Day Twenty-Five: Prep for a Silent Journey

So for those of you who don’t know me personally, I am helping my boyfriend, Jason, raise his 7-year old boy, Jahn.  Jahn’s mom, Star, died suddenly and tragically in a car crash in August 2006, just a few weeks shy of Jahn’s 5th birthday.  So when Jason and I started a romantic relationship, I went from being a single woman in a very peaceful, quiet apartment to woman in a relationship, with a child around all the time, constant hubbub, tons of “why” and “how” questions, and all from a little kid I didn’t  know.  I tried to get to know Jason, much of the time having that time with him revolve around what Jahn needed.  So it’s been a bit complicated from time-to-time, as we’ve all tried to figure out where we all fit inside a new, different family dynamic.

That all has lead me to lose my patience once in awhile, and realize how important taking “me” time is.  Before I met Jason, if I wanted to go somewhere and do something, all I had to do was check my calendar and bank account, and I’d be off!  Well, it’s a little different now — to say the least!  But Jason has always made sure that there was time made for me to do what I needed, the dear heart, and assured that I  get time that is just for me.  SUCH a Love!  We both offer that to each other, to keep the level of insanity down to a dull roar.  Every year, at least once, I go away for a few days.  Last year instead of separate vacations, we took a family vacation to Richmond, VA to see Jason’s side of the family at Thanksgiving, and in 2007 I went to Cedar Springs for the better part of a week — my first attempt at going completely raw.  WONDERFUL place, by the way!!!  If you’re looking for a great way to get off on the right foot, it’s a great place to “dry out” and start your raw journey!!!  I was raw for the 5 days I was there, and then stayed raw for an additional 11 days after I left.  That’s also when I started writing my “Go Raw, Not Crazy” series of cookbooks.

So I give you that little bit of background so that you know where I’m coming from.  Once in awhile, I just gotta get away.  The house is firmly raw now, and I feel very confident that I won’t come home to fried chicken and chili with quesadillas for dinner.   Hmm, ok we’ve never had that combo before, but you catch my meaning.  But back to the relevant point.  I am VERY ready to take a mini-vacation, and a wonderful woman in town named Suzanne has an adorable little cottage for rent, and I only have to pay 4 Life Dollars a night for it!!!  Life Dollars are the alternative currency used at Fourth Corner Exchange, and I’m a member of that organization.  No TV, no phone, not even a kitchen to tempt me!  She often cooks for her guests, but I told her I’d just bring my own raw stuff.  So I’ll be going there late Sunday evening and write-write-writing til my little fingers can’t take it anymore.  I really need to get my free e-books ready for the site launch, and it’s just not happening with all the hubbub mentioned above.

So I’m REALLY excited!  I’ve got my work all laid out that I want to do, I only have to pay “Monopoly Money” to stay at the cabin, and I am just 20 miles from home if any emergency should come up (or if I forget something).  I’ve decided that I’m not going to talk during this time, either.  I’m not sure why that’s important to me, but I just have this feeling that I’m done doing it for awhile.  I’m just tired of answering questions, being “there” for people, I feel so drained.  So I’m going to use this time to do a little piece of my life’s work, and I’ll be able to regenerate and sleep all I want while my body heals from the 38 years of battering it took from my former cooked-food diet.

And speaking of diet, today’s menu looked like this:

BREAKFAST:
Chocolate Creme Pie (OMG DELICIOUS!  The creamiest chocolate pudding you’ve ever had inside of a finely-ground macadamia nut crust — people canNOT tell it’s not cooked!)

LUNCH:
Chocolate “Milk”, a very small green salad and a banana

DINNER:
Pepperawni Nuts with that delectable hot mustard I got the other day, and another piece of Chocolate Creme Pie

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, life is good.  Chocolate for every meal, and a mini vacation on the horizon.  Life is DEFINITELY good!

Day Fourteen – Weigh-In #2, I Stop Going Nuts, and A Sauna Makes it All MUCH Better!

So after such a cruddy feeling 24 hours of lethargy yesterday, I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Doubled down on the chocolate, as I realized a few things.  Well let me back up.

First, it was weigh-in time again today, and although I lost about 8.5 pounds last week, I only lost 1.5 this week.  So I’m at 219, which is excellent, but not the kind of weight loss I wanted.  But I can tell you EXACTLY why my weight loss was so little.  I gave in this week to so many cravings, and tried to make their raw equivalents, and that meant LOTS of nuts!!!  Too oily, too heavy, too acidic and not sprouted.  I was lazy, plus I was getting a little tired of cacao, so I wanted a lot more savory things.  I can’t say anything as harsh as “I paid the price for it”, because everything was still raw, but it  certainly didn’t contribute to my weight loss or energy reserves.  Oh!  I also had raw cheese (actual dairy cheese) on my seed crackers, so my ankles started to hurt again.  I never realized how adversely dairy affects me.  No more now.  No cheese, milk or yogurt.  Just doesn’t agree with me.  I actually expressed to Jason that I felt like I was back on cooked food;  with all the pain, the drowsiness, the clouded thought.

So I got my lethargic butt to the gym today and because I felt so dizzy from detox and overly-heavy unsprouted nuts.  I didn’t chance an actual workout (didn’t wanna fall off a machine).  So instead I did lots of stretching for about an hour, hand weights on the floor, then took a 45 minute dry sauna (came out 3 times to rinse off in cool water).  I came out of the gym feeling MUCH better, with clearer vision, more energy and the knowledge and sense that I had sweated some of the sludge out.  Later in the evening, Jahn and I went for a 1.6 mile walk with little bits of running thrown in here and there.  I can’t believe how much better I feel!

I think that’s a mistake lots of people going raw make, especially during detox:  they don’t incorporate exercise and sweating.  Jay has told me for over 2 years how important those are, and while I did them sporadically, I’m ready to incorporate them for a minimum of 3 days a week, preferably 5 or 6.  I really am feeling the value of them, now.

Also, I’m hitting the superfoods and cacao much more in the future.  I really felt a sloppy energy this week from eating less chocolate with each meal.  My moods weren’t as good either.  I’m going to incorporate more green smoothies, too for bone mineralization, a full feeling and the all-important chlorophyll.

I can see how people gain weight with raw.  Nuts, nuts, nuts and oils.  I’m such a little fruit bat, it amazes me.  When I was a kid, I remember wanting oranges more than cake or candy, so I guess it makes sense that these are the foods I do best on.  This is how I’m meant to eat, and it feels so great to be getting back to it.  : )

So what did I eat today?  (Let’s get to the good stuff).  I had a large chocolate drink of bananas, water, cacao, mesquite and maca.  No coconuts in the house today.  It wasn’t as good as my usual shake, but it was still really good.  VERY energizing, because I put in extra maca and cacao today (which made the drink too bitter, needed just a bit of agave).  For lunch I had what little was left of my huge banana cacao drink,  just 2 small seed/flax crackers with lots of pesto, as I made some last night, and a small salad of spinach, nutritional yeast and my apple cider vinaigrette.  Dinner was avocado with Herby and a few spoonfuls of chocolate syrup.  And no more un-sprouted nuts.  Check out what Elaina Love has to say about nuts and sprouting on YouTube here.  It’s GREAT information about all sorts of nuts, which to soak, which to sprout and why.

So I really feel like I’m back on track and ready to seriously get back into this.  No excuses this coming week for not exercising, sweating, eating chocolate or anything else that I know is good for me.  WAY less nuts and seeds, and only if sprouted from now on!.

Day Twelve: The Yard Sale (Part Two) and Lasagna Gardening!

Well we certainly felt like we got caught up on a bit of sleep last night.  We got up this morning at 8 a.m. and were ready for yard sale business by 9 a.m.  We didn’t get that many customers, but we made $20 and took the rest of our stuff to Goodwill.  We’ve actually found a few more things we wanted to get rid of, (isn’t that the way it always goes with yard sales — AFTER you’ve had them?) but our neighbor just across the way is having another this coming Saturday, so we’ll be able to probably off-load a few more things.  Yippee!!!

So we got a GREAT, almost brand-new, looks-like-it’s-fresh-off-the-showroom-floor couch off of craigslist today, and we only had to pay $85 for it!  I love that we are finally starting to make our first house look like a home (and not a college student’s apartment).  The furniture in the living room and bedrooms is starting to look like we meant to put them together that way and not like we found it on the side of the road.  ;o)  Gotta love when the place looks nice!  I’ve never really had that before (since I’ve been on my own, anyway), and since I’ve been on my own longer now than I lived with my parents growing up, I say it’s high time!

Jay came home with a book from our friends Dave and Laurie called Lasagna Gardening.  I’m pretty excited about it, and we’re going to start our own garden, probably using the techniques outlined in the book.  We’ve gotta save up a bit, but we’ll be starting something small this year, and based on how that goes, we’ll add to it next year.  Our eventual goal is to grow almost all of our own food in a biosphere of Jason’s design.

But none of this is about chocolate, is it?  For breakfast I had chocolate frosting of all things!  More of a ganache.  It was cacao powder, maca, mesquite, agave and just a touch of coconut oil.  Lunch was non-existent.  Just couldn’t get hungry.  At night I made a new batch of pizza dough that I invented last week (it will be ready in the morning), and while I watched The Holiday, I pulled basil leaves from their stems (there were a LOT of leaves).  Then I made a quart of pesto, and Jay and I will probably have pesto pizza tomorrow with nutrional yeast on it.  It came out a little too sweet, but by tomorrow it should be perfect.  I don’t do so well with garlic when it’s freshly chopped, but the next day it’s usually ok for me.  I tasted the pesto, having forgotten about the garlic sensitivity, and it made my stomach hurt.  I ate a strawberry, and for some reason that calmed my stomach.  Don’t know what drove me to do that, but it worked.  So I had a few more with cacao syrup, and that was dinner.

I cannot believe how quickly weight is coming off me, btw!  I mean, if I had been told 3 years ago that I would, or even could lose weight AND HAVE MY SKIN SHRINK as I lost weight, I would’ve thought they were crazy.  But it’s working.  Jason and I are taking pictures of each other every two weeks, and I’ll be showing how we looked and how our bodies changed when we publish the ebooks.  We have the eventual goal of printing them, as well.

Well, I’m tired now, so I’m off to bed.

Day Two: The Chocolate & Salad Diet©, Pizza, Shopping, Withdrawal & Lassis

Now doesn’t that just sound smurfect?  I did not post my day two on day two because frankly, I felt like mud all day long.  You ever tried to move 228 pounds of mud under your own power all at once?  Not too easy.  So now you see how I felt yesterday.  Not a fun day in a lot of respects, but it all came out well in the end.

Problems started when I only got 4 hours of sleep the night before due to salad cravings.  I got up and tried to make a chocolate shake for breakfast to boost my energy, and against my better judgement, I added goji berries in with it, as Jason had soaked them ahead of time and didn’t want them to go to waste.  I never have liked gojis in a smoothie or shake, because despite the uber-lovely and strong Vita Mix, they never actually get smooth.  If I could just find a way to get those darned grainy little seeds out, I might like it better.

And for whatever reason, my coconut, chocolate, banana, maca, mesquite & goji “shake” was just abysmal yesterday.  Actually made my stomach hurt.  Plus, it got all gelatinous.  Mmmmmm … grainy pudding!  Yeccchhhhhh!  Jason liked it ok, but I added too much mesquite, also.  I forgot that too much mesquite tastes a little like vomit to me.  Don’t know why.  Just does.  That’s why I usually add just about a 1/2 or 1/4 teaspoon of it to each 2 heaping tablespoons of cacao I use.  In my opinion it’s amazing as a complementary flavor, and shouldn’t be used in high concentrations.  Maybe that’s why my stomach hurt.  Who knows?  Jason ended up drinking the rest of mine, cause I just couldn’t take it.

For lunch I ate nothing, as my stomach was still upset, and the idea of food, much less chocolate food, made me wanna hurl!  So no lunch.  On the way home, driving by McDonald’s actually made me shake!  I wanted to stop in so bad I was getting a little nuts!  But I prevailed!!!  )  What’s odd is that i haven’t eaten McDonald’s hamburgers in YEARS!

When I got home, I was on the war path for a salad again!  I mean I NEEDED one!  So I’m thinking that cacao and greens are a very good combo for me.  If I was craving something like pizza or lasagna or any other cooked food for that matter, I would have no real trouble keeping myself from eating it.  But if my body is crying out for green leafs, for Pete’s sake, who am I to deny it that?  And why am I referring to my body and my mind as though they are different entities?  I guess I’m just too used to it.  Well, there’s another thing to put on my to do list:  Start thinking of all parts of my body and systems as one thing, since they are.

On a completely different subject, I have long wanted some nice, thick, heavy glass serving plates and glasses, especially for the Go Raw, Not Crazy © books.  Nothing takes a beautiful dish and makes it look like crud faster than an ugly old beat up, plastic bowl, cup or plate.  So when he got home from school, Jahn and I went to Value Village (a favorite thrift store of ours), and picked up some of the most gorgeous crystal and glass serving plates, platters, ice cream social type glasses and apertif glasses known to the human race.  Since I only needed one of each of most of them, it didn’t matter that they didn’t have mates.  How many times do I need to show a chocolate shake in a book anyway, right?  Also, some of the glasses came in 3′s, so I got those for serving delights to my Valenti boys at home.  I love it when somebody gives their dishes in 3′s to Value Village — ’cause all we need are 3!

While still out, we stopped by Costco, as they are the only place in town where we can get a certain kind of mango that Jason likes.  Jahn saw the pizza on the sign and started going a little nuts for it.  Poor dear.  He’s gluten intolerant, so I couldn’t get it for him even if we ate cooked food, but he was going through a hard patch, so I told him we’d try to make some raw pizza.  Now I had to think FAST on my feet, because I didn’t have ANY idea how to do this.  We went to Terra Organica since no one else in town has such a selection of raw foods already prepared, and started our search for ingredients.  Thankfully, Livin’ Spoonful makes some of the most amazing raw crackers on the PLANET!!! I picked up a package of the Sunny Garden Herb, as they have flavors much like pizza already in them.  (The company puts the gluten-free spin on their site, but they are actually raw, too!)  I got Jahn a raw cookie as well, and gave him a taste of the cracker.  HE LOVED IT!  Whew!  One ingredient down (crust), two to go (sauce &  cheese).  So I got a few nice red, ripe tomatoes, a package of sun-dried tomatoes and out the door we went.  When I got home, I put 1 small tomato, a handful of sun-dried tomatoes, about a tablespoon (accidentally) of Italian seasoning, a pinch of Celtic grey sea salt, and a few dashes of pepper (Jahn loves his stuff spicy).  Blended it up in the Vita Mix, and it came out tasting, if not feeling, exactly like pizza sauce.  (Jason suggests water and chia be added next time to make it come out more like an actual sauce next time.  Plus, then it will be thicker and I can then blend it longer.  I think I’ll take him up on that!)

So I took a cracker, spread a bit of sauce on it, topped it with the only thing I could find which was hemp seeds (for protein, and because they look white, sort of like the color of raw cheddar), and plopped it down in front of the wee one.  Would he eat it?  Tune in tomorrow to find out.

KIDDING!

He put Herby on it (he puts that stuff on everything savory — no, I mean EVERYTHING!!!), promptly gobbled it up and said it was delicious!  I about fell on the ground in shock!

Jahn gobbles up his "pizza" with gusto!

So that’s going in the kid recipe book for SURE!  For dessert, I made him a mango lassi, as he’s been missing those, too.  He used to go out for Indian food with his dad, and really missed his lassis.  I cut up 2 mangos, a young thai coconut, and set the Vita Mix a-whirlin’.  Good LORD was it bland!  Added agave, still not quite right.  Added the juice of half a Clementine orange to give it some oomph (this batch is rather tart), and Jahn said it didn’t really taste like a lassi, but that it was very good.   “You can save the rest for Pop,” he said.  Well, I can’t win them all.

All this excitement with “pizza” and “lassis” and helping someone stay raw made me forget about what I was up to, which was chocolate.  So I had the left over mango bits with chocolate sauce (quite good!) and sent the little one to bed.

All in all, my day was more about Jahn and his diet than it was about me and mine.  But that’s ok.  I got 2 new recipes that will be highly effective in the future out of it, and some of the prettiest dishes I’ve ever owned.