Raw Food Diet Diary

Well, today I had my Steve Pavlina moment . . .

You may remember that Steve undertook a 30 day trial of the raw food diet at the beginning of this year.  He decided to return to eating cooked food on day 31.  And he paid for it.  Over the next several months, he decided that going raw was the best choice for him.

Today, I detoured from my commitment of eating 21 days raw.

The Princess and I are home alone this week.  Typically, we go out for “fun” foods when Mom is away to take her mind off of her mother’s absence.  She asked this morning if I would take her to Chuck-E-Cheese.

I wasn’t fond of that place when I ate pizza.  I definitely didn’t want to go there now.  So, I suggested a compromise that I knew would blow my 21-day plan.  But, I knew that she would enjoy it and I could minimize the “damage” to my plan.

We went to Pei Wei Asian Diner.  I had a vegan dish; she had lo mein.

She had a great time.  I, on the other hand, feel nauseous and sluggish.  It’s a little before seven right now, and I could easily crawl into bed for the night right now.

And I couldn’t be happier about feeling this way!  The only thing that could possibly have been better is if I had puked it all back up.

I’ll give you a minute to express your disgust . . .

Feel better now?  Good!

A little story: When I was younger, I enjoyed pepperoni pizza a lot.  I also enjoyed margaritas and had a reputation among my friends as a master margarita mixer (try saying that five times fast ).  One night, I made the mistake of overindulging in both and then passing out on my water bed.  I’ll leave the rest to your imagination . . .

Needless to say, I rarely indulged in either of those “treats” after that.  In fact, I couldn’t even bear the smell of any tequila-based drink for about five years after the incident.

My experience tonight gives me an anchor to fall back on the next time I think I want to eat cooked food.  In just a little over two weeks, I’m going to be out of town on business myself.

This conference, held in San Antonio, is an opportunity for me to grow professionally; more importantly, it’s an opportunity to spend time with friends that I don’t get to see nearly enough of.  And, we usually spend that time together eating.

So, I have a challenge.  I am going to spend time with my friends.  That’s important to me.

However, I’m not going to pay for that time with them by feeling sick as a dog because I went out to eat with them.  So, I’ve got some planning to do.

I know that most of the places we go serve salad.  I can stick to that when I’m with them so that I’m eating (and so that the propietors of the restaurants won’t kick me out).  However, I’m going to have to pack food if I don’t want to be hungry and tempted.

Will I succeed?  I don’t know.  One way or the other, though, I’m going to gain valuable knowledge and experience.

I’m below 260 as of today!  This is the lightest I’ve been in about four years.  I plan on losing more.  However, today also taught me that I need to be very careful not to restrict calories.  Granted, my appetite hasn’t been very big the last few days.  However, I think that I’m going to have to make myself ingest at least 2,000 calories daily to assure avoiding temptation.  Today, the Princess and I went to the store and stocked up on lots of yummy fruit!  So, I’m set to avoid temptation for the next few days.

I’ve also made an adjustment in my exercise program.  My left shoulder has bothered me on and off for years.  Two things seem to make my rotator cuff hurt:

• Sleeping on it when I haven’t exercised much.
• Bench pressing.

Since I haven’t darkened a gym door in about five years, or exercised much at all, my pushing strength is pretty low.  I’ve been doing push ups to restore it, but the combination of push ups and sleeping on my left side isn’t working for me right now.  So, I began cleaning and pressing my 16 kg. kettlebell instead.  My cleans are pretty ugly (because I haven’t practiced them for awhile) but my presses are strict and true to form.  I did some presses off and on throughout the day and my shoulder feels much better.   So, this is going to take the place of my pushup program for the time being.