Sunday's daily raw

Well this morning started off great. I decided to step on the scale to see where I was at; and I'm happy to say, I'm down to 164 lbs. This means I have lost a total of 20 lbs. based on what my weight was recorded at back in August. It makes me sooooooooo happy. Especially because I'm not doing anything difficult to lose the weight. All I did was make the life commitment to change the way I look at food, and what I eat. I'm telling you true, eating raw is absolutely "raw-riffic!" I truly feel better, my skin looks better, my eyes and teeth look better, I have more energy, I sleep better (except recently due to the damned pain pills for my back), and I'm losing weight. Yippy!

Today I made another berry breakfast shake (which I love), green feast juice, about 10 (yes 10) dates, 5 iceberg lettuce leaves, 1 raw pumpkin spice cookie with a little raw butter spread, the remainder of my raw veggie salad with seaweed, and avocado mixed in, about 6 almonds, 1 banana, and lots and lots and lots of water.

This week I plan to green smoothie 2.0 drinks for my dinners. In case you didn't know already, it includes 1 ripe banana, 1 c. chopped mango, 1-2 c. fresh spinach, 1T of flax oil, water and ice cubes. If I don't have the mango, I may need to use something else. Maybe pineapple...I don't know yet, we'll see. For lunches I plan to make edame bean and seaweed salads (I pretty much live on this stuff), and my typical raw protein shakes or berry breakfast smoothies, or both. For snacks I plan to make some more of the strawberry cookies, almond crackers with date spread, and maybe some rawtella spread. Plus, fresh fruit such as apples, and maybe some persimmons. And, I may make the pistachio icecream cookies...they look delicious in the recipe I found online. Oh, and of course, I always keep vegan raw bars nearby for the quick pick-me-up when I don't have any fresh fruit, nuts, veggies, or greens close at hand. Anyway, I'll let you know the daily intake as always.

Today my girlfriend came by and picked up the leftover raw goodies I made for Thanksgiving. She's been wanting to sample more than just the dessert treats I've made, so I can't wait to hear what she has to say about the food. I hope she enjoys it, and it inspires her to eat more raw food. I'll keep you posted on that.

Well, that's it for now. I need to get started on our family Christmas newsletter, that we plan to include with our Christmas cards this year. Oh, I was also thinking about making raw treats to give to friends and neighbors, instead of my standard annual box of homemade cookies. I'm going to look into that more and see if I should. I think I should, cause' it would be an opportunity to share this great raw experience I've been having with others I care about. I'll let you know when it gets closer to deciding. Well, that's if for today. Have a great night, and a super terrific Monday!!!

My daily raw, Thanksgiving, and more

In case I didn't tell you already, I took time to make several raw dishes to take to my mother-in-law's house for Thanksgiving. I made a rendition of raw stuffing from a recipe I got off the http://www.goneraw.com/ site, as well as a raw mash potato dish which I included yams and parsnips for the potatoes. It was very yummy. I also made pumpkin spice cookies that I got from another recipe from one of my raw Google emails. As well as raw butter, and raw pumpkin pie (both recipes from http://www.goneraw.com/). I love that recipe site. It's grrrrrrrrrrrreat! Oh, and on my own, I dehydrated several slices of persimmons...very tasty!

I don't even need to list what I ate for Thanksgiving dinner...the first paragraph of this blog says it all. However, to add to the daily list, I did have a berry protein shake, 2 vegan raw bars, green feast juice, and several dates, and lots and lots of water.

Thanksgiving turned out to be very nice and relaxed. I was truly happy to see that most of the family and friends were willing to taste the raw entrees. It's funny too, cause' I actually made a S.A.D. dish, green bean casserole, per my mother-in-law's request. She placed it in the oven, and forgot about it until cleanup. No one missed, and no one ate it. Oh well, just as well...

The kids loved the pumpkin spice cookies the best, and the adults truly enjoyed the raw stuffing the best. I thought for sure, they would enjoy the raw pumpkin pie the best, like my coworkers did. They did enjoy the pie, but there was plenty of SAD pies to really take the lead on the desserts.

Oh, I forgot, I also made mango, papaya, pineapple pudding - which I forgot to bring with me. That's okay though, I did have a small bowl of it yesterday too. My son basically ate the rest!

I plan to take samples of all my dishes from the holiday to my girlfriend's house tomorrow. I hope she enjoys it too. I know she's looking forward to it.

Friday, yesterday, I had a 16oz raw protein shake, and a vegan bar early morning. I went grocery shopping, and then went to Michael's to pick up some Christmas ornament craft stuff. My son and I always make a few new tree decorations every year. It's kind of a tradition for us, even though we have more than enough tree decorations. I also stopped by Target, since I thought I might just take advantage of the "black Friday" holiday shopping sales...that was a mistake. The early a.m. crowd was still there around noon. So I just went home and hung out with my son. Later on I took him to upgrade his saxophone. They were having such a great deal for music students to upgrade their leased-to-own instruments, we couldn't pass it up. It's definitely a beauty, and my son plays so beautifully!

In addition to the Friday shake and raw bar, I had a glass of green juice feast, about 7 dates, the mango pudding I mentioned earlier, and another vegan bar. Oh, I also ate an apple, and a couple of pumpkin spice cookies with raw butter. I wasn't as hungry as usual. So, that's what I ate.

Today we put up most of our Christmas decorations, and my son did most of the work, including setting up our 7ft tall tree. He was a very big help to me today, since I have had a lot of problems with my back these days.

Today, on the other hand, I made a super berry protein shake, green feast juice, vegan raw bar, several pumpkin spice cookies with raw butter, persimmons, 6 dates, and a big veggie salad. And the evening isn't over yet. More to come...maybe.

Well, that's it for now. Have a great evening, and I'll write more real soon! Keep it fresh, and keep it raw! LOL...bye!

What Led Me To Raw (my personal story)

The first time I ever considered vegetarianism was in 1984, when I read the book, Diet for a Small Planet. It really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I became so enthralled by the information that I began researching more on the topics that it covered. I purchased various vegetarian cookbooks, joined PETA, and subscribed to Vegetarian Times. This commitment lasted for a little over a year.

It stopped when my mother became deathly ill, and I made the change to help her and my little sister. Being that I was the cook of the house, I had to shop for the groceries, as well as cook the meals. I could not force my two family members to eat the way I was. So, I was forced to cook basically three separate meals every night, as well as prepare three different meals for breakfast and two different meals for lunch (since my sister was in school and purchasing lunch at the time). It became very difficult, stressful, and expensive. So, I chose to give in, to make it easier on myself (so I thought). It wasn’t too hard for me to go back to my old ways, since I was still hooked on my number one addiction to chocolate and coffee (and all the refined sugar that comes with that).One thing led to another, and I was back to the SAD (Standard American Diet) way of eating.

Once I felt my mother was in a better position of independence, I chose to move out again. At this time, although I was still living the SAD life, I did not have the need to eat as much meat, and was comfortable with eating a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit. But I was still on chocolate and coffee.

Things changed again when I met my husband, in 1992. He was always used to being a “meat and potatoes” man. So I adjusted my diet to make it easier on me when grocery shopping and cooking. Not the smartest thing, since I ended up gaining more weight. I did exercise, but without the true dieting, I only stocked up, and firmed up – not slim down. Then I got pregnant with my son. I was super healthy while I carried him. I took very good care of myself and my body. Except, I was still hooked on the chocolate – but I gave up the coffee. Since I was still consuming a “very” SAD meal for “two”, I bulked up even more. Fortunately, in 1993, when my son was born, I immediately lost a good amount of weight. However, I was still quite heavy.

Because my son was a big baby at birth, I was forced to have a cesarean. I began to have chronic problems with my bladder, urethra, and stomach. This was only exasperated by my SAD way of life. I began trying all kinds of herbs, supplements, fad health diets, medicines, and so forth, to help me find relief, and still lose weight. I would occasionally get some results, but nothing substantial. As the years went by nothing changed, and the extra weight became permanent. I then developed spastic bladder, and colon. I had chronic signs of fatigue and swollen stomach, chronic constipation, teeth problems, joint pain and other ailments that would continuously haunt me until now.

Around the year 2000, my husband was diagnosed with High Cholesterol. Since he already suffered with hereditary High Blood Pressure, we had to take the situation very seriously, and reconsider our SAD way of life. So, we began researching on diet changes, and began to incorporate juicing, lower fat foods, organics, low sodium, and overall healthy eating into our every day life. To this day we still eat this way. Don’t get me wrong, we do have the occasional super SAD breakdown! In fact, with all this good eating, I personally was still stuck on coffee and chocolate. Specifically Starbuck’s coffee! So, I still suffered from a lot of my ailments, because I still hadn’t quite taken full control of my health.

Being the big cookbook collector that I am, in 2003 I purchased a cookbook (or should I say, “uncooked cookbook”), by Juliano, entitled “RAW”… “the uncook book”. What really appealed to me were the beautiful photographs of all the fresh and wonderful raw recipes that the book had to offer. Although I read a few chapters, I never really paid attention to what it was truly offering me in the way of health and well being. So, the book just sat on the book shelf with all my other beautiful cookbooks I collected.

I didn’t give much thought to the “raw” diet until about three months ago. What started me on this path actually was because of my interest in Stevia. In October 2006, I left my six and a half year tenor with the semi conductor industry, and joined the natural food industry, by taking a job with Wisdom Natural Brands, the makers of SweetLeaf Stevia. This opened a whole new world for me in many ways. It was an opportunity to learn about natural products, specifically Stevia.

Right before I started working at Wisdom, I was suffering from chronic back pain due to a childhood injury. Over the years the injury had worsen due to weight, aging, and so forth. I had to take strong pain medication daily, just to take the edge off. I was actually scheduled to have back surgery, but backed out at the last minute and chose to have epidural injections – which I only received one of. At the time I started Wisdom, they had a chiropractor that came once a week, and a massage therapist who came twice a month. I took advantage of this benefit, and found myself hooked on holistic healing. That’s right, this saved me. Within a few months, I no longer needed pain medication on a daily basis. In fact, I have been able to go as long as 3 months without pain medication. I have learned to work through my pain through proper exercises, as well as the use of the chiropractic visits, and massage therapy. I have truly been thankful for this. The only thing left was to figure out how to rid myself of all the other chronic health issues I was suffering from.

One of my co-workers became interested in helping me help myself. She had her own line of health products that she distributed on the side, and she was studying to be a nutritionist. She performed a hair analysis of my hair, which produced a lot of quality information. She helped me figure out what things I needed to change in my diet. At the time I was still hooked on coffee and chocolate. She told me I needed to find some way to get myself off the coffee and sugar to help recover. So, I started experimenting with Stevia, and created my own “sweets”, made with carob, or organic cocoa, and Stevia. No chocolate or coffee drenched in refine sugars. I had a few successful attempts, which led me to research on how to make the perfect health cookie. I learned about over heating food – or burning if you will, which made me create an 80% raw carob cookie, with Stevia. Another co-worker introduced me to Agave Nectar. The next thing I knew, I was researching raw sweets, and how to make them. That’s when I discovered www.goneraw.com – the greatest site of raw recipes I found to date. From that, I decided to look at the bookstore for books on raw diets. I discovered Carol Alt’s second book, The Raw 50. Next thing I know I’m making the transition to the raw lifestyle, and saying goodbye to the SAD way of life.

So here I am, raw since August 14, 2007. Since I’ve started this journey, I spend many nights and lunch times reading everything I can about raw food, and living a raw and healthy lifestyle. I have been inspired by so many in the raw food community. Especially persons such as Angela Stokes, Karen Knowler, David Wolfe, Heidi and Matt Ohlunder, to name just a few. My goal now is to stay on track with this way of life, and to help others find their way out of the SAD life, just as I have, for optimal health and well being.

I created a website called The Raw-Riffic Food Site, http://www.rawrifficfood.com to share as a resource for those cyber-surfers who want to learn more about raw, and want to know where they can find more information on the subject. I hope that through my story and my site, that you have a spark of interest in the raw food way of life, and that you too begin a raw journey of your own that you can share.