Before & After II

Hey! I just realized, yesterday was my one-year blogiversary! Exciting day. Haha

In honor of a year passing since my first blogpost... I figure perhaps another before and after is in order. ヅ

I honestly haven't changed in weight that much, but I have been getting stronger, losing retained water weight, etc. - also, I think I look significantly healthier now than I did a year ago...or two years ago...or three!

What do you guys think? ☺

This is me! Today! (Actually, that's a lie. It's me, last night, before I went to bed. Haha)

I've been raw vegan for 2 years, and vegan for 3 - and honestly I can't remember feeling better than I do right now! So glad I discovered LFRV.

Oh my goodness! Don't laugh, guys! Haha. This is me almost exactly a year ago! I honestly didn't realize there was such a change!

Well there it is, folks. This is before I removed nuts and oils from my life - and you can see the difference!

And here I am 2 years ago! Haha.

It's almost exactly a week after I went raw, I believe!

Don't be fooled by the relative healthy-looking-ness.

I was pretty much starving myself at this point,, and I had loads of makeup on.

..That's all I've got for ya today! Peace! ☮

Want Long, Healthy, Happy Hair?!

Strong, fast-growing, healthy, natural hair? Who doesn't want that?! My friend and I were talking this morning, and she said something about wishing she had pretty, long, curly hair like me. Well, the curly part's natural. But I have a few theories on how my hair came to be described by the other two adjectives.

My hair naturally grows really slowly. I had it cut super short in 5th grade, and have been trying to grow it out since then. Up until very recently, there was virtually no change. To illustrate this to you, I have included some photos from the past 5 years.

First of all, this photo up here ^ is of me, summer of 5th grade, very shortly after getting my hair cut short.

In this picture, taken 3 years later, summer after 7th grade, you can see my hair has grown a little. It's also gotten curly...so I guess that might have something to do with the lack of difference.

However... Over a year later, in the beggining of 9th grade, you can see my hair has barely lengthened at all. This is just under a year after I became vegan, by the way.

In this photo, taken at the beginning of this year (10th grade), you can see again that my hair has grown *a little*. In this photo, I have been gourmet (high fat) raw vegan for just under a year. I was still using conventional shampoo at this time, as well.

And finally! (This is wierd.) Only about half a year after that last photo was taken, my hair finally looks so much longer! Doesn't it?! And I think it just looks so much healthier and shinier, too. I haven't washed my hair with conventional shampoo since 2011. Zero products in my hair, no styling. Totally natural. Oh... also, barely any makeup. Just a teeny bit of mascara..

So what do I think caused this rapid change? Well, first, maybe my diet. A month after the 4th photo was taken, I became fruitarian. However, I think a better explanation would be the shampoo I have been using, honestly. Shampoo strips your hair of its natural oils, causing it to be thinner, duller, harder to manage, and break more often. Baking soda effectively (and cheaply...it's so much less expensive than commertial concoctions!) cleans your hair without doing any of this!

For more information about this awesome, simple method of washing your hair, visit my previous post on baking soda 'shampoo'. The first few paragraphs describe why and how I arrived at the decision to use baking soda shampoo. If you want to skip right to the recipe, it's in the 3rd/2nd to last paragraphs.

I seriously recommend you try this. I really can't think of any reason not to!

Photos

**UPDATE - more recent before and after photos are available here**

Pre-fruitarian photos:

Beginning of freshman year; About a year and a half ago; I was vegan.

Last summer; 8 months ago maybe?; High-fat (gourmet) raw vegan.

So... sadly enough, I can't give you an awesome, encouraging before and after story, because I've always been in the healthy weight range, more or less.

However, I know that lots of people are always looking for photos of fruitarians, to see their weight, whether they look healthy.. and all that I guess. So, I thought I'd post some photos of me on a fruitarian diet... Just for reference.

These last ones were all taken within a week-ish of one another.

Height: 5'2

Weight: 102

BMI: About 18.7 (healthy)

Age: 15

Fruitarian for about half a year.