Raw Food Diet Diary

I Get Knocked Down, but I Get Up Again . . .

(with apologies to Chumbawumba)

I had the best of intentions during October.  You know what they say about good intentions, right?

October brought a storm of a different kind to my life.  Things are better now.  However, I got sidetracked big time on my raw food diet progress, and on recording that progress.

It’s my fault.  I’m in charge of me, and I chose to make decisions that weren’t always in my best interest.  One of them was “emotional eating.”  I just said “screw it,” to good habits and became incredibly self-indulgent.

I realized, though, that I was moving backwards in too many ways to ignore:

• My complaining increased.  Before October, I was switching my bracelet once every 5-7 days.  Lately, it’s been once or twice daily on average.
• I’m tired.  By the time I’ve finished with students and have time to prepare for stuff, I’m as stupid as a fencepost from fatigue.  Consequently, the only way I get things done is if I have an imminent deadline looming.
• I haven’t been writing here.  I also haven’t been posting on the board at How to Go Raw.
• I generally feel unsettled and often feel unhappy.  Truthfully, there’s no good reason for me to feel this way.

So, this morning I resolved to get back on track over the course of this week.  Today’s raw food consisted of two liters of green smoothie made from:

• 7 bananas
• Half a bunch of collard greens
• Enough grapes to register as three cups in my VitaMIx.

I tried collard greens in a smoothie for the first time a few weeks ago.  Grapes compliment them nicely.  The two, together, make a drink that is sweet . . . but also has some bite to it.  I like grapes and collard greens as much as I like the peach/nectarine and spinach combo.

I also figured out how to handle my green smoothie preparation and drinking so that it was easier on me.  I made the smoothie early this morning.  A liter of it went into a thermos.  The other liter went into a big insulated cup that I have.  I drank the first liter while going through my morning routine and while driving to work.  At work, I put the other liter into the cup and drank from it throughout the early part of the morning.

The rest of the day, I ate cooked food.  My goals were to minimize fat and maximize fiber.  I did OK, but could have done better (especially at the minimizing fat).

Tomorrow, I plan to start my day the same way.  There’s a 3 pound bag of Gala apples waiting for me for lunch.  Beyond that, I’ll see how the spirit moves me.

The last couple of weekends, I’ve taken some long bike rides.  Were it not for my hands and butt getting sore, I could have ridden a lot longer.  I’ve been thinking about how I can make a return to bicycle commuting to work.  Conditioning isn’t a huge issue for me; building endurance on a bike is easy for me.  My big issue is riding home in the dark; that scares the crap out of me!  I’m looking at some solutions to that dilemna; I’ll write more about those as I explore them.

That’s it for tonight.  I’ll check in tomorrow.  Time to go to the How to Go Raw board, now.