Day 1: Raw Vegan Diet, Part II (Coming back after a rather long hiatus).

Wow, my last post here was September 2005. For several reasons, I had decided to stop posting to this blog. Around the same time, I started slowly falling off my diet path. Because I did not have the proper tools and resources to help me eat the healthiest raw vegan diet I can, unhealthy foods slowly crept back into my life. And then in April 2006 when Kevin lost his job, the shock and stress of it overcame us and we totally fell back into eating a lot of cooked and even junk foods for awhile.

Although I was struggling, I did keep researching because even as my flesh was "weak", everything I read continued to point me to think that the raw vegan diet is optimal for humans. The more I researched, the more I began to see that I had made many mistakes the first time around which made it almost impossible to stay on the diet long term.

While I don't want to dwell on mistakes because I think it is important to move on in a positive way - I would like to jot down some of them, for myself to remember and also for my friends who may have been reading this blog from the beginning or are going to now. (I feel guilty for introducing some bad habits and non-optimal foods to my friends who were also interested in raw, please know that that was the best I knew at the time.)

Mistakes I made.
1) I ate WAY too much fat. Too much fat on a ANY diet is not good, even on the raw diet. I was eating many avocados and making "gourmet" raw treats and candies out of nuts and seeds. I was slathering nut butters on my salads and as a snack. I know now that eating this way long term would have definitely caused health problems for me - as many problems if not more than if I was eating cooked food. Fat levels are optimal around 10% or less of your total calorie intake.

2) I did not exercise enough. The more raw I got, the more weight I lost, the more energy I had and the more I wanted to get up and run a few miles. But I did not know how to train properly. I took a ballet class once a week for awhile but that was not nearly enough to change my health. I have now come to understand that fitness and diet go hand in hand together when it comes to good health. This year I would like to purposefully learn how to be physically fit in the healthiest way possible.

3) I was eating lots of salt. I will blog more about salt another time - but basically, salt is toxic and addictive - and I was eating salt with everything, which was keeping me dehydrated. I did not know how dehydrated I have been on a regular basis until I went for a few days eating only plain fruits and veggies awhile back after discovering 80-10-10, and didn't felt the need for much water. I haven't had salt in my house in months, but I have had it in store-bought and restaurant foods.

4) I was eating refined oils - which are not only not raw, but are empty junk calories and added to my high fat "raw" diet. Yes, those carob candies were yummerlicious, but in retrospect, although they may have possibly been one step up from the nutritional value of a Reese's cup, nothing about them was raw, or healthy!

5) I was piling on the honey and condiments - spices, garlic, onion, vinegar - and those were stimulating my body negatively. I have since learned (a little sadly, since I love spicy asian food) that if you can't make a meal out of it, then it's probably not optimal for your digestion. I have since slowly given up garlic and onions - two staples spices for me. I've still had them once in awhile on cooked food in the last several months, but to my surprise, they taste (and smell!) less and less good now that I don't eat them all the time.

6) I had major emotional eating issues, and still do. Actually, I've come to realize that this is pretty common. It was a lot easier said than done to give up my favorite, comfort cooked foods, especially when I was using complicated, salty, fatty raw recipes to replicate my cooked food favorites. I've since learned - if it looks, smells and tastes like cooked food, then it's going to act just like cooked food in your stomach and will not help your addiction!

7) I wasn't eating enough fruit. Fruit (simple sugars) is designed to be man's primary source of fuel, but many raw fooders eat so much fat that they don't eat enough fruit to fuel them. Because I didn't eat enough fruit, I wasn't getting enough energy to last me through a day and it was contributing to major cravings. I've since learned to eat 6 apples at a time instead of 2.

Sometime in the middle of 2006 (don't remember exactly when), I was led by Karen Ranzi (a woman I had consulted with about my kids) to Dr. Doug Graham and Professor Rozi Graham's work. Dr. Graham coined the term, the 80-10-10 diet, which stands for the ratio of carbs:proteins:fat that are optimal for human nutrition. He's also an athlete who's trained other world-class athletes and emphasizes the importance of physical fitness too. (He's the guy behind Demi Moore's fabulous looks, woo hoo.)

His book, The 80-10-10 diet, is the most comprehensive and intelligent guide to human nutrition that I've ever read, and I highly recommend it to everyone. I am even thinking of buying a few copies here and there and start handing them out to friends and family, but I don't want to offend or insult so I probably won't do that. :)

After reading the work of Dr. Graham, for the first time, everything started to make sense and come together to form the big picture for me. I saw clearly what mistakes I had been making that were holding me back. So I kept reading and reading for a few months. But in the meantime, I wasn't making very good diet and lifestyle choices. In fact, over the last year, I have regained the 20 plus lbs that I lost during my brief raw stint. (It is so difficult and embarassing to admit that, but I have to be honest here.)

More than the weight - I am tired of feeling older than I am, and being tired all the time. The most scary thing for me was that I am quickly approaching an age during which so many people's bodies succumb to the ravages of their unhealthy lifestyles and break down in "incurable" disease. I hope to avoid things like cancer and diabetes.

Finally, this month, we got real with ourselves and realized that we could not do it on our own. Emotional eating issues are tough to get over when you don't have the right tools! And I noticed that the people that Dr. Graham personally consulted with, seemed to be the ones that would stick to it long-term. Many of them post on his forum every day telling of marathons they have effortlessly run or cycling cross-country for fun. Boy, would I love to have that much energy! And the thing is... I think we're all supposed to be that vibrant!

So, because I have admitted that I need help, I am setting up a consult with Dr. Graham. I will share about that when it's done. He will likely be helping my family daily through the next few weeks and months and I am so ready for it! It really says something to me that even though I have struggled with this for 1 1/2 years now, I still keep wanting to do it. When I started doing this, I told myself that if I found proof that this wasn't the healthiest option on the planet, that I would just quit. Well, even though I struggled emotionally to keep on track, the more I read, the more I wanted to do it right!

Health and diet are so intricately linked. For the first time in months, I finally feel like I'm climbing out on an emotional dark hole, and I think a combination of things - having a spiritual breakthrough, the knowledge that soon I will have Dr. Graham's help, as well as just being completely grossed out at the way I look and feel at 29, has finally pushed me out of the hole. For the last couple of days, I have been eating plain, simple fruit and veggies and I'm beginning to feel better!

Today, since we're iced in, I ran up and down the stairs for exercise (which, embarassingly, was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be).

Food:
Breakfast: Nothing
Lunch: 5 bananas, and lots of celery.
Dinner: 6-8 valencia oranges, celery and as many cherry tomatoes as I desire while we watch "24".

Cherry tomatoes are my "gourmet" treat this time around - I could literally eat a bucket of them. Normally I would be feeling majorly "deprived" and craving chocolate or potato chips by this time of the day. But because I have made sure to have eaten enough fruit (calories) to carry me through the day, I am actually feeling great right now.

Thanks for reading and hope some of you will get something out of my ramblings, if nothing more than entertainment. :) I will be describing what I eat, as well as sharing things that I'm learning from Dr. Graham and his books. If you're interested in this lifestyle, there are several links to the side of this blog that are very helpful. I don't think I know it all (obviously, I hope) but I feel like I have stumbled across information that could change people's lives and I just have to share. Thanks for indulging me.