Another wonderful day on the raw food diet. Woke up feeling good and rested even though I only slept around 4 hours last night. I was up immediately after the alarm clock rang. I jumped out the bed, did the hygiene thing, and weighed in. I weigh myself every morning before I eat anything. Today was another weight loss day.
I don’t like losing weight. Before I started working out and taking whey protein senior year in high school, I used to be skinny. I made a great effort to go from 155 lbs to 185 in a year, which took a lot of timed eating, protein shakes, and working out. It was not all muscle. 
I just wanted to gain weight and look more muscular. I thought being more muscular would make me more attractive to members of the opposite sex. Needless to say, that was not the way to go, but that’s what I had been bombarded with by the media, society, friends, etc. So when I see myself losing weight now, I feel like I’m losing part of the hard work I did that year. It’s like painting a beautiful painting, that you are proud of, and then slowly tearing pieces off of it. I say pieces because I usually lose the weight in a certain order. First my arms become skinnier, then my stomach, then my chest. I don’t like it, but I’m sure the pros will outweigh the cons. If they don’t, I can always return to my standard diet.
After weighing in, taking my temperature, and checking the pH balance in my body, I went to the kitchen to prepare my food. Today I didn’t have to go to work until later so I made myself a fancy breakfast, or at least I decorated it to the best of my ability. I’m no chef but I had fun playing with my food…tha’s right, I am a rebel! What I noticed is that the raw food seems to taste better and better every day that I eat it.
At first it was kind of different and my body felt it was weird to eat just raw food without any condiments, but slowly it’s adjusting. I can feel it.
When I made the switch from white bread (around 7 years ago) to whole wheat, the whole wheat tasted like cardboard. It took two weeks of forcing myself to eat it for me to start liking it. Once I did start liking it, I never went back to white bread. I would not usually eat the white bread if that was all that was available (the rare exceptions being fast food, which I ate about once or twice a month before starting the Raw Food Diet). On to breakfast!
Breakfast
I really liked the way the kiwi tasted when I combined it with the bananas. It took me around 5 minutes to prepare this meal, most of that time was spent peeling the kiwi and oranges. It took me 10 minutes to eat everything. The only part that takes a long time is the time I spend measuring and documenting everything. I am documenting it because I want others to read this blog and decided to try the raw food diet for themselves. And once they do, they’ll thank me for it!
- organic kiwi (216g)
- organic bananas (311g)
- organic oranges (378g)
- glass of water
Pre-Lunch Snack
I’m trying to increase the caloric intake because whereas most people think you will be hungrier on this diet, I am actually having to push myself to eat. I just don’t feel that hungry a majority of the time. This could just be part of the detox or it could be my body adjusting to the diet, but I don’t feel like I want to eat all that much. A quick point I will share, David Wolfe said, “Your body will tell you what is best for you, so listen to it.”
- organic Fuji apples (321g)
Lunch
Great meal. I love blueberries. Not much to report other than tastiness!
- organic oranges (298g)
- organic grapefruit (259g)
- bananas (286g)
- blueberries (371g)
Dinner
For dinner I usually have a salad, I like being consistent. I still have a tough time with greens. I sneak other vegetables into the salads and I blend the not-so-tasty-greens in my blender, but I still don’t like greens that much. I will have a day where I love eating the salad and then one where I’m thinking, “It’s so bland, blah!” I have tried making my own salad dressings to get over the bland flavor, but I still crave the old standard dressings I was using before this experiment. Dinner time!
- mixed salad: organic romaine lettuce, red cabbage, and carrot blend (162g), organic mixed baby greens (39g), tomatoes (237g), cucumbers (60g)
- glass of water
When I eat dinner, I usually try to read a book or some articles online. A couple of days ago, I found out that all almonds produced in the United States are pasteurized, even if the label on the almonds states they are raw. There are also no labels on the packaging stating that the almonds have been pasteurized. I had the so called raw-pasteurized almonds in a few of my meals so far, but I am not going to be eating any more going forward unless they are 100% raw almonds.
To be honest, I’m not surprised that our government doesn’t label things quite as it should. It is massively influenced by powerful processing food companies like Kraft, Kellogg, Campbell, etc. They have ways of sneeking in amendments to bills that affect even organically grown foods. I mean organically grown foods are supposed to be sacred and yet companies like Kraft can still get their say due to the lobbyists they back. I just wanted to post this as a warning that things are not what they seem, so if you read a label and it says raw, you should do your homework and find out if that labeling is 100% accurate.
Post Dinner
I decided to make a smoothie after dinner to get more greens in. I chewed it slowly…mmmmm greens!
- green smoothie: bananas (310g), organic chard (74g), organic baby spinach (50g), 3 cups water
Vitals
Weight: I’m down another .8 lbs from Day 8. Down to 180.6 lbs. I guess all that running around to see David Wolfe speak had its tole. Also I did not eat too much on Day 8, so this was to be expected.
Body Temperature: My temperature today was 97.7 °F. Temperature seems to be going down.
pH levels: The pH level today was an average of of 7.25. I measure it three times a day and just take the average.
Blood Pressure: My blood pressure seems to be staying where it’s at. The systolic was at 129 and diastolic at 68. I hope this will come down by the end of the experiment. My theory is that I’ve been eating many animal products until now and those were not so good for the heart.
Endurance: I did not go to the gym today and did no running.
Strength: Like I said, I did not go to the gym.
Cognitive Capacity: No significant change from Day 8.
That is an awesome insight about fast food and processed food.
I have noticed that if I feel really hungry, I can just grab a salad and the hunger disappears. But if I were to grab some potato chips, I would finish the whole bag and then look for other junk food to devour.
First of all I will never be bored of fruits. I love them TOO much. I do get bored of vegetables sometimes, but that is not the reason I have to push myself to eat. I push myself to eat because I do not feel hungry.
On a SAD diet, you feel the need to eat often. From what I have read, this is because the food is not as nutritionally dense, especially if you eat a lot of fast food or processed food. Since SAD food is devoid of essential nutrients, your body feels the need to eat more of it, hoping to fill the void. It’s like your body is being tricked. In reality, no matter how much fast food you eat your body will never recieve the nutrients it needs from fast food. That doesn’t stop it from trying though.
P.S. I use lemon juice sometimes.
Do you think you have to push yourself to eat because you are not hungry or because you are bored of the fruits and vegetables?
It sucks that many companies deceive us with their labels.
Oh and maybe if you sprinkle some lemon juice on your greens, they may taste better. If spices are allowed with the raw diet, try some of those too.