Starting the transition...

I have begun reintroducing green smoothies back into my diet, as part of the transition to moving to 100% raw beginning in January.

I'm excited that my friend Angela is going to rejoin me in this, and it sounds like a couple more people from Ravelry are going to as well... it just makes so much sense to feed our bodies pure, living foods in an effort to nurture ourselves into health and wholeness. My teenaged son, who is also overweight, has decided to join me in going raw too, which is really great! My younger son, who is severely affected by autism, already craves green smoothies and most fruits, so I am hoping I can move both boys to a primarily raw diet.



Today's green smoothie is one of my favorites and features an herb that many people aren't familiar with - salad burnet! This herb is just a pure delight! It grows like mad and tolerates even our blistering hot summers! It has a nutty cucumber taste and is absolutely delicious either in salads or green smoothies!

I blended about 1 1/2 cups of Trader Joe's frozen tropical fruit blend (pineapple, papaya, mango with some guava juice), several frozen bananas and a big handful of salad burnet from my herb garden... the cucumber fragrance is just wonderful... I love it!

Gearing up... AGAIN...

I finally got access to this blog again, after remembering which email account I used!

I have decided to recommit to eating 100% raw beginning on January 1, 2010. Meanwhile, I'm going to use these last couple of weeks in December to slowly increase the amount of raw, unprocessed foods into my diet so that it's not such a drastic shock.

I think in the past, it's been difficult and discouraging to go through the severe detox I've experienced when I made previous attempts at going 100% raw. I am going to slowly give up caffeine (which has given me the most problems in the past when I tried to stop drinking coffee "cold turkey") and introduce more and more raw recipes. I love green smoothies, so I'm bringing those back in immediately.

I'm extremely overweight and in poor health, and it's all the direct result of making bad food choices. I'm at the point that if I don't seriously start taking better care of my body, that I'm putting myself at risk for severe health consequences.

Today, I'm 244.7 pounds and I'm only 5'2". I'm morbidly obese and starting today, I make the decision to love myself enough to take control.

I would appreciate support very much! :)

Day 8 - I'm getting the hang of this...

I feel like I'm getting the hang of things... granted, I'm still pretty bored with eating a very limited diet, but yesterday, what made the difference was adding the fresh juice. I've been feeling weak in the afternoon, but yesterday I finally got out my juicer and made some carrot/celery/apple juice and it was great! I think the vitamins and minerals in the juice went straight into my bloodstream and I felt better almost immediately - it was weird! So, I'm definitely going to make sure that I include at least 2 or 3 glasses of fresh juice every day!

Yesterday's food:

5 apples

4 bananas

Long hothouse cucumber

2 1/2 cups carrot/celery/apple juice (about 6 carrots, 4 stalks celery, 1 apple)

steamed cauliflower and sweet potato

herb tea with honey

Now, off to see the new "Star Trek" movie for Mother's Day with my son! :)

Day 8

I'm excited that I've made it through a week being raw! Granted, it's not the pure 100% that I had planned on, but I didn't expect the Crohn's flare-up to mess things up for me! The tiny bit of steamed veggies I'm getting is part of a raw foods healing program, and I am very limited on what I can eat right now since I need to be low-fiber to heal the ulcerated areas.

Today, I'm going to try juicing as well, because living on just apples and bananas isn't doing it for me right now. Can't wait until I get my green smoothies back; it's been two days since I've made them.

In fact, it was funny yesterday that my youngest son who is non-verbal and has severe autism is my "Iron Man" green smoothie boy! He is on a picture exchange communication system and he requested independently for me to make him a green smoothie yesterday! I thought that was so great! I am so happy that he loves them, as it gives me the chance to get those awesome greens in his diet!

So, I have released 6 pounds and am now at 206! Like Angela, I will have to celebrate with something special once I go below 200 lbs.!

Yesterday's food intake:

5 apples

Smoothie of 5 bananas and 4 dates, blended with water

Lightly steamed cauliflower and sweet potato

Herb tea with honey

Now off to peruse some juice recipes as I'm getting a bit bored with my limited food choices. That's not to say I don't enjoy a good mono meal of fruit, but I am going to have trouble if I have to do this for weeks on end!

Day 7 - One week raw!

Well, I made it! One week raw! Aside from a few bites of cooked sweet potato (prescribed by David Klein as part of the raw foods Crohn's/Colitis healing plan), I made it through eating out at restaurants and cooking for my family this week!

I'm also down 6 pounds! That's much more than I thought I would have lost this week, but I'm sure that my body is releasing a lot of junk, based on how I have been feeling. I'm also very proud of my raw buddy, Angela, who lost a whopping 9 pounds this week! Whee! We totally rawk!

I felt pretty lousy yesterday and even took a nap, which I rarely do. David's healing plan actually recommends that you go on complete rest when recovering from Crohn's, but that's not going to happen with the demands of my life. Still, it was nice to get the chance to rest a lot yesterday, thanks to my husband working from home.

I miss my green smoothies, but hopefully, a few weeks on fruits and juices will heal my gut to the point where I can add them back in again.

Food intake yesterday:

3 apples

4 bananas

3 more apples

few bites of steamed sweet potato

herb tea with honey

Today, I'm going to try to make some of the recommended juices since I'm feeling better. Yesterday, it just seemed like too much work to make juice.

I have my spinning group coming over tonight, so I may be challenged by the goodies everyone is bringing to share. Fortunately, I can make myself a big banana/date milkshake, and that will be my treat!

Day 6 - Crohn's Flare-up...

Well, yesterday started out okay... but by the afternoon, I was experiencing the familiar lower right abdominal pain...

I have mild Crohn's Disease, which was diagnosed last year with a colonoscopy. I have two inflamed areas near my ileum, which is what's causing the pain. I've been several months without significant discomfort (little episodes here and there), but yesterday what pretty bad, which was why I didn't blog last night... I was lying in bed with a hot pack on my stomach.

I think what triggered it was, ironically, raw foods. You see, the SAD diet, devoid of fiber, doesn't irritate your intestines because there's nothing to scrape against the walls of your digestive tract. I think I flared up yesterday because I've been cleaning out my intestinal tract this week, and the fiber is too irritating to the areas in my ileum that are ulcerated.

Yesterday, I had 2 quarts of green smoothie with a lot of fiber, particularly from the kale. I started feeling ill about mid-afternoon, when the fiber started to pass through my system. I tried having a young coconut (water and meat) thinking that would be mild, but the pain increased. I even tried a few bites of cooked sweet potato, but it tasted awful to me, so I didn't eat it.

Last year, after my initial diagnosis, I had ordered David Klein's "Self-Healing Colitis and Crohn's," which is basically a raw foods approach to healing this condition. His book recommends basically a fructarian diet to heal your intestines. In the healing phase of his program, raw veggies, some fruits (like citrus and other acid fruits), nuts, and fats are avoided, and you eat mostly sweet fruits with some juices and steamed veggies, if desired. I thought that because I hadn't been experiencing a lot of pain for the past several months that I could skip this and just go directly on to an unrestricted raw foods diet. My body told me otherwise.

So, this means for now, no green smoothies, no salads - just fruits (no peels) and juices and lightly steamed squash or sweet potatoes. I'm going to try to just do the fruits and juices and avoid the steamed veggies, unless I really need to. I will do the healing phase of his program for at least another week, and will then probably start the healing juice phase over a weekend, as I need to rest while I do this. The juices obviously put no stress on the digestive tract at all and can accelerate healing.

David healed himself from ulcerative colitis and has helped a lot of people heal their colitis and Crohn's too. He has an impressive list of testimonials from doctors as well that his program works, so I'm going to go for it. Luckily, I love fruit!

I am probably going to call him for a consult, as I have some questions about when I can add green smoothies and other blended foods back into my diet. Meanwhile, I'll continue to make the green smoothies for my youngest son who has autism, because he loves them, and they are the only greens he gets in his diet, due to his rigidity around trying certain foods.

So, this will be my path for a while. Luckily, the solution is still raw foods, and I will obviously lose weight, but I would not have chosen something so restrictive to start, but I have to heal my gut for fear it will turn into something worse.

My food for yesterday:

Breakfast: green tea, 1 banana

Mid-morning: 2 quarts of green smoothie (oranges, bananas, several leaves of kale, bee pollen, coconut butter)

Early afternoon: 1 1/2 apple

Mid-afternoon: Cherry cashew Pure bar

Dinner: young Thai coconut, water and "meat"

a few bites of cooked sweet potato (because at this point, I was willing to try anything)

Evening: Sleepytime Wellness tea with honey

So far, my pain is less today, but all I have had is water and a few apples (peeled). I'm willing to do whatever it takes to heal, so it's going to be an interesting several months ahead...

Day 5

Ahh... it's been a long day! I woke up this morning congested, which I'm assuming might have something to do with detox and my body moving stuff around. Really tired today as well and I'm pretty pooped right now. But... I am feeling really good overall. I am really trying to tune in to my body and eat just when I'm hungry. I'm pretty much "grazing" all day, but I think this works well because it keeps my blood sugar consistent.

I was excited to see that I'm now at 207.9, which means I'm down 4 pounds! Woo hoo! I don't plan on weighing myself on a daily basis throughout this journey, but this week, psychologically, I think it helps to see my weight going down! I am guessing that it will not keep up at this rate, nor would I expect it to, as rapid weight loss isn't healthy. Hopefully, my body is making an initial purge (hey, how much do toxins weigh anyway?) and then my weight loss will stabilize at a healthy rate.

I took my older son to his autism social skills group this evening and they had a party, as it was the last meeting for this year. There was all kinds of junk there, and I just watched and spun on my drop spindle as the plates of cookies, brownies and other assorted SAD garbage was passed around. The only bright spot was one mom had just returned from Kuwait on a trip and brought fresh honey dates! So... I had something I could snack on, and they were yummy!

I'll write more tomorrow, but wanted to log in my food intake for today:

Breakfast: green tea, 1 banana

Mid-morning: 1 1/2 quarts of green smoothie (oranges, bananas, kale, bee pollen, coconut butter)

(I was not hungry for lunch... the green smoothie held me until mid-afternoon!)

Mid-afternoon: 2 apples, 1 banana, 1 lemon Lara bar

Dinner: huge salad of 1 head of romaine, cucumber, and 1/2 avo

Snack: a few honey dates - yum!

I notice that I'm eating a lot of the same foods. I am actually not bored by that! I really love my daily green smoothies; they tend to be pretty much the same fruits, but I change the greens every day. Previously when I was raw, I think I focused too much on exotic recipes and a lot of dehydrator foods. This time around, I am feeling that simpler, local foods are what I want to make the bulk of my food intake. This is not to say that I don't want to try some fun dehydrator foods, but I'm not going hunting for expensive, imported tropical fruits, nor do I have the time to create a lot of dehydrator dishes. Fortunately, we're entering the summer season and to me, nothing is better than all the fresh fruits and veggies to look forward to!

That said, though, a little variety in the foods I eat is probably a good idea, so tomorrow, I will go through some of my raw un-cookbooks and see if I can try some new recipes!

This weekend, I will (hopefully, weather permitting!), doing some work in the garden. My husband kindly built me raised beds last year, but unfortunately, my garden didn't do well for some reason. So, I'm hoping for a better gardening experience this year! Even though I started with organic soil blend and compost in my raised beds, the plants all died. This year, I am adding more organic compost and manure to make the soil nice and rich.

I will be planting a lot of tomatoes (nothing better than a fresh vine-ripened tomato!), cucumbers, strawberries, melons, peppers, asparagus, artichokes, basil, zucchini, string beans, and probably some eggplant as well. I didn't get started early enough to get some greens planted, but I saved my broccoli rabe seeds from the plants that came up as volunteers this winter, and will sow those in the fall, along with other greens. I will also probably put in some raspberries (we already have wild blackberries).

I obviously won't get to everything this weekend... I'll be happy if I'm able to add the compost and manure to the beds to mellow for a couple of weeks, then will pick up some plants and seeds and get things going!