A Stronger Commitment To Raw Foods

What I’m about to write today may surprise you, especially if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time at all. If you have, you know that my first 100% raw day was on March 13, 2008 — about 150 days, or five months, ago. Perhaps it seems as if my transition was effortless; if that’s the case, please let me shatter your illusion by saying that it wasn’t. As with anything else in life, it was my choice to do this, and choosing one thing means that you choose not to do something else, even if the alternatives are something that you think you want (like cooked food that smells and looks and tastes good but destroys your body). We’re going to be talking about choice in just a moment because it bears directly on what I’m about to tell you.

Before I do that, though, you may have already noticed that this blog post is a bit longer than usual. That’s because I have a lot to say and a certain way to say it, and if I don’t do it in a certain way, then the message I’m trying to convey won’t be delivered. I do ask that you carefully read this post from beginning to end if you have even a passing interest in my blog and in what I am trying to say and do. As always, my goal is to help encourage you to make positive choices to make your life better. I don’t like to “nag” or “coerce”; I find that most people simply need positive encouragement (although I will go a bit deeper today to explain one thing, and it may not be the most encouraging thing you’ve ever heard).

Now let’s get back to choice. While I normally don’t get into my personal philosophy of things because, for the most part, it’s better if people simply live the illusion that they lack control in their lives, in this case, I simply must. Everything you do in your life is by choice. YOUR choice. And it’s the same with my life.

If there’s something in your life that you think you don’t control, think again. Gotta go to your job? Why not get another one or start your own business? Gotta live with an abusive spouse? No, you don’t. Leave the abusive one — or start treating that spouse the way they deserve to be treated and see if they change (most will). Lack of money? Stop focusing on the “lack”, develop a happy, positive spirit, and look with anticipation for opportunities to abound. I could tell you my own personal story of how I was making less than zero money just a bit over four years ago; today I make a lot more than that (I don’t discuss my personal financial situation in public).

The same thing goes with the forums I frequent, especially the raw food forum that Roger Haeske runs (the link is in my blogroll) — although the same basic principle applies to other forums I frequent. While I’m polite and sympathetic when somebody mentions the fact that they wanted to stay with 100% raw foods but ate cooked food (because I do want to encourage people), the thought is always in the back of my mind that they ate cooked food simply because they chose to do so — and I simply don’t understand why they would do something that they don’t want to do, then lament the fact that they did it. If you don’t want to eat cooked food, then why in the world did you eat it? DUH! — as my daughters would say when they were teenagers…

While they can blame it on any of hundreds of things, the simple fact is that they picked up the fork or spoon, put cooked food on it, put that food in their mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it. Nobody pinned them to the floor, pried open their jaws, filled their mouth with cooked food, and massaged their throat until it went into their stomach. It was, and always will be, a matter of choice. You’re not weak, wimpy, confused, contradicted, or anything else — you simply chose in the moment available to you to eat cooked food. It’s your fault. Don’t say one thing and do something completely different because people like me are only going to believe what you do, not what you say. And if you don’t want to do it again, then don’t. It’s as simple as taking advantage of every moment available to you — every “Now” — and doing the right thing.

It’s choices. Our lives are formed by the choices we make in the Now, in this very moment. We can’t make choices in the past or future; we can only make choice Now, and if we choose to eat cooked food Now, then we’ve done it, and there’s nothing more we can do about it. Complaining or regretting doesn’t change the fact, so don’t bother. And just like anything else that we do Now, it has long-term consequences, doesn’t it? What you choose to do Now — in this very moment — will affect your future. Even reading this blog post will affect your future. It will either encourage and motivate you to reach for your goals — or it will get you mad at me and give you even more excuse to reach for that bag of potato chips lying beside the remote control on your oh-so-comfy couch (hey, and the Olympics are on, too. Couch potato paradise! You can watch people compete in sports you didn’t even know existed from countries you’ve never even heard about. Oooh, such a deal! In the meantime, I’ll be building my business and learning how to work with stock options… enjoy your illusion while I enjoy mine!). Which is it going to be?

Greg Nettles, a former third baseman for the Cleveland Indians (I think he may have also played for some team in a place called New York… my memories on that little fact are a bit hazy…!), once wrote about how there used to be nice buffet meals in the clubhouse after each game (I read that book a long time ago and I don’t remember all of the details, much less the name of the book). The owner of the team was always surprised at how he would never eat the fancy desserts and garbage food. He eventually gave up trying to explain such things. For him, the choice was simple. Part of being the best athlete on the field meant putting the right foods in his body, and for somebody who simply ate with their eyes and never said “no” to a banana split, that concept was foreign to them.

It’s the same with me. When I tell people what I eat, the first response is like I just stepped off a flying saucer and said something to them in Jupiter-ese or something. They simply can’t grasp the message, nor do they want to. I’ve done my homework, *CHOSEN* a course of action, and I simply don’t care about The Way Things Used To Be. It’s not a fad; it’s not something that I’m “trying out” — and no, it’s not the kind of diet that I’m only going to follow for a couple of days / months / weeks. I’m not going back to cooked food; this is my new lifestyle. I don’t think like you do because I don’t want the same results that you are getting, and to think that I’ll get different results by doing the same thing as everybody else is insane. I have to do something different to get different results.

Now normally I don’t express things like this because, quite simply, it’s better to simply let people have their illusions than it would be to change them. While it is possible for anybody to change their life, they have to want it before it will happen, and for 98% of the people on this planet, it’s easier to simply complain about their circumstances and find excuses (as they reach for that bag of chips) than it would be to actually take action and change. I’m going to assume that, because you are still reading this post, you are either in the other 2% or are looking for a way to get out of the 98%. You can do it. It’s not easy and it could take a lot of time, energy, and resources — but the rewards are great. But the first step is to admit to yourself that YOU — and nobody else — are responsible for everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen in your life. Once you realize this, then you can take action in the Now to ignore the past and take action to ensure a better tomorrow (what I like to call a “future Now”). Otherwise, I wish you a happy illusion for the rest of your life and hope you find this blog amusing (which means “a”, for lack of, and “muse”, for thought. In other words, “amusing” means that you don’t have to think — and if this applies to you, then I really don’t know why you keep reading this blog…!).

One more random thought on this: Once you take action and begin to move into the 2%, you will soon realize that the 2% also has a 98% to 2% split. In other words, there’s a 2% within the 2%, and a 2% within the “new” 2%… There comes a time when you have to decide that “enough is enough”. I’m not there yet, but if you’re already where you want to be, then that’s great. If that’s the case, then this blog post hasn’t caused you think at all or get even a bit upset. But if it is causing some type of reaction, chances are good that you need to take some sort of action. Please don’t put it off; the only chance you’ll ever get to do something about it is Now. The past is gone, the future isn’t here yet, so you only have Now to take action.

Back to what’s happened to me over the past five months. It really is true — you have more energy and feel better when you go 100% raw. I’m extremely grateful for everything good that’s happened since I adopted the 80/10/10 raw food diet. Over 70 pounds lost, more energy, people thinking that I might be at most 40 years old (I just turned 50), better mental clarity, a better sense of what I really want and need to do to focus on my goals… I’ve even picked up old self-help and motivation books that I’d read in the past and suddenly understood them and been able to apply them with drastic results. Right now I’m working my through about 30 hours of extremely complex videos that are teaching a stock options trading strategy that will greatly increase my odds of being profitable. Had I tried this even six months ago I would have requested a refund after the first video. It’s still difficult to grasp the concept, but I’m sticking with it — and it’s starting to stick.

In other words, the benefits far outweigh what I see as the one downside to this whole thing: the social aspect. I used to enjoy going out to restaurants and visiting people’s homes to share a meal. My mother in law used to love cooking for me, as did my wife. Food plays a huge social role in our society, but it’s a pity that the food of choice for most is Cooked. Thankfully my wife has adopted her habits to fit mine (she can whip up a mean smoothie!) and most others understand, or at least accept, my choice. I’m also learning how to find things to eat in those situations and am always willing to pack my cooler bag full of fresh fruits for those trips out.

But last Saturday — August 9, 2008 — I *DECIDED* to try something different. Yes, decided. I “decided” that, for one day (actually it was only half day), I was going to go back to eating cooked foods. And I did.

Why did I do that? For a couple of reasons. First, I made the change to raw foods quickly and suddenly, and to be honest, I’ve had this thought in the back of my mind that perhaps there is some benefit to cooked food that I overlooked in my “haste” to switch (bottom line up front: keep reading, you’ll see that this particular theory is false, at least from my perspective). Second, I know how I feel now, and I’ve been curious as to the effect that even a couple of cooked meals would have on the way I felt. I also re-aggravated an old injury but had to travel the next day, which pretty much compelled me to take some medications and “pollute” my body; if I’m going to do that, then I might as well satisfy my curiousity about eating a couple of cooked meals since I was already “polluted”. And finally, I just happened to be in Poland at my mother-in-law’s house (I’ll call her “Babcia”, the Polish word for “grandmother”, which is a target-rich environment (as we used to say in the military) for the kinds of food that I used to like.

So after arriving at Babcia’s house, I talked over my reasons with my wife and decided that today would be the day. Yes, there’s that word again: Choice. Decide. It wasn’t a moment of weakness; it was something that I chose and decided to do, just like everybody else reading this post will decide what to put into their bodies.

Babcia had made a pot of soup that was ready for us upon arrival. One small taste of the broth convinced me that it wasn’t worth eating. It had a strong, foul taste. Now don’t get me wrong; this is the same soup that would have tasted good to me last December. In fact, I probably would have eaten a big bowl with no problems. But it tasted awful to me now.

Instead of the soup, Babcia made me some white rice, which I used to love and eat. It tasted bland and flavorless but was at least edible. What I discovered here is that my tastes have changed dramatically and things that I used to like no longer appeal to me, nor do they fill me up. Fruit satisfies me; the rice did nothing to take away my hunger.

Later in the evening my brother-in-law fired up the grill and put on some wurst. I will admit that they tasted good — but as I’ve been saying on this blog for a long time now, taste and smell are deceivers. What happens AFTER you swallow the food is what matters…

And that’s where I want to focus. While driving back home yesterday (Sunday, August 10), I had to quickly find a bathroom because my body could not handle the meat. It tried to digest it but simply could not. It passed completely and quickly through my body — thankfully. I had not felt really good all day anyway; I felt uncomfortable as my body fought to do something — anything! — to deal with this foreign substance that had invaded it. I had also lost much of my energy and my enthusiasm was far lower than usual. Things that would not normally bother me (like other drivers) were a huge issue, and if there’s one thing I learned this year, it’s not not get involved in the drama of others’ lives, especially strangers you encounter on a highway. Yet I found myself getting involved. Not good at all.

Thankfully I’m home now, and my breakfast of oranges and bananas, followed my my mid-morning energy snack of grapes (had to go with green ones today; the red ones looked sick at the store yesterday), has me feeling much better. The ingredients for today’s smoothie are sitting on the kitchen counter upstairs, awaiting dinner time, and later today I’m going to try a cold soup for the first time, using a recipe that was in a free bonus book that came with Roger’s membership.

My conclusions? No more meat. It would take a LOT to convince me to eat meat again. In spite of what everybody at work wants to tell me (all members of The S.A.D. Cult Of The Grill), our bodies do not naturally know what to do with meat. Look at me; no meat for five months, I put meat in my body, and it panics and eliminates it as fast as it can. You can’t tell me that our bodies know how to digest meat or that we were made to eat meat. Yes, we can eat it; but can our bodies deal with it? I think that our bodies simply cope with meat; we don’t really “digest” it.

Other foods are bland and tasteless when compared to my current raw diet of fresh fruits and vegetables (with the occasional handfull of nuts). While “simple” foods (foods that are cooked and served in as close to their natural environment as possible) might be OK — things like steamed fresh vegetables or brown rice — they taste lifeless and have a lot of the nutrition cooked out of them. There is also the issue of the chemical transformations that take place when you apply heat to something (just like most of us learned in high school chemistry). Even at that, they don’t seem to be filling.

So my cooked food experiments are over for the forseeable future. While I won’t claim to have “arrived” just yet, I can say with confidence that I’m no longer transitioning to an all raw food diet. I’m there. I am a raw foodist or raw vegan or Whatever Label You Want To Put On Me. I don’t really draw my identity from it or any other “label”; it’s just something I’ve done to put me on the road to where I want to go. In fact, were I to once again “backslide” to a cooked diet, I’d have to go through a transition to get back there, and I seriously doubt that I’d be able to do it. After this past weekend, I now know with certainty what happens when I eat that junk and have no desire to put it into my body. If just a couple of relatively simple cooked foods does this to me, what would happen were I to return to that diet? For that matter, where was I headed before I made the switch? I’m glad I’m off that path and have no desire to learn where it might have led.

As always, I thank God for the wisdom He shares with me (remember Genesis 1:29?) and am glad that I did what I did last Saturday, because it underscores and emphasizes that I made the right choice earlier this year. I am a lot stronger now than I was last week, I know now what happens to my body when I try to eat cooked food, and will continue to focus on what is the absolute best for me. Right now, a 100% raw food diet, 80/10/10 style, is the best for me, and while I will keep my eyes open for something better, I don’t think I’ll find it any time soon

In other words, I choose to be a raw foodist vegan fruitivore-er vegetablevore-er. Or whatever other “label” you might want to put on me. The only label I’ll put on myself is “Tom Brownsword”.

Gotta cut this short; there are only four grapes left in the bowl by my desk…!

Smacznego,
Tom

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