Raw Again-How I've Missed It!

Today was my first week back on my nearly 100% raw diet. Unfortunately, I started the week suffering from the effects of what I thought was food poisoning, and my stomach is still bothering me- albeit to a minor extent -after meals. Because this week I've been eating less often, eating smaller meals, and eating healthier meals to boot, I had hoped I would have been well by now. I may need to make a visit to the doctor just to make sure everything's ok in there. In the meantime, I thought I'd try some ginger. I posted a question to both giveittomeraw.com and Twitter and got answers within the hour suggesting I steep ginger to make tea. I grated some ginger and used slightly warm water to make the tea- I'm drinking it now. I'm not saying it's delicious or anything, but it sure smells nice. I'm envisioning my stomach healing as I drink it. Thank you GITMR and Twitter friends!

This week has been pretty good as far as eating raw. I don't have the same hangups I did the first time I returned to raw after quitting in mid-2006; I'm not worrying about how much weight I'm losing or how many calories I'm consuming. I'm not worried that I'm eating or two non-raw foods (nonfat Greek yogurt for breakfast, canned chick peas for next week's salads). I'm continuing to take the vitamins I have left: iron, MSM, and vitamin E. Every day I've been eating fresh fruits and vegetables, a few Whole Foods salad bar items, ezekiel pita bread and "raw-seed crackers" from Whole Foods.

Breakfast has been about 2/3 cup yogurt with fresh fruit, and lunch has been a salad with "Israeli salad," taboule, and edamame (I'm so gauche I throw anything together). I usual add one or more of the following: raw sunflower seeds, 1/2 small avocado, about 1 tbsp olive oil, and Celtic sea salt. For dinner I've been eating the above salad, but a lot less of it because I'm making a sandwich with it using an ezekiel pita and adding hummus. I eat dinner before 7 pm usually, but I am not above snacking late at night on a piece of fruit. Tonight I had a juicy pear.

Throughout the day I try to drink water or tea, but usually I forget. I remembered to do so yesterday and today only when I connected feelings of sluggishness with under-hydration. Drinking tea seemed to help.

I have to say that my job is FULL of unhealthy foods. My first day back at work there was a huge chocolate cake with icing in our kitchen. Today there were mini-bagels and cream cheese. In our snack area there are salted, roasted nuts, chips, holiday chocolates, Skittles, M&M's, ginger snaps, tins of popcorn, hard candies, crackers, and that's not even the full list. We have pop in the fridge and surprise treats that seem to pop up like whack-a-moles. I am proud to say that I did not feel the desire to eat any of these things. We do have tea, filtered water, and fresh fruit every week- I've been taking advantage of these healthier amenities.

I notice that I am craving salt bigtime this week. I've had this happen before when I first start on a raw diet. I guess it's because I'm so used to eating sodium in processed foods that I miss the flavor for a while. I've been putting Celtic sea salt on my salad; I figure that even doing that, I'm consuming waaaay less sodium than I was before. Over time I'll naturally scale back, I'm sure.

The greatest benefit I've experienced this week from going back to raw is alertness and clarity. For the first time in a long time I've been sitting through our "two-hour-plus"- long meetings on the job without yawning constantly, nodding off, or losing focus. That has made me more productive and has helped me to enjoy my work more already, and it's only been a few days!

That's it for the week!!