March 16, 2008, Part 2: Once More, Slowly

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