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!

Don't just survive... Thrive!

I realize it's been quite a while since my last post. The truth is, I've had quite a lot of big, big stuff on my mind. I've done a good bit of writing in my person, paper journal, but I have been doing a lot of reading.
As you can see from the sidebar, the number of blogs I'm reading regularly has shot up. Probably too many, especially when you add in things like Facebook, Twitter, and LiveJournal, all of which I am still (theoretically) reading too, but only on occasion. Mostly, I am reading a lot of raw foods, sustainability, and crafting blogs, as that is where my mind is focused lately - internally, but looking to others for inspiration and ideas.

I have decided to go 100% raw on Jan. 1.

I have been adding more raw foods to my diet over the last six months and have seen some good results. My skin does better when I am eating a good mix of raw foods. Cooked food gives me headaches and brain-fog. Also, when I eat raw, I feel light, energized, happy, and optimistic. When I eat cooked food, I find myself becoming lethargic, pessimistic, listless, bored, and depressed. I can see this effect within a couple hours (or less) of eating.

I envision the person I want to be, the person I think I am inside the fatigue, headaches, eczema, depression, poor concentration, aches and pains, breathing trouble, etc.... And that person is healthy, happy, full of energy and love, and aglow with life. Everything I read about eating a raw vegan diet leads me to believe that this diet can help me manifest the life I want. My experience with eating more raw foods in my diet has been almost uniformly good. The only problem I have run into is how easy it is to pig out on rich, delicious raw desserts, and my digestion is too weak to handle that much fat at once. I now realize I need to take systemic enzymes before consuming rich dishes like that!

My cravings for greens, mentioned in an earlier post, comes and goes, but the healthier I eat, the more I find I want healthy food.
As an example:
Mexican food was a staple growing up with my family. I have many positive memories of it as it is one of my parents' favorite kinds of foods and eating out was about the only time we all ate together, so Mexican food is comforting to me. So, the other night, I went out for Mexican food. I had been craving it intensely and I thought it would be a good thing to satiate before jumping into raw foods so that I wouldn't keep thinking about it.
And... it was really disappointing.
All that thick cheese, heavy beans, corn... ugh. It didn't taste as good as I remember, and it made me feel heavy, sluggish, and achey before I was even done eating. But someone else's unwanted side of guacamole and lettuce? My mouth watered just looking at it, and I ate as much as I could scavenge from around the disgusting pile of sour cream. Yum. It was far from the best guac I've ever had, but it was what I wanted.

So, I've decided to give 100% raw a try. I have a one-month meal plan, a ton of recipes, and lots of books and blogs to keep me inspired. I figure I can do one month and see how I feel and what I want to do from there.
There are so many reasons I want to do this. My health is the primary one, but there are so many others... I want to be happy, and I want to be the best person I can be, not just for myself, but for every member of my family and friends, present and future. I want to be someone I can be proud of and that my family and friends can be proud of. That means taking the best possible care of my health that I can. I am done just surviving, just slogging through the work day to go home and flop down exhausted. I'm tired of going through things either half-asleep or so preoccupied I wonder where each month, each year has gone.
I want to be fully ALIVE. I want to THRIVE.

Love,


Kasi