…When you are hungry or thirsty, my eating of food or drinking will not fill your stomach; you must eat and drink for yourself.

- D. T. Suzuki

Raw Foods Diet: Days 31 and Beyond
First of all, I would like to warn you that this is a very long post. This isn’t a conventional blog, and this isn’t a conventional blog post either. I hope you get something out of it.

I would also like to apologize for taking so long to write this entry. I had gotten my computer stolen, and had yet to receive the insurance money to fund the cost of buying a new one. Unfortunately, the public computers at my apartment complex are not the best, but I have decided to just try to do the best I can regardless. That is all anyone can hope for, right?

Another unfortunate development is that I am also unable to fully analyze the blood tests I had done. The results were E-Mailed to me, but in PDF format. These computers can’t read that format, so I am going to have to wait to give an objective analysis of my blood work. Furthermore, I won’t be able to finish making the Week 4 (plus two days) Graphs, since my graphing software was on my computer. Do not fret, it is only a matter of time before everything will be back to normal.

Many of you will probably be wondering what I ate the day after the raw vegan foods diet had ended, and after my final blood test was completed. Scratch that, I know for a fact many of you are wondering, based on the number of comments and E-Mails I got alone.

Leaving the Raw Foods Diet
I did plan on easing smoothly back into my more “normal” way of eating. I took suggestions and thought long and hard about what I was going to do; however, the final outcome was far from what I had expected.

The day went something like this…

Baby food -> Banana -> Cheese stick -> Banana ->; Turkey & Cheese Sammich -> Glass of Milk -> Lou Malnati’s Deep Dish Pizza with Barq’s Root Beer

Crazy? Probably. As you can see, I got more and more confident with each passing meal. At the end, I just basically figured that nothing could stop me, and went for the pizza. It became almost a test. I ate cheese, turkey, bread, and pepperoni, and drank both milk and root beer. All the things I was trying to avoid, and everything that had been recommended against, I decided to eat. Why? Well, I’m not exactly sure. I felt that I deserved some reward for my efforts, and didn’t want to wait for a few days to ease out of the raw vegan foods diet, have my reward, and then finally go back to my more normal way of eating. This was risky, but I really just wanted to get it over with.

Imagine my surprise when I felt fine that day, and the next. I’ve had no symptoms from eating these kinds of foods, and still am not exactly sure why. For all intents and purposes, I should have gotten sick! I got my digestion used to 30 days of raw vegan foods, and then all of a sudden forced it to undergo some heavy, fattening, and gastrically-violent foods. I had more of a reaction when I ate onion and avocados!

The next day I went right back into eating what I had been eating before this trial started. Now that my reward was out of the way, I could continue undisturbed. I knew for quite some time that I wasn’t going to continue eating raw vegan foods after the 30 days were up, and had already decided what sort of diet I was going to do. It hovers around 45% protein, 30-35% carbohydrates, and 15-20% fat. My carbohydrates come from things like brown rice, bran cereals, a variety of oats, as well as three servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables each. My fat mostly comes in the form of different oils, with the bulk of them being either flax seed oil, fish oil, or extra virgin olive oil. The bulk of my protein intake is from leaner meats like chicken breast, chunk light tuna, turkey burgers, as well as some whey protein powders and egg whites. This is not all I am eating, as I occasionally have been implementing different foods, but it is the bulk of it. I am still eating this way today.

I could probably get myself completely off of eating meat, and develop into a vegetarian lifestyle, but I am still making my own conclusions about that. As of now, I just eat meats for the sake of convenience to my particular diet plan and that I find it to be rather affordable, easy to prepare, and even easier to store.

With that in mind, let’s return our focus to my trial wherein I completed 30 days of eating only raw, or uncooked, vegan foods. These almost entirely consisted of various fruits and vegetables. This will be a subjective analysis. I will use no objective data to reach these conclusions, as that part was forced to be done at a later date. For now, I will outline my own experiences with this diet, what I have learned, as well as what I liked and didn’t like.

Sugar Content, Sweet Tooth
If this diet has had any sort of effect on my physiology, as a permanent change, it would most likely be in the further development of my sweet tooth. The high amount of sugar, namely fructose, in this diet was difficult to handle at first. My teeth didn’t feel 100%, but fortunately, this was a passing side effect. Had this been a longer trial I may be singing a different tune, however. Eventually, I did get used to it, and noticed no differences. In fact, I might have gotten too used to it, you might say. Take for example, my recent trip a few days ago to the Brazilian steakhouse, Brazzaz…

After sitting down, and trying different cuts of meat, I realized that I actually found myself being more drawn to their salad bar. But I was trying to get my money’s worth, and still in a bit of a shock about my newfound taste buds, so I still tried to eat more meat. I found myself not even being impressed by their filet mignon wrapped in bacon! This is not to say, however, that it was the restaurant’s fault. I could tell that the meat was very well cooked, but I also just was not as interested as I would have been. I noticed it was the carbohydrate-rich foods that excited me, not the copious amounts of pork, steak, chicken, lamb, or even bacon! Bacon for Pete’s sake!

To me, my normal desire for the “meaty” taste had been deactivated, and replaced with by a sweet tooth. Fortunately, it seems more specific to fruit, as I have not had any cravings for any desserts or anything else of the sort. This means now all I have to control is my desire for fruit, and green smoothies, and I will be good to go. I still like to get a few servings of fruit a day, and I find myself attracted even more to sweeter fruits like grapes and apples.

Preparation
Compared to my normal dieting, which consists of a fair amount of cooking, this diet was a breeze. The most complicated thing I had to do was blend fruits and/or vegetables. Because I was so used to measuring, weighing, and keeping track of my food on a daily basis, when I eventually started doing this with raw food I found it easy as well. The weighing took mere minutes on a scale. Definitely not a big task.

If, however, you are not used to keeping such a close eye towards what you eat, it would definitely be something you would have to get used to. I would definitely recommending keeping track of your calories and macro nutrients at first, to become fully aware of just how much you need to eat.

Smoothies
For all my blender woes, without it, I would have been doomed. Why? I needed it to make smoothies! It is just incredibly hard to get enough calories without drinking smoothies, be they “green” or otherwise. Many times, I did not get enough calories in, and as a result, probably lost too much weight. If I didn’t have a blender, I know I would have found it even more difficult to consume even the amount of fruits and vegetables that I did. Overall, making a smoothie was not that taxing. It would have been a lot easier with a different blender, but I ended up getting the job done anyway.

The Almighty Banana
If you have been following this trial at all, you will know how I seemed to eat bananas with wild abandon. You should also have some sense as to why I did this, as I explained myself a few times, or when questioned. If this is your first time at GrowStronger.com, or you just plum forgot what I had said, you should keep reading.

-High calories. The banana, on average when accounting for the varying sizes, is about 100 calories. Given how hard it is already to maintain your daily caloric needs, a fruit this high in calories is important.
-No fat (or very little). This is important if your approach to a raw vegan foods diet is a high-fruit one, which for me it was. Avocados are high in calories too, but they are also high in fat.
-Not too sweet. Let’s say, just for an example, my mainstay had been apples instead of bananas. I personally know that I would have eventually, and probably not far into the trial, gotten sick of their sweet taste. Sure, there is a wide variety of them, but with my temporarily heightened taste to sense sweet things, they all seemed pretty sweet, and sometimes mealy, to me. The banana is not that sweet, making it ideal for eating a lot of them.
-Easy to consume. Going back to the apple analogy, eating that many of them would not only be much more taxing on the muscles of my jaw and my teeth, but it would also take much longer to eat. The banana, on the other hand, is quite easy to eat, easier to hold on to, and takes a very short amount of time to consume. This might sound trivial, but when you ate as much fruit as I did, the difference is surely in the details.
-Very important to smoothies. A few times, I had different concoctions of smoothies that featured no bananas whatsoever. Miserable failures, all of them. Whenever I did this, I felt like some crucial element was missing. It didn’t take long for me to find out that it was the banana that gave the smoothie its rich and creamy texture. The equivalent of cornstarch or xanthan gum, the banana literally acted as a thickening agent for the smoothies. Without them, it could only be called a fruit drink, in my opinion.
-Easily freezable. Peel them, stack them on a plate, and put them in a freezer. Stacking them on the plate can be fun for the whole family! Bananas may ripen at their own leisure, but thanks to modern conveniences, such as the freezer, we can hold off that process for much longer. Furthermore, adding a frozen banana or two into a smoothie makes it even more enjoyable!

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the almighty banana was a crucial part of getting through this diet, without which I don’t know if I would have been able to. Of course, Murphy’s law must have also been at play here, as when I needed bananas most, they turned their backs (peels?) to me. Thanks a lot Peapod.

High-fruit vs. High-fat
When considering to go on a diet that consists of eating only raw vegan foods, you are going to have to make a choice. Will you get the bulk of your calories from eating a lot of fruit, or from eating a lot of fat? You simply can’t get enough calories from a diet that consists primarily of uncooked vegetables, so forget about it. When I made this choice, I took the high-fruit approach because it made more sense to me. It still is a controversial issue in the raw vegan foods world, but I took it upon myself to pick what I thought would be best.

I experimented, briefly, with both high-fat days, and high-fat meals, with little to no success. While I didn’t give them a 30 day trial of their own, I don’t feel I need to. I knew that they wouldn’t agree with me, and whenever I did eat a meal high in fat on this diet, it usually tasted quite good but left me feeling pretty awful. The effect was so powerful at first, that I ended up occasionally using an avocado or two to help me get to sleep, and for awhile it turned out to be quite successful. Eventually, even that positive aspect went away, and all I was left with was the high-fat beast who would come to take my energy away. For others, fruit may not agree with them as well.

In fact, there have been a lot of people who have been successful with a raw vegan foods diet that was high in fat. In the end, you’ll need to try it out for yourself.

The Nutrition Of It All
From my understanding of nutrition and biochemistry, as well as my own body, I am not convinced this diet would work for me as a long-term solution or lifestyle change. The low amounts of protein and fat put it, in my mind, in an extreme category. In my opinion, there are two different ways of eating. There is dieting as a tool, and dieting as a lifestyle change. This raw vegan foods diet was a tool, that I used for 30 days, and gave me both positive and negative results. Since I can’t see myself eating this way for the rest of my life, at least not at this point, it remains only a tool. Using different diets as a tool or as a lifestyle change have their positives and negatives, and one approach can’t be favored over another. The more restrictive the diet, the more temporary it usually becomes. In my eyes, this diet is a tool in the same way the carbohydrate-restrictive ketogenic diets are a tool. Neither of them are usually permanent lifestyle changes, but both of them can be successful in their own way. Of course, I still have to leave this open to further objective analysis, mainly from the results of my blood tests.

Social Eating Aspects
This diet is awkward outside of your home, to say the least. I felt weird not being able to go out to restaurants with people, or ordering fruit when finally forced to. There were times when we would have to stop by at Whole Foods first, so I could get a bite to eat. There were other times when I brought food with me. I don’t care how self-assured you think you are, eating bananas in a dark and cramped movie theater is awkward. What do I do with the peels and rinds?

Psychological Aspect
One of the most interesting developments was the psychological struggle, or willpower, to endure this difficult challenge. I would definitely say it changed me in many ways, and made the entire ordeal worthwhile. First of all, now that I have successfully completed 30 days of eating in this rather extreme fashion, I find myself “laughing off” things that I would previously have found much more challenging. I am constantly reminding myself that if I can go through 30 days of eating basically only fruits and vegetables, there isn’t much that I can’t do! And secondly, I find that food is no longer very important to me. I see it more as a means to an end. To a goal. To some worthwhile result. If I didn’t before, I would definitely describe myself as a person who easts to live, and doesn’t live to eat. My love of cooking, and baking, has fortunately not changed either. Instead of cooking or baking for myself, I now enjoy doing it even more for other people.

Sleep
Before going on this diet, I would call myself an amateur insomniac. While it wasn’t always a regular thing, I never found it easy to go to sleep. And when I could go to sleep, every day it seemed my schedule would change. Within the first week or so, my sleeping habits were radically changed. Whether this was due to this new discipline I was forced to have, or the actual diet itself can’t be known. What I do know is that now I have an easier time going to sleep and getting out of bed, so I am not complaining.

Miracles/Fanaticism
One thing that almost stopped me from even partaking in a 30 day trial of a raw vegan foods diet was the fanaticism espoused by many raw foodist “gurus”. Everyone was not only selling something related to raw foods, but many of them encouraged blind followers by attacking all other ways of eating. It is not my opinion that eating a raw vegan foods diet is the only right way. There are many paths up the mountain. And anyone who feels it is the epitome of healthy eating frightens me somewhat. This diet has as many fanatics, be they right in their thinking or not, as any other diet I have ever seen. There’s quite a lot of misinformation, and it was a daunting process sorting through all of that.

Onto the subject of miracles. In my first post discussing my plans to go on a raw vegan foods diet, I discussed the many promises, or benefits, that several people said eating this way would bring.

People eating a raw food diet are the healthiest looking people I have ever seen. They have a glow in their skin, a shine to their hair, a sparkle in their eyes, a healthy, fit, body and look younger than their age. They have a youthful energy and they feel good about themselves and happy to be alive!

If you are sick, tired, overweight or just want to feel better than you do right now, know that this way of eating could be the answer to your prayers. Does it sound like I’m promising a lot? Well, I am because I have seen this raw diet work time and time again. This has been one of the greatest miracles in my life and in the lives of other people whom I’ve shared this with.

Overall, I found only a slight increase in energy, but I feel that was only as a result of all the fructose I was consuming. My dry skin didn’t clear up, nor did it get any worse. My eyes didn’t change color, and I wasn’t visited by any spirits. This way of eating, despite all my best wishes, was not the answer to my prayers. I didn’t experience any of these benefits, unfortunately, and I’m sure that many will conclude that it was my fault, and not the diet’s. That I did something wrong. Maybe I did, but I feel as if the hype is far too great for ANY way of eating to live up to it. There were benefits, no doubt, but nothing as extreme as I had seen others achieve.

Specific Circumstances
There were many reasons why I decided not to continue along the path of my raw vegan foodist forefathers. Several of these I have already touched upon, and others I will touch upon later in this post. There are some, though, that need to be pointed out specifically as they remain under the realm of specific circumstances. Basically, these are reasons why this diet was difficult for me at this particular time and place. Circumstances change, coincidences happen, but at times I felt like I was cursed by some meat-eating gods.

For one, the fact that I was so dependent on getting to the grocery store made everything difficult. I’m used to developing into a routine, where I can go to the grocery store once, maybe twice, to get my food for the week. The conditions necessary to make this happen on my raw vegan foods trial were definitely missing. I had no idea what I was going to eat the next day, as I had yet to get into the “flow” of things. I didn’t know what food was going to be available, what my body would feel like eating, and whether or not the fruit would be too ripe, or, as what happened in most cases, not ripe enough. This meant that I would have to go to the grocery store several times a week when things didn’t turn up as I had planned. For a student, on a budget, without access to a car, this becomes a tiresome chore.

Another quip about the grocery stores was reiterated by the fact that I had access to no car. This left me with very few options. I could either haul as much as I could carry in a backpack, which I often did, and go several times a week, or I could depend on getting bulk orders from online grocery delivery services. However, nothing turned out to be very reliable. Lugging a huge backpack stuffed to the brim of bananas might have also made me look crazy. I know I got odd stares as I had to explain to several cashiers that, “Yes. This is all for me.” and, “No. I don’t need a bag, but can you fit them all in my backpack?” Public transportation did not help that much, and I was forced to pay the expensive cab fares far too many times.

Chicago winter’s carry an air of unpredictability to them. Will it be sunny out, or will it snow in record amounts? Will the lake freeze over, or will it merely bring extremely cold wind? And most importantly, will the bananas be ripe or not? As I were to find out, I had about as much luck predicting the weather based on my sense of smell than predicting whether I would be able to find edible bananas. When grocery stores like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Dominick’s, and the local convenience store nearby failed to deliver, there was Peapod. Readers of my blog should know my experiences with them, but if you don’t suffice it to say that in two days, 198 extremely green, under ripe, bananas exchanged hands between Peapod and myself. When I was so dependent on these as my main form of sustenance, you can imagine what would happen when I couldn’t find a moderately ripe one in all of Chicago. Overall, eating raw vegan foods in Chicago in wintertime, is no easy task.

And finally, the act of blending just became ridiculously difficult. My blender was small, its motor was weak, and the whole thing was just far too old to put up with all the stress I forced it to undergo. Sure, I could have gotten one of those fancy Vitamix blenders, if I decided to sell a kidney. Retailing for close to a thousand dollars, it obviously was not in the cards for me. In fact, using that old blender that I borrowed from my parents was my only real option financially. This meant that it took a lot longer to blend things, I couldn’t blend a lot at once, and lots of different fruits or vegetables wound up not very well blended at all.

As you can tell, these concerns, or specific circumstances, were not set in stone, but they still needed to be pointed out. This diet is susceptible to a lot of different variables, which is why I found it to be difficult at times due to the aforementioned reasons. I could have found myself a different blender, just like Peapod could have been less crazy with what they consider a deliverable banana. So it goes.

Will I try it again?
I should reiterate that while this diet may have not been for me, that does not mean I won’t be back to try another, possibly longer, trial in the future. Due to different circumstances and my own personal findings, this diet wasn’t right for me, but only at this present time. Who knows what the future could hold? Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the benefits it gave me.

Could it work for you?
While this diet was a temporary tool for me, it could be a longterm lifestyle change for you. While this diet didn’t give me enough fat or protein, it could be the right amount for you. And while I felt awkward eating out with friends, you might possibly not care, or even fit right in. The only way you can tell is by trying it out for yourself. If I have persuaded, or dissuaded, you into trying this diet, you must realize that ultimately, it is your experience that would be more important than mine. So try it out for awhile, and analyze the results you get from both a subjective and objective standpoint. Don’t let any biases, or fanaticism, get in the way of the conclusions that you draw. Who knows, you might like what you find. At the very least, I fully believe you will find the entire process as rewarding as I did.

Thanks to everyone who read, commented, enjoyed, or even hated these entries. I’m glad I could get some kind of reaction out of you.

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.

- Doug Larson

Raw Foods Diet: Day 30
Well, well, well. This is it. Day 30. The last straw. The final day. The big burrito. The captain enchilada.

It’s been one interesting ride. There have been ups, and downs, but overall it was an extremely worthwhile experience. Unfortunately, I will not be able to put up any charts, or graphs, as my computer was unfortunately, and mysteriously, stolen from my storage locker. Fortunately, I have renter’s insurance, so I should be able to get a new one soon.

Mind
Excitement. I’m excited not only that this trial is ending, but I am excited that I didn’t quit on it early. There were countless times where I felt like I could have just stopped, but it makes it difficult to do that when you’ve made a commitment in a blog. For how excited I was today, I think I did a good job of still getting my work done. To cap it all off, I had multiple dreams, which I was able to write down, and I did two morning pages!

Body

Food Eaten
I thought it would be humorous if I ate only bananas today. No smoothies. No real outlined meals. Just bananas.

18 bananas.

I ate 18 bananas. None of them in the form of smoothies. If this doesn’t give me street cred, nothing will.

Overall
I feel like I should use this space to further explain my position on why I have decided not to continue doing raw foods, but I won’t, and there are several reasons for that. Most importantly, I have yet to analyze the differences in the charts, and I have not been able to note any differences from the first blood tests and the ones I still have to take.

After all that analysis is done, I will sum up my findings with an objective viewpoint of the raw foods diet based on the data, and a subjective one based upon my own experiences on it.

A bagel is a doughnut with the sin removed.

- George Rosenbaum

Raw Foods Diet: Day 29
Yes, I am now using this space to officially declare the countdown. So sue me.

One day left!

Mind
Had two very bizarre dreams, and did my morning page. This might have been the result of me reading more about Jung and his interpretations of dreams, but the man himself was in one of mine! Truly bizarre…

Body

Food Eaten
I have a large surplus of bananas that I got at Whole Foods. I must get rid of them.

Meal 1
2 bananas, 1 avocado

Meal 2
2 bananas

Meal 3
4 bananas

Meal 4
A smoothie consisting of: 4 bananas, 2 oranges.

Meal 5
2 bananas

Meal 6
1 avocado

Overall
I took an extremely enjoyable walk around town today. It was 47 degrees out and beautiful! I swear, this kind of weather, is perfect for sitting on a park bench, and reading. It made the entire rest of the day very peaceful.

With one more day to go, I have ordered the blood test. Just like nearly 30 days ago, I will be getting a CWP plus U/A and a Vitamin B12 test. Once the results are in, I will be able to share with you the differences, if there were any.

We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink…

- Epicurus

Raw Foods Diet: Day 28
Four weeks! Now all that is left is the “some change” part, aka two days. Two days people! I can hardly believe it. The last of the graphs will NOT be included in this entry. Why not? Well, even though it is week 4, I think I should wait until Day 30 to do the last of the graphs. This way I can really show what changes, if any, took place over the 30 day period, instead of the 28 day period.

Mind
Nothing fantastic or special that I could account for happened. No remembered dreams, no moments of euphoria or utter clarity, but no real sluggishness either.

Body

Food Eaten
Okay, this is insane. Peapod comes, actually earlier than they were supposed to, to give me 99 new bananas. The ones that came the day before were all green, so this was intended to be an exchange. 198 bananas were to exchange hands.

But what happens? All the bananas were again green! Very green! By the time they would ripen, I would already be off the trial. So I just gave him the 99 bananas I had, and didn’t accept the new, even greener, ones. Why do people think it’s okay to only give extremely under-ripe bananas? These should have their own section! In fact, on Peapod, conventional green bananas do! But I ordered regular organic ones.

This is madness. No, this is a raw foods diet. Hahah, that was too corny, even for me.

Meal 1
(1) 118g banana

Meal 2
(1) 94g banana

Meal 3
(2) 204g banana

Meal 4
A smoothie consisting of: (4) 487g banana, 161g strawberries, 40g blackberries, 45g blueberries

Meal 5
(3) 362g banana

Meal 6
(1) 104g banana, 1 avocado, 1 apple

Totals for the day were…
1,930 calories
381.8g Carbohydrates, 35.2g Fat, 21.5g Protein
Macro nutrient ratio: 77%/18%/5%

Overall
Peapod looked like a miracle saver before, but now, they certainly do not. If I were to continue this trial, I do not know what I would do. I would have to make very regular trips down to Whole Foods. Combining that with food preparation, and most of my day would revolve around the idea of eating raw foods. Clearly, this has skewed my perception of the effectiveness of this diet. For me, right now, I don’t see how it would even be possible, let alone beneficial.

The knuckles on both of my hands are also getting extremely dry. I have been using lotion, and that helps somewhat, but still, they remain quite dry. I believe this to be a symptom of this trial, as other raw foodists have gone through similar experiences.

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease.

- George Dennison Prentice

Raw Foods Diet: Day 27
The days are normalizing now, and I am looking forward to this being over. I am very glad I took this on, but I am excited about all the new challenges, so I am looking forward to the start of others!

Mind
I actually had an incredibly wild and imaginative dream. Did you know that dinosaurs exist, can speak English, and are rather friendly, when given a chance?

Body

Food Eaten
Yargh! The Peapod saga continues!! The bananas came today, but they were all green. Very green! I called up Peapod and tomorrow they are going to deliver more, and I will switch the green ones, for some, hopefully, edible versions. Just one more reason this diet would be difficult for me to continue to do. I resorted to avocados to get my calories in.

Meal 1
1 apple

Meal 2
A smoothie consisting of 100g spinach, (4) 550g banana

Meal 3
1 avocado, 1 banana

Meal 4
Made some guacamole with lime, tomato, onion, and two avocados, and the stem of a portobello mushroom. I spread it over the cap. Unfortunately, I only ate about half. For some reason, this did not taste as good as the last time I had it. I’m not sure why. I probably still consumed quite a lot of calories here as I ate some of the guacamole-esque mixture. This was my goal.

Meal 5
(1) 139g banana

I’m guessing this was a lot, relative to yesterday, of calories, with all the avocados, but it’s all guesswork.

Overall
Well, aside from the Peapod fiasco, it wasn’t that bad of a day. What will my plans be, diet wise, after this trial? Well, they will be to eat meat. I wasn’t a vegetarian before this trial, and I absolutely love the taste of meat. This has not yet changed. I am not sure if I will try veganism again, but I probably will. If I can eat a high-fruit, low fat, raw vegan food diet for 30 days, I think I could stick with a regular vegan one. I won’t do a daily log about it, but I will include some updates.

What I love about these kinds of trials and challenges is how much they help me out! I would have never been able to do this without the tireless effort of those who read, comment, and contribute to this blog. Thanks again!

If organic farming is the natural way, shouldn’t organic produce just be called ‘produce’ and make the pesticide-laden stuff take the burden of an adjective?

- Ymber Delecto

Raw Foods Diet: Day 26
Sleeping has become normalized. So that’s good. It’s not exactly back to the 8:30/9:00 P.M. – 4:30 A.M. situation, but that’s okay. I’m getting enough sleep, I am waking up feeling pretty refreshed, so I can’t complain.

Mind
I got really aggravated with the idea of even doing a morning page today. For anyone that doesn’t remember what that is, it is basically a way to get your creativity going by writing in the morning. It is usually a few pages, but I am just sticking with one page for now. You start writing and don’t stop. It is almost a trance-like state. You just write and write until you are done with the page. You don’t stop to correct things or think about what you just wrote, and they do not even need to be complete thoughts. I have gotten a lot of interesting ideas out of this thus far, and I can really see why so many people do this now.

Body

Food Eaten
Well, I didn’t eat enough, but this time it wasn’t my fault! Peapod never showed up! Apparently, there was some mix up, so now I have to wait until tomorrow morning. This forced me to go down to the small market they have here and get some conventional produce. Unfortunately, they only had a few that were even partially ripe. I hate how I am so dependent on the ripeness of Chicago-wide produce. In winter.

Meal 1
(1) 108g banana

Meal 2
A smoothie consisting of: (1) 149g orange, (4 [1 frozen]) 424g banana

Meal 3
A smoothie consisting of: (4 [1 frozen]) 437g banana, 103g. regular spinach. Tastes the same to me as baby spinach, and is cheaper!

Meal 4
A smoothie consisting of: (4 [1 frozen]) 414g banana, 100g. regular spinach.

Meal 5
(2) 175g banana. CONVENTIONAL! I also bought an avocado, in the hopes of getting more calories in, but it was EXTREMELY under-ripe when I cut it. Oddly enough, it felt like it should have been at least somewhat ripe.

Totals for the day were…
1,675 calories
380.7g Carbohydrates, 6.1g Fat, 24.2g Protein
Macro nutrient ratio: 90%/4%/6%

Overall
Another good day. Not a great one, but a good one. Pretty normal. I don’t think this diet is going to give me good or bad days any longer, as I feel I am pretty adjusted to it. It hasn’t been necessarily magical for me, but at the same time, at this point, it isn’t that difficult either.

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.

- Orson Welles

Raw Foods Diet: Day 25
Today I woke up very parched. I have been increasing my water intake and drinking quite a lot, so I am not too sure what is going on. When I went to drink more water, I could feel the water going down. It was a very odd feeling, but very interesting at the same time.

Mind
Did my morning page, and had a few dreams. I also had a pretty “mentally clear” day. There was a lot of clarity and focus with my work.

Body

Food Eaten
I did end up getting some vegetables (baby spinach and regular spinach) but not until later in the day.

Meal 1
(1) 99g banana

Meal 2
(1) 86g banana

Meal 3
(2) 245g banana

Meal 4
A smoothie consisting of: (4 [1 frozen]) 424g banana, 100g baby spinach
A smoothie consisting of: (4 [1 frozen]) 429g banana, 100g baby spinach

Meal 5
A smoothie consisting of: (4 [1 frozen]) 440g banana, 66g blueberries, 60g blackberries, (1) 122g orange

Totals for the day were…
1,910 calories
437.3g Carbohydrates, 6.3g Fat, 26.0g Protein
Macro nutrient ratio: 91%/3%/6%

Overall
Alright, so I ate more than yesterday. That’s good. I still think I could eat even more, so that will be my goal for tomorrow. Not long to go, I am almost there!

Anybody who believes that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach flunked geography.

- Robert Byrne

Raw Foods Diet: Day 24
I have definitely begun to count down to Day 30, but it still seems like quite a ways away. I know that probably isn’t going to make it feel like it is coming any quicker…

Oddly enough, I find no information on the Internet about how to successfully transition off of a raw foods diet. Is it possible? The only personal experiences I have found have been unsuccessful, so I hope this doesn’t foreshadow anything. I’m thinking that taking it carefully is the only way to go.

Mind
I have not been dreaming as much, but the trade off has been interesting, as my sleep has been better. By that of course I mean that it has not been as long, and I am waking up without as much trouble. I also did my morning writing outside today, actually near the lake. It was a bit of trouble getting there, but it was very serene and beautiful.

Body

Food Eaten
Still no veggies. My refrigerator is looking barren. I find it difficult going to the grocery store more than once a week, and I seem not to be able to live off that on this kind of diet. So, alas, I am stuck. Didn’t eat enough, but that’s hard to do when you don’t have much food left.

Meal 1
A smoothie consisting of: (4 [1 frozen]) 428g banana, 81g pineapple, 99g blackberries, 24g blueberries

Meal 2
(2) 274g banana

Meal 3
(1) 179g apple

Meal 4
(1) 214g apple

Meal 5
(2) 251g banana

Meal 6
(1) 133g banana

Totals for the day were…
1,405 calories
325.5g Carbohydrates, 4.9g Fat, 14.9g Protein
Macro nutrient ratio: 92%/3%/5%

What’s weird, is this was the EXACT same macro nutrient breakdown as two days ago, only I hate 1,000 fewer calories.

Overall
It was a pretty good day. I got a lot of interesting ideas, and an idea for a new challenge. I would keep the next month’s challenge off of the front page, but still available on the main site. I really love the idea that I can use this blog to better myself! So far, the discipline I have learned from this trial has made it extremely worthwhile, and I plan on using this 30 days tool for a few other interesting and self-challenging adventures.

I’m still not sure as to what my diet will consist of after this challenge. Possibly something extremely different, just to spice things up. It will be interesting to see what the blood results show.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.

- Mark Twain

Raw Foods Diet: Day 23
Only one week to go! It’s the Final Countdown!

Mind
Did another morning page! I really want to develop that as a strong habit. It works wonders for one’s creativity.

Body

Food Eaten
I started out keeping track of the weight of the foods, but then I failed. I completely lost the list where I had written all the measurements down!! Still, I did eat a lot of bananas. Unfortunately, all my baby spinach has run out, which is no good. I shall have to try again tomorrow.

Meal 1
2 bananas

Meal 2
A smoothie consisting of 4 bananas (1 frozen), two chunks of pineapple, 1 orange, 3 strawberries.

Meal 3
2 bananas, 1 apple

Meal 4
2 bananas, 50g of blueberries. I remembered that amount!

Meal 5
1 1/4 bananas

Meal 7
A smoothie consisting of 4 bananas (1 frozen). That’s right. An all banana smoothie. Yes, it was delicious.

Overall
As you might have read, today I ran out of baby spinach. It’s insane how much of that stuff I can go through. I could probably eat a pound of that a day in smoothies and not even notice. Yesterday I ate just about half a pound.

The more I learn about this diet, the more I am convinced you really can’t gain much weight on it. There is very little evidence pointing otherwise. All of the supposedly “big” raw food vegans don’t use much nutritional evidence to support their claims. I don’t believe it is normal, or really possible, to gain a lot of physical strength on this diet. I’m not entirely sure maintenance is possible. Losing weight is sure easy, but I’m not convinced of its other applications.

What seems to be a constant, in probably all alternative ways of eating, is fanaticism. This is what I have witnessed thus far with my research into the raw foods vegan lifestyle. People supporting it without really understanding why, or just listening to the gospel of others. I’d like for the raw foods diet to be able to achieve miracles, but right now, I don’t think it can. I wouldn’t even call this a bad day either, but with my understanding of biochemistry, I just don’t see how I could make the raw foods diet work for me as a permanent solution.

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.

- English Proverb

Raw Foods Diet: Day 22
It felt like I slept in forever today. I got up at 8:30, but felt like I got up at 2 in the afternoon. That’s one plus of going to bed around 9:30-10:00 I guess. Still struggling with the sleeping schedule. I thought it was rock solid, but I am having some difficulty with it. If anyone has any advice, please let me know!

Mind
One odd thing that I have noticed happening is that while I haven’t been too consistent with early morning writing, I have been with going in the sauna. At first, I would write in the sauna, and while I do love that, I now found myself just going in there for roughly twenty minutes a day. I feel pretty great taking a shower afterwards.

Body

Food Eaten
Today I kept track of my calories and macro nutrient ratio. I weighed all the fruit I ate, and frankly, it was a lot easier than I thought. This is going to be something I continue to do until I feel that I know better how much my body needs.

Meal 1
1 banana
A smoothie consisting of: 4 bananas (1 frozen), and 100g baby spinach

Meal 2
2 bananas and 1 minneola orange. These are too bitter to eat. I should only put them in smoothies from now on.

Meal 3
(2) 279g banana
A smoothie consisting of: 104g pineapple, 55g blackberries, 114g strawberries, (4 [1 frozen]) 468g banana

Meal 4
(1) 134g banana
A smoothie consisting of: (4 [1 frozen]) 398g banana and 100g baby spinach

Meal 5
(1) 124g banana

Totals for the day were…
2,404 calories
551.5g Carbohydrates, 8.0g Fat, 31.6g Protein
Macro nutrient ratio: 92%/3%/5%

Overall
Today was a good day. I am guessing that is because I have decided to start counting calories, and today I ate over 2,000. While that isn’t the highest amount, I am sure there are days where I have eaten far less, so it’s good to get at least that in. In fact, I had no trouble at all eating that much. If only there was something similar to the banana in its awesomeness. Some other fruit, or vegetable, that I could eat quickly, consistently and without getting sick of it, and giving me a good amount of calories. It’s like the perfect fruit. All hail the mighty banana.