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

I can’t wait for midnight!

This menu is boring. I want something really fresh. Like an apple, a mango, banana or something!!!!

I ran out of baked beans. Disaster! I had really developed a taste for that breakfast! At least this morning was a bit warmer so I didn’t miss my coffee as much.

I had a real rushed evening. I had about 10mins from the time I got home to get changed, grab something to eat and leave for chiropractors, then from there straight into the city for a meeting. I had the piece of toast and a few spoonfulls of soup when I first got home – was sooo hungry.

The meeting was a bad one (I knew it was going to be), so wasn’t really hungry by the time I got home around 9pm, but just wanted to comfort eat or something, so I used the rest of the potatos up. While they were cooking I had a larger serving of the pea soup (pea soup can stretch over SOOOOO many meals!).

I learnt that I really shouldn’t eat potato. I get so bloated and feel sick after eating them.

That gives me $4.56 to play with…. maybe I’ve been too ridgid on this, or eating too badly, or eating too many carbs, or eating too much of the 1 food. (Hello bread & pasta?!)

I weighed myself this morning – I’m roughly what I always weigh. Given there are times I’m feeling hungry, I would’ve thought I’d have lost weight oh well.

Tonight is an absolute rush, so no idea what I’m doing for dinner. Easiest would be to heat up some soup quickly before I head out… or I could have yet another tomato sandwich… BORED OF THIS FOOD NOW!

I’m craving something really fresh, like a salad or a fruit smoothie. I’ve been salivating over raw vegan food dishes last night. The week before this started I made a few [raw, vegan] desserts that were awesome. I think I’m going to make these this weekend and binge on them. Only 1 and a half days to go!!

Ok, so it was less than 1/3 of a can of baked beans left. I had barely enough to cover one slice of toast, so I toasted my bread, scraped out every last bit of sauce from the container and made a sandwich out of it. I then put it in the
sandwich press cause I figured I’d heat the baked beans up too that way. It was so good. But I wanted another one. Or four.

Brisbane seems to be persisting with the cold mornings. I’m not a fan.!!

This was so good. I knew two cups of pasta was heaps, so I cooked that up thinking I’d be absolutely stuffed by the end of it and I’d have some leftovers…. ha!

I scoffed all of this down like crazy. It’s weird how I thought I wasn’t that hungry, or that I’m doing fine or whatever. I don’t think that’s the case…

I got sick of the pea soup. Should’ve only cooked half the packet. I’m starting to get a bit hungry at times (I thought It’d be much earlier than this!!) but it’s not unbearable. I think it’s more to do with cravings than anything too.

It’s amazing how food I would just scoff down becomes totally awesome to me now

I’m almost out of baked beans – I don’t even have enough for one slice tomorrow. This is upsetting – I really liked this breakfast!
These cold mornings aren’t being helped by the fact I can’t have any hot drinks. Well, I suppose I could drink plain hot water (?!).

Read through some tweets from other people living the challenge – seems like I’m doing pretty well. I’m also surprised that I haven’t had a caffeine withdrawal headache yet!!