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Janie's July 2002 Journal Monday 7/1: 7am: watermelon ~noon: 1 mountain apple ~1pm: ~5 - 7 rings of dried pineapple 6pm: 4 or 5 bananas 7:30pm: salad with tahini & lemon dressing (~ 5 cups lettuce, tat tsai and katuk; 2 sticks celery; 5 tiny cherry tomatoes; ~ 5 or 6 fresh chives; 1 flat parsley leaf cluster) I had an appointment away from my home office this morning to do some tech. support on-site for an organic farmer friend of mine that's taking a short break from farming. I thought it was about a 2 hour job, but she turned out to have lots more than I thought to do & it ended up being 7 1/2 hours. Luckily I had the watermelon before going & grabbed the mountain apple and 4 plums 'in case' I got hungry. Unfortunately the plums had gone bad in the car yesterday, so I only had the mountain apple. Fortunately my friend had some fresh organic dried pineapples (that they grew & dried themselves) & offered me some. It wasn't what I'd have picked to eat if I was at home (being dried rather than fresh), but it was certainly acceptable enough since I was hungry & my plums were bad. I don't think it sat well with me though. I had a bit of heartburn and gas afterwards - I haven't had heartburn in a long time & gas since I started eating mostly raw. I guess I'll have to take a cooler with fruit in it when I go on house calls in the future, in case. Tuesday 7/2: ~10am: watermelon 2pm: 5 bananas 4pm: 2 cherries (I was waiting for a client & the receptionist shared some of hers with me) 8:30pm: 1/2 very large leaf of chard rolled around some tahini lemon paste, salad with lemon tahini dressing (~4-5 cups tat tsai, katuk and lettuce; 2 sticks celery, 1 med. yellow tomato, ~ 2 Tbsp chopped fresh chives) Wednesday 7/3: ~ 8am: 2/3 large pommello (about = 3-4 grapefruits) I didn't eat the whole thing 'cause part was bad :-( ~ 11am: 1 large mango, 3 bananas (one and then the other) ~2pm: going through a detox I think and was extremely sleepy, so I took a nap 'till ~3:15 (was interrupted a few times by son, phone, etc.) felt much better & energetic afterwards 3:30pm: 1 avocado, 2 paste tomatoes, celery - 3 sticks + baby ones in center 7pm: 4 apple bananas I was a bit depressed (not like before raw) today and yesterday 'cause I've run out of lettuce in my garden & it's so hard to find good organic lettuce here (and I really want lettuce!). My hubby's out right now & said he'd look for some for me at the store (the stuff in the store's not very good, but at this point I'm willing to settle - at least it's organic). The rest of it all's going great & I'm overall very happy and energized anyway - it's only in the evenings when I want salad... Thursday 7/4: 9am: 13 lychee, ~1-2 cups soursop Noon: coco water from 1 young coco & a little later jelly meat from it 3pm: 3 bananas, 1 date 7pm: ~7-12? macadamia nuts, ~ 2 small heads lettuce, 2 large tomatoes, two bites celery Yay! Got some lettuce at the farmer's market, even though it doesn't happen on holidays. I went by there in case people set up anyway & some did - they didn't know about the 'not on holidays' thing, lucky for me! I *think* it was organic lettuce, because I think that person has had a sign up in past markets saying they were organic, but I'm not sure. I'm so desperate for lettuce that I didn't want to ask, didn't want to know. I brought it home and rinsed and soaked it & it tasted good - didn't taste any chemicals (which I can usually detect in things), so either they did a really good job at being chemi. or they aren't chemi. Anyway, since I can eat this lettuce plain I was able to finally get to opening and eating the mac. nuts I got a little over a week ago at market. My son had a really good time hammering them open, laughing and laughing about it. Our dog REALLY loves them - it was hard to hammer them open 'cause she stuck her nose in there so much! LOL That just made my son have even more fun! Since I had to eat them quickly, before the dog & shared quite a few with the dog I have no real idea of how many I ate. But it was fun. :-) Friday 7/5: 9am: 1/4 watermelon 10:30am: 3-4 apricots 1:30pm: 2 cherries at friend's 7:30 or 8pm: large salad with mashed avocado (1/2 of one) & tomato (2 large ones) dressing (6-8 cups lettuce, 3 leaves arugula, 1/2 celery stick, 3 leaves cabbage) It was an unusual day - I didn't get hungry much until about 6 or 7 & I was out & away from food at the time, so made dinner when I got home. It was good & filled me fine. I was also apparently doing a hay fever cleanse, 'cause I was sneezing a lot & my friend recognized it (as a cleanse) right away. I thought it was just a random hay fever thing, but then realized later on what it was. I had really bad hay fever as a child and it disappeared when I went vegan, but not until after a big blow out the first season after going vegan (worst bout I ever had). After that - I didn't have any more hay fever, that is until I went practically omnivore for a couple of years recently. The hay fever was gradually coming back, so when I had these sneezes I thought it was that. After a while I realized it was probably a mini-blow out since I'm eating raw (vegan) now. It's not as bad 'cause the hay fever hadn't built up to much before I went raw again - I suppose. It lasted for about 3/4 of the day (Friday) & then vanished. Other than the sneezing I felt great! :-) Saturday 7/6: Noon: red seedless grapes - lots of them (~4-6 cups or so?) 3:30 or 4pm: 5 apple bananas 7pm: large salad (~ 6 cups lettuce, 2 leaves cabbage, 1 stick celery, 2 small-ish yellow tomatoes, 2 leaves arugula, 1 green onion leaf [like chives]) with mashed tomato (1 large) and tahini (~2-3 Tbsp) plus a tad water to make dressing thinness I decided to wash some of the produce I got Friday as well as prepare some of the fruit I got today after coming home from the farmer's market with my hubby. We were loaded down with lots of fantastic raw food yummies (and a few for cooking for hubby & son who haven't decided to go all raw yet). We hadn't been to this farmer's market yet - it's new and not in our town. It's a good one - we'll go to it again. I read an old post by someone saying that she washes, cuts up, etc. all the food for the day in the morning and puts it in the fridge for everyone to eat during the day. That way she can just eat what she wants even if she's too tired to deal with all that later in the day. I can relate to not feeling like dealing with stuff later in the day - I had that happen last night. I had picked a couple of tomatoes from our garden that had split apart from the last rains. Some fruit flies were trying to do their thing in them & I just didn't feel like dealing with it (cutting around the area & looking to make sure there were no larva, etc.). Luckily I had some tomatoes that weren't split, but this morning I discovered the tomatoes I didn't deal with went bad overnight. If I had dealt with them right away & put them in the fridge we would have been able to save them. My hubby decided to cut up the rest this morning and put them in the fridge for dinner after hearing what Kelli does. I de-stemmed and washed all our grapes and put them in a colander over a bowl in the refrigerator. I washed some plums, nectarines, apricots and apples and put them in an open topped glass bowl in the fridge as well. Now when you open the refrigerator, the first thing you see is all that fruit - ready to eat. I also put some oranges and other stuff on the shelves around it (instead of in the crisper in a bag). I thought that might encourage my son to eat that stuff when he was hungry, instead of just grabbing a slice of bread or cooking something for himself (yes, he knows how to cook & is quite good at it actually). After I was done I showed my son & hubby the fruit in the fridge and told them it was all washed and ready to eat. It has started to work already! My son had grapes for breakfast too! He had french toast for lunch though - but it's a start! My hubby ate bananas for lunch too, so we're all headed there I think. :-) Sunday 7/7: 7:45am: ~ 1.5 cups red grapes (they're all gone now), 3 plums 11:30am or noon: 6 bananas 3:30 or 4pm: 2 apricots 7pm: 3/4 cobb of fresh corn; large salad (~ 6 cups lettuce, 2 leaves cabbage, 1 stick celery, 1 leaf arugula) with mashed tomato (1 large) and tahini (~1-2 Tbsp) plus a tad water to make dressing thinness Monday 7/8: 10:30pm: 5 plums, a few bites of red apple banana (ick! didn't like that - too bad, I have a couple of hands of them), 4 apricots 1:30 or 2pm: 4 1/2 Williams bananas (parts of 5 were bad) 6 or 6:30pm: 2 3/4 Williams bananas (parts of 3 were bad) 8 or 8:30pm: large salad (~ 8 cups lettuce, tat tsai, cabbage & katuk; 1 small yellow tomato, 1 stick celery, a few leaves parsley & basil, ~ 4 leaves chives) with tahini (~2.5 Tbsp.) and lemon juice plus water to make right consistency I decided to eat bananas twice today in order to get more calories. I think it worked, but I'm going to try to get them into one meal eventually. I used the Nutrition Analysis Tool at nat.uiuc.edu/nat.pdl to estimate today's calories, etc. It didn't have katuk, but had lots of things raw that were the same or close to what I ate. It said I ate 1450 calories: 8% from protein, 7.8% from fat, & 84.2% from carbs. I figure the protein's higher because it didn't figure in the katuk, so it's turning out pretty well. I still need to add more calories though at some point. Luckily I still have some fat to lose, so I have time to fiddle with this and get used to it... I haven't been feeling lacking, so I think it's going well. Yay! I'm still pretty darn sedentary, but figure that I'll be able to adjust things better once I start doing more physical activity. I kind of want my body to focus on cleansing and healing my autoimmune thing right now, then I'll focus on the muscle gain, etc. I know I need some exercise, and I do some walking/hiking, but do want to start 'working out' before the end of the summer (and keep working out). We'll see how it goes... :-) Tuesday 7/9: 8am: ~1/4 white pineapple 11:30am: 5 red apple bananas (okay, I decided to try them again, this time with the attitude that they were an unknown fruit [not bananas] & decided to eat at least 4 bites before deciding. The first 2 bites were icky to me - such a strong taste & very different than bananas to me. The next one was okay & by the 4th one I was thinking, "Hmm.. I could get used to this." Once I finished the first one I wanted more, so I ate more). Funny how trying new fruit is like that for me sometimes - I have to go into it without any expectations of taste or texture & give it 4 bites of consideration. After that I almost always end up wanting more - although some of them I wouldn't call my favorites. I probably won't get red bananas again for a couple of weeks or so, but I will eat them again (besides the 3 I have left). 2pm: 2 nectarines, 3 small apple bananas (= ~1.5 reg. bananas) 5pm: 1 small apple banana 7 or 7:30pm: large salad (~ 8 cups or so of:lettuce, tat tsai, cabbage & katuk; 1/2 stick celery :-( I ran out, a few leaves parsley & basil, ~ 4 leaves chives) with tahini (~3 Tbsp.) and lemon juice (~3Tbsp) plus water to make right consistency Calories = ~1469; ~ 8% protein (+ whatever the katuk has), 8.2% fat, 83.8% carbs. Well, I'm still not up to the 1700 calories I'm trying for right now. It's a bit hard 'cause the only bananas I have right now are ones I'm not too fond of, so it's a bit hard to eat lots of them. Market's tomorrow afternoon, so maybe after that?... Does anyone have any high calorie ideas besides bananas & fats? Wednesday 7/10: I drank lots of water this morning - was quite thirsty. I guess it's 'cause I didn't have as many juicy fruits yesterday, or maybe cleansing. 11am: 2 partial Williams bananas (= ~1), 3 red apple bananas, 2 tiny apple bananas (~1 reg. banana) 1 or 2pm: 2 cucumbers from my garden ~4pm: water from 1 coconut 6 or 6:30pm: large salad (~ 6-8 cups of:lettuce, tat tsai, cabbage & katuk; a few leaves parsley & basil, ~ 2 leaves chives) with tahini (~3 Tbsp.) and fresh squeezed lemon juice from lemon in my garden (~3Tbsp) plus water to make right consistency I drank some more water before going to sleep. I wasn't as hungry today in the afternoon and evening & have been feeling like my body's working on cleansing something. I've decided not to worry about getting enough calories for a while. Keeping the percent of fat down was a bit easier than I thought - so far at least. I have had inclinations to have nuts/seeds more often, but that easily goes away if I just eat fruit at those times instead. The caloric intake is a bit more tricky - I'll work on it again after this round of cleansing. Since the percentages have been pretty good for some time now, I think I'll quit figuring it out on the nutrion calculator for now. When I'm ready to try to get my calories up to what they should be I'll start using it again to check my progress. I do still have quite a few pounds of fat to use up for now anyway. :-) Thursday 7/11: 8:30am: 1 pomelo (pummelo, pommelo), less a few bad sections 11am: 4 tiny apple bananas (about 2 reg. Williams bananas' worth), 4 reg. sized apple bananas 3pm-ish: 5 reg. sized apple bananas, 1 date, 2 bites lettuce (to clean the date off my teeth) 6:30 or 7pm: 4 or 5 Jamaican Lilikoi during/after beach hike 7:30 or 8pm: large salad (~ 6 - 8 cups of lettuce, ~ 2 cups tat tsai, ~ 1/2 - 1 cup katuk, ~ 3 - 4 Tbsp. fresh parsley, ~ 1 Tbsp. fresh basil, ~ 1 Tbsp fresh chives) with ~ 4 Tbsp. tahini and ~ 6 - 8 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice plus water to make right consistency Okay, so after I decided not to be concerned about how many calories I'm getting, I suddenly end up eating more bananas than usual. LOL When I realized how much I had eaten I decided to check the nutrition calculator to see how many calories I'd be getting if I ate the usual salad (which I did end up doing + some passion fruit). Yay! I'm in my current target range of 1700 - 1800 calories! I was a little more active than usual after that, so it may have evened out anyway... but, yay! My hubby went to the farmer's market with me this afternoon & we got so much stuff this time that we had trouble walking home with it all! LOL He's easing into more raw too, so we're gradually getting more and more each week. Our son's eating some fruit only meals for breakfast and/or dinner sometimes too, so that increases it too. We talked about getting a red wagon to put it all in so we could still walk to and from the Thursday market. It was fun! :-) Today I'll be going to the HFS and getting some additional 'exotic' fruits (for us here) like grapes, plums, nectarines, apples, etc. ;-) We all love them too. My son tends to eat them more frequently than the 'regular old' tropical fruits. LOL It's like how he thinks it's really special to go to a place where it snows thickly enough to make snow men and other stuff. I guess that's what happens when you grow up in the tropics. The grass is always greener on the other side sort of thing. Actually, he does want to live here after college and vacation in wintery places. Friday 7/12: 11am: about 2 slices pineapple - I'm just not into pineapple anymore lately, but my hubby is... 11:30am: coconut water 12:30pm: 5 apple bananas less about 1/2 of 1 from bad spots ~1:30pm: decided to try an avocado, even though I didn't have any tomato or celery (the things I like with it). Took a few bites and wasn't into it either. :-( 2pm: felt like I was cleansing pretty much & took a nap 'till 3pm, woke refreshed ~4pm: pineapple (~ one 1" slice), lilikoi (1 yellow) & orange (1) smoothie - I had been feeling particularly uninspired by food again today - haven't had that since going raw again - I think it was 'cause I was sort of disappointed in my son for shirking some responsabilities he had to a non-profit organization he helps regularly (he usually goes & helps them on Fridays, but didn't today 'cause he stayed up too late playing an online game & didn't get up until about 1pm ['cause he stayed up 'till about 2am or so]. He hadn't even called them or anything, eventhough I suggested it and reminded him... All he was thinking about is playing the game). I think he's getting addicted to that game - his behavior in relation to the game is very much like someone addicted to something (neglecting sleeping, eating and other things to do it, becoming unusually angry if delayed [in order to eat or bathe] or not allowed [to sleep] to play, etc.). Hopefully getting the pool's replacement pump will help break him out of the cycle. Anyway, I was feeling a bit bad about things and uninspired about food and all, working at my computer. I was pleasantly surprised by my son coming in with a smoothie he made for me - how sweet! :-) Unfortunately it was banana, pineapple and hibiscus cooler (cooked) so I thanked him profusely and explained how it wasn't raw and was miscombined. He understood (he had been a vegan hygienist food combiner [with cooked and some raw food - always raw fruit for breakfast] up until the age of about 9) and went into the kitchen to try to make something else - I helped him with possibilities [he's forgotten the food combining details] and he settled on the one I made. In the process I discovered that he hadn't really made that smoothie for me - he made it for himself but didn't like it. LOL It was enough at the time to pick up my spirits anyway. It was also encouraging to see him experimenting with raw food things - even though most of them were poorly combined and he ended up not liking them. The almond-hibiscus cooler one was really icky - the dog liked it though. ;-) I'll have to get Dr. D's recipe book for my son to experiment with - I'm going to order the Nutrition and Athletic Performance video soon, so I'll add it to the order. 4:30 or 5pm: 5 apple bananas 7:30 or 8pm: large salad (~ 6 - 7 cups of lettuce, ~ 1 cups tat tsai, ~ 1/2 cup katuk, ~ 1 Tbsp. fresh parsley, ~ 1 Tsp. fresh basil, ~ 1 Tsp fresh chives) with ~ 1.5 - 2 Tbsp. tahini and ~ 3 - 4 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice plus water to make right consistency I decided to cut out the fresh herbs in my salads for a while & reduce the tat tsai because I've been feeling too thirsty and not quite right in the morning since I added the herbs and increased the tat tsai. I kind of had a lettuce shortage and used more tat tsai than I would have normally to make up for it. I don't think it was the right thing for me. There were still some herbs in the salad this evening because my hubby didn't eat all his salad yesterday & I used it in mine tonight. I think I'm eating too late at night too, so I'm going to try to re-arrange when I eat. Since I have a pretty good idea of how much I'm eating right now I'm going to try to eat juicy stuff at around 8am, then bananas & other stuff if desired at around 1 or 2pm, then my dinner salad at around 6pm. I don't know if it'll work out right away, but I'm going to start working towards that... Saturday 7/13: 8am: watermelon - not very much, only about 3-6 cups? It was a fairly thin first slice off the end, much less than I usually eat. I just wasn't very hungry. Noon: 1/3 papaya (hubby cut off about 1/3 'cause of bad spot & had half of what was good), ~ 30 lychee (yum! They had them at market today again & they're not quite as expensive as before. The season's coming, the season's coming! Yay!); 3 'true' apple bananas (less about 1/2 of 1 from bad spots), 1 Hawaiian apple banana (the kind I usually eat - it has thick skin even when ripe and is much juicier than the 'true' kind) 7:30 or 8pm: large salad (~ 6 - 7 cups of lettuce, 1 or 2 cups katuk, ~ 1 Tbsp. fresh parsley, ~ 3 Tbsp fresh cilantro, 1 tomato) with ~ 3 Tbsp. tahini and ~ 4 - 6 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice plus water to make right consistency Kind of messed up with the eating earlier plan - got involved in something and lost track of time. I realized it was 6:30 & tried to finish it quickly, but didn't get to making salad (washing, etc.) until 7... Then I remembered that I needed more tahini, so we walked to the store and got some more. It was raw, but salted so isn't ideal yet it works in a pinch. Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow... I did do pretty well with the timing the rest of the day, although I underate my calories. I guess it'll take a while of adjusting back and forth to get the elements down. BTW - The lettuce at market today was really good! It's the best I've had from others in a really long time! The farmer does a market on Tuesday in a different town so I might start going to that one just for his lettuce. It's organic, good quality and well priced - hard thing to find here. Sunday 7/14: 8:30am: watermelon Noon-ish: 1 large papaya 2pm: 3 apple bananas 3pm: took a really good long bath (an extra shower just didn't seem enough - I felt like I was having a lymph system cleanse [uncharicteristically bad underarm odor - even though I had showered less than half the day ago], so I took a long bath [unusual for me]). It was really great and did the trick! 7pm: lettuce and tahini-tomato-katuk dip (mashed 2 Tbsp. tahini with 2 tomatoes & then mixed in katuk leaves after a while) Before I mixed in the katuk I used it as a dip for the lettuce. After I mixed in the katuk, I used it as a filling for lettuce 'tacos.' I also had about a cup or two of coconut water sometime between breakfast and dinner, but can't remember exactly when. I know, I know, not enough calories - but I just didn't want much today. Maybe it's because my body was busy working on something, thus the cleanse. Anyway, it was another good day & I feel great! :-) Monday 7/15: Breakfast: water from 3 coconuts (~3 or 4 cups) I felt like I was getting some headway on the cleansing my body's been doing, wasn't much hungry, so decided to just go with it and let my body do it's thing. I even noticed some improvements by noon, when it stopped. Noon: about 3 or 4 bites of cucumber - yummy, but not really ready to eat yet... 1pm: 2 HI apple bananas, 3 Williams bananas 7pm: salad (~ 6 cups lettuce, 2 leaves arugula) with tomato (3 paste) & tahini (3 Tbsp.) dressing (smashed & blended with potato smasher) I'm thinking of not finishing the tahini I got recently when it's all they had that day at the store and I really wanted tahini. It's raw, but they put salt in it for some reason. I never thought I'd be feeling or saying this, but the salt's bugging me. I don't like it anymore. I used to be kind of addicted to it and/or saltiness in other ways (like Bragg's Liquid Aminos, Nama Shoyu, etc.) - even when I was raw before (I thought Braggs was raw then). I just got 2 new jars of raw tahini with no salt - only sesame seeds like it should be (I'm thinking now). Funny how things change... ;-) I started to get my appetite back some today, but still wasn't quite ready for full out eating yet. I'm feeling healthier every day - especially after the cleansing rounds. :-) It apparently shows too because even people I barely know are coming up to me commenting on how healthy I'm looking now. I thought only I was noticing. Cool! Tuesday 7/16: 9am: watermelon 2pm: 6 Williams bananas (less ~1/2 of 1 from bad spots); 1 papaya 5pm: 2 cucumbers 7:30pm: tahini (2 Tbsp) and tomato (2 paste type=Roma) dip thingy spooned into ~ 8-10 tat tsai leaves. Tat tsai is also called spoon cabbage, so it works really well for this. Yummy! I'm pretty sure I could have eaten 2 or 3 or so more bananas this afternoon, but I only brought 6 with me to market. By the time I got home and ate the papaya that was going bad, I didn't feel like eating them anymore. I also haven't quite figured out how to eat mono and with variety well. I wanted to have cucumbers and the tahini/tomato/tat tsai thing, but didn't want to miscombine the cucumber, so I waited inbetween... It's been going pretty well lately with my son and hubby eating more raw meals, but they're definitely not ready for it all out yet. That's fine. In fact, I had fun cooking them a Mexican food meal - much more involved and fancy than I used to do. After I was done and they were eating I took out my pre-sliced cucumbers & chowed down. I just love cucumbers - they were so good! I made a comment about how yummy they were and my son suddenly noticed that I wasn't eating the dinner I made. He said something like, "You made all this and you're not even eating it?" My hubby said, "Yeah, of course, she's eating all raw, remember?" I said, "How else do you think I had enough energy to do it?" My son laughed and said, "You have a point." It's really true though. I never used to have the energy to do all that before when I was eating it. LOL I started making some lunches for my husband more and packing him salads and raw food goodies. After I was done making his salad yesterday I packed the left over washed lettuce in a container & put a clear bag over it instead of a lid & put it in the refrigerator. I let my son know about it when he got up & he had it for breakfast! :-) I was encouraged by that so I took out the carrots (he likes carrots a lot too, but is lazy about them) and chopped off their ends, scrubbed them and put them in another container like the lettuce. I told my son about them and he had them for lunch! Cool! He had cooked food for dinner though - after another bunch of lettuce first though. He said at one point, "I feel like I've had sugar, but I haven't." I told him it was probably because he had lettuce for breakfast instead of pancakes. He said that if I washed lettuce for him he'd have lettuce for breakfast all the time. I told him that it'd be even better to have fruit for breakfast and lettuce for lunch, but he said he wanted lettuce for breakfast. So, lettuce it is! I followed up on it this morning and so did he. He had lettuce for breakfast and lunch today (even though I washed and de-stemmed grapes and other fruits & showed them to him). I guess he's just into lettuce right now & will get back into the other fruits after a bit. He wanted pizza for dinner, but was happy with the Mexican food instead (it's his favorite kind of cooked food). Yesterday my husband had watermelon for breakfast and pineapple then salad for lunch. The salad had a bit of cheese in it as per his request instead of dressing, but it wasn't much. He had cooked food for dinner. Today he had watermelon again for breakfast and salad for a snack and bananas for lunch. They're both in much better moods too (not that they were in bad ones before or anything, just happier). The increase of raw and virtually raw food meals seems to be helping them too. Yay! :-) Wednesday 7/17: 8am: watermelon ~1pm: 7 Williams bananas (less about 1/2 due to bad spots) I probably could have eaten more again today, but this time got too grossed out by the 8th one. It had been 'stung' by fruit flies and the squirming larva was just too much for me. Ew! It's funny I can talk about all kinds of gross stuff & not get sick to my stomach, but little worms in my food is just too much! Ugh! 5pm: 2 cucumbers 8:30pm: tahini (~3 Tbsp) & tomato (2 paste) mash as dip for 3 stalks celery (yay! The celery's in at the HFS - I got 3 bunches!) and about 3 or 4 tat tsai leaves In addition to the energy I've been noticing other things improving. Here's some of what I've noticed: I had some marks on my knees from when I fell and skinned them while running (for exercise with the dog) about 6 months ago. After the scabs came off I still had dark kind-of bruised looking areas that just didn't go away. It's been months with no change, so I was starting to think they were permanent. About 2 weeks into this round of eating raw I noticed that they were starting to go away (along with other similar things). I just looked and one of them's all gone now! The other one is about half gone & is half as dark. About a week ago the radical progress visible on my skin slowed as my body seemed to be moving on to other areas. It seemed like it was working on my lymph system because I noticed that I seemed to be cleansing more under my arms. This was a time when I felt I needed more sleep than usual and more bathing (2-3 times a day). A day after I took a nice long bath my body seemed to move on to other stuff again. It seemed to be working on mucus related stuff. I had gotten a little water in my ear when soaking in the long bath & it didn't want to come out. Off and on after that I'd hear it in there when swallowing or turning over at night. Sometimes it hurt at night, but every time I sat up it was gone. I also had mucus releasing from my sinuses for the last few days. Yesterday it felt like my lungs were trying to get rid of mucus and I had a red area appear for a while on my chest where my lungs are. I slept really well last night, yet was interrupted and couldn't get back to sleep for a couple of hours. When I was sleeping I was sleeping really well though. I had an early appointment so I wasn't able to just sleep in. This morning I decided to do a few deep breaths and relaxation to try to make up for getting up when I didn't feel like it. Whatever was going on in my lungs seemed to really help because on the first breath I was surprised to realize I was suddenly able to take deeper breaths, and it was easier and smoother than ever before! When I got to the deepest part of the breath it felt like I got to an area of my lungs that had never been used before - or at least not for a long time. This area felt like it was also the same area where the red spot was yesterday and the same area I had been having pains from time to time for many months. After going raw the pains were less frequent and not as bad. I had been a little worried about those pains, but now I'm 99% sure it was my lungs and 80% sure that my body's taking care of whatever it was. I don't know what my body's going to work on next, but it seems that it's cycling through things it works on. It seems like it's doing a little bit here, a little bit there, etc. not quite finishing everything before moving on, choosing to get everything to an overall better level, rather than 100% of one thing at a time. I figure it'll cycle back through again after it gets to everything. I'm just glad it's doing it - and grateful I notice. It is very encouraging. :-) Here's an update on my family's part raw, part cooked eating: My son's been over at a friend's house since after dinner last night, so I don't know what he ate. Their mom used to be a raw fooder herself a long time ago so they have lots of produce over there. Maybe he ate some all raw, but probably not. He tends to eat pasta there. My hubby had grapes for breakfast, bananas for a snack, leftovers from last night's cooked dinner for lunch and sardines for dinner. He still is working on heading in the raw food direction, just not quite ready yet. I don't think my son's consciously trying to eat raw food - it's just happening at times. Thursday 7/18: 8:30am: watermelon ~1pm: 3 Williams bananas, a couple of bites of one too ripe & a bite of a HI apple banana that was not ripe enough; 2 papayas (I kind of felt like Goldilocks or something - that banana's too ripe, that one's not ripe enough and only 3 were just right LOL). 6pm: ~ 2/3 avocado cubed, ~ 2 roma tomatoes cubed, ~ 2 stalks celery sliced thick (like cubes), 1/4 yellow bell pepper cubed - all mixed together (I made it with 1 avo, 3 tomatoes, 4 stalks celery & 1/2 yellow bell pepper - but didn't eat the whole thing). Yes, I know - I overdid it on the fat today. I was intending to skip the fat tomorrow, but since I didn't finish the dinner tonight I might have the rest tomorrow (if it still tastes good then). Not much at the farmer's market today - no organic bananas and hardly any good non-organic. No lettuce. No watermelon. We just got an organic avocado (for dinner), a little bit of bananas and an organic arugula bunch. Good thing the HFS got their produce in & we stocked up yesterday. Otherwise I'd be quite bummed. There's still Saturday's market - hopefully things will be better on the lettuce front there. My hubby had nectarines and peaches for breakfast, 2 HI apple bananas for a snack, a salad of lettuce, tomato, celery and some cheese for lunch, and non-raw stuff for dinner My son had cherries for breakfast, non-raw stuff for lunch and a lettuce and tomato sandwich (part raw, part cooked 'cause of the bread) for dinner as well as munching on lots of lettuce in the process. We ordered Dr. D's recipe guide today, so we'll be using it soon! I'm pretty sure my son will use it and I'll have some things to make for them to try at dinner time too. I've been kind of just going on what I feel like eating at the time, but my son doesn't like tahini so most of the time he hasn't been interested in what I'm eating at dinner (except the lettuce, which he has plain, but it's not enough for him at dinner time right now). I'm thinking that there will be additional ideas quite different than mine that might appeal to my son. Friday 7/19: 9am: lots of grapes - 'till my tongue got that weird feeling from the skins (they were organic, so it's not pesticide) ~noon: 7 or 8 HI apple bananas (I can't remember how many 'cause I was at a friend's house and I forgot to count after the 6th one. I know it was at least one more...) ~3pm: juice of 1 coconut at the farmer's market - compliments of my friend :-) ~4pm: a few bites of soursop - in order to introduce it to my friend (and show her how to eat it) - I wasn't hungry yet, so didn't eat more ~5pm: 2 slices of orange & about a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice - still not hungry, but my friend made it for me and I couldn't resist ~8:30pm: the rest of the dinner I made for myself last night: what was left was ~ 1/3 avocado cubed, ~ 1 roma tomato cubed, ~ 2 stalks celery sliced thick (like cubes), 1/4 yellow bell pepper cubed - all mixed together. My son had grapes for breakfast too, but I don't know what else he's had because he's been away helping out a non-profit group all day & stayed the night with one of the directors (who's a friend of ours) in order to help them again tomorrow. They're in the process of setting up new things - kind of like remodeling. My hubby didn't have breakfast before work today. He took HI apple bananas and a larger salad (had a bit of cheese in it though) with him for a snack and lunch. He works late on Fridays and just got home. He said that he brought enough of both to last him through dinner too - except for being unable to resist a handful of chips offered to him by a coworker. Saturday 7/20: 8:30 or 9am: 6 apricots on the go (to get to market early in order to get as much of the good lettuce as possible - he said he didn't have much left & it'd be about a week before the next round is ready. I ended up only being able to get 6 - even though I was the first one at his table [lots of others right behind me]). Oh yeah, I forgot to list the 3 apricots I had at breakfast time yesterday...oops! 11am: 30 lychee 12:30 or 1pm: 6 ladyfinger bananas & 4 HI apple bananas 6pm: large salad (~4 cups lettuce, ~2 cups katuk, ~1 cup cabbage, ~1 cup baby arugula, 1 stalk celery chopped, ~1/4 yellow bell pepper chopped) with tahini (~3 Tbsp) & tomato (3 paste) dressing Sunday 7/21: started menstration cycle 9:30am: 5 large plums 11:30am: 2 or 3 lady finger bananas, 9 HI apple bananas 6:30 or 7pm: tahini (3 Tbsp) & tomato (3 paste) dip with 2 stalks celery used to spoon it onto lettuce leaves, then placing some baby arugula and katuk leaves on top, wrapping and eating - did the same with 2 halves of a cabbage leaf too - ate celery stalks at the end It's seems that my antiphospholipid antibody syndrome may be getting better already (after a little over a month eating this way) because my menstration blood doesn't seem to have as many clots in it. Monday 7/22: 9am: 2 cups coco water noon or 12:30-ish: 1 medium papaya, 8 or 9 HI apple bananas (sorry, forgot to count the peels before composting them, I know it was at least one more than 8...) 6pm: same thing as last night - it was so good I just had to have it again: tahini (3 Tbsp) & tomato (3 paste) dip with 2 stalks celery used to spoon it on Tuesday 7/23: 10am: ~2 cups grapes; 5 plums 2pm: 1 small soursop (~1 cup or so without skin or seeds) 3pm: 5 HI apple bananas (I wasn't sure how they combined with soursop, so waited) 7:30pm: kind of guacamole (1/2 avocado & 2 paste tomatoes mashed with a touch of fresh cilantro added)- I took lettuce leaves individually and placed katuk leaves and baby arugula leaves onto them & then used celery stalks to spoon the guacamole on top, I then ate the 2 celery stalks after it was all gone (It was about 1/2 a head of lettuce, 2 cups katuk, 2 cups arugula) Yay! I was able to eat only 1/2 an avocado because my hubby wanted the other half! I made a point of eating extra katuk because when I eat the avocado as my fat I undereat protein a bit. I'd like to figure out how many macadema nuts I can eat without going too far with the fat. Also, don't macademias have a fat that's not as good for you - or does it not really matter when raw & fresh? I think I've been doing tahini too much and should get more of a variety in that area. I'm also not sure how 'raw' my tahini is - I've been getting the Marantha 'raw' unsalted one & since they also have a roasted one I'm figuring it's really raw. I've also been thinking of trying to make my own tahini, but don't know how (what appliance to use). Do you think a Champion would make tahini? Also, I'm not sure whether it'd be better to make my own tahini with brown sesame seeds I get from the store (possibly not all that fresh), or to get it already made in a jar (which could have been made from fresher seeds initially). Which would be more likely to not be rancid? Hmmm... I just don't know. I'll keep using the tahini from the jar when I use tahini for now until I figure it out. Anyone know answers to these questions? My hubby and son are still doing mainly cooked with some raw meals here and there. Hubby had 2 nectarines& 2 peaches for breakfast @ ~8am & took 2 bananas and a large salad with a tiny amount of grated cheese in it (all the rest was raw). He said he ate everything and was still hungry - for something sweet, but had some plain roasted peanuts instead. He said it was quite a lot of them and it didn't agree with him. He was feeling poorly when he came home and took a long nap. He had cooked food (1/2 of a quesadilla: whole wheat tortilla with raw cheese) and the half of avocado for dinner. Son had lettuce for breakfast @~11am, I'm not sure what he had for lunch, and then had cooked food for dinner (rice pasta & the other half of my hubby's quesadilla) with a bit of plain lettuce too. Wednesday 7/24: Water in the morning - didn't feel like having anything else, but did want the water... my lungs seem to be working on expelling mucus again. The coughing's a bit of a drag, but it is productive & I don't have a sore throat or stuffy nose or anything, so I feel great otherwise (actually fantastic)! ;-) noon: 6 HI apple bananas I took a nap from 2-3pm (stayed up too late last night for how early I had to get up this morning...) ~ 4:30pm: 1 orange at beach 6 or 6:30pm: 1/2 large pumello alone; ~1/4 yellow bell pepper alone; then without waiting: 2 stalks celery, cup walnut halves, 1 paste tomato - they weren't mixed but I ate some of one, some of another, etc. Thursday 7/25: 8:30am: hodge-podge of stuff that was left &/or needed eating: 1/2 papaya; 2 nectarines; 1 plum; part of a mango - rest of it too ripe; part of an old passion fruit - too ripe too... My hubby got the mangos for himself but didn't end up eating them, so I decided to eat them before they were too far gone - I guess I missed it. To the compost it is! 12:30pm: 6 HI apple bananas 6:30pm: large salad (~6 cups lettuce, ~2 cups katuk, ~1 cup cabbage, ~1 cup baby arugula, 2 stalks celery chopped, 1 yellow tomato) with tahini (~3 Tbsp) & lemon juice (~5 Tbsp) + water to thin dressing I'm running low on tomatoes, so I did the tahini-lemon dressing because I just realized all my other dinner options so far have involved tomatoes. Ooops! I need to figure out something that doesn't need tomatoes. The lettuce right now isn't good enough to just eat plain, and if I eat the celery plain I like to have tomato with it... Hmmm... I wonder when Dr. Doug's recipe guide will arrive - I ordered it recently. Friday 7/26: 8:30am: ~25 lychee The tahini didn't make me as thirsty as I thought. I still had to drink water during the night, but not as much as it had been before. Maybe it was just a general cleansing thing & a coincidence... I'm going to try to diversify my salad dressing & not do tahini daily anyway though... ~noon: 9 HI apple bananas ~6 or 7pm: mashed 1/2 avocado & 3 roma tomatoes with 2 cups katuk & 1 cup arugula mixed in - used as dip for 1 celery stalk & ~ 1 bell pepper's worth of several differeent colored sweet bell peppers (purple, yellow, orange & red) - so pretty & yummy! Went to HFS today & recorded most of the produce
prices (locally grown is not necessarily organic, but could be unofficially):
Saturday 7/27: 11am: 6 mountain apples 2pm: 4 or 5 HI apple bananas 7pm: tahini (~3 Tbsp) & tomato (4 paste) mash thing put into lettuce on top of a layer of arugula and thicker one of katuk with a stalk of celery (ate the celery afterwards) The HFS had tomatoes yesterday, so I got lots of them - yay! Also the lettuce guy (one with good organic lettuce) ended up having lettuce this week - it grew faster than he thought! There was still some left even though I got to market late (I thought there'd be no lettuce so wasn't worried about being late). I got lots of it & he gave me an extra one for free! I also got a sapote to try. I don't know if I'll like it though - it's supposed to be really sweet. (I have a hard time dealing with extra sweet food). My hubby and I went on a hike today and gathered some Jamaican Lilikoi (passionfruit) - yummy! It was a good food gathering day! I've been forgetting to keep track of what my hubby and son eat. When I remember to keep track, I'll add it to my food log for those that are interested. ;-) Sunday 7/28: 10 or 11am: 25 or 26 lychee 1 or 2pm: 6 HI apple bananas 6 or 6:30pm: tahini & tomato mash thing put into lettuce on top of a layer of arugula and thicker one of katuk with a stalk of celery (ate the celery afterwards) Not much to say about today - except that it was a good & productive day. I couldn't figure out a different thing to eat for dinner, so just had my good 'ole standby - tahini/tomato mash. I realized that it wasn't the tahini making me so thirsty before. The night I had lots of energy & felt like skipping was a night I had tahini for dinner before that. It was right at the point where I used to get thirsty - but instead I had the joyful burst of energy. I hadn't had that kind of burst of energy after dinner before (had it at breakfast and lunch quite a bit since going raw again this time tho'). I had so much energy that I decided to do some aerobics (that used to wear me out before eating raw this time) and still had plenty of skipping energy left over afterwards! I took a shower, and then read part of a book while stretching out. I went to sleep unexhasted, yet ready for sleep about 3 hours later than I used to be worn out without the exercise & reading. Wow! I never thought I'd have that kind of energy at night! My body proved to me quite clearly that the tahini was fine for me. ;-) I suppose what was happening before was a cleansing thing - my body was using the energy for cleansing & wanted water to help the process... Anyway, the short of it is - I'm feeling okay about the tahini again, and will still strive for a bit of variety at dinner (yet not feeling it's needed as much). Monday 7/29: 1pm: 7 HI apple bananas (+ a couple of bites of very damaged one) 5:30 or 6pm: salad (~ 5 cups or so of lettuce, ~2 cups katuk, 3 leaves cabbage) with mashed avocado (1/2) and tomato (3 roma) dressing, ate center small stalks of celery bunch afterwards It was a really hot & humid day here today (for here, at least). I took a very short but restful nap at around 2:15-2:30. You know, I'm not brushing my teeth as often as I used to 'cause I forget more easily. My teeth almost always feel clean now and don't get that 'fuzzy' feeling - even though I'm eating bananas every day. I thought bananas would be one of the foods that would do that, but I guess that's another thing that changes as you get the health thing going. It's funny. I experienced a lot of improvements and increased energy, etc. the last time I ate all raw food, yet I didn't experience much of what I am now. The last time I 'went raw' (well combined too) it was for a couple of years and was about 5 years ago and it was after being vegan for many years (a few of which were using natural hygiene food combining principles) and vegetarian for a couple before that. This time it's been only about 5 or 6 weeks so far and it's after being basically an omnivore for a couple of years, vegetarian for one and vegan for a couple. You'd think I'd have gotten better results the first time, but it seems there's more to it that simply just raw or just raw vegan. I guess it has to do with more mono eating, going with the fruit eating, and decreasing my fat %'age to around 10% or less. Whatever it is, I feel this is the best way yet. :-) Tuesday 7/30: 1:30pm: 6 HI apple bananas ~7pm: 71 lychee; 1 mountain apple; 1 celery stalk ('cause I ran out of lychee) LOL - never thought I'd eat that many at once! I ate lunch a bit late in terms of my hunger 'cause I was a bit stressed out with trying to get a bunch done & didn't want to stop to eat. Oops! I suppose that's also why I didn't eat as many bananas - the stress of rushing... I was real relaxed at dinner though - and I guess it shows. ;-) Wednesday 7/31: 9am: 8 small Jamaican lilikoi; 2 tangelos; 1/2 pumello - I ate all of one kind & when I ran out of it I ate the next, etc. 4 or 4:30pm: 5 HI apple bananas 7:30 or 8pm: salad (~4-6 cups of lettuce, ~1 cup katuk, a couple of leaves of cabbage) with tahini (~3 Tbsp.) & tomato (3.5 roma) dressing with touch of water to thin I really enjoyed the citrus this morning. I've been kind of neutral and disinterested in citrus for quite some time, but today it was really, really good to me. Just the thing! It also satisfied me so much that I didn't get hungry for lunch until later. Because I ate lunch late, my dinner ended up later... Maybe next time that happens, I'll try to eat some salad, lettuce or celery after my late lunch's fruit & skip dinner. I try not to eat later than 7pm - even if I go to sleep later. I feel like things digest better & I know I feel better that way. I've been running out of things a lot lately 'cause it's close to payday and we had some extra expenses this month along with a little less coming in from my business. Tomorrow my hubby gets paid though, so I can keep things stocked up again for a while. :-) It's a good thing too 'cause it looks like my hubby might be getting close to doing the raw thing again soon. My hubby said he had a good transition to raw day today. This is what he said he had: 2 bananas for breakfast, then later drank a bunch of grapefruit juice (32 oz.), another 32 oz. of prune juice later ('cause he felt he wanted to 'clean himself out'). He also had a few handfuls of katuk straight off the plant, some bananas (2 or 3?), orange juice (~16 oz) and maybe more bananas later too. He's having 1/2 an avocado now. (He usually only eats them at night 'cause they make him sleepy). He wasn't specifically trying to go raw today, but it ended up that way. He was very pleased about it - said he didn't have any desire for other foods or anything (mainly starches like bread, pasta & chips as well as chocolate - all of which he always craves otherwise). He said that he thought the juice helped him get enough calories to not get too hungry and spur the cravings. He said since he's not used to eating enough calories with raw food anymore he was having trouble getting enough calories otherwise. He's sure he'll be able to adjust and drop the juice soon though (he did it before - was a major fruit eater [especially bananas] when we were eating raw before if not restricting his intake). It wasn't exactly raw 'cause the orange juice was from frozen concentrate (organic though) and the other juices were bottled (not from concentrate and organic). He also just informed me that he had some vitamin C suppliments and a multivitamin today too. He considers it raw enough for now & would not have juice on a regular basis as well as thinking the suppliments aren't ideal. He's using them to help with the transition. It's different than how I'd go about it, but to each his own. :-) He was really into the katuk and was talking about how he thought he might be able to live on bananas and katuk, then thought he'd need something juicier too - like papayas. He had fun imagining our yard filled with bananas, katuk and papayas. I know he realizes that he'd probably eat other stuff too - he was thinking in terms of food staples. ;-) Yesterday my son had lettuce for breakfast and salad for lunch (with lemon, olive oil, Bragg's Liquid Aminos & nutritional yeast dressing) and cooked food for dinner. He skipped breakfast & didn't eat very much raw today - I can't remember exactly what he had though.
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