Thursday, March 24, 2011

Day 4 of Vegan-Raw-Food Week

So Tuesday night it was chicken, and last night I dreamt of potatoes.... roasted with olive oil, rosemary and colby jack cheese. Yummers. Soon enough, I remind myself.

The scale says 140...so that's basically a pound a day. Call it water-weight, toxins, junkies...whatever you want, but I actually feel smaller. (Unless I put on my skinny jeans right out of the dryer. That's always a humbling experience.)

I think I'm past the worst of it. And by lunch today I'll be officially half way.

Danny's been a great sport about it too. We've modified his eating a bit. He's joining me in the vegan thing (and staying away from processed sugars/starches) this week. He's eating what I eat for breakfast and dinner, but he'll enjoy steamed veggies at lunch ...he also had my home-made hummus with carrot sticks last night for dinner. (Garbonzo beans are 'cooked' before I grind them with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and cumin...so the 'cooking' obviously puts hummus off the list for me.) But this 'cleanse' is not really as far of a jump for me as it is for him; and he goes out to eat for lunch with business people every day...and they're not dining at Omar's, you know?

Other than that, this new food regime continues to have me wrestling with questions about my food and lately, I've been asking myself what I've been learning from this experiment.

It's not really like me to deny my body something it's craving so much. Like say, hummus. (I mean home-made hummus is not exactly the equivalent of a hostess powdered doughnut six-pack).

Usually, when I can tell I really need something (e.g. craving roast when I was pregnant with Holden), I eat it. Unfortunately, I also have the nasty habit of eating what I want--not just what I need. (My past cupcake addictions are great examples...not to mention how I stuffed my face during the holidays after I finally got below 140 lbs; and subsequently gained it all back as a result).

Though right now, I don't crave cupcakes or brownies and candy isn't even on the radar (though I'm not really a candy person anyway)...my body seems pretty content with the amount of natural sugars I'm getting from all this fruit. But a slice of home-made pizza with whole wheat pita bread crust? That may be the first thing I indulge in.

I guess what I'm learning is to distinguish the wants verses needs in my body. This is also teaching me just how overwhelming the food-processing industrial machine is...you can't even buy 'almond milk' without have some kind of additive.

Even my beloved canned garbonzo beans are processed with "sugar, salt, calcium chloride, sodium sulfate and calcium disodium EDTA." (Michael Pollan would be so disappointed.) I have no idea what half of those things are, but I'm really glad I've been at least rinsing them off in the past. Guess I'll be starting another tradition of cooking my own lentils too.



2 comments:

Melanie said...

If you eat lots of beans like we do. We just cook them and freeze them. That way we don't have to worry about cooking them when we need them. I just freeze them in 2 cup ziplock containers (so I can reuse them)...works for us...

Cicely said...

I was going to say:

Although I appreciate what you are trying to do, I think you are nuts for doing it.

What I am really want to say is:

I don't even see why you are really doing this. I don't' believe that something that makes you feel so crappy is good for you.

But, hey, it's your fruitneral. Did you see what I did there?