Yesterday was my last day as a fruitarian (probably forever). The last piece of fruit I ate, around 5 PM, was a piece of an old coconut. It tasted really old so I didn't eat more than a few bites. Then I went to Muay Thai and after that, waited around 2 hours for the day to finally end. At midnight, the gorging began. I was actually stuffed at 00:16, but after another 15 days of fruit only, I ate and ate and ate until 00:43, when we retreated to play Geometry Wars 2 (coop sequence: 35 million).

Conclusion

Don't do it. I'm unsure how real fruitarians (= only sweet fruit) survive on this. There are several severe problems I see with fruitarianism as a long term diet.

• You only have sweet foods to eat, this gets annoying in less then four meals
• You have to eat A LOT to stop being hungry
• Both of these result in not WANTING to eat enough, thus starving yourself (I was hungry all day until I included beans in my diet for different taste and more nutrients/protein/whatever beans have)
• It's not cheap. This depends on your location I guess, but in Germany in winter, EVERYTHING is imported except dried apples

Weight Loss

What now?

I like thinking about things. I love creating structures and orders of things in my head. It's just my thing. And this book totally blows me away. The digital world gives us possibilities that I didn't even realize, but reading this book, I find examples from my everyday life everywhere. The book is about how the digital world is NOT restricted by physics, and what that means for order and structure. In the physical (aka "real") world, two books cannot stand in the same space. In the physical world, you can't build a special shop around every single customer. In the physical world, a pile of information or things gets harder to access and use the bigger it is. Not so in the digital world. Look at Amazon. Every time you're there, the shop looks different. Every customer has recommendations of his own. Not two people experience the same store. It's amazing. Being restricted by the physical world has taught us to think in these restrictions. Now that they no longer apply, we need to think different. In short, read this book. It'll amaze you. It's philosophical in parts, but very pragmatic and down to earth. It's also funny, if you like that in books. And if you live in Germany and want to give me money, buy through my affiliate link: Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder This book has actually inspired me to write a great software that I always wanted, but didn't know I wanted. It can roughly described as a huge, unsorted pile of stuff. Now I just need to get off my butt and write it. Or think the idea through some more. We'll see.

It is actually day 25, I think, but it feels like day 20385985. I'm now totally fed up with most fruits. The only ones I still like are strawberries and water melon, both of which are hard to get in winter in germany, native home of only apples and pears. So I cheat with lots of beans.

"People used to eat only fruits"

Maybe cavemen ate some fruit in the summer, but I guarantee that nobody survived off fruit at this time of year in this place. Because nothing grows. For months. Despite Al Gore and global warming. So either they ate something else or they starved. I get why mankind invented processed foods. Eating only unprocessed, fresh fruits is a pain in the ass! They are only ripe for a few days. Before that they taste horrible, after that they're ruined. They don't grow everywhere. Most of the fruits I really like aren't even native to Germany. So in winter cavemen either ate meat, or they had processed some plants to make them more durable. Everyone else probably starved.

Processed food is better in so many ways

• It's easier to get (unless you're a banana farmer or something)
• It's easier to store
• It doesn't spoil so easily
• It has a lot more variety, because you're not confined to what grows right now, right at your place
• It often tastes a lot better (though this could be me getting bored by fruit)
• Preparation and cleanup are easier. Despite what I thought, eating fruit seems to require more preparation and cleanup than "normal", processed foods. I still use a plate and a knife, sometimes a fork, have to peel almost everything because the skin isn't edible, have to throw away the peelings, some fruits have annoying little seeds in them..

Why processed foods rule

Yesterday I had my first MMA lesson. Upon arriving at the gym we received news that our Muay Thai coach was sick, so we decided to head over to Freefight, a Mixed Martial Arts gym across the street. When their coach was sick they have come to train with us in the past, so it's kind of a friendly help-out situation. It was brutal.

Conditioning

First, their coach is disgustingly into conditioning. Even at Muay Thai my conditioning is pretty bad, but not this bad. After warming up he had us do 5 rounds of 3 minutes with 1 minute of rest in between. The rounds consisted of punching combinations followed by a knee strike and "defense", which meant sprawling on the ground and getting back up (or sometimes moving around on the ground). Now I'm used to punching drills and kicking drills, but the whole getting to the ground thing was amazingly taxing. For every move (combination, get down and up again) we had about 2 seconds time, so I was completely wasted after this 5 rounds.  Then we did some light stretching (not the type we do in Muay Thai, where you really stretch your leg on your partners shoulder, more like football stretching). 

Jiu-Jitsu

After that we practiced a move that I think comes from brazilian jiu-jitsi (I'm not sure though). One guy is on his back, the other guy kneels above him (like a ground and pound stance). The one on the floor now tries to trap the kneeling guys arm and shoulder with his arms while locking his legs behind him. Then he pulls the elbow to the enemies head and the entire arm back until he taps out. I've never done any grappling, wrestling or BJJ before, so this was really new. It's like a whole new dimension of fighting.

Circle training

We continued with circle training. Fourteen stations, one minute each, with things like skipping, push-ups, sprawl, kicking, heavy bags, etc.

Wrestling

When we finished, the coach announced we were going to play a game: don't get thrown on the ground. Two guys wrestle each other, trying to get the other fighter on the ground with his back down. Your back hits the ground, you lose. The winner stays in the ring and fights against the next guy. Two of these fights go on at the same time. At this point I was so wasted I could barely stand up. I was repeatedly thrown to the ground by a 16 year old who dominated the ring for a while, once even by a 13 year old half my weight. I managed to throw one guy down though.

Impressions

It was an interesting insight. There are completely new worlds of fighting out there that I haven't seen yet. Jiu-jitsu, wrestling, the whole being-on-the-ground-thing. It seems pretty cool, but I think I'll try to get into Muay Thai a little more. I've only been training it for about a month now, and spreading on too many skills at once will only be confusing. But it's nice to see that there's so many interesting ways to fight out there.

This might not sound so good, but it's mostly a step up. This time I asked :) My approach was very clumsy ("So.. do you have a boyfriend?" out of the blue), but at least I tried. I felt kind of good for the rest of the day, despite having to work through 8 hours of computer networks right after that. She was really hot though, so of course I'd like to have succeeded. But well, practice makes perfect, right?

Hey, I'm so over fruit. I can not stand the taste of any sweet fruit except watermelon, and that's because I can't get watermelon anywhere. Everything else I'm totally fed up with. Apples, bananas, kiwi, honey melon, pears, grapes, ananas, even dried dates.  So today I cheated by eating beans and tomatoes again, twice. The thing is that my hate for sweet fruit is stronger than my hunger. So if I don't a) force myself to eat, hating it or b) eat beans and tomatoes, I don't eat. I also had slight blackouts when getting up quickly today, several times. Normally I never get this. Maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe I'm undernourished. On the other hand, I was told I looked thinner. It's not worth hating food, though. I really look forward to the 21st, when I'll be stuffing myself with every kind of junk food ever invented. Or maybe just rice and beans, which sounds like a feast to me now. That's actually kind of funny. I envy people for eating things like bread, carrots or nuts. People are used to "Oh, I wish I could eat ice cream like you, but I'm on this diet...". Nobody's used to "Man, I wish I could eat rice and steamed vegetables like you.. man that smells so delicious. But I'm on this weird diet..". Maybe I'm only doing it to be more weird? Sometimes I suspect that. Today I had a huge argument with my roommates concerning my diet. They said beans and tomatoes are not fruit. I argued for half an hour, but they're right of course. I didn't explicitly forbid beans and tomatoes in this diet, but of course it isn't exactly what I had in mind when I thought "fruitarian". On the other hand it helps me get some nourishment at least. All this sweet fruit makes me want to puke. Eating has become a dread. I hope that times passes quickly. Man. I wish this was over already. By the way: I'm not sure if this is detox or if eating only fruit just sucks ass.

Today I was still full from yesterday. I didn't eat anything the whole day, despite working through the night for university and going to Muay Thai training. After training I hesitantly ate parts of a mango, but I didn't get all the flesh removed and it tasted kind of weird, also. I still have strings of mango flesh between my teeth. Brushing didn't help and my floss is empty. Gross! I guess the food I ate yesterday is still being digested. Or maybe I still have energy left from yesterday. I don't look forward to eating fruit only for another 14 days, but I guess I'll have to..

Yesterday was the half mark for my 30 Day Challenge. I had decided to take a day off at 50% and make it a cheat day. And cheat I did! This was the first cheat day since going vegetarian 7 months ago that I ate meat. The fruit made me do it, kind of. It actually tasted pretty good, but right now I don't feel like I need to eat meat any more. Day before yesterday, on day 14, I thought of meat every free minute. I hope that my cravings are not coming back for the rest of the month, cause they were awful! Yesterday I consumed:

• 1 microwaved Hot Dog - 147 kcal
• 1 microwaved Hamburger - 258 kcal
• 1.5 swedish Almond cakes (whole cakes, 300g each I think) - 1845 kcal
• 1.5-2 packages of M&Ms - 2080 kcal
• 2 pieces of fried tofu steak - 207 kcal
• 3 ostrich steaks (small) - 171 kcal
• 1 serving of vegetables - 31 kcal
• 1 serving of potatoes - 106 kcal
• 1 cup of marzipan cocoa - 170 kcal
• 1 liter of regular cocoa - 850 kcal
• 1.5 liters of coke - 660 kcal
• 2 cans of diet coke - 0 kcal
• 1.5 liters of Mezzo Mix (coke mix drink) - 660 kcal
• 3 mini pizzas (Carazza) - 440 kcal
• 3 bifi rolls with bun - 684 kcal
• 1 whole sesame bread loaf - 804 kcal
• 1 whole gorgonzola (on the bread) - 256 kcal
• 1 serving Philadelphia cheese (on the last slice of bread, was out of gorgonzola) - 58 kcal
• 1 piece of cordon bleu steak - 158 kcal
• lots of mustard and ketchup - 105 kcal

Tonight, after a last desperate attempt at having fun with Grand Theft Auto 4 - Liberty City, my roommate flipped and burnt the game. That's right, he splashed half a liter of lighter fluid over it and lit it up. The game is that bad. It's just - not fun. It is not a game. It may be a somewhat realistic simulation of a boring world I wouldn't want to be in (imagine only having 4 shops in the whole of New York City), but it's definitely not a game. Because games are fun playing, and this is not.  

This was the worst day by far. I went to bed hungry, dreamt of food and woke up with a growling belly. Luckily my roommate bought me some fresh grapes and fruit mix snacks, so I could go right on breakfasting. I had cravings the entire day. The smell of warm and tasty food I couldn't eat was everywhere. The bad thing: I started craving meat, which I didn't when going vegetarian. If this continues, I'll not only NOT continue being Fruitarian after 30 days, I'll also go back to eating meat. I have no idea why the fruit makes me dig burgers, kebaps and chili con carne, but it's bad. I really want it. A biologist friend had an interesting definition of fruit for me. In German, there are two words for fruit. "Frucht" is a piece of fruit and also the technical term. "Obst" is the category of foods. While the term is ambivalent in English, in German it's closely defined. Every plant has a "frucht", which is its reproductive part containing the seed. But "Obst" are only those plants that do not die when you take the fruit and can regrow them. If you pick an apple, the tree can grew new apples. If you eat a carrot, it can't. This definition hits sounds pretty good to me. Today I bought two coconuts and a few melons. We drilled holes in the coconut with a power drill, then opened it with a hammer. It cost 2€, almost three times of what I paid in Dublin. But it also tastes fresher. I guess I'll pay a little extra for not eating apples and bananas, which I'm sick of. Grapes are still nice. One thing I'm wondering: how do I make fruit juice without a "juicer"? What does this machine even do?