Hi again! Sorry for the quietude, but I've been busy reading, listening to teleseminars, and concentrating on my well-being during this first week of the Six-Week Detox. I've been keeping a mini-journal on a private forum for participants, and between that and reorganizing how I use my time, I'm a bit strapped for spare moments.

So, I'm going to copy (and lightly edit) a bit from my mini-journal there.

Today I decided to make an all-liquid day. I think I may break with that and have some oranges, because my body's been craving citrus a lot lately. I sat down and ate three whole grapefruits the other day for lunch/brunch. I love grapefruit! I was surprised I felt so satiated and satisfied having just grapefruit for brunch and lunch. (I don't tend to eat anything until at least mid-morning - my gut is much happier that way!)
Last night I made a very green smoothie, low (for me) on fruit and loaded with greens and green powders - chlorella, spirulina, wheatgrass, mullein leaf (good for mucus issues), and dulse. That's what I'll be having for lunch today. I also juiced last night and froze the jar for today - one bunch carrots with their tops, one large bunch parsley, the center 1/3-1/2 of a head of romaine, and two pears. Verrrry green for me, juice wise, but the pears made it still palatable.

I can tell I'm detoxing again - I'm getting mild acne on my face. >.< But being less strict - not doing 100% raw every day - means the detox is much more gentle than it was when I did 100% raw for a full week. I am not feeling so overwhelmed and angry, either. (Hm, sounds like I need to detox some anger... gee, big surprise! NOT!)

Another thing I've been craving and eating a ton of is green olives stuffed with whole garlic cloves. They are oily, but very delicious. I don't even really like green olives, but I love garlic and I know how tremendously healthy it is. I realized I was sitting and eating the equivalent of one or two heads of garlic in one sitting, and found myself thinking, "Huh, I bet my body needs and wants all that anti-microbial goodness."
(Plus they are so tasty!)
Grapefruit is the same way, especially the seeds - an anti-microbial power-house! Huh, I guess my body is trying to tell me something.

I'm going hiking in the woods with friends tomorrow, and we'll be playing games and chasing each other too, so it's going to be my super-high exercise day for the month. (I'm usually worn out for a couple days after these monthly game days!) But I think I'm going to go bowling and/or roller-skating for fun and exercise tonight and/or Sunday too.

I've been making a version of the "Leaky Gut Repair shake" - with hemp protein, a red-superfood powder, chia seeds, coconut, a banana, and about 20 oz. water - and it is not only giving me indigestion, it's making me a little constipated. The indigestion is probably from combining the banana and hemp - and I know better, but man, the shake tastes pretty gross without the banana to sweeten it. I'm going to try my shake again with stevia instead of the banana to sweeten it. I think it is the bad food combining that is upsetting my stomach, but if it is the hemp alone, I should know soon. I hope not, though, because I bought three canisters of hemp protein powder, and I know that stuff doesn't keep forever, even frozen.

The red powder contains lots of stuff, too much to list it all here, but it's lots of high-anti-oxidant red/blue/purple foods (like pomegranate, acai, purple cabbage, berries of many sorts, etc.), detox herbs (milk thistle, tumeric, aloe, ginger, etc.), and enzymes & probiotics. I saw it at Trader Joe's and it sounded just about perfect, so I decided to give it a try.

Well, wish me luck!

Slowing down, speeding up, and committing

I haven't written for a week or so, mostly due to lack of time, but also because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say next.
I stopped eating 100% raw for a few days. Emotionally, it was just really tough for me. I learned a lot being 100% raw for a week. One of the things I learned, though, was that eating 100% raw right now is much like when I did Kundalini yoga or acupuncture regularly - very good for me, but a little too much too fast. I realized it was a bit too much when, one evening after work (this was day 7, I think), I found myself storming around the house, yelling about being hungry, and then, less than ten minutes later, lying in bed crying. I said to myself, "Whoa, that was... unexpected. Um. I think I may need to have some gentle cooked food."
So I did. I felt a bit better right away - my detox symptoms eased. I decided to take a few days off and not worry about the diet.
Then over the weekend, I had the opportunity to see some friend I don't see very often, and they wanted to eat out. So not only did I eat cooked food, I ate a fair amount of wheat and dairy. Ugh. That stuff just makes me feel lousy, physically and mentally/emotionally! BLEH!

I've been eating mostly raw the last couple of days, and barring something unexpected, will have eaten 100% raw today. I'm craving oranges this week for some reason. I remember how I used to love them so much I would eat as many as I could get... which wasn't many, I'll admit. So I've been eating a couple of those each day and I think I'll get more, as my local co-op has a glut of blood oranges lately. YUM!
I think I need to prioritize other aspect of self-care and get those going as well if I am to have any hope of succeeding at a raw food diet. Health is about way more than just the food you eat.

As of today, I'm committing to a new program. As of Jan. 1, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to afford it, but the lovely ladies that run the program have negotiated a work-exchange for me for part of the fee. (Have confidence in the abundance of the universe, and what you desire will come to you!) So, as of today I'm doing The Six-Week Detox from The Raw Divas. I'm excited and scared. I've downloaded the documents I need for the first week and the overview stuff, and there's so much, I feel that it's a bit intimidating. I know that's just unhelpful fear talking, though, and I will be grateful for all the information moving forward.
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One of the first things they said to do is answer four questions to set you intentions for the program:

QUESTION 1: What are your goals for this program. In other words at the end of 6 week program, what will have changed for you?
I will have more energy, more emotional stability, less indigestion, fewer headaches, and smoother, healthier skin.

QUESTION 2: What will you feel like when this is accomplished?
I will feel proud, pleased, and accomplished! I will feel more in tune with myself and my world, and ready to keep going. I will feel more like "myself."

QUESTION 3: On a scale of 1 to 10 , how committed are you to achieving this? (1 is not very, 10 is completely)
8. I'm kind of scared. Part of me wants to run away and say this will all just be too hard. :(

QUESTION 4: What needs to happen for it to be a 10?
I need thorough support and I need to spend some time meditating and doing some affirmations. Right now I'm scared, and my low self-esteem is making me believe I will just fail and that I don't deserve to succeed. Even though I know my husband already is supportive, I am afraid my friends will not be.
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Right now I'm chowing down on a big salad with raw dressing, reading up on raw food and hypothyroidism (from which I suffer), and soon I will be off to snuggle with my hubby and watch a movie on the Dalai Lama and another on natural childbirth.

Days 4 & 5

I have made it 5 1/2 days at 100% raw.
This stuff is hard. But I made it... with my hubby's help again.
It's not really the food part, although that certainly takes a lot of adjusting...
The hardest part is all emotional!

I was definitely aware before that, under stress, I craved certain foods for entirely emotional reasons.

• "I've had a bad day, I need some chocolate."
• "I'm so tired, let's just order pizza."
• "Work has been so tough this week, I want breadsticks and nacho cheese."

Now, being so deliberate in my food choices, I am finding myself realizing how MUCH I reached for food for emotional reasons. Here are some of the more subtle examples I've noticed.

• "Hm, I'm so hungry, I don't have time for something complicated. Spaghetti sounds good."
• "I want to relax. I'll read a book and have hot cocoa."
• "I've had dinner but I'm still hungry. I'll have some gluten-free cookies, those are healthy, right?"

By themselves, spaghetti and a lot of other foods are pretty innocent. But something may be "healthy" or you may be "hungry," but that is NOT why you are eating it at all. And I did not realize before that these really were emotional cravings, habits, and addictions until now! Not only that, I did not realize how often I really truly thought I was hungry when it was just an emotional craving.

Over recent months, but strongly highlighted for me this past week, I've come to realize that what foods appeal to us - what sounds good for dinner, what we pick at a restaurant, our favorites foods - are rarely a matter of choice OR a matter of listening to what our body needs and wants. Mostly they are from

1. What we are used to.
2. Smells, tastes, and textures associated with (usually unconscious) positive memories
   
3. Addictions to things like wheat, cheese, sugar, etc.
   

I have tried hard for years to eat what my body was telling me it wanted me to eat, so that I could guess what I might be missing nutritionally, and make sure to get it. I realized a while ago that my cravings for sweets and salty foods were not good messages - they were addiction-inspired cravings! Now I am realizing, much to my chagrin, that though I thought I was aware of what my emotional cravings were, way more of the food I would choose is from emotional cravings than I thought! I'm pretty bowled over by it all, really. And it's overwhelming.
Honestly, I had this thought (perhaps a horrible one) that I couldn't be using food to hide from emotions, because if I was, surely I'd be eating way more sweets and I'd be much more overweight, right? I had it in my head that only *really fat* people had issues with using food as a major emotional block. And while I'm not as slim as I'd like or could be, and I have days where I feel fat, I know I'm not really fat. So I couldn't have any serious food-emotion problems... right?
I feel so dumb... it's very humbling.
And now I realize that if I was/am doing it... so are most people, probably!
I've seen Valya Boutenko call part of this the "Food Imprint." The food imprint happens when we are young. Whatever solids we are fed early on by our parents, our bodies associate with health, nutrition, and comfort. Evolutionarily speaking, this is so we learn to crave those foods that our parents - who have our best health in mind, of course - would naturally feed us. We crave foods suited to our environment and suitable to health.

Except, you know, most of us aren't getting weaned onto green smoothies and fresh ripe fruit. (With some inspiring exceptions!) In American and many other industrialized nations, we are mostly weaned onto over-processed crap.

Wow, it's just a lot for me to think about. And damn, day five was HARD. I was overtired from lack of sleep and stress and I just wanted bread and cookies, chocolate and tortilla chips...
And wheat, dairy and corn are all extra bad for me (and many people). They are some of the most common allergens out there, period. They are also in everything! (Which is why they are common allergens!) So it is hard to avoid them all and easy to crave them!


I think I'm detoxing hard. I have had a headache for a few days and intermittent nausea for three days. It is NO fun. I am debating whether I need to pull back a little and eat 90% raw for a while instead... but given all this emotional stuff I am uncovering, I want to be careful not to make that decision for the wrong reasons. I really need to listen to my body. Mostly I think my body is saying, "lay off all the fatty foods, yeesh!" I need to eat more fruit, I think.

Day 4:
~40oz green smoothie
mango
cauliflower
kombucha
chocolate mousse (this is so amazingly delicious and healthy too!)
flax crackers with nut pate
nori rolls with apple, avocado, lettuce, and raw honey (YUM!)

Day 5:
apple
~35oz. green smoothie
carrots
salad of mixed greens with sliced tomato and avocado
kombucha
herbal tea
collard wrap with carrot, zucchini, onion, avocado, kale, and portabello mushrooms

Lots of delicious food!

No matter where I go from here, I am proud of myself. Every day, every hour I stay 100% raw is another day/hour longer than I ever have before. And so even if I don't make it through a whole month at 100% raw, I've still accomplished something. I know I can eat way more raw food than I thought before!

Day 3/4, and the monetary price of raw food

To start, yesterday's food intake:

Day 3:
a glass of fresh raw almond milk
a couple heaping spoonfuls of "Mock Salmon Pate" from Living on Live Food
most of a whole pineapple
more zucchini and nut "alfredo"
several flax crackers from Foods Alive with mock salmon pate
a slice of raw pie, a friend's creation
an apple

If it doesn't seem like I'm eating a ton, well... I guess I'm not. But I'm a pretty small person, so I didn't before, either - unless I was overeating, and I felt pretty awful when I stuffed myself to the gills, so I'm making a point not to do that now! But it would be awfully easy to do with those Onion Garlic flax crackers... MM!!
My husband was very helpful yesterday in getting me through the day. I hit a rough patch emotionally, and all that fresh almond milk didn't sit right with me, as I have some trouble digesting raw nuts and I forgot to take digestive enzymes beforehand to help. So I was sitting there, feeling sad and sick, and that last slice of homemade vegan gluten-free pizza looked so tempting. "It's pretty healthy, after all," I told myself. And I told this to my hubby, who said to me, "You told me you want to eat raw this whole month, and I said I will help you. I will go make you whatever raw dish you want, and I will support you and prepare food for you all month, if you DON'T eat that pizza."
And so I rested, let the nausea pass, and then I pigged out on a whole pineapple my sweetie cut up for me, because that's what I felt like eating. ;)
And my hubby is going to finish that pizza so it stops tempting me every time I open the fridge!

One of the criticisms of the raw food diet is that it is expensive, especially if you go for all organic produce, which is the best way to do it. (I do feel that healthy eating is often out of reach for the poor, but I do think there are many reasons for that, and that is a topic for another post.) I have found that the initial, upfront investments can be pricy, but only as much as you want them to be. I recently acquired a Vita-Mix and a dehydrator, which are pretty big monetary investments, but they are also more-or-less frills that help make the raw diet more interesting. As for myself, I want to do this raw thing 100% of the time (at least for now) and learn to make a lot of gourmet dishes, both so that it is easier for me emotionally at first and also so that I can make really attractive and delicious dishes to share with friends and family. Hence the investment. But eating raw doesn't require special equipment (you don't even need a stove, microwave, or cookware!) or a lot of money. Eating more raw food can be as simple as allowing yourself to eat your favorite fruit to your heart's content.
Emotionally, I had to get past that myself. When I was little, fresh fruit and veggies were a special snack, not an every-meal food, so mentally I've had to get past the idea that one apple a day is all I can have, or eating an entire 8-oz box of strawberries in one sitting is selfish, and other ideas like that.
Anyway, today I did the week's grocery shopping, equipped with my list of everything I will need for this week's planned meals. I also picked up some goodies - like the organic mango I'm munching on right now and some Synergy GT's Raw Kombucha - for lunch. My total was under $32. Now, I will still need more greens (less than $10 worth) later this week, and I have some of the staples, like spices, almond butter, and that sort of thing at home already, so if you were starting with a bare cupboard, one week would cost more, but most people aren't starting from nothing. You can transition - when you run out of Jiffy creamy PB, buy a jar of organic raw almond butter instead. The price is higher, but the flavor is really amazing!

How much are you spending on groceries this week? Why not considering skipping the ice cream or crackers this week and buying some fresh fruit or almond butter instead? Yum! For those of us who are not chronically poor or disadvantaged, what we buy at the supermarket is more an issue of priorities than it is of having food at all or not. What are your priorities?

100% Raw, day two

Oof! I have been a busy bee these past couple of days. We got a new (enormous!) TV as a Christmas gift, and since we had no place to put it, I took it not only to mean that we would have to figure out a new piece of furniture, but also as the domino I needed to get a ton of cleaning and rearranging done in the house. I put my hubby (on mandatory vacation this week) to work cleaning, and yesterday and today I've been hard at work myself. The transformation is really something! It's also given me something to keep my mind on besides food, which is on my mind a lot lately. Since I don't have the space to get bored, I'm not munching mindlessly, either, which is very good! Eating 100% raw, even at home, has been harder than I thought, not so much in terms of the actual eating... The biggest problem seems to be emotion-related cravings. They are powerful! My ego keeps getting in the way, trying to keep me fearful. Whenever you are reluctant to change, that's usually your ego, trying to maintain control - AKA the status quo. And the ego is wily and fights dirty! I keep catching my mind trying to play tricks on me - and so far, I'm not buying it!
Part of the issue is that I had all sorts of healthy, cooked leftovers sitting around from a few days ago, and I really, really hate seeing food wasted. At all. I have been known on many occasions to stuff myself sick rather than see food thrown away - even if it is not very good food. Emotionally, I can't stand waste, especially of good food.
Fortunately, I have both a husband and a roommate who are less, shall we say, selective about their food choices than I am, so I don't have to see delicious, mostly-healthy cooked foods go to waste. Given my hatred of food-wasting, it would surely and sorely tempt me to eat the food just to make sure it is not wasted!

Here's what I've been eating the last couple of days:

Day 1:
2 big glasses green smoothie
chunks of pineapple
broccoli and cauliflower pieces with Kristen's (of Kristen's Raw) Cheezy hemp nacho sauce
Berry/nut soup (from Alissa Cohen's Living on Live Food - a fantastic book!)
zucchini noodles with nut-based alfredo (also from Living on Live Food)
Kristen's Holiday Chia Pudding

Day 2:
fresh juice - carrot, apple, parsley, and carrot greens
banana
2 1/2 glasses green smoothie
raw chocolate mousse (ridiculously easy and so amazingly delicious)
bowl of Go Raw chocolate granola

I love my green smoothies! I start with a banana or two, a handful of greens, and some water, and then add whatever other fruit I feel like that day such as blueberries, and usually some chlorella for good measure. I make about 40-50 oz at once and can easily drink the whole thing. They are delicious, nutritious, and filling. The bananas make it all sweet and somewhat creamy.
For more info on green smoothies, check out Green for Life, the book that brought green smoothies to the world. I have been drinking these for months, and if there is only one suggestion I would take to the masses from the raw foods movement, it would be green smoothies!