I was a little surprised. I thought at the stroke of midnight I’d be wanting pizza and chips and anything junk. Instead, I had a heap of sundried tomato & grilled vegetable raviolli before I went to bed. I was really craving fruit, or fresh (not frozen) vegetables – something healthy!

I know my health had deteriated slightly, I felt like I was getting a cold – and my sinuses were infected (I get this quite often though). I decided on Saturday (with the exception of my midnight snack) that I’d eat only raw vegan foods today. They were all soooo good. I missed them!

By the end of Saturday I was feeling a little better. By Sunday morning I was feeling pretty good – my sinuses were almost clear and I didn’t feel the onset of a cold. (This could also be because a) It’s the weekend, I’m much less stressed then and b) this weekend was my quietest weekend in months!)

Something else that surprised me – despite going to bed a little hungry each night during the week – I actually gained weight. Maybe it was water weight, maybe it was all the carbs… but despite pigging out on fruits, veggies and nuts all saturday (I mean I had about 5 meals!!) by Sunday I was back to my normal weight.

It’s strange – I ate heaps of food on Saturday and lost weight (and not just lettuce – I was eating dates & raisins by the handful, avocado in everything, a few bananas, walnuts, cashews etc… ie. Calorie wise it was a LOT!) and yet during the week I was eating very little and gained. I doubt my metabolism would bound back in just one day, so I feel it was the types of food that I was eating that had the effect.

This brings me back to the moral of the experiment. People living on $2 a day can’t afford to eat fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts everyday. A loaf of bread cost me $1.79 – 21 slices. If you had a sandwich for 3 meals a day, that’s enough to last you almost 3 and a half days (half a week). By contrast, 6 apples cost me around $3, so 50cents each. Eat one for each meal, and despite still being hungry and getting nowhere near the needed calories for the day, you’d only last just over 1 day on the same $1.79.

This is worrying. A person living on (or under) the poverty line is just going to get sicker and sicker – but they can’t afford to spend money on medicine, on hospitals. I was taking a multivitamin the entire time. Multivitamins are expensive. My bottle was about $25 (60 tablets I think). And even then, I still felt under the weather.

Good news for me is – I’m enjoying this "living foods" diet that I started once I came off this challenge – I’m going to try to keep it up for as long as I can. Yes, it’s much more expensive than what I’m used to, but hopefully it’ll help my immune system so I wont get sick as much, and my energy is improved – don’t think you can put a price on that either.

Other news is I’ve kicked my caffeine habit. I used to be a "one cup a day" person, and everytime I tried to give it up, by day 3 I’d have terrible headaches. I did get some headaches throughout the week, but I figured it’s now been over a week since my last coffee, so I should be ok.

This challenge has made me aware of just how difficult it is to live & eat on such little money a day. It’s also driven me to lead a healthier lifestyle THAT is priceless!

It’s also inspired me to do other things to help those who need our help. I’m not sure where to start – but feel free to reply with any tips, links etc, so that I can help others