it's amazing how quickly the body bounces back
So yesterday morning I decided to reward myself if I was successfully, unwaveringly raw yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Sunday is TBD. Anyway, I was raw yesterday. I posted the beginning of the day foods, and here's the rest:

2 apples, honey, cinnamon, flax
grapefruit
cashews, raisins
romaine. straight!
(2x) apple, cinnamon, honey
banana + honey + carob
celery + raw dip (garlic, olive oil, vinegar (raw), sea salt, parsley, raw tahini)
banana "shake": 1 frozen banana, 1 normal banana, salt, vanilla, glob o' honey, carob, cacao beans

later last night i had some tea. i think i'll start my day that way.

but my point is this: after just one day of raw, i woke up this morning with the world's worst breath. and why? detox happens normally when you sleep, and i had a massive one after a day of raw! i'm glad for it, except i could really go for that clean-mouth feeling again. only for about 5 minutes after i brushed did i feel clean. yech.

now, i know that the tea and the yogurt aren't raw. well, the yogurt i ok'd since it's organic and it was already here. plus i eat about 3 oz a day. (half of a stonyfield farm little cup.) but anyway, that was the deal i made with myself.

today is the second day. and happily, i've got day 1 to build on. but darn it! tonight is enchilada night. man, better fire up the grapefruit! they're my only weapon against food cravings!

will this alien in my stomach jump out already!
Oy. So yesterday I ate some more stuff, and not all of it was too great for me:

Around 4pm: more tea, organic blue corn chips. bad idea jeans.

5pm: more almond butter, honey, carob, plus raisins
630pm: apple, cinnamon, yogurt, honey
7pm: more corn chips. by this time my stomach was hurting, yet i craved more food!
8pm: grapefruit, cashews

then at about 9 I had to go out to the store and there was a nasty pull toward the ice cream aisle. Why am I so drawn to it?? Anyway, I resisted. And I resisted the candy at the checkout lane, too. Good Nim. But man, that was hard!

My stomach is still not settled, but I'm sure if I'm raw today it'll feel better. It was either the chips or the cashews that did it to me.

Hm. I should probably eat some greens at some point. Guess I'll tackle the celery and romaine in the fridge.

the honor system's horrible failings
well, at least _i_ fail at it when the only person involved is me. so now, it's food log time! out in the wide world for any to see, if anyone ever should read this blog. if not, fine, but it still _feels_ public enough to keep me honest. so here goes.

8am: apple, honey, ground flax, yogurt
9:30: cashews
11: ginseng tea
12:30 grapefruit
2pm: almond butter, carob, honey

working backwards to a better diet
well, once again i am struggling with being 100% raw. i know how great it feels to be all raw. i know how crappy i feel when i "break" that 100% and eat cooked. yet it has still been difficult to go back to raw.

however! i am doing just that. i have been keeping my food journal off-line, just because it's easier, really. but maybe a little because i'm still not 100% every day.

i think the key for me was to make a raw dessert and raw snacks. there's a huge jar (probably a gallon jar) of raw granola upstairs. then there was the pie i made for mother's day. and the jicama "french fries" that are fun to snack on. plus the papaya is easy snacking now that it's cut up. i'll probably dry some today.

obviously it's just helpful to have raw snacks on hand. why i couldn't see that before... ?

already i have more energy
Maybe it's the full moon, but I woke up at 5:20 this morning -- and I went to bed at my normal post-10pm time. I tried to go back to sleep for an hour, but finally got up at 6:15 and went for a walk. I thought I'd be able to see the comets, but it was already too bright. Maybe tomorrow morning, then.

My goals for this week are to walk the remaining 2 days (it was actually 3, but I walked this morning already, so only 2 remain), stay raw through Saturday, and get back to brushing and flossing 2x a day.

I think I'll have to go get some produce tonight. I'm down to a 4 grapefruit, 2 oranges, 2 pears, celery, carrots, and some lettuce. I suppose I can make it another day, but tonight is my "free" night. And by that I mean only 15 things to do! Mainly I just need to get some apples so I can make apple chips for Saturday's tournament. I'll also start soaking rye today to make rye crackers. Hm. I might toss some buckwheat toast together, too, come to think of it.

Well, looks like I have more food than I thought. Oh, there's that jicama I got, too. I suppose worst-case scenario is that I water fast one day until I go shopping! :)

body fat is poison
That sounds pretty radical, but I'm starting to believe it. Think about it: if the body can't process something -- doesn't have the time or the food is just plain crap -- it tries to get rid of it or store it. To get rid of it, either our skin breaks out or we vomit or it gets packed into the colon on its way out. Or maybe it makes it out!! If the body doesn't have time to fully digest something, we don't get full nutrition from it. If its excess, fat gets stored. Now, the tricky part is that the more fat gets packed away, the more stored, shelved stuff we have sitting around. Just sitting there! That tissue never gets used, and the body continues to work around it, using more and more energy to simply propel the body around in a normal day, or just to breathe and beat a heart! Anyway, that stuff sitting around has to go bad at some point, just like stored food. I mean, even canned food goes bad at some point, or it's so packed in preservatives that it's useless anyway. That's how I'm looking at body fat. It has a shelf life. The body has a great system of storing during feast times so that in case of famine times, it's ready. But humans don't have much famine time anymore.

So that's my rant.

But here's my rave: one good food choice in the bank! (rather than fixating on the 154 bad choices made this weekend) I walked right by the danish-like apple turnover thingies in the kitchen this morning. I thought, if I really want sweet apple goo, I can make my own from raw sources. In fact, I should make some apple pie slices now, just so I have something to snack on later. That'll make two good food choices, thereby doubling my record!

all right. that's IT!!
I feel like utter crap today. I have been eating toast and toast and toast lately, chased by some chocolate-covered ROASTED nuts. What was I thinking? Good choices? um, no. So this is the line in the sand. Again. And I'll draw this line a million times over until I get it right.

I don't want to feel like I got run over each morning as I stumble out of bed. I don't want to feel mean-spirited and depressed. I want the old me back. The raw me. I can't stand how awful I feel, especially knowing that I did this to myself!

Happily, there are enough raw foods in the house still, on account of my not eating them to begin with!, that I can eat today and go shopping tomorrow. Yikes, I can't belive how bad I let this get!! It ends here. May will be 100% and no cheating. Just 31 days. That's all I'm asking myself for. I can do that. I will do that. Come on Nim! You know you're better for it!

what gives??
fact: finished off ice cream
fact: felt no remorse
fact: finished off raisin bread
fact: WTF??

well, this has been a red-letter week. i'll need to go back through my journals to see where exactly i fell off the wagon first. it sure has been tough staying on lately. today i'm water fasting to a) cleanse some crap that i've packed into my body and b) make a clean break with my diet. i need some sort of schism between good and bad. obviously, this week has been filled with bad foods. just plain yuk.

so once more into the breach, dear friends.

you can tell what i eat by when i (fail to) post
saturday was fine. i took my food with me for an away-game, all day, and no surprise i was raw.

sunday, not so much. burrito with fakey 7-layer dip. why oh why? monday, even worse. i kept eating chocolates from the candy dish (i _must_ get out of this house!) which led to going hog-wild with ice cream and oh-my-gosh magic shell. oh, and m&m's i found in the freezer. wow. oh, but wait. i topped it off with an evening of sauteed veggies, mushrooms topped with stove-top stuffing (wha??), and then more fakey burritos. oh, yes. and cookies.

in fact, i ate more of those cookies for breakfast, telling myself i had to get them out of the way.

i LOVE these mind games i play on myself. and just as i fell asleep AND as i woke up i told myself that i could be as fat or thin as i want. i have that power within me. and boy do i. well, i'm still at the goal weight i have had for years. so that's a plus. but as for the goal weight i set recently, when i realized how much lighter i could and should be... well, that will come.

power, nim, power.

so let's try this again. i have grapefruits and oranges and i plan to eat the heck out of them. maybe i'll mono-meal it today. i've also got avocados that need eatin'. i could snack on grapefruit or oranges, eat avos for lunch, then have more citrus for dinner. luckily i have practice tonight, so at least i won't be grazing all night.

oh, plus i have these incredible muscle pains this morning that i IN NO WAY think are coincidental with my poor eating choices.

so let's try this again, shall we?

Still raw, yay me. Here's more of what I ate
Joy, still posting about food. That means I'm proud of what I ate and not hiding from the blog. Good Nim!

Yesterday I ended the day with a huge pineapple/mango smoothie. Yuk! It tasted ok, but the mango was under-ripe so it was very very green. Didn't like the way it made my mouth feel. I snacked on cashews and almond milk when I got home later, and my stomach really hurt during practice.

Today so far I've had more almond milk, grapefruit, young coconut, orange, mango, honey with carob, and corn on the cob. Oh, I also snacked on cashews. I got my shipment of truly raw ones, so I've been "trying" those out. Seem to check out just fine, but I honestly note nothing different between them and the ones that are steamed open. Are they easier to eat? I can't tell. One's just way more expensive than the other. I think I'll let cashews be the cooked thing I eat. And cashew butter! Yum!

Ok, so let's see. I've still got carrots, a tomato, the other half of that pineapple, another ear of corn, apple cookies drying, and buckwheat toast drying. I'm plumb out of raisins at this point.

That should get me through the evening ok.