Doing great!

I'm doing great with the low fat raw thang... I have lost 3 lbs. overnight and will be excited to see how many more are gone by tomorrow morning. I am not going to document my food intake like I said I was though. It just gets too obsessive compulsive for me and besides I am always losing my little piece of paper that has what I ate for the day written down on it...

I made a great smoothie yesterday and thought I would share it with you!

Cherry Papaya Paradise Smoothie:
1 small papaya (ours was from one of the papaya trees in our backyard... awww...)
1 10 oz. bag frozen cherries
1 peeled lime
1 banana

Blend forever and enjoy with your eyes closed imagining you are in tropical paradise!
Makes a little over 1 quart and I drank the whole thing myself...

I have fooled around long enough...

OK kids! No more messing around for me. I have now been raw conscious for over two years and am at the exact weight I was when I first discovered raw foodism... This is only due to my constant backsliding and getting on and off the "wagon" innumerable times in this two year period. I have lost (and regained) the same 10-30 lbs. at least 10 times. Well, I have had enough of all that. I'm back with the Raw Food Boot camp crew at Carlene Jones' amazing new Rawk Village. I am currently participating in a 4 day fruit only challenge which will hopefully help to peel off the newest 5 lbs. of holiday chub that has recently attached itself firmly to my ass... And yes, it is 100% pure cooked vegan chub. I will be documenting my food intake and weight loss here for a while at least until this whole 100% low fat raw thing becomes second nature which will, with any luck, happen sooner rather than later... It has been an eye opener for me to realize that I gain weight just as easily eating cooked vegan food as I do eating SAD/vegetarian. I don't get as depressed eating vegan though. It seems like when I eat veggie/SAD I am depressed, binge, and gain weight. When I eat cooked vegan I also gain weight and binge, but I am not as depressed. When I eat high fat raw I don't really lose any weight and I have massive cravings for cooked food but I feel really happy and well. And when I eat low-fat raw I lose weight really quickly, feel great (almost so great I don't even know what to do with myself), have almost no cravings and definitely no depression. I actually find myself on such a raw high that I freak my own self right out. But, I am going to have to get used to it because low-fat 100% raw is what works best for the weight loss and that is what I am all about right now. I have sincerely had it with being fat.

Hope you all had a great holiday and wishing you the best in the new year.

The best CHAI ever!!!

I have been noticing lately that by allowing myself to have and enjoy my beloved cup of chai tea first thing every morning I feel very satisfied and happy. I love chai tea. It is my favorite drink, period. But, I was noticing that the soymilk in the chai made me feel lethargic and started me craving cooked food immediately. So last night I put a couple of organic chai teabags into cold, purified water and let them "steep" overnight. When I woke up this morning I served the tea over ice with fresh, raw almond milk and raw honey... It was absolutely the best chai ever! I loved that it was cold and the almond milk and honey tasted better to me not having been heated up by the hot tea. This will be my new morning ritual.

Lincoln made a really great batch of green juice this am. Nothing cuter than a 4 year old making the morning juice...

I'm working on about 25 projects and 3 paintings all at the same time so I really gotta go now...

Good News!

I listed on Ft. Lauderdale Freecycle that we have 4 papaya and 4 mango trees (little, sapling trees that volunteered from our compost pile) to give away. And guess what- the response was HUGE! I had about 20 responses in less than 8 hours! I didn't think that anyone would be interested in them because we have seen so few people here in South Florida who seem to do any gardening at all... Which, BTW, I find very strange as the weather is fantastic even if the soil is kind of sandy... I think that the huge response from so many who wanted to "adopt" out little baby trees is such a great indicator that people still do value home grown fruits!

We generally just throw all of our compost items- mostly just raw fruit and veg scraps-into what could be loosely described as a compost pile and guess what, so many gorgeous little plants just spring up from where we threw the scraps. Felix, (who is the one who can actually identify the baby plants) and I have decided that from now on we will pot up the little plants and give them away for a very small donation (just to pay for the pots, soil, and water)from time to time. It feels great to pass on these little gems to such happy gardeners.

A strange thing is happening to me, I am naturally craving more raw foods. It seems like since I have taken the "be 100% raw or else" pressure off myself I am now automatically choosing to eat more raw... In my honest opinion, after 2 years of "struggling" to be a "raw fooder", the key to getting all raw is staying vegan, and offering yourself more and more fresh, raw choices that you genuinely desire because they are delicious and you actually like to eat them more than your old cooked food standbys! I realize now that any time I eat any animal products, and especially dairy!, it seems to instigate a binge and also make me ultra, ultra emotional and very angry... Funny thing is that when I was trying to "be strong" and stay "100% raw" and "conquer my cooked food addictions" whenever I fell off "the wagon" it was always for something containing cheese and usually white flour, things which I hadn't eaten with any regularity for quite a long time BEFORE I ever even attempted to become a "raw fooder"... I really applaud all of the raw teachers who advocate a gentle transition from cooked to raw, especially for those "aspiring rawists" with eating disorders or even mild dysfunctional behaviors regarding food. For me, as soon as I heard about raw food I thought, this is the cure I have been looking for! I believed, because I was led to believe, that if I was able to completely give up all cooked food I would be healed of my obesity and food issues forever. And since giving up eating meat had been so easy for me, I just figured that abstaining from cooked food would be just as easy... Boy was I wrong about that one... So if you are having a hard time being a "perfect" raw fooder, just know that you are not alone and to try being gentle with yourself. You are perfect, whole, and magnificent, just the way you are right here, right now. And I commend anyone who has even the slightest interest or motivation to accept responsibility for their own health. Blessings on your own, very personal, raw journey...

Peaceful, easy feeling...

I have cleaned and applied Feng Shui principles to my office/laundry room and I feel so much better! This area of my house is the wealth or love/relationships area of the house (depending on who you ask) so it was vitally important for me to fix it up and make it pretty. Well don't you just know- we woke up this morning to a man calling Felix about a very good job from an old friend of his! And then I found a person on freecycle who is GIVING AWAY FOR FREE an entire house-full of beautiful furniture! I am waiting to hear back from him about the stuff but it would be great to have a couple of new end tables, plant stands, coffee table, etc. And- we have had our 1995 Isuzu Rodeo parked in our backyard since March of 2006... It was looking pretty ghetto and seriously detracting from the nice gardens Felix just put in. So yesterday Harry,the car magician, came over and had the truck running and moved from the backyard to the front driveway in less than 5 minutes and all it cost was $20! Hallelujah! And the truck is actually running really nicely even though we were told by a few people, not Harry the car magician, that it was only good for the junkyard... Yippee! So to all of you out there who are Feng Shui curious- try it! It works miraculously! I have used it, to a varying extent, for 10 years now and am convinced of its power and effectiveness! Try it you won't be sorry...

I am really happy with my diet these past few days. I have been 60-70% raw and all vegan except for honey and 2 eggs a couple days ago. I haven't been eating any cow dairy at all, and I have noticed a big difference in my vitality level and haven't had any bad moods. I have typically been eating: a cup of chai with honey and vanilla soymilk in the morning when I wake up, a few hours later a homemade hummus-avocado-tomato-sprout mountain sandwich on Ezekial sesame bread, at around 2 pm I make us a raw cacao-maca mylkshake and we sit on the front porch and moan and smile while we drink it, then for dinner I usually make a lowish fat combo of beans/tons of veggies/starchy veggie or grain and a big, raw salad with raw dressing. We also have been making a green juice about every other day. I am noticing that when I don't eat all fruit meals my mood is much more stable and I don't get that massive "high", which is good. So far, this seems to be the best diet I have been on for some time as far as keeping my depression at bay AND keeping my mood stable-ish at least. My digestion is also much more happy than when I eat really nut-heavy meals. I have not been binging at all and think this has a lot to do with not feeling deprived and stressed out about my diet. I am just eating what sounds good and healthy for me at the moment. Being stressed out the whole time I am trying my hardest to be 100% raw seems to be less healthy for my body than being %70 percent raw with a stable mood and happy, optimistic outlook. Besides, I am still losing weight, about 2-3 lbs. per week.

Love to you all and big, fat blessings!

Peeling the onion...

Just so you all know- I Love Jesus, too, just in my own special way. I just re-read my last post and realized that it could have been considered a little off-putting... So, I apologise for that.

Anyhow, I have been about 60-70% raw and mostly vegan, my weight is stable and coming off very slowly, and I am relatively happy and even optimistic. I am loving the green juice and Lincoln has been such a lovely juicer operator, even if he won't actually drink the juice when he is done making it...

I am a fire dragon (according to Chinese astrology and most people who know me even a little) and usually have pretty strong defences (like hard, protective dragon scales) and am also considered quite aggressive (note the fire blazing from my mouth and nostrils) BUT I am also (underneath my impressive serpent scale armour) actually extremely sentimental, overly sentimental... When I eat only raw foods, I literally feel raw, as in "stripped of skin and with the underlying flesh exposed, sensitive because of this" just like according to Oxford American Dictionary definition 6 of "raw"... You know, like when you have an injury, like a skinned knee, and you take the band-aide off and the wind blows on the boo-boo, how sensitive it feels? Well, that is how my whole being feels when I am all raw. I am so emotional and sentimental and feeling like I have been struck by lightning. It feels like giving a really intense Reiki treatment all the time... I honestly am not sure how to function, day to day, with that level of feeling and raw energy blasting through me. Everything just seems to be too much! I mean, I was considered to be an "overly sensitive child" even when I was on the "worst diet ever"...

So, I am doing the best I can. I am happy with myself and achieving balance in my life. I am not suffering and I am satisfied.

One love and all blessings to you, too...

What?

So our neighbors have had on Jesus music since 8am., blasting loud in their backyard and they are all in the house. Maybe they are playing it to scare off the unruly local pagans, heathens, and sinners? Then about an hour ago they lit their BBQ grill and used, it seems, about a gallon of lighter fluid to get the charcoal going. So between the loud music (all about sin and repentance) and the noxious fumes from the grill, my house isn't smelling so nice... And then just a few minutes ago, they put PORK on the grill... So now we have hellfire and brimstone, nasty carcinogens wafting through the air, and the completely unholy, god-awful smell of burning pig flesh... And all of this on a gorgeous Saturday perfect for having the windows open. (BTW, we are the only ones around that I can see that actually have the windows open.) But it seems that we are now in a ventilation unfriendly, AC mandatory, be scared about going to hell in a hand basket, and eat the roasted remains of a being that lived it's entire life in misery and slavery kinda place right now... Makes a nature girl like meself wonder what the hell I am doing here? (Besides drinking my raw carrot-cilantro wonder soup...)