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Day 3 Afternoon: Black bean soup with hard-boiled egg white and apple with peanut butter.

Day 3 Night: Ben and Jerry’s milk shake, gorgonzola fries, a few sips of beer, about 4 glasses of water.

Day 4 Morning: 20 oz latte from Victoria’s

Yes, that is right I am out.  How did it come to this?  Well, yesterday I sent my passport to get a visa.  The visa should be back in 3 business days.  As soon as I get my visa back I will be flying back to Afghanistan.  SO?  My diet in Afghanistan will not be too much different from this food competition diet.  That means I want to eat some dairy and cook with olive oil before I go.  I will not be gone too long but long enough to miss cooking my own foods.

A trip to Costco to get some fruit to juice really put me over the edge.  Why am I restricting myself now when I will be restricted next week?  Then the phone calls started.  I left Becky a desperate voicemail, eagerly waiting for her work break.  Thank goodness I have an iPhone and could just send her emails and text messages too.  I still was not convinced I should drop out of the competition, but Remi was definitely failing as he was about to breakout into tears wanting to eat pizza.  A few text messages were sent to Andrew, Mark, and Ryan.  Two of which thought I was joking about Remi going out and one who encourage it.  I am sure you can guess who was encouraging.

Meanwhile, I put two calls into Tara, my Philly Librarian and messenger for the Kingdom of Vegetarians winner.  The first asking her to order a pizza to my house because I just could not bring myself to do it.  The second another plea to get me out of this contest.  Still, she wasn’t going to help and, I wasn’t going to leave my house.  Until, her and Matty mentioned a Ben and Jerry’s milkshake! Keeping up with my marathon training I ran to Ben and Jerry’s along with Remi who had long decided he was going out.  Becky calls saying she is on her work break.  I asked her to meet at the ice cream shop.  The three of us drank milkshakes and loved it.  Until, Becky and I felt sick.

Anyone left in the contest, do not go out.  It will make you sick.  Right now I am still buzzing from a 20 oz latte.  I rarely drink coffee, but when I do it is no more than an 8 oz beverage, so 20 oz will, that is just mind blowing. I will, in the future stick to a more non-processed foods diet.  But, I do want to add a little processed now and again.

Mark S., Mark G., I am rooting for you.  Andrew, I don’t think it is possible for Remi to knock you out.  Jordy and Paul, if you are out there update, otherwise I am saying you went out before me.

I am already thinking of the next contest.  This time I will try to make sure Afghanistan isn’t around the corner.  How about aiming for sometime near Bloomsday the end of April or mid May?  Anyone is welcome and I think the addition of Hank and Jacque will be a challenge to Andrew.  He needs some strong competitors.

Check out the other blogs to get the whole story of 7/7 Challenge #2.

• Burger, Revised, represented by Andrew.
• Down to Earth, represented by Bart and Paul.
• I put the me in awesome, represented by Becky.
• Librarian Lateralus, represented by Mark G.
• Rhymes with Almonds, represented by Mark S.
• Spokane Food Blog, represented by Jordy, Remi, and Unknown Neva.
• The Spovangelist, represented by Mariah.

Evening from Day 2: Menu change… I tried to make fried rice, with garlic, and tomato. Cooking without oil is difficult as Andrew pointed out in his update. Steak was cooked, but for some reason I really didn’t like it, so I gave it away. The best part of the meal was the salad posted on Remi’s update. It reminded me of Afghan salad. I also had strawberries with honeycomb sauce.

Morning: Apple

Note: Becky’s post is just funny. Especially, since I have know the girl since we were about 8 years old. Mark G., where are you? Maybe in some library meetings? I think Ryan might be aiming to knock Remi out with his messages of eating De Leon chicken in bacon grease. Fortunately for me my friend with the candy dish down the hall from my office is out a few days this week. Out of sight out of mind. Mark S. I feel is strong in the contest living on almonds for a few days, but we need some updates. Jordy is here to stay and I am sure her creative cook BF is helping. As for DTE Paul, well, I predict he is out.

Potluck? Andrew came up with the idea of a potluck. Anyone interesting in banning together and sharing non-processed food dishes let us know.

Morning: Apple and banana

Afternoon: Black Bean Soup! yummy! Actually, it is a recipe that was modified from a Yum Sugar post. I topped it with cilantro and fresh cut Roma tomatoes. I also had a banana with peanut butter and some lemon juice sweetened with orange juice.

Evening: I am planning to eat a meat and roasted red potato dish and cooked apples with cinnamon and honeycomb for dessert. Or, I might try to revise this recipe with leftovers from my lunch. I think I can replace the bread with potatoes and the oils with coconut milk. I just have to purchase a coconut.

Marathon update: I am still on track with all the workouts and getting advice from a few people including Hank.

Predictions from a pessimistic view

Winners:

• Andrew – He won 7/7 #1, he has a game plan, and I don’t think this is too far from his regular eating habits. Coffee will be his challenge.

• Mark G – A basketball player/ librarian = recipe for competition success.   Not to mention the family organic farm will help with his fruit consumption.

• Remi – Totally focused and determined to claim a victory.

• Ryan – He has the willpower to stick to De Leon, Mizuna, Sante, etc. He will also manage to knock someone out of the competition.

Losers:

• Paul – His DTE partner dropped before the start and he might be influenced to do the same.

• Becky – She is paranoid about using a wrong ingredient.  Plus she is easily influenced by cheesecake.

• Geneva – Yes, that’s me.  Becky and I were knocked out during the last 7/7 and it is possible we just might do it again.

• Mark S. – He, will make it far but will crave olive oil for his cooking and might drop.

• Stefan – He will not be able to eat 7 layer dip for 7 days.

• Jordy – I haven’t seen her game plan yet, so from a pessimistic prediction she is in the loser list.

• Bart – He went out before he started.

• Mariah – She went out before she started.

Predictions from an Optimistic View:

Everyone will win.  Everyone, that is except Bart and Mariah because they went out before I was able to write my predictions.

*****Visit www.spokanefoodblog.com for full links and competition updates.*****

My personal update:

Day 1:

• Morning – Zucchini and a hard boiled egg white.  I was totally grossed out by the egg.  I don’t like birds.

• Afternoon – Apple and peanut butter (the kind you grind yourself from whole peanuts)

• Night – Jasmine rice – unbleached, juice from the Jack LaLanne, banana, some juice pulp, cashews – unsalted, etc.

Prep for Day 2 – Black bean soup (Actually, I started to prep then Remi finished while Becky and I filmed Andrew making juice. For an awesome video check out Andrew’s blog.  I am sure he will post our great film job sometime today.)  * If anyone else needs some Jack LaLanne in your diet,  you are welcome to use the juicer.

Challenge #2 – eating non-processed foods for 7 days

If you don’t know about Challenge #1, I deleted all of my blog entries for it, so check out Becky’s blog and it will sum it up nicely for you.

The contestants this time around are mixed with newbies and Challenge #1 players.

• Burger, Revised, represented by Andrew.
• Down to Earth, represented by Bart and Paul.
• I put the me in awesome, represented by Becky.
• Librarian Lateralus, represented by Mark G.
• Rhymes with Almonds, represented by Mark S.
• Spokane Food Blog, represented by Jordy, Remi, and Unknown Neva.
• The Spovangelist, represented by Mariah.

Today, I will focus on eating all processed foods and prepping my non-processed foods to start the challenge tomorrow. Time to get out the Jack LaLanne!

I predict Challenge #2 will produce more winners than Challenge #1.

*Also, part of this challenge Stefan will eat all processed foods 7 layer dip and Ryan will eat De Leon and Mizuna.

I am starting to wonder why I decided to include running (run, walk, crawl) a marathon on my high school goals list.  Well, I ran cross country in high school and thought by the time I got to my 20’s I would be a superb runner.  Turns out I did not keep up with running the way I envisioned in my teenage years.  Oh well, I am going to run again.  This weekend I signed up to run the Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon on June, 27, 2009.

I am going to need all of the encouragement I can get.  I found a 16 week beginners training schedule.  First you have to be able to run for 30 solid minutes then you can start the training.  I have about 21 weeks until my marathon.

So far a few others have registered to run this with me, my friend who will be married on top of Mt. Spokane this summer and one of the other bridesmaids.  For the bride-to-be, this is the bachelorette party.  I was in charge of planning the party and what better party for a girl who is hiking to her wedding than running a marathon?  One of the bridesmaids husbands lost a bet on a Cougar game and is now registered for the 1/2 marathon.  There is talk of others that I know signing up for the marathon or 1/2 marathon.  I hope they sign up and I hope others will too.

Any advice and encouragement is welcomed and appreciated.

This one is always on my friends gmail signature line.  I like it.
“It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated…one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.”
–Elizabeth Gilbert

Books I am supposed to read, just read, need to read again, etc. Suggestions from the people on gchat:

• Syrup, Maxx Barry
• Jennifer Government, Max Barry
• Animal Farm
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Good Omens
• Coraline
• The Phantom Tollbooth
• Omnivores Dilemma
• Skinny Bitch
  
• The World is Flat
• Hot, Flat, and Crowded
• Eats Shoots Leaves

Let me know more if you have any…