Catching up... again

Like I mentioned in my last post, I had company here last week. We ate raw most of the time, with just 3 meals out of the whole 6 days having cooked foods. Then there was yesterday. The departure day. We both ate things we shouldn't - her while on the road, me here at home. We agreed (via text messaging) that the yucky way we were feeling last night wasn't worth convincing ourselves it was "comfort food" because we were crying, and we're going to be good again starting today.

Some of the things we tried last week:

Raw (bean-less) Falafel with Cucumber Dill Dressing (Yum! We wrapped it in lettuce leaves with slices of tomato)
Chocolate-Orange Tavoletta (good, if you like DARK chocolate. I skipped the marbling on top.)
Oatmeal-Nut Butter Balls (can't find it online, but it was basically oats, almond butter, chopped almonds & pecans, sesame seeds, raisins, sunflowers seeds and honey mixed together and rolled into balls, then rolled in unsweetened shredded coconut) It's suggested to use peanut butter instead of almond butter, because it has more flavor, but her middle son is allergic to peanuts, so we opted for almond butter instead.

No plans yet for this week. Every evening there's something going on, so I don't know what we'll be doing for dinners yet.

Catching up...

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. There hasn't been anything super exciting to post about. The corn cakes were the last new thing I'd made in a while. Went to a potluck over the weekend and broke down and had a little square of a casserole - there just wasn't enough to eat in the raw stuff. Oh well. I'm still 95% raw or more, hehehe.

My best friend and her family came to visit - they got here last night from Utah, and will be here through Saturday. She's eating raw with me this week! We went to Curves together today, too. She's not a member, but she's coming with me as a guest, sort of.

For dinner we had RAWfredo on zucchini noodles. Only today, instead of having to use my mandolin and making julienned strips, I got to use the practically new Spirooli that an online friend sent to me! It was sitting unused in her kitchen and she wanted it to be put to use, so she got my address. Yay! Wow, the difference in the noodles was amazing. They were a lot better texture, and it was really easy to use, too.

Mmmm... Corn Cakes!

For dinner tonight, I made Corn Cakes. I had them in the dehydrator by 10 a.m. and oh, it was almost torture smelling them all day long! I had to fiddle with my dehydrator on and off all day because it said to set the thermostat for 105° and my dehydrator doesn't have a thermostat! It's set to 135° all the time. So I propped the lid open a bit to keep the temperature lower, with the probe of a meat thermometer tucked in next to the cakes. Every now and then it would get too hot anyway, so I'd close the lid and turn it off for a few minutes to let it cool back down. They were so good when it was finally time to eat! I sliced Roma tomatoes and layered each slice with a corn cake, and topped with a very simple Cashew Mayonnaise.

On the Corn Cakes, I don't like jalapeño all that much, unless it's cooked with something, so instead of that, I used about the same volume of Pasilla chili instead. And on the Cashew Mayonnaise, I didn't want to cut open a whole onion for just a couple tablespoons, so I used green onion instead. Yum! I will definitely be making these again!

"Noodles" in Creamy Spinach Sauce

During the day I'm not really trying anything adventurous, just green smoothies for breakfast and usually fruit and/or raw veggies for lunch or a light snack if I need it (which I don't always - need a snack, that is.)

For dinner I made "Noodles" in Creamy Spinach Sauce. I still don't have a spiral slicer, so I used my mandolin and julienned the zucchini and yellow squash into strips again. I have to admit, the sauce was ok, but it didn't hold a candle to the RAWfredo I made and posted about a while back.

I made almond milk last night. That was interesting. I had no idea how the almond solids would strain in the cheesecloth, and I'm thinking I want to get a nut mylk bag before I try it again. Now I have to get busy and get my raw granola made up!

Weigh-in time

Loss/Gain this week: -4.2 lbs
Total loss on raw: 16 lbs

I also had my weigh & measure at Curves this morning. The lady who does it said "HOLY TOLEDO!" when I stepped on the scale and she saw 16 lbs gone this month. ;D

Bust: -1.75"
Waist: -1.75"
Abdomen: -0.5"
Hips: -2.0"
Thighs: -1.0"
Arm: n/c

Body Fat %: -0.3% I'm disappointed that it isn't more, but it's only been two weeks since I started eating raw. And who knows if my percentage had gone up since my last measure date - I had two weeks of still eating a Standard American Diet (SAD) between my last measure and my lifestyle change.

RAWcaroni and "cheese"

Today we had RAWcaroni and "cheese". I made a "cheddar" sauce and for myself, served it over raw zucchini and yellow squash cut into small, macaroni sized pieces. Yum! For Charlie and the kids, I included some whole-grain veggie pasta with the sauce and zucchini/squash combo. It was rotini pasta that had tomato and spinach in the red and green noodles. Charlie said the sauce was really good on the noodles, and both kids ate plenty of it without complaining, so they must have liked it too.

Tomorrow is official weigh-in day, the end of the second week. I think it'll be a good day. :-D

Potluck lunches

Potluck lunches are always interesting. There was one after church today, and I was hoping there'd be enough raw things that I could eat and not feel starved afterward. I brought the raw broccoli salad I posted last week in my blog. With that, and the tossed salad (no dressing for me), watermelon, sliced cucumbers and a veggie tray, I did alright. It was enough to keep me away from the dessert table, at any rate.

Tasty Friday

Had the usual kind of day - green smoothies for breakfast, celery with almond butter, cucumber sticks, peaches and banana for lunch, and for dinner, a Mock Chicken Salad on tomato with a fruit smoothie on the side. The Mock Chicken salad was really good! I didn't have the cucumber it calls for in the recipe, but I made it the way it was written otherwise. Definitely a keeper!

What day was it again?

Not much to blog about, kind of a stressful day. I'm just going to list the things I ate today. Most were in multiple quantities, so even though there are only a few things listed, I ate 'til I was satisfied at each meal.

Green smoothie
Peaches
Banana
Almonds
Watermelon
Apple

Scratching my head...

Trying to figure out where today went! It was a little nuts around here. One thing after another, I tell ya. Nothing serious, just lots of little frustrating bits here and there.

Had a good day, food-wise. Green smoothies for breakfast, a huge fruit salad for lunch (2 sliced peaches, a dozen strawberries, some grapes and a banana), plus 3 long stalks of celery with a smear of almond butter. Had to head into town (part of the little bits adding up...) and didn't have time to grab any dinner, and knew it would be late by the time we were able to get back home.

Thankfully, I had read about a drive-thru coffee place in town that sells Green smoothies. Yeah, I know I had one for breakfast, but really, another green smoothie sounded more appetizing than a pitiful iceberg salad with a few shreds of carrots, a couple cherry tomatoes and a slice of cucumber! And at least it would probably get me through the events of the evening with less hunger than the salad! These green smoothies were GREEN! Ours are fairly dark green because of the berries we add, and this place doesn't put berries. The smoothies are mango, guava juice, banana and spinach. It was a lot sweeter than the ones we make, because of the more tropical fruits, but it was pretty good. Especially since I'm not a fan of mango or guava! Ha!

Gotta get to bed... day 4 of Curves for the week comes early tomorrow morning...

Ooohhh I figured out my "hitting goal" reward!

Ya know how most people like to set themselves a reward for reaching their goals in weight loss? I got to thinking about it while I was at Curves this morning and I realized I know exactly what I want my reward for hitting my goal to be!

When I get to my goal of 23% body fat, I am going to have Patrice of Beautiful Life Images take our family portraits! She's in southern California, but we go down there a couple times a year to see family in the next town over. Patrice and I graduated from Academy together, and I found her photography blog earlier this year. I really love her work! She took some quick photos of my kids a few weeks ago while passing through town on their family vacation, and I can't wait to see them. But when I get to my goal, I am going to book an actual session with her for our whole family the next time we're in SoCal! Hee! I am so excited now!

Week 2, here I come!

Here I am with week one behind me. It went great, and I'm continuing to move forward. I lost 11.8 pounds! Had a good workout at Curves today, and talked to a couple other ladies about raw while we exercised (Hi, if you're reading!). It's exciting, and it's fun to talk about.

Nothing fancy in the food department today, just yummy breakfast smoothies, a huge bunch of grapes for lunch, a small handful of raw almonds for a snack, and for dinner we just had a big salad with lots of different colors in it. Yellow bell pepper, cucumber, tomato, carrots, romaine lettuce... I threw in a few almonds, too, and topped it off with the raw Italian dressing I made earlier this week. I've been reading lots of recipes on some of the forums and blogs that I've found though, so maybe one of these days I'll actually try something more advanced!

I'm thinking about making my big "goal" for loss a body fat percentage rather than an actual weight. An ideal weight is so hard to figure out, but a body fat percentage is pretty much across-the-board. It doesn't matter if you're 5'1" or 5'9", an ideal body fat percentage is going to be the same - 18-25% for females in my age range, as best I can tell. I'm going to shoot for 23% body fat and whatever what that gets to me is fine. I'll still track my weight progress, too, but that won't be my big goal, really. At Curves earlier this month I believe my body fat percentage was around 43.5. Yikes. It was over 44% when I started going to Curves. Nearly HALF my body!!! Gross. I'll find out next week at weigh-n-measure where I am now - that'll be a once-a-month measurement, which is why I'll keep tracking the pounds lost on a weekly basis.

Week 1 draws to a close...

Today is the end of week 1 on RAW! It's been a good week, without giving in to any weaknesses - really, no temptation to speak of at all! Actually, I've noticed that the cheese snacks the kids were having me open for them (string cheese or little 3/4 oz squares of cheddar) didn't even smell good to me, and that used to be one of my favorite snacks!

I worked out pretty hard at Curves today - got all green lights on the CurvesSmart! Yay! I'm feeling it a bit in my shoulders, but nothing too serious.

Had the usual green smoothie for breakfast - more on that in a minute. Had a huge bowl of sliced peaches, red grapes, strawberries, and celery with a teeny smear of almond butter (maybe 1 tbsp total, it was two stalks of celery and I didn't fill the sticks like I would've with peanut butter, but just put a light spread on the inside. Had a couple of raw walnuts too - not even a handful, just a couple nuts.

The kids wanted clementines for an afternoon snack, so I chowed down on some as well. Yum! I don't even remember how many I ate, just enough that the afternoon munchies were gone.

Dinner... wowie WOW was that ever good! I made RAWfredo sauce from a recipe my friend sent to me. I could probably eat that stuff almost every day. Yum!!!!!1!!eleventy!!!! I can't find it online so instead of posting a link to it, I'll post the recipe here.

RAWfredo Sauce

• 1/2 cup pine nuts, soaked 2 hours, rinsed, and drained
• 1/2 cup cashews, soaked 2 hours, rinsed, and drained
• 1/2 cup water, more water if to thick
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoon agave nectar
• 2 teaspoon nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Himalayan crystal salt, or salt to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Blend it all in a Vitamix or food processor until smooth and creamy.

I didn't have pine nuts, and they're really expensive, so I used all cashews. And I used regular sea salt.

Then I just spooned it over zucchini "noodles". I don't have a spiral vegetable slicer and I didn't feel like flat noodles, so I used my Zyliss mandolin on the julienne blade. Perfect!

Tomorrow I'll update my weight loss ticker to show how much I lost this week, I'm pretty excited to see the final number for the week! LOL And for once, I'm looking forward to my weigh & measure at Curves next week.

Now, back to the green smoothie breakfast thing. I've had a couple people ask me about having them every morning. What's wrong with that? We need the greens, and it tastes good, so until I feel like I have to have something different, why not have the smoothies every day? I do plan to make some raw granola and almond milk sometime, but I haven't found a recipe for the granola that I want to try yet. I have a recipe that a friend gave me for the almond milk, and I've tried it at her house. Yum!!

Until tomorrow...

Lazy Sunday

Didn't get the day started too bright and early, but that's ok. We started it out with our green smoothies, anyway! Yum! The girls love that.

Lunch we had leftovers from the taco salad the other night. Well, the leftover taco "meat" and the cashew "sour cream" anyway. The lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, pico de gallo, etc., was still fresh. I added a whole orange bell pepper to my salad today, and it was good! It was nice and crisp, so it kind of took the place of any need for crunchy chips.

Went to town for groceries this afternoon. We were out of some of our produce, and I also picked up some raw Almond Butter. Had a little bit on celery sticks when we got home, and it was good! Not the same, exactly, as peanut butter, but good in its own right. It almost had a sweet taste to it, as if there was honey added, but I checked the ingredients "list" at least three times - "raw almonds" is all it had listed.

Going to have a nice fruit dinner here soon - I have some watermelon chilling in the fridge, and I'll have peaches and maybe some grapes if I'm not stuffed by then.

Strawberry Romaine Salad! Yum!

We were running late for church this morning, so I just threw some things in the vitamix for our morning smoothie, and I didn't get the spinach out. So the smoothies this morning were just banana, pear, a few raw walnuts (off my friend's tree, yum!), a little flax-seed oil, and a frozen three-berry blend - raspberries, blackberries and marionberries. It was a gorgeous reddish-purple color and pretty yummy!

For a sort of late lunch we threw together a Strawberry Romaine Salad. Romaine lettuce, sliced fresh strawberries, chopped green onion, sliced baby portabello mushrooms, chopped raw almonds, and a creamy strawberry-peach vinaigrette dressing that we kind of made up as we went. It had strawberries, a peach, a few cashews and almonds, EVOO, lemon juice, a bit of seasoned rice vinegar (I'm assuming that's ok... I see a lot of recipes using Apple Cider vinegar... somebody comment and let me know if I'm wrong?), green onion, garlic, paprika, a dash of cayenne, and um... I think that was it. We just kept playing with it until we thought it would work on the salad, and it did pretty well! I think I'd rather leave the nuts out next time so it's not a creamy dressing, but it was pretty good. Wow, only day 5 and look at us, experimenting already!

Had a light supper, just a couple nectarines and a banana. So far no cravings for anything that I can't have, or make as a raw dish; so far so good!

Green Smoothies, Watermelon and Cashew Sour Cream, oh my!

Today was even easier than the first couple of days. I didn't snack as many times during the day, and I don't think I ate more than usual at mealtimes, so maybe I'm just adjusting to it. Well, whichever, it was cool.

Green smoothies with baby spinach, pear, strawberries, banana and peach, I think. Grapes, watermelon (half of a baby one, with no mouth itching!), tangelo, cashews, and for dinner, a raw "taco" salad. I used a Taco Nut-meat* recipe I found online, but I think I'll change up the seasonings I use if I try it again. Then I made a raw cashew "sour cream" with cashews, lemon juice, sea salt, a tiny bit of apple cider vinegar, and a little water to help it smooth out more in the food processor. Piled that on top of a big bowl of torn green leaf lettuce, a chopped tomato, a chopped avocado, and some fresh Pico de Gallo, and it was delicious!

* I'd add less cumin and coriander, and add some chili powder instead.

Going Raw: Day 3

*yawn* I stayed up way too late last night, and it wasn't helped by the girls getting up at 3 a.m. and taking until 3:45 to get settled back down. I so wasn't awake enough to go to Curves! Today would have been my third time there this week, but ugh. I'll just have to make sure to get to bed at a decent time tonight so I can get up earlier tomorrow and get there when they open at 7:00.

Yummy green smoothies for breakfast again today. Not sure what all was in them, as Charlie made them while I was in the shower. Strawberries, peaches and spinach for sure. Maybe some pineapple and pear or banana.

I'm not sure I'll keep track of every single meal specifically every day, but just make a list of all the different things I had to eat each day.

Raw almonds, clementines, nectarines, grapes, strawberries, baby carrots, apple, tangelo, cucumber sticks, pear, um... I think that was all. Ate till I was satisfied and never felt like I was going to starved to death before the next meal or snack time. Yeah, I can eat whatever, whenever, but I'm trying not to just graze all day, ya know?

Going Raw: Day 2

Weighed myself this morning, out of curiosity. I know it's going to be water weight the first few days, but it's still exciting to see 6.2 lbs disappear from the scale overnight!

Went to Curves and worked out. I've become friendly with several of the other ladies who go at that time of morning, and I like the accountability factor of that.

My tummy was a little upset last night and into this morning, and I think it's a combination of eating too many mushrooms, the vinegar and all the garlic. That, and possibly starting to detox a bit already. I'm going to take it lighter today and not have anything other than what I can pick up and eat it straight from the fridge. Except smoothies... those are still going to be pretty gentle on my system.

Breakfast this morning was a fresh nectarine, followed by a green smoothie (peaches, strawberries, banana, pineapple and baby spinach), followed by a regular fruit smoothie (peaches, strawberries, pear and pineapple). Made more of that than we could drink, so I put it in the fridge for later.

For lunch I had some raw almonds and a huge bunch of sweet red grapes. Cold and delicious!

Snack was more almonds and a crisp Pink Lady apple.

Dinner was so-so... well, the leftover fruit smoothie from this morning was good - drank that on the way to a meeting in town. The kids were complaining about being hungry but I only had a few minutes to spare between hubby getting off work and getting to my meeting, so I swung through the drive-thru at Wendy's. I got a side salad, which consisted of mostly iceberg lettuce, some green leaf lettuce, carrot shreds, cucumber slices and a few grape tomatoes. I ate everything except the majority of the iceberg - talk about blah! Iceberg with no dressing! Yuck! I let Hannah finish that off.

That really wasn't much of a dinner so I ate a big bowl of fresh strawberries when I got home. That was worth waiting for!

Going Raw: Day 1

Today I went to Curves first thing, as usual. I go 3 to 4 days per week.

When I got back, after taking a quick shower, I mixed up our first green smoothie. I used frozen bananas, frozen strawberries, a fresh pear, some fresh pineapple, some baby spinach and some flax oil. The Mr. drank a glass of it, and took a plastic container of it with him to drink on his way to work. I had a glass full, and the kids each had a small cup of it, too. They loved it and asked for more, so I didn't get to have more than my one glass. So I had a small handful of raw cashews and a tangelo a little while later.

Lunch was so yummy! One of the sweetest nectarines I've had in quite a while, and it was nice and juicy, too. Also had some sweet yellow peppers, baby carrots and broccoli florets with some homemade Italian dressing. Even though the kids had their own lunch, they kept snitching from me, too.

Later we snacked on fresh red grapes, cold and sweet!

For dinner, I made a Broccoli Salad (recipe here). I used chopped almonds instead of peanuts, left out the habanero, doubled the garlic, and used raw cashews instead of pine nuts. WOW was it ever good! Hubby wants me to make bigger batches of it to just have in the fridge and he can take it to work. I also made the Mushroom Steak dish I mentioned in my earlier blog. It was ok, but not my favorite dish ever.

Sometime tonight I'm going to mix up Joz's Eggless "Egg" Spread so Mr. can take some to work tomorrow, and I can eat it on the run to meetings tomorrow evening.

But what about protein?

Not surprisingly, I've already been asked "But where will you get your protein?". There's a well-written article, which also discusses the issue of calcium, here. I'll post an excerpt...

Protein does not create protein in your body. Amino acids create protein in your body. And the best source of amino acids are leafy green vegetables.

When you eat meat, fish, or chicken, you’re not getting as much protein as you think you are. Take chicken, for example. Say there are 20 grams of protein in a chicken breast. Once you cook it, you destroy half the protein. Now your body has to digest and assimilate this heavy, dense source of 10 grams of protein, that will take up to 100 hours. How much do you think is getting stuck in your body as toxic waste by the time it reaches your colon? How much protein from a cooked chicken breast will you actually get? Maybe a few grams, if you’re lucky.

Also, on a FAQ section found at Health Freedom, they discuss the protein question.

This is the #1 question people have when they are considering a raw food diet. People think that protein comes only from meat, dairy or at least soy, and that without eating at least some of those foods, they won't get enough.. As a matter of fact every living cell contains protein: every plant cell has protein as a basic constituent in its cytoplasm. Vegetables contain protein! Seeds and nuts obviously contain proteins. Seaweeds and algae are very rich sources also. Factually, your body doesn't use whole proteins - it must break these down into amino acids. Plant proteins generally break down for assimilation more quickly than animal proteins and are often found already in the form of amino acids.

The horse, cow, deer, elephant, and gorilla are naturally vegetarians -where does all their muscle and body mass come from? Grass, leafy greens, and in the case of the gorilla, fruit! The meat and dairy industries have spent millions on advertising to convince people the only way to get protein is from meat and dairy products, and they have been very successful. In fact, the protein in meat is coagulated and in a form that the body cannot assimilate easily, and cannot use effectively. The consumption of meat and dairy (and the fat within it) has been linked to all kinds of fatal illnesses, including heart failure..

The fact is, your body needs 22 amino acids in order to build protein molecules and muscles. Of these 22 amino acids, there are 8 which the body cannot make and must get from outside sources. All 8 are available in raw plant foods. And in raw plant foods they are in a form which is easily assimilated and used by the body. All the protein your body needs can be gotten from raw nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits.

So, I hope I've answered your question, but please feel free to ask more questions! I'll be glad to research the answers, for you and for my own knowledge.

My refrigerator is rainbow-hued!

We made it to Costco and Food 4 Less tonight, and now I have quite a rainbow in my fridge!

Red! Strawberries (fresh and frozen w/no additives), bell peppers, raspberries, marionberries
Orange! Tangelos, clementines, bell peppers, nectarines, frozen peach slices
Yellow! Apples (hmm... red or yellow? They're fuji and pink lady), bell pepper, pineapple, pears, bananas
Green! baby spinach, romaine hearts, english cucumbers, celery, green onions, broccoli, watermelon (it's green on the outside, LOL)
Blue! Blueberries
Purple! (reddish) grapes

Not part of the rainbow would have to be my brown Baby Bella mushrooms and the white-ish raw cashews, LOL. I also picked up some flax oil and coconut oil.

Tomorrow is starting out with a green smoothie! Dinner is going to be the Mushroom Steak with Mushroom Gravy I found in the recipe section here. Lunch... raw veggie sticks, fruit, nuts... I have other things already on hand that I didn't have to buy today, like my raw almonds.

An Experiment in Going Raw

I've been thinking for a couple weeks now about going "raw". No cooked foods, just raw fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, avocados, etc. The more I think about it, the more excited I become.

I'm already a vegetarian. But I'm one of those "junk-food" vegetarians that even though I don't think it's healthy to eat anything that had a bowel movement in it's lifetime, I still eat processed foods, convenience foods, comfort foods, sweets... Blah! It's no wonder I feel so "blah" most of the time.

From November 2006 to August 2007, I was on the PRISM weight loss program. It did great! I lost 80 pounds, and I was feeling a lot better, just from having that extra weight gone. Things were stressful and I let life get to me, falling off my program and not even half-trying to stick to it. In the past year, I've gained about 70 of my 80 pounds back, and it's all my own fault, so I'm not even going to make any excuses about it.

I haven't felt that I could actually go back on the program and stick to it. And then the raw food lifestyle, which I've known about for quite a while, kind of wormed its way into my thoughts more and more over the past couple of weeks. I know several people who eat this way, or have in the past, and all of them are a lot more healthy than I am. Honestly, I feel like this is the kind of lifestyle I can adapt to and keep going. No calories to count, no counting carbs, fat, proteins... just eating good, healthy fresh foods whenever I feel hungry. And no cooking dinner! Just chopping up some veggies and throwing them on a plate! Or whole fruits!

Breakfast most mornings is going to be a green smoothie. Fresh fruits, such as bananas, strawberries, pears, apples, raspberries, peaches, whatever is fresh and sounds good, and green leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale, chard, parsley... Throw it all in the vitamix with maybe a little water or ice, a little bit of flax oil, and whizzzzzzz until smooth. Even the kids love it!

If the Mr. gets home at a decent time tonight (he has my car today), I'm headed to Costco to pick up some fresh stuff so I can get started on this first thing in the morning.

I go in six weeks to have blood work done, followed by a visit with my endocrinologist on October 15. I plan to blog about these next few weeks of eating "raw" up until that point, and possibly longer. I hope to have significant changes in my lab results and hopefully in my weight and general feelings of health, as well.

Before: