Never eat more than you can lift.

- Miss Piggy

Raw Foods Diet: Day 6
My sleeping schedule is finally secured! Hooray! There’s only one problem… I go to bed at 8 at night! That seems to be really just too early for me, and I wonder if this could be the result of some of my sluggish problems: the fact that when I wake up it will still be dark for quite some time. I am going to try to will myself to stay up a bit later, so that I can try to see what it is like to consistently wake up at 5 in the morning. Coming from an insomniac and a night owl, this is pretty great so far!
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Make hunger thy sauce, as a medicine for health.

- Thomas Tusser

Raw Foods Diet: Day 5
I had a good night of sleep, thankfully. I didn’t even wake up once. When I did get up, I was extremely refreshed. There has definitely been a major shift already. There is no longer a groggy waking up period. Upon waking up, I am ready to start my day immediately. This benefit almost makes eating this way worth it, all on its own.
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Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

- Denis Waitley

Curing Happiness: What It Means And Why You Need To
Those among us not ready to seek out true happiness will choose, instead, the road most traveled. They will fret not the signs along the way, pointing them in another direction, nor the fact that they have gotten truly, and utterly, lost on their journey. It is on this paved path then, where many before have wandered aimlessly, that they will find themselves without ever really finding themselves.

What they had sought for was happiness, but what they had gotten was anything but. If only they had known that before ever achieving happiness, you must cure yourself from your own notion of it.

We are told on a constant basis that without joy, there is sorrow, but what of sorrow? We are told that without peace, there is war, but what of war? We are even told that without love, there is nothing, but, again, what of nothing? What we are not told of is happiness, or how it can be found within feelings of sorrow, in times of war, and even when we feel that nothing is all that is left. This is because happiness is not outside ourselves, but rather, within us all.

Among many people, “I’ll be happy once I…” is said often enough to be considered a daily affirmation, yet it is believed strongly enough to become more like a prayer. And like that carrot dangling forever out of reach of the horse’s mouth, happiness too is not reached. Never did it stand a chance.
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Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.

- Socrates

Raw Foods Diet: Day 4
Today I did not seem to need as much sleep. I woke up a little before 4 A.M. and was able to get started right away. Do I need less sleep on this diet? I had heard people claim this, but is far too early to know for sure.
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I don’t eat junk foods and I don’t think junk thoughts.

- Peace Pilgrim

Raw Foods Diet: Day 3
Alright, I’m tired, I admit it. I won’t be publishing this post tonight because I don’t trust myself and will want to check everything over again in the morning. I took a nap today, for about three hours, instead of sleeping. I did this because I wanted to get my sleeping schedule fixed sooner rather than later. The thinking was that it would help keep me awake until later that night, when I could go to bed, but it wouldn’t give me enough sleep to where I wasn’t tired. We shall see how it pans out.

As far as everything else goes, this day was a marked improvement. I was pretty focused throughout the day on what needed to be done.
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Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.

- Jim Davis

Raw Foods Diet: Day 2
Today was quite good. I had a lot of energy, both mentally and physically. Nothing exciting or earth-shattering. I am on my way still at developing my sleeping schedule. I am doing this by going to bed earlier and earlier each night My only other option would be to stay up all night and all day to reset my internal clock, and that would have adverse affects on this trial, so I decided against it. It’s going well so far!
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You need to listen to your body because your body is listening to you.

- Dr. Phil Mcgraw

Strong Mind and Spirited Body: II – Biofeedback

This is the second installment of a series of articles called:
A Strong Mind and Spirited Body.
The first installment was: A Strong Mind and Spirited Body – I

Picture yourself in a chair. Not that big of a stretch, I’d imagine. But in this chair visualize electrodes and sensors attached to various parts of your body, including your scalp, ears, and fingers.

Photo by geekgirly

All of a sudden, a buzzer sounds, and it won’t stop. You grow agitated and notice that this only seems to make the sound grow stronger. You relax and think about what to do next, which, not coincidentally, softens the annoying buzz. Through further experimentation of tensing and relaxing various muscles, as well as putting yourself into differing states of mind, you successfully get the noise to stop. But what just happened?

You completed a biofeedback session.
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He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skills of the physician.

- Chinese Proverb

Raw Foods Diet: Day 1
My sleeping schedule is officially insane. I did not get much sleep at all yesterday, so I ended up going to bed sometime in the afternoon and waking up at 9PM lat night. Needless to say, it will probably take me a few days to get it back to where it was before. I apologize if these entries are posted at weird times as a result. I am still getting my full amount of sleep, as I didn’t want it to affect this trial!
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Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.

- Hippocrates

Raw Foods Diet: And So It Begins
Finally, the day of reckoning has arrived. Today I start my 30 Day 100% Raw Foods Vegan Trial. If you are confused, read about it more here:

Raw Foods Diet: 30 Day Trial
Raw Foods Diet: Laboratory Testing

I decided to go on this trial after experimenting with a week-long version. It was fantastic. I had high levels of energy, and I didn’t have a single detoxification symptom, much to my dismay. It seemed like a perfect solution. The reasons I stopped were twofold: one, I felt like I was wasting all the huge stockpiles of food (lots and lots of canned tuna) that I had, and two, I wanted to use the trial as an experiment on my body.
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Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain — and most fools do.

- Dale Carnegie

Unsolicited Criticism: It Stinks And So Do You

In a previous entry, I discussed how to combat stress and actually use it to your benefit, but what about when you find yourself on the giving end?

There exists a great majority of people who follow the practice of consistent, yet unasked for, criticism. It is often rationalized as somehow being constructive, yet it rarely, if ever, actually is. Those bearing the brunt of these verbal attacks are introduced to even more stress in their lives. This is simply not constructive to anyone involved, and therefore, not worth the time or the effort.
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