FouRAWth Day

Muahahah.

Whew! Aside from any midnight munchies, I have now survived four days of this tRAWial (that's trial for you unenlightened folks). First course: food with some pictures! Second course: beginning raw-elations, or mulling over what I have raw-alized this week.

OK, enough of this silliness. Let's get down to the raw business.

BRUNCH: (In the true sense of the world) 10 AM: Smoothie with spinach, half a plantain, parsley, lemon juice. Threw some raspberries and blackberries into it to make a soup and ate that up.

Drank about two cups of cashew milk because I was still starving, at which point I began to feel very full.

SNACK, 11:30 AM: Banana blended with ice and water at Starbucks. Here's my cup:

The left side says Ice H2O Banana and the right side says Blended. I kept it as a souvenir!

LUNCH ISH, 1 PM: Raw Revolution chocolate coconut bar. How the taste of these so closely resembles crack, I'll never know.

SNACK, 3 PM: Apple and pear devoured about 5 seconds after purchasing them in the organic produce aisle at Safeway.

My arms were killing me in Pilates but my legs, abs, and glutes were doing just fine. There really is something to this increased endurance thing!

DINNER, 5:30 PM: Spinach and banana smoothie with blueberries tossed in, eaten with a celery stick instead of a spoon.

Don't you wish your food looked this beautiful?

REST OF DINNER: Apple with walnuts (and walnuts is merely a euphemism for "RAW CHEESE").

EVENING SNACK, 7:30 PM: Large organic orange, followed by guacamole with orange peppers as dipping implements:

There is twice that amount of guacamole left for tomorrow.

I am still incredibly back and forth about whether I must eat cooked food now or if I can never go back to the pre-raw lifestyle. I'm sure that a lot of this uncertainty comes from the moodiness reported as a side effect of the raw food diet.

THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, HOPES AND DREAMS. 

BENEFITS: 

Vision: As I have mentioned, the clarity of my vision is through the roof. Colors are incredibly vivid, and the clarity is around me and in my mind. I had to stop taking vitamins because I felt like I was getting way too much Vitamin A or something and it was making everything too bright. But with a plant diet like this, who needs vitamins?!

Energy: Today is the second day in a row that I voluntarily did not drink coffee, and I feel great. I have had more endurance when rock climbing or doing pilates, and more energy when running - also due to excitement at how vivid the music sounded. Recovery time for muscle exertion seems to have been halved. 

Mind: On the bus this afternoon, I had some incredible realizations while catching part of the music in someone's headphones, the bus buzzing along, and people's conversations drifting in and out with their shuffling footsteps.  Filling my consciousness with these sounds was enough that I did not need to think; I realized that if I also added aimless thoughts, it would only be because of my antsiness about problems that I could not solve on the bus anyway. If I try to plan out my evening, I realized, I will just think in circles for the remainder of the bus ride, exhausting my brain, then think about it some more when I get off the bus to actually make the decision. I just wanted to sit there and meditate for a long time as a way of relaxing the brain. (Ever since an especially productive yoga class, I have felt like the mind is a muscle. I know that this is wrong, but it is a very useful analogy for the amateur meditator.)

SIDE EFFECTS:

Energy: It is 10 PM, and I am exhausted. I slept in until 10 this morning. Doubtful that I am still catching up on some leftover sleep deficit, more likely that I am burning out on burning all this food or not getting enough to eat even though I feel like I am stuffing myself all the time. (see next 2 points.

Bloating: I feel bloated 90 percent of the time. What's the point of any byproduct weight loss of this diet if you can't enjoy fitting into your jeans anyway?

Cold: Today was actually not that bad, but all the previous days I was absolutely FREEZING! According to Steve Pavlina (possibly my new idol, http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/01/raw-food-diet-day-4/), many raw foodists report a sensitivity to temperature.  Well guess what? It means you are not eating enough, and your body does not have enough calories to keep you warm. 

Yes it can be a great way to drop a few pounds, but that was not my intention, and if I am shivering even when I am continuously stuffing myself, I need a diet that is more dense in calories. This is even with the cashew milk, raw bar, cheese, and avocado that I ate! 

Moodiness: Let's just call this the PMS diet, seriously. In an earlier conversation with my mother, I was expressing what seemed to me some perfectly rational concerns about the fact that my summer internship has not kicked in yet, and her only response was that this is a non-problem and I should eat a sandwich.

Skin: I can handle a few pimples (which are apparently part of the "detox" process), but the bottom half of my face has been incredibly dry and flaky no matter how much I moisturize. 

Hair growth: The hair on my legs has been growing at an amazing rate. I suppose fast hair growth can be viewed as a positive sign that your body is healthy, but this is not exactly what I was looking for.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS:

Price: I am averaging about $15 on produce per day, not including raw nuts, which go anywhere from $10-$15 per pound. Raw bars are 3 bucks a pop, and all the other schmancy goodies like raw cereal are prohibitively expensive on a starving student's budget.

Convenience: I did not realize how long it takes to blend things up. I have not noticed my time spent eating go up because I have devoured everything with the dental dexterity of a starving squirrel, but this did result in some stomach cramps from basically chugging up to several pounds of produce in under 20 minutes. I'm sure that budgeting less than 20 chews per bite of fibrous leafy matter is not optimal for digestion.

BOTTOM LINE: 

I think that my reason to keep going with this would be to see what other gems my brain might throw out, such as the meditation episode on the bus. Also, I would like to go without any caffeine for a while, and I am thinking that I may not have enough energy in the morning to do so unless I am eating all raw. But then again, my energy is so variable on this diet that this is not an actual reason.

While I suppose that some of the effects like dry skin and being cold are an adjustment period, I don't know if I buy the whole idea that your body needs to adjust to something which is supposedly GOOD for it by giving you indicators that something is wrong. 

Anyway, I will pass out (a whole 1.5 hours earlier than yesterday) and be completely whimsical tomorrow morning about whether I start off with a spinach and banana smoothie or some nice fried eggs and hash browns.

In either case, more food for thought (yum yum) to come tomorrow!

Raw-nodushie? Not by a long shot!

So around 2:45 PM today I came dangerously close to calling it quits at the end of today and summarizing what I learned from the raw food diet. I was tired of feeling cold, bloated, and moody all the time, sick of how expensive it was, really wanted a warm plate of rice, and doubted that one more day of suffering would really result in any spectacular raw-velations. (HAHAHA)

Then we had a nice chat in Pilates class which really drew attention to the benefits I have been observing and the weirdly intense ways in which these benefits have been manifesting themselves.

Case in point: I slept in until 10 today, finally catching up on the sleep I have been lacking from about 2 months ago. Is that because I did not drink coffee yesterday or because I am playing rabbit this week? The world may never know.

Anyway, I realized that I don't have any rice at the house anyway, and defrosting toast out of spite to the raw food community is not exactly going out with a bang.

So as of right now, I feel good about finishing out these 5 days and then thinking about ways to integrate raw foods into a longer term plan. I haven't decided if that will entail extending the trial or switching to a partially cooked, but still very wholesome, meal plan. 

Raw-velation!

So, something miraculous happened this morning.

I did not drink coffee.

Or, more precisely, I did not want coffee. OK, let me elaborate. I woke up feeling not all that wonderful, not tired in particular but could tell that a cup of coffee is not what my body wanted to make it feel better.

BREAKFAST, 8 AM: I scarfed (or more like slogged through) a piece of raw chocolate, a banana mushed up with cashew milk and some blueberries, two oranges, and a ginger nori carrot cracker. I felt hungry and cold when I finished but could not think of anything that I would want to put in my stomach without it feeling bloated. I felt like I got enough calories because the cashew milk was pretty dense, and my body was just going crazy from the volume of the fruits. As I sat there I realized that actually, I had a LOT of energy and need to do something to dissipate it, be that fiddling or running around.

So I went for a fabulous run where the colors seemed brighter and my music was more in my ears and ringing more true with all my emotions than ever before. Man, it seems that I was living an overcooked version of myself for my entire life until three days ago.

SNACK, 11 AM: Apple and pear.

LUNCH, 1 PM: I guess you could call it a soup. Blended zucchini, half an avocado, parsley and cilantro, slice of lemon and some lemon ginger juice, put raspberries in it, scooped it up with celery/attempted to make lettuce wraps but gave up because it is just way too messy.

Lettuce wraps are not first date food, let me tell you. Well, unless licking things off from all over your body is your idea of a first date.

Anyway, even with the avocado the meal was not very calorie dense, and I felt bloated yet starving until I ate some pumpkin seeds while walking around.

SNACK, 2 PM: Banana blended with ice at Starbucks. I got so much attention after I said I was trying the raw food diet.

DINNER, 5 PM: Sashimi with seaweed salad and miso soup - my cheat.

I got home and realized that I felt more tired than I had all day. I definitely blame that on the cooked food cheat, while at the same time refusing to believe that we are this.. evolved? to eat raw food?

SNACK, 6 PM: Apple, pear, cacao nibs.

While climbing, I felt like I had much more endurance than I should - an apparent consequence of eating raw or my imagination?

SNACK, 9 PM: Apple and cold processed greens bar.

Foods I missed today: Mexican and beer for the camaraderie, but in terms of taste, COOKED RICE. In a way, I don't see myself continuing raw after 5 days (my goal), but in another way, now that I know that it is possible to FEEL THIS WAY, I don't see how I can ever go back.

I could see myself doing 5 days a week, but maybe the other two days would just defeat the purpose of the detox. I need to look more into this.

I could, conceivably, go raw plus rice and beans (and, oh, the occasional multiple beer.) Would probably need to throw eggs and animal products in there because my body does not do so well without them, and sashimi is NOT financially sustainable.

BOTTOM LINE:  I feel weird at times, but overall amazing and psyched for day 4!

Raw-enous Day 2

Since I bought raw chocolate yesterday, I was able to resume my normal routine of eating a piece of chocolate when I woke up. I was surprised to observe how large the 50 calorie portion was and the virtual lack of sugar, instead a whopping high percentage of fat and saturated fat. Anyway, WHATEVER.

The rest of breakfast: ~8AM? Salad with chickpeas, spinach, onion, celery. OK, so I'm still not sure if the rehydrated garbanzo beans from the bulk food aisle are TECHNICALLY raw, but they are cheaper than almost anything else you can eat on the raw food diet, low in fat and high in protein! They also weren't all the way rehydrated when I ate them but I just crunched away.. I was hungry!

Shortly after I got a stomachache that probably lasted for an hour or so. I attributed this to the half of an onion I cut up into my salad but looking back, I realize it may have been the un-rehydrated chickpeas. Well my next batch is going to soak until it sprouts!

Even though I wasn't hungry, I proceeded to fiddle with the cashews and stick blender to make some raw "milk" for later. It was ridiculously easy: soak cashews for over an hour, add 4 parts water, a dash of sea salt, and sweetener if you like (I used raw honey for the first batch and put in coconut oil instead for the second batch because I felt like it, then mixed them together.) If I told you anything else about the proportions it would go against my notion that cooking is like chemistry on acid, when divine inspiration comes to you to mix things together into an art form that is impossible to duplicate. Anyway, it had a taste and consistency that was well above and beyond anything I could have hoped for.

I drank my "cheat" cup of coffee later on that morning, almost feeling that the caffeine was excessive and only contributed to making me feel jittery. I am thinking about phasing it out (BIG GASP).

At 11:45, I devoured half a mango and an orange on my way to the Mission to grocery shop, suddenly feeling spacy and like everything I was seeing was too vivid. Come to think of it, my vision has been a lot brighter since I started the diet, getting uncomfortably so when I get hungry - but not in a "the-sun-is-too-bright" sort of way.

Halfway through shopping I stopped feeling hungry and was incredibly energized, focused not in a complete way but in that same vivid-vision way that made my movements clear and strong. Afterwards, even though I did not feel my appetite anymore, I had my lunch of avocado, spinach, and carrots. After a bit of walking, I devoured an entire chocolate bar and half a block of cashew kale cheese. This seemed incredibly excessive listening to my stomach whine about being full to capacity, but it was the least spacy I had felt all day, and I chased it all with an apple when I got home.

I felt stuffed to the brim but not particularly satisfied all afternoon. Around 6, I made a smoothie with spinach, zucchini, banana, cayenne, and lemon juice, and had lettuce wraps with green liquid and raspberries. The organic raspberries were crisp and as tasty as they were bright. I scooped the rest of the smoothie up with celery sticks.

Pilates class! Since this also happens to be pilates challenge week. I was absolutely freezing walking over. During class, my nose ran for the first 10 minutes and my face felt really red. I felt like my cold was back. At the end of class, though, I got warm and felt fine.

Another weird thing is that I was upset for no reason during class. It seemed that something about the lighting of the room made me feel depressed, even though I love pilates. Also, I teared up two or three times while finishing up The Giver this morning, but no idea if that can be attributed to diet or the fact that the story is INTENSE! Seriously, reread it. Go.

After pilates, I ate a pear, which only made me hungrier, so I got salmon sashimi with seaweed salad and regular salad. The regular salad had dressing, and eating it made me crave all things non-raw. I could tell that the dressing was not very tasty, but at the same time it was amazing and delicious. I definitely felt full in a too-many-calories sort of way, but an hour or so later it seems to have settled. I felt energized right up to 20 minutes ago. My lowest energy level was probably around 12 PM, about an hour after I had coffee. I am really beginning to think that I can phase out the coffee. Crazy!

When I was getting sushi, I craved rice like no other and wanted to go back to when your food options aren't stupid and few and limited. But all those food options are wonderful and incredible. Already I feel different on many levels, physically cleaner and physiologically more alert. Let's not get into spirituality yet.

I realized that I have to buy all organic produce (unless it has a thick peel) because otherwise I am just front loading my body with pesticides. So I bought up the organic produce aisle at Safeway tonight in preparation for breakfast tomorrow. It wasn't a matter of making healthy choices, I just went for everything that I liked out of the things I could eat. The girl behind me in line was buying chips and ice cream and looked over my items with a slightly guilty expression. I can't say that I crave anything else, but it is only because I have firm reasons not to eat it that have nothing to do with how I look or long term benefits (my reasons are pure curiosity and determination to complete the challenge.)

But at this point, I feel like I am already so in touch with my body that I can never go back to eating any other way. I have magically not chewed any gum because I am doing enough chewing as it is, and gum is clearly not raw - and I can just imagine how my body would flip out if I slipped it something that unnatural.

Cheats: I am not even going to google how un-raw seaweed salad is. Along with coffee/tea, I refuse to give that up. I can bypass hot seaweed in soup, but the cold stuff with olive oil and sesame seeds (whether store-bought or home-made) stays! Also, I really don't care that spices are not raw. I will slash my salt intake dramatically but pepper and cayenne and perhaps other things like tumeric are good for you and fire up your energy.

Bottom line: my moods and energy levels were slightly wacky, I miss rice, I will never give up seaweed salad, but other than that I am pressing on!

No Peanut Butter?!

Today was Day 1 of my more or less spontaneous Raw Food Challenge, to roughly overlap with the 2-week Pilates challenge.

My only cheats were two cups of coffee and some soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. Here's how it went down:

Breakfast: circa 6 AM, up so early to drive Devon to the airport. Salad with spinach, carrot, celery, avocado.

Mid morning snack: micro greens bar and an orange.

Lunch: 11 AM, salad with chickpeas, lettuce, red bell peppers, and other things I devoured in 2 seconds because I was ravenous; apple; cold processed ginger lemon drink.

Random I'm-sleepy snack: 12:30 PM, another granola bar and a couple of ginger carrot nori crackers.

Post-nap snack: 4 PM, orange and tablespoon of raw almond butter.

Pre-climbing I'm starving snack: 5 PM, Raw-volution bar and sliced cantaloupe (only $2 at a market in the Mission!)

Post-climbing snack: 7 PM, apple and plantain.

VERY late dinner:  9:50 PM, salmon and hamachi sashimi with avocado instead of rice.

Final snack: 11 PM, pumpkin seeds, cacao nibs, apple.


So I'm not sure if I was eating all day just because I was out and about or if the nature of the food affects the way you process it.  You get full faster if you are eating a lot of produce, and I've heard that it takes more energy for the body to break it down. I started falling asleep a little after noon, and I'm not sure if this was related to getting no sleep or somehow related to the food as well.  I also felt incredibly zoned right around 9:30 PM before I got some food, but I imagine that could happen even if I was eating cooked food and put off dinner.  Overall, while I feel that I had to work harder to keep from being hungry and my body was talking to me more in terms of being fed, I would say that my blood sugar levels, if anything, stayed more constant and I had more of the fiber and roughage from the plants to tide me over in between meals.

I'm sure these patterns will become clearer as the week goes on!

Bottom line: I thought this would be much more of a struggle, but it appears that my main reason for eating cooked food is because I feel that I should eat cooked/warm food. I grew up hearing that it's not healthy not to eat cooked food, such as soups. Yes, soups may be healthy, but it is really liberating to eat everything I wanted all day without having to substitute something "boring" (AKA cooked) or "healthier" (instead of, say, a kind of nut.) I suppose the only more-or-less "unhealthy" thing I crave is ice cream.. homemade raw or cashew nut ice cream, anyone?

Also, I feel incredibly fresh, clean, and detoxed (not that I had that much to detox from.. multiple rounds of margaritas with my lovely Alaska friends last night..) You truly are what you eat!

Won't you save me San Francisco?

I've been here for two nights now and just like last summer, I love every inch of it. My send off was moderately dramatic (read: I bawled at the Phila airport in the security line.) I guess Philly IS more fun if you stay over, by "stay over" meaning never leave. Crying is not my usual form of expelling body substances at the airport; I am much more likely to throw up on an airplane. Well at least we didn't have any of that, but I do have two flights coming up this weekend, vse vperedi!

ANYWAY, I will save the reasons for that and how they worked themselves out for another entry, because they will fit in very nicely with the theme and witty title I have already through up. Good titling opps, for me, are few and far between, so I have to milk them for all I can.

I am visiting lovely Scott and Elisse, who fed me popsicles and took me bowling and provided fabulously cozy accommodations and two bonus cats to cuddle with.

Speaking of cats, I am NOTHING like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-92wriOZ-s

Just wanted to take the time to make that even more viral than it already is.

I missed a bus stop today and basically had a two hour bus tour of downtown San Francisco as a result. I love the bus so much more than driving. Running in Golden Gate Park makes the time pass so quickly because of the perfect amount of sunshine and the way that the tiles on the ground are somehow better sized for your feet...

Speaking of feet, walked a bit barefoot after my shoes started giving me mad blisters. It was one thing when I was carrying them in my hand, but when I put them away in my purse I think people were just confused.. (mind you, I was wearing interview clothes at the time.)

Now it is wildly windy and slightly chilly. I didn't realize how much I now enjoy being cold in the evening when I'm not under the covers, thank you Nepal. I'm hoping this wind brings some colder weather for tomorrow so I am not too overheated wearing my boots all day. Why can't I wear flip flops, you ask? I have a VERY IMPORTANT lunch interview that I am eyebrows to the sky excited about!

Suparatri,
.

I am DYING right now.

First, I find this gem in a series of "Only in Russia" photos:

"Yeah, does this bus go to Beryozovsky?"


Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/15-only-in-russia-photos


Then, the following exchange:
Mother: Where is this?
Me: Near Beryozovsky, clearly.
Mother: No! This is fake! They don't have buses that clean there!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not Sparta. This is Russia.

Growing up, but not really. And by "really" I mean "at all."

I alternate being amused and terrified at the fact that everyone basically assumes that I am my half-brother's mother when we are at the playground, but get a kick out of it either way. I told some nanny that I liked her jeans and she said that he has cute dimples. Yeah, it doesn't help that we look alike and that I look marginally old enough to have a 4-year-old (if you assume that I HAD HIM IN HIGH SCHOOL) and I'm not going to spend my time telling handfuls of random strangers my family history.
"Come on, honey, let's do this algebra problem in the sand, you already went to Mommy's algebra class when you were 1!"

In other news, how often do you apply for something and have the application become closed WHILE YOU ARE HITTING SUBMIT?! I accept that it wasn't meant to be, and I am grateful for the motivation to have different kinds of samples more readily at hand for the job application process.

I think that the opinions about the status and quality of the job application process are vastly different for recent college grads, especially when considering the country's current situation as well as the diverse opportunities we have upon graduation. From people with a cushy job to people who have switched jobs to people who are still waiting on a job that has any kind of benefits. Well let me tell you, giving birth when you are in high school is NOT the solution.