Tom’s Raw Foods Blog

I couldn’t wait to wake up today. For that matter, after about five hours of sleep, I didn’t sleep well at all. All kinds of thoughts kept racing through my head (none that I remembered). My mind wouldn’t stop.

Finally, after about two more hours of quasi-sleep (for seven hours total — one less than normal), I decided to get up. Immediately two ideas came to my head that I want to pursue. One is a money-making idea; the other will simply make life easier for me (and who knows? Perhaps it, too, will provide value to others).

Is it the promised energy burst? Is my body finally making some serious progress in cleansing itself through an all raw foods diet? Will it last?

I sure don’t know the answers, but whatever the cause, I’m happy to have “it” today, and if it comes back tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, let it come!

Smacznego,
Tom

P.S. — Although I don’t mention it much here, I am building an Internet-based business. You can read more about that on another blog I have on this site — my News By Tom Brownsword blog.

Warm weather, sunshine, a Sunday, and a visit with good friends for dinner.

Could be a recipe for disaster for somebody like me who is making the transition to an all raw foods diet, eh?

Thankfully everything went well today (good friends are always understanding and helpful; the fresh fruit came out of nowhere once they saw and understood what I’m trying to do) although I had to pass on what smelled like excellent food. Even our dog, who is normally well-behaved at the table (and is usually welcome — and invited — when we visit friends) got a little crazy today when she smelled the food. For the first time since she was about two months old (when we started training her), she actually started sitting up and BARKING, of all things, for some of the roast beef they made for the meal!

Embarrassing…

So I took a piece and slipped it under the table for her.

Even more embarrassing!

But I guess the food was that good. All I know is that there wasn’t much left in spite of my lack of contribution to the devouring of the meal.

But it wasn’t exactly an easy day. Again tonight I wanted bread. My son purchased a pretzel, a pretzel roll, and a muffin at the grocery store, and true to form, he didn’t touch any of them. Instead, he left them in the kitchen right beside the work area where I prepare all of my meals.

Nor was yesterday. We went to the local farmer’s market where my wife bought her favorite bread from her favorite vendor — not to mention a couple of pastries that we can only get there (she tried to pretend later that they were dry and that I wasn’t missing anything, bless her!).

Yes, the memories of those foods are still strong and I still remember the taste and how nicely they would fill me up. We won’t talk about the other effects those foods had (that’s the whole reason I’m doing this thing — to get my body back to the best health possible to prolong my chances of living longer and being here for my family).

Wednesday makes 40 and 50. Forty days of eating nothing but raw foods on Dr. Graham’s 80/10/10 plan (OK, there were a few days in there where I went overboard on the nuts and maybe had a 75/10/15 day, like today when I cracked open 10 nuts. OK, I really only cracked open seven of them; my five year old son cracked the other three and proceeded to help me eat them. Even the dog loves nuts…). And the 50? Wednesday is my 50th birthday. Maybe I’ll post a picture?

I do feel good and have great energy. The children have had bad colds for the past week. In the past I’d catch it, too, and it would last for a couple of weeks. The only thing that’s happened this time is that I occasionally sneeze and get a bit stuffed up once or twice a day (nothing a tissue can’t handle). If that’s the future of illness — then I’m looking forward to the future!

I’ve even thought about marching in to the local clinic in another month or two and asking for a physical based on the fact that I’m now 50 years old and know that there are some increased risks that I face — I just don’t know what they are. I want to wait until the end of summer, however, so that I can lose more weight, build more muscle, get a good tan, and clear more junk out of my body. I really want to go in there and come out with a report that a 20 year old would envy — and then I want them to ask me what I’m doing!

So cooked foods, it looks like I’ll be sticking with raw foods past my promised 60 days, if for no other reason than to satisfy my ego. I really enjoy messing with people’s preconceived notions (or, to coin Scott Adams’ phrase, I want to cause a paradigm shift without a clutch…) and it’s not too often you get the opportunity to try to mess with the medical community! Mid-September would make half a year; that might be a good time to go in for the checkup.

We’ll see what happens!

Smacznego,
Tom

I should be at 210 pounds within the next day or two. Those pants that were too small for me at the end of February are now getting a bit loose. The belts that were running out of room are once again running out of room — but the other way.

Those are the kind of problems we all want to have, aren’t they?

Like most people whose weight creeps up over the years, I never got rid of my old clothes because I secretly hoped that they would one day fit again. Guess what? I made my wish come true.

Did you catch that? It took MASSIVE ACTION for my wishes to come true. It wasn’t magic, nor was I lucky — unless you are like me and consider luck to be the point where preparedness meets opportunity. Let me explain.

If you go back over the beginnings of this blog, you’ll see where my desire to “be here” for my family, combined with the imminent arrival of my 50th birthday, made me decide to do something to improve my health. I was ready for a change, and when I first heard about the 80/10/10 raw foods diet, it got my attention. And Roger Haeske’s “bribe” of a link from his blog was enough to get me started on the path to transition.

And what a journey it’s been. Less than two months ago I didn’t even know if Roger would link to a blog like mine, being run by somebody who (at the time) wasn’t even on a raw diet. But he did — and that’s really all the encouragement I needed (thanks again, Roger).

Today is Day 36 of nothing but raw foods (if you don’t count the half package of walnuts I ate during my recent trip to Los Angeles — which I don’t, since it was as close to raw as I could get at the time). I see the rewards in the mirror every time I step out of the shower. Of course, that’s not the only reward; some of them are quite personal and I’d never share them in a public place; others are just plain silly.

I still think that I’m going through some detoxification. My skin is still incredibly dry (on my hands and face), but some of the redness has disappeared. I’m resisting the urge to use any kind of lotion because I think that it would interfere with the ability of the skin to detoxify and cleanse itself. I suspect that the advent of warmer weather will help (it’s been winter-like cold here in southern Germany).

On a more positive note, I was developing some brown spots on my face and hands (what some people call “age spots”). Those are gone. I think that’s amazing. People are also noticing that my face is a lot thinner, too. I’m fairly tall and don’t usually wear tight clothes, so it was easy to hide about 255 pounds, just as it can be a bit difficult to see that I’m now at 211 pounds.

Incidentally, I ran some calculations today regarding my weight. I’ve lost over 40 pounds since the first of the year and over 16% of my body weight. Once I get below 200 pounds that will rise to 20%. I’ve never felt hungry (except for when I forgot to take food with me while we were out shopping).

And for the first time today, I’m happy to report that I actually looked at chocolate and had no desire to eat any. None whatsoever.

I’m also learning more about food and how I should eat. I like to chew food but know that making a fruit smoothie is vital to getting enough daily calories, so I’m “limiting” myself to one smoothie per day right now (of course, it fills a one quart / one liter container). The rest is either pieces of fruit or my evening salad.

And the salad: I’m wondering if it’s OK to combine vegetables. I usually have some sort of lettuce, cucumber slices, celery, carrots, tomatoes, pepper (red, orange, or yellow; green is a bit strong for me), and a recent addition, mushrooms (high in nutrients, very low in calories). I need to find out if it’s OK to combine these foods like this, and if not, what needs to be separated and how long I should wait after eating it.

Exercise: Still building up and still inconsistent. Roger released a new program yesterday called “cocainercise” (I think — go check it out on his blog; there are still a few discount coupons left). It’s supposed to motivate you to want to exercise a lot. We’ll see — I got a discounted copy and plan on listening to it soon.

So a lot of progress has been made, but adjustments are still necessary on my road to an all raw foods lifestyle. But at least I can make those adjustments because I’ve taken action and am moving (you can’t steer a car until it’s moving).

Smacznego,
Tom