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
