more foods i've eaten
breakfast: 2 apples with a handful of raisins, some honey, agave nectar, and cinnamon

snack: orange, pear

lunch: young coconut, "cheese crackers" made with bell peppers, pistachios with cacao and some agave

snack: handful of walnuts, raisins

i've got avocado "fries" drying right now, with buckwheat sprouting, almonds soaking, yams marinating in nama shoyu, and later some sunflower seeds to soak, also. the fries i'll either have tonight or tomorrow, and later tonight i'll make almond milk, then use the paste in some granola (with the sunflower seeds, some raisins, apples, and maybe some pistachios or brazil nuts). hopefully those yam chips will last until the weekend so i can travel with them -- and the granola, too.

tonight i still have a pineapple and mango to eat yet, so maybe i'll make a smoothie with them. i've also got that young coconut milk (wow!) i if i am hungry tonight after practice.

yay, raw again. food log!
Yippee for me, I made it yesterday completely raw. Praise be to the bell-pepper "cheese crackers". They kept that cheese craving at bay.

So I'm trying to look back at what I ate yesterday..
apple pie chips
"cheese" crackers (bell pepper)
guacamole w/ corn, celery to scoop
salad with spinach, corn, sunflower seeds, walnuts, and green goddess (parsley/garlic/tahnini) dressing
pear
mango (ahhhh, mango)
banana/young coconut water/mesquite pwdr/carob/cacao shake
cacao + honey (lots of this!)
cacao + banana 2x
almonds

hmm, that's all i can think of right now. as for today, i've got all my food laid out on the counter so i can just grab it if i feel munchy.

i already feel so much better (emotionally) knowing i'm back to raw. it's such an amazing trance you get into, grazing for cooked foods, staring into the fridge, taking "just a forkful" of whatever is warm on the stove. it's amazing. there is so little thought involved. and so much salt!

actually, i found i kept cravings at bay yesterday in two ways: 1 big cup of tea and fairly salty guacamole and "cheese" crackers. it is definitely the salt in cooked foods that makes me crave it. the overly salty and the overly sweet. i use a lot of honey and agave when i transition back. yesterday i started soaking raisins, just for the soak water and so i wouldn't deplete all my agave so fast!!

did i say ONLY living food? i meant MAINLY living food...
Sheesh, I'm really sucking at sticking to what I know works lately!! I've gotten back to 'grazing' and emotional eating these past few days, and I'm positive it's because of the cooked-food floodgates I opened over the weekend. I grazed on cheese last night, of all things, and then ate chocolates until the moment I decided to brush my teeth and go to sleep. Silly, silly Nim.

Today it ends.

I am going back to my raw/living foods completely -- again. I mean, I feel great while I'm doing it, my stomach stops being so bloated (it's amazing how easily I can tell now!), and I just feel better. Why don't I eat raw always? No clue, man. No clue.

So I made some 'cheese crackers' yesterday, which really do taste cheesy and should do nicely to curb my cheese crave today, and right now I've got apple pie chips drying. Those are great little snackers. I'll probably make more of the cheese crackers later on, although I'm out of the cashews that go in them. Maybe I'll try pine nuts or pistachios instead. Who knows how that'll turn out?

I've also got my beloved mangos upstairs, which -- go figure! -- I haven't eaten at all lately what with the cooked food invasion. My poor, rejected mangos! Mmm, maybe I'll make a shake with mango/banana. Wish I had some papaya, too, but that'll still be nice all the same. Yum! I've even got pineapple to put in it. What a great tropical treat!

Ok, there's nothing like spring-boarding back into something you know works, but is hard to start. That's the story of me, though. Plans, plans, plans, but no start date. Ok, I've had SOME start dates, and when I finally do start up, it's great and I feel wonderful -- not just on this diet but on any projects I put off starting until the last moment. Well, I know this is going to be great and I just need to do it, period.

So there.

Shall I curse again the evils of chocolate?
Curses!! Well, I find myself still snitching chocolates, but I'm done eating most of the bad cooked foods. Wait, that was redundant. Anyway, today I'm trying to keep it to just evil chocolate and raw foods. Yesterday it really helped when I had some tea during a particularly frantic bout of cravings. Oh, joy. Strike up the band: I fought off one craving. Of millions. Woo. Well, better than zero, I suppose. And ok, there have been other cravings I've battled. I just can't "see" them right now since I'm rather happily beating myself up over this.

Done. I'll eat chocolate today and not beat myself up. Given and given.

Tomorrow. NO chocolate. Raw only. Let's set some expectations here, Nimsy.

Alrighty. Fine. There ya go.

I feel rancid!!
Le yuk. Well, once again the siren song of cooked food has called me to it. I thought I was so well-prepared for it, too! I made 2 raw pies, raw "toast", raw breadsticks, raw cookies, some incredible apple chips, yam chips, ... but in the end, that yeasty bread my husband made called me in. And boy am I paying for it!!

Here's the breakdown of my breakdown:
2 weeks ago - decided to eat cooked but organic cookies on Easter sunday.
1 week ago - made huge raw menu for Easter Sunday to stem my temptations
Friday 9 - began making raw stuff, water fasted
Saturday 10 - began eating raw stuff to taste-test
Sunday 11 - started out with "just one" gigantic m&m (robin's egg?). avalanche. many m&m's later, tried delicious yeast bread. many slices later, ate organic animal crackers intended for husband's lunch this week. got act together.
Sunday afternoon - lunch feast with family. raw corn, raw breadstick, more bread and this time with fake margarine, the heart-health kind. 100% chemical.
Sunday, 4pm - unable to move. motor functions shutting down to facilitate herculean task of digestion. stomach actually feels distended.
Sunday, 6pm - walked around to watch egg hunt. movement is good. Brain activity returning.
Sunday, 7pm - unbelievably sat down to dinner, consisting of raw pies. Also snitched fingersful of frosting-from-a-can adorning the fake-coconut bunny cake.
Sunday, 10pm - tried to sleep, despite incredible stomach and intestinal ache.
Monday morning - still in pain. Literal pain. No hunger whatsoever. Pain over-rides urge to fill stomach ever again.

And that's pretty much where I am now. Vowing I will never succumb to cooked foods like that. If I give myself an "out" fine. Take it, but just take IT, not all the other foods within a few miles' radius! Ah, self-control. Wither hast thou gone? Wait, I never had it. Well, once again, this is why the strict rules must apply to self. I'm a whole-hog type of person. And yesterday I filled that role to its literal depths. Ewwwwwwwww. So gross today.

water fasting today
... and a good thing, too. Last night I stuffed and stuffed and stuffed my face when I got home after 9pm. Granted, it was all raw (yay!) and most of it was juice, but still and once again, overeating is overeating.

But I've figured out why most nights this week I've woken up in the middle of the night, sweating profusely. Last night I had a very active dream, running from someone and fighting (no thanks to the adventure book I'm reading). But why the active dreams, Nim? The link on all the nights has been cacao before bed. No doubt in my mind at all. So that's easy enough to test for! Tonight after a day of fasting, I should sleep straight through, even though I'll read my book before bed. Tomorrow, I'll not eat cacao after a certain time, say 6pm or so, and see if I still don't have the dreams and sweats. And then maybe one night I'll have cacao at 8 or 9 and see what happens. :)

Water fasting one day a week is so easy! Ok, ok, it's only 3:30 and I still have to shop for the weekend feasting, but I figure I've only got to really suffer through another 6 hours or so, then I can sleep!

something's up. and i'll get to the bottom of it. at some point.
ok, so yesterday i had the soy dream. and the raweos (not that great, i might add, yet i could not stop eating them) AND about 15 burritos. yes, burritos. i wasn't hungry AT ALL for them. in fact, i'd just had some excellent mushroom pizzas i'd been looking forward to for almost a week. so why did i eat the burritos? well, i think the yogurt/cheese theory is sound. i think the eating of the yogurt, and perhaps the cheese, too, triggered some massive cravings. obviously they were cravings, not needs since i was STUFFED with all sorts of good raw foods. nonetheless, there i was. eating and eating. refried beans, cheese, and from-the-store flour tortillas. not a great thing to do to oneself, even if eating a cooked diet.

ok, so today i've had no yogurt and no cheese. i'll see if that kicks the cravings.

i had carob and cacao earlier, with lots of sweet in it (my agave came in the mail with the carob!!) and this massive salad, too. lots of good yums in there. i also finished off the almond milk by trying some carob/cacao milk. not bad at all. i just have to figure out how to powder the cacao better. i bet drying it will help.

now i'm still jonesing for cooked, but this time my sights were set on the real, cow's-milk, refined sugar ice cream in the freezer. i've resisted so far, and the article i read earlier on mad cow disease has helped, but i was literally wandering in the kitchen. and it's not all that big. so what to do? juice!

now i'm enjoying a lovely orange/yam/pear juice, my favorite. i already feel full, and i'm only about a third of the way into it. go volume! i also have a big glass of water standing by. i've had plenty today, but mr. brain's just not getting the "full" message. he didn't get it last night, either. stupid brain.

tomorrow i'd already planned to water fast, so that might help there, but sunday is bolloxed. i had already planned on having some organic chocolate cookies and other treats in my easter basket. however, it's not too late to give those to hubby and make my own treats. i'd planned on making a raw apple pie and a pear torte anyway. all i need is a few apricots for some candies. well, we'll see.

anyway, this is clearly mental or emotional eating. or both. in either case, there are some things i can do to combat them. and i will do them, dadgummit! i mean, i can't expect myself to be perfect all the time. far from it. but a blowout every day, to this extent? it's gastronomical suicide!

avoiding the blog: more mind games!
Ok, ok, I admit it. I've been avoiding the blog because I haven't been eating 100% raw. Why? I STILL cannot answer that question with a good reason. My current theory is the yogurt and cheeses I've been eating. A lot of raw fooders say that eating even a little cooked foods makes it tough to kick cravings. Well, that's certainly ringing true. Plus there's the saltiness of cheese, which makes me munchy for bad things. Usually my granola and grapefruits have come to the rescue, but not always. I just downed some soy dream, as the frozen dee-serts have always been my downfall.

Well, anyway, the point of eating raw is not to beat myself up when I don't eat fully raw. I know I feel great when I am 100% and I question why I would ever want anything other than raw, but the answer -- at least a good answer -- to that question eludes me.

So let's see if I can recap: aside from my raw goat and sheep milk cheeses, and of course the yogurt, I have indeed been raw. Not too bad, I'd say. Over the weekend I made granola and almond milk, which I love dearly for breakfast.

I was sick Monday -- cruddy way to spend a sick day, being sick!! But aside from GI troubles and extreme exhaustion, nothing major really happened. I had an appetite later that evening (when I finally got out of bed) and the next day I felt fine. I think I was just worn out from 18 hours of coaching on Sunday, and I might have misinterpreted the loose bowels as bad instead of the cleansing that it most likely was. Anyway, I'm super regular now, which I won't ever complain about. Ok, well, no one likes extra potty trips while camping, but other than that...

So that's my story. Now I'm clean and honest again. Maybe I can face the blog once more. Oh, I decided that for Easter I'd eat chocolate, but organic only. Yes, the soy dream was supposed to be for Sunday and here it is only Wednesday and it's gone. The story of Nim.

FedEx just came; maybe it's a raw food order for me!!

About me: not food for once
I added a page to my home (nimango.tripod.com) that's about me when I don't think of food. My whole tripod site was supposed to be food-centered, but perhaps I should consider it more holistically. Anyway, it's there in skeleton-like detail.

Now I shall snack upon grapefruit. And all shall be yummy.

over-eating and other mind games
It's funny, but it seems that every time I go back to raw (and since May 03, that's been a lot of re-firsts) I eat non-stop the first 2 or 3 days. Actually, that's only one thing that happens without fail. The other is that my family will either a) bring home pizza as a surprise or b) gather together in some form of feasting celebration. Or both.

Anyway, yesterday it was pizza, and I did resist its siren call. Go me. But I ate cheese like it was my last refuge. I think it was the salt. I need to realize what it is my body wants, and I think yesterday it was water. As I was on the treadmill later that night, I started getting thirsty and what popped into my mind but cheese!! I kept thinking of where I could "score" my next batch of goat cheese. This time was only sheep, which was nice -- and I'll take raw cheese if it's milked from a baboon -- but I really like goat cheeses much better. Anyway, that was odd, but it clearly pointed out that I was thirsty and had given my body a nice little association between thirst and cheese. Joy.

Anyway, the cheese is gone and I need to eat more simply. Actually, I need to eat more structured. I just kept snacking all day yesterday. I mean, give your digestion a break, Nim! So today I'll fill the snacking urge with water and tea (which I should do anyway) and have a grapefruit snack at an appropriate snacking time. Plus I was bored yesterday, so yippee for eating just to do something. Yet again, all the good that fasting did for me, gone in a flourish of mindless cooked-food eating this weekend.

Ok, so that's that. Moving on. I'll make lists upon lists to fill my time, plan some meals, and maybe even do something productive to boot.

Oh, and on one other note, I'm super phlegmy today (and last night) and there is not a single doubt in my mind that it was the cow's cheese I ate. I didn't get a lot of mucous when I had goat and sheep cheeses this weekend, even with my cold. And when I was a kid, I drank goat's milk instead of cow's because of the homogenization process cow's had to go through. Something during that process set me off, and since goat's and sheep's milks have smaller fat globules, they don't separate like cow's does. I'm the freaking Scooby Doo of mucous now. Great.