Life in the Raw

Day Eight and Day Nine

dp — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:48:30 +0000

Day Eight
Day Eight was definitely the most difficult yet. Not-so-much for me, but for my wife. I think that this diet is especially hard for her, because while I’m used to eating salads five days a week and having bananas throughout and smoothies, she’s not.

Day Nine
Today wasn’t as bad as eight, but I think that we may have to cut the diet short. I think that doing vegetarian (even for a month), or perhaps even vegan, would be much easier than going raw. Raw is just like it sounds.

I don’t remember the precise menu for the past couple days, but it’s along the same lines as previously.

I think we’ll be finishing up the raw diet early (tomorrow) and not the end of the month as originally planned. But that’s okay… we tried it and we learned a lot. Sometime this weekend I’ll post some of the things that we learned in the short amount of time that we did this diet.

RAW

It’s a little more hardcore.
It’s a little more work.
It’s a little more planning.
It’s a lot more time prepping food.

Day Seven: need to breathe

dp — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:50:55 +0000

Day Seven, Day Seven, Day Seven
Well today was another headache day, and it’s getting hard to eat the ‘same things’ over and over again. Now, when I was doing the cooking thing, I ate a lot of the same, but I think the big difference for me was the fact that I would be able to add different flavorings and cook things in a different way. I’m also a bit more tired today.

I do wonder though if that’s partially due to the fact that work has been a bit extra stressful as well, which I’m sure doesn’t help.

and the menu:

Smoothie: pineapple, bananas, orange juice, honey
Banana x2
Salad: Romaine w/baby spinach, walnuts, almonds, homemade dressing
Carrots
Strawberries
Salad (lettuce, tomatoes, and vinaigrette and Sashimi from Outback (breakdown moment! Nooooo (it was so good)

Day Five and Day Six- raw dehydrated bread… epic fail.

dp — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:15:56 +0000

Day Five
Day five…. Well, we tried the raw dehydrated bread. It was horrific. I mean, it must have been one of the worst things that I’ve ever eaten. My wife didn’t care for it either… she even loaded up some honey on it and still couldn’t stand it. Needless to say, we didn’t keep it around. Other than that, the day was okay. This was one of our ‘off’ evenings, as we had previous plans with friends and we didn’t want to change those.

Menu for Day Five

smoothie: 2 bananas, strawberries, pineapple, orange juice
trail mix: almonds, banana chips, cashews, raisins, sunflower seeds
Lasagna, two pieces bread

Day Six
Day six once again wasn’t too bad. Just the same ol’. I think that I’m starting to have a few more headaches than I did before (I had one on day five as well). Hopefully those are just stress related and not to the diet, but we’ll see. Oh yeah, I slept amazingly at the end of day five as well.

Menu for Day Six

smoothie: strawberries, 2 bananas, orange juice, honey
banana
carrots
salad: romaine w/baby spinach, almonds, walnuts, homemade dressing
banana
homemade guacamole w/zucchini and squash
homemade trail mix: almonds, raisins, cashews, banana chips
orange and trail mix
homemade gelato

Day Three and Day Four

dp — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:51:08 +0000

Sorry about the lack of post for yesterday! The last couple of days have been pretty crazy.

Day Three
Day three started out pretty good, but as the day went on, I could tell that my body wasn’t fully adjusted to only eating raw foods… and it especially wasn’t used to having the flax seeds. Overall, I definitely could feel as though my body was trying to get rid of all the bad stuff in me… but it wasn’t too painful for me. Both my wife and I agree that we already feel a little healthier doing this diet. I didn’t go through hardly any of the symptoms that Steve Pavlina described here.

Menu for Day Three

0645 – fruit smoothie: bananas, strawberries, local raw honey, orange juice, flax seeds
0855 – banana w/cashew butter
1030 – banana w/cashew butter
1145 – guacamole salad (romaine w/baby spinach and guacamole)
1300 – homemade salsa w/squash and zucchini
1430 – homemade trailmix: almonds, raisins, organic sunflower seeds
1800 – orange
2000 – ahi tuna sashimi

Day Four
Day four wasn’t bad at all. My wife and I nixed the flax seeds with our smoothie in the morning, and I’m sure that helped. Today wasn’t too eventful. We started making a lot of different things with the dehydrator today. We’re starting crackers and a loaf of bread… hopefully they’ll be good

Menu for Day Four

Smoothie: 1/2 banana, frozen peaches, orange, orange juice, pineapple, strawberries
Cashews
Almonds w/raisins
Apple, pineapple, strawberries, and blackberries
Salad: romaine, mixed greens, spinach, olives, red bell peppers, tomatoes, diced almonds, sunflower seeds
Homemade Gelato! (peanut butter, honey, maple syrup, ground carob chips, almond slices)

Until tomorrow! Ciao!

Day Two

dp — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:49:39 +0000

Day two was easier than one. Not that one was hard. I’m mostly expecting days five through 11 to be the worst. At any rate, I don’t have much to report other than what was on the menu:

0700 – fruit smoothie: bananas, strawberries, local raw honey, orange juice, flax seeds
0855 – banana w/cashew butter
1100 – romaine w/baby spinach w/sliced almonds and raspberry vinaigrette
1300 – homemade salsa w/squash, zucchini, and cauliflower
1400 – banana w/cashew butter
1530 – homemade trailmix: almonds, raisins, organic sunflower seeds
1900 – guacamole salad! (romaine w/baby spinach and homemade guacamole)
2000 – homemade gelato! (peanut butter, honey, maple syrup, ground carob chips, almond slices)

Day One

dp — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:27:32 +0000

It’s April Fool’s Day, which doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. But it is the first official day of my raw diet.

Here’s the breakdown of what I ate:

0700 – fruit smoothie: bananas, strawberries, organic honey, orange/pineapple juice
0900 – banana w/cashew butter
1050 – banana w/cashew butter
1250 – romaine/baby spinach w/sliced almonds, squash, and raspberry vinaigrette
1350 – banana w/cashew butter
1500 – almonds
1900 – squash/zucchini slices w/homemade salsa and homemade guacamole
2100 – pineapple, strawberries, and black berries

recipes!
Tyler made the homemade salsa had crushed tomatoes, onion, red and green bell peppers, jalapeños, lemon and lime juice, and salt and pepper. I made the homemade guacamole had avocado, tomatoes, lemon and lime juice, and garlic salt.

Overall, today wasn’t too bad. We didn’t make the raspberry vinaigrette, but we’ll probably make some homemade salad dressings this weekend. Until tomorrow!

Going Raw

dp — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:35:47 +0000

Hello visitors!

My name is David and I’m about to ‘go raw’. Last year, I gave vegetarianism a try, as I heard that it would ‘increase my energy’ though I never really felt that it did so (I gave it a thirty day trial). I’m already a pretty energetic person, so it didn’t help too much. Anyway, fast forward to today and I figure I would try going raw instead. Like vegetarianism, I heard that I would get some good energy out of it. My wife said that she would do it with me this time too, so that really helps.

I’m going to approach this kind of like someone would approach weight-watchers (though I’m only ~140lbs). Meaning, I’ll probably give myself a break day once-a-week and I also intend to include Raw Tuna (Homemade Sashimi!).

I’ve bought the book, Raw: The Uncook Book: New Vegetarian Food for Life which will hopefully provide some good insight into what my wife and I should be doing.

I plan on doing this trial for at least 30 days (all of April). If I feel significant changes over that time, then I’ll probably go beyond that, but until then, I’ll give it my best. Finally, I started this blog as a way to track my progress, and to be held publicly accountable to following through with this trial. As I started today, I’ll be back in a bit to update with what I ate today.

Wish me luck!