Sunday, August 18, 2013

7 DAYS DOING SO MUCH BETTER! QUESTIONS BEGIN TO ARISE - COOKED VS. RAW!


Hi there!

I've been having a WONDERFUL week!!  I've lost weight and regained control over my eating.  No binges, yay!  And I'm feeling so much better!  That is not to say this week has been without challenges.....

Read about my Thursday through Sunday here.

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THURSDAY, August 15, 2013


Good day today!  Day 4 of doing better!  Walked 30 mins last night, too.

Felt a very apparent surge of energy this afternoon at work as a raw chef at Raw Can Roll Cafe' that felt very new...totally energized!

Apparently, my better diet and lifestyle is working!  Truly feeling better and have more energy!  My feet also didn't hurt as bad at work today as they usually do, and my athlete's foot is almost gone after only 4 days of eating better.  Amazing.

BR: oatmeal and fruit - 1/2 cup steel cut oats dry, cooked.  1 cup blueberries.  1 peach. 
SN: green smoothie - kale, mango, banana, orange, almond milk 
LN: raw salad - big raw salad with romaine and lots of veggies and the same cashew dressing i made yesterday.
DN: cooked vegan whole foods dinner - 3/4 cup cooked lentils.  3/4 cup Bob's redmill TVP rehydrated.  steamed broccoli with lemon and flax oil.  
SN: smoothie - 2 big mugs smoothie: banana, peach, blueberry, cashew

NOTES
EXERCISE: Only walked 5 minutes today.  Was dreadfully overtired from two nights of only 6 hours of sleep. Took a nap after dinner and fell asleep early.

THIRST:
Drinking a lot of water, especially in evenings.  Feeling absolutely parched.  
Though I am only eating maybe 50% raw, I am seriously detoxing.  I've experienced THIS EXACT THIRST before when I first went raw.

BOB'S REDMILL TVP:
It "is" a processed food, but so yummy and so low in calories and zero fat and almost zero sodium that I thought it was a good choice.  It is however, 
NOT organic, and thus, made from genetically modified soybeans.  Not okay.  I'll finish the bag, and I just checked online, I can order an organic version online.   

NIGHTTIME SMOOTHIE:
It would be so GREAT if i could NOT eat at night.  However, I was just freaking...STARVING.  

    

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 2013

BR: green smoothie - spinach, banana, pineapple, blueberry, apple, brazil nuts 
SN: rice and tvp - 1 cup white rice, 3/4 cup Bob's Redmill TVP, rehydrated 
SN: banana whip - banana, berries, carob, coconut 
LN: 2 nori wraps - low salt raw mock toona and veggies in nori 
SN: smoothie - blueberry, hemp, banana, agave 
DN: raw "garden burger" dinner - celery, raw bread and raw garden burger pate'

NOTES
Felt so starving an hour after my morning smoothie.

I'd just made the white rice for Cliff.  Not optimal, but we all make less than optimal choices when we are hungry and faced with food!  Pobody's Nerfect!  Gotta have brown rice made up, ready and waiting.

I have no idea how many calories I'm eating.  I'm just eating when I'm hungry.  The problem is, I felt hungry 6 times yesterday.  I am probably not drinking enough water.

My resolve to eat low glycemic and no bananas has flown out the window.

Here's the Garden Burger Recipe I created!


Raw Garden Burger
In cuisinart with s blade, process:
3/4 cup brazil nuts
1/4 cup packed fresh cilantro
1/8 cup fresh rosemary
3 medium carrots
2 stalks celery
half bunch of scallions
1 tsp powdered sage
juice of 1 lemon
6 medjool dates
1 tsp himalayan salt


NOTES
I worked today as raw chef at Arnold's Way.  What a busy day!  Even though I had so much green smoothie this morning, I was so hungry again midmorning, thus the white rice before work.  It's so important to have food ready for myself lest I make choices that are not best for me.

After my whip at work, I was still starving.  I decided to have Anna's low salt toona, although my goal was NO salt.  You know what?  It is okay for goals to MORPH, isn't it?  My water retention is HUGELY improved and sometimes we make 2nd best choices when we are very hungry.  The problems start to come when we make 75th best choices, way, way, WAY down the list of worse and worse foods.

VICTORIA BOUTENKO
SO amazingly inspired tonight.  We watched a talk by Victoria Boutenko at Dinner and a Movie Night.  I actually brought the movie, which I haven't seen in YEARS since i was first raw....some 6 years ago.

Now, after listening to Victoria's cautionary advice, I am feeling like going back on all raw tomorrow!

Victoria talked about stomach acid, and how we create 2 gallons on cooked, compared to 1 cup on raw food.

This adds to feeling lousy when we become hungry on cooked.  We begin to feel irritable and depressed and frantic.

She says this is BECAUSE cooked is an addiction that triggers that reaction.  We are not hungry.  We are in withdrawl!

She says on raw, hunger feels like a dull thud that can be easily delayed.

I seriously identified.

During this past week, I've been feeling absolutely STARVING and MISERABLE and IRRITABLE when i get hungry.  Everything she explained.

But tonight at Arnold's Way after my raw meal, I did NOT feel that way when i got hungry.

And as I look back, when I was at OHI with drastically reduced calories of raw food, I do not recall feeling awful, miserable, irritable hunger.

This hunger the last few days has TRULY been terribly uncomfortable and scary.

I choose foods, and feel worried.  Am I doing okay?

I am trying to TRUST I'm making if not good, better, choices for myself.

I fear/think raw feels much better.

DENIAL
Victoria also talked about denial and how none of her students could stay raw until they admitted they were cooked food addicts and came out of denial.

When I went raw, I believed cooked food was addictive.  And that is what kept me raw for 3.5 years.

For the last 3 years, I have been fighting the idea that cooked food is addictive.  Maybe I've just been in denial.  

My catering partner, Susan, was a very big influence on me to be more liberal with my diet when I began to eat cooked again at her house after 3.5 years raw.  She is beautiful, normal weight, and completely in control of food.  And she also eats some cooked.

We were doing catering and I began eating at her house frequently.  She and her husband were high raw, and ate cooked beans and brown rice.

At the time, on my 811 diet, beans and brown rice seemed to be alot less fat than nuts.  How could a little bean hurt me?  I remember the conversation.  "Beans have like zero fat...and nuts have so much fat!"

With all of Doug Graham's focus on eating no fat floating around in my head, I had my first cooked beans after 3.5 years raw, at Susan's house.

After that, everything unraveled.

Was it FEAR driving me?  Or a cooked food addiction?

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The last 3 years OFF of raw, I've been trying to create balance (mostly highly unsuccessfully) between cooked and raw.

Victoria says that balance CAN'T exist.

Yet, I look at all of the people at Arnold's Way who have lost weight eating healthier food, doing HIGH RAW, while still eating whole grains, and beans, and even fish, and they have made it work.

Not everyone who eats cooked food is veering out of control all of the time.

And last I heard, Victoria Boutenko was said to be eating cooked greens.

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Awesome article on FOOD ADDICTION



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SATURDAY

We went down the shore to Cape May!  Gorgeous wonderful day!!  We quickly forgot about the horrific 3 hour drive there stuck in traffic after the luscious wind and waves and sun!

I packed food and I ate all raw.  I ordered a salad out like I used to "No cheese.  No croutons" and used my own dressing.  I felt good. Hunger felt easy and not crazed.

Br: green smoothie: greens, few brazil nuts, banana, peach, pineapple, blueberries 
Sn: snack in car: 8 Medjool dates
Sn: snack in car: 1 apple
Ln: lunch on the beach: brazil nut pate, lettuce, carrots, celery with cashew dressing
Dn: restaurant salad with raw additions: salad with a few olives and balsamic vinegar and olive oil, my pate and cashew dressing 
Sn: snack back home: 2 peaches


Walked over 2 miles with Cliff down the shore!  Delightful!!!

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SUNDAY

Br: fruit smoothie: blueberries, peach, banana, date, carob smoothie 
Ln: cooked vegan whole foods lunch: 1/3 cup lentils, 1/2 cup brown rice, 3/4 cup Bob's Redmill TVP, 2 Tbsp raw cashew dressing, 2 medium tomatoes

Lots and lots of questions in my mind this morning about raw and cooked.

We are going out to eat with my parents tonight.  What will I do?  Raw or cooked?

Lunch time, I felt starving and didn't feel like more garden burger or cashew dressing after twice yesterday.

Did I "give in" or just make a healthy "choice" for my lunch?

I'll continue to watch and see how I feel.

After lunch, indeed, I do feel lousy, and a perceptible shift in my attitude.  Feeling kind of miserable.

Is that from eating cooked food....or from reacting to a perceived mistake?

I seem to feel better about an hour after now.

Tonight out to dinner out with my parents, I have three choices:

1. Order a huge salad for dinner
2. Get something vegan like spaghetti.
3. Get salmon.
No wonder I so often give in and just start binge eating.  The mental processing and mental focus needed to stick to or create a plan for onesself.....is frankly....exhausting.  LOL!!!  But I am looking and feeling so so SO much better, so it is worth it!!!

Thank you for joining me on this journey and for your support.

xoxo
Chef Michelle Joy    

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