A Raw Journey To Wellness 1/21/10

Hello All,

It's been a long while since my last post. I think it was before Christmas sometime. That's when I started getting stressed out by a lot of things going on. And history shows that when I get stressed my immediate "learned" response is to go back to comfort foods. I began adding some cooked foods, potatoes, rice, seafood, fish and then an occasional slice of pizza here and there. It was amazing how the food was taking over my mind and my body. I was still consuming my smoothies daily but in the evenings I found a way to convince myself to eat something that wasn't a part of the plan. I actually became okay with this until I started taking a self assessment of how bad I felt. So in the New Year I said I was going to start fresh and get back on track but I was still not mentally ready and made some poor food choices that kept me craving the cooked foods.

At or around Thanksgiving I weighed around 244 lbs. As of Monday morning I weighed a whopping 267 lbs. That's right I gained 23 lbs in less than two months. No wonder I was feeling like crap. Anyway, this past Sunday I had what I called my last supper. It was really a last breakfast. Now I don't recommend doing it this way but this worked for me. I decided that I was going to have one last day of decadence before I got started again. Here is what I did, I went out and bought some FRIED FISH from the market made grits (grandma used to make them and I was craving them), potato bread, eggs and yes sausage links. I cooked breakfast for the family and said a prayer and asked God for help with my next Raw endeavor. My wife commented several times on how much I was eating that day. (She said, "I never saw you eat like this before, are you okay.") I ate so much I thought that I would have a heart attack or something just from the pure garbage that I put in my body. But all the while I was convinced that if I lived I would get back on track with the Raw Foods again. That night, I culminated my last supper with a cup of Smooth Move (laxative tea). My wife looked at me and just shook her head. I won't tell you what happened about 5am the next morning but I'm sure you can guess. After that I felt refreshed and renewed and weighed myself. Yep 267 lbs...

I took a deep breath and I thought to myself, I'm starting over again with a fresh clean slate. I did what I did and it's done. No guilt, no shame and no fear. It is what it is. I'm okay with this. I tried to think of every motivational catch phrase that I knew to make this fall okay. I picked up my book The Fifth Agreements (sequel to "The Four Agreements") and did some reading. And suddenly I was okay with what I did. I just had to remember that what I did at the time was okay and that I should not continue to beat myself up about it. And that here in this moment I have a chance to make a new decision as I have been given another day to make it right (whatever right is). So I went downstairs and grabbed a couple of bananas and oranges and went to work.

In the past when I did this in September, I allowed myself some cheat foods, chips, popcorn, peanut butter. This I thought kept me sane. As i was always craving chips or something salty. I'm thinking because I was getting too much sweet with the smoothies and fruit that my body naturally craved salty. This was the case even when I eat cooked foods. If I had sweet I needed salty. If I had salty I needed sweet. It was like a balancing act. I hear that some crave one or the other and some like me crave both. What I decided to do is add a lot of celery into my evening "raw soup" Celery has a lot of good natural salt and this should help cut out the cravings (I'm hoping). So far so good.

This time I am doing 100% raw, with no cheat foods. I am going to go as long as I can with this and see how it works. A clean raw/live food diet is the optimal way to go at least that's what I have found for me. I have also added in workouts at the gym. Spinning, treadmill and occasional basketball.

Check this out, in just 3 days I lost 12 lbs. I weighed myself this morning and I was down 12 lbs. I've only had one workout (intense spinning class) this week so it's clearly the change in diet that's doing it. The first night I released so much water it was amazing. I had not drank that much water I was sure. But it seemed like ever other hour I was going to the bathroom. I lost 4lbs the first day. The second day I lost another 6 lbs. And yesterday I lost 1 lbs. So in just three days I'm halfway back to my thanksgiving low weight. That feels great.

So I have been keeping a little journal each day and here it is:

Day 1: Monday, January 18, 2010

Starting weight 267 after first movement

4 bananas lasted me until 6 pm.

Soup:

3 celery stalks

Hand full of cherry tomatoes

Dandelion greens

Romaine heart

small slice of onion

2 Oranges for late night snack

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Day 2: Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Weight 262.9 (Lost 4lbs) Peeing all night long

20 oz of water upon waking

Smoothie: Banana, orange, Cup blueberries, thin slice lemon, baby spinach about 2 cups, cup ice, 14 oz water

I drank about 16 ozs. Gave the wife the other 16. Had one left over.

Had a 4 bananas and an 2 oranges

Workout spinning class 45 mins.

Had my veggie soup same as above about 40ozs.

Felt great not hungry.

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Day 3: Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Weight 257 (Lost almost 6 lbs)

Didn't make the smoothie in the morning. Just decided I wanted to do some fruit today. Had 5 bananas, 4 oranges.

Note: Found an Asian Market (thanks to a friend) in town and went there to see what they had. All kinds of exotic fruits and veggies most of which I didn't know what they were. In fact, the guy that was stocking them didn't know what they were. I was curious about a fruit called Durian. And they had it. But it was 4.49 a lbs. So I decided to wait on my Durian experience. Coconuts for 1.49 each. Deal! Wow! Came home and had to figure out how to open the damn things. Thanks Youtube...

In the evening I had my Coconut experiment. Coconut water from 2 coconuts. Made coconut milk from the coconut and drank about 16 ozs. Did some research and found out that it was over 500 calories a cup. So that was a lot. I decided that I was satisfied with the Coconut Milk. And didn't make the veggie soup.

Well that's all for now. It's Thursday morning and I am feeling good. Pray for me, send me positive energy, thoughts whatever it is you do. I need it there's a lot of baggage (mental and physical) that needs to be unloaded and this thing is much bigger than will power. ;-) See you next time!!! Be True To You In All You Do!!!!