Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 32, Month Two, First Months Recap

Today's entry will be long because it recaps the first month of transition to a raw foods diet and explores what the next month will entail. If you just want to know the gist of today's diet and progress please scroll down to the bottom of the page.

On March 8th I began my transition to a raw foods diet. Today marks the beginning of the second month. In the first month I saw some truly remarkable changes that convinced me that this way of eating is a match for my goals of better health, high energy, low pain and weight loss.

Losing weight?
I did lose weight on the diet, five pounds as of today, something I have seriously struggled with despite a very healthy diet for the last eleven years and never permanently losing any weight in the past. My caloric intake on the raw diet is consistent with what my caloric intake has been daily for the last four years. On average I gained three pounds a year starting in 1998. At that time I was vegetarian, several years later I went vegan for two years because the vegetarian diet wasn't solving my weight problems. I returned to a vegetarian diet when the vegan diet made no positive difference either. I went the complete opposite way for three months and tried the Atkins diet because my doctor told me I had to cut out carbs from my diet. I did lose some weight for a while on that but felt terrible so I stopped. I then went to eating based on the food pyramid and stayed there until starting this raw diet. None of these other plans worked to help me lose weight and feel good. Only the raw diet has done that.

Managing nutrition:
On the raw diet my fat intake is significantly higher and my protein intake is significantly lower. I am missing vitamin B12 through the entire month so beginning this month I will be taking a multivitamin to fill in any gaps. For the protein I will start bumping up the sprouts, add a cup of raw peas to every salad, add hemp nuts regularly and start adding greens to all of my smoothies. I am going to strive to have a full serving of sea vegetables every week also.

Does this diet work?
I feel absolutely amazing, literally better than I have felt in over 20 years. The energy is abundant and the strength lasts all day long.

What now:
Now at the end of the first month I can look back and see that I am leaps and bounds ahead of where I have been.

Where I have failed to meet my goals:
Foremost is that I did not constantly eat a 100% raw diet. Particularly during the week that I was sick it was too difficult for me to make the raw foods that keep the diet diverse (not boring) and with a queasy stomach I could not find raw foods that were starchy, palatable and easy to digest. I learned that I need to have some raw foods made ahead of time and stored, like raw crackers, to be ready for those times. I also need to make a habit of making nut milk twice a week at least so that I always have it on hand. I need to make a day of putting together dehydrated snacks, not just dehydrated fruits but also cookies, bars, sweets, etc. Things that I need to have on hand when a sweet craving or crunchy craving hits and I am too busy or too impatient to wait 12 hours to satisfy a craving. I also need to make sure that I keep several cups of several nuts, several bananas, nut butters, raw honey, apples, carrots, ginger, prepared lettuces, avocados, jicama, bell peppers, sprouts, sea weed, frozen berries and frozen peas in the house all of the time so that I can throw something together anytime. Days that were busy or days when I was too sick to go to the store meant that I would end up eating things that were either not satisfying or didn't meet my nutritional goals for the day. I need to think of all of these things as pantry staples from now on.

Having my family join me on this transition. It is hard enough to commit yourself to making raw meals every day but add on three other people that you are preparing meals for and it becomes overwhelming. While it is a little bit of a hassle to make a quart of nut milk twice a week, it is quite a big deal to make a gallon or more twice a week. In making a quart the recipe fits nicely into the blender, is easy to strain and fills a canning jar perfectly. In making a gallon you have to make the batch four times, straining each batch individually and then storing four quarts. Plus the kids drink a lot more milk than we do, so it goes much faster. It is easy to buy processed nut milks for the kids in aseptic containers that store in the cupboard until ready to be used. I found these kinds of complications to almost derail my own efforts so again I realized that one life change at a time is enough. Once I totally get the hang of this diet I can help my family do the same. If it is so overwhelming that I end up not doing it I end up not helping anyone.
How do I feel about the diet and what is next?
Outside of these areas I feel that I met my goals and am very happy with the results overall.

Raw Diet Day 32:
And finally, here is today's snippet about what I had:

For breakfast I had one banana and a handful of raw sunflower seeds.

For snack I had half of an avocado and 1 ounce of raw goats milk mozzarella cheese.

At lunch I made a quart of almond milk using 1 cup of almonds, 4 cups of water and 2 Tablespoons raw honey. I drank one cup of the raw almond milk mixed with a shot of espresso and was not hungry for anything else. (Espresso is not raw).

In the garden there are many sprouts so it looks like the little seeds weathered the sudden snow and cold snap just fine. I am still needing to put on the frost blankets each night and often each day though. Today we had periods of rain, sleet, snow, hail, high gusts of wind and bright, warm sunny weather. An expected pattern of weather for this part of the country in April. The last frost day is usually around April 15th so this crazy back and forth weather pattern shouldn't last too much longer. (Although I remember a few years ago when we suddenly had over a foot of snow in May, so no guarantees).

If you are trying your first garden make sure to check the weather regularly or risk having to start all over in June. The potted tomato plant I put out several weeks ago is an example of this. Although I bring it in when there is a cold snap it isn't tolerating the changes in temperature and light and has started to develop leaf curl. This begins in the lower branches initially and at first the leaves curl upward but as the problem worsens the leaves curl and roll downward/inward. If the weather stabilizes then the plant may come through just fine within a few weeks but it may not.

This is a typical problem with certain varieties of tomatoes but not with others. Another reason why you will always want to sow more seeds than the number of plants you want. By the time they are strongly established you can remove the plants that didn't grow well. Also it is why you want to sow a few varieties of each crop. Some varieties will not do well in the same soil and weather that others will. When I post the full list of seeds sown you will see that I have at least two varieties sown of every vegetable and with the cantaloupes I have six. I have had the most difficult time getting cantaloupes to grow here in southern Oregon while I couldn't get them to stop growing and producing in Portland. This year I decided to try multiple varieties so that I could determine which grow best in the environment I am providing.

For dinner tonight I will be having four cups of green leaf lettuce mixed with an avocado, tomato, red bell pepper, zucchini, 1 cup defrosted frozen peas and about 1/2 of a cup of raw sunflower seeds. I really enjoy the taste, texture and mouth feel of combining the acid of the tomato, the creaminess of the avocado, the sweet and crunch of the bell peppers and the creamy nubby texture of the nuts or seeds. It is a composition I frequently duplicate because it is so completely satisfying.