Raw Food Rehab and 2010

Happy New Year!

This is the first blog of hopefully many more. I've been not blogging mainly because I've gone off the deep end a little bit and my camera has been broken. These two forces combined have not been conducive with blogging!

Now, I like the holidays but I am really REALLY glad they are over. For some reason this year they were a bit overwhelming PLUS I'm really excited to get back to a more balanced lifestyle. I have to admit I'm a little nervous about restarting this high raw thing. I remember how excited I was when I was getting started out the same way last January (2009) and did the Master Cleanse for 16 days, only lost 4 pounds, and then gained 10 more through out the rest of the year. That was even after doing Slim in 6 for 6 weeks, P90X with NO loss of inches or weight (I could do more standard push-ups though), another round of Slim in 6, ran for a month, and pretty much did raw til dinner (Raw Food Detox Diet) the rest of the time. Some how with all of that I gained the 10 and just don't feel great not to mention the crazy eczema behind the knees and at my elbow joints, around the eyes (horrendous) and mouth. Now I'm really NOT trying to complain (I did enough of that LAST year!) but merely trying to explain my apprehension.

All that to say amid the apprehension, I'm SUPER STOKED about finding the Raw Food Rehab website and the fine community there. http://www.rawfoodrehab.ning.com/ What a blessing and answer to prayer.

I ran this morning- I think I must have forgotten that I am also training for the Kentucky Derby Mini Marathon again. I've done it twice but the last time was 5 years ago. SO- here I go again. I did Day 1 of training which was 2 miles. Yes, I, at 7 A.M. this morning got up and ran outdoors in the dark. It wasn't as bad as I thought. Usually day 2 is worse!

So, on to getting my camera software up and running.

I hope to be posting my daily dietary intake and some pictures.

So far I've had:

7 am- 8oz water with 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, Braggs

8.30 am- Peach Detox tea

10 am- Blueberry Smoothie: blueberries, green powder (Perfect Food), 1 banana, 1 tsp almond butter, water, >1 tsp pure maple syrup

11 am- 8 oz coconut water, O.N.E 100% coconut water

Peace. Love.

Gumbo

I'm gonna make this for dinner since it's almost exactly what we have in the house thanks to the garden. I've also got to do something with burdock root which will most likely be some kinpira gobo. For now though, it's gumbo.

Tattoo Pic

Beautiful symbolic tattoo idea...

I didn't do my menu plan this week and I am certainly suffering for it. Dinnertime rolls around and I'm at a loss. But I've come up with some fun things. Calzones, some veg burritos, and some rockin' taco salad. None of it's RAW but oh well, I'm doing RAW til dinner so I'm ok with that (see previous post). So we've got some taco salad (and the second pic is what's under the dressing in the first pic!) and some wet burritos. Nothing too exciting but delicious none the less.

A fresh (er) start

So, being that I eat a high raw vegan diet, I often am asked, "SO, what do you eat?" I'll be periodically logging what I eat here. I keep a neurotically sound food journal so it shouldn't be too hard.

I've also recently had a big of an epiphany after watching a clip from The Raw Food World T.V. Show that Matt Monarch does on his blog via YouTube. There was a guy on there who, when asked if he ate any processed foods, responded by saying that he seeks to maintain a healthy relationship with the food that he's consuming. So he has to be ok with the fact that he might be travelling or at someone's house. It's more about the ceremony of breaking bread for sustance that about food extremes. He said it better for him to stay in balance than to have all this guilt or worry about whether or not he's drifting or hypocritacal based on what he's doing. Having a healthy relationship with food and people. !!!! I have been thinking about that for the last day or so and man, I think I just had to be verbally reminded of that. That's been my goal this WHOLE time but I've gotten so far mentally from this healthy mindset that I've started to get weird: stressed out about my food choices, here has been little enjoyment, too much worry, planning, obsession, and guilt over my food consumption. It's a bad relationship! Hearing this has smacked me bad into reality! YEAH! There is a freedom when there is a healthy balance and mental clarity in any endeavor.

I'm curious to see how this will affect my view of exercise. I can't deny that most of my focus with diet and exercise is weight loss and/or control. I love being healthy but because I'm not coming from a background of extreme sickness, obesity, or unhealthiness, weight loss is my focus. That's not a bad thing if I keep it IN BALANCE! This week I haven't worked out but once. I'm not going to stress about it. I'm going to baby step my way out of this weight loss instead of going commando as per usual. Now next week, that might be different but for right now I have to concentrate on getting myself mentally inline with my relationship with food. I think it was worse than I thought.

Alright. No more rambling. I'll spare you last weeks and just give you the last couple of days. I haven't tallyed up the calories, fat, etc. Maybe I'll do that when I have more time.

The food log:

Monday February 23, 2009

• 9.30a- Gypsy Cold care tea with a little honey


• 11.00a- Green Smooothie (2 cups water, 2 ripe bananas, 5 stalks kale, 5 strawberries)


• 12.00p- Nori roll (1/4 avo, 3/4 cup spinach, one grated carrot, stone ground mustard, yellow onion) 2 sections Dagoba bar


• 4.00p- Gypsy Cold Care tea with a lil honey


• 6.30p- White Bean (not canned!), Kale, and Sweet Pototo soup, one small hunk of homeade artisan bread, and one ryvita


• 8.30p -1 8oz. cup coffee and teeny tiny piece of fruit tart

Tuesday Feb 24, 2009

• 9.00a- water and Pomegrantite Green Tulsi Tea w/ honey- yummm.


• 10.50a- Greeeeen Lemonade!! yum


• 12.00p- handful of raisins and walnuts


• 1.15p- BIG salad=3 cups spinach, 1 carrot, 1/2 avo, onion, 1 Tbsp salsa, >1 tsp Annie's goddess dressing, sunflower seeds and about 10 baby carrots with nutritional yeast dip


• 3.00p- Pom Green tea w/ honey


• 4.20p- 1/2 Theobrama bar


• 6.30p- 2 Faux Eggs Benny on Ryvita (not english muffin!)


• 8.00p- Tulsi Original tea w/ a little honey

Out on a limb

I made my own recipe this morning. I don't do this very often. Well, techinally I sort of do it all the time but it's just fudging an existing recipe and making subtle changes. This time I went out on a limb and just made something up. I am proud to say that the muffins turned out wonderfully! They had the right texture, were fluffy but not dry at all! Yeah.


Banana Oat Muffins

Mix 2 Tbsp vegan butter or oil, 3 bananas, and honey (about 1/4 cup) with an electric mixer.

Add 1 Tbsp molasses, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp apple cider vinegar and mix with electric mixer. I added 2 cups of cooked oatmeal with oat groats that sat in the fridge overnight.

Add 2 cups flour, 1 tsp each of baking soda and baking powder.

Bake at 375 for 18 minutes or until done. Makes bakers dozen.