Day 11: The verrrry looooong story of my journey.

I'd like to share a little attitude adjustment I'm going through. As many of you know, I've been interested in the "raw" lifestyle for quite awhile but have had trouble sticking to it in the past. I went a short few months stint on what I thought was raw (but it really wasn't healthy), then I spent the next year falling on and off repeatedly. Why? Besides not having the proper knowledge of how to do this in a healthful way, it was emotionally hard to "give up" all my old favorite comfort cooked and junk foods.

But I've been going through a subtle shift in thought. Recently, instead of thinking, "Eating only fruit and veggies is so difficult because I'm having to renounce and give up all the foods I used to love", I am now starting to think, "Well, I *could* have pad thai or sushi or Kettle Thai chips or a Starbucks soy latte right now or any time I really want to. But, for today, right now, I am choosing to eat bananas or oranges or a salad instead because I want to. It's a better choice for my health and I feel so vibrant when I eat this way and I love that feeling!" It is different when you feel like what you're doing is a good choice, instead of an act of deprivation.

Today I'm going to join Harmony and tell you the story of how I discovered Natural Hygiene and the 80-10-10 diet. 'Cos I know you really care. :) Hehe.

DH and I got married in 1999. We transitioned from being poor college students to poor newlyweds, and we both ate horribly. We ate lots and lots of fast food because I had no clue how to cook and wasn't interested in learning. The only three things I ever made at home, literally, was mac'n'cheese with sliced hotdogs, hamburger helper and ramen noodles with egg. We never ate salads and whenever we would go grocery shopping together, if my husband dared pick out a bag of grapes or a pint of strawberries, I would nag at him to put them back because they were so expensive and I thought we couldn't afford them!

in 2000 I got pregnant with twins. I ate lots of meat - even McDonald's burgers, because a book that I read (When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets or Quads) said that I needed to gain LOTS and LOTS of weight in order for my babies to be full term. The book literally said that McDonalds milkshakes and quarter pounders were a decent way to get "protein" in. No wonder tiny little 4'11" me put on about 70 lbs (!!!) and developed gestational diabetes.

In retrospect, I am pretty angry at that advice, because I have since learned that pregnancy problems like gestational diabetes and toxemia can all be easily avoided if you eat right. Around the same time, my DH, who had struggled with mysterious back pains since we were married, started a series of ER visits with the awful pain, with lots of throwing up. I cannot believe that we did not connect his pain and vomiting episodes to the greasy Papa Murphy's pizzas we usually had the evening before each ER visit.

When I was 6 months pregnant, DH finally ended up with a gallbladder surgery at the grand old age of 23. The surgery went wrong and he ended up being completely cut open. He was in the hospital for almost 2 weeks with pancreatitis. I was so afraid I was going to lose him. But I still had not made the connection between ill health and diet.

When the twins were about 6 months old, I began researching how to make their baby food. I was going to do this, NOT because I thought it was healthy but because I wanted to save money. So I bought the book, "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron, who is a vegetarian and also had twin boys. As I pored over her book, a lot of things she said finally started to click with me. She claimed that if you feed your kids whole, unprocessed foods, that they would be super healthy.

I suddenly felt so overwhelmingly responsible for their health and little immune systems. It also struck my fancy that she was vegetarian since I've never REALLY liked meat. I felt a reluctance to introduce animal products to my boys and kept putting it off for as long as possible. I then started researching nutrition obsessively, borrowing 20 books a week from the library. Finally, I realized that what you eat REALLY matters! Finally, I realized that the reason I developed gestational diabetes and the reason DH got so sick was because we were eating junk, fast food all the time! Duh!

One thing led to another, and finally, I miraculously talked DH into eating vegan whole foods at home. I learned how to cook tons of delicious vegan dishes based on whole grains and beans, and found lots of "healthy" vegan junk foods at health food stores, and never missed animal products at all. This went on for a few years, but I honestly never saw the health and vitality that I thought being vegan was going to bring me. I was still tired, I was still aging and was always a size or two bigger than I knew I should be.

I kept up my nutrition research over the years, and finally, I started looking at the raw diet. At first I thought it was crazy but one day DH randomly showed me this article from MSN on the raw diet, and we talked about it and decided to try it. We had NO idea where to start or what our new "food pyramid" should look like. So I got my info from websites like Alissa Cohen's, Shazzie's, etc. I'm sure they're all great people who mean well, but honestly, high fat, high salt, dehydrated, processed "raw" goodies was not only time consuming, it was also a sure way to ill health over the long term.

Still, DH and I enjoyed our brief stint on this diet. It wasn't even that hard. I made us dehydrated, salty potato chips, lots of dried fruit, fatty dressings from refined oils, tahini and avocados, used lots of vinegar, sea salt, tamari and Bragg's liquid aminos, made "Reese's" cups from coconut oil, carob, natural, salted peanut butter and agave nectar, and thought, "This is so easy!!!" We didn't eat that much fruit. Why, when our raw goodies would satisfy our emotional cravings? We still had lots of lessons to learn.

While I was on that "raw" diet, I discovered Karen Ranzi through this article about raw parenting. What she said sounded very logical to me in a confusing world of raw gurus with all their supplements, green juices, raw "cacao" and what not out there. So I tracked her down and set up a consult with her about our diet. She is the one that introduced me to Natural Hygiene - the scientific philosophy of health that says that your body will heal itself if you just take care of it properly. (This is what the 80-10-10 raw vegan diet is based on). She also eventually recommended that I started talking to Dr. Doug Graham, the author of the 80-10-10 diet, and I was introduced to the novel concept of eating ONLY fruits and veggies!

Well, I started looking into Natural Hygiene then and found a lot of clarity and truth in it. But head knowledge is one thing and real life experience is another. I am tired of KNOWING what it takes to get the health and vitality I want, and not having the guts to actually DO it. So that's what I'm doing now - buckling down and telling myself to grow up and practise what I preach! :)

Wow, I'm long-winded, huh? Hopefully this helps someone out there. It sure helped me to get it out, anyway.

Food:
Breakfast: Skipped
Lunch: 6 large bananas and about 10 ribs of celery
Snack: 12oz cherry tomatoes, 2 navel oranges
Dinner: 1 banana predinner. (I had band rehearsal from 7-9). Then more tomato-cauliflower stuff w/ cucumber and radish slices.

The stairs felt good today. I am up to 50 times now, but not totally running - half running and half walking. Still, 11 days ago, 5 times was making me huff and puff, so I'm pleased. :)

Thanks for reading! You guys out there really help me stay motivated.