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!
No comments:
Post a Comment