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.

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.