Rediscovered My Roots and Feeling More Grounded (Day 26)

Dear Diary,

Sorry I'm late.  It's been a busy day.  I had about twenty people at my house this morning for a coffee and play-date.  It was fun but hectic.  My house was filled with some of the women I hold dearest, their delightful children...and the yummy smells of steel-cut oats on the stove, pumpkin bread baking and coffee brewing.  I also made some muffins, defrosted some banana bread and put out an array of fresh fruit.  Oddly enough, my favorite food of all time (any baked/bread item) didn't even tempt me.  I was nursing the last dregs of my new favorite Tingly Juice, (Deborah's carrot-ginger-grapefruit combo) and looking forward to my first cup of coffee with the gals, and while removing the muffins from the tin, a piece broke off in my hand and I popped it in my mouth.  Without even thinking.  But the taste...it was so weird.  Aha!  Sugar.  Deborah just emailed me something about the fact that she had not eaten refined sugar for 26 days and she's right.  We haven't.  Amazing.

This Eating Plan has had it's ups and downs for me.  But recognizing that simple fact - NO SUGAR - has made me want to pat myself on the back.  Pretty big change.  And I don't even want the bad foods very much anymore.  So that's the good news.  The so-so news is that I haven't stuck to my Raw Til Dinner plan for the week.  And, until I got that note from Deborah, and was able to see the forest for the trees again, I had been feeling frustrated with myself:  where's my willpower?  I wanted to do a juice fast for pete's sake and I can't even go raw til dinner?

Maybe I'm a wimp, but I just can't go through the whole day without something more than raw vegetables and juice.  I tried juicing more.  I did that. I tried drinking more water.  Way more.  And less coffee.  And always water-and-wait before eating, just in case it was thirst not hunger.  But I woke up in the middle of the night feeling hungry.  Couldn't fall back to sleep after breastfeeding because my stomach was growling and I was miserable.

And on Wednesday morning, while scrubbing and chopping the Harmony Stew veggie mix I was preparing for dinner I found myself popping bits and pieces of parsnips and unpeeled carrots into my mouth while I chopped.  Later that morning, while making dinner for a friend who just had surgery,  I started nibbling on raw sunchockes (another vegetable I just became acquainted with this month!) and more carrots.  I was that hungry.

I find that giving my kids some of their old comfort foods really creates a willingness to try something new.  Here we have Harmony Vegetable Stew (with coconut milk and butternut squash and curry) with good ole corn on the cob, steamed peas and organic milk.

Remember when I said I hate feeling full?  Well, I hate feeling hungry too.  I think what I hated about feeling "full" was feeling bloated and uncomfortable and like the food was just going to sit there in my stomach indefinitely.  I never feel that way on this "diet" - at least not anymore.  Not when I don't eat nuts/dried fruits.  The feeling I get from satiating REAL hunger is relief.  Satisfaction.  I love the "clean" feeling my body has from running on the fuel of REAL fruits then veggies.  And I love that little buzz I get from the Green Lemonade and Tingly Juice.  What I don't love is when, by 2p.m. I have a headache.  And I'm tired.  And I can't concentrate.  And I just NEED to eat.  And there's where I had still been ending up every day until yesterday.

I had tried eating nuts/dried fruits in the afternoon and ate WAY too much in order to feel satisfied.  That didn't work.  I tried eating more fresh veggies and juicing more.  And drinking more water.  And that didn't get rid of the afternoon hunger problem.  Here's what did:  starches.  I have been trying to avoid this category the most, but maybe I shouldn't have been.  On Wednesday, I caved at lunch and had a sweet potato.  And then finished the other half of Katy's sweet potato.  And I felt SO much better.  All afternoon.  And Thursday, with my big green salad, I ate a little  leftover Harmony Stew with a sprinkle nutmeg on top and felt so much calmer.

I have been thinking a lot about what Maggie said yesterday, about me being me and you being you.  Natalia Rose doesn't lay out one specific set of rules for every person in every situation.  Nor, I imagine does any good nutritionist.  There are general rules of course.  But there needs to be flexibility because people are different and maybe need different foods.  And maybe even for one person, the nutritional needs vary day by day due to activity level and stress and social situations.  That's where we need to apply Common Sense.  Sometimes I get so focused on Following the Rules (or am in some imaginary competition with myself to not mess up) that I can't see the forest for the trees.  Come on, Beck, is it really "better" to suck down coffee so I can stick to my arbitrary decision to eat all raw til dinner or to grab a sweet potato?

As we're coming to the end of this first 30-day experiment, I'm trying to draw some conclusions about what I want my next 30 days to look like.  What works, what doesn't.  For today, it's lots of water.  Not too much coffee.  80% Raw Fruits and Veggies.  Try hard not to miscombine.  And don't be scared of starches.  It's the middle of the afternoon, and here I am typing and not crashing.  As far as I'm concerned, that's no small potatoes.

Until Tuesday,
Rebecca