Tom’s Raw Foods Blog

I want to talk briefly again about vitamins and supplements. I haven’t researched it too far just yet, but I did see something on one of Roger’s sites where he said something about taking a B12 supplement, just to be safe. I think I’ll take my multivitamin supplement for now, but will take it every second day. I think that should suffice until I can learn more about it.

Today was a bit different. I don’t work at my job today, but it was our shopping day, so we were on the road a lot. I decided to give myself a little more slack today which, in retrospect, wasn’t exactly the best idea, but I did learn from it — and that’s good (more on that a few paragraphs down). Since I got up much earlier than usual to accommodate the shopping trip (and I’m seldom hungry when I first wake up), I took a couple of bananas with me. That worked out pretty good; the only problem was that my 20 month old daughter would see the banana in the car and would tell me that she wanted it. So I’d unpeel it, try to give it to her, and she would say “NO”… So I didn’t get to eat when I wanted to, but it still worked out.

I took the dog for a walk after we got home, and when I returned, my wife had already cooked dinner. I am trying to avoid using the microwave as much as possible (another benefit of a raw diet) and decided to skip the pre-meal fruit and salad and just ate with her. It wasn’t a big meal; just a breaded chicken cutlet and a rather large spoon full of macaroni and cheese, topped off with half a piece of poppyseed cake and some apple juice mixed with mineral water (Apfelsaftschorle).

After dinner I got incredibly sleepy and took a nap for a couple of hours. I’m not sure if it was due to the meal being eaten “wrong” or because of my sleep patterns. As a night shift worker, I usually don’t get up much before noon, even on days off, and today I had to get up at 9:00 AM to do the shopping. I also got to bed “late” last night (early for me, though, as a night shift worker), so that may have had something to do with it.

The rest of the day didn’t really go much better. My wife made some potato pancakes, Polish style, and I had one of those for supper (after the other half of yesterday’s cantaloupe). I also had a few cookies and never made it to the raw vegetables.

That’s OK, though; I now know that I need to plan family meals a bit better and find a way to stick to my new way of eating (it isn’t really a “diet”) while still taking advantage of the social benefits that eating as a family provides. Better to discover this lesson now that two months after I switch to a completely raw diet!

And even with the “setbacks”, I still ate more fruit today than I would have a week ago.

And I think that moving to the all raw foods way of eating gradually will help me uncover these challenges long before they become major issues, which is much better than doing it “cold turkey” and getting discouraged every time something like this happens. Just one more benefit of checking out Roger’s blog (see the “Blogroll” for the link).

Weight: 244.5 pounds today, up a bit, but not really enough to make a difference.

Smacznego,
Tom

I’m going to have to sit down and come up with some better blog post titles!

Which vegetables and fruits give you more brain power?

A few observations:

• With my eating habits, I’m noticing that I’m most hungry in the middle of my day. I’m going to experiment, starting today, with eating the “salad” before the main meal.

I’m discovering that eating all of those vegetables really fills me up. I’m thinking that I might be able to actually cut down on the amount of food I eat at dinner if I eat the salad when I am most hungry. I also might be able to eat some fruit for dessert instead of the baked stuff.

If this works, it will really help me make the transition.

• I also need to ensure that I don’t go too rapidly.

I have a lot of enthusiasm right now for this (obviously), but enthusiasm will only take you so far. I read something somewhere once about forming habits; it apparently takes 21 days for an action to become a habit. I’ve decided that I’m going to stick with Phase 1 through at least the end of March to allow it to become a true habit — to become “normal” for me.

That, of course, may change if I think I’m really ready. I want to do things right — but also want to ensure that I don’t place artificial limits on myself in the process.

On the “Food Front”, things turned out to be a bit strange today. As I wrote yesterday, I know that I need to change my eating habits on the days that I don’t work, so I decided to really commit to eating well today. Although the day isn’t over yet as I write this, I’m going to try to eat something like this:

• A mono fruit breakfast (just one fruit).
• Frequent small mono fruit snacks.
• A pre-dinner fruit snack, followed by salad vegetables, then dinner itself.
• More salad vegetables for supper.
• A fruit “dessert”.

Dinner today will consist of some lean seasoned gyros meat and boiled potatoes (slightly larger than normal portions) with a chocolate muffin for dessert (NOTE: I added half of a pretzel roll… Cheater!). It should fit in nicely with everything else that I’m doing and eating.

I was hungrier than usual today when I woke up. I normally wait until around 5:00 PM to eat my breakfast but ended up eating two bananas around 3:00 PM, then half a cantelope at 4:00 PM. The cantaloupe seemed to take away (at least for now) my desire to eat some bread. I could eat some toast or waffles for breakfast if I wanted to (I’m only in Phase 1) but really wanted to see if I can make it through a day without baked goods. I didn’t quite make it, but that’s OK. The day will come — soon — when I’m ready. Instead of focusing on not reaching that goal, I’m happy about the other stuff I did accomplish.

I also had a dull headache when I woke up. Nothing serious; I worked through it, and it slowly went away as my day went on. Taking the dog for a walk also helped. I also seem to be exceptionally thirsty today and am drinking a lot of water. I normally drink a lot anyway but haven’t for the past couple of days. I buy gallon jugs of water that is purified via a reverse osmosis process (and recycle the plastic jugs; I hope you recycle, too). That way I can keep a jug by my desk and just drink when the urge strikes.

I didn’t mention it yesterday, but I wanted some chocolate later in the day but managed to not eat any. Another small step. I think that the key to this whole thing is to simply be aware, moment by moment, of the choices you have and the decisions you make. If I said that I want to give up chocolate for the rest of my life, that might seem impossible to do. If I decide to not eat chocolate just for today, that’s a bit easier. I can then make the same decision tomorrow, and the next day, and the next… Pretty soon you lose your taste for that kind of stuff (like I did with soft drinks / sodas, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post) and replace it with something different — and what seemed to be impossible is no longer an issue. You don’t even realize how far you’ve come unless you take a moment to look back at where you were.

That’s another reason I decided to start this blog…

My weight dropped again today, down to 244.

Today I’m working on a video training course that will help people better secure their WordPress blogs. It’s been in the works for a while. I’ve delayed releasing it because I want to pack as much information in it as I possibly can, plus I want to make it “evergreen”. I’m suspecting that it will need to be updated once WordPress releases version 2.5 anyway; we’ll see what happens. There’s also the normal routine stuff I do every day for my nascent business, plus time with the family.

In other words, about as normal as a day gets here!

One good thing is that I feel more like working today than usual.

Smacznego,
Tom

Well, it’s Tuesday. February 26 to be exact. And fruit still tastes good!

I decided to stop at the grocery store on the way to work today to
check out the full selection of available fruits. It was quite
interesting.

First, although I like fruits, my current consumption is pretty much
limited to the staple fruits — things like bananas, apples, oranges
(on occasion), and grapes. We grow a few strawberries and raspberries
at our house and enjoy them fresh — in season, of course.

I think, though, that as part of my progression to a raw diet, I’m
going to need to expand my selection of fruits (and vegetables), so I
thought I’d check out my local grocery store (which is actually a
military commissary) to see what else is available. As time goes on,
I’ll try out some of the “other” fruits and vegetables and see what I
like — and what I don’t like.

I ended up buying some fruits and vegetables, as follows:

• White grapes. I wanted red but they didn’t have any.
• Apples. Four Golden Delicious. There is nothing better!
• One cantaloupe. I haven’t had this in some time.
• Some other melon I hadn’t seen before. Hope I like it!

One thing that surprised me was the price of the melons. Granted, it’s
the end of winter and they have to ship them a ways, plus they are
heavy, which adds to shipping cost — but over $2.00 for a melon was a
bit of “sticker shock”. I’d better get used to it, I guess.

• Bananas. The staple.
• One grapefruit.

I like grapefruit — but in limited quantities. I don’t currently eat
a lot of citrus fruits but I want to ensure that I mix in at least one
a day until I find something that tells me that it’s not a good idea
(or that I need more).

And on the vegetable side:

• Tomatoes. Technically, I guess they are a fruit… I eat them with
  my salad greens as a vegetable. I also decided that it’s better to buy
  the larger ones because the price per pound is less (although I prefer
  cherry tomatoes).
• Boston and iceberg lettuce. Iceberg is my favorite but I suspect
  that different types of lettuce will have different nutritional
  advantages, so I want to mix it up a bit.

I still have carrots and cucumbers at home, so I didn’t buy any of them.

This should hold me over for a couple of days.

I’m working night shift again today so I didn’t eat until almost 5:00
PM. I had a couple of bananas, then had an apple and some spaghetti
carbonara (and more of yesterday’s strawberry cake). While I wasn’t
hungry until 5:00, once I got hungry, I stayed that way for a while.

I also had two more of those pesky cupcakes. I’ve decided that I’m
going to take the two remaining ones home as a special treat for my
son and daughter, then not purchase any more. I’ll try to “wean”
myself by eating muffins — and perhaps make my own that aren’t quite
as sweet. I like baked goods but realize that weaning myself off of
them is essential to success.

One word about my mindset: I don’t think “Gee, I have to give up so
many good things to switch to a raw diet!”. I don’t look at what I’m
giving up; I look at what I stand to gain. Roger has been talking
about focusing on small goals on his blog over the past couple of days
and that’s what I’m doing: focusing on the benefits that will soon be
mine. I’m not “giving up” — I’m “gaining”. I’m forgetting what lies
behind me and am moving forward to new rewards.

Another thing that I’m doing — almost without realizing it — is not
eating anything for 30 minutes after my pre-meal fruit snack. That’s
very interesting and I think it’s going to be a good way to help learn
how to eat better and properly.

I did get the bathroom scale working again today (!). The news was
good. My weight had been approaching 260 pounds at one point not too
long ago. Through a brief stomach virus and some deliberate actions,
I’ve managed to get down to 245.5 pounds. I just need to keep moving.

Getting back to today’s food: I just had some grapes (the last of the
red ones, sadly!) and will soon start on my salad vegetables, followed
by another ham and cheese “sandwich” on a whole grain roll. I also had
a bottle of sport drink and a cup of coffee and will finish off a
small thermos (.7 liter) before the evening is over. But that will be
all for today.

One more thing: I’m finding that having this blog is helping me stick
to my commitment. What would it sound like if I posted that I hit the
local burger joint and had a “super duper size” meal? Yuck; I’m not
about to post that!

Speaking of fast food, I decided a couple of months ago to stop
ordering a soft drink / soda when I eat out. Instead, I either drink
water or a bottle of sport drink now when I eat at a fast food place.
I’ve also been pretty good at skipping the fries (much to my 20 month
old daughter’s chagrin; she’s actually gone up to strangers in the
food court, pointed to their fries, and asked for one!). When we went
out last week to eat, my wife ordered a soda and offered me a “hit” on
it. It tasted lousy to me. Hopefully there will be more experiences
like this as time goes on.

Smacznego,
Tom

P.S. — Tomorrow should be interesting because I don’t “go to work”.
Instead, I’ll be working at home. Since my eating habits at home are
lousy, I suspect that having to stick to this new way of eating will
force me to make some changes. I’m looking forward to it.