Tom’s Raw Foods Blog

I’ve heard from many sources that it takes 21 days to form a habit. If
that’s the case, I’m 1/3 of the way there. Today marks Day 8 — the start
of my second week — of eating nothing but raw foods.

So what do I think? I like what I see so far:

* I first posted my weight back on February 26. It was 245.5 pounds. Today
(slightly more than three weeks later) it’s down to 227.5 pounds — 18
pounds lost forever! Total weight loss since the first of February is
probably close to 30 pounds.

* I’m wearing clothes that I haven’t fit in for years. Today I grabbed a
pair of pants off the shelf that didn’t fit even a week ago; today I wore
them to work.

* I seem to be sleeping just a bit less. I’ve averaged 8 hours of sleep a
night for years; lately it seems to be down to about 7 hours.

* I no longer get weak when I’m hungry (or at least not as fast). Today I
went six hours after I woke up before I ate anything (it was 15 total hours
since I had last eaten) and could have gone longer without any problems. A
few weeks ago I would have melted into a puddle on the floor had I waited
that long.

* I’m focused on living instead of on what I’ve left behind.

As I walked past a co-worker who was eating a bag of chips this evening, I
couldn’t help but feel a bit smug for a moment. After all, he’s eating
“dead” food; I’m not. Then again, it took me almost 50 years to get to this
point, so the feeling quickly left.

Just read over the posts I’ve made thus far on this blog (starting at the
beginning) and you can see how much I’ve changed in just over three weeks.
And I think this is vital to the small success I’ve experienced thus far.

Looking back at the first post, I seriously doubted that I would be able to
leave cooked foods behind. To be honest, at that time I was thinking of it
as “giving up cooked foods”, but I soon learned that having that attitude
would doom me to failure. You’ll never be able set and reach goals if you
focus on what you might lose or what you think you’ll be giving up. It’s
not a matter of losing; it’s a matter of gaining, and each person has to
decide what they want.

Let me take it a step further, if I may. It’s not a matter of deciding what
you want — you take action on what you truly want every day. Sadly, for
most people it means not living life to the fullest as they listen to
conventional wisdom (which, incidentally, means that you experience
conventional results).

What’s to give up? What do you have to lose? I have people look at me
funny, but when I give them my “30 second elevator speech”, they
understand.

Here’s that speech, reprinted in its entirety… sort of…

I’ve seen many people who experienced some type of health problem as a
result of being overweight and out of shape. For some, it’s diabetes; for
others, heart problems; and for still others, various skeletal and muscular
problems caused by simply carrying around too much weight. High blood
pressure, hardening of the arteries, sensitivities to food…

At any rate, I also have first-hand knowledge of several people who, when
faced with a health crisis, took action to reclaim their health. One is the
pastor of the church I attended as a child. Back in the early 1960s, he
needed quadruple bypass surgery because he was quite overweight and didn’t
take good care of himself. After the surgery he was put on a restrictive
diet and an exercise program. He not only lost weight; he regained his
health and went on to live and lead his church for another 40+ years.

So I simply tell people that I decided to go on the “heart problem diet”
before the health problems surface. With my 50th birthday about a month
away, nobody argues with me. Of course, if people want to know, I’m more
than happy to tell them the real reasons for doing this.

A three day weekend awaits, and while I have every intention of writing…
You know how that goes! Now that the first day of spring is upon us, the
weather has finally gotten cold here in southern Germany and we’re actually
getting some snow. Where’s Al Gore when you need him?

In reality, my take on global warming is that we need to strike a balance
between living and taking care of our planet. We simply don’t know if this
global warming is due to all the crap we throw in the air; 150 years of
climate data simply isn’t enough to plot trends of a planet that is
millions of years old. On the other hand, why pollute if we don’t need to?
There is lots we can do to reduce the amount of pollution we produce. And,
of course, I’m happy to say that as a raw foods eater, I no longer
contribute to the market demand for meat and dairy products, which are two
HUGE contributors to pollution (according to the sources I’ve read).

That should be enough for today. Stay encouraged and stay focused.
Remember, it’s about YOU, not somebody else, and you can’t give unless you
are strong enough to do so. So get strong and healthy and stay that way!

Smacznego,
Tom

Day 7 of my new lifestyle.

The worst problem of the day is that I’m in between sizes on my belt. If I
put it in the fourth hole, it looks good but is a bit snug when I sit at my
desk chair. If I keep it in the third hole it’s more comfortable when I’m
sitting but looks bad when I stand up.

Solution? Stick to raw foods so that the fourth hole is simply good in
every way!

Steve Pavlina made a remark on his blog about how smells seemed to be more
noticeable as he moved further into his raw foods trial (I think it was on
Day 5 or 6 that he mentioned this). I have to agree; today I started
noticing.

It started while shopping for fruit (what else?). Someone in a military
uniform walked by, and I could immediately tell that he needed to wash his
sweater.

The next thing happened while my wife and children were eating at an
Italian cafe (I had an Asian Pear — my new discovery of the day. Crispy
and juicy — definitely recommended). Our 21 month old daughter was
extremely hungry and simply ate more than her stomach could hold and some
of it came back out — on my jeans.

Now these things are to be expected with small children — no problem
there. It’s happened in the past and you simply get used to such things.
What I didn’t expect was for the smell from my jeans to bother me — but
nobody else — in the car on the way home. I couldn’t wait to change
clothes.

And the last thing? I somehow got some chewing gum on the heel of my sock
(don’t ask me how; nobody chews gum in our house), so I stopped by a local
store to buy a new pair. As I was changing them in the car, I noticed the
smell.

So I still smell funny, unlike Roger Haeske, who claimed in a recent blog
post that he pretty much doesn’t smell funny (although his girlfriend
apparently thinks otherwise!).

Of course, it’s only been seven days now, so I still have a ways to go.

I’ve been extremely hungry today, and as the day progresses (I still have
8.5 hours to go on my shift), I might actually run out of food. That’s not
a good thing, but I can handle it. Just a few weeks ago, getting hungry
would have made me feel weak — to the point that I would have to find
something — anything! — to eat. Now if I get hungry, it’s just “hungry”.
The weak feeling seems to have gone away. I think that’s because the sugar
in fruit (according to Steve Pavlina’s blog) burns more evenly. The spikes
that come from eating other types of sugar simply aren’t there. My body is
already starting to experience the benefits of eating better food.

My mother was diagnosed as being hypoglycemic many years ago. She was told
to eat several small meals a day. That’s why I switched to that system…
except I don’t think that all of my meals were all that small, to be
honest. But now I eat a lot of mono fruit snacks throughout the day and all
seems to be well.

My father (who passed on five years ago this month) had burns on part of
his body. He got them because he pulled a pot of some hot liquid down onto
himself when he was a small boy (if my memory serves me correctly). While I
was thinking about him today, it suddenly hit me that my small children
will never pull a hot pan of anything down onto themselves due to my
cooking. So the raw foods diet has the added benefit of improving household
safety.

Smacznego,
Tom

Just a short post today; it’s very late in my part of the world, and while I could stay up a few more hours because I normally work nights, I do want to wake up at a decent time tomorrow to spend some time with my family.

Day 6 has been the hardest so far.

My wife cooked lots of good food today, and as I write this (around 1:30 AM the next morning), even bread looks good. Only two things got me through today without wanting to eat cooked food:

* Staying 110% focused on my goal.

* Not wanting to risk being ill from returing to cooked food.

Steve Pavlina wrote on his blog about his illness when he returned to cooked foods after 30 days of raw foods. Steve is younger and in better shape than I and still got pretty sick when he moved back to his vegan diet; I simply don’t want to take that chance. I don’t like being sick. I’m not saying unequivocally that returning to cooked foods caused his illness, but my inner voice / common sense / whatever you want to call it says that there’s probably a connection. YMMV.

I’ll also be taking a trip next week (Stuttgart, Germany to Los Angeles, California). I’ve been able to do some preliminary work on making it through the trip without eating cooked food. Some challenges remain, of course, but I’ve been able to solve the “no fruits and vegetables through Customs” problem and know where I’ll be able to get the food I need — at a reasonable price — in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. When the whole thing is over, I’ll write up a report and make it available to blog readers.

That’s all for today; I’m going to cut it a bit short as it is getting very late.

Smacznego,
Tom