Food: A Struggle and a Win

I've been raw now for about 7 and a half weeks. This past week brought some unique challenges, and a couple wins. There is one thing in this world that I would be willing to throw everything away for. That one thing is Pad Thai from this wonderful Thai restaurant down the road. That is the only craving that has literally brought me to tears during this whole journey.

Last night, I went to that Thai place and sat next to my husband as he ate that very dish. We went with family, and I was actually the one that chose the restaurant because I wanted to share the amazing discovery of this place. This was one of my most difficult moments thus far. Perhaps we should have gone for seafood instead, since I hate that anyway.

But I did survive! I ordered a Thai coconut and a huge side salad, and an hour later, the temptation was gone. As we drove home afterwards, it struck me how temporary food is. It doesn't matter what I'm eating or not eating - the whole meal experience is so short that it barely matters at all.

The Win!

We were down in San Diego earlier this week, and we found a fabulous little raw cafe called Peace Pies. This was by far my most favorite raw food experience thus far. I was feeling a little panicky that day (I sometimes still feel like I'm going crazy doing this - or that I already am!), and when I opened up that menu, I just unraveled. The whole menu looked amazing.

I order the zucchini noodles with cashew Alfredo and my husband ordered the nachos. I'd never really had zucchini noodles before, except for one disastrous experiment about two days into the raw food diet that ended up going in the trash. But I've been wanting to try again - especially since I didn't have the right tools to make the noodles right (you really need a spiralizer).

When I took that first bite, I literally sighed and could have just cried right there in the middle of the restaurant. And my husband's nachos were just as delicious - it even had raw chips. In fact, I ate all of mine, and about half of his (he says he gets full really fast when eating raw - I was happy to help!). And we STILL had desert - some strawberry cashew cheesecake. (Hmmm - maybe that's why I'm losing weight so slow.)

Yes - by far my best experience yet. Now, I just need to get a spiralizer!

In Which I Keep it Simple, Slay a Beet, and Disclose Another "Bonus"

Today will be the end of week six on the raw food diet. I'm still (miraculously) going strong. I have no idea how I've made it this far, but I'm very grateful. All I can really say is that I felt a calling for this. I don't know how else to describe it. So, I'm sticking with it for the entire six months. My last day will be February 21, 2014, and it will be very interesting to see how I feel about it at that time. Will I go longer? Will I be relieved? I'm not sure.

Right now, I'm feeling pretty comfortable in this lifestyle. I still have moments of shock, wondering what the heck I'm doing, and I have times that I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. But mostly, I'm really happy to be doing this.

K.I.S.S.

One of the biggest factors in my success this far, I think, has been to just try to keep things simple.
When I first started getting into this, I was excited to try new recipes, and anxious to reassure myself that I could still have a lot of amazing foods. And that's true! And I still enjoy trying new things. However, the more that I rely on those fancy concoctions, the more discouraged I get because of the amount of time it takes, and the number of failed experiments.

Objects in this photo are larger than they appear.

I mostly try to mono meal on fruit throughout the day, and have a huge salad in the evening. What I've consistently been doing is starting my day with half of a seedless watermelon. Then, I might make a meal out of a bag of grapes; if I get hungry later, I'll have four bananas or so. Then, for dinner, I make a huge salad. At first, I couldn't figure out why I was running out of salad dressing so fast, since I'm not usually a big dressing person. But then I had a DUH! moment when I realized that if I'm eating five times the amount of salad I normally do, then of course I'm going to zip right through my dressings because I'm using it up five times faster!

80-10-10

The basis for my current structure is the 80-10-10 raw food diet, as designed and discussed by Dr. Graham. My husband thinks I'm crazy because of the amount of fruit sugars I'm consuming, and I'm sure there are a lot of people that will disagree with THIS formula for a raw food diet. However, it's the one that's really resonating with me. I intuitively made the decision to go to raw foods for healing, so it seems only right that I'll pick WHICH raw food dogma I want to follow intuitively, too.

I will say that I'm a HUGE sugarmonger, and I have not had a single sugar craving since going raw. I mean, I was super addicted to sweets. I am in awe that I have not had a single temptation for those foods I used to eat on a regular basis. I take that as a sign that I must be doing something right.

Well, 80-10-10-ish...

Even though that's the formula that I've roughy following, I need to emphasize that I'm ROUGHLY following it. I'm not tracking my calories or anything, and I'm sure I'm still consuming more fat than is recommended. My salad dressings all have oils in it, and I usually eat about one avocado per day. But I don't really care at this point. I'm glad to have a baseline ideal, and I'm glad I'm still raw. Beyond that, I'm just doing the best I can.

I've also made some raw burgers that are AMAZING. I am so in love with them. I made some for my trip a couple weeks ago, and made another batch over the weekend. I've been having one of those for lunch, wrapped up in some lettuce leaves with a yummy garlic-sundried tomato-basil spread we found at a little produce stand on Friday. DELICIOUS. The flavors just burst in my mouth, and it's all I can do to just limit myself to the one burger.

Cravings

The bloody trail left over
from my beet juice.

My cravings have been very moderate. I often have a dull aching for cooked foods, but that's more of an emotional yearning. Sometimes I feel bored on the raw foods because I'm used to the stimulation that comes from eating junk food. I am a huge emotional eater. I reached for the crap when I was anything but baseline. If I was happy, it was time to celebrate. If I was sad, it was time for "therapy." If I was bored, it was time for "entertainment." Sugar had the unique ability to be all of those things.

But now, it's just me and my issues, facing off each day. There is no burying them under food. There's only looking at them, getting to know them, marinating in them.

This is a GOOD thing, but not a good experience. Frankly, I preferred the sugar.

But speaking of cravings, I was TOTALLY craving some beets today. And I don't even like beets! But my body was definitely telling me I needed something more. I haven't been doing any juicing, since my juicer is in storage at my sister's 2000 miles away, and I think that's taking its toll. Today, my body was really craving a steep infusion of goodness.

So, I pureed a beat and a carrot in my blender, then strained the pulp off using a cheese bag. Then I gulped it down. Technically, I think I'm supposed to sip and chew my juices to keep them from affecting my blood sugar too much, but that wasn't really an option for me. Like I said, I don't really like beets. It was gulp it or puke it.

A Cool Finding

There's also been one more finding that I'll share. I've been craving brain food like crazy. I mean, I have almost no appetite for movies and shows (we don't watch TV anyway). All I want to do is watch documentaries and read, read, and read. I like this :)

Saying Good-bye to Old Friends

I've been stunned the last couple days as I've gone back to stores like Wal-mart and the 99 cent store with my cousin. My "places of worship" the last month have been Trader Joe's and Sprout's. I seriously took for granted how easy it's been to avoid temptations when I'm spending my time in health food stores. I haven't had to walk through isles of Doritos, Halloween candy, and Hostess Sno-Balls for weeks.

Walking among all these old familiar favorites, I could almost hear them calling me by my first name. "Hey, Gwen! Long time no see! I miss you. Let's put in some more couch time, baby."

I looked at them with big round eyes, like a deer caught in the headlights. It's like, "Oh, yeah! That! And That! And those!" It's such an odd sensation. I wouldn't say I'm craving them, or even desiring them. But I'm remembering desiring them. It's like putting on an old shirt that's no longer in style, but remembering how hot you felt when you wore it 10 years ago. Weird. Even still, I don't think it would take too long to erode my will power if I had to walk in there every day and pass by those old friends.

So, I guess I'd better add one more safety feature to my list of 6 things I do to combat cravings - AVOID TRADITIONAL GROCERY STORES. They aren't set up to feed me, but they sure make me hungry.