Simply Raw

I have been thinking more and more that I simply need to do this. Now. Stop waiting. Just do it. Go raw. As soon as I get my own home and have a kitchen and am able to prepare food again. I'm going to do it. I'd love to have a small community of people who wanted to try it with me!

Chocolate Craving

One of my biggest go-to trigger foods is CHOCOLATE. Brownies, cupcakes, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, French truffles, and so much more. I seriously have a piece of chocolate almost every single day. With the realization that I haven't had any energy lately, that I've been sluggish and tired, that I have been overwhelmed and drained, it seems really hard to give up chocolate--but it also seems time to give up the way I eat it. I'm so freaking tired of being so freaking tired!

Luckily for me I have a new and awesome roommate for the month of October. Before I move into my new house in November, I have been blessed to live with my sweet Raw Food friend. Yesterday, I explained a bit of my chocolate drama and how I'm freaking out at the thought of not eating it in the forms that I always have. She told me that she was going to make me some Raw Brownies. I'm going to be honest--it did NOT sound good.

I stood in the kitchen and watched her make the dense part out of walnuts, dates, and raw cacao powder. That. Was. It. She made a mousse out of coconut oil, raw honey, cacao powder, and 1/2 an avocado.

I have to tell you--they were AMAZING! They were delicious! And they hit the spot! I am so lucky to be learning these things from her!

She just bought some sundried tomatoes and basil to make a pesto--I think I'm going to have to go look into how to make that one too!

Green Smoothie Recipe!

four tomoatoes
4 garlic cloves
one inch of lemon grass
one vegetable boullion cube
2 tablespoons nama shoyu
1 avocado
1/2 cucumber
4 tablespoons prepared irish moss
1 cup coconut milk powder
1 tsp curry powder
1-2 cup of greens like kale or spinach or romaine. You can even do soaked seaweed like dulse or sea grass
sea salt and cayyenne to taste
1 tablespoon of miso paste
1-2 cups water

Blend and enjoy. You can use warm water-- as it is more soup like.

So--I got the above recipe from a RawFood group I belong to. Things like this seem overwhelming to me because:

1. I do NOT know what "nama shoyu" is!

2. I have NO idea how to prepare irish moss and what it actually is!

3. I have NO idea where you buy lemon grass!

4. I do NOT know where to get coconut milk powder (though it SOUNDS delicious)

I am on a mission to discover the answers to these questions so that raw living can start becoming more natural and easy. If you know the answers, please feel free to comment!

Alternative Sweeteners

Lo Han Guo: A non-glycemic sweetener from Chinese medicinal tradition made from a type of wild cucumber.

Stevia: I recommend dried powdered leaves over extracts. This is a wonderful and easy plant to grow. It contains no real sugar, so therefore it does not feed candida or cancer. Look for organic stevia products.

Xylitol: This could be the sweetener of the future if it could be obtained with certified organic quality. Xylitol does not feed candida or cancer, but tastes normally sweet. Originally isolated from birch syrup; it is now available as a white powder.

Yacon: An extraordinarily easy to obtain and abundant subtropical to tropical tuber, relative to the Jerusalem artichoke. Yacon is commonly available as dehydrated chips and as a syrup. Look for organic products. Yacon syrup is rich in iron and only mildly glycemic. It is not raw.

Sweeteners to Avoid:

Refined white and brown sugars made from beet, sorghum, or sugarcane of all sorts, primarily due to genetically modified crop contamination, including:

Evaporated Cane Juice: Rapadura is one of the many names of this highly processed and highly heated product. This is almost pure sucrose, like maple, but lacks in minerals. Evaporated cane juice is known to aggravate all sugar-sensitive conditions from diabetes to candida to cancer. Evaporated cane juice can be certified organic. This product often sneaks into chocolate products, pre-made smoothies, and lots of vegan treats (because it is not processed with bone char).

Sorbitol: This sweetener is typically made from genetically modified corn starch. It was originally isolated from stone fruits of the genus Sorbus.

Other Considerations

The market is flooded with companies and products using all different kinds of sweeteners. Always select products containing certified organic sweeteners due to potential contamination from genetically modified corn and other crops that may contain glufosinate herbicides that damage your friendly healthy bacteria. Remember that certified organic sweeteners cannot be genetically modified (GMO).

This post was cut from an article recently shared by David Wolfe. Its entire content can be found at Sacred Chocolates website.

My Breakfast is RAW!

Yum. I've been trying to delight, savor, and enjoy the times I am eating my food. I try to stay present in each meal. I try NOT to think or obsess about what I will eat and when I will eat it. I have a tendency, with so much of my time in life, to have a constant worry about when to eat, what to eat, will I over eat, will I under eat, why am I eating...and on and on and on.

I'm trying to get those thoughts out of my head. I'm trying, hard, to just eat simple meals that don't trigger anything in me (over eating) and that taste divine.

Breakfast this morning--freshly sliced mango with a sweet, fresh lime squeezed over it--all designed on a beautiful white plate.

One Week

It's been exactly a week since I have over eaten. I know that sounds small. But for me it feels huge. I mean, I haven't binged at all. I don't think I've gone without bingeing in over a week since November 2008 (when I did the master cleanse diet). I really feel like I've eaten perfectly this week. That doesn't mean that I didn't have some chocolate, because I did. It doesn't mean that I didn't have some white bread with my tuna fish yesterday, because I absolutely did. When I say eating perfectly, I mean, eating only when I felt physical hunger.

To the people out there who this in normal to, I know you don't get it. And that's ok. To those of you who know exactly what I'm talking about, then maybe you see how big this is for me. It makes me happy. It makes me feel in control. It makes me feel...well, kind of normal concerning food.

Just wanted to share and gush!!

Spirulina!! Yum! (Sort of)

I got some Spirulina from my awesome Raw Food Teacher Friend Linda! She has a cool health blog herself and she has a post on Spirulina. Check it out if you like!

I eat it in crunchy form! Add to yogurt or smoothies. It's not the tastiest of foods, but honestly, it doesn't taste like much either, the texture is a little hard to handle, that's why I recommend the smoothie and drinking it down instead of chewing it much.

Spirulina is a blue-green algae. It is a simple, one-celled form of algae that thrives in warm, alkaline fresh-water bodies.

Spirulina is being developed as the "food of the future" because of its amazing ability to synthesize high-quality concentrated food more efficiently than any other algae. Most notably, Spirulina is 65 to 71 percent complete protein, with all essential amino acids in perfect balance. In comparison, beef is only 22 percent protein.

Gratitude

Recently I've started doing something that I haven't done in over two years. I started consciously blessing my food. My prayers are not the rote like they used to be. They are not how I used to say them. They are not in any sort of pattern. They come from my heart. They are full of so much gratitude and really really feeling grateful for the good things I am putting in my body.

Some of the good things I put in my body today are apples, spinach, tomatoes, ACV, turmeric, fiber, egg whites, carrots, apricots and fresh organic prune juice! Yum!! (it sounds kind of boring, but somehow, it was SO good today!)

Oh yes, and I've been starting each day off with tea, agave nectar and a dash of peppermint essential oil....perfect on a winter morning.

Gratitude for what you are taking into your body makes you much more conscious of what's being assimilated into it. Awareness, food, body= doing what is best for being your best!

The Journey Begins

It starts. Well, It's already started. It's been a long journey until now. I have quite the long journey behind me. And yes, it's going to be long journey ahead of me too. But, isn't life a long journey? You betcha.

You all have your journeys too. With weight. With looks. With beauty. We question. We seek. We avoid. We chase. We want to attain. We want now. We have a destination. What does your destination look like? I bet you know in your head your destination. But is IT REALLY what you want?

I had a destination in my mind at 15. That destination led to anorexia and bulimia...and probably one of the most negative times in my life.

I had a destination in my mind at 18. It was the exact opposite of what I had earlier. It lead to extra weight and lots of fear. It's taken a long time to chip away at that fear. It's not all gone even now.

I've had a destination in my mind for a long time (cough Nicole Kidman cough) but finally...over and through my training and education and reading and learning of the past two years.

Finally
Finally


The destination is not what I'm really after...or at least, it looks different than it ever has before. More important than my destination is the journey...every single day...of being my best self.

I thought of putting up some of my goals here. And I will. I thought maybe I should tell you how much weight I want to lose. Though, I'm debating what the right number is for me. In fact, I'm debating whether or not to put a number on it at all. I thought of posting the photo of the bathing suit I want to wear the next time I sit at the beach. And well, maybe I will, but maybe I won't get that suit either.

I do, however, want to be real. I want to discuss the science behind our minds and why it's so hard to change.

I'm going to be super vulnerable about the battle of my every day brain and the fights that go on...every single time I eat.

So, if you're ready for that. Well, then let the journey begin. Glad you could join me.