014 - A GREAT start to a healthy lifestyle!

Well, I wasn't able to remain true to my journey but I did discover some valuable information about myself and correcting behaviors. I seem to be under some sort of hypnotic trance when it comes to foods. I am only able to notice this when I do a raw juice and smoothie journey. At other times, I can see how my choices are greatly affected by my habits, moods, and community/environment. Nothing is unobtainable when it comes to increasing your choices toward good health and I will be the first to say, trial and error play a large role in reaching your healthy lifestyle goals.

So I didn't make it this time...so what? Next time I will be armed and dangerous when it comes to beginning my journey once more.So stick around and stay tuned. I will be back :-)

013 - Juice feasting and a different state of mind

It has occurred to me that when I take myself off the regular diet and journey down the road less traveled (drink raw juices and smoothies for a month), I began to feel differently about a lot of things. I go through a period of awakening and feel as if my eyes opened and my field of vision increased beyond what is normal. Today marked my sixth day on a thirty day quest to improve my overall well being through juicing and smoothie feasting. It works wonders. Like taking a wonderful vacation without ever really leaving. After the initial "shock" to my system, I love the way I feel and how I view things and wish to always eat like this. I broke my feast on the weekend to add a dinner meal and immediately noticed how quickly my mind returned to its normal state of being. I am very interested in seeing just how quickly I can return to my new found utopia when the weeks continue. (watch the video here)

012 - Cleansing your gut

Today marks day 6 of 30 on my juice and smoothie feast. I began August 1st and in one day will have completed a full week. I look forward to the post I will right at the end of this month detailing all the experiences I have had during my juice feast 30-day journey. For now, there has been a period of adjustment that I wouldn't want to go through again. The up-side to it all is that I no longer have the urge to cheat and eat my crunchy goodness comfort foods such as potato chips. I only want to succeed on this journey and follow it with an even more purifying quest for balance and harmony.


I have found it to be very peculiar how my mind and body work together. I have been a devout follower of my lower "self" and unknowingly accepted it as my life's guide. Whenever I make a conscious effort to stay true to my raw food lifestyle, there is always this voice that speaks LOUDLY telling me only that my urge to crunch should be satisfied and this voice is supported by brightly colored packages in the grocery isles. The packages are supported by the years and years of television advertisements that helped drill into my mind how "scrup-dilly-ishous" all those sugar sweet treats are and how CRUNCHY those "oh-so-delicious", "you can't eat just one", potato chips are. I believed them wholeheartedly and now the task that lays ahead of me is to dismantle that frame of thought so that a more balanced consciousness is allowed to flow freely through my entire body. With this I am looking forward to a greater ability to present "calm" wherever I go and to eradicate my fears of a less significant existence.

All this,....just because I am on a Juice Fast cleanse!

011-My juice feast makes me want to eat potato chips (lol)

I was searching on the web for a picture of potato chips so that I could write a blog about my 30-day juice feast and how much I would love to eat my all time favorite comfort snack (potato chips). Now I know that the raw food is the best way to eat and it has truly helped me in many, many ways. It's something about potato chips that make me want to munch away and now that I have found this gadget, I may have found the answer to my chip addiction (lol).

I know that the microwave isn't the best way to chow down on chips but what the heck, I am predominately a raw foodist and if and when I get the chance to eat chips, I think this little gadget will be the lesser of the two evils when it comes to a more healthy way to enjoy my favorite snack food.

010 - Revolution in Raw

Sometimes I wonder if keeping such a watchful eye on my diet is even worth the effort. Not that I no longer enjoy eating and living a raw food lifestyle but there are so many factors that affect the actual diet. For example: I believe I am eating raw when I make a "mock" tuna dish but when I find out that the nuts I used to make the raw dish have been processed (i.e. heated or cooked) then I realize that the meal isn't as raw as originally thought. Does this make any sense? I don't want to be misleading nor do I make a practice of lying to myself or others. I have found so many inconsistencies in the raw food diet that I have had to come to a decision. There has to be some sort of method that would allow for the incorporation of foods that come to the consumer via processing or heating to some degree. This has to be allowed without excluding those who use them from the raw food community. I have decided to enjoy the title of raw foodist by allowing approx. 25% of any meal I eat to be other than raw. This will ensure that the things I eat have a majority category of raw food.

So there it is my newest revolution in raw food. Make 75% of everything you eat RAW and that way you don't lose yourself in the minutiae of raw diets.

009-Deprivation “de”motivates

Long lasting dietary changes are more likely to stick if they are done gradually. This is a passage I read in a book I just purchased entitled "The Complete Idiot's guide to Eating Raw (Reinfeld, Rinaldi, and Murray)." I have had the worst past couple of weeks with regard to my newly chosen lifestyle as a raw foodist. When I say "worst" I am referring to the inability to remain true to my raw food life. I have a wholesome desire to be one hundred percent raw and I have the ability to do so. What I am finding out is that no matter what I may think I can accomplish, old habits truly die hard in every sense of the word.

I have been able to go for one hundred days without breaking my pledge to be raw. I have been able to drink pure/whole fruit juice for an entire day (for some, this may seem minuscule). Now that I have declared (insert drum roll here..hahaha) by proclamation of a new year's resolution that I am "A RAW FOODIST" I have had all sorts of obstacles creep up beside me and leave bags of green onion flavored potato chips and chocolate covered raisins at my feet (lol).I have since renamed my new lifestyle to more appropriately describe this journey. I find a deeper meaning in calling myself a "practicing" raw foodist rather than jumping in with both feet.

I believe myself to be on information overload and it's time to purge. One of my issues is the emotional feelings that I have attached to the foods I have eaten over the years. Some call them comfort foods. I have found that when I desire these foods, and subsequently deprive myself of them, I turn into an over analyzing guru of sorts. Comparing this to that and finding falsehoods in many of the practices I demonstrated in my initial one hundred day raw food and fitness journey. I "purge" this from my system now. I will replace this de-motivating act with positive books to read and discussions with those I feel are honest and trustworthy enough to really listen to my dilemma and offer their sincere thoughts, moral support, and camaraderie.

In the meantime, I feel the need for a "do-over" and I will take this opportunity to accept my own challenge. Check back in a few weeks to see what the future holds.

008-Raw enough for me!

I can't help wondering about all the new relationships I have established since I began my raw food and fitness journey's a few months ago. I wonder if all those who I have gotten to know are still active in their journeys toward a better life and being a better person. I can't help thinking that some have decided to alter their plans or cease altogether. Maybe it wasn't for a negative reason but for reasons I have yet to encounter in my lifestyle as a raw vegan. People demand so much from each other and when those demands aren't met, there's this total meltdown that occurs. A good example of this would be the typical scenario where a veteran of the raw food lifestyle is embraced by a novice and begins to provide the novice with information, guidance, and access to an array of food products to help them along the way. Then the novice decides they are better off adjusting their old habits toward healthier ones instead of following the suggestions of the veteran. It all falls apart when the veteran can no longer sell products to the novice and thus announces that the novice is no longer on the path of nutritional enlightenment. Why does that scenario have to turn out like that? Is it common for the nutrition Guru's to be so strict and unyielding that they push away those who have decided on their own parameters of raw-ness?? Who has bestowed upon them the right to make these judgments and who do these judgments serve?? If you have experienced anything remotely close to this type of situation, please find answers to the questions I have posed and decide for yourself and by yourself if the way you DO RAW is indeed Raw Enough For You!

For me, there are many areas of my level of rawness that I am still in the process of tweaking. I would like to reduce my carbon footprint in as much as is humanly possible and the structure of the raw food lifestyle doesn't support this because most of the items I require for food prep, meal planning, and recipe sharing require me to order from a location that is far outside of my local area. This means distribution which means trucks traveling across the country burning fossil fuels. So that by the time the product I have ordered arrives at my door step, it has endured just as much horror as the grocery's at your local market.

So what's the deal with the various descriptions and levels of being a Raw Vegan? It's an individual question with various individual answers and there are those who feel that if you aren't doing raw the way THEY do raw then you aren't doing it right. I say forget what anyone else thinks you should do with your raw food. Concentrate on YOU and if you should happen to have a conversations with these "raw food Guru's" then just tell them....

"The way I have chosen to do RawFood, is RAW ENOUGH FOR ME!"