My Rat Phase

Yes, just like the rats cut off from their junk food in those experiments, I really don't feel like eating at all. I'm in that unfortunate state of mind where if I have to choose between eating whole foods or nothing, I'll take the nothing. The rats and I are awfully short-sighted in this regard. I've had a couple of apples, some nuts and a raw cookie. I've had raw food with me all day, but everything tastes like cardboard right now. This is not good timing. You can see why I fall off the raw wagon all the time when... the plot thickens... tonight I have the distinct pleasure of sharing an office with leftover pizza and pastries. I hate this. Those darn rats would never have survived this. In one of the junk food experiments I mentioned in my Jekyll and Hyde post, the rats were zapped on the foot everytime they went for the junk. Guess what? They didn't care. They just accepted it. Rats probably aren't interested in their heart chakras turning, regaining their once thick hair or eliminating mucoid plaque from their intestines though either. I could be wrong. Maybe some are.

I've got a scratchy throat to boot, so I'll be making some cumin-lemon tea pureed with about five cloves of garlic when I get home. This knocks out any bug in a day or two, for me anyway. I swear by it. Breath of the dead, but it works. BTW, you can puree the garlic with anything, but I have no intention of giving up tea. It's Chicago, and winter is upon us. Let's get real.

Now I must confess to murder. I had to put three green smoothies out of their misery today - took them out behind the barn and shot them. Nah, I just flushed them... a little farm kid humor. I don't even have a barn. They'd sat abandoned in my fridge for about a week, and here I am complaining about my thinning hair. I know. Seaweed holds more appeal for me right now than any other greens. The nori from Karyn's was really good - can't wait to get some more. Looks like Karyn's might play a crucial role in getting me through these first few uber-challenging weeks.

What do you tell yourself when trapped alone with the worst of the worst junk foods during a time when everything else tastes like dryer lint? Pizza and donuts will be around forever. They're not going to stop making them. I'm just not going to partake today. I have too many things I want to accomplish and experience, and raw is the road I'm taking to reach it all. It's a road filled with lots of other great experiences I can't even imagine. It's worth it. I'm worth it... because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and gosh darn it, people like me. If I'm going to go all self-helpy, I might as well channel Stuart Smalley while I'm at it.

In other news, my nephew awarded me 100 'bonus points' tonight for eating an apple while they ate McDonald's. I have no idea what I can use those points towards. I don't think they're like Marlboro Miles. I doubt there's a kayak in it for me, but I'm digging it. I want more points! It may amount to no more than a pat on the head for making a healthy choice, but dang it felt good and I deserved them. My other nephew gave me five points. What's up with that? Interesting to note the 100 points came from a natural-born raw foodist, a kid who's always running to the refrigerator, grabbing a cucumber, biting the ends off and spitting them in the sink, then running back to the clubhouse. The five points came from my little fellow junk food junkie, bless his heart.

Dining with Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

I couldn't choke my salad down. It tasted absolutely disgusting - the same salad I've made lots and lots of times and loved. I can't judge myself or get discouraged. I just have to remember this is temporary, like I've hit my head and it's affected my olfactory nerve. I'll just push through it, and in a few days really raw food will start tasting better.

This made me want to look up some great articles I'd read in the past. They're about rats and addiction studies focused on sugar and high fat foods:

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/12/12/22428/

http://www.physorg.com/news188995945.html

It's also made me think about the real me I believe lies beneath the layers of toxins in my system. It's like Sheri's Greatest Hits. I just like the person I am a lot more when I've been eating raw food a while. I feel more peaceful and loving towards others, even strangers. I feel more connected to people and nature. I feel more positive and hopeful. There's a lighter sensation. I don't need as much sleep. I think more clearly. I don't get depressed or moody. I feel like I'm on an even keel all the time. I dare say I'm possibly even more creative. At least I feel like creativity flows more freely through me. I handle stressful situations better. I don't feel overwhelmed nearly as much. I have more clarity, think more clearly and quickly. I can only assume it just gets better and better, having only experienced two months of this during my longest stretch.

People like Dave the Raw Food Trucker and Dr. Ali really inspire me to take it so much further. The experiences they've described, especially Dave feeling his heart chakra turning towards people and events... it just fascinates me. I have to admit both their stories of eliminating mucoid plaque from their systems are pretty amazing too. Ah, nothing like a good mucoid plaque story to kick off your day, eh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26czngH-gyA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djK5Q1F21pI&feature=related

Food for thought :)
 

No, I'm not going to count off all the days...

This isn't Shawshank. You don't chalk off the days when you're making a lifestyle change. I've heard it's not even a good idea when you're breaking an addiction, because it only draws your attention to the precarious temporary situation you obviously think it is. Am I saying I'll be raw for the rest of my life? No. Am I setting a time period, like a year? I've done this in the past, so I'd have to say no. It just is what it is and right now, it's now. Mad as a hatter, I know. That being said, we can get busy living or get busy dying.

Today has gone superbly. I always eat a bunch of junk before I go raw in anticipation of everything tasting like shoes for the first few weeks. Ironically, everything's been pretty tasty so far. By the way, this is something no one ever talks about. I no more want greens when I first start out than I want to go down to the lobby and lick the banister. In fact, they taste about the same in the beginning, especially if you've been eating a lot of crap. My logical brain knows this is not because raw food tastes like grimy banisters, but because my tastebuds have been brainwashed, so to speak. They've definitely been desensitized by chemicals and sugar, but they're making a big comeback. Best raw stuff I've tasted my first two days back on the wagon? Nori (seaweed), carrot-raisin muffins and apple-cinnamon chia meal (see below).

I doubt I'll post what I eat everyday, because it's just too OCD (a condition exacerbated by sugar FYI). But it may be nice to have this to look back on and watch just how quickly my tastes change.

2 raisin-walnut-pumpkin spice raw cookies
1 carrot with organic peanut butter
1 bowl of apple-cinnamon chia meal (1/4 C chia, hot water, 1 apple, cinnamon & raisins - yum!)
* chia meal is so awesome when you need warm, creamy, comfort food on a blustery day

For dinner tonight I've packed:
1/2 romaine 1/2 dinosaur kale salad with red onion, sunflower seeds, raisins & tomato
vinaigrette: cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil with lemon pepper, sea salt & garlic powder (nxt time a clove)
1 red bell pepper for a snack
1 avocado for a snack

This is more fat than I need and I tend to use a lot of raisins in the beginning, but hey, they're raisins, not donuts. Mr. Hyde loves his donuts.

I can already tell you I seriously doubt I'll eat the pepper & avocado. I'll be lucky to finish the salad, but I've learned it's better to have too much raw food with me than not enough. I prefer to be armed and dangerous. Here at the office overnight by myself, I'm basically working mere feet from someone else's pantry, which is always more enticing than your own. For the record, it's filled with chips, cookies, candy, pastries and other unmentionables on any given day. I have to pass through there everytime I let my dog out of the accounting office where she does payroll (no, not really) while the drivers park their limos in the garage. Otherwise, she likes to chew on one or two of them every now and then, or at least strongly suggest that she'd like to. Anyway, I call said pantry the gauntlet. I'm currently sporting about forty pounds of battle scars from the gauntlet. It's become personal. I used to tell myself if I wanted a mediocre life I could go ahead and eat the mediocre food. So I did. That didn't work out too well.

There's another hurdle I'd better address as it's going to rear its ugly head in the days to come. It's a weird one. You've been warned. One of my biggest problems when I go raw is lack of interest in food. At first, it's a huge relief, but it can quickly become a problem. My appetite falls off after a week or so. I get busy with all that extra energy and I forget to eat, or I just don't feel like bothering with it. Eating becomes a hassle. Of course that only lasts so long and just when I think I could care less about food, I find myself chewing on cupboard handles and plumbing fixtures. If there's anything edible within a five-mile radius, I'll have inhaled it before I even know what's happened. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but I spotted some stray Mike & Ikes at the bottom of my backpack earlier tonight, and this will be their fate if I don't launch them into space now. Don't know why I didn't do it then. Well, there might be some kind of natural disaster and then I would really wish I had those five Mike & Ikes. Yes, that really did faintly breeze through my subconscious.

I'm back... turns out there were twenty-three of the little buggars hiding in there. That's an accident waiting to happen. If you think I won't check for any I missed some day down the road when I've blown off eating too long and my blood sugar has taken a nose dive... guess again. Welcome to my world. Emergency exits are located here and here. What? You're staying? Okay, I warned you. There will be lunacy, but sweet clarity does lie ahead. Hang in there.

Day One is a Victory!

Aside from my typical, skull-splitting, sugar-detox headache and showing up for a raw food event 24 hours late, day one went super-smoothly. Being a whole day late for the raw event freed me up to head over to Karyn's Fresh Corner for some groceries, and then over to Whole Foods to finish up.

If you're living here in Chicago, Karyn's can get you through your weakest raw moment, I swear it. Man, how I wish I'd gone there on my birthday! I'm talking the store, not the restaurant. In her store, Karyn makes these raw carrot-raisin muffins that I honestly feel are better than traditional muffins, definitely more filling. She also has jaw-dropping raw granola and raw hemp milk. In addition, Karyn's makes a wide array of desserts and raw ice cream. They even have raw bread for making sandwiches! I remember the first time I attempted Carlene's Raw Food Boot Camp http://www.rawfoodbootcamp.com/, I was sitting home one night watching Twelve Angry Men. They'd just had dinner delivered to the jury room and I was dying to know what was in that bag. Never mind the fact that all those actors have long since died and whatever was in that bag had long since returned to the earth as well, I wanted a sandwich so bad I was living vicariously through those twelve angry jurors. Karyn's also has pretty good entrees in the coolers ready to go, like burritos and pizza. It's all a bit pricey, but a nice treat and it'll keep you on track when you're craving the unspeakable... or fifty-year old sandwiches. As for Karyn's restaurant, it's a little shee-shee for my taste. The portions seem pretty small for the price, and I haven't been impressed with the dishes any of the three times I've dined there. Her store products are far superior, in my humble opinion.

As long as we're on the subject of Chicago's raw restaurants... Cousins on Irving Park Rd. is okay, and I'm sorry I missed out on B'gabs's new place in Hyde Park last night - have to check them out soon. But head and shoulders above the rest is Borrowed Earth in Downers Grove. Danny and Kathy Living create mouth-watering masterpieces you cannot believe are raw. It is flat-out ART - things like 'Not Egg Salad' and 'Cheese Ravioli'. Before my former husband became my former husband, I took him to Borrowed Earth, one night. I was gaga over my burrito. He kept telling me to quiet down, that I sounded like I'd just discovered fire. Ah, the irony... and spoken like a true dyed-in-the-wool carnivore, bless his heart.

What did I eat today?

Grapes
Sunflower seeds (not raw or organic)
2 raw carrot-raisin muffins from Karyn's
5 sheets of raw nori from Karyn's
1/2 pkg kelp noodles with carrots, green onions and organic peanut butter (my version of Thai noodles but not all raw due to the pb, but all organic)

Is this an ideal raw day for me? Heck no, not even close. I wish I could say I'd had green smoothies all day, but it is what it is. It's Chicago, and today was cold and rainy. Last summer I was buying champagne mangos by the crate. It's just different during the winter. Just starting out I'll be kind to myself and allow myself raw comfort foods to get things going. My tastes will still change and I'll be coming across as a complete lunatic, begging people to taste fruit in no time. I always hit that about two weeks in - fruit starts to taste heavenly. About a month in, I don't like bananas anymore, and greens start to rule. Can't wait for that. I know I need to be eating lots of greens, but I still have a hard time making peace with green smoothies. I make them from time to time, but I've never been a huge fan... working on that. I recently did a quart a day for ten days and they still didn't appeal to me on the tenth day any more than they had on the first. Green is not my favorite color to begin with. In fact, it's my least favorite color. Gre-ee-een... green, green, green, green, gree-ee-een...

I'm so vain, I probably think this song is about me... well no, but I do think vanity is going to wind up being what keeps me raw. This is shameful, but I promised I'd be honest. I have hundreds of reasons to embrace the raw food lifestyle once and for all - I've written them down many times, but the one that reigns king is... you guessed it... my thinning hair. I started losing a lot of hair when I was twenty, but this past year the problem has reached epic proportions. So much so, that I think if anyone was to watch me do my hair in the morning they would think I was undergoing chemo. It's not falling out in chunks or clumps, but I'm losing a lot. I cut it a lot shorter on Sunday and really noticed the difference then. I used to have really thick hair. It's alarming. I don't have any bald spots or anything, it's just not the hair I'm used to, and I'm kind of freaking out. I remember Hearing Victoria Boutenko speak a few years ago, and her saying her and Valya's hair became much thicker after drinking green smoothies for a few months. I've read it's a lack of hydrachloric acid in the stomach. I've read it's a mineral absorption problem. I've read I should put flax oil in my green smoothies, so I have. The bottom line is that I have to make peace with the green smoothies if I want to overcome this. I believe I can. I believe it's possible. I also believe my hair loss is totally a result of poor eating habits and sugar addiction, specifically. I remember attending an O.A. meeting one time (never appealed to me, but I tried it three separate times in three different cities). There were several women there who were clearly balding and I knew it was due to their eating habits. I should've heeded the warning then. Now, no one would know it was a problem at all to look at me. I'm sure only I can tell, but if I continued eating junk food it would only be a matter of time before I looked like those women. It would be just plain stupid to let that happen when I'm pretty sure I know what I need to do. So I will be moving toward more green choices as well as more sea vegetables like kelp and nori. This may be part of a thyroid problem as well, in which case the iodine found in sea vegetables and seaweed should help.

I'd love to hear from anyone else struggling with green smoothies. I'm open to suggestions, and maybe I need to get a bunch of recipes together and experiment. I thought mangos might be the answer, but when the last three mangos I bought were all bad I became disillusioned.

So here's to finishing the first day! Tomorrow's going to be easier! That's a fact!

For the record, I did notice a major boost in energy one my ten-day green smoothie run. Or I should say elevation in energy, because it was a slow, steady burn and I basically was noticing I had a few more hours of energy at the end of the day. Normally, I'm tired and ready to hit the sack around 4am, but don't get off work until 5am. I would fall into bed and right to sleep at 6am. The first day I drank the quart of green smoothies I not only noticed I wasn't tired when 4am rolled around, but I also went home and wrote for several hours before succumbing to sleep. I am impressed. I just wish my tastebuds were equally impressed.

Last but not least... K and I walked today for over an hour, another success! I told her, once again, everything else had become more important than exercise - hate it when that happens!

Overall, I enjoyed lots of small victories today - yea!

Lucky 7... Here We Go!

Tomorrow is the 7th of November, 2011. On the 7th of June, 2011 I went raw and stayed at about 90% raw for two months... or technically until August 3rd, my birthday, when I mainlined Taco Bell, birthday cake and ice cream. It was all downhill from there.

Tonight I texted my raw buddy, K, and told her tomorrow I'm really going to do it again, and I need some accountability. As always she came through, asking me if I had raw groceries and what time I wanted to 'walk together', despite the fact we live in different countries. Thank you, K. You're the best, and it's no small coincidence I kicked off my biggest raw success to date while vacationing with you.

If I were to compare my raw journey to following a trail through the woods, I would have to say it's been a lot like The Blair Witch Project. I've gone around and around and around for almost six years now. I've laughed. I've cried. There's been snot. There's been marshmallows. Luckily no one has died or come up missing... yet.

Still, I am nowhere near ready to give up. Yes, really. So if you're like me and you have not found the raw food lifestyle to be the easiest thing in the world, but you know in your heart that your health and your best self are both worth fighting for, you've come to the right place. It does get easier every day, once you get started. I just have to keep reminding myself.

That being said, I ate two slices of pepperoni pizza and a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough on my way to work tonight... yes, even after I'd texted K. You know, the old OMG-this-is-my-last-chance-to-eat-garbage binge. Couldn't help noticing my chest hurt after that. Any doctor would probably tell me it was my imagination, but I doubt that.

The doctor who did my bloodwork last August was thrilled with my numbers, couldn't believe someone my size had those numbers. I believe his exact words were, "No one would ever guess those were your numbers to look at you." I was excited enough to let the insensitive dig slide. That was right after my two months raw, but also a few weeks after the big birthday derailment, and I'd been desperately trying to get back on track. I was down seventy pounds from the previous year (I've gained back forty of that over the past three months). I was ecstatic that he was ecstatic, and I couldn't wait get back on the raw horse and test again in six months to really dazzle him (Yes, I'm aware of how strange my daydreams have become). Then I watched my Eating DVD 3rd Edition, and realized the cardiologist who'd suffered the heart attack and then healed the damaged artery solely through a plant-based diet... had had better numbers than me at the time of his heart attack... and he was in excellent shape. I am SO not. Although I did run my first 5k in September. I know I watched that DVD, because subconsciously I suspected the doctor who'd run my blood work was going by the SAD standards, which really aren't that great. Deep down I knew while I'd made big improvements, I still had a long road ahead of me.

I'm asking you to join me on this road. I'm asking you to have faith in me because I am going to do this. Yes, I've fallen off the raw wagon thousands of times, but it still makes more sense to me than anything else. For two months I experienced incredible energy, clarity, happiness, peace and weight loss. I felt fantastic even during a bad break-up. It was only after I strayed from raw that the break-up really got me down. I have seen the promised land and it rocks. I have been so high on raw food and free from junk food addictions that I couldn't stand bananas because they were too sweet and heavy... ME, Captain Sugar. I've been obsessed with kale, eating it two and three times a day. I bought a skateboard, then another. I ran a 5k! I am SO going back to the promised land.

For posterity... today I can report rapid weight gain, aching joints, fatigue, a raging case of candida, thinning hair, bloating and gas. I know, I should throw this up on Eharmony, right? Speaking of Eharmony... you've got to check out the dreamy Dr. Ali (rawfooddoctor) and his kale bouquet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmCxR_UcaIM&feature=related These men are out there... we have proof... although I still think they're something akin to unicorns.

Trainer Drew http://www.fit2fat2fit.com/ is about to kick off his fitness journey back from the depths of junk food hell at this very moment as well. While he's not raw (but he does drink spinach shakes), his story is an impressive one, and I'm going to be watching every step of his journey back 2fit. I don't think the poor guy knew what he was getting himself into gaining all that weight so he could empathize with his personal training clients, but bless his heart, I'm rooting for him.

Last but not least, I'm going to try reconnecting with the raw food community tomorrow night. While living in Chicago before, I did attend some raw events, but they left me feeling a bit oogy. I'm not into the whole hippy scene. I was born in 1970. I'm over it. I don't think it's cool or the least bit hot. Sorry, just being honest. It's a huge turn-off for me. I just want to be me and be raw, not join a movement or get some retro Mod-Squad-makeover. The raw food meetup I started in Iowa consisted of people in normal attire of all ages just jazzed about raw - no other agendas, so to speak. Sorry if I'm offending anyone here, not my intention. But I do feel this is important to mention, because it has turned me off many-o-times at raw functions such as Raw Spirit Festival. I love the info being shared, but do I have to wear hemp and join a drum circle? Really not my thing, that's all I'm saying.

As long as I'm being unpopular, might as well swing for the fence... I think dreads should be left to our African-American friends who know what they're doing. When white friends of mine grow dreads, I find myself wondering if there's squirrels nesting in there.

Now that I've lost the only follower I had, a white, bell-bottomed, hemp shirt-wearing, drummer in waist-long dreads... I thank you for joining me on this adventure. I am not here to blow sage smoke up your skirt or tell you how amazingly easy it is to go raw. I am in the trenches, baby, and I'll be nothing but honest. I wish I could say I planned all along to resume my raw journey on the 7th, but it just worked out that way. The truth is I planned to resume my raw journey lots of times, every Monday, every first, every holiday... honestly, almost every day since I fell off the raw wagon. Sometimes I made it until midnight only to succumb to stale donuts at the office during the graveyard shift. Other days I didn't last an hour, but I was always wanting to find my way back to the path.

Apparently eating raw is as easy as taking a nap for some people. I am not one of those people, and definitely not at the outset. Once I get a good running start things begin to change. At this point I am sick-to-death of having sugar and fast food on the brain every waking moment. I can't wait to detox and get my raw brain back. My raw brain could care less about sugar or dollar menus. I'd like to believe the raw me is the real me, the me I was born to be. I don't want to go on living as Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde for the rest of my life. Bear with me through the ups and downs of fighting my way back to the promised land, and I promise I won't disappoint any of us.

Raw is not about deprivation, but about freedom.