Raw Wednesdays

I’m in some sort of eating phase. I’ve really been enjoying food lately and have been eating a lot. It’s not necessarily unhealthy food, just lots of it. I’m working out a bit more too, but the scales have crept up a couple of pounds and I can feel a little extra softness around my middle.

I need to make sure I’m getting enough of what I need, which can be tricky as a vegan. In the past, that’s usually when I’ve had “eating phases” like this when I can’t get full – I wasn’t be smart about what I was eating. I’m taking a daily vitamin now to help with that, as recommended by my doc. And honestly, I feel good.

But I don’t want to keep adding extra pounds to the scales, and taking an honest look at my refrigerator and cabinets right now, I don’t have a lot of fresh stuff in there. I keep a lot of frozen vegetables and dried beans and grains because they are cheap and easy. But I probably need to get back to eating more fresh food.

So, I’m going to go raw on Wednesdays to help me get over this hump.

A few years ago when I was living in Miami, I went to a totally raw diet. It lasted about two months. I dropped 12 pounds, which was good, but was RAVENOUS the ENTIRE time, which was bad. I woke up in the middle of the night from hunger. Looking back, I should have been eating a higher volume of nuts and filling vegetables, but hey, those two months were a good “get back on track” for my system.

Where to begin? I have a copy of Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen by Ani Phyo from when I was trying to be 100% raw. There are some good things in it, but a lot are very time consuming, which makes it a bit daunting. Searching online pulls up words and how to’s that make me want to rethink my decision: “dehydrator,” “how to sprout x grain,” “how to crack a coconut.” No, this is not what I had in mind. While I love the slow food and raw movement ideas, I also need something a little less intense. I found a pretty interesting site that I want to look at more, http://www.rawmazing.com/. A lot of her recipes seem to be heavy-handed on the prep and machinery too though.

I did stock up on fresh veggies for salads and fruit last night. Here goes!