going bananas blog

Wow! I took a break for an entire year! And now I'll attempt to make up for it with one obnoxiously giant post.

2009-08-16T14:10:00.022-05:00

June 2009

Hi to the world, if anyone is still out there.

I figured that after such a long silence it would be nice to say hello and let my friends know what I was up to. I'm sure there are those out there who have wondered if I was alive or if I'd given up on 811rv. I have a feeling this is going to be a long one, so hang tight. :-)

First off, I hope you are all happy and healthy and enjoying your lives. I have missed you all.

So...

I've been on 811rv for 2 years, 7 months and whatever number of days now (I don't keep count anymore.)

It feels good. It is just something that is a part of my life now, and I just really don't sit around thinking about it. I think that's a good thing, right?

Some major crap happened in my life this year.
As far as sticking with the diet, I think my biggest "test" so far came earlier this year when we had a life threatening medical emergency with someone in my family and I spent 2 weeks at a hospital, fearing for their life.

*I would like to insert a shout-out to Dr. Doug Graham here, he was very compassionate and helpful to my family during this time and kept in constant contact with me, free of charge. Thank you so much.

When it was all over, and my loved one was safe home with me, I realized that not once during that horrifying experience did I ever think of eating anything other than what I've been eating since I began this crazy journey.

But back to blog business.
I think that with this blog, I simply wore myself out trying to talk about food and health every day. It was taking me away from so many important things, like my family, and all the things I do outside of blogging.

(Those of you who know me in real life know how crazy busy my life gets!)

I intended to take a short break, which turned into a hiatus, and then after awhile I realized that I couldn't give up any of the time I had reclaimed for my laundry pile and other things. I'm truly sorry if that disappoints any of you, although, I'm sure that after a year, you're all thoroughly over it. Haha.

To be honest, there was also a part of me that was wary of putting myself in a box and labeling myself a Raw Vegan. I am so much more than that, my life is so much more than what I put in my mouth. I did not see myself as a SAD-er before, so why label myself with a diet or lifestyle now?

July 2009

I was also beginning to feel less and less qualified, because so many wrote me asking for advice about your own health on this diet, and seriously, guys, I am no expert, I know I'm not one, and I have no wish to ever be one in this field. I began to feel uncomfortable with giving you my opinions. What if someone got hurt because of something I'd advised them to do? I couldn't live with that.

Thank you with all my heart.
This blog served a purpose for a looong time. It was so helpful to me in jump starting my goals. Having you all in the beginning stages to be accountable to and to support and be supported by, was the biggest factor in my staying on the bandwagon.

I am happily keeping in touch with many of you through other venues (mainly Twitter and Facebook, and some in real life) and I treasure each and every interaction I have had with all of you.

I do apologize that I haven't checked my email listed here, or responded to most people's comments and attempts at contacting me. It's not that I don't care, but that I simply ran out of time and I had to keep the important things important.

After almost losing a precious family member this year, I am more dedicated than ever to keeping my family the most important priority in my life.

I still don't know if I am going to start blogging here regularly, ever again. I'm leaving that decision open though, because I never know, the mood or the need may strike me again, like it did today. It WAS so much fun and brought me so many meaningful experiences with all of you and I thank you for that.

Okay I'll shut up and move on already.
Now, that said, I would like to let you know some of the things that I have experienced in the last 12 months or so, related to my lifestyle. For all Curious Georges out there.

In Random Order:

My hair.
My hair, people. It is changing color. It used to be pretty much black. Now, it looks like it has reddish brown highlights all over. I don't know what this means but it's fun having free highlights. :-)

July 2009

I don't remember exactly when I gave up shampoo, has it been almost 2 years? But I'm still doing that. I don't use anything on my hair or scalp except some baking soda-water on occasion.

My hair (and nails) grow SUPER fast and my hair is thick. I have to trim my nails every 5 days or so. (I keep my nails short 'cos I'm a pianist.) I chopped my hair all off in June because I was just sick of it. I have no doubt it will be ridiculously long again by the end of next summer.

My weight.
I can't remember the last time I weighed myself, but I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere between 95-99 lbs. It's pretty much been stable for a long time, as far as I can tell with clothes. Which means no need to buy new clothes, which makes Kevin happy and me sad.

What I'm eating.
Well, this wasn't a goal of mine, but I haven't had an avocado or a single nut or seed in a long time - I don't know how long but certainly longer than 6 months and probably creeping up to a year. I just haven't had any interest in them. I truly feel better when I'm on a very low fat diet.

This summer I've greatly enjoyed: peaches, honeydews, Israeli melons, Black Mission and Calimyrna figs (mmm they're like honey), tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, corn and occasionally greens such as cabbage and lettuce.

My funny kids said that black mission figs look like sushi. (Only much yummier.) I concurred.

I haven't done any serious mono eating in awhile - I eat 2-3 meals a day and usually 1-2 mono meals/day, but haven't felt any deep need to mono eat for days at a time.

On the other hand, I haven't made any recipes either. Maybe once or twice a year on special occasions when I'm begged to by my family. Yes, I'm just that lazy. But also, I just haven't had much of an interest in recipes. I rarely make salads either, but I do often eat salad fixin's.

Remember when I used to live on watermelon? This summer, I've had one. ONE. And I shared it with my kids, so that doesn't even count as one.

I've found that I'm starting to naturally eat more calories when I'm more active, and less when I'm less active.

Overall, I am definitely not eating as much as I did when I started out. And I'm maintaining my weight. I remember those days in early '07 when I'd make a 10 banana smoothie for one meal.

(First of all I can't remember the last time I made a smoothie for myself - but I also can't imagine eating that much food in one sitting. These days it's more likely to be, say, 4 bananas or 5-6 big peaches, or 1/2 an Israeli melon or other smaller melon, tops.)

I don't count calories, but from my calorie counting days I became pretty good at estimating my calorie intake, and these days I would say that I average about 1400 calories a day, 300-500 more on running days, and maintain the same weight. (Please remember that I'm almost technically a midget.)

Fitness
I am proud to say, that I ran a half marathon in July. It was exhilarating and an amazing experience. I am now going to start training for a full marathon. I never thought I could do it, and I have enjoyed crossing that one off my to-do list. :-) (This was not an organized run, I did it with my Garmin and had some friends do it virtually with me all over the country.)

July 11, 2009, so happy to be done! Family waiting in the driveway to cheer me home.

Starting this spring, I have generally run anywhere from 10-25 miles in a week. Even though I'm slower than dark, it has somehow become one of my favorite things to do. Crazier things have happened! I have taken a 3 week break after my half marathon though and I do need to get back into training again!

I ran my half marathon after not eating for probably 15 hrs (overnight.) I did not eat or drink at all before or during the run, although I made sure I was properly hydrated when I took off.

I have enjoyed wearing very thin soled running shoes. (Pumas). (Thanks Kathleen!) I am grateful that I have managed to avoid any injuries thus far. I would love to get a pair of Vibram Five Finger shoes but as far as I know they still do not make them in my size.

I am also a swimming nut now. Some of you will remember that I learned to swim last summer. Well, I have completely overcome my fear of deep water - I think I'm finally convinced that I will bounce back up to the surface, every time, no matter how deep it is (haha) and I love to be in a pool anytime I can. We have gone swimming A LOT this summer and I went back for more lessons to learn more strokes and improve my technique. My favorite is freestyle, with backstroke being a close second.

I've not kept up with bodyweight exercises as much as I'd have liked to, but I still work out my abs. I lost the ability to do a chin up, (wahhhhhh) but one of my goals for the next year is to get that ability back. I did it once, I can do it again!

I would like to get a good road bicycle soon and start cross training with that too, and then, maybe in the next 10 years, you never know, I may just shock myself and do a triathlon!

My skin
My skin has not had any significant change...I'm happy with where it stands right now. I'm still prone to the very occasional small breakout, like you know, once a month. ;) but it is never anything like it used to be.

I'm pretty brown this summer from being in the sun so much. Love it.

July 4, 2009 - Somebody needs a tan and it ain't me. Although, anyone with a media pass is hot, esp my husband.

As far as my twin belly skin - it is pretty much the same as the last time I wrote about it, as far as I can tell. I haven't been able to get much sun on it except occasionally when I wear a 2 piece to the pool, you know, on days I'm feeling courageous.

It doesn't really bother me so much anymore... I look at it and I see my body giving itself for two beautiful babies. The stretch marks are all still there - they may be a little better than before, but I just haven't taken any pictures or thought about it much, so I don't have a clear comparison to before.

Teeth
I've had some trouble with my teeth this year. I went to the dentist and definitely had some cavities and had some major work done in the spring. I don't really think that any of this is related to the diet in particular, I've always been prone to dental problems from the time I was a child. :(

Being social
I've had more and more real life friends figure out what I do, especially after my stressful experience with my family's traumatic medical drama (when people insist on bringing you food and they want to know what you need and you say bananas for the 10th time in a row, they kinda start to catch on!) and I'm happy to say it hasn't been an issue with any relationship. On the contrary, I find that many of them say they admire that I can stick to this and several have started coming to me with more questions. (Gulp.)

General health
I've had days here and there of not feeling 100%, and when I don't get enough sleep I definitely feel miserably tired, but I am actually sitting here scratching my head right now, trying to remember the last time I so much as had a cold.

I'm very sensitive these days, now and then feel as if I'm fighting off something. I'll just feel a bit off for a day or so, and then usually I'm fine again the next day without any other symptoms.

And that's about it for now, folks...

June 2009 - I'm the poster child for how small one can get on 811rv. C'mon, laugh with me. I'm so funny.

I'm really grateful for my life and all who are in it, including you. 811rv has, and is continuing to open up new experiences and horizons for me. It is also, at this point, an integral part of who I am, and yet at the same time, it is only one part of me. I do not feel superhuman on this diet, but I certainly don't feel like crap, like I used to all the time either. Most of the time, I feel really pretty darn great.

I feel very, very vulnerably human. In the best way possible. And I can't imagine a better way to feel.

I can't wait to see what this next year brings me!

Thank you so much for reading and for being a part of my journey.
God bless you all, my friends.

Psst Need Some Inspiration?

2008-08-22T15:39:00.003-05:00

Photo Credit - One Good Bumblebee

Hi guys!

I'm happy to report that my laundry pile (and my piled up email) is slowly but surely on its way back to health this week! I still have some other stuff to catch up on, but hope to get back to the blogging world shortly. Thank you for sticking with me (if indeed, you are!) :-) I miss you all and hope to catch up soon!

I wanted to tell you about a great opportunity! My good friend Bethany told me today that she's selling a bunch of her hygienic health materials (books, CDs, etc) at 50% off. This is not because she doesn't think they're worthy of her love anymore (she still applies these principles in her life and considers these to be very valuable resources), but because she needs the money.

Let me just say that the list she sends me made my brain drool and I already have my eyes on a couple of the items. :D

If anyone is interested, email her at bethanymeira at pathofhealth dot org and she will send you the list!

So how is everyone doing anyway? Drop me a note and tell me what you're up to!

I Can't Keep Up Anymore!

2008-08-11T11:07:00.004-05:00

Huff puff...okay let me attempt to gracefully land on the ground, take my supergirl cape off for a minute here to be honest and say,

I can't keep up anymore!

With frequent posting on this blog, that is. I have so many ideas and so much inspiration for posts, that for awhile there I just wanted to get them all out asap.

The problem is, my life sneaked up and totally got in the way of blogging! My husband, my children, my friends, my house, my little quirky fitness habits, my gardening dream, my urgent need to be outside as much as possible, my piano gigs, my dogs, my LAUNDRY...can you believe the nerve of my life to intrude on my blogging like that!

I did some serious thinking over the weekend, friends... and I came to the conclusion, that I really think I could do it all, if a day consisted of 40 hours instead of 24. I really do believe I could!

But lets talk reality here. My reality, anyway. I like to write ~~rambling,~~ in-depth, long, informational posts. But they do take me awhile to plan and write, and I just wasn't finding enough time in a day to do everything I wanted to, and blog too. And here is the result:

Let me take a minute to share here what my favorite thing about blogging has been so far. Sure - it's been fun to share and express my thoughts in a creative way. But mostly, what I've gotten most out of blogging, has been my conversations with all of you.

Conversation in the comments section, conversations on email, on your blogs, and on various other forums - they have all been enriching, growing experiences for me and I have learned more from YOUR thoughts and YOUR experiences than you would imagine.

I have loved writing back, and answering every comment and email that comes my way. I haved loved discovering new blogs and reading about your lives. It makes blogging what blogging is for me. It would be so very boring if I was writing just to hear myself speak.

(This means, if you lurk, please consider delurking, at least occasionally! I'd love to hear from you.)

But when I am posting often, I simply don't have time to be as personal as I would like to be. So I'm hoping that by posting less often, I will be able to have more conversations with all of you. Yes - this means if you wrote me an email, you should be hearing back from me soon.

And hopefully fewer posts will mean higher quality too - but one never knows with me. :D

So please bear with me as I attempt to transition gracefully to a less hectic posting schedule. I haven't decided firmly what that will look like yet, except that it won't be 4-5 times a week. At least not before my kids grow up and leave me. Wahhh! And, my 7 yr olds just told me last week that they want to live with me forever, so THAT may just never happen.

I hope that you will all be patient and stick with me! I promise I'm still here even if I'm knee deep in piles of clothes, and I'll be sure to wave when I get to the top of my laundry mountain!

If you have enjoyed my blog, first of all - thank you, and second of all, please consider subscribing via email or RSS (links on my sidebar) so you do get an update whenever I post!

Have a happy Monday, everyone. :-)

8 Reasons Not To Go On A Raw Vegan Diet.

2008-08-07T10:34:00.001-05:00

The following are 8 reasons not to touch the raw vegan diet with a 10-foot pole.

Photo Credit - Douglas.Earl

1. You like your bladder just the way it is.
For those of you who are particularly grossed out by public bathrooms, it would probably be best not to pursue a lifestyle that would increase and improve your bladder function because lemme tell you, you're going to have to see the inside of a great many public bathrooms.

This can majorly detract from your quality of life when you're out and about.

(Plus, your pee will become boring and clear instead of entertaining you each time with different shades of yellow.)

Photo Credit - Oddsock

2. Being a couch potato is really more your kind of thing.
Raw vegans eventually seem to end up becoming nature buffs if they weren't already. After awhile, they all generally have urges to become nekkid sunbathers and outdoorsy, sweaty people.

If being outside for more than 10 minutes at a time with dirt, bugs and other perils of nature is not your idea of fun, then I highly suggest you do not ever explore the raw vegan diet.

Photo Credit - Diabolic Preacher

3. Soda is your best friend.
If soft drinks really hit the spot for you, if you are proud to call yourself a loyal and true Coke or Pepsi fan...

If your entire house is decorated in mugs, banners, blankets, antique signs and various other paraphernalia with soft drink logos and mottos on them...

And if your mental health depends on jump starting each day with a good 12 oz jolt, then forget this diet, it will make you crazy.

Photo Credit - Thejbird

4. You NEED your quality bathroom time.
What's there not to like about being constipated? It gives you a whole lot of bathroom reading time. When you go on a fruit diet, it's in and out quite literally. In seconds.

This has seriously cut into my reading time, people. So if your bathroom break is your designated reading and relaxing time, then this diet is definitely the wrong one for you.

Photo Credit - Piez

5. You don't want to offend any of your friends and family, ever.
No matter how quiet and polite you are about your diet, you will inevitably have some people in your life feeling like you're judging them.

These people will take it very personally that you are choosing a fruit diet and may possibly berate, insult, avoid or make fun of you.

Thankfully, MOST people are very cool about it. But if you don't want to offend anybody, EVER, and you cannot stand being made fun of or being different, then stay far away from the raw vegan world.

Photo Credit - Donna Cymek

6. Happy people disturb you.
If you're quite happy with your current quality of life, and being able to eat whatever you want, then please, do not attempt the raw vegan diet. Why even go there?

Because - mark my words - you will seriously mess your lifestyle up and you will quite possibly end up feeling all peaceful and vibrant and sparkly in your soul, which could get very annoying, because people who are constantly happy really bug the crap out of you.

Photo Credit - Autumn Welles

7. Compliments are not your thing.
Do you get all mortified, self conscious or simply irritated when people tell you how good you're looking, or how they can't believe you're not (insert age about 5-10 years than you really are)?

Because if so, you better not even THINK about changing your lifestyle because eventually people will start noticing how good you look and feel most of the time, and they WILL point it out and ask you lots of questions about it.

Photo Credit - Christi Nielsen

8. You're obsessed with your bath and body products and you don't leave the house without makeup, thank you very much.
Here's the deal - most people go into this whole raw lifestyle just by dipping their toes in cautiously. But sooner or later, most of us fall into a deep abyss of no return.

And pretty soon, it's not surprising to hear of someone else giving up their shampoo. And then it spreads to the demise of the fruity-floral body washes. And then facial cleansers go down the drain. And then...dare I say it...bye bye deodorant. (And of course, the razor and makeup got lost somewhere along the way.)

So if the George or Jane of the Jungle look horrifies your senses, better move on now before you get any closer to that dark abyss.

Your turn to play.
I only touched the tip of the iceberg, so c'mon, I know y'all have tons more great reasons for me. Bring it on! Just play nice okay? :)

*Disclaimer - This is a totally silly tongue-in-cheek post, friends. I hope it is received as such. No offense meant to anybody, whatever you choose to eat. :-)

Can Stress Really Make You Sick?

2008-08-06T08:33:00.008-05:00

Monday night when my husband hauled me like the big baby that I am into the house and up the stairs to bed because I was sicker than a gangrenous wart, my sister who was babysitting for us completely freaked out.

Photo Credit - Orbitgal

My sister is a busy bee these days and is getting ready to make some major cool transitions in her life. She's also had more sick days this year than she usually does, and I'm not sure whose face was greener when she saw me all limp and soggy like - mine or hers.

Why? Because she said she was terrified that if I had somehow managed to get some kind of weird stomach virus, that it would no doubt descend upon her too, since she's temporarily staying with us and drinking the same water and breathing the same germy air that we are and everything. And she DOES NOT HAVE TIME TO GET SICK RIGHT NOW!

(And yes, of course she was concerned for me too.)

Worrywarts and sickness.
I will personally admit, I have always had a (natural?) tendency to be a worrywart and struggle with negative thoughts from when I was little.

I've worked on it over the years and I've learned to let a lot of things go especially after being married to Mr. Eternal Sunshine Optimist for 9 years. But like a weed, worry and negativity still pops up in my life every now and then and I have to stop and pull them out by the roots.

Now - I have often heard about the connection between stress and ill health. I've even heard it in the media - on news articles and on TV. And we all know that everything you hear on TV is the truth.

But to be honest, and please don't hit me, I never really believed it.

I understood that there are instances where people have made themselves sick over negative thoughts - however, in my mind I attributed it to hypochondria, like maybe their sickness was all in their heads.

Maybe this is because my own husband used to tease me that my motion sickness problems (I tend to get motion sick more easily than others) were all in my head. At least until Monday night on the drive home. He shut up Big Time then.

Photo Credit - mastrobiggo

I never believed it, until...
Recently, I learned something that hit me between the eyes and helped me make a connection to things that have happened to me in real life.

I was watching a video by Professor Rozi Graham (Dr. Graham's wife). She is an excellent speaker and teacher, and she said something in a way that I'd never quite understood before:

She said:

Physiologically, the two processes that require the most energy from your body are:

a) Emoting

b) Digesting.

Wow! Really?! I thought it was GIVING BIRTH! Or at least long distance running...or mountain climbing...or something more of that nature, you know?

As Rozi's words continued to unfurl it made more and more sense to my personal life. She said that that this is precisely why many of us have trouble transitioning to a healthier diet.

You see, it is almost impossible to process your emotions when you're eating a dense heavy meal that is going to take hours/days to digest. And likewise, if your body is busy pouring all your energy into working out your emotions, usually one of two things happen:

Either you lose your appetite (because your body needs to emote) OR if you cannot or do not want to deal with your emotions right then, you stuff them up temporarily by eating foods that are difficult to digest. Because when you're digesting, your emotions are pretty much numb.

A couple of years ago, something really difficult happened to my family. I was in pure shock for 3 days straight, and my emotions were so strong and invasive that I could not eat or sleep for the entire duration. The thought of eating made me want to gag. And if you know me, you know this is a violent abberration of my very nature.

NOW I KNOW WHY!!! My body did not have the resources to deal with both those strong emotions AND digest food at the same time, so it completely shut my desire for food down until I had worked through my shock.

There have been other times when I have had unpleasant emotions to deal with to a lesser degree, (you know, things like, I got a speeding ticket and Kevin's never gonna let me live this down, ever) and I notice that those are the times I still harbor a tendency to want to stuff my stress down with lots of food.

Photo Credit - Programwitch

What I told my sister.
After learning just how much energy emotions require to process, I began to fully grasp that if you chronically allow negative thoughts to squeeze you tight in its smelly, slimy clutches, as your energy is drained you WILL be robbed of your health, and sometimes very quickly.

I have made an even bigger effort since then to learn different, healthier ways of handling my emotional needs and letting things (and sometimes even people) go, when I need to. I don't mean that I dismiss my feelings or ignore them. It is usually healthiest to address them head on, I have found.

So what did I tell my sister? I told her first of all not to worry her little head, that I didn't have a deadly contagious virus, but that even if I did, that her freaking out and worrying about getting sick would do nothing but ENSURE that she would get sick.

In other words, I told her to CHILL OUT. (Of course, I told her all this the next morning, since that night I couldn't walk, let alone talk, as every time I opened my mouth I was afraid that I might lose internal body parts from it.)

Stress in your life.
Have you noticed a connection between negative emotions and ill health, either in your life or in the lives of your friends and loved ones? Have you ever used food to numb your emotions or is lose-your-appetite-and-get-skinny more your style?

What have you found to be helpful in processing negative emotions in a positive way so that you don't get caught up in the vicious cycle of negative emotion, digestion and sickness?

When Heat Was Not My Friend

2008-08-05T12:11:00.013-05:00

*Warning - This post contains Way! Too! Much! Info. If you're easily grossed out I suggest passing this one by.

So - I had something more informational planned for today's post, but then life happened and you'll see in a minute why I can't think straight enough today to write anything worth reading.

Photo Credit - thesidewinder

The baseball game from hell
Yesterday my husband was given 2 free box tickets to the Rangers-Yankees baseball game by a business associate.

Neither of us are huge baseball fans, but it sounded like a fun date, so when he begged me to go I rolled my eyes and said, sure, fine.

A decision both of us sorely regretted by the end of the night.

It actually turned out to be a pretty fun experience if not for the THING that happened to me. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about baseball. Plus we got to sit with some friends and it was good to chat with them too. I had a nice time and would totally want to go back someday. Like the next time I'm feeling brave.

But it was 98 degrees out there the entire time. And even though the sun wasn't shining on our section, I began to develop a headache over the next couple of hours.

I brought a gallon of water with me because I carry one every day, it's my trademark fashion statement, one that makes me the butt of many jokes. I drank quite a bit of water over the course of the game, but I just began to feel sicker and sicker.

Finally, it got to the point where I had to tell Kevin that if we didn't leave pretty soon I might just hurl myself over the balcony to make my point.

So we left.

The problem is that the ballpark we were at is the size of the moon, at least. And not being major baseball fans, neither of us had been there very often. In fact, it was my first time ever.

And while the ballpark itself is the size of the moon, the parking lot is the size of the entire galaxy on growth hormone pills. Or at least that's what it felt like last night as we were walking around like idiots trying to find Parking Lot M, where our car was located.

We of course went out the wrong exit, so we pretty much had to walk all the way around the galaxy.

As we kept walking I continued to get dizzier and it became harder to breathe. My skin was cold and clammy to touch, and I was having a hard time not falling on every step. I really wanted to just sit there and wait for Kevin to get the car, but by that time it was dark outside and there was some drunk guys acting really crazy around us and it made me nervous.

I had no idea what was happening to me and I was pretty scared. Finally we found a group of valets who seemed to be the only people around there who weren't drunk and cussing, so I sat down by them and waited for Kevin to get the car.

By the time Kevin got to me, I was lightheaded and having trouble standing up. I almost passed out right there on the sidewalk. I was shocked when I got in and saw the time - it had taken us 45 freaking minutes after we left the game, to find the car!!!

Kevin drove me home as fast as he could - it was about a 25 minute drive, the longest drive of my life. And when we pulled into the driveway, I turned to him and whispered, "You're gonna have to carry me to bed. I can't walk."

Here comes the gross part and don't say I didn't warn you.
He carried me upstairs, and the second he put me on the bed, I lost it and totally puked everywhere.

The (only) good thing about puke when you eat a fruitarian diet, is that something like watermelon isn't nearly as gross coming up as when you're eating, say - fried chicken and ice cream. It is also infinitely more colorful. (Just trying to be positive here.)

And can I just give Kevin some kudos? He's the best when I'm sick. I'm sure he did not like being puked on, but he was a trooper and cleaned everything up as quickly and quietly as he could, and brought me anything I thought I might need. He even steam cleaned the carpet where I'd messed on. That's true love, people.

This is the first time I've been this sick, in a LONG TIME. I was surprised at how panicked I got. I've become so used to feeling great most of the time. I remember thinking last night that I might really be dying, and wouldn't that be so horrible for my kids? Go ahead, call me drama queen. Nausea brings out the histrionics in me, that's for sure.

I lay in bed for many hours last night, still feeling miserable and afraid to move a millimeter. I woke up this morning feeling MUCH better, but rather like I have a weird hangover, and I'm still having trouble thinking straight, so just to warn you, don't hold me responsible for anything I say or do today.

Photo Credit - OrangeSmell

Heat Exhaustion, anyone?
I figured that I probably got a nice little dose of heat exhaustion, so today I looked up the symptoms for it, and I had almost every single one of the symptoms listed.

heavy sweating - Not really.
paleness - CHECK.
muscle cramps - Not really.
tiredness - CHECK.
weakness - CHECK.
dizziness - CHECK.
headache - CHECK.
nausea or vomiting - CHECK CHECK CHECK.
fainting - CHECK.
Cool and moist skin - CHECK.
Fast and weak pulse rate - CHECK.
Fast and shallow breathing - CHECK.

Photo Credit - Kirill Tropin

Here is what the CDC Prevention Guide recommends if you have the symptoms of heat exhaustion:

cool, non-alcoholic beverages, as directed by your physician
rest
cool shower, bath, or sponge bath
an air-conditioned environment
Lightweight clothing

Please watch for these symptoms as you stay active this summer!
I didn't use to be aware of heat exhaustion. Normally I love the heat and I've even run in 90 degree weather quite a few times. But being out there in the crowds and noise in 98 degree weather for several hours really got to me. I could see how this could be really dangerous for kids especially.

Have you or anyone you know ever gotten heat exhaustion? How have you dealt with it and how long did it take for you to get back to normal?

This Chick And Her Chickadees Went To Chick-Fil-A.

2008-08-04T10:53:00.009-05:00

That's right.... after all the hoo-ha from last week over McDonald's, we ended up going to a different place!

(I made some new friends from swim class and they really wanted to go to lunch with the kids at McD's, and I was worried because my children have never been there.)

Chick-Fil-A was also a place that my kids had never been to, but hey, at least I can STILL say they've never been to McD's, right?

Photo Credit - sheriffmitchell

Here's how everything went down.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, after blogging about my dilemma, we went to swim class. Miss Margaret had just wrapped up the previous class and was at the side of her house, switching out some water hoses for her sprinklers or something like that.

When she saw us, (remember - my 3 yr old was the favorite kid of the year) - she said, "Do you want to come help me with the water hoses, Miss T?" And my daughter happily went off with her into the unknown.

I left them and went inside with my boys and we got in the pool.

Finally, my dd walks out of the house with Miss Margaret, and she's holding something in her hand. Something bright, orange, florescent and puffy...

Yep... a Cheeto.

(She's never had a Cheeto in her life...all my kids are dairy free).

Oops.

I immediately said, "Uh Oh Miss Margaret!!! She can't have those..."
Miss Margaret immediately put her hand out in front of my dd's mouth and lo and behold, my dd spits a second Cheeto out into Miss Margaret's hand with relief. Looked like she'd been holding it in her mouth because she had no idea what to do with it!

So unfortunately, that is how Miss Margaret found out we are fussy eaters. :-)

Now, less anyone get indignant on my behalf - I have to say that in this culture, and perhaps especially in my state, it is so normal to eat those kinds of foods that I understand why a swim teacher who liked my daughter so much and wanted to spend some special time with her would have offered her a little treat - and wouldn't have wondered if Cheetos were acceptable.

I was not offended or upset about this. I was more flattered that the swim teacher was so fond of my kid. I feel it was a good learning experience for me as a parent, and since I'm not a striving perfectionist, and health is not just about diet, I don't think that this one experience will ruin my dd for life.

Photo Credit - Oslo in the Summertime

Wednesday
The other mother, Patsy and I decided to take the kids to a park on Wednesday. My suggestion. It was just us and our kids.

I had started gently breaking Patsy in about my diet the day before, and she was so super cool about it, I was grateful and relieved. We brought plenty of fruit and healthy food to share, and she brought their own food, but also brought some fruit and raisins to share with us! That was so sweet of her.

Having picnics at parks is a great idea when you're meeting new friends and are worried about their acceptance of your diet, because the kids go from acting like frail starving waifs in the car to completely losing their appetites as soon as the park looms into sight.

So I might as well not have brought anything, 'cos all the kids pecked reluctantly at their food for 3 minutes and then played the rest of the time anyway.

Photo Credit - Slice

Friday
It was a sad day on Friday, because we all knew we wouldn't have swim lessons again until next spring. (Yes, I'm sooo going back! I'm addicted and counting down the months to next June.)

We went extra long that day, and I had so much FUN swimming different strokes back and forth the length of the pool. I felt like a completely different person than I was just 7 weeks ago. I feel like I'm half fish now and I am really eager to evolve into full fish!

Afterwards, all the parents began leaving, but Patsy and I hung around as we usually do because we're just like that.

Miss Margaret came up to us and quietly said, "So...lunch? The three of us?" And we were like, "Yeah!!!"

After everyone else had left, we discussed where we were going to go. My guess is, Patsy might have filled Miss Margaret in about my diet, because she didn't even bat an eye when I said that I'd prefer a place where there was a play area because my kids were on a "special" diet. Or maybe the Cheeto incident clued her in sufficiently. :)

First we talked about the park again, but that was quickly vetoed as temps were rising quickly into the 100's. So we decided on Chick-Fil-A as the local McD's did not actually have a play structure.

So people, the rest of the story is short because basically, we went to Chick-Fil-A, and NOBODY LOOKED AT OUR FOOD, ASKED ABOUT OUR FOOD OR CARED ABOUT OUR FOOD, as is usually my experience when I'm with my friends, without my kids.

Sheesh, I'm such a worry wart! For nothing!

(I snuck in some of our own food, plus I ordered 3 side salads for me and the twins, and we painstakingly and quietly picked the cheese off.) (It was a lot of work for 3 bites of salad, lemme tell ya!)

The kids had a GREAT time playing in the play area, and us 3 adults had a nice time sitting and having some adult conversation. I am SO glad I went and worked through all the stuff in my head. And really, it WAS all in my head. I did not give my friends enough credit. Shame on me!

Got any more stories for me?
First, I really appreciate every piece of advice y'all gave me about this little experience. So many of your tips and suggestions helped me this time and also for future outings!

It's interesting for me as my kids get older and become more social, because I'm very comfortable being social on a special diet, when I'm flying solo now. But I'm not as confident when I'm bringing my family with me since they have some dietary restrictions too and I just feel more conspicuous about it when they're all with me.

If you have kids on healthier/special diets and have had similar encounters, please share a story with me today! If you don't have kids, I'd love to hear the last social experience you had where you were on a different diet from the rest of your friends. Reading others' experiences is fascinating to me, for some reason!

Have I lost My mind (Yet)?

2008-07-31T10:50:00.007-05:00

No seriously...if any of you start thinking I've gone loopy, I reeeeeally want you to tell me.

Lennie's great interview yesterday gave me lots to think about during my run this morning and I can only hope you're all as addicted to my thoughts as I am because like it or not....here ya go:

Wait! But first! A Big Fat Disclaimer!
This post is NOT meant to be advice for aspiring or new raw vegans out there. It is merely a summary of my experiences so far. Remember, I'm kind of a newbie myself, with only 1.5 years of this diet behind me. So if you're wanting real advice, choose your experts carefully. :)

Okay, now we can move on.
I have great appreciation and respect for Dr. D, Lennie and the folks in the 80/10/10 and Natural Hygiene camp. After floundering for awhile in the big overwhelming world of raw nutrition, I finally felt like I had come home when I found them.

It just made so much sense to me to generally stick to a low fat diet, and to eat fruit as a staple fuel and biologically appropriate food, supplemented by greens and veggies.

I set out to try this diet, and what can I say? I feel that it's worked very well for me so far. I sure haven't done the whole lifestyle perfectly, but who's looking for perfection here? Not I. I'm just happy to have found some sound health principles to improve the quality of my time on earth.

I know I still have some things to work out but I find that I'm less and less of a perfectionist and more and more patient and observing with myself over time. And then I get everything down better because it just comes naturally with time.

Photo Credit - Trinity

An unexpected twist
What I didn't expect, was that over time, my desire for greens would go down.

This has surprised me, because growing up, I certainly was taught to like my veggies. If you'll remember in this post, I shared how my Mom instilled in me a love for crisp fresh vegetable eating.

To be honest, while I still like many types of greens and veggies and I eat them in large amounts whenever I want, I've certainly not cumulatively gotten close to the 1 lb/day average that Dr. D recommends in his book. Unless you count tomatoes, because I can easily eat 4 lbs of tomatoes in a sitting, 365 days a year.

I go weeks sometimes without eating greens.

Here are the only veggies and greens I ever eat lately:
Almost every day
Tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, okra in big amounts.

Maybe once every month...or two
romaine or iceberg lettuce, and celery.

A few times a year, but increasingly less and less
Tougher veggies such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower

Never
I never eat dark leafy greens (such as collards, kale, etc) because a) they taste icky to me personally and b) I refuse to eat anything that tastes icky to me. :)

When I eat lettuce or celery, I can and do eat 1-2 lbs at a time, easy. But I find that I just don't gravitate toward them much anymore. JUST GIMME SUGAR. Plus, sometimes the lettuce or celery is bitter and then I don't want it at all.

More often than not, I will buy greens and stick them in the fridge, only to throw them out a few weeks later because I never felt like eating them.

Photo Credit - Liqueur Felix

Growing toward simple, instinctual life.
When I first started out, I counted my calories almost every day, and sometimes painstakingly measured food to make sure I was doing it halfway "right". I do think this is a good and educational thing to do when you're transitioning to a fruit and greens diet from a regular cooked food diet.

But I like my life simple and after I felt that I had basically gotten the hang of how much food to eat and what foods made me feel best, I quit doing all that. Partly because I am lazy and partly because I felt it was counter productive to the simplicity I was seeking.

As time goes on, I'm slowly relearning to hear what my body is telling me. I'm regaining some of the senses and natural instincts I had numbed down and in some cases, lost altogether on a lifetime of a cooked diet.

(I still do things often that go against my better judgment, because I'm human after all. For example, about 6 months ago, I had some green onion after not having any onion at all months. It made me so sick that I kicked myself for doing it and have not even been tempted to touch it since then.)

Photo Credit - Aviator Dave

So. About those greens.
I have no idea if my desire for greens will fluctuate and come back with a vengeance over the next several years. On this issue, here is where I stand at this moment, and before you read the next paragraph, please do yourself a big favor and scroll back up to the top and read my Big Fat Disclaimer again first. :)

I am grateful for people who have blazed the trail on this path. If they did not set out to educate the world and share their amazing experiences, I would not be writing this today.

Dr. D's greens and veggies recommendation on the 80/10/10 high fruit/low fat diet makes perfect sense to me intellectually. How could I disagree with it?

And yet, although I LIKE greens and veggies and find them very tasty when I want them and eat them, I have a growing preference for the sweet stuff and if I was to be honest with myself, as my body has started healing and changing, I seem to want them less, not more.

I tend to take my instincts very seriously. More and more so. Should I be making myself eat tons more greens despite my lack of desire right now? I don't know.

And then, we have people like Anne, who have eaten a fruit only diet for 17 years AND have raised 2 children on it. She's one of the most intelligent people I know.

How do I reconcile the two? I cannot discount one set of experiences and observations over the other.

So for now, I concentrate on forging on ahead with healing my life, and becoming more and more in tune with the needs of my body and soul. I am not interested in micromanaging my diet (nobody I know recommends that anyway, certainly not Lennie or Dr. D!).

I keep all warnings of exclusive fruitarians (fruit only) who lose their teeth and their minds, in the back of my head. I like Dr. D's teachings because they're a breath of fresh air in this world, and I take things that he and others that he works with say, seriously.

(But, it would be helpful if I was able to find real life accounts of this, since I haven't been able to dig any up yet, and I'm guessing that Lennie and Dr. D are careful about confidentiality matters with their clients and acquaintances, as they should be.)

What's your verdict?
So I'll be getting back to you about this issue again and again over the next few years as I learn and grow, I'm sure. But now I want to know about you.

Do you take a particular stance on the greens vs. fruit issue? Do you set out to eat greens, and how much? Do they appeal to you, and have they always? Do you think I've lost my mind? Would you tell me if you thought I had? :) I sure hope so.

Yes, lots of questions, but I'm very curious! Please share if you can.

Interview with Lennie Mowris, Part II

2008-07-30T00:00:00.002-05:00

Today I'm excited to share with you the conclusion of my interview with Lennie Mowris - who works with Dr. Doug Graham of the 80/10/10 diet fame, and is a beautiful, knowledgeable and inspiring person all the way around.

Part II is pretty juicy (pun intended) and revealing, I almost feel like I should re-title it as "Ultimate Secrets To Being Healthy And Successful On The Raw Food Diet". :)

If you didn't catch it the first time around, make sure to read Part I first! It was too good to miss.

Lennie with some delicious looking drink in her hand. I'm guessing OJ with blended blackberries. Do I win the prize?

Lets start off with something light hearted:

Lennie, please share with us a fun/crazy, random and previously unknown fact about yourself, or an embarrassing moment. :)

I don't have many embarrassing moments, fortunately, I am quick to laugh at myself. :) What most people find surprising when they meet me is that I was a professional tree-climber.

I worked on a crew for 3 years. During that time I had a completely shaved head. My hair now is very short and has been for some time, but finding out I was bald and climbing trees usually startles people. They don't see me as "the type."

What is it that you love the most about the 80/10/10 diet?

I love it's foundation. Natural Hygiene is a fundamental philosophy in my life. Because it follows very logical and reasonable guidelines to obtain health.

I personally believe that when you are focused on 80/10/10 and not on Natural Hygiene as a whole, you've missed the best part.

No, she's not 16, even though she looks it because of her beautiful fruit nurtured skin and glowing spirit!

What do you believe to be the most common pitfall that most people stumble on when trying to stick to the 811 lifestyle, and how can they avoid this pitfall?

I have seen 2 main pitfalls, though there are several.

1. People don't eat enough fruit or greens at first.
They just don't understand the volume necessary. This invariably leads to trouble.
The book helps with this immensely, but before the book, this was a huge obstacle.

2. People are too stuck on cooked=bad/raw=good or fat=bad/no-fat=good.
What this mentality does is simply destroy your soul when you fail to meet the ideals you set for yourself.

It's important, in my opinion to remember, that it's just food. We eat to live - not the other way around.

And putting so much emphasis on right or wrong/ good or bad, inevitably leads people to emotional issues with their food. When they are raw they are on top of the world. Then they eat steamed broccoli or potato and their world falls apart.

Most of these people ate fast food without a thought in their minds, and then find raw foods and torture themselves over cooked vegan food. This to me is counterproductive and often destructive. When you do not follow through with your intentions you need more love, patience and understanding, not less.

Also, the emphasis in this situation is always on the quality of the food. But how food is eaten is also an important factor of health. If you eat steamed veggies, with love in your heart and peace in your life versus eating raw food quickly while not paying attention, or while emotionally upset you negate any benefit to the quality.

There is more to health than what we put in our mouths. We cannot be magically disease-free just by eating the "right" kind of food. Our emotional disposition among many other factors are equally important in our quest for better health. And is often the factor that keeps us from reaching our own ideals.

In your opinion, could one eat a completely fruitarian diet, but consume a large amount of non sweet fruit, and thus thrive in the long term without the actual tender young leafy greens?

No, absolutely not. Greens are a vital and necessary part of a healthy diet. Besides...once you get your taste buds back, they are delicious.

Some time ago I listened to an audio interview you did where you explained the fact that non sweet fruit and other veggies count as part of your greens intake. This was completely new to me and opened up a whole new understanding for me as to how this diet works. Would you please explain to us in more detail why and how this is so?

Vegetables are your primary source of minerals. The reason we eat greens and veggies such as broccoli, cabbage etc is for minerals. They are not a calorie source. They require about as many calories to chew and digest as they provide.

All of them have all the same minerals in different ratios. So it's not necessary to micromanage your intake with this diet. Eat the ones you like, which digest well for you. The ones you like will change from time to time.

Sometimes I LOVE lettuce, others celery, others can't get enough cabbage. But you eat all of these foods for the same reason. We use culinary definitions not botanical. This is important to remember. How you use food in the kitchen is how we classify them.

One of Lennie's creations. YUM YUM! Ok I lied, remember, I am not the biggest fan of cantaloupe. But, the pic looks amazing anyway. :)

What are your three favorite 811 recipes to make and where can we find them? Would you be willing to share one on my blog?

My favorites are all in the book. Since that section is one I created. :)

Sweet Tomatoes is an absolute favorite of mine. I would and could eat it as often as it is served. pg. 176

Heirloom-Tomato Heaven is another favorite. pg 188

And lastly Figgy Bliss, pg. 202

Do you have any parting words of wisdom for those who are in the process of transitioning to 811, or struggling to stick with it?

Be patient. Perfection is an illusion. The journey is the point. Look at what you can learn about yourself from your attempts and failures. There is no right or wrong, only consequences.

It is up to each of us to decide what consequences we are willing to accept. And only we can do that for ourselves.

80/10/10 is not a diet as much as it is a tool for discovering what is truly right for you. So just open up, be honest with yourself and enjoy the adventure into discovering who you really are.

And that's a wrap, folks. A huge thank you and round of applause to Lennie for taking the time to do such a thoughtful, insightful interview!

So what do you think?
I for one really appreciated Lennie's words. I thought she had some great insights into the emotional process of changing your diet and your health and she said some things that I'm sure many of us connected to immediately.

How many times in the past have I beat myself up for "slipping" yet again? It wasn't until I let all that negativity go that I was able for the first time to really move forward and do this raw thing peacefully.

I also really agree with Lennie making the point that Natural Hygiene (a scientific philosophy of health based on the laws of nature and biology) is the big picture and that diet is only one of many health building principles.

(If you're interested in learning more about Natural Hygiene, my favorite informational free website about it is RawFoodExplained.com. Be warned though...what you find there may rock your world!)

Did anything in particular strike you or help you? Please share - I'd love to hear, and I'm sure Lennie would appreciate some feedback as well!

Sarah And The Big Scary Clown Dilemma.

2008-07-29T00:01:00.004-05:00

*I hope to post Part II of Lennie's interview on Wednesday, so be watching for that!

As it turns out, those swimming lessons I took a few weeks ago became rather addictive. This week I started my third session of them. The teacher, Miss Margaret decided to do one more class before summer ended, and called me to see if I would be interested. She had me at hello.

Photo Credit - lori05871

I have now CONQUERED! the backstroke, free style, and a modified breaststroke. I can float and am starting to get the hang of treading water.

I have also jumped off a diving board into the deep end more times than I care to dwell on. (Okay, it still gives me a tiny shiver every time, but I just take a deep breath, say "Ommm" in my head and just make myself do it and then it is not so bad afterwards.) And my ears don't even get waterlogged anymore.

Of course, when I say "conquered", what I really mean is this: I don't even give a microscopic rip about the fact that I look about as elegant as a hippopotamus on steroids when I'm thrashing, I mean swimming - I'm just ecstatically grateful that the sight of a big body of water no longer gives me the urge to curl up in a fetal position, suck both my thumbs and my big toe all at once and sob inconsolably.

But it wasn't just about the swimming.
Besides getting over this lifelong crippling fear of mine, another unexpected joy came out of my three weeks of swimming fun. I LOVE the people that I am there with!

The other ladies in the class, especially one named Patsy that I particularly bonded with, the teacher - Miss Margaret and her small team of instructors (including her daughter, her son and his girlfriend) have blessed my life this summer.

Of course, it is difficult not to feel extreme love for somebody when they repeatedly tell you that out of all 300 kids that took swim lessons with them this summer, my 3 yr old daughter was unanimously voted their favorite. 300 kids, people! Do you know how cute that makes MY kid? Duuude!

Apparently she captured their hearts so much, that Margaret and her daughter both have a photo of my daughter on her first day of swim class as the background on their computers, and they smile when they see it every day.

(It is a photo of my girl screaming bloody murder with her arms thrown back against the side of the pool, with Miss Margaret rolling her eyes and announcing to all the watching parents that my daughter is a drama queen on the level of Scarlett O'Hara herself.)

Yup, I really bonded with some good folk this summer.

Problem solving time.
But now I have a small dilemma.

See, today after swim class, Margaret, Patsy and I stood around and talked forever. And Margaret suggested that we should all go have lunch McDonald's on Friday after class, the very last class day of the summer.

Photo Credit - Vidiot

My dilemma?
1. My kids have never stepped foot in McDonald's.
2. My kids do not know what McDonald's is.
3. I'm afraid the big scary clown might scare my kids. Or worse, they might like him.

I reeeeeally, reeeeeeeeeeally want to hang out with Margaret and Patsy.

I reeeeeeeeeeeally don't want to talk about my diet, or the fact that my children do not eat fast food, or the fact that on Facebook, I freaking am a member of a group called "McDonald's is Evil."

(And no, I can't veto and suggest a park, because this week in Texas it is in the 100's!!!!)

I have decided to go, but I'm not sure what I'm going to say or do. I'm guessing an "I eat a vegan diet" would probably suffice, but truth be told, I'm a little afraid of making this a difficult experience for everyone.

I do not want my new friends to feel bad for suggesting McDonald's when they find out about my diet there, or to feel uncomfortable about my diet.

But honestly, there is nothing at McDonald's I would care to eat. So I thought of buying a small salad and just pushing it around and sneaking a bag of fruit in. Is that rude?

Sharing time. Pretty please???
The reason I shared all this with y'all today is because I have a question for you that will help me. I think.

If you are not vegan or vegetarian (raw or otherwise), what goes through your thoughts when someone mentions to you that they are vegan or vegetarian? Please be bluntly honest. I promise won't bite...I don't eat animals. :-)

If you are vegan or vegetarian (raw etc), please try to think back and remember what USED to go through your mind when someone told you about their veggie diet.

And of course, if any of you have any input about my going to McD's and how to deal with that gracefully...BRING IT ON! I know you were chomping at the bit anyway. Haha!

The Truth About My Grocery Bill

2008-07-28T00:14:00.000-05:00

I have had quite a few people tell me that although they're interested in what I'm doing, they cannot conceive of doing it themselves because their budget is a deterrent.

Some people pooh pooh at this, saying things like - if you want this badly enough, you'd just figure out a way to do it somehow. But I find that a large number of the people who glibly offer this "easy" solution, seem to either be single or without children to support financially.

I don't mean to turn this into a debate about whether to be fruitful (ha ha) and multiply, though. Having children, and how many, is a personal choice if there ever was one.

Photo Credit - pingnews.com

My husband and I have chosen to have (and been gifted with) three darling children and they are so stinking cute that I often feel like I want ten more. Usually this deep longing occurs at night when my current three are in bed, all sweet and clean and quiet.

Then reality loudly jerks me back to the planet each morning at 6am to the tune of "MOOOOM, I POOOOOOOOOPED!" x 22, or however many times it takes me to get conscious enough to crawl out of bed and painfully inch my way toward my daughter's bedroom door with my eyes still shut, without walking into any doors or walls.

I swear one of these days I'm going to get a recording of my morning wake-up call so you can all experience it with me.

Eating healthfully does not always equate eating cheaply.
No, potty training isn't going well at my house. But like I said, the kid is stinking cute and I think we've decided to keep her. Which means we've got to feed her. Every day, 3 meals a day. And she's got two hungry, growing older brothers who make the saying "bottomless pit" seem like a joke that is about as funny as dirt.

Friends, it isn't always financially easy to eat healthfully, especially if you're supporting more than one person. That's just a reality, or at least, it has been mine.

Awhile back I wrote a post detailing 9 ways to save money on your grocery budget. I use many of those tips myself, but some of them are not going to be applicable to every person.

For example, not all of us are going to brave the alternate universe of dumpster diving (Tip #4). Not all of us have our own garden...yet (Tip #10). And with oil prices clamoring to compete with Starbucks coffee prices per gallon, it is no longer prudent to drive around to several stores, even if they have amazing specials (Tip #5).

Photo Credit - Paige Eliz

So what's a healthy eater to do on a budget?
I'm not sure I have crystal clear answers for you all today - sorry to disappoint. However, I have decided to share with you some of the inner workings of my head (hold on tight to your seats, it's always a wild ride inside my head) and household when it comes to money, food and health.

First of all, I will admit to you that our grocery bill is not to be envied. Even though not all of us are raw vegan, I really try to buy what I feel to be the healthiest foods for my family and they are not usually cheap.

I thought about giving you my actual monthly figures for a few months, but after showing bare belly pics and half nekkid pics (don't bother looking, they've been erased forever) of myself on this blog in the past, I really felt the need to retain some semblance of my private life. Plus some months I do better about keeping track than others. Ha.

But I will tell you that I spare no $ when it comes to buying our food and that it is our second biggest expense after the mortgage - many months. I say "many" months because there are some months that it is significantly lower with seasonal produce. I'll say that on the low end our grocery bill is in the $500 range and on the high end it is on the $800 range. I keep it close to the low end as much as possible.

A shift in perspective.
To be honest, at this point I would cut corners on almost everything else - and have - before resorting to eating something I can no longer look at as food.

As a broke newlywed before kids, I was a fabulous cook...of ramen noodles , Hamburger Helper and mac'n'cheese (and precious little else). For way under a dollar, both my husband and I could have a meal. Throw some frozen peas and egg, hotdog slices or a few hunks of meat in there and it seemed like a complete dinner. What a bargain!

I used to stop my husband from picking up a bag of grapes or a container of strawberries when we went grocery shopping together - because do you know how many packages of ramen noodles you can buy with the price of one bag of grapes?!!!!

We rarely ate fruit.

But over the years my perspective has changed, and Ramen, Hamburger Helper and mac'n'cheese are simply not acceptable to me as food anymore. I'm not judging anyone who eats them and like them, I promise...I just personally do not mentally view them as real food anymore.

Photo Credit - avlxyz

Adjusting my ideas of cheap bills.
I know it is entirely possible to feed a large family extremely cheaply if you use items like the ones mentioned above as staples, but because I can no longer imagine serving them to my family, I have had to adjust my idea of what a decent grocery bill looks like.

My conclusion?

My health is absolutely worth the price. Even if I was very broke right now, I would be okay with eating just bananas (non organic!) for a period of time until I could afford more variety. To me that is like beans and rice to normal people with a tight spending limit. With bananas still under a dollar a lb in most places, it is one obvious solution to me in times of need.

Our grocery budget may be higher than the average family's, but we make up the difference.
In case you can't imagine yourself cutting back in tight times by going bananas, here are several ways that my family has more than made up for it.

5 Ways We Cut The Costs.
1. Health Insurance.
My husband and I do not have comprehensive health insurance. We have catastrophic insurance in case of emergencies and accidents. This easily saves us a couple of hundred dollars a month.

2. Dining Out.
We don't eat out very often. If we do, it's to hang out with family and friends who have invited us, and even then I usually order some puny $2 plain salad. Before, we used to eat out all the time for entertainment and convenience, and with the kids included, it was costing us a good $20-$40 a meal depending on the type of place.

3. Cable TV/Satellite
Is non existent in our house. We've never had it and never plan to. Which is why I cried, alot, when TLC took online episodes of "What Not To Wear" off their website recently. Poo on you, TLC.

4. We're not huge consumers of stuff.
Sure, we like nice things. We enjoy the things we are blessed with and try to take good care of them - but it is not our goal in life to accumulate nice things. Unless you consider books nice things, 'cos we have like a hundred thousand of them and they're taking over my house.

5. We are easily amused.
Our entertainment budget is basically $20 a month. This goes to Blockbuster, who mails us movies to watch, and we then return the mailer movies at the neighborhood store in exchange for more movies and it's a vicious never ending cycle. But it also means that we just about never pay for movie tickets at a theater.

Everything else (trips, zoo and museum visits, etc) that costs money is on an "as we can afford it" basis.

How far would you go to achieve your desired lifestyle?
Obviously, the 5 ways I listed are not comprehensive nor right for every individual. We all have different priorities in our lives. But I know I'm not the only one who has cut back on something in order to pursue different goals.

So today, I hope you will share with us the ways you have cut the costs in other areas of your life so you could achieve what was truly important to you.

And if any of you want to share your grocery budget, the types of food you buy & your household size, we're all ears!

The King of Fruit - A Love Story.

2008-07-24T10:53:00.019-05:00

Hello, my name is Sarah and I'm proud to be an American.

At least, since April 2008.

Before that, I had a red passport; being born and raised in the beautiful country of Malaysia - you know - one of those tropical countries that we hear fruitarians and raw vegans brag about all the time on the internet as they go on their exotic fruit ~~binges~~ safaris around South East Asia?

Sometimes I find it extremely ironic that I transitioned to a fruitarian lifestyle after I moved away from Malaysia.

Although I ate a lot of fruit growing up, thanks to my Dad who served us some kind of fruit at every meal, I am now kicking myself because I do not feel I fully appreciated what I had available to me all those years.

(Of course on the flip side, my Dad is probably kicking himself for giving me such a love for fruit that I grew up and became a freakin' fruitarian.)

There is a vast array of tropical fruit I used to eat, that I no longer have easy access to now that I live halfway across the world. I miss them.

The King of Fruit
But perhaps the one that I miss most of all, is the King of fruit: The mighty durian.

Durian is a gourmet treat for Malaysians. During durian season, it was not uncommon for us to buy a whole bunch of them, and invite our friends over for a durian party and eat a mono meal of durian only. Usually we'd spread it out on the floor on newspapers and sit around it cross legged with much reverence and drooling, because...actually I don't know why, that's just the way we did it.

There are three reasons why I believe durian is often referred to as the King of Fruit. Its taste, its smell, and its ability to kill. Seriously - ripe durians falling off the tree is a hazard to life itself. They're huge - bigger than the average human head, and they are lethally heavy and spiky. I would be much more terrified of a madman wielding a durian than a knife or a gun, lets just put it that way.

It is difficult to describe the taste of durian because words cannot do it justice, but I'll give it a shot. To me, it's creamy, super sweet and like a thick pudding with a slight vanilla flavor to it.

But durian's taste is often described separately from its smell. The thing that shies most foreigners away from trying durian, is its strong ~~stench~~ fragrance. This fragrance is so strong, that in SE Asian countries it is not uncommon to see signs like this in public areas:

Photo Credit - Indrani Soemardjan

I think the only person I've ever heard describe the taste AND smell of durian perfectly together is my Dad, who always said that durian:

"Tastes like heaven and smells like hell."

Of course, then there's my dear white Texan American husband, who has this to say:

"It's like biting into a big fat juicy bag of garbage."

(Disclaimer - Kevin really likes durian. After the 3rd time he tried it, anyway.)

Fresh in the shell is best.
My friend Harmony recently bought a shipment of unshelled durian from Genefit and unfortunately did not have a very good experience with it. It wasn't shipped very efficiently and was leaking and warm (gross!) by the time it got to her.

As a result, her entire house reeked of durian perfume for a couple of days, which thrilled her to no end, of course. (Not.) I can't blame her - the durian smell is a bit of a stink bomb, and gradual acclimation works best. Ha. But me - I'd probably have wallowed and bathed in the smell and tried to bottle it for the memories.

In my house, we have frozen durian from the asian store for special occasions - usually birthdays. If you ask any of my kids what their favorite fruit is, durian is usually one of the first things they shout out. I say "one of the first things", because they can't ever pick just one fruit!

However, frozen and unshelled durian is pretty dismal when compared to buying one fresh from a fruit stall, bringing it home and devouring it within minutes. With the latter experience, the word euphoria comes to mind.

My two oldest kids are lucky. When they were one, we took a trip with them back to Malaysia. They got their first taste of durian that year. I have some precious video of two baby boys shoveling as much fresh durian into their mouths as they possibly can, and my parents in the background chuckling with delight to see their half-foreigner grandsons taking to stinky local fruit like ducks to water.

Someday...
As durian season comes to Malaysia again this year, I find my heart longing for a long overdue trip back home. But international plane tickets for a family of five costs a pretty penny and it is unlikely we'll be able to afford to go back any time this year.

But some day soon, I will make that trip home. And I will descend upon the durians like I haven't eaten in 6 years, and I will feast on them until my belly is big and full and round and satisfied. And then I suppose, since I'm already there, I might as well go visit my family and friends too. ;)

What is your experience with Stinky Fruit?
Where are you at in your experience with the King? Have you met him? Have you courted him? Have you had him? Have you fallen in love or broken up with him? Share with me!

*I hope you've enjoyed the durian photos, they were taken by Wong Cheng Yi, an old friend of mine in Malaysia and when I saw them, I had to ask her if I could show them off on my blog! Aren't they great?!

Was Your Mother Right When She Told You to Eat Your Veggies?

2008-07-23T10:16:00.010-05:00

Since I've been on the fruit and veggie diet, I've noticed a trend, for lack of a better word. A trend that has actually been prevalent all my life but wasn't obvious to me until I changed my eating habits.

Photo Credit - dboy

It seems to me that Mothers all over the world are very concerned about their children eating enough vegetables.

Okay, I don't know for sure about the "all over the world" part, I was just being a tad dramatic - but at least in America and in Malaysia where I grew up, threats to "Eat! All! Your! Veggies! Because! You Need More Veggies To Be Healthy! Veeeeeegggggggies!" sound like a pretty common admonishment to me.

My Mom was an expert stir-fryer growing up, and I have fond memories of standing around in the kitchen while she was preparing for dinner. She would be chopping and slicing all kinds of vegetables, and if I stood around and got in her way enough she would hand me all sorts of raw goodies to munch on - carrot sticks, jicama slices, cucumbers, snow peas, lettuce, tomatoes.

The hour before dinner time was my favorite meal of the day. :-) My Mom would munch along on those raw veggies with me before she threw the rest into the wok. It was something special we shared - she really nurtured in me an appreciation and taste for fresh vegetables.

But many kids I know do not like veggies as much as I did, and have to be threatened with being put on Santa's naughty list this Christmas so they will gag down the few green beans or peas on their plate.

Now that I'm all grown up (I know, you may beg to differ) and I'm a parent myself, I participate occasionally on a rather large parenting forum, and I often read the health/food/nutrition threads out of curiosity.

Occasionally I risk sticking my big foot in my mouth and/or getting my head viciously bitten off (which are both very distinct possibilities when you're discussing parenting issues) and I offer some short and simple advice if the person who's asking the health question actually seems open to hearing an alternative type answer.

But mostly I just read quietly because I'm fond of my head and would prefer to keep it attached to my shoulders, thank you very much.

One generic type of question that I often hear many Mothers ask, goes something like this -
(allow me to condense and paraphrase):

"We want to eat healthier. My child/children either hate veggies or already eat lots of them. If my child hates veggies, how do I get them to like them?! And if my child already likes veggies, then we're pretty healthy already, right? What else can I do to eat healthier?"

When I hear statements or questions like these, I always have the urge to run out and rent the biggest U-Haul trailer I can find, stuff a million bananas and watermelons and mangos in it, spray paint the words "Eat! More! Fruit!" on it and anonymously park it outside their home in the middle of the night.

(Hey, I wish someone would do that for ME! Anyone?)

It's not that I don't think veggies are healthy and important. I do.

Photo Credit - Jeffwillcox

Here's the deal:

1. Of ALL foods, vegetables are the highest in minerals.

But,

2. Of ALL foods, fruits are the highest in vitamins.

Does fruit get demoted?
My personal observation has been that fruit tends to get 2nd place in the world of produce when it comes to stressing the importance of eating enough of them.

I get the vague feeling that many people view fruit more as healthy sweet snacks and dessert type foods, and that veggies get more of the mystical aura of being a super food than fruits do.

But lets not forget the vitamins we need, the best and richest source of which come in the form of luscious, sweet fruit.

Me personally, I happily live on my "healthy snacks and desserts" and supplement that with as many vegetables as I desire - and that desire changes constantly. :-) In fact, dare I even say this? If I ever had to choose to let go of either the fruit or veggie group as a whole, the food group I'd choose to keep would be fruit, without any hesitation.

Photo Credit - Caribb

So is it really just me?
Maybe I pick up on veggies being so heavily emphasized on because I do eat such a high fruit diet that the lack of emphasis on fruit is glaringly obvious to me when I hear, read or participate in conversations with others about healthy eating. . Is it just me? Did you hear your mother telling you to eat your veggies more often than she told you to eat your fruit?

Do you think veggies are more important than fruits, or vice versa? Which group do you eat more of? Or maybe your opinion is somewhere in between? Please share your thoughts with me! :-)

Uncovering the Importance of Recovering after Exercise.

2008-07-21T21:43:00.011-05:00

For those of you who do not know, I have a sister who is 8 years my junior.

Photo Credit - adwriter

My sister and I may share the same general gene pool but you couldn't find two more different people. She's a whole head taller than I am and she's really pretty.

She has stick straight shiny hair and I got stuck with the wild woman wavy hair, and while I was stricken with acne all my teen years, she's never had so much as a blackhead.

She's one of those people who can eat what they want, as much as they want and forever remain waif like. Also, she obviously ended up drawing the athlete gene card in the family, because I sure didn't.

She's staying with me for a little bit, and the other day we decided to go running together. She knows I've been running for awhile, so she begged me not to make her look too bad, because she runs "really slow", she said.

Turns out of course, that "really slow" meant, oh...about 2 minutes faster than my average pace. Go figure. Sigh. Gene pools can really be unfair sometimes.

The one thing we do share in common, is girly vanity. We both like looking nice and over the years we have exchanged many clothes, accessories and fashion/fitness tips. We like taking care of our bodies.

I'm working subversively to brainwash her about the raw vegan diet, which in my opinion is the best kept beauty and fitness secret. Shh, she has no idea. But slowly and surely, I'm planting little fruit seeds in her head.

Eating and activity.
One thing I've recently been able to talk to her about, is the idea of eating after vigorous physical activity.

I'm sure that the athletes among us know the importance of doing this, but I didn't until the last year or so. In fact, back when I was doing more running in college, I would run for a long time, then come home and not eat for hours. I found that running dulled my appetite.

This is what my sister told me one night when she was about to go for a jog. She told me she was very hungry, and asked what I thought might be the best thing to eat before the run.

When I suggested that she eat right afterwards instead, she shook her head vehemently and told me that she never does that because running always makes her feel like not eating.

That night I got to explain to her what I've recently learned about eating for recovery after activity.

Photo Credit - EricNixon

Fuel during activity.
Your muscles use glycogen (storage form of glucose) as fuel. Any time you engage in vigorous exercise, you are using up whatever glycogen stores are available in your muscles.

From what I know, your body can hold around 2000 calories worth of glycogen at any given time, depending on each individual's size and other factors of course. And you burn about 100 calories per mile (when running, at least).

So unless we're super endurance athletes who run or bike obscene numbers of miles in a day, we're unlikely to ever face the problem of running completely out of fuel during a race.

For endurance athletes, I have heard of different solutions such as carrying dates and water, or water with dried fruit soaked in it or some type of fruit juice. Perhaps those of you who've done this could chime in on what works best for you.

Recovery after activity
The interesting thing here that I learned, is that for about a 2 hour window after you're very active, your body's ability to synthesize glycogen increases exponentially.

So it is really beneficial and important for us to replenish our glycogen stores during that window of time, as this will promote quicker and better physical recovery.

Do you know what this means for the foodies among us, people?? This means that we get to EAT! Lots of food! After we run! :-) I'm telling you - food never tastes quite so good as when you've really earned it!

Don't feel like eating?
One thing I still didn't really understand was why the body takes away our appetite during activity?

Personally, I found that if I just ate a few bites after I got home from a long run, my appetite would suddenly return with a vengeance. But I was still puzzled by why I physically did not feel like eating during and right after, until I made myself eat.

My little mystery was finally solved a couple of weeks ago when Dr. D answered this question on his Vegsource board. He mentioned that the dulling of the appetite was a survival instinct.

After thinking through it more, this made sense to me because I guess I'm pretty glad my body doesn't scream at me for food constantly throughout my run, because that would be pretty annoying and distracting!

And this would be 10 times worse if I was running because of some kind of dangerous situation. That would be a pretty inconvenient time for my body to tell me, "Hello, I know you're running away from the tornado/attacker/monster but could we make a pit stop for dinner please?"

What's the best recovery food?
If you just rolled your eyes and said "Fruit of course, this is the Going Bananas Blog after all, what else did we think you were going to say?" then *Ding Ding Ding*! You just stole the words out of my mouth.

Fruit is the perfect source to replenish your muscle glycogen stores, as it is rapidly digested and the carbs/sugars quickly metabolized, fitting that 2 hour window frame perfectly. Go, Nature, go! She always knows what's best for us.

Photo Credit - Phitar

What is your recovery method?
Do you have a recovery method? Or do you not eat after activity, and why? What is your favorite recovery food and how much do you typically need after your chosen sport?

*For further reading, please read "Nutrition and Physical Performance" by Dr. Doug Graham, available from his site - Foodnsport... it is such an amazing read that I wish every athlete in the world could read it. I reread my copy several times but it is currently missing because a trainer at my gym borrowed it and I've never seen it again. I hope my copy is being sent out to the world, or at least to my trainer's friends and fellow trainers. :-)

Using Your Diet as a Tool to Enrich Your Life.

2008-07-21T10:35:00.007-05:00

Last week I posted Part I of an interview with Lennie Mowris here, and I thought she shared some very wise words with all of us.

One thing I particularly liked was how Lennie explained that even though she's a famous and fabulous un-cook and has spent so many years educating people about health, the 80/10/10 diet/food in general is NOT a passion in life for her.

Instead, she sees her diet and healthy lifestyle to be merely a means to pursue her real passions in life - music, art and being outdoors.

Her words really struck me, as I have noticed my focus turning increasingly away from food. Recently I have rediscovered some old things and found some new things that I'm very interested to pursue.

They are things that I didn't have enough physical energy and/or emotional resources to actively be involved with before I changed my diet.

I feel that the enormous changes my body and mind has gone through in the last year and a half from being on a fruitarian diet has freed me from bondage I didn't even know I was in.

New doors and new opportunities are opening to me now that I would simply have said no to before, and I find myself happily and busily engaging myself, being as curious and eager as a child again, to explore the world and my capabilities within it.

Photo Credit - Ilovebutter

Here are some old things I've always been interested in that I've renewed a passion for in the last year and a half:

1. Music
I've been a music person all my life, but as I grew older and more busy with my young family, I neglected this side of me a lot, which was bad bad bad.

Recently I find myself dreaming of and setting new goals with my piano playing. I've been eager to see if my sharper mind/memory and more agile joints on the fruitarian diet is giving me a technical edge when playing pieces I had difficulty with when I was younger. So far, it is looking promising!

2. Writing
I have always been a writer at heart, even from early childhood. But I was very undisciplined with it because I feared and struggled mightily with writer's block. I tried working on some projects in the last few years and never completed any of them because of this.

Recently I feel like my mind is so free and full, that if I don't let it all out it's gonna burst and splatter everywhere in multicolor. I just can't shut up. The flow of words have come in such abundance lately that I'm sure some of you heartily wish that my writer's block would come back to ~~plague me~~ plant itself firmly over my big mouth. :-)

Photo Credit - ~FreeBird~

Here are a couple of new interests I've been eagerly pursuing of late.

1. Being more athletic
Prior to this year I did not have ANY interest whatsoever in being active. I figured I was more of the creative/artistic kind and to just excel in my own thing and let the ~~jocks~~ athletes do theirs.

Lately, I just have a desire to dabble my toes in everything athletic. I'm determined to run a marathon at least once in my life. I made myself learn to swim at the age of 31, which, if you understood how serious my deep water phobia was, you'd award me a gold bravery medal.

I'm hoping to get a really good bike in the next year so I can find out if I can still ride a bike after briefly learning at 15 and then not touching a bike in years. And then, in 5 years when I'm a capable swimmer and biker, I may even attempt training for a triathlon, you never know.

I'm also taking self defense classes soon (stalkers, take note).

I'm getting stronger doing bodyweight exercises, and after hearing a cool fruity friend say something about her training with a gymnastics coach, I now have a dream to some day find a coach in my area to work with me (whenever my husband gets rich enough.) :-)

Two years ago if I could read this blog post about my desire to be athletic, I would have fallen over with some big hearty guffaws and declared it to be some kind of joke.

2. Making friends.
I have always had a rather introverted personality. I was friendly, sure, but I was satisfied with my small group of close friends and did not really desire to expand that. It just took too much work to get to know new people and build deep relationships with them.

This has slowly changed a lot over the last year. Lately I find myself interested to make new connections everywhere I go and finding the energy within to do so. I have developed a curiosity to learn about people (not just raw foodies) and I love to hear about your lives and your stories. Your emails and behind-the-scenes conversations, by the way, mean a lot to me!

I think that being on this diet has helped me face and shed some fears that were holding me back from being more of a people person before. Because lets be real here - when you eat only fruit and greens in today's world, you have to figure out pretty fast if you're willing to let go of your social insecurities.

When you decide to be yourself and be happy and proud of who you are, then to heck with what anyone else thinks of you and your weird eating habits! And if you don't care what people think of your eating habits, then there's very little else for you to be nervous about, right?

Photo Credit - Bill Gracey

Has your healthy lifestyle unlocked old and new passions in your life?
Today I'd love to hear your stories - has a healthy diet and lifestyle freed you to pursue your true passions in life? Please share them with us! I know there are some very talented athletes, musicians and gardeners (yes I consider gardening a talent - a huge one, one that I wish I had!) who read my blog occasionally, among others!

If you still feel like diet is too much of a focus for you at present - share with us how you think you can turn it around and start thinking of using your dietary goals simply as a tool to get to the life you desire!

Are Gas Prices Cramping Your Grocery Shopping Style?

2008-07-17T10:45:00.005-05:00

I have recently changed some of my grocery shopping habits. Not because I want to, but because I have to.

I used to shop around at several different stores and markets - Central Market, Sprouts, the Dallas Farmer's Market, and several others. I enjoyed doing a bit of comparison shopping and picked up some amazing deals that way.

But with gas prices rising to about $4 a gallon, every time I get in the car recently my debit card jumps out of my purse, starts shrieking hysterically and tries to jam itself in the ignition so I can't get my keys in there.

So I haven't been driving as much as I used to.

I have recently shopped almost exclusively from two sources: A small farmer's market near my house, and Sam's Club which is right down the street from it.

I'm a bit leery of most of Sam's Club's produce, but there are a few things I really like from there that are very cheap compared to other places, like their grape tomatoes (which are like crack to me) and their bananas (cheapest of anywhere I know at 44 cents/lb).

But I do love my little farmer's market. Because they carry stuff that the big grocery chains don't, and a lot of it is local.

They buy produce from people who garden or have fruit trees around our area, which is super cool. It is a special joy to eat figs that I know were grown close by, and to pop orange cherry tomatoes in my mouth that I know some home gardener nearby lovingly cultivated.

Plus, the store owner and I are like BFF's now. His face lights up like a glow worm whenever I walk in, and it is always nice to know your presence has such power to brighten someone's life. Haha!

He gives me discounts on case orders, usually selling them to me for a dollar or two above cost, and he gives me free food sometimes. Best of all, he tells me when all the good stuff is arriving. For example, I'm scheduled to pick up a case of local figs tomorrow morning, right when it arrives! Yeah, I said that just to brag to all you fig lovers.

So lately instead of driving all over town, which used to save me some money but not anymore at $4/gallon, I have been picking up all of my food at just these two places, and mostly just the farmer's market.

Have gas prices affected your grocery shopping?
Where have you been buying your food from lately? Have any of you found rising gas prices to be a deterrent to your lifestyle?

Photo credit: Peti Deuxmont

Interview with Lennie Mowris, Part I

2008-07-16T12:03:00.016-05:00

Lennie Mowris has been a mentor of mine for about a year now. She works closely with Dr. Doug Graham, author of The 80/10/10 Diet. I consider her to be a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. She is just a beautiful person and I am honored and thrilled to share with you all an interview I did with her over email recently! Enjoy :-)

Lets start out by telling us a little about yourself. Who is Lennie Mowris?

Sarah, this is a question I have been trying to answer for years. Growth never stops occurring. So who I am now may not be the person I am to become.

As a result, I have always had a problem defining myself in such concrete terms. I abhor labels. The idea of fitting the complexity of our selves into a tiny package of words seems self-defeating to me.

I prefer to let the canvas of life be painted without such constructs and be who I am in the moment. That may explain my love for abstract art.

To this end, the story of me has never been finished, because right now it's far from over. I guess you could say in a sense this is who I am. I have always defied categorization and appreciate other things that do this as well. I try to be more than words can describe.

I would love to hear about your job. Would you tell us what exactly you do, who you work for and where you usually work? What is your favorite part about your job?

I design, publish and help market books for Dr. Douglas Graham. Technically, I am self-employed, he just happens to be my only client, because he keeps me that busy.

I work from my home office. And the best part of my job is the freedom. No alarms, no time-clocks, just me my office, my music and my rhythm.

I used to travel with Dr. Graham as well, to help him run events. However, I have stopped doing this to focus on product and to be able to stay home.

My last event is coming up at Health and Fitness Week 2008. After that I intend to stay home and live a quiet life with my husband.

Lennie and Doug Graham

How did you find out about the 80/10/10rv diet, and how long have you been living this lifestyle? Would you be willing to share with us some of the trials and joys of your own personal transition to 811rv?

When I met Dr. Graham it was before he coined the term 80/10/10 Diet. So I was around when it was created. I remember him sending me a draft of the manuscript for the book when it was just a baby.

He taught the same message, just didn't have the terminology that the program has today. When I first started I was on the Sunfood Program. I was 6 ft, 110 pounds and 30% body fat.

I felt terrible.

I went to see Dr. Graham speak and he told me the one thing I needed to hear. I could eat bananas. :) I switched and immediately noticed benefits. I started exercising and everything was great.

I had some ups and downs at times, mostly during social events. But I learned early on that this lifestyle is a process. Once you get the food under control, there is more to do... it's not just a diet.

So instead of beating myself up over choices I did what I felt was right at the time... and in the next moment I did what felt right next. It seems to be working. I am now 6 ft, 145 pounds and about 17% body fat.

What do you think is the most common misunderstanding about the 80/10/10 Diet?

The most common misunderstanding with 80/10/10 has to do with fat actually. People come to the realization that what they are eating is too much and then swear it off.

Like if you eat any overt fats you aren't following 80/10/10. Or that 80/10/10 is wrong and it should be 90/5/5. Then we micromanage what we eat to the point of neurosis.

I talk to people all the time who say they don't want to follow 80/10/10 cause they like avocado and nuts or seeds. Or others who are concerned about the 1/2 of the avocado they eat each week.

Again, it's just food. We spend most of our lives never worrying about what we put in our mouths, and then all of a sudden it's the only thing we think about, talk about, read about, know about... and we often get it wrong even then. 80/10/10 is a balance of caloronutrients, that's all.

It's not anti-gourmet raw, anti-fat, anti-greens, or even anti-cooked for that matter. Allow whole, fresh, ripe, raw, fruits and vegetables to dominate your diet. Make sure you get enough calories.The rest will work itself out with patience, and practice.

What are your passions in life when you are not teaching, writing or speaking about 811?

My passions in life...hmmm... seems I have many. I think my greatest passion, aside from my husband would be music. I love all different kinds of music, I play the clarinet and am hoping to learn a few other instruments within my life.

I also love other forms of art. I am blessed to be close to many artists in the Atlanta area. I have a friend who owns a gallery, others in film, improv comedy and music.

Beyond the arts, I love camping, cycling, running... anything that gets my body moving. To be honest, I am far more passionate about all of these things than I am 80/10/10.

I know this may be a surprise to most, but to me 80/10/10 is not a passion or a life... it's just food. It's the fuel that allows you to pursue your passions, not a passion in itself. Eating is not what life is about in my opinion... it's just something that allows us to live life.

Thank you, Lennie! I truly enjoyed reading this and I'm sure many others will be encouraged by it, too.

What did you think?
I really liked Lennie's words about how food is not the end all be all for her. This diet should be just a tool to get us to a place in life where we truly enjoy every day in health.

I also appreciated her gentle reminder to not micromanage our diets. "Patience, and practice" are two words to keep in the back of our minds, for sure!

Did anything that Lennie say particularly strike you? Share your thoughts with us!

Stay tuned for Part II, coming soon! Among other things, in Part II Lennie will address some great questions about common mistakes people make on the 80/10/10 diet, the greens issue, and she will share some of her favorite recipes! Don't miss it!

The Art of Fine Tuning Your Lifestyle.

2008-07-15T13:38:00.007-05:00

*I have a real treat coming up for y'all! So be sure to tune in tomorrow for Part I of an interview I did with none other than the fabulous Lennie Mowris!

10 years ago when I was a junior in college, I went through a time of romantic-ish drama, the details of which would make such a great chick flick movie script. (Anybody know a movie producer? Haha)

This little episode caused me anguish and stress at the time. I will spare you the nitty gritty of it, but thankfully the school year ended and I found myself facing the summer alone.

One night, hating to be sitting alone in a dorm room with my thoughts, I did something I hadn't ever done in my life. I put on my tennis shoes, pulled my hair back in a ponytail, walked out the door and took off running.

I ran my tushie off that summer. I was a slow runner and I didn't measure my distance or pace, but I discovered within myself a potential for endurance running, some days running up to 2.5 hours in full blown Texas heat.

Running helped me sort myself out, and being alone with the sun, wind and sometimes rain, taught me a lot about who I was and what I wanted in life. When I was running I felt like I could handle anything.

All that running made me really skinny and hot. Soon after that I started dating my soon-to-be husband and pretty much the next day, forgot all about that drama that brought me such grief.

Last year when I started running again after a long hiatus, I began measuring my distance and pace, and realized that I was running dismally slow. I kept plugging away at it and enjoyed it, but it was still discouraging.

A discovery
But this week I made a big discovery. I was researching running techniques because I'm just a nerd like that, and realized that I have been landing on my heel with every stride, which has been greatly slowing me down!

After reading, experimenting (by walking and running around barefoot a bit) and figuring out that landing midfoot or on the balls of your feet is much more natural, I decided to give it a try this morning with shoes on.

My regular old tennis shoes are big and bulky, and with those it was almost impossible to land on anything other than my heel, so this morning I pulled out another pair of slim running flats I have, that I rarely wear because they pinch my toes.

Here are the results of my experiment.

1. I shaved over 2 minutes off my regular pace without any extra effort, going from 12:37 (that is so embarassing!) to 10:21 per mile which is still not great but not shabby for someone on my level either.

2. Running felt more effortless, more "glidey" and seemed to require less ~~huffing and puffing~~ energy.

3. I need to get a new pair of shoes, like, TODAY. The photo below says it all.

Fine tuning the rest of my life.
I was amazed that just by one simple tweak, my running pace picked up so effortlessly and so much.

It made me begin to think about how important fine tuning is to the rest of my life. In a sense we are all fine tuning, every single day. Human beings are very adaptable creatures and it's a good thing too, because we all find ourselves in a constant state of change.

Embracing Fluidity
When I thought about how this concept applied to my diet and health habits, I realized that I have really been fine tuning it over the last several years, and that each time I have tweaked something, it has either gotten better or worse. It doesn't ever stay the same.

Some things I have tweaked - I have increased calories, decreased calories, tried certain foods, left others behind - some temporarily, some hopefully forever. I have gotten less sleep, more sleep, made recipes, eaten only whole foods, gone fruit only, eaten tons of greens, etc.

I love this fluidity, this thought that I never have to be stuck in a rut because if I dig deep and listen to the wisdom and common sense of my own body and to the laws of nature, I will instinctively have ideas of how to fine tune my habits so I can achieve the life I long for.

All I need is time, practice and patience.

Have you fine tuned your life lately?
Have you been turning any dials on your lifestyle recently? What kinds of things have you tweaked, and how have you seen these changes affect your health and happiness? Please share with us!

Being Social on the Raw Diet - A Case Study.

2008-07-14T10:34:00.004-05:00

Last night I was invited to Cheddars by a bunch of new friends I've been getting to know. I know that early on in my transition to this lifestyle, I used to have a nervous tic whenever I thought about social eating situations, so I thought I'd share my experience from last night for those of you who are still in the tic phase. ;)

First of all, I'd never been to Cheddars before. But I figured it was probably something like Chilli's and Applebee's, and I racked up thousands of frequent foodie miles at both of those places over the years, so I had a vague idea of what kind of food Cheddars might have on their menu.

I wasn't sure I was going to eat at all, because I was hungry earlier in the evening and ate a hearty pre-dinner "snack" of several creamy sweet bananas, so I figured if anything I'd probably order a small salad.

So I got there and we all squeezed into a huge booth. The waiter came along and he was an innocent looking young kid, so I knew I could make my order as complicated as I wanted to and he would be willing to try and get it right. I just have a sense about these things. :)

I said, "I need a plain romaine salad with lots of tomatoes and cucumbers on it, please, and dressing on the side."

He said, "So...just plain? What about shredded carrots, do you like those?"

I said, "Nah, just lots and lots of tomatoes would be great." And I flashed him a big cheery smile, trying to send him subliminal messages of the big fat tip coming his way if he would just get it right.

I don't think anyone at our table noticed or cared what I ordered.

It didn't take too long for our food to arrive. He started putting our plates on our table, and my plate appeared in front of me. He asked me specifically as he set it down, "Is this okay for you?"

I looked at it. There was a medium sized plate of fresh looking romaine lettuce, and 8 grape tomatoes on it. No cucumbers. And...the entire salad was dusted with tiny, tiny particles of cheese.

Thinking quickly, I first said, "Yeah it looks good, thanks." I figured, that I could just eat the 8 grape tomatoes and try to pick some of the cheese off. But as I looked closer at the salad I realized that the cheese was grated too fine to be picked off, and was interspersed in all the layers of the lettuce, not just the top layer.

Social Suicide?
At this point I had a decision to make.

A) I could just grit my teeth, pay $6 for 8 grape tomatoes and move on so as not to make myself look like a fussy pot, or worse, invite questions about why I didn't eat cheese...

or

B) I could ask the waiter for a 2nd plate, since I clearly did not ask for cheese, and risk drawing too much attention to myself, but end up with what I asked for.

The waiter had just finished serving all my other friends and was getting ready to leave our table. I made a quick decision and got his attention. I beamed at him apologetically and said,

"I so don't mean to be fussy, but I just noticed there was cheese on this and I asked for it plain."

He said, "Oh! Okay...uh...I can get you a new plate."

I said, "So sorry!"

"No problem."

He got back with a fresh plate in a couple of minutes. Plain lettuce, 8 grape tomatoes. No cucumbers.

I thanked him, and proceeded to enjoy my salad and my time with my friends.

The waiter got a nice tip from me.

I am glad that I asked to correct my order, but in the past I probably would not have. I'm sure some of my friends noticed that I had a problem with my order, but I was very polite, matter of fact and pleasant about it with the waiter and went out of my way to act apologetic about it rather than make it seem like it was his problem, even though it was.

I have corrected plenty of orders before on a cooked diet, so hopefully nobody thought it was strange. But if they did, nobody said anything about it or looked at me weirdly.

In fact, the friend sitting next to me said she wished she knew I loved tomatoes because just a few weeks ago (before she met me) her parents had come out for a visit, bringing with them tons of tomatoes from their garden. My friend had tomatoes out her ears for awhile and had been looking to share them with friends. Yeah. TOO BAD HUH?! I almost burst into tears. Haha.

What would you do?
What would you have done in my situation? I'm curious to know how many of you would have just sucked it up and dealt with your cheese salad to avoid attention or explanation with your friends, and how many of you would have done what I chose to do last night.

And don't say, "Eat the cheese, of course." :) Lets pretend for this post that that was not an option. Lets hear it!

Photo Credit - Sifu Renka

Summer Time, and Time for an Update on No Poo!

2008-07-10T11:09:00.005-05:00

*First a quick note - I thinking about dropping my posts down to 4 a week instead of 5, for those of you who keep tabs. :-) My schedule this summer is hectic in a good way and although I looooooove blogging and could sit here doing it all day long, I need to find a good balance between it and you know, real life. I will likely be blogging Mondays through Wednesdays and either Thursday or Friday until further notice. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Chelsie asked for an update on my hair. The last update was 2 months ago. So here goes!

It's been almost 6.5 months now since shampoo or conditioner touched my hair. And I have to say...

Photo taken with my webcam this morning.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER WITH MY HAIR!

First of all, I've been in the pool a lot this summer, and have gotten tons of chlorine on it, so I was a bit worried about that - but so far I haven't noticed much of a difference.

Second, as I mentioned in my last update, I did start using baking soda as a shampoo and diluted vinegar as a conditioner, so I'm not a water-only snob anymore. :-)

However, I have found that I need very little of the baking soda and vinegar, AND I only use it about once a week - water only the rest of the time.

My Hair Routine:
Here's what I've been doing - if my hair starts to feel a little greasy (usually weekly) I head for the shower with two 18 oz cups.

I put about 1 teasp baking soda in the first one and 1 teasp of vinegar in the 2nd, and fill both cups to the top with water. Then I get in the shower and use the baking soda-water mixture to wash my scalp and my hair, and then afterwards I pour the diluted vinegar on my hair to condition.

Then I get out of the shower and allow to air dry. I do not brush, and I only comb in the shower, because my hair is naturally wavy/curly (yes, I'm one of only 2 Chinese people I know with naturally wavy hair) and if I brush it out of the shower or try to blow dry it, it just looks like a frizzy mess. People with stick straight hair probably won't need to air dry,

When I first started trying this, I used a lot more baking soda and vinegar, but subsequently I found out that I just really didn't need that much.

If Only!
I am happy to have found a solution that works for me, and to be honest I wish I had just started the no poo thing with this option instead of being so stubborn and struggling through the horrible water-only transition stage.

I do hope to move toward water only, but I use so little of this stuff and weekly doesn't seem excessive to me, so I'm quite okay with this routine for as long as I need to.

And by the way, for those of you who are new to my blog or to no-poo, I just wanted you to know that my hair does not smell bad or even weird. It just smells like nothing, or like clean hair.

My husband who has the nose of a bloodhound has confirmed this multiple times (and trust me, he is weirded out by the idea of no-poo so he probably wishes my hair did stink so he could tell me to turn our shower back into a happy fruity-floral oasis.)

My sister is in town visiting so I'm going to have her do a smell test on me too and I'll get back to you on that soon. (Check back on this post tonight or tomorrow). I'd do it right now but we just got back from the pool and my hair is still wet and I haven't had time to hop in the shower to rinse the nasty pool stuff off yet because blogging is obviously a priority over cleanliness for me.

I dare you!
Have you tried no-poo yet? Is it working for you? What variation of it have you been doing - water only? water and citrus juice? baking soda and vinegar?

Or are you new to no-poo and am reading this with a mixture of intrigue and disgust? :-) If so, I double dare you to give it a try for 30 days, it's a pretty cool experience and your scalp will thank you for it. And now you know from my experience that your hair won't even look gross if you try my method of baking soda and vinegar when needed!

Have a happy weekend, friends, and Just Say No to Poo!

What the Raw Food Diet is Not.

2008-07-09T11:11:00.005-05:00

I've been thinking about today's topic a lot lately and I would love to hear your experiences and insight about it!

It seems to me that often when we jump on the raw food bandwagon, we attribute many things to it that it's not. I am a perfect example of this. I was very excited to do this because of alllllll the many fabulous things that were going to magically happen in my life if I just switched to raw.

Among other things, I was sure that the raw diet would:

1. Normalize my weight without my having to do anything else about it.

2. Give me back the skin of my youth, and when I say youth, I mean like when I was 1, because my skin decided to hate me not too many years after the age of 1.

3. Make every mysterious ache or pain I'd ever had over the years, disappear forever.

4. Render me completely immune to illness and disease.

5. Make my twin belly go away.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

So what's the problem with all that positive thinking?

I'm all for positive thinking, but I think sometimes we expect way too much of this diet. We give it a go for a week, maybe a month, and when all those things above didn't happen in 30 days, we throw our hands up in the air and say, "This did not work for me." And then we move on to the next thing.

But here's the deal, friends. Well, my deal anyway. :-)

Photo from Mark Sardella

The Raw Diet is Not a Miracle!
There is simply nothing miraculous or stupendous about a diet that consists of raw fruits and vegetables. Nothing at all. *Strong opinion warning* - It's simply a return to the way nature intended for us to live.

By making a decision to only fuel our bodies with fresh ripe whole fruit and vegetables, we are giving our body what it was biologically designed to live on. Nothing mysterious or other-worldly about it.

Our bodies are the miracle, not the diet.
The only reason it feels miraculous to those of us who try it, is because our bodies and minds have been so polluted and perverted by the advances of civilization and man made technology, that as a species we are increasingly losing a lot of our innate instincts.

As a result, we have no idea how it even feels like to be somewhere close to a state of natural health.

So when our bodies start healing and working right again, we begin to have a glimmer of realization that it is not normal, nor an unavoidable byproduct of aging to have headaches several times a week, or slight achy pains in our joints. It is not normal to walk around constipated for days or weeks, and it's not normal to need a nap after eating.

These are a few of the not-really-scary things that can happen if we're pumping the wrong type of fuel in to our bodies, day in and day out. There is much more scary stuff out there and I see it every day and I'm sure you all do, too.

It Takes Time.
As for the several ailments I mentioned above, and the more serious illnesses that many people come into the raw diet having, yes, happily, changing our diet and lifestyle does usually bring about some pretty big physical changes.

For example,
1. My weight did normalize. However, I learned that fitness was a big part of this also. I also learned that it is just about as easy to gain weight on the raw food diet as it is lose weight!

2. My skin is getting better and better slowly. It isn't perfect on my face but I can say it's pretty much perfect everywhere else. Except my belly.

3. I don't get random pain in my joints anymore. (I used to when I ate cooked food.) I do get sports-related injuries if I'm not careful and smart. :D

4. I'm not completely immune to illness, but I rarely get sick - the last time I had a mild cold (which is the worst thing I've gotten in a year) was in January - and when I do, it seem to get very bad or keep me down for very long.

5. Twin Belly - Nuf said.

Photo from jbelluch

But we can't expect it to happen overnight, as much time as most of us have spent indulging in different bad habits. I believe patience is key here. And patience is a virtue that is difficult to cultivate if we're hoping for a miracle, but maybe a little easier to develop if we remember to hold the perspective that we're simply, gently taking steps toward a natural life.

Your thoughts?
Have you had expectations of the raw diet that have changed over time? Have you ever wanted it to the a miracle and it didn't turn out the way you hoped? Do you agree or disagree with me? :-)

Is There Room for Social Butterflies on the Raw Food Diet?

2008-07-08T07:28:00.009-05:00

Brandi asked me a great question yesterday about this lifestyle (thank you, Brandi!) and I thought I would answer it here in a post so that you guys can all help out a little, too!

Photo from Patrick Q

Her question:

I don't understand how to incorporate this into my everyday life once I start. In other words, how does one go out to eat with friends anymore? How does one go out for drinks at the company party, etc? Do you always carry a purse full of bananas with you just in case some situation you aren't prepared for arises?

I am just scared that I will start this and it will be great at home, but the "exclusion" it will create in social situations sounds frustrating and tiresome. Any advice?

Hello, my name is Sarah and I'm half-homebody and half-social butterfly. This is my story.
When I first started out transitioning to this diet, I was in a place in my life emotionally where I was not ready to go out and be social a lot. This wasn't due to my new diet but to extenuating circumstances and a bit of personality combined.

So I stayed home, a lot. Which is quite easy to do when your job is to stay home. I was excellent at my job. It's actually a rather nice, comforting, cocooning sort of experience - for a little while.

I did have social things on my calendar, (and if you click on this you will see some earlier accounts of how I handled them) but it wasn't like I was seeing friends several times a week. More like weekly at the most. And most of these times did not revolve around a meal.

Our close friends and family, the ones we trusted, knew about my diet. I don't think they all necessarily "got" the ins and outs of it (I'm pretty sure there are some out there who still don't understand that I really only eat raw fruit and veg) but they know I eat a different diet. And from what I can tell, they're all ok with it. We just don't talk about diet much. :)

Of late though, I have gotten tired of being passive when it comes to my social life. I suppose one year of laying low is catching up with me. I recently found myself missing and longing for more social interaction.

So I have burst out of my homemade cocoon and have been spreading my wings a little - okay, a lot. Lately I've been feeling like my social calendar could possibly rival Paris Hilton's, and it just seems to keep filling up. Someone needs to get me an agent! Haha!

Anyway, the diet thing hasn't been a big deal, or really, even a deal at all. So I hope that the following tips will help Brandi and any of you who are having a hard time wrapping your mind around this!

Photo from Dano

Principle No. 1
If you don't tell anyone about your diet, it's unlikely anyone will notice.

Real Life Example: Recently we've met, and been welcomed with open arms by a whole new group of friends. They all already knew each other and live nearby. They also have no clue about my diet and although I'm sure it will eventually come out, right now wild horses couldn't drag it out of me.

Last weekend one of the families had an ice cream party at their house to celebrate July 4th. They provided the ice cream, the guests brought toppings. I brought about 6 lbs of assorted berries in a glass bowl the size of Mount Everest turned upside down. It was a hit - people seemed to really enjoy the berries on their ice cream.

We were there for over two hours, and I'm pretty sure nobody ever noticed that none of the 5 of us had any ice cream (my kids don't do dairy). My husband and kids ate bowlfuls of just berries. I didn't eat at all because my big mouth was too busy blabbing to multi-task with chewing. Plus I wasn't hungry.

Nobody even looked or commented on our food. Ok, I take that back. My 3 yr old apparently had a hole in her stomach that night and ate the most out of anyone - 3-4 cereal bowlfuls worth. I was feeding her berries with a spoon, and someone did comment that she sure did like fruit. That was about it.

Principle No. 2
In the beginning, always be prepared with food and with words.

Real Life Example: I think there are two ways you can prepare yourself for social events that are helpful. The first is with food, and the second is with words.

Food: I don't do this anymore, because once this diet becomes a part of your life, simply something that you do, food doesn't ever seem too urgent anymore. But it was very helpful to me in the first 4 months or so, to make sure to a) eat before I left the house and b) pack some fruit.

I never liked being away from home in the beginning when I felt hungry because that's when I knew I would struggle with cravings. So I tried to eat before I left the house.

As far as being at the restaurant or social event, I found that either not really eating, or eating a basic plain salad, did not draw too much notice. "I ate a huge lunch so I'm not hungry yet" or "I'm just eating light for tonight" seemed to suffice. I don't drink alcohol anyway, so I don't have experience with that, but hopefully someone else who used to drink will chime in for ya.

As far as packing fruit - in the fall and winter, a package of fresh dates were discreet and easy to pack. I didn't like stuffing bananas in my purse, but sometimes I would pack some bananas or apples or some other easy-to-eat-on-the-go fruit in my car.

Words: It is really confidence boosting to learn a few new simple and short phrases to say to people to diffuse the times when they do notice and ask you questions. For example, instead of ever mentioning the word "diet", I like to say easy, vague things like, "I just eat a lot of fruit/salad," or "I just feel better when I eat this way," if I can get away with it.

Phrases like those just come across a lot easier on the ears for most people, I've found. And if someone is genuinely curious and interested in your diet, they will keep asking you and at that point you can let all heck break loose and tell them that you're a fruitarian. But if they're really that curious then they will likely be very open to it.

Photo from macmac

Principle No. 3
Practice makes perfect.

Real Life Example: Every single time you get out there, you will get more comfortable with yourself and less worried about what others think. This is something I've noticed about myself over time.

So make an effort to keep practicing. Go to every social thing you're invited to when you can, and make sure you're prepared for each one, as in Principle No. 2 above. You will probably find that by the 10th party, you will wonder why you ever fretted about this.

You may encounter a couple of rude people along the way, and you may say a couple of things you didn't mean to occasionally. You may even lose a friend or two (in which case, they weren't really friends anyway - would real friends part with you over what you eat??) but try to take it all in stride and learn something from each experience.

I rarely pack food or plan ahead anymore. I just focus on being with friends and getting to know them instead of worrying about myself (which used to be a huge struggle for me). But this kind of confidence builds with time, and that's really all there is to it!

Share your ideas and experiences!
I know I'm not the only one who's dealt with this, so if you have more suggestions, please add them in the comments!

The Ironies of the Whole Foods Diet.

2008-07-07T09:34:00.009-05:00

Hello all, I'm glad to be back after a short break! Thank you for hanging with me, and I hope you all had a fabulous few days.

Over the weekend, I heard someone say that they were thinking of moving toward more of a whole foods, unprocessed diet, because they felt better when they ate less processed food.

I started thinking about what this person said, and y'all know how fun it gets around here when I start thinking.

And here is what I thought:

Photo from niallkennedy

Over the last 7 years I have really embraced a whole foods diet in principle, even if my ideas of what that consists of have changed a little over time. I have read volumes about it, met many people on it and plain done it.

The whole foods diet seems to be the trend these days and I really do think it's a good thing. There are several approaches out there that embrace the "whole foods" philosophy, among the ones I can think of are The Maker's Diet, Nourishing Traditions and most (but not all) vegetarian and vegan books out there.

But lately I have come to see what I feel are interesting differences between what our culture labels a natural, whole foods diet, and what I think it really should be.

So today I would like you to help me think through this one.

A Typical Whole Foods Diet.
From my own cooking experiences and those of my friends, here is what I understand when most people say that they are on a whole foods diet.

Typically:
1) They don't eat fast food or junk food, or at least not very often.
2) They cook everything from scratch, with "whole", "natural" ingredients.
3) They are into buying organic and range free produce and flesh.
4) They do not buy or consume ultra "refined" foods such as things made from white flour and things that come with a tanker of high fructose corn syrup or white sugar attached to the box, complete with a personal IV line.

My observations:
I think that those steps above are pretty healthy. Don't you agree? Everybody knows I'm biased toward a fruitarian diet because of the journey I've been through and how I feel on it.

However, I do think there are several healthy levels of eating out there, that it doesn't have to be fruitarianism or nothing for everyone. And I probably just caused some hardcore fruitarians and 811-ers' eyes to pop out of their heads. Do I hear snarling out there? :)

But my point is - although I personally believe that fruitarianism is THE most natural, optimal and appropriate diet for mankind, I also think that there is a big health difference between eating a diet of 3 different fast food places in a day, and eating a diet of 3 simple home cooked meals a day.

If you want to see an even greater difference, give the low fat raw vegan diet a 30 day trial. :)

Photo from Whatshername

But should we really be calling a cooked food diet, a whole foods diet?
I rarely go to Whole Paycheck anymore because of distance and price, but it used to be one of my favorite places to shop. I felt so at home there - it even smelled natural and herb-y. And they obviously support a "Whole Foods" diet.

But the last time I was there, I realized that other than the produce section, the rest of the store (ie most of it) actually consisted of a) things in boxes, jars and packages sitting on shelves, b) pills, lots of pills, in bottles, c) "Natural" bottled chemical solutions such as cleaners and body hygiene products and d) Animal parts sitting on ice. And almost everything there has been processed with heat to some degree in order to get it to fit in a box and have a long shelf life.

It struck me then that perhaps the whole foods diet isn't as whole as I used to think it was. Food corporations have started catering to people who have been caught up in the whole foods movement. "Whole" ingredients can come in a jar or a can. Want cheetos but afraid of the processing? Well, now you can buy healthy cheetos made from real milk products, real oils (no trans fats), sea salt and real flavoring! Ask me how I know!

So I decided to look up the following words in the dictionary and here is what I found:

Whole: A thing complete in itself, or comprising all its parts or elements.
Unprocessed: Not altered from an original or natural state.
Natural: Having undergone little or no processing and containing no chemical additives.

So are you really eating a whole, unprocessed, natural diet if you ever:
-eat something from a jar, box, package, can or bottle?
-eat something that was assembled from several different ingredients?
-eat something that has had heat applied to it?
-eat fractionated, isolated supplements?

If your answer is no, then should we rename this "whole foods" diet?

Oxymoron, anyone?
Dare I assert (dun dun dun) that if your food meets any of the 4 criteria above, then calling it a whole foods diet is a bit of an oxymoron?

Photo from dmason

Personally, (and I get to say this ad nauseum because this is my blog) :) - it's pretty clear to me that raw fruits and veggies are the ultimate whole foods diet.

Pick from tree or plant, flick bugs off if necessary, stuff in mouth. The end. No grinding, liquifying, pulverizing, adding, mixing or heating.

Opinions? I accept them all, even vehemently opposing ones, as long as you promise to be respectful of everyone else's thoughts too. :)

Packin' My Bags! But Not Forever.

2008-07-03T08:19:00.008-05:00

My friends, I'm taking a little vacation from blogging for this July 4th weekend. :) I seem to suddenly have turned into Miss Social Butterfly, which is unusual for me (more about that later) and have way too many things going on in the next 4 days.

I will be back on Monday, July 7th. I hope to see you then!

In the meantime, drive safely, eat lots of watermelon, stay healthy and most of all, enjoy your weekend with your family and friends!

If you're new to my site and need some reading fodder while I'm gone, feel free to keep busy with some of my previous posts. Here are a few recent ones that you may be interested in. Also check out the other links in my sidebar. I have links to other favorite posts and lots of links to other cool health and fitness blogs too!

How to Choose the Perfect Raw Food Diet
Which Disney Princess are You?
Stop the Car Mom, We Left Our Carbs at Home!
Water, Water, Everywhere

Ta ta for now, and Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans!

It Ain't Easy Being Green

2008-07-02T08:51:00.002-05:00

There are some of us out there who cannot imagine going on this diet, simply because we grew up disliking most fruit and veggies for different reasons.

I'm not one of them. Although switching to a diet of mostly fruit was definitely a stretch for me, I was actually one of those kids who was resistant to meat and eggs (it made me gag and wanna throw up - just ask my Mom, I'm pretty sure she figured out early on that I'd grow up to be vegetarian some day).

But I have several friends for whom vegetables might as well be from the devil's own hot hands, given the measures they take to make sure those nasty crunchy weeds some people call food, don't ever brush their lips.

These are the same friends who will painstakingly work on pulling that last shred of lettuce from their cheeseburger without disrupting the magnificent natural pattern of the melted cheese on the patty, and flick off that gross green booger-like bell pepper that accidentally got on their meat pizza, with incredible speed and skill.

As for fruit - well, thank goodness someone invented ways to eat fruit without really eating fruit - there's that interesting fruit cake every Christmas, and banana bread, and apple pie and peach cobbler. Not to mention fruit candy! It's pretty easy to get your recommended 5 servings of fruit a day from candy and pie, right?

Okay I promise I'm only making fun of my friends in love. Trust me, I get enough teasing back. But most people do have this idea that fruits and veggies are healthy fare, even if they would never attempt to go on a diet consisting exclusively of it.

Yet it is very difficult to make yourself start liking something that you have spent years disliking, especially when it comes to food, because food is a very emotional thing, for each individual, family and society.

As my husband once said to me, (he heard it from somewhere else) -

"The three hardest things to change are your politics, your religion, and your diet; but the most difficult of these is diet."

If you are struggling with wanting to get more fruits and veggies in your diet, but not being able to stomach the thought of them because of taste or texture, I have a couple of ideas that may help.

1. It takes time and effort.
It takes time and dedication to change a habit, especially a food habit. I used to strongly dislike celery, and lettuce was mostly ornamental food in my book. There were several fruit I didn't like, and some I still don't like.

However, after being exposed to a fruit and veggie only diet for a decent amount of time, I found myself suddenly craving and liking celery! As for the fruit - I am more and more open to trying new things and finding that I actually like them. Figs, for example. And certain berries - raspberries and blueberries. What used to be weird at best or blah at worst to me, is now a treat I look forward to.

So be patient with yourself and once in awhile, push yourself to try something new. Dip your toes in the water and eat a piece of fruit every day that you otherwise might not have. Over time you may find your tastes changing.

2. Are your tastebuds in overload?
It is possible that you may think fruits and veggies taste bland or blah, because your tastebuds have been weakened and spoiled by the additives and spices added to your food - processed sugar, salt, strong spices and condiments.

It was shocking to me after deciding to go condiment free for awhile, to see which foods appealed to me most. I began to realize that I wouldn't want to eat certain things (meat, grains, dairy) if they weren't salted, sweetened and spiced up. This made me think hard about why I ate what.

And all of a sudden, I was discovering how sweet fruit really was! And how incredibly salty and sometimes even spicy celery tastes to me. And how sweet and sour tomatoes and oranges are. I also began discovering that each individual fruit tasted slightly different than another. For example when I eat a meal of bananas, there is something in each banana that tastes different from the others. It is incredible to experience such captivating tastebud experiences!

I realized that I could not fully appreciate the tastes in these foods before because my tastebuds were constantly assaulted and attacked by my favorite condiments of choice - salt and anything spicy peppery hot, so that anything unprocessed really did taste bland to me.

Now that I've eaten this way for 1.5 yrs, I am fully satisfied by the flavors in fruits and unless they're of poor quality I never think they're too bland or lacking any taste. So you could try going condiment free (even if it's one condiment at a time, say - go salt free for 2-3 months) and see if this changes your mind any about the flavor of fruits and veggies!

Share your tips!
Have you ever known anyone who had a hard time eating most, if any, fruits and veggies? Have you been that person yourself? What other tips would you have for someone struggling with this?