In the Raw – Days 5 through 8

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Sister Notes

An Urban Oasis & Organic Cafe

Surprise out of town trip with the hubs, yeah!

Walking tour of the sights about Cambridge, Massachusetts made getting daily exercise EASY.

Eating raw while on-the-go however, HARD. I would never have guessed that chilly Cambridge would be home to some amazing local ice cream shops – I must admit, I didn’t resist!

But, I wasn’t without raw options. We came across a sign that read, “Life Alive” that caught my eye. I was pleasantly surprised to find an “Urban Oasis & Organic Cafe” in our path. We were there too early for a morning smoothie, but I will definitely want to make this a must-stop on my next visit!

All-in-all, I did make it a point to eat salad and/or cooked veggies with my meals.

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Raw World – Day 4

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Sister Notes

Feeling on the inside like what I see on the outside – sunny and bright!

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Living Raw – Day 3

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Sister Notes

Day 3 and I’m feeling pumped! It’s 9:30 PM and I feel like I just had a cup of coffee – which I didn’t!

So, how’d it go? First let me say, my caffeine withdrawal headache broke half-way through Day 2! I actually didn’t really notice when it had gone away – call it 1 1/2 days to break the coffee dependency. Nevertheless, yesterday was still kind of rough. I was feeling really bad about resorting to the snacks and not sticking more tightly to my purpose. But then, I had to remember why I was doing this. It’s not so I have a new excuse to beat myself up for being less-than-perfect. Rather, it’s to learn how enjoyable a healthy lifestyle can be. So, I woke up this morning ready for a fresh start.

  • Breakfast – my daily water followed later by a green smoothie EASY.
  • Lunch – business luncheon at a restaurant, yikes! I had no mid-morning snack in anticipation of the lunch (but I also wasn’t hungry for any) EASY. One dinner roll of fresh bread-HARD (I didn’t avoid it), French onion soup (it was supposed to have been butternut squash bisque) not raw, huge green salad with shrimp, Brussels sprouts not raw but yummy! And dessert: flourless chocolate expresso cake! It was definitely easy to eat. Do I get points for it being flourless?
  • Mid-afternoon snack – NONE. After the lunch above, no need!
  • Dinner – Brown rice, pre-soaked (read here about GBR and benefits of pre-soaking) EASY and ground pork sausage from Polyface farm with mushrooms (obviously not raw, but if you are going to eat meat “beyond organic” is the way to go), followed by green salad EASY

Expenses: I decided to purchase a copy of the Simply Raw movie along with the Raw for Life CD set – $35 with shipping, a 50% discount until November 19th. If you’ve not checked to see what the movie is all about – and what inspired me to start this 30-day adventure, I recommend starting with the Simply Raw video series of interviews. The first one is with Mr. Morgan Spurlock – the guy from the Super Size Me movie.
That’s all for tonight, I still owe you what I learned about exercising. But that will have to wait for another day. Sleep tight!

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Living Foods – Day 2

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Sister Notes

Day 2 along my raw food endeavor seemed a bit rough. I managed to stretch my packed lunch until about 2 PM, but that wasn’t going to get me through the end of the work day. Here’s how it went…

  • Pre-breakfast – glass of water EASY, I forgot to mention this yesterday. I nearly always start my day with a glass of water. The days that I don’t, I usually regret. Next, I had a cup of tea (not decaff), but I didn’t finish it.
  • Breakfast – green smoothie, EASY because I made it the night before.
  • Lunch & snacks – My sprouted grain bread and honey sandwich EASY, leftover collard greens with some sprouts tossed in EASY, carrot sticks EASY (because I cut up several carrots the night before so all I had to do was pack a handful in my lunch). One square of 90% chocolate.
  • Late afternoon snacks – One cob of popping corn, popped in a brown lunch bag in the microwave. Easy, but not raw. Then there was the handful of Simply Naked® pita chips with salsa, reasonably healthy too, but not raw.
  • Dinner – I made a grated raw beet salad EASY to go with the pasta and sautéed leeks dinner.

Easy/Inexpensive summary: Breakfast and lunch were mostly raw and the foods are easy to make. The Internet is also a great way to find raw recipes for everyday vegetables. I’m trying to find a raw way to prepare at least one vegetable to go with dinner. Many of the recipes for the harder vegetables (such as beets and collards) call for some time to marinate. This requires some advanced planning on my part to make the dish up the night before. But, this makes getting dinner on the table the next day that much easier so I think the extra step balances out if it becomes a habit.

As for expenses, I’ve not purchased anything unusual or any special tools. But, I do need to think about some raw or nearly raw snacks to keep in my desk for that late afternoon crunch.

I forgot to mention exercise! Though I’ve been a fairly healthy eater before starting this 30 day adventure, I’ve been very slack on getting regular exercise HARD. But, I did a little surfing the net yesterday. I’ll let you know what I learned to turn getting in motion from hard to easier.

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Thirty day raw journey – Day 1

Posted on November 14, 2010 by Sister Notes

To embark on a journey is to leave from the place where I am to go to a destination. My destination is to spend the next thirty twenty-nine days incorporating raw foods into my lifestyle. In this case, I’m more interested in the journey itself than the destination. Why start this journey? Because I want to learn if such a lifestyle really is easy and inexpensive. The only way for me to really know is to really try!

So how did Day 1 go?

  • Breakfast: green smoothie (banana, apples, lettuce, some sprouts, ginger, rolled oats [not cooked, but not raw either], and water)-easy. Notice NO COFFEE!-hard
  • Snack/lunch: a raisin Ezekiel bread and honey sandwich and cup of tea (NOT decaf), carrot sticks-easy. One square of 90% cocoa chocolate (also not raw)
  • Dinner: marinated collards (raw)-easy, and a “typical” Sunday dinner (pot roast with the fixins’)

Summary – breakfast was mostly raw, lunch was partially raw, and dinner mostly cooked.

And the cost?

  • The only new expense (I’m not counting food that we usually buy anyway) was a replacement blade attachment for the blender – $20. The blender itself is an Oster that I bought last year on eBay for $35.  Expensive/inexpensive is relative, I’ll let you judge for yourself.

Conclusion: The hardest part of today is the caffeine withdrawal. I did have the cup of tea mid-day to help, but it didn’t help for long. Past experience tells me two more days and I’ll be fine again.

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