60 days raw food log: Day 10 A celebrity is someone who has more followers than they are following…

Day 10

**See below for what I ate today and a few more thoughts about raw food.

But today I’m dying to blog about this rabbit hole I fell into less than two weeks ago called “blogging” and the even bigger humungojumbo rabbit hole I fell into a couple nights ago called Twitter.

Jesus!  Twitter is like a Bizzaro World vortex, a place with great meaning & a place so banal and meaningless. All wrapped into one supposedly “social” space.  I love it!  But it is also so crazy self-promoting and weird, you know?

Like me.  I turned to Twitter because I thought it would be a good way to expose myself, er, my blog.  So after a few crazy cracked out of my mind “don’t bother me here I’m trying to Tweet!” hours I start to see that only people with persona’s and a high level of inter-connectivity sophistication have anyone at all reading their tweets or posts.  Makes sense I guess, but to a new blogger/tweeter its also a mix of daunting & depressing.

And then my blog…It sucked! Maybe it still does? So I spent a long sleepless night giving it a makeover: Adding Twitter to it, putting up a cool dinosaur header, posting photos of myself & obligatory cute kitten photos… But it still looks and feels so texty compared to other blogs I’ve been finding which are more sexy.

And for what? It @#$%’s with your head.  Why do I care?!? And I think that’s a good question.  If you have the answer, PLEASE tweet at me or comment on my blog or introduce me to some other new wild rabbit hole of communication I haven’t had the pleasure of falling into yet…

What I ate today:

• Watermelon juice
• Smoothie: Strawberries, banana, spirulina, honey
• Raw trail mix with Goji berries
• Mexican Salad: Cabbage, ZESTY PICKLED PEPPERS & VEGGIES, red bell pepper, avocado/sea salt/olive oil/lemon juice dressing.
• Chocolate smoothie: raw cacao, banana, figs, honey, walnuts
  

60 Days raw food log: Day 9 Is raw food a religion?

Day 9

Is eating raw more like a religion than just a simple way of eating?  I hope not. Religion nauseates me.

It is interesting that RAW is talked about as a “lifestyle.” One where no matter how connected you are to other raw “fooders” {has it’s own lingo too…} you are still alienated from people in general.  And without question there’s a fair amount of elitism that enters into the picture, not altogether different from various religious groups who believe they are the “chosen.”

Even my girlfriend who is the healthiest person I know gets an inferiority complex every time I try to eat raw because she only eats “80% raw.”

But whose to really measure this health benefit against that social one?  Life’s short…then you die, right? And along the way the garnishment of pleasure is an A no. 1 priority. And that’s where it gets confusing.  It’s a genuine pleasurable thing to feel energy-charged and healthy and even to some extent sober.  But it’s also thrilling to get stoned and drunk and end up at some grease trap of a restaurant at 3am.

To each his own, ferschizzle, but still what fascinating choices present themselves in the raw, undercooked, cooked, and overcooked field of experiences we each translate as “Life.”

The only thing I really care about at this point in my existence is making sure that I don’t confuse being alive with living. In many ways I don’t feel like I’ve spent much of my time so far on earth really LIVING.  So if today raw foods tune me in, and tomorrow it’s psychedelics or a bridge to jump off–don’t judge.

What I ate today:

• cracked open a coconut and drank it before I spanked it, I mean before I spooned big hunks of it’s white luscious flesh into my veggie hole.
• wild blueberry and banana smoothie with barley grass powder and honey
• Asian cabbage slaw: today I mixed it up with pears instead of apples and hemp pistachio tahini instead of almond butter!
• Raw Pesto! I blended up basil, garlic, olive brine, olive oil, RAWMESAN, walnuts, and lemon juice.  Perfect beautiful pesto!  Used it as a dressing with a mix bowl full of spinach, baby tomatos, and kalamatas.

60 Days Raw food Log: Day 8…Lost SEVEN POUNDS my first seven days raw!

Day 8

I wish I could say I was more excited about the radical weight loss I’ve experienced–7 lbs my first week eating only raw/live food–but I knew it would happen & wasn’t surprised when I got on the scale today.

Also today, well before I knew how much I had “lost”, I felt that moment where I turned a corner and was gaining from this in ways that feel even more rewarding than weight loss.  For instance, everywhere I went today people smiled at me and said hello.  No joke…EVERYWHERE.  People at work and home are remarking on how “tuned-in” I seem, and how “present” I am.  Apparently I’ve been away for awhile…

I also started off feeling kinda miserly about spending money on myself.  That’s sad, huh?  Being stingy with yourself.  Today I felt like I deserved everything I bought at this cool little health food store / raw cafe I discovered in Palm Desert called Luscious Loraine’s. At this point it suddenly seems clear to me that investing in myself is tantamount and that the universe is only going to respond favorably to my doing that.

And remember, that 7 lbs was lost with almost no exercise. Like i said before, I’m really trying to learn how to let my body lead me for a change.  So when I get that urge to start running or jumping or swimming or whatever; I’ll do it.

Tonight I took a brisk full moonlit walk and couldn’t believe the euphoria (I was singing “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s…AMORE!”) surging through my veins.  I don’t know if the change is this dramatic with others who stop eating cooked foods and begin feasting on nature’s super-foods?  But for me it seems to get me on some kind of cellular-neural level…

What I ate today:

• Pear
• Freshly juiced greens including Kale with lemon and apple and ginger–HARD CORE!
• Raw nori rolls with avocado, carrot, nut “cheese”, sprouts and tahini dressing (not that great)
• Watermelon Juice of course!
• Death by chocolate shake! Woke up from nap and knew exactly what I wanted…cacao powder, walnuts, hemp seeds, coconut oil, a banana, honey, water and ice…just before I finished blending I through in a chunk of pureraw chocolate I bought at the health food store earlier so it had chunks! Chocolate HIGH!
• Raw soup made of coconut and greens
• Apples with pecan butter!

Note:  So, yeah, I think going cold turkey and doing it the way I’m doing it is a rough transition. And maybe it is better to ease into raw? But, that doesn’t work for me & when I’m ready to make the jump I’m ready.  Also, I noticed that almost every blog or personal web story where some raw foodist gives that advice to start slow…THEY DIDN’T!  They just did it. So my advice, do whichever is going to work for you.

60 Days Raw Log: It’s Day 7 and people are preposterous

Day 7

So what I’ve been noticing is that I wake up feeling really groggy-cloudy-almost painful to wake.  I think I’m still really just in the initial stages of cleansing and need to be real about my expectations…

Now once that grogginess lifts, I feel really good and am surprised how much energy I have despite really not eating much.  I also notice I tend to be really hungry one day and the then not much at all the next.

When I eat this way I start to think different almost immediately.  As I go about my day and watch how people move, drive, interact, think, etc. it becomes crystal to me that we are all full of shit and that humans are preposterous.  We’re beautiful and strange and damn good survivors even if it is at other species expense, but as Larry David says in the latest Woody Allen flick, “On the whole, I’m sorry to say, we’re a failed species.”

It really got me thinking about how permanent humans think we are, and wondering just how long we’ll actually be around?

What I ate today:

• Watermelon juice
• Sun dried tomato crackers (dehydrated…bought at the health food store), greens, and guacamole
• RAW bar
• Apple
• MY NEW FAVORITE SMOOTHIE! I cut the soft flesh out of a whole fresh papaya the size of football, and it filled up almost half my blender!  Then I added 1 1/2 tbs of coconut oil, 1 tbs raw honey, ice, and water.  Holy!

Note:  I will weigh myself tomorrow.

 

 

60 Days Raw Log: Only day 6 but feels like a year

Day 6

Alright, so it’s been tough sticking to this thing called raw.  When I was in SF at least I was in good company with all the hippies.  Here in Palm Springs the few people I’ve told that I’m trying to eat at least one month “raw” look at me like I’m wacked.

Tonight at work my stomach was growling while everyone else was chowing down on pizzas oozing with mozzarella and the other bartender had the cooks make her a quesadilla loaded with spicy chorizo.  “Want a piece?”  I thought I was going to die.

But I was good tonight (which btw, that kinda thinking screws with your head, because what am I, a monk?) and came home and made an extra heavy-dense-cabbage salad with loads of almond butter and a whole avocado.

At this point I don’t feel like I could do this 100% of the time for very long. It alienates you socially and so far, while I do feel a lot better, its just not that fun.  I keep imagining that I will reach a point where I eat mostly raw but enjoy a few healthy cooked dinners each week.  Who knows?  I’m going to reserve judgment for now and just ride this wave out.

What I ate today:

• Spirulina smoothie with almond butter, maca powder, cacao nibs, honey, coconut oil
• Figs
• Giant cabbage salad with avocado, almond butter, tamari, olive oil, carrots, onion (very creamy!)
• Blackberries

Notes:  I didn’t have fruit juice today and I felt the difference.  Not as hydrated and not as “light” feeling.  I noticed today for the first time that I started feeling at one with my bicycle again–my ride to and from work felt amazing and I think very soon I will be out riding for fun.

60 Days Raw Log: Day 5 is scary. I’d rather be scared on Halloween than depressed

Day 5–HALLOWEEN!

Today started great–woke up feeling super duper.  Went to bed early last night (which for me is 1am) and woke up way early too (7:30am).

You may have noticed there has been ZERO mention of exercise yet…that’s because I’m a fat lazy ass! I used to be addicted to Bikram Yoga (hot yoga) and Jesus was my life different then.  I also enjoy bikes.  I was a bike messenger in NYC and rode over 40 miles a day with up to 60 lbs strapped to my back.  When I lived on the Central Coast of California I totally got into mountain biking and had a full-suspension bike as well as a cool single speed 29er.  Now I own a fixed gear with sweet mustache bars, but since large butts hurt when they straddle small bike seats, I don’t ride much anymore.  My favorite exercise of all is nice long hikes and I hope to enjoy exploring hiking in the Palm Springs area this winter (people literally die when they hike in the desert here during the summer).

I want to get back to all that stuff soon.  Last time I did raw–when the crazy energy kicked in–there was no way I couldn’t exercise.  I was doing push-ups all the time and running up and down the steep hills of SF and sweating out the toxins in Bikram classes.  So I’m just going to let it happen naturally.

What I can’t stand is gyms. Not my thing.  One of my friends loves the treadmill and free weight thing.  I can’t do it.  I do have those funny work-out rubber band things though.  Those actually work pretty good for curls, etc.  Maybe I’ll get those out from hiding…

Tonight was the big Halloween party at the convalescent center I tend bar at.  So, to do my part, I got a few things at the costume shop and turned myself into a case of the swine flu. Unbelievably, so much was going on, that my girlfriend (who was a ridiculously cute zebra) and I forgot to take pictures.  I am pissed.

Here’s how I did my costume:  I spray painted my hair pink.  I got a very realistic looking pig snout that you are supposed to wear over your nose.  Poked a hole in one of the nostrils and fed a piece of Kleenex through it so that people could see tissue stuck in the pig’s nose.  Wore the nose on my forehead most of the night since I had to bust out a lot of drinks for the restaurant and the geezers in the bar.  Took a plain white T-shirt and using a permanent marker drew in big block letters “H 1 N 1” across the chest.  One the back in funny 1970’s style bubble letters I wrote “One Sick Pig.” On on of the sleeves I drew “CAUTION” with the caution triangle symbol.  I wore a string of pearls to add a stupid biblical reference (I hate the Bible) and used a little piece of pink ribbon tied on my back belt loop as a tail.  The whole costume was less than $10 and when people got it, it was a huge hit.

But, for some reason, overall the night was extremely depressing.  My head went into this spiral funk and I couldn’t get out.  I decided that if I were more celebratory & allowed myself a cocktail it would probably improve things. BIG MISTAKE! Made myself my favorite drink, a simple Tanqueray Gimlet (3 0z Tanqueray gin, juice from 1/2 a lime, shake the hell out of it in a cocktail shaker filled with crushed ice, strain over fresh rocks or “up” in a chilled cocktail glass). When all that drink did was make me feel restless, I made another…

Around 12:30 AM riding my bicycle home drunk, beyond depressed, and thinking things like, “at least I have the stars to look at” and, “at least I’m not like the lady those people wheeled into the bar tonight who had Alzheimers and garbled the weirdest version of God Loves America I’ve ever heard while clinging to the two little baby dolls she was holding on her lap.”

What I ate today:

• 2 blooooood oranges (think Twilight, but Jack Black is playing Edward the Vampire)
• cantaloupe juice
• Lara Bar
• Walnuts & raisins
• Huge salad
• 2 BIG ASS GIN GIMLETS (NOT raw no matter how you slice the limes!)
  
• Cacao shake

 

 

60 Days Raw Log: Day 4 is like groundhog day, but with gin & meatballs

 

Day 4

Almost Halloween…working in the service industry blows…you are always working when the other 90% of the world is partying. Friend from L.A. called today asking if I could come do the West Hollywood Halloween party thing…had to give the “I’m working all weekend” depressing answer.

And, unfortunately this year I’m bartending the whole weekend in a rather geriatric setting–an old school Italian restaurant/piano bar where the patrons sing the same Frank Sinatra type melodies over and over and over…like groundhog day with gin & meatballs. The old piano player is cool though.  He gets hammered and is anything but “PC” with his Obama jokes as he reaches up the old ladies dresses when they stand next to the piano to sing.

Woke up today at 1pm–felt shitty & cold.  No other way to put it.  Didn’t feel like eating anything, especially cold raw food.  Picked up a book and fell back asleep.

At 2pm I had my first meal, and my first experience with spirulina. Talk about Halloween ghoulish!  The coolest, strangest, blue-green stuff I’ve ever seen in a blender.  Wild.  The label on the glass container it comes in says “Spirulina is a HARD-CORE superfood.”  I will go so far to say spirulina is XXX! I’m pretty adventurous with food and I was afraid to drink it.  My girlfriend screamed and ran away.  I blended a heaping tbs with a whole banana, a tbs of raw honey, a tbs of cacao nibs, and a tbs of almond butter (with water and ice).  All I can say after drinking it…I think I finally met God…and Her name is Spirulina…

Here is a spirulina link to a web page that goes into great detail about the science and evolution of spirulina, it’s only one page (so you should read it) and makes me want to ingest a lot more of this stuff…was it the “manna” from God those wandering Israelites never stopped complaining about having to eat?

What I ate today:

• Spirulina Smoothie!
• Pear
• Lara Bar
• Apple
• Giant Salad: Spinach, Lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, avocado, Greek olives, olive oil, lemon, black pepper, mustard, rawmesean.
• Brownie smoothie: This one turned out amazing…1tbs raw cacao powder, 1 tbs raw honey, 1 tbs raw almond butter, small handful raw walnuts, 1 tsp coconut oil, 3 figs, ice & water.  Like fudge!

One note.  It was chilly tonight and very difficult on my bike ride home from work to wrap my head around not having hot food.  It also wasn’t easy skipping the normal routine of sitting down after my shift and making myself and the people I work with a nice stiff drink…they all seemed a little hurt when I told them I was going to have to skip it.

60 Days Raw Log: Day 3 is for sexy pears & other cravings

Day 3

Feel much better today.  Woke up minus the headache and body stiffness but still have noticeable kidney pain. Also, my body temp feels lower, and I find myself taking a hot shower a couple times a day and wearing long sleeves and jeans for a change. I’m stoked to have one more day off to adjust to all this before having to get back to work Fri night.  I currently work as a bartender and it takes a lot of patience, ability to remember, plain old labor, etc.  So tomorrow night we’ll see how I function at work totally raw.

Cravings…pretty bad today…craving grilled ham n’ cheese sandwiches and marinated tri-tip steak….it’s difficult to imagine eating this way for more than a month or two…

I’m also allowing myself to be kinda boring for now with regards to food prep, and unique smoothies, etc.  I want to get a little more into raw recipes, I especially want to learn how to make raw “chips” so I have crunchy salty snacks (I found a good recipe online for kale chips)!  But I don’t have the money for a food dehydrator and need to take one baby step after the other for now.

I was spoiled when I did the raw thing in SF because there are SEVERAL amazing raw restaurants there, and raw food vendors at the huge farmers market’s that sell these amazing wraps and shakes and stuff.  Here in Palm Springs…not so much.

Looking forward to that energy rush that comes with raw eating, but hasn’t happened yet.  It actually feels like my body is telling me to chill and lay low–I’m sure after all the abuse I’ve subjected it to that it needs major cleansing.

What I ate today:

• Watermelon Juice (LOVE THIS STUFF!)
• Lot’s of h20 w/ lemon squeezed in it
• Huge combo salad: Spinach, lettuce, olives, red peppers, a whole avocado, black pepper, lemon, olive oil, topped with this incredible product called RAWMESEAN (walnuts, sea salt, nutritional yeast).
• A mango
• 2 sweet sexy pears! *&^% delicious these organic pairs
• Raw chocolate & almond butter
• A raw bar made with nuts and dates
• Some delicious figs I bought and ate while walking around the Thur nite Farmers Market
• My asian slaw salad again
• A real chocolate shake! Raw honey from farmers market, cacao powder, hemp seeds, almond butter, dates…insanely thick, creamy and delicious!

As you can see I’m eating a good amount.  That’s really key with this way of eating.  Eat what you want.  DO NOT concern yourself with any of the following:

1. Calories (all calories are not the same–no matter what they say)
2. Carbs (raw honey is the food of the gods!  real fruit sugar IS NOT the same as corn-syrup even though they are both “fructose.”
3. Fat (your body thanks you for the olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, and nuts!)
4. Percentages--forget it.  Listen to your body, it will tell you what you need.  Fershizzel my Nizzel.

60 Days Raw Log: On day 2 I’m painfully sober at the library

Day 2

Woke up with a crap headache, disoriented, and sore all over.  Now to be fair, I wake up feeling that way a few times a week after drinking too much the night before.  Today I woke up feeling that way from not drinking…I guess that’s better?  The only problem is my head never stopped pounding all day.

Wednesday is “library day.”  My girlfriend is a nerd and this is her favorite day.  We get our laptops and books together and spend hours at the Rancho Mirage Public Library, which is a neat modern well funded library set in a cool desert scape.

I lost my cool a couple times today.  Our neighbors are roofing and the noise & stink from the tar machine is maddening.  Also, the roofing crew starts earlier & earlier each morning, today they were banging around before 7am!

Little things blow chunks and piss you off when you drastically cut out the drugs you rely on (at this point in my life alcohol & caffeine).  I remember this from before, a weird mix of increased mental clarity and wishing things weren’t so clear…

The worst thing about today however was the non-stop throbbing pain at the base of my skull–which I know from past expereince is primarily a result of caffeine withdrawals.

BTW, if you are dependent on alcohol and want to use raw foods as a tool to break that dependency, even if you just want a break from it, let me give you a huge tip:  The key is tons of green foods! I don’t have time to find the source where I read about all of this right now, maybe later, but it has to do with what your body is really after when you drink…booze mimic and trick your body into thinking they have something to offer.  But your body really needs the true alkalizing effects of GREEN FOODS.  Whenever I incorporate lots of fresh green foods (salads) and green powders (smoothies) I can’t believe how easy it is to stop drinking!

What I ate today:

• Smoothie: Raw cacao powder, raw almond butter, raw coconut oil, green foods powder.
• Watermelon Juice
• Orange
• RAW bar: A pre-packaged live food bar made from seeds and berries, crunchy & tasty.
• An Asian “slaw” I made: 1 carrot, 1 gala apple, 2 handfuls of green cabbage, onion tossed in a dressing made of  raw almond butter, Shoyu, lemon juice & hemp oil, topped w/hemp seeds.  It was extremely filling & took a long time to chew.
• Smoothie: green powder, coconut oil, cacao nibs (I will experiment with other smoothies soon)
• Blood orange

Overall it was a very rough day.  I didn’t get much done, my head was super painful from waking til finally just saying screw it and laying in bed with lights off til I fell asleep…

60 Days Raw Log: Day 1 means going cold turkey & no more booze!

If you read the explanation of why I named this blog Fat Kid Suit you will have a little better idea of why I am once again trying out the live foods life…it took me a long time and a lot of excuses to get to today.  Now that I feel committed to making some changes I plan to document my experiences in a daily log.

Tuesday

Oct 27, 2009

Day 1

Chose today to start because I am off from work the next few days.  Since I am going “cold turkey” off of cooked foods, alcohol, and coffee; I figure I may get sick in that cleansing way and I’m sure I’ll be lethargic and even angry at times…

I will be weighing myself each week or so at the health food store where I will do most of my shopping. It’s a tiny little store with a small “raw” section, a “deli” where I can get salads and fresh squeezed juices, and a doctors scale in the bathroom.

Now that I’ve made up mind to do this, the biggest remaining obstacle to my second attempt at raw is going to be money.  I just moved to Palm Springs CA from San Francisco, I was unemployed for 6 months, and have been “under-employed” since (only working 3 shifts or so a week in bars that are devoid of customers).  So, I am BROKE BROKE BROKE.  From what I recall, eating raw isn’t cheap, and I’ve used that as one of my excuses for not addressing my alcohol intake and diet.

So…I’ve decided to flip it around in my favor. After adding up how much I spend on Starbucks, booze, and occasional restaurant meals, I figure I spend at least $70 per week.  I will now be spending most of that money at the Farmer’s Market!

“RAW” basically means:

Fruits

Veggies

Raw nuts and nut butters

Raw seeds

Cold-processed oils such as olive & hemp

Raw honey and Raw chocolate

That’s what you can eat. Am I missing anything?

What isn’t “raw”:

Booze

Coffee

Pizza

(Shit!  I live on the above!)

Cooked anything

Almost all sugary stuff

Bread

Dairy

Meat

Chips, cereals, etc.

Get the idea? 

*I’m not going to be worrying about what percentages of what macro nutrients I’m eating.  I won’t be wondering if I’m eating too much or to little.  This isn’t a quantitative approach to eating, it’s qualitative.  So, what matters, is what I eat.

Today’s Weight: 254 lbs.

What I ate today:

Fresh squeezed watermelon juice from the health food store deli! Sweet, delicious, and did you know watermelon is packed with as much chlorophyll as most green plants?

An organic peach

A big organic carrot

A small salad with tomato, olives, red onion, carrot, and a dressing I made from cold-pressed olive oil, a squeeze of lime, and a couple grinds of black pepper.

A smoothie I blended up: 1 tbs green foods powder called “Super Green & Super Fruits Blend”, 1 tbs organic coconut oil (creamy and delicious), 3 big dates, 1 tsp raw honey, water and ice.

A lot of water including some Peligrino Sparkling with lime squeezed in.

A large orange

A “Lara Bar”

How the day went:  The start of day one was rough.  Partly because of the lack of coffee and partly because of that feeling I get when I’m about to start something that I know won’t be easy and may even be downright unpleasant.  Denying yourself Nachos topped with chorizo and washed down with cadillac margaritas is never easy–and I know that’s the kinda thing I’m facing.

So I tried to think about how great I’ll feel & look…

Other than that no negatives, I feel fine, although I am hungry and craving a salty snack and beer...