we got that magic nobody can touch

it's back with a vengeance.  so much raw food information, and it's overwhelming.  but i'm ready to take all the info i've absorbed and attack raw foods in a low fat high fruit non restrictive way.  I wanna stay super in touch with what feels good in my body and not analyze it too much.  I also do not want to "attack raw foods" in the sense where I'm super stoked about what I'm eating to the degree that I create an identity thru it where I am some raw food superhero.  And I don't mean a superhero in a compartive way of me being a saviour (ha ha ) to others or better than anyone.  I have too often defined myself as a "raw foodist" consciously or not, and have thought about food too much.  Now I want to eat what's best for me and get the fffff on with my life, ya know?

Start NOW.
Go!

it starts right now!

ok - i've gotta try somethign new.  i keep falling "OFF THE WAGON".  meaning, i keep eating junk food.  but i thought about documenting it somehow, and i am thinking that it will keep me motivated and feel obligated to keep eating the way I want to....
so I'm gonna post pictures of everthing i eat, every day, until the world ends next month!
so at the end of the week i will load up a post with pictures and i will see all the goodness that went in my tummy.  and maybe this will keep me stoked.... we'll see!!!

fruit high

SUPER DUPER FRUIT MALT
1 mango
1 kiwi
3 nanners
8 medjool dates
and water
blend
YUM
i am on a frozen fruit icecream kick. i am eating more fruit than i have ever before in my life, making up for lost time when i was eating raw and believed that too much fruit would cause cancer in my body or at least not be ideal for me, my teeth, my brain - but it's all flipped around now, and i'm going crazy, loving the sugar and going full blast into it! It's much cheaper than when I was buying nama shoyu, olive oil, nuts, nut butters, cacao powder, maca powder, spirulina, or prepared raw treats. This is the way to eat I was looking for and have found. Tons of fruit, no remorse, simple salads, no salt or oil (or not much) a lot less nuts, no more expensive nut butters or oils, no "super foods" i got cuz they were mega hyped and i caved, no fancy prepared raw treats and no caffeine at all!  Chocolate was something I ate every single day since the beginning of the raw adventure.  It feels great to refine it (ha ha or unrefine it, eating straight up whole foods), make it cheaper and make it more accessible - cuz getting used to eating shittons of fruit, it becomes meals, and makes finding "just" fruit, from before, to "yeah! i found fruit!"  Of course sometimes it's not ripe, but that's where dates, apples, lettuce comes in, among other foods that are always available and instantly edible.
I love this, it's what I was looking for!

Nutrition

With constant analyzation, worry, and comparison dominating thoughts for years, now is the time to ease up. Relax into nutrition. The worry of if there are enough greens in a visibly green smoothie has happened many times, and once is too many. There is not enough celebration and too much speculation into the good things that are being consumed. It seems like just realizing and thinking about what amazing things are entering into your body is a good practice. The recognition of abundance instead of lack seems to just pave the way for more good things to come along. I've experienced both ends of this idea, and it seems to simple to be true, and it takes some de-conditioning and un-learning what we've been taught, but our lives and vitality are worth it. They are definitely worth it. Right now, almost 2 cups of spinach, peaches, mangoes, dates, spirulina, almond butter, and maca are entering into my blood stream and disgestive tract, fueling my body and blasting me ahead to go clean up my house, ride my bike, walk Suzzanna and work on the garden. Then I'll line up what's gonna next go in my tummy and realize how awesome all the nutrition is within the food and gratefully consume it. It's a bummer that so much hokey new-age talk has perveted the idea of being grateful, and i won't let that happen in my life. Like Good Charlotte or an age-exclusive bar claiming to be punk; it's not legit. Don't let imposters co-opt and steal a pure, good thing. You know what it really is about, for sure hear others out, but don't subscribe to their ideas as dogma or even the preferred way to view an idea. Don't let them steal someting good away. Know and realize where someting comes from, not how distorted it may have become. Be grateful, be stoked, and let's make up our own minds!

vegan doggies!

Today i made Suzzanna food! I just got food stamps, am broke, and she ran out of food, so it was the day to do it. And she just ate it all up so fast, licking her bowl clean (just like I do!) and it is so awesome to see her love her food as opposed to hesitantly approaching her dried dog food. I am really excited right now! She actually just finished, walked up to me and nuzzled my lap as I sit here typing, her sort of "thank you" is how I took it!
I love you Suze!
This is what I put in the big batch, which I am not sure how long will last, and how much to give her; she just ate about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of it, and there's a lot more left, so maybe giving her that twice a day, 4-5 cups of food a day. I wonder if that is sufficient?
Here's the recipe;
2 cups dry quinoa
1 1/2 cups dry lentils
1 pound carrots
1-2 cups oats
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 cup ground flax
2 scoops of "perfect food" green powder, mixed in a glass of water
1/4 cup of olive oil
1 Tb kelp powder
1-2 tsp sea salt
i cooked the qunoa and lentils and then ground the flax seeds in a blender, stirred up the green powder, and mashed the carrots(raw) in a food processor, then stirred everything together on top of the qunoa and lentils that were sitting in the pot they had been cooked in.

I wondered how it would go over! I'm so excited Suze liked it! Penny didnt eat hers at first, but Suze scarfed two bowls and then ran over to Penny's bowl, and when Penny growled, I pulled Suzzanna back and then Penny went for it and just finished up a bit ago! Happy dogs, happy me! I'm curious to see how Suzzanna will digest it and what her poop will be like.

raw foods, round two

I have flopped so many times, being so determined to eat all raw or high raw, and falling into the oblivion of soda, chips, burritos, and all the foods that provide instant fun and celebration, that lasts directly up until the food has been swallowed. And then I feel like shit. This isn't entirely true, cuz sometimes I feel great after eating super sweet or salty stuff that I don't feel OK about actually calling "food". Sometimes there is a sugar rush, and I feel extremely happy, giddy, and quite manic. It might be obvious what comes after that; THE CRASH. Sometimes, it is not so evident, but a sort of lackluster feeling, or a noticeable lack of energy, but then sometimes it is a total hangover. Headache, nauseau, heaviness and negative mental stuff going on. It is super frustrating, cuz after the onslaught of hard-to-digest shit that I just put in my mouth, I am also now dealing with the emotional abuse I pile on myself. This comes in the form of thoughts like "You know better, what are you doing?" and just feeling like I'm not doing myself any good by bypassing the foods that will nourish and help me thrive, that I think are delicious and fun, and going instead for the krap that clearly has extremely addictive components to it. The other part of me (the one that is learning to practice self-love) knows this second piling of negativity needs to be avoided, and I have gotten good at rejoicing eating stuff that will physically make me feel bad. I have been very excited at accomplishing this! And it makes me think, if I can do this with the junk that I know is poison, the krap i don't want in my life, then I can rejuvenate and re-pump myself up on vegan/raw foods again! (well, it's always been vegan, but Fritos are technically vegan. Just cuz it's vegan doesnt mean you should eat it.) And there's something important to me about having the mix of practicing self-forgiveness/love and learning and not repeating mistakes. I'm reading this great book right now that talks about listening to your body, and I really like that. For me, and probably so many, the temptation of soda, chips, and junk food comes from a mental place. When I was young, me and my brother would scavenge for soda bottles and return enough of them to get snacks for the nights we would spend in the treehouse with our neighbors. It was sooooooooooo much fun, and are some of my best memories. I get really emotional even right now, thinking about it. We would get chips, candy, soda, and listen to the radio, switching from station to station until someone would say "Oh, leave it here, it's Third Eye Blind!" This was all fueled by A LOT of sugar and salt. Likewise, when I started driving a car, I would hit up drive thru after drive thru and wash it all down with 2 liters of Mountain Dew. I would say from age 17 to 20, I ate mostly burgers, fries, Mountain Dew, and candy. At 20, I decided I wanted to stop eating animals and any animal products, and while I wasn't eating very healthy, the elimination of animal products did leave me feeling a lot better! I was really energetic and kept up for years on lots of soda, cookies, pizza, all kinds of soy/gluten/tofu meat imitations. Also, a lot of rice, pasta, bread, and very few fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts or seeds. RARELY a salad, and a few sprouts over several years. In 2008 it all changed. I went raw in January and went on a crazy high for half a year or something, going thru a couple detox periods and coming out of them feeling even better. The high plateaued, and I rode feeling good for a long time. Lots of questioning raw food, a little experiementation, coming back to it, and despite the doubts, generally feeling pretty amped on raw food. Then started the more heavy experiementation, in terms of the foods and the frequency. I started falling hard, eating krap I knew wasn't food. I hated doing this. Why was I doing this? A lot of the fond memories of these foods came back and I rejoiced in endulging in them, thinking of it krappy to deny myself this pleasure, and thinking "Life is short." And even saying that, I do feel that; Like, don't be so hard on yourself! But that balance is important to me. This krappy food is clearly a bummer to me. It provides a lot of short exciting moments, but always feels awful afterwards. Something deep within me hates it, knows it sucks, and gets bummed when I'm eating these addicting products. I think of the factories that manufacture that krap en mass, and I hate feeling like I'm a slave to their useless, harmful garbage. It is a waste of my money, a waste of energy, a waste of life. How can you deny this? At some point, I revert back to the true me that takes pleasure in making my own food, sharing it with friends, refusing to eat their poison. It is useless poison. It is not nutritious. Maybe poison is too harsh to say, but the part of me that knows it is only doing harm is angry that this shit is being produced and administered to people, hooking them thru addictive components in the "food" and ridiculous, insulting advertisements on tv, billboards, movies. If they are working so hard to sell it, if so much money is being spent to CONVINCE us that we NEED it, then shouldn't we be questioning why this is such a hard sell? Oranges don't need this hype machine behind them. It's this garbage culture that I want to drop out of. It is insulting, it is bad for life. The way they produce and market this food goes against all the things that help life continue. It is contributing to the death of this planet. It is important to not consider this stuff food and redefine, rearrange what a celebration is in our lives.

My previous post about the juice fast was bunk. Whatever, I really thought I was gonna "succeed". I can't say I failed. I made it 3 days and ate krap afterwards, so I didn't do the 7 days like I said, but I learned many things from that fast. I felt so free of anxiety, it was amazing. I felt so calm and collected. I also noticed the insane addictive pull of cooked food. The fact that I went to cooked food after 3 days without solid food is very telling to me. It would be easy for me to beat myself up about failing at the juice fast, but I don't consider it a failure. I would have rather come out on a smoothie or salad, but it's done. I know for another time, and I know how insane these cravings can be. Thanx for reading my rambles. Ha ha if anyone does.

7 day juice fast recharge

Feeling extremely anxious and overloaded recently, and eating lots of krappy food that leaves me feeling... krappy, it seemed like a good idea to embark on a magical 7 day juice fast. Today is the 3rd day, and i am at a hump of low energy and heaviness, and i am hoping it will clear up after this. I feel extremely calm, and very attentive to details. As i cut, chop, and peel the beets, cucumbers, kale, collards, celery, lemons, ginger, apples, and oranges, i find myself going very slowly, becuz i dont have the energy to go much faster, and becuz i am kind of immersed in the colors, textures, details, and beauty of all this life giving plant life in front of my face. I have also been preparing all the veggies and fruits and gathering them in a clump before they go into the juicer. This is helpful becuz it pumps me up when i see that all of that goodness is going into me, and it also straight up looks gorgeous! My housemate said, "It looks like an art project!"
It is pretty common for folks to write about their fasting, juice fasting/feasting, raw food challenges on the internet thru blogs or posting videos, and i personally find little information of use from these accounts. I find that in general much of the youtube phenomenon can be egoic bragging or boring rambling, and a lot of time wasted getting to the actual points. For this reason, i tend to prefer reading what folks have wrote, so i can skip around the mundane stuff.
So thinking of writing this, and starting this blog in general were ideas i doubted and wondered if they were worth my time. The simple answer is; yes. It feels odd to flood the internet with another account of my fasting experience, but when i am honest about why i am doing this, it's ok. Cuz, first of all, i love to write, that's why, and this is enjoyable as i do it and kind of reaffirming in some way, in the sense that i can get lost in my thoughts, but as i type things out they are sort of being positively reinforced in my head. Not always the case as sometimes i go back and disagree and hate what i wrote, but in general, i get clarity from writing. The second reason i am cool with writing this stuff is cuz i know how much i like reading other people's stories, and when they are honest and up-front and not trying to make enemies or friends, but doing their own thing, it is refreshing and inspiring to me. Being honest with myself and knowing i am coming from a place of genuineness, i keep writing and feel good about it! I just want to document my experience, and really if this wasnt read by anyone that'd be fine, though, obviously by me posting this, i am not opposed to sharing this with others. And if someone can get something out of what i'm writing, that's great, and i'm stoked!
So, I don't feel hungry, actually as i drank my juice this "morning" (11:30am) I felt like almost didnt have room for it in my tummy. I've drank 2 or 3 juices, about 16-20oz worth each day. I think that i made my favorite juice ever yesterday and then again today; 1/2 bunch of lacinato kale, 1 lemon, 3 apples, 1 beet, 1 cucumber, 1 inch of ginger. Damn! Sooooo good! I have almost no energy; walking Suzanna this morning was about 25 minutes long, and difficult. I went to the YMCA yesterday but only had strength to bike there, sit in the sauna, stretch, and bike back.
I also have been sleeping a ton! I think i slept 10 hours last night, and 11 the night before! Its really hard to get up and get going, becuz my muscles are so weak.
I have also dealt with temptation by just reminding myself that i have promised to do this for a week, and that i have never done it and i want to see what a week is like. The longest i have gone is 4 days, i think, and i am committed to 7 days, becuz i'm curious to see what happens to my body and mind in that time. Basically, i'm curious, and i tell myself, you have so much time to eat so much food, one week is not a big deal, especially if it could change my eating habits and what i would start desiring would change, which i am expecting to happen. I plan to start eating very lightly coming off this, and gradually getting heavier and fattier. But hopefully this will kind of restart things and kind of ground me into the kind of eating habits that i know make me feel best.
OK this was really long! Juice feast 2012!!! Hell yeah drink tons of juice!