Raw Food Diet Diary

Today’s Menu

• 7 bananas
• 3 nectarines
• 2 lb. grapes
• One big honkin’ salad

Today’s Weight: 267 lb.

Yes, I used a straw today in my smoothie.  It made life much easier!

The grapes were enough for lunch today.  It was a good thing, too, because I had a volunteer scheduled to come in right after my scheduled lunch today.  I was done with time to spare, and I still ate at a leisurely pace.

The Princess and I had our date tonight.  We went to Souper Salads, a local salad buffet restaurant.  She had soups and breads; I had the Mango-Berry salad.  There were a couple of forbidden items (walnuts, a bit of bleu cheese), but overall I did OK.  Not perfect, but OK.

Today, I had no mid-afternoon slump at all.  I worked almost continuously from 7:00 a.m. until 5:45 a.m. (except for lunch and bathroom breaks).  I’m tired as I write this.  Unfortunately, I’m headed back to school for a little bit to finish some of the work that still needs to be done before I begin teaching in the morning.  If my wife waits too much longer, though, I may attempt to get up earlier in the morning and go in.  We’ll see what happens.

My biggest fear, that I’d have an uncontrollable urge to use the restroom in the middle of teaching class, has not materialized!  My body is doing a marvelous job of waiting to “go” until I have breaks between classes.  Could things be any better than this?

The funny thing about all of this is, I know I have more energy.  I know I’m eliminating more.  But, I really don’t feel any different than I did before.  It’s only when I look backward at my day that I realize that there have been some major changes.  Once I can clearly see them, I get excited!

I hear the garage door.  The Sweetheart is home.  Gotta run . . . don’t want to be caught unprepared tomorrow.

Today’s Menu

• 13 bananas
• 4 pears
• 2 nectarines
• 1 1/2 lb. grapes (approximately)
• 1 bunch spinach

Today was my first run at doing a “regular” day.

I rose at 6 a.m. and immediately headed to the kitchen to make a green smoothie (bananas, nectarines, spinach).  I drank half while shaving, dressing, dressing the Princess and the other half in the car (Note to Self: Use a straw tomorrow . . . you’ll be safer on the road.)>

By lunch, I was quite hungry.  I ate grapes, and still wasn’t quite satisfied so I had a pear, too.  The pear was underripe; when I finished it, I didn’t want anything more to eat.

Today, I had a Tom Brownsword moment: There was a package of M&M’s in my mailbox.  I opened and ate without thinking.  It tasted like plastic-coated chocolate.  That was a new (and welcome) experience!

After school, I had another pear.  This one was perfect!  I can hardly wait for more ripe ones to become available.

Tonight, for dinner, I had another green smoothie (bananas, pears, spinach).  Plus, for the first time, I sat at the table with my wife and daughter and enjoyed my smoothie while they enjoyed the pasta my wife had fixed.  The Princess had white-flour spaghetti and the Sweetheart had buckwheat noodles, which she hadn’t tried before.  I had a taste of the buckwheat; if I ever decide to shuck the whole raw food thing, those could definitely be a regular part of my menu.

However, today provided me with a pretty strong incentive to stay this course.

Usually, I have a huge slump between noon and 1 p.m.  Sometimes, it’s so bad that I have to lie down on the floor for 15 minutes and close my eyes.  Today,  I had a mild slump at around 2 p.m.  I worked through it, and it passed within a few minutes.  Interestingly, it was during the slump that I sampled the M&M’s without thinking.  Hmmmmmmm . . .

But that’s not the best part . . .

I picked up the Princess from day care at about 5:15.  When we got home, I let her tune into the Disney channel for about 15 minutes.  Usually, I’ll sit down in the recliner and close my eyes for a bit.  Not today.  Instead, I . . .

• Threw a load of laundry into the washer . . . then dried it.
• Ironed tomorrow’s clothes
• Emptied the dishwasher
• Got the Princess to get clothes ready for tomorrow and into the shower
• Started water boiling for the girls’ dinner

I think that’s more than I typically do from Monday - Friday.  The Sweetheart told me that she could get used to this.

Plus, I’m sitting here writing this right now.  This is the first time that I’ve sat down at the computer to write on a workday since I returned to work at the beginnng of the month.

Can things possibly get any better?

Some of you who read this blog know Tom already.  Those of you who don’t can find his blog here.

Tom’s weight loss pictures are up!  See for yourself what the raw food diet has done for Tom since the March 13 of this year.  Click here to see the “new” Tom Brownsword!

Tom also had a recent foray back into eating cooked foods.  Doing so only caused him to make a stronger commitment to raw foods.

Tom’s blog is one of my regular reads.  Although Tom is relatively new to raw food eating, I find his insights valuable and consider him a worthy model to emulate.  Even if I had been doing this much longer, I’d still feel the same way.  I hope you do, too, if you haven’t read his stuff before.

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks.  As you’ll learn in this post, I’ve been a little preoccupied with other concerns.

The day after my last post, I received an e mail that a friend and colleague had passed away.  She suffered a massive heart attack on Friday, died on Saturday, and was buried on Monday.

She was 56 years old.

Claudia’s funeral was beautiful.  It was attended by family, friends, and former students.  Her four daughters lovingly shared their memories of their mother, and she was eulogized by her boss.  My friend was full of passion and energy when it came to her cello playing and her teaching.  She is missed by many.

A week later, my mother-in-law’s significant other succumbed to cancer.  He had been battling prostate cancer for about a year.  Additionally, he was beginning to suffer from Parkinsons, and arthritis was getting the best of him.

I feel sad for my mother-in-law.  She developed her friendship with Earl shortly after both of their spouses passed away in 1997.  They propped each other up during their grief, and became consistent companions over the next eleven years.

My mother-in-law has had her own health challenges over the years.  She’s had knee and hip replacements and heart surgery over the last dozen years.  She is currently using a walker, because she hasn’t fully regained her leg strength since her heart surgery in April.  Between her lack of mobility and the loss of her companion, I’m concerned about her prognosis for the future.  Time will tell.

The Princess and I have been on our own for the last week while the Sweetheart flew home to her mother and then to a business meeting.  Last night, at bedtime, the Princess told my wife that she had been having dreams about something happening to me as well.  We don’t know what that something is; it scares her enough that she doesn’t want to talk about it for fear of dreaming about it further.

I’m not afraid of death.  I am, however, concerned about the process of dying.

Death can come at any time, regardless of how healthy my lifestyle is.  I also know that healthy lifestyle won’t necessarily fix everything if I get hit by a truck and it makes me an invalid for life.

I think, though, that dying the ways that Claudia and Earl did is almost completely avoidable.  That’s why I’m choosing to move toward a raw food diet.

However, I haven’t been honoring that commitment as well as I could lately.  I also noticed, when I checked in at Roger Haeske’s forum, that others are struggling, too.

So, as my mother used to say, it’s time to shit or get off of the pot.

Easier said than done, Mom, but I promise to do my best.

Today’s Menu

• Grapes (64 oz.)
• Green Smoothie (12 medium bananas/10 oz. blueberries/1 bunch spinach/12 oz. water)

(I also ate one black bean burrito containing black beans, rice, tomatos, chiles, and a tortilla.)

I decided to try a new strategy aimed at helping me comply with a strict

raw food diet.

Years ago, I attended a series of nutrition classes given by a naturopathic doctor in Boulder, Colorado (yes, I’ve been down this healthy eating path before).  One of the things he gave participants is an outline of what one should eat daily.  He cautioned us against approaching dietary change from a deprivation viewpoint (i.e. we shouldn’t be “punishing” ourselves by taking things away).  Instead, he encouraged us to eat everything on his list every day, and then we could eat whatever we want . . . if we had room left over.

I’ve been adopting that strategy in my transition toward the raw food diet.

The past few days, I’ve eaten a huge, four-pound box of strawberries for breakfast.  It was filling, and it held me well until lunch.  My problem, though, is that by evening, I’ve been craving starchy food . . . even if I had a green smoothie for lunch.

This morning, I ate four pounds of grapes, instead.  This effectively doubled the number of calories I’m eating in the morning.

At lunch, I did a practice run of making green smoothies to go (for work).  It takes me between 10 and 15 minutes to get the job done.  Looks like I’m going to have to push myself to get up earlier so that I can have a good lunch.

I tried eating the dozen bananas for lunch.  It takes me an hour.  Technically, I have only 30 minutes for lunch.  Fortunately, my preparation period is right after lunch.  I can choose to take a long lunch, but my preparation is going to take a hit if I do that all of the time.  Having a blender in my office is impractical at this point.  So, I’m packing smoothies in thermoses and taking them to work with me.

The forumula above makes about five pints of smoothie.  I need to buy a third thermos . . . maybe one that holds only a pint (to minimize oxidation).  Today, since I drank the smoothie immediately after making it, it wasn’t necessary.

However, I’m not sure that drinking five pints of smoothie in a single sitting was a good idea.  I’ll leave the results to your imagination, but suffice it to say that I was in a great deal of discomfort for a couple of hours afterward.  That won’t work for me when I have to face groups of 20-30 teenagers every afternoon after lunch.  So, I’ll be splitting that smoothie in half; I’ll drink half at lunch and half at the end of the school day.

I set out four pounds of strawberries and some loose leaf lettuce for dinner, but the thought of eating any more fruit today wasn’t appealing.  So, I had half of my usual (lately) dinner.  The strawberries will keep for one more day, and I’ll try them (with the lettuce) for tomorrow night’s dinner.

I’ve gotten lax about updating my raw food diet progress over the last few days as I readjust to my working schedule.  My bad!

I’ve made some terrific progress stretching my stomach.  The last three days, I’ve eaten between two pounds (grapes) and four pounds (strawberries) of food for breakfast and five pounds (bananas alone or green smoothies) for lunch.  I still ate cooked food for dinner (black bean burritos or vegetarian Chinese), but I managed to keep to a caloronutrient intake of 80/10/10.

Yesterday, I set foot in a gym for the first time in five years.  I only did three exercises: Barbell squats, pull-ups on the Gravitron, and dips on the Gravitron (the Gravitron exercises were supersetted using Escalating Density Training).  My upper body feels fine this morning, but my legs are a pair of hurtin’ units!  I plan on making this a Saturday habit (or Friday nights when I have to work on a Saturday).  During the week, I’ll look at other options.

My biggest challenge right now is readjusting my sleep patterns.  I’m finding it difficult to get back on my school-year sleep schedule.  Friday, I took a long lunch (I don’t have students or inservice yet) and came home for a 30 minute nap.  My family has been watching the Olympics together; I’ve been falling asleep while watching, then having trouble falling asleep when I get up and go to bed.  Changing that is a no-brainer . . . I’m heading for bed in the evening when I begin to feel drowsy.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print for now . . .

Today’s Menu

• 2 lb. mangos
• 3 lb. peaches

(I also ate a black bean burrito, 8 oz. black beans and 8 oz. of rice mixed together)

I learned today that I really need to have bananas for lunch.  Lots of them.

I also learned that my stomach is adapting to a larger volume of food.  Both fruit meals took a long time to eat (especially the peaches . . . over an hour), but I was not uncomfortable afterward.  I’m finding that the lower I keep my fat intake, the more food (in volume . . . not calories) I can handle.

Tomorrow, to continue my transition back, I’m going to cut out the tortilla and just eat the rice and black beans.  Friday, I’m thinking that I’ll have a little fruit before eating the rice and beans.  Beyond that, I’ll wait and see how I’m feeling.

Today, I was able to work through my “midday slump.”  I also didn’t miss my traditional “Starbucks breakfast” on my first day back at work.  The mind was willing, but the body wasn’t!

I didn’t sleep enough last night.  I wasn’t sleepy when I went to bed, so I watched TV (which usually makes me sleepy within a few minutes).  I think I was finally ready to sleep at about midnight, and I had to get up no later than 6:30 this morning.  Hopefully, tonight will be an easier go at falling asleep.

I’ve been extremely regular today.  Without getting too graphic, I’ll say that it looks like transit time for my meals has dropped down to about 16 hours.  (You may all say, “Ewwwwwwwww!” now.) 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is today’s raw food diet report!

Today’s Menu

• 2 Green Smoothies (6 Bananas, 5 oz. Blueberries, half bunch Spinach)

I also had a couple of black bean burritos from Taco Cabana.

I had a great time in San Antonio.  I’m happy to report that I drank a half-gallon of green smoothie every morning that I was there.  The rest of the day, I ate out with friends (as I said I probably would).

The half-gallon of green smoothie was a great addition for several reasons:

I had fewer digestive problems than I usually do when I make this trip.  Part of it, I suspect is the water and fiber in the smoothie keeping me regular.  Part of it is that I didn’t feel the need to eat as indiscriminately as I usually do on this outing.

1. I slept more soundly than I usually do when in a motel (and I forgot my CPAP, so that’s really saying something).  Consequently, I didn’t have to rely on a steady caffeine infusion to stay awake.
2. It kept weight gain to a minimum . . . and I’ve already lost most of it after three days back.

The two disadvantages:

1. Pre-making and chilling the smoothies made them far less appetizing than drinking them straight from the blender.
2. I roomed with a friend to save costs, and I didn’t see a practical way of setting up a blending station sharing the room with another person.  Plus, I don’t know that blending in my room would be very neighborly . . .

Roger Haeske and Tom Brownsword both suggested eating copious amounts of fruit, instead.  I may do that next time I travel.  That’s probably better for me than letting blended fruit and veggies oxidize for three days.

Steve Pavlina shared a great article about the challenges and benefits he experienced changing to a raw food diet yesterday. I highly recommend it.  After reading it, I feel much better about my challenges in staying 100% raw.  The big takeaway, for me, is that I have to work at attaining sufficient personal “knowledge, experience, and discipline” to make the raw food diet work for me.

I return to my day job tomorrow.  Dr. Graham says that adequate rest is another important component to superior health.  So, it’s off to bed for me!