Back to square one

I wish I was still eating raw food, and finding it easy, but the truth is I'm not. I have this idea of what I'd eat in 'the perfect day', and I usually start really well, then by lunchtime it's crumbling, and by evening it's all over red rover. I'm sick of wishing it was easy! It's not easy to eat a raw vegan diet, of course when I think logically it's not, but the more cooked food I eat the worse I feel, so that's a pretty strong message about how I should be eating.

The eve of my brother-in-law's wedding is not a great day on which to begin a 100% raw vegan diet anew. Their catering is long since organised and there won't be any raw food there. Not a problem, I'll do the best that I can and take it from there.

Tonight I ate pasta with a bought tomato pasta sauce and I now feel awful, so sick. But my baby just grinned at me in delight, so life is still more amazing than I can express! What a great way to regain some perspective :-)

Doing 'mostly raw' is really hard. It involves a lot more thinking than 100% raw because it involves always thinking about how much cooked food I've eaten in a given day, and what kind of food, and you'd be amazed at the excuses I can find to label a particular day as a 'special occasion' deserving of celebration via chocolate cake. I don't even like chocolate cake! The more I reflect on this, the more Jinjee's talk of food addiction makes sense. So I'm drawing the line and as from now I eat only raw food.

And the wedding? I'll do my very best. I'll drink only water, which is my favourite drink anyway, and I'm sure there will be a raw salad or two at the buffet, so I'll focus on those. I'll make sure I hve a  big salad for lunch beforehand, and maybe take some nuts to discreetly snack on.

Friday will be my birthday, and for that I hope I can get hold of some of the raw spiced fig balls that a company called Super Food Revolution sells at the loal farmer's market. My birthday is before the next market, but I'm going to emal SFR and see if I can get hold of some fig balls instead of a cake. If I can't then I'll make a raw cake.

I'm also interested in experimenting with different varieties and blends of herbal tea (made as sun tea) to see what effect they have on me, and whether their effect is different between raw and cooked. I've had various sun teas before, but not really focused fully on their effects (and to be honest I've loaded them with honey in the past, which I have now stopped eating).

Wish me luck! :-)

I'm ba-ack!

So after finishing the Garden Diet programs I was uncertain as to whether or not to continue this blog. I mean, I'm studying, working, raising my kids and all the rest of it! So by not blogging I thought I'd get a few minutes back in which to attend to some of the other stuff I do. Plus it seemed so neat and tidy finishing the blog at the end of the programs.

But.

Life's not neat and tidy, is it? And neither am I. So I've decided to continue. One day, in years to come, I may read back over this blog. I hope I'm not too embarrassed if I do!

For the last 3 weeks I've been kind of muddling along, making menu plans and not sticking to them, shopping for meals I haven;t ended up making, and eating more raw food than before the programs, but some cooked food (and junk food at that) too.

Enough, I decided! The way I've been eating during these last 3 weeks hasn't made me feel good, so I'm continuing the blog as a way to keep tabs on myself and pay attention to how I'm feeling.

My basic idea for how I'm going to eat is: A green smoothie for breakfast, a salad plate for lunch (lots of cut up vegies, some sauerkraut or sundried tomatoes or olives and some nut or seeed pate, all topped with a squeeze of lemon or lime), a drink in the afternoon (like a green juice or nut milk or blended watermelon) and a raw meal for dinner, which is when I'll try out lots of new raw recipes and share them with my family. My family will eat the same as me except that at lunch they can have bread as well, and at dinner they'll have a cooked dish as well as the raw one. So I've written a menu for the first week... let's see how I go!

(I also found the 'before and after' photos really motivating last time, so I'm going to keep going with them... updated photos coming tomorrow!)