Tweaking the Raw Food Lifestyle

I've been eating raw for a week now and it's going ok. No real hard cravings or temptations to speak of so far. I've lost 8 lbs which I'm sure is water weight but nonetheless exciting. However, I'm having a big problem getting enough calories. My problem is I just can't force myself to eat too much of the fatty foods that a lot of the other raw foodies love. Things like avocados, oils, nuts, etc. I do use a little oil in my dressings but I'm just having a problem eating all these fatty substances even though their good fats. To me fat is fat. So consequently, I'm just not getting enough calories from my veggies and fruits. I think this is going to give me problems with all sorts of things like muscle loss, fatigue, etc.

The other problem I'm having is that it seems it's taking quite a bit of my time to prep food. One of the things that appealed to me about this lifestyle was I figured eating raw would be quicker. Well it hasn't quite materialized for me. Even something as simple as a salad seems like it's taking too long for my lazy butt. And looking around at some of the recipes, it looks like I might need to commit a some part of my weekends for food prepping for the week with things that need dehydrated. Now I know you don't have to do this but most of the things that appealed to me require some of this.

So I started looking around and found the low fat raw vegan lifestyle or the 80/10/10 diet. The premise is that 80% of your daily food comes from carbs, 10% from fat, 10% from protein. This means that you are mainly eating lots of fresh sweet fruit with one big salad a day. This really seems to make more sense to me than a high fat raw plan. Plus it seems easier for work to take a big bag of fruit rather than making a salad or something else first thing in the morning. So I'm going to give it a shot. Now it's not all roses. One of the biggest concerns I have is the large quantity of food some people eat on this like 10 bananas or 20 oranges in a sitting. That just seems insane to me and I'm a buffet man! So it's going to take some adjust on my belly's part. Also, this could get pretty costly if in fact you do consume that much fruit. Only time will tell but I can wrap my head around the concepts more.

Weekend Wrapup and a New 100 Day Challenge

The weekend went pretty well considering I was out of town at my brother's house for most of it. I didn't cheat or anything but I don't think I actually ate enough this weekend. If I had to guess I would say Saturday and Sunday were 1200 calorie days. I don't mind losing the weight but I think I just need to eat more in general. Overall, I'm feeling pretty good so far after 5 days and only had a few cravings and temptations. None of which I have acted on which is good especially considering I went to the fair this weekend.

My new spiralizer should be in on UPS today so I'm looking forward to playing around with it to get some variety. I'm also starting a 100 WholeFu Challenge on www.rawfu.com today. I think this will help me keep on track and hopefully set some good lifetime habits while meeting some new people, learning new tips, and just getting some support as I start this. I weighed in to start this challenge at 275.2 which means I've already lost 6.4 lbs. I'm sure most of it was water weight as I've cut out a lot of the sodium I was consuming but it feels good none the less. My goal is to be down to 245 by the end of the 100 days.

Day 2

Here is what I had for day 2:

Breakfast
Green Smoothie (Spinach & 1 1/2 apples)

Lunch
Leftover salad and dressing from the night before.

Snack
30 Bing Cherries

Supper
20 Cherry Tomatoes

Snack
20-30 Grapes

Overall I didn't eat as much today, mainly because I wasn't hungry and because I was busy driving around in the evening and by the time I got home it as an hour or two before bed so I just had some grapes and called it a day.

A few things to note. The spinach in the smoothie was surprising. I never even tasted it so that's a good way to get extra greens. Also mid morning I was really wired. Not sure if that was just from my energy level increasing or the smoothie.

I also went to my local health food store which is a small store compared to what some people have in there town but it's nice to have it anyways. I picked up some raw bars to help me this weekend while I'm at my brother's house. They are also having an one hour class on "live foods" at the end of this month. I'm going to have to check that out.

2 days down and a lifetime to go. One day at a time.

Day 1

So yesterday was day 1 and it went ok. I started the day off with a fruit smoothie made from 2 bananas and 8 strawberries and I ate a banana with it as well. I had a midmorning snack of 20-30 bing cherries as well. For lunch I had a mango, 2 nectarines, and 3 clemintines. At supper, I made a salad with cucumbers, carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes on green leaf lettuce mixed with spinach and endive. For the dressing, I made some out of tomatoes, raw apple vinegar, olive oil, garlic, and pepper. I also had some watermelon and 2 more bananas for snacks throughout the day.

Overall, I didn't feel all that satisfied throughout the day. I would feel kinda full right after I ate but then be hungry an hour or two later. I don't know if this was from changing my eating habits or not eating enough. As far as the food, I really liked the smoothie and all the fruit with the exception on the mango. I really can't pick out ripe mangos apparently. The salad was pretty good except for the endive. I didn't really like the taste of it. I think for now I'm going to eat more regular leaf lettuce and romaine before I start branching out with other greens.

Starting my Raw Foods Journey

I've decided to make some changes in my eating lifestyle. After years of high cholesterol and blood pressure, I decided I needed to do something about it. I've done the SAD (Standard American Diet) several times with no real long lasting success. So I decided to look elsewhere and that's when I came accross the vegan plan. It made sense to me that if you could cut out all the sources of cholesterol it would lower it. In the process of looking at the vegan lifestyle I stumbled accross the raw foods lifestyle. The thought of not having to cook my food kind of appealed to me and the medical side of it made sense as well. So I decided to give it a go and went out and bought a Magic Bullet blender, a juicer, and all sorts of raw veggies and fruits. It should be fun.