to txt another best friend of mine, who was in the city center, but with no luck. I was panicking because we could see a lot of smoke and dust and could here alarms and see police and fire engines and ambulances driving in. Me and my friend got in some University student's car, someone who we didn't know, but one of the girls we were walking with knew. We spent the next 5 hours in the car going around the back suburbs and trying to get out of the horrible traffic which was hardly moving. There was liquefaction everywhere, and about half the houses we saw were destroyed. Seeing these things on the news is one thing, but when you see them with your own eyes is completely different. I couldn't help but wonder if it was all a bad dream. Finally we arrived at my friends house, and I called my mum and did my best to calm her down, told her my friends address, and soon after she came with our neighbor to pick me up and take me home.

Once I got home I felt much better, and I finally managed to contact my friend who was in the CBD, she told me that everyone was absolutely freaked, but no one was dead. I'm convinced that if I had been at school on that day that I might have been injured or killed, because me and Josh often walk around and could have easily been doing that. This hit with no warning.

Like I said, the initial thing was bad, but it was even worse afterwards... I wrote that during the last earthquake we stayed raw quite easily, and had clean water back in a few days. No such luck even 2 weeks after this quake! We decided that we'd had enough of all this, and started packing. The combination of packing, and having hardly any food and water meant that I did have to eat some cooked food. Which is ironic really, because packing really requires a lot of energy and strength, and here I was eating food that provided me with neither. My body responded not very well, of course, and now have the flu! >:|

Yesterday we finally had our whole house packed up and drove up the coast of the South Island to catch the Ferry to Wellington. My next few posts will be about me exploring this place, which I will share with everyone with some pictures.

And tonight I get to see some of my family and my 2 little brothers :)

It's All Cooked To Me

As some of you who would have read My Story know, before I went Raw, I was quite unwell.

Since going Raw, I don't think I even realized how perfect the function of my body had become. My digestion had become superb, and once I started to take B vitamin supplements, everything started working in perfect order, and my stress levels were normal and I was feeling fantastic.

Unfortunately, I am frustratingly back to square one! D:

Why?

As many of you will have twigged it is Christmas, and here in New Zealand, Christmas time is a big thing, not so much because of presents or religion, but because it is the end of the school and University year and exams, and it is the summer holidays. Nearly everything closes down through January.

So me and my mum decided to go out for a pre-Christmas dinner at the only Greek restaurant in Christchurch. We wanted to go because we are both learning Greek, Greece is one of the most stunning countries in the world, and because I wanted to try some of the food, as I'd heard from my friend Chantal's blog that when she was in Greece she found eating vegan to be quite easy.

Sure enough there was a vegan option on the menu. I hadn't actually eaten a proper meal of cooked food in 6 months (only eating it once previously, though it was tiny, vegan, and the rest of the plate was salad), but I figured I would be all right, I thought "How bad could it be?"

Big big BIG mistake.

First of all, we told the waitress who was serving us that we were vegan, and she became really really confused as to what vegan meant. She kept asking us, "Do you eat carrots? Do you eat feta? What about olives?" So we had to tell her what we did and did not eat, but that was fine.

Secondly the meal was diabolically priced, at NZ$29 for a main, per person. In New Zealand, that is A LOT of money. In the 'old' days, when me and my mother went to restaurants, it was commonly understood that any restaurant with a 'main' over $25 was expected to be good quality. I seriously could have re-created this meal at home. I'm not trying to put the restaurant down or anything, (I'm not even going to say what they were called), but after robbing us blind, they could have really tried a bit harder... I think the cost was because they played live music for a couple of hours every night, but for reasons that I will explain soon, we left early and never got to hear it ):

The meal was comprised of rice (that we wondered afterwards if it was cooked with butter, yes, butter, even though it was supposed to be vegan, I don't think they understood that being a vegan is very important for some people), some cooked hummus (which looked a little slimy), a few shreds of iceberg lettuce, 1/4 of tomato, some cooked vegetables (that were the type that you get out of the freezer and put in the microwave, which looked very grey), and some boiled cauliflower in a spicy red sauce. Like I said, I am not putting the food down, I'm sure that as far as meat meals go they are very good. But considering the fact that I can buy a raw drink, a raw taco, and a raw dessert from my favorite raw restaurant for exactly the same price, if not less than the main, I find pretty appalling.

So we set about eating our huge plates of completely foreign (and I'm not just meaning the fact that it was Greek) and lifeless food. The weather was sweltering, and so was I. As I ate, I had to drink water to cool myself down, which didn't work, and my dress got tighter and tighter. After eating all that food, all I really wanted to do was lie on the floor and wait till the food had digested, but I could hardly do that in public.

Instead me and my mum opted for walking around the town for a bit, and then we went home. When we got home I looked at my stomach in the mirror I was shocked; I looked just like a friend of ours who had just had a baby (and I mean while she was pregnant). It was horrifying.

It has been 2 days since I ate that cooked meal. And I have to say, I am feeling absolutely terrible. My stomach has been swollen for 2 days, and I have sunk back into the depression that I experienced while being sick. My stomach is not digesting my food anymore, I know because I can usually hear it gurgling (sorry if that grosses you out) and I can feel my food moving, but now it is making no sounds and not moving. It has been difficult for me to deal with the fact that I now have to spend my time getting well, especially after I progressed so far.

What makes me feel worse is that I disrespected myself and my body. I should have known that it would be too much of a shock for my body to deal with that much cooked food, and have coped with it. After adjusting and thriving on such a pure and natural diet for so long, I may as well have poured petrol down my throat. Yes, cars can run on it, but I can't.

My plans for getting well include eating a lot of fibre, drinking lemon drinks, and eating 100% raw, of course. I want the level of health back! If anyone has any detoxification secrets, plz let me know!

And I can tell you one thing, I am not going to be eating cooked food again, for a long long time.

Breakfast

Cacao Crepes. My mum decided to meet up with an old school friend, and suggested we have breakfast at a vegetarian/vegan/raw cafe.

I had the cacao crepes. They were delicious.

Since I had the camera on me I decided to take a picture of one of the coolest streets in Christchurch, which thankfully wasn't destroyed in the earthquake.

Ok, on a more serious note, I was at the chemist's the other day (or as peepz in America would say, the 'drug store'), no that is not the serious note. We were looking for some natural and vegan medicines/remedies for depression, that I have recently been suffering from. I spoke with a counsellor who happens to think it's earthquake related, but anyway...

The person who was working at the counter was suggesting that I get a blood type test done, and suggested I read a book called Eat Right for Your Type .

Anyway, I was horrified to discover that I was type O, which is supposed to thrive on meat products.

Luckily for me, I had already read in The Food Revolution that the diet had absolutely no credibility, so I decided to ignore it totally.

I don't think I could handle eating another creature's heart (stupidly recommended by the book), and that thought snapped me out of any depression.

Exciting Updates!

Recently, I sort of lost my love of creating raw food at home. I still loved trying other people's raw food though. Just me, personally, had lost the excitement. There will always be good and bad people in the world, and I just have to try to not let them influence me. I shall explain further.

When I first started being raw I would eat cake and ice cream at every meal. I hadn't eaten that sort of thing in a long time, due to not eating sugar for 5 years. It may have been slightly unhealthy, but at the time I was new to raw, and the food tasted so good and was so good for me! I was feeling alive, happy, well, health issues went, and loving the fact that I could eat cake and not worry, because in fact I was losing weight!

Then I logged onto the internet (as you do). Big mistake. I felt like I was being shouted at by a million different raw food 'gurus', being told that what was feeling so good to me was completely wrong, and that I was going to die a slow and painful death (or words to that effect).

Of course, there were nice people online too, telling me that whatever I was eating was good because it was raw, and that everyone was different, and what may work for others was not specifically for me. But I couldn't shake other people's negativity.

But recently something great has happened! I'm back to my old self! I don't even know what it was, but suddenly I have that feeling in my stomach, a fluttering, that just makes me feel like that good things are going to happen! I've got that love of creating food back, and I have major plans!

So with this new positive mind, I logged onto Flikr, and created an account. Here is the link. I also spent my morning looking through the millions of raw recipes that I have, and decided on a few which I would like to create.

Today is also my best friend Josh's birthday, and I have decided on a great present, which I think he might possibly like. For those who don't know, Josh has been an amazing support during my raw journey, and is surprisingly open minded to raw foods. I'm lucky to have him as a friend, as a bonus he is hilarious. Happy birthday, Josh. :)

And even more exciting news, I tracked down the website for my favorite (ever) chocolate bar, ordered some bars, and I am going to review them when they arrive. If you want to order one or two feel free to email me at felic.pear@gmail.com. More information on that later though.

I would actually just like to do a review of one of my favorite blogs at the moment, Really Raw by Raederle. Her blog has so many features, a recipe section, articles, polls, q & a, etc! I really like it because I think a lot of her opinions she voices very fairly, but still comes to a healthy conclusion which supports raw living. You should definitely check it out!

I have found so many beautiful recipes that I would love to create within the next few weeks. So what if some of them are nut-based? You only live once, you may as well enjoy it.

Staying Raw in a State of Emergency

So recently there was an earthquake, and since then the Government has declared our city to be in a state of emergency (whatever that means). As well as that, we have a curfew (not allowed out from 7pm - 7am). I know! At least it applies to everyone, not only the teenagers. We have to boil any drinking water, since the sewerage pipes have exploded, for at least three minutes. We had no power or water for a day, and some people still don't. We are regularly experiencing aftershocks; there have been over 50. All schools are closed for two days (though mine will probably be closed for longer because it is in the central business district). The university is closed til the 13th, so I have an extension on my essay (hells yeah). The prime minister (kind of like the president in America), flew down and went on a tour of the destroyed city, and declared it to be 'rly bad'.

Yesterday people were buying up large in the few stores that were open, buying stuff such as canned food, milk, bottled water, bread, etc.

But I managed to stay Raw through the whole thing.

It's not like we knew that the earthquake was coming or anything, but somehow, just somehow, we had dehydrated lots of different varieties of crackers a few days before, and had lots of different fruits.

We didn't have the use of a blender, and not many bananas, so as a result, I haven't had a green smoothie in 2 days. That has been the most challenging. I didn't realize how important they were in my everyday diet til they were gone! My skin isn't faring so well... but tomorrow we are biking down to the organic grocers and stocking up on bananas and greens, and the second I get home I'm making myself a mega green smoothie!

Other than the lack of green smoothies, I have been living well (probably eating the best in Christchurch, from what I hear, people have had to eat all their ice cream before it defrosts, drink tons of milk, and eat only junk food, because they have no access to cooking equipment). I've been eating lots of raw crackers, and lots of fruits. And spending most of my time cowering under my bed.

I don't know what is in store for the next week. We are expecting gale winds, and possibly another smaller earthquake. My mum is keeping me home until the aftershocks stop.

My friends (and a lot of people out there) aren't exactly the most religious, but I truely do consider it a blessing that not one single person was killed, out of 360,000. Sure, there were some close calls, and a lot of buildings were damaged, but human life is far more precious, and the fact that we're all here today is a miracle.

Earthquake

I had a post planned to write today, but at the moment I haven't really had the time.

This morning at 4.35am, there was a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch and lasted for 40 seconds.

We're safe, and our house isn't damaged, but wow, it was scary.

I was woken up by the house shaking, and then I realized it was serious. I ran into the hallway yelling for my mum to wake up, and stood in the doorway. This has never happened before. I didn't know how long it was going to last, if it was going to get worse, I heard my books falling off my bookshelf and the ground shaking. It was terrifying.

The power went out, and has only recently just come on. We didn't have a radio, and called my grandma to receive updates. The town center is really badly damaged. My best friends called and I was thankful that they were all right. We're still experiencing after shocks.

I will post later. What an annoying distraction to my perfectly planned weekend, just joking, I'm glad that no one is dead.

Because my school is in the middle of town and I am on the 4th floor, chances are I will have the day off school on Monday.

Freak Out D:

I'd thought I'd write this post just to show people that bad things CAN happen when you're a Raw Vegan. We all should know this anyway, because it's just what life does!

I'm not a Raw Food Expert, but I have managed to learn to listen to my body. All I am is a broke teenager in New Zealand trying (and mostly succeeding) to be 100% Raw Vegan all the time.

Anyway, so you know when things are great, but then (sometimes for no reason) things don't go so great? And you quickly find yourself freaking out...

I had one of those. And I'm not ashamed to admit it!

I was feeling very uninspired. My body wasn't responding well to Raw Food, and I now see it's because I was eating too much. I was wondering if I should quit Raw Food altogether. I felt so bad about all the money my mum had spent on my health (pre-Raw) and now my organic food. I'd been at home for about 5 days straight. We had guests staying on the living room floor. I had homework I had to do but didn't particularly want to. And to add insult to injury, it was raining!

Yes, I am a responsible, mature 15 year old, and it is high time my mum stopped coming and giving me a hug when I cried, but I'm not ashamed she did! She came and talked to me, confirmed that Raw Food was the path I should be on, that I could get my homework done, and that everything was going to 'be ok'. And in true style, we even made some ice cream :3

Can anyone guess what kind of Ice Cream it is?