…And the Rest is Pudding!

That’s a saying, right?  Well I’m back on the Raw!  But this time, instead of as an experiment, I am feeling really confident and committed to maintaining a high-raw diet.  For me, life is just tastier that way!  And, if I play my cards right, I might find life is easier this way too.  Even having been about 75% raw since completing my raw diet experiment nearly 3 months ago (WOW), I have continued to notice a quiet, very subtle escalation in benefits.  I don’t need as much sleep each night as I used to.  My skin feels lovely, and my jeans fit great!  I have bounds of energy, and I rarely get sleepy during the day.  My mood is good and steady as she goes!

Most my meals are really all raw, except fish here and there, Ezekial bread and grains.  I’ll keep doing those things.  So where does the extra 10% come in to qualify me as a “high-raw” participant in the raw foodie club?  DESSERT.  I’m super psyched about raw desserts, and I know I’ve talked about them here and there, but I’m more convinced than ever of the power of them, and the delicious-ness of them!  Not to mention that moonpie I had at One Lucky Duck that has made me a believer for life.  Not a whole lot of raw fruits in these desserts–its luscious raw cacao, coconuts, cashews, avocados (yup!), oh there are bananas, but then also raw honey, and agave nectar here and there.  The beauty for me, beyond the taste even, if that’s even possible, is that these are Superfoods we’re talking about here!  These are life sustaining, healthy foods to eat.  No guilt.  No food remorse.  All the taste, and then some.

So I am getting started with some experimenting.  Of course I can never leave well enough alone, so I anticipate some slips here and there.  Food wars from time to time.  But I also look forward to some sweeeeet victories!  Oh, by the way, about that avocado.  I’ve heard a commercial on the radio now enough times to really get on my nerves.  Avocado’s are delicious.  They are really healthy, and a fantastic way to get essential fats in the diet.  Huge fan!  And probably personally eat enough of them in a week for 2 people! 

BUT!  Excuse me, Subway.  So sorry to be the one to burst your marketing campaign (really am!  especially since I love avocado’s so much!), but avocados are not a bonafide Superfood.  Cacao, Honey, Coconut, hempseeds, gogi berries, spirulina…these are all super foods for their unique set of diverse and life sustaining properties and array of high levels in minerals and vitamins.  I’m glad you have avocado’s, Subway, really I am.  It makes me feel like on my next road trip if I run out of pre-packed snacks, I can turn to you for a thing of avocados and a packet of salt (do you have sea salt?).  Let’s just be sure not to confuse the masses!  Afterall, haven’t you already tricked us enough into thinking your menu is healthy?  I digress.  To convince you that I truly do appreciate the avocado availability (even if they aren’t Hass), I made pudding last night…and guess who was the star?

Delicious Subway Pudding

• 1 avocado
• 1 banana
• 1/2 c. raw almond milk
• 1/2 c. raw cacao powder
• Raw honey…add by the T until you like it
• 2 T unsweetened shredded coconut
• Sea salt

Give it a good whir!  And enjoy!

Waging War Against Weight Watchers

Yup, I said it.  I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and ’tis the season to say something about it out loud before people dive in whole hog, only to get their feelings hurt when they don’t get the results they were looking for.  To be fair, it’s not just Weight Watchers.  It’s all the “hype diets”.  Although, before I get to the bigger picture, I do have a bone to pick with Weight Watchers in particular.

A colleague of mine is dead set on losing weight, and a lot of it.  He’s really committed to changing his appearance.  Again.  He really wants to do it!  Again.  So much so, that he’s back on the ole wagon.  Again.  And he’s using Weight Watchers to do it!  For at least the dozenth time in the two years we’ve worked together.  Oh, have I tried!  “…it’s a lifestyle change that you’ll have to commit to, not a fad diet…” and “…balance your diet, eat clean foods, and move your body around a few times a week, that’s all you have to do…”.  But after Jennifer Hudson’s endorsement of Weight Watchers, he’s more gun-ho than ever to stay the course.  That is, stay the course with his daily microwave egg/cheese breakfast sandwich on white english muffin, some variety of a microwave salt-lick for lunch, sugar rush of whatever’s at arm’s length at the mid afternoon crave time, and I shudder to think what dinner consists of.  In fact, during the crave times, I’ve offered some of my nuts, or muesli, or figs.  But he declines (siting “points” restrictions),  and eats the leftover double chocolate chip cookie from the lunch room, because he’ll “just add it to [his] points for the day, and still come in under what he’s allowed”.  Allowed.  Nice.  One day he was going to burger night at a local dive, noting: “I ate very few points all day, so I could have a cheeseburger and 2 beers tonight!”  Should I have congratulated him?  I should also note that during his on-again, off-again relationship with Weight Watchers, I’ve haven’t seen whole grain number one, nor have I seen any semblance of a leafy green, outside the iceberg ones covered in caesar dressing.  Now, I know I have higher expectations for veggie consumption than the average bear, but come on!  That just hurts my feelings.

If I can try and be academic for a moment, the Weight Watchers dilemma is clear.  It simply doesn’t train the mind nor the body to make good choices with food.  Instead, it surrenders to the learned societal need for the limitless amounts of salt, sugar, grease, alcohol, processed foods, etc.  Eat all of it you want!  Just stay inside of the “points” we’ve allowed you, and you will lose weight.  PS. No avocado or nuts (seriously.  Also hurts my feelings!).  Admittedly, people do lose weight with the program.  My colleague has, a dozen times.  He’s also gained the weight back, and then some an equal amount of times.  I can’t imagine he’s alone.  And to broaden my thoughts here, this indeed applies to most fad diets.  It’s been proven time and time again, the ONLY sustainable, and reliable method to weight loss is to pay attention to our bodies, eat whole foods, and commit to a lifestyle change, void of all the pitfalls that many fad diets allow, promote and sell.

I don’t know, I think the Weight Watchers of our world should have a little more faith in the ability for people to change and learn new things in terms of diets.  Otherwise, it’s kind of an endless cycle, right?  Big business marketing tells us what to eat.  So we eat it.  We become addicted to it.  We crave it.  We get fat.  So then the fad dieteers (die-et-ears) create diets which emulate our bad habits and reinforce the legitimacy of them.  We lose weight, and quit the fad diet, but the fad dieteers aren’t worried because they know we’ll be back.  So what to do?

I guess I just wish people would eat more colorfully, that’s all.  Any soldiers want to join me?

 

Wait! Do I Have an Eating Disorder?? …Post-Raw Day 6

Approaching my one-week anniversary of the completion of my epic Raw journey, something VERY interesting was brought to my attention.  Aside from my airplane salad debacle, I also had a Women’s Health Magazine debacle:

Orthorexia
A fixation with healthy or righteous eating

Orthorexics often eat only organic foods, eliminate entire food groups, or refuse to eat anything that isn’t “pure” in quality, says clinical psychologist Sari Shepphird, Ph.D. Unlike anorexics, they don’t necessarily think they’re fat or strive to be thin; some are motivated by a fear of bad health, a fixation with complete control, or the desire to improve their own self-esteem. Ironically, severe orthorexia can lead to malnourishment.

Read more at Women’s Health: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/new-eating-disorders#ixzz1rbAN5e5g

Okay, so here’s what.  No one tells you that your ambition to be healthy, ward off potential genetic diseases, be energetic, feel youthful and look fit would later, somewhere along the way be classified as an [GULP] Eating Disorder.  No one says that the reward for fending off the American obesity epidemic, and avoiding the fats, sugars, and other unsavory abundant delights would be replaced with the scorn of a mid-shelf magazine.  That the few of us who are courageous and creative enough to take the road less traveled, eating clean when we can, indulging here & there when we want to, and trying to raise awareness as we go; our efforts should be minimized and we should be made to feel there must be some kind of ulterior motives to our apparent madness.

Yes, I choose to eat as healthy as I reasonably can.  Check.  I’ve also eliminated meat, most dairy, refined sugars and simple carbs from my diet.  Check.  Certain items, the “dirty dozen” to be exact, I insist must be organic.  I don’t like to eat pesticides.  Check.  But in making what I deem simple adjustments, delicious adjustments!, I enjoy a life full of much more energy, quality and laughter than ever before.  I’m more intuitive, more thoughtful, and I care more about the planet.  Now, am I thin as a result?  Maybe.  I also make sure I sweat a few times a week.  And of course I’m not afraid of being sick, because I am confident I am feeding my body well.  And as for malnurishment–ask the bunch of Kale, Spinach, Quinoa, Wild Rice (yup! I had bloomed wild rice again tonight, this time with a pesto sauce…mmmmm!), Avocado, Oatmeal, Nuts and Berries, Grapefruit and Chocolate I had today if I’m getting sufficient nutrition.

I understand there are folks with unhealthy perspectives on their bodies, and that have toxic relationships with food.  But when it comes to those who are enthusiasts, and who prefer oats to frosted flakes because they want to stay full past 9, at least give us the dignity of letting us dance to the beat of our own colorful, raw drums.  So am I an orthorexic?  I don’t know.  Am I?  Seems sort of like a made up word anyway.  I kind of love being “fixated with healthy or righteous eating”…especially the righteous part.  But in general, I prefer the term, foodie.

Easter Bunny Nightmare and Redemption…Post Raw Diet Day…5!

So I just got back home today from a lovely Birmingham escape.  Now, before I left, I intentionally swept the fridge of all my colorful raw foods, and finished up everything in the fruit basket (see Airplane incident…!).  I knew full well when I got back I’d need to stock up for next week.  I was proud of the plan, both in it’s efficiency and strategy.  Just one variable I failed to account for, which I was kindly reminded of at the doors of Trader Joe’s: “Oh!  Sorry, we’re closing now.  It’s Easter”.  A little patronizing, sure, but but as I stood there totally disenchanted with my re-useable Hawaiian bags in hand, I completely forgot that stores might close early (or not open at all, as was the case with my go-to health food store) for Easter.  Great.  Now what?  As I drove home in slight bewilderment, scouring my refrigerator, freezer and pantry in my head, I came up with a plan.  I knew I had frozen shiitake’s, frozen spinach and a few onions.  I knew I had some brown rice.

So I got home, begrudgingly stashed my bags, and got to work.  Put the rice on, then went ahead and heated the coconut oil, through in some onion, smashed some garlic and grated some ginger.  Then put in my frozen mushrooms and spinach.  Cooked for a few minutes, and went in for the taste.  WHAT?! What.  The.  Hell.  Did I just put into my mouth.  It tasted dead.  Actually dead.  I killed spinach.  And I killed mushrooms.  I guess since the conclusion of the Raw Diet, I had been eating mainly raw veggies and salads.  This was my first foray back into cooked veggies.  Sure, they were frozen first.  But still!  Yuck!  No true flavor, and whatever flavor was there was masked by…well, for lack of a better word–death.

So, another reason to keep the veggies raw.  Or at least start fresh!  Which, in my defense, I would have had the Trader Joe Easter bunny not sabotaged my dinner plans.  Sigh… but alas, just as my Raw Diet has ruined me from eating frozen veggies ever again, it also saved me from starvation.  If I didn’t have anything else to eat tonight, I had learned how to make a quick almond milk.  1 tablespoon almond butter, a cup of water, a dash of vanilla, a whole bunch of cinnamon, and a dash of sea salt.  Done.  Some oats, a handful of nuts, some raisins, and that lovely brown rice I had nearly burned to the bottom of my pot as I had my ‘come to jesus’ moment with the veggies–and I was back in business.  A little hodgepodge, perhaps.  But, oh so delicious!  I even added a dash of coconut and a sprinkle of raw cocoa just to be in the peeps spirit.

Jinji’s Almost Raw Easter Muesli

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• Some raisins
• Some slivered almonds
• A few broken walnuts
• A couple dried cherries
• A shot of dried coconut
• A shake of cocoa powder

Mix it up, and enjoy!

Day of Rest, Even on a Raw Diet…Day 6

Yes, even on this all-encompassing Raw Food diet, I was able to find some time to relax today.  Somehow I still found myself elbow deep in dishes three separate times today (!), I still felt like today was a great day to reflect on my nearly one-week journey.  To fuel my reflection, I kept it simple(ish) with three round shakes.  The first I had after a morning jog, then the second and third at normal lunch and dinner times.  I was excited to have fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juices in between, but never even got to plug the thing in!  I was SO full all day!  And in thinking about it, I’ve never really been hungry during this diet.  In fact, eating very little seems to get me feeling pretty full.  I’m guessing because all the water of the fruits and veggies is being retained instead of heated away.  Brings me to think of the weight loss “benefit” again.  People lose weight on raw diets because they are always full!  Eureka!  Now, for me, she who loves eating and savors every opportunity to do so, I’m a little sad.  I feel slightly remiss.  I miss my snack times.  I missed having delicious blood orange juice today.  I’m happy to be on this path, and I fully intend on taking the full 14 days of it.  But, when I return to my normal diet, I will be happy to have all my little snacks back.  My empty stomach back.  Again, maybe I need to make some sort of adjustments.  Maybe not.  It’s sure delicious all the same!

Jinji’s Sunshine Full Belly Shake

• Some mango
• A handful of strawberries
• 1/4 cup oats
• A date
• A little bit of Agave Nectar (teaspoon or so)
• A cup of water
• 1/2 a frozen banana
• A few soaked (overnight) almonds
• A few soaked cashews
• A dollop of almond butter

Blend, sip and chew!  And don’t expect to be hungry for 4-6 hours!  ENJOY!