HELLO EVERYBODY! Ok so this is my first post since being back to Malibu, and it's Friday afternoon after my first week back at school. I can't believe that I'm already into my second semester. Time flies!
Anyhow, I had an extremely AWESOME stroke of luck upon arriving in California. I had gotten back to my apartment, and 1 hour into my unpacking process, there was a knock at the door. I went to see who it was, and it was the mailman! The Postal Service said that my boxes weren't going to arrive until Monday, so for them to arrive on Saturday was a fantastic surprise. My new Vitamix and Omega Juicer arrived in perfect shape, and I have been using them since.
However, what has changed is what I'm making with them. Allow me to explain.
I read Dr. Gabriel Cousen's book "Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine" and it totally inspired me. This guy is one of the pioneering experts in raw food nutrition and health, and his book is spectacular. It gives a short summary of his philosophy on individualizing raw food to a person's unique constitutional type in order to maximize health and well being. The diet is divided into 3 phases: Phase I, Phase 1.5, and Phase II. I'm currently in the midst of the Phase I diet which involves a no sugar, high greens diet. While Dr. Cousens recommends about 3 months (yikes!) of this diet for people attempting to heal themselves of major degenerative diseases, I'm going for a much shorter time period: 3 weeks. (I figure that since I don't have diabetes or cancer, that 3 months is a bit overkill... who knows though. I may go longer.)
Now. Let me just begin by saying that I love sugar. Not even refined sugar or fructose or any of that crap. The kind of sugar I love is in fruit! I am so used to starting off my day with a large helping of fruits and superfoods, so to be away from that for so long feels daunting.
BUT... I feel great. Like way better than I did on my old raw food regimen. My energy is much more stable, I'm in touch with what percentages of carbs, proteins, and fats my constitutional type requires, and my mental functioning feels much sharper. I remember everything, I'm more productive... It feels awesome. Tangible as well. I'm quite pleased.
The only difficulty is trying to have a social life. Now that I have all of those new appliances, making the food isn't all that difficult and/or time consuming. It's more that I can't go out to restaurants with anybody because I can't eat anything! 99.999% of my time with friends is spend eating out! (Sad... but true... I just love food...) I've decided that I need to start inviting friends to do other things like shopping, (except I'm broke) hiking, swimming, and just general interaction time. I'm learning how to be bold though and say no to tempting situations. I just hope people don't think I'm anorexic or something. I'm actually praying I don't lose weight... That's the last thing I need hahaha
But that's another challenge. People already think my raw foodness is freaky enough, so to hear that I'm on a "diet" sends off warning signals for people. Luckily I haven't had anybody express concern for me. I think they trust that I know what I'm doing at this point. Or I hope so at least...
Anyhow... I will be sure to post pictures of what a day of food looks like on this diet. It's definitely doable, and the results are worth it, but for me... I'm really missing fruit! :-(
Have a great MLK weekend!
-Cliff
Now I'm even MORE interested in reading this book. Sounds extremely difficult, but hopefully rewarding! Would love to see a day of your food in pictures.
ReplyDeleteI can relate, too, on the social life bit. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I thought about or did all day long, years ago, before I was obsessed with food!
Amber,
ReplyDeleteThe book is definitely a must-read. While it seems extreme at times, Cousens backs up his theories with some pretty solid information. Columbia medical school did him well!
Ugh... the social life thing is starting to kill me. How can you go out without being tempted? I'll figure it out. At least it's only 3 weeks. (I think...)