Tom’s Raw Foods Blog

I’m not Irish anyway… But I did eats lots of green stuff!

Day 5 of my all raw diet is now gone and done.

It wasn’t the easiest of days, yet it showed that I can survive a day when I want to revert to my old eating habits. Taking my new lifestyle one day at a time seems to be working so far.

We were on the road today. We took a trip to Mannheim (about 100 miles, 160 kilometers) to get some pictures taken of our children. We’re quite picky about who takes pictures for us, and it’s worth it to us to drive that far to get good pictures.

Of course, travel means new challenges. My wife and kids, of course, were eating all of the regular stuff, including a gyros platter from our favorite gyros stand in the entire world, which is located on the U.S. base in Heidelberg. I had one myself a couple of weeks ago when we were there, but of course did not have one today. It’s the first time I wish that I hadn’t committed to this!

But “commit” I did, and by simply focusing on what lies ahead (instead of on what I left behind), it wasn’t difficult to say “no”.

And yes, I enjoyed the smell…

The kids were eating everything from peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to chips. I caught myself instinctively grabbing a chip from the bag when I opened them for my son. He was happy when I gave it back; it meant one more chip for him!

I also seemed to be a bit more on edge today and argumentative. My wife pointed this out to me, and while I’m stubborn as a mule (and not nearly as good looking), I’ve learned to listen to her and will pay attention to this. She also wanted to go to a restaurant but decided not to in the end (the gyros Imbiss sufficed). I think she wanted to help ensure that I wouldn’t have a setback this early in the process.

The military commissary in Heidelberg is bigger than the one here in Stuttgart, so I was able to pick up some stuff that I normally can’t get here, including a mango and a fresh coconut. We’re going to attack it tomorrow using directions I found on another web site (I’ll post a link tomorrow).

I do want to say that most of the stuff I got in Heidelberg today can be purchased at local German stores; it’s just that the prices are higher. The Dollar to Euro exchange rate is the worst it’s ever been; five dollars will get you about three Euro at current exchange rates. I think our government is keeping the exchange rate artificially low to stimulate exports, which stimulates the economy — but it’s not the right way to do it. Then again, this blog is about raw foods, not government policy…

Anyway, I try to avoid shopping at local stores whenever possible because I get paid in dollars, not Euros.

FitDay.com doesn’t seem to be working right for me, so I wrote down my food intake for the day so I can enter it later. Hopefully it will be working right tomorrow because I want to ensure that I continue to eat enough food and take in enough calories.

I also completed the arrangements for a trip I’ll be taking to Los Angeles next week. The challenge of this trip will be to get enough fresh fruits and vegetables once I hit the ground in the States. They don’t let you take fresh fruits and vegetables into the States, and I have a four hour layover in Atlanta, plus a five hour flight (with “food available for purchase” on that leg). That will give me nine hours without food unless I can figure out some way to get something at Atlanta’s airport. It’s looking “hopeful” right now.

I’ll post the details as they develop in hopes that it will help somebody else plan their trip.

You’ll have to excuse me; my day isn’t quite complete. I hear some spinach calling me…!

Smacznego,
Tom

I’m hungry. That’s a good thing.

Shifting the vegetables to my supper time appears to be working.

I’ve already managed to eat six bananas, some grapes, a few raspberries,
and over a pound of strawberries. My caloric intake (which is actually just
an estimate) has already hit four figures today and I feel great!

It may be just my imagination, but I seem to be more alert than usual
today. I could also swear that some of the gray hair I’ve had for ten years
or so seems to be going away, too.

I wrote the following very early this morning (before I went to bed), so if
you are following along chronologically, the follow was written BEFORE this
part was written. But in keeping with my “honesty” theme, I wanted to go
ahead and post it anyway.

Oh — and Day 4 will soon be successfully completed. Tommorrow will be Day
5 of my change; it will be a travel day, which will pose its own
challenges, but a cooler full of fruit should keep me going. Our
photographer has also invited us out to dinner at a restaurant; that should
be VERY interesting!

Now that my third all raw foods day is behind me, I’m realizing that it is
possible to switch to an all-raw diet. I also know that my limited
knowledge is going to hurt me in the long run, so I need to go back and
gain some more knowledge and make some adjustments.

So I went back to the source that got me started: Steve Pavlina’s blog. He
did a 30 day raw foods experiment back in January and made frequent,
detailed posts. My instincts tell me that Steve’s research is thorough and
can be trusted, and while I’ll be doing my own research as time progresses,
for now I think that a slow, careful read of his posts is in order.

I’m glad that I’m doing so. This post showed me that I’m doing one thing
wrong; I need to be eating more fruit to get closer to the 80/10/10 mix
(80% of calories from carbohydrates, 10% from protein, 10% from fat):

Eat more
fruit

Incidentally, you can start at that post, and by using the navigation
arrows at the top of that post, can click through to read about all 30 days
in his experiment.

Anyway, I’ve been eating a lot of vegetables, and doing so could eventually
lead to my wanting to go back to my old ways. I don’t think it’s a big
problem right now because I do have some weight to lose (and am rapidly
losing it) and some of my calorie needs are coming from “disappearing fat”,
but that will soon change. So I’m going to eat my daily salad still — but
will pay more attention to fruits than vegetables. It’s also possible that
I didn’t eat enough fruits during the latter part of yesterday, which led
to the lethargic feelings.

I’m also going to try eating only 1/4 of an avocado daily to meet fat
needs. I’ll probably continue to eat it just before bed because I don’t
want to eat it with fruit.

I also read that taking a B-12 pill once a week (500 mcg) is probably more
than enough. It’s also probably best to avoid the cyanocobalamin form if
possible, but that’s all I have available from the local grocery store.
I’ll probably order some from the Internet.

A B-12 supplement is important for an all raw foods diet because our
hyper-sanitary lifestyle pretty much precludes us from getting from the
normal sources. Meat eaters have nothing to worry about because B-12 is
found in meat.

Let me correct that; meat eaters don’t have to worry about B-12 deficiency.
They still have to worry about other ill effects to their health.

One source I read today said that the Standard American Diet (SAD) leads to
a greatly increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, and various forms of
cancer. On the other hand, if you eat an all raw diet (and switch as I
have, somewhere in mid-life), chances are pretty good that your body has
enough B-12 stored up to meet its needs for 25-30 years, and taking
supplements can easily correct a deficiency.

I’ll take my chances with a B-12 deficiency that is easily corrected, thank
you!

Smacznego,
Tom

I need to eat more. Period. So as of today, I’m going to be making some changes in how I eat.

Without getting into the details, I spent a lot of time in the bathroom this morning when I got home from work a bit after 6:00 A.M. When I woke up today around 1:30 P.M., I wasn’t sleepy but felt really tired. I actually thought about calling in sick today; it’s “only” an eight hour weekend shift and things will probably be fairly slow (meaning my co-worker could handle it without any problems), but in the end decided that I need to go.

From last night’s readings, I figured out that the first week of an all raw foods diet will be one of transition where you go through a detoxification process. It hit me hard yesterday and today. Yesterday I had very little appetite and hardly ate anything, which I think is O.K. for a day or so. I think it’s important to listen to what your body is telling you, so I just kind of went with it.

On the other hand, I have a busy week coming up and want — no, NEED — to stick to my routine. While I don’t feel 100% today, I know why I don’t feel 100% (detox!) and know that it’s not due to some SAD illness. So onward we go.

I also suspect that eating too many vegetables, especially lettuce, is contributing to the problem of not getting enough calories. While lettuce and vegetables are nutritious and a vital part of an all raw foods diet, I think it’s filling me up to the point where I don’t want to eat enough fruit. So starting today, I’m only going to eat fruit until supper (I eat European style: breakfast, dinner, and supper), which will consist of a piece of fruit, followed 30 minutes later by a salad, then part of an avocado about an hour later (to give the fruit and vegetables time to digest properly). I’ll snack on nuts (walnuts and pecans are my favorites) if and when the urge strikes.

I love carrots, but I think I’m going to cut back to one a day for now. I’ve been eating two or three daily and I think that they are a bit harder than some vegetables to digest, which may be contributing to the “too full” feeling. I also have some cauliflower — which I love to eat raw — but I’m going to go easy on that, too, because I’ve heard that it is hard to digest.

So far today (I’m writing this at 4:30 PM) I’ve eaten four bananas and drank a couple of glasses of water. The only water I drink comes from the local grocery store; I can get a gallon of water treated with a reverse osmosis process for about $1.50. I also buy the sport bottles for when I am on the go. And, of course, every last bit of plastic gets recycled!

I’m going to break today’s post up into two parts; the second part will come a bit later. I may just go ahead and post like this for a while, simply because figuring out the right balance for my new lifestyle is vitally important. I wonder if the real issue was that I was in a downward spiral where my diet was causing me to eat fewer and fewer calories every day, and regardless of what I eat, that’s not good. My goal is to give you a reference to see how somebody else made the transition, and since I started this blog, I do feel an obligation to be upfront and honest about what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. As a result, I’m writing more on this blog than I ever have before — and splitting stuff up into multiple daily posts might be the ticket.

I still have all of those “catch-up” posts from a couple of weeks ago to get up here, too…

But the bottom line is that I have to increase my caloric intake. I really want to get it up to at least 1500 calories a day. I just need to figure out how to do that with all of this fiber in my system and my weird schedule (more on that in an upcoming post). I think I’m going to purchase some berries before work today; perhaps something a bit sweeter will help.

I’ll be back later!

Smacznego,
Tom