Secret Squirrel?

The past 5 months have been a blur. So much has happened I don't know where to start. I have lost a total of 15 lbs (whoo hoo) and my diet has been ecclectic to say the least. I went from raw vegan to adding fish and seafood back into my food regimen in addition to a 14 day fast (Master Cleanse) to where I am now which is 80 - 90% raw with occasional seafood indulges. My food regimen mainly consists of raw fruit and vegetables and green smoothies. After having been basically raw for almost 4 years I began to have some symptoms that I now know are common with those who have been raw for a few years such as lack of energy and cravings for sweets. In doing some research I found that my morning regimen of fruit wasn't as bad as what happened in the evening, a full blown nut and avocado binge!

I didn't realize the extent of my addiction until I started dating the bags of nuts and saving the empty bags. For a brief moment I entertained the thought of writing down everything I ate, a wonderful tool. But since I ate the same thing every morning just varying the type of fruit and greens and rarely snacked...until the sun went down (was I some kind of genetically mutated vampire?) I figured I didn't need to write down everything. At the end of the third day as I stared at the empty dated plastic nut bags in disbelief, I kept thinking that there had to be a squirrel hidden somewhere in the house. Yeah, that's it! He had sneaked in and was now neatly opening up the bags of nuts, completely devouring the contents, then stacking the empty bags on my counter. Like that made sense.

What did add up was that I was eating a whole lot more nuts than I thought. But I craved them. I tried to curb it but if they were there I ate them. I also tried not to buy them thinking "out of sight, out of mind" but if they were in the store I bought them. The turning point didn't come until I went on a Raw Food/Vegetarian outing. It was there that while I was discussing my nut and avocado cravings with another member a man I didn't know interrupted telling me that I wasn't eating enough greens. That following week I serendipitously came across articles, books, even a TV show extolling the benefits of green smoothies. The rest is history. The more greens I incorporated the less I craved nuts and avocados. I'm still considering keeping a food diary...who am I kidding?

Day 5 of my Raw Feast-LOST 4 LBS!

In 5 days I've lost 4 lbs (actually 4 days, I weighed myself first thing this morning.) After stumbling upon my copy of The pH Miracle book I decided it was worth reading again. It seems no matter how many times I read that book, each time I find some little tidbit that I've forgotten about. This time it was the list of acid and alkaline foods particularly bananas (one of my favorites). When they're unripe they are alkaline forming, when ripe acid forming. It inspired me to pull out the old pH test papers for a little urine analysis. The last time I checked my pH it was acidic. This time I saw blue, finally some evidence of alkalinity. It's been a little over a year since I stopped taking Topamax, a prescription medication that can cause blood acidosis. I was wondering why, no matter how much alkaline food I ate I was still showing as acidic. Coming off that medicine and eating raw food, especially greens has evidently helped.

That's the good, now for the detox symptoms...headache and severe nausea this morning. The headaches been off and on, eating a handful of germinated raw nuts seems to help. The nausea subsided within 10 minutes of the onset. I have no idea what that was about so I'm thinking detox. Still breaking out but not as bad as it had been. I'm really tired too. It's all I can do not to lay my head right down on the keyboard zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Today I ate

Banana, strawberry & spinach smoothie w/spirulina & chlorella
3 cups of carrot, apple, spinach, kale juice ( 1 cup juice mixed w/2 cups pure water)
marinated kale w/ tomatoes, peppers & avocado dressing, delish
2 handfuls of raw germinated mixed nuts ( cashews, walnuts, pecans & almonds)
1 cup of tea
1/2 of a Fuji apple
2 tablespoons homemade sauerkraut

Peace,
Rawnessa

3 Days Raw!!!

Yep, 3 days raw...I finally did it. I guess the picture really hit home. Didn't get my now picture up yet 'cause I need to take one first. Today's been a little harder and I'm wondering if the nuts (yes raw, soaked and deydrated) I added today caused some cravings. I'll be watching those from now on.

I'm having a few detox symptoms, breaking out mainly and peeing every 2 hours. That should subside within a few days.

All fruit is easiest way for me to start although I know it's not the best when you've been battling candida like I have. I progressed this afternoon to veggies and a few nuts.

Today I ate:
Mango, banana, pineapple smoothie w spirulina & chlorella
1 large Fuji apple
large salad w/spinach, cucumbers, onions, grape tomatoes and homemade sauerkraut
8 grape tomatoes
handful of mixed raw nuts (cashews, walnuts & pecans)

Weigh in Saturday!

Peace,
Rawnessa

How rough?

As I write, tears are streaming down my cheeks. In this picture I felt awesome, the best I'd felt in years, scratch that...in decades. Losing 105 lbs I weighed 120. I weep because I now weigh 40 pounds more and I feel like crap! I know what I need to do, but it's so hard. Intense carb cravings possess my body and I grab for the nearest bread (or chips, cookies...)and scarf them down. It's the good stuff like Eziekiel Sprouted Grain Bread or flax chips... but you can eat too much of the good stuff too! I'm living proof.

Sometimes, I think if I could just isolate myself for a few days and have nothing in the house but good raw food that I could do it. In 2-3 days the cravings will be gone. So, I'm hoping looking at this picture will motivate me to stick to my goal, which is to eat only healthy 95% raw food. Initially, I need to go 100% raw for 2 weeks. That's what I'm working on now, so far, so good today I've had:

Berries and avocado smoothie w/Spirulina & Chlorella
1 large Fuji apple
1 quart of pure water

Tomorrow I'll put up my now picture and I know that I'll be writing about how excited I am to have made it through 1 day 100% raw!

Peace,
Rawnessa

It's gonna be rough...

What I learn each day I'll share with the hope that it will help someone, somewhere out there. After having lunch with some wonderful friends (no, it wasn't raw but more about that later) I realized that I have some choices to make.

The day started out well (it usually does, its afternoon and evening that are a constant battle) with a delectable smoothie (recipe below) of spirulina, chlorella, avocado and berries. I love my smoothies, they are so energizing! After accepting the invitation to lunch I was kind of on "auto pilot". Going through my usual getting ready routine with absolutely no thought as to what I was going to eat. An hour later I'm piling my plate full of scrumptious food at an Indian buffet. Half-way through when I started feeling my stomach bloating I thought "What the hell am I doing?" Whoops! Lesson learned...I know I'm progressing because I realized during and not after. Now, if I can just move to the next stage of actually making better choices before I eat.
Let's see how I can address this challenge, my options are:
1. Avoid going out to eat at all (just kill me now and get it over with).
2. Eat before I go out and just converse with my friends while they eat (and drool all over the tablecloth).
3. Suggest that we eat at a place where raw food is on the menu (now we're getting somewhere).
4. Educate myself daily on the benefits of living food, so that I stay aware (getting even warmer).
5. Research which restaurants are "raw food friendly" so I'll know where to go and what my food choices are. (BINGO!)

As I sit here still feeling like the Goodyear blimp (and I ate 9 hours ago) I know there are benefits and consequences to everything we eat, some more immediate than others. We have to ask ourselves "Is it worth the immediate short term pleasure to suffer the inevitable consequences?"

Berry Avo Smoothie Recipe
1 tablespoon Spirulina powder
1 tablespoon Chlorella powder
4 large strawberries
1 cup mixed berries (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry)
1/2 avocado
1 teaspoon Himalayan salt brine (or 1/8th teaspoon Himalayan salt)
2 tablespoons raw Agave Nectar
16 ounces pure water
Put it all in a blender on high.

Peace,
RawNessa

Starting all over again...

You are witnessing history right here; right now...this is my first effort at blogging so here goes. My diet has run the gamut from Atkins to the Zone, wait... that's A-Z (I swear I didn't do that on purpose ;D ) You name it I've probably tried it. So basically I've gone from eating 90% animal products (Atkins, low carb) to zip, zero, nada, yep vegan to where I am now, vegetarian all the time, raw most of the time.

A little history; I am a 49 year old woman (50 on June 13th woo hoo!) and I've struggled with my weight since middle school, yo-yo dieting my way up the scale developing reflux, high blood pressure, hiatal hernia, depression, high cholesterol...let's see did I leave anything out? Actually I did, but you get the picture. I was one sick puppy, who one morning walked in on my dad having a heart attack. Following in his footsteps now had a whole new meaning. Already having 4 of the 5 symptoms of Metabolic Syndrome (which increases the likelihood of a heart attack), I thought the answer was to lose weight so that I would be healthier. Boy, did I have that, as my mom says, "bass ackward."

For one of my early 40's birthdays my sister blessed me with the gift of Suzanne Somers' book Eat Great, Lose Weight (a subtle hint?), which I promptly tossed aside and proceeded to consume an entire box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, shortly thereafter reaching my all time high of 225 pounds. Eventually, at the urging of someone who loved me, I picked up the book and followed Suzanne's program. I was able to lose 30 pounds. and the proper food combining alleviated my reflux (no more Prilosec, 1 med down? to go) but I still wasn't healthy. Cholesterol and blood pressure were still high, so what do I do? Atkins, meat, cheese, meat, cream, meat, eggs. Oh, I lost more weight but unbeknownst to me, all that protein was wreaking havoc on my liver and my cholesterol went up to 271 from 231. Then, I kinda gave up after eating low fat for 3 months, losing 10 pounds and watching my LDL (that's the bad stuff) rise 10 points.

Fast forward to 3 years ago when for the 3rd winter in a row I was hospitalized with asthma. Intravenous antibiotic cocktails, breathing treatments...not exactly the winter vacation I had in mind. I was released from the hospital [hmmm "released" is also used when they let you out of prison...coincidence?] A week later my dad died from his second heart attack. He suffered a lot during the 15 years between the heart attacks, developing diabetes and ending up in a wheelchair, spending 12 hours a week on dialysis. There I was barreling down the same path. I knew that if I didn't do something drastic to put on the brakes, I'd end up just like him. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend 12 hours a week on a dialysis machine.

I wasn't able to go back to work full time until 4 months after my hospitalization. During that time I began to research my illnesses on the Internet and in books. After reading Fit for Life-A New Millennium, what was supposed to be a 3 day fruit fast turned into a 10 day raw feast. I could feel the effects after just 3 days, no stiffness or pain in my joints upon arising, energy, clear sinuses and an 8 pound weight loss. Then I tried adding dairy, eggs, chicken and fish back into my diet and sluggishness returned with a vengeance. Within a month I was back on mostly raw vegan food. I was hooked for a year and ended up at an all time low of 119 pounds. That felt so good. I also saw several doctors and specialists, conventional as well as holistic during that year and tried several different supplements and treatments. Some worked, others didn't. The one constant during that time was my diet. After that first year I occasionally ate eggs & dairy, (no flesh) and every time I did I started to feel sluggish again.

After reading Fit for Life-A New Millennium, what was supposed to be a 3 day fruit fast turned into a 10 day raw feast. I could feel the effects after just 3 days, no stiffness or pain in my joints upon arising, energy, clear sinuses and an 8 pound weight loss. Then I tried adding dairy, eggs, chicken and fish back into my diet and sluggishness returned with a vengeance. Within a month I was back on mostly raw vegan food. I was hooked for a year and ended up at an all time low of 119 pounds. That felt so good. I also saw several doctors and specialists, conventional as well as holistic during that year and tried several different supplements and treatments. Some worked, others didn't. The one constant during that time was my diet. After that first year I occasionally ate eggs & dairy, (no flesh) and every time I did I started to feel sluggish again.


The key is to get healthy first so you can lose weight, not the other way around. It's been three years since I last had an asthma attack (no asthma maintenance meds), my blood pressure now is 105/70 (literally, right now I just took it) cholesterol is 151. I am still on thyroid meds (Armour). Eventually, I'll be healthy enough to come off that too. I came off all my other meds cold turkey last year and it was horrible! I ended up taking 2 weeks off work to detox. I'm glad now that I'm off them, but don't do it without a doctor's supervision. My holistic doctor and I tried to wean me off Armour and I gained 30 pounds. I'm just now back up to my previous dosage and still packing that 30 pounds. Think that has anything to do with my more frequent than I'd like to admit junk food binges? Yep, that's why I'm "starting all over again.

So, here out in this public forum, I make myself accountable. I'll be sharing what I learn along the way, the struggles I encounter and the challenges I address. Today I was on track until I got a rather stressful phone call. An emotional eater I attempted to thwart my carb attack by eating Eziekiel Cinnamon Raisin Bread, toasted with coconut oil and cinnamon mmmm. Four pieces later I still wanted buttered popcorn, so I ate that too...the whole bag. Then I was done. Now you know my dirty little secret. I didn't wait until tomorrow to get back on track though. I've been there and done that "I blew it for today, I'll start again tomorrow, so for the rest of today I'm eating everything that's not nailed down!" Post binge I've had some tea, taken my supplements and I'm not hungry. For me it takes 2-3 days of strictly raw for the carb cravings to disappear, so I'll allow myself the luxury of eating as much raw food as I want for the next 3 days. It's normal to want to eat the heavier raw foods at first like nuts and seeds. Then I naturally crave less refined, cooked, nutritionally depleted food. Here's a recipe for the smoothie I had this morning, delicious. It’s a great way to get lots of spirulina. I use spirulina and chlorella in powder form. Not only is it cheaper, I'd rather eat it than take it as a supplement. I order spirulina & chlorella powder from nutritiongeeks.com.

2 cups chopped mango
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon spirulina powder
1 tablespoon chlorella powder
1 teaspoon Himalayan salt brine (or 1/8th teaspoon Himalayan salt)
16 ounces pure water
Put it all in a blender on high. Mmmm.

Peace, RawNessa