Below, you will find a copy of the journal I kept during my transition into, and my first year of, a 100% raw, vegan diet. Some of it is quite personal, but I still wanted to share it with all of you. We may never meet in person, but I feel we are all connected in this world. I want to share my story with you, in hopes that you may learn something about yourself by reading about my journey into the raw lifestyle. Perhaps you’ll be inspired (that’s my wish), or learn to not make similar mistakes.

The journal begins in July of 2006 and continues into October 2007. If you are interested in reading something from the beginning, please use the archive feature at the right side of this page. If a month has more than one page worth of entries, there will be a “previous entries” link at the bottom of the page to view the rest of the entries for that month.

I have not edited my entries at all. Any entries that were originally marked private have been made public (with the exception of one that included personal information about people other than myself). Even though the entries are old, you are still welcome to add comments or ask questions. We will be notified of any comments that are left.

Again, I hope that I am in some way able to offer something positive to your life by sharing my personal Going Raw Journal.

 Lots of love and peace to all of you,

 Wendi
XOXOXO

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I guess I kind of abandoned my raw journal (my personal one, as well). I’ve been writing on paper with a pen these days–falling back to older ways of expressing myself, I guess.

Anyway, I’m still here–just not very often. I’m still 100% raw (well, actually I guess I’m 99.9% because we ran out of raw carob some time ago and I’ve been substituting roasted carob).

My total weight loss to date, from the highest weight I ever saw on the scale, is 85 pounds. I still have about 15-20 pounds more to lose, to be truly healthy (I think, anyway). My body just keeps responding to the live foods and doing what it needs to do. I trust that my body will one day be completely healed and vibrant!

My bloodwork results should be coming in the mail today or tomorrow. I called the doctor’s office and asked for a copy, since the doctor said she doesn’t need to see me. I don’t know what the numbers are, or how they compare to previous blood work. All the receptionist said was that I’m low in iron, still. Does that mean I’m no longer deficient in B12?!!! I wonder if I’m less low in iron than I was about eight or nine months ago? I can’t wait to see the results and to compare them with past reports! I also wonder how my homocystine level is doing–it used to be too high and unhealthy. It will be great if it’s within a normal, healthy range!

My family is pretty much raw, too. They eat cooked foods only every once in a while (like bagels on the weekends, a piece of candy here and there). My husband isn’t buying chips and salsa anymore (he used to practically live on that stuff)! He eats strictly raw foods when he’s at home. He’s probably 90% raw, or more, I think. He looks great, too. So does my daughter, but she has youth on her side.

I continue to struggle with my realization that my body really doesn’t like a lot of nuts and seeds. I’ve been realizing it over and over for a long time, but I’m not ready to cut back much on them, I guess, yet (or else I’d be doing it, right?). I think my goal for all of next year will be to go low fat with the raw diet and see how that makes me feel. If I don’t feel well with it, then I’ll continue to eat whatever I want as long as it’s raw. I don’t force myself to do anything that I really don’t want to be doing. It’s quite a liberating feeling to not have my mind continually telling me that I “should” be doing this or that (with regards to eating raw foods, as I’m not yet liberated from the “shoulds” in other areas of my life).

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We head out in a few minutes for the midnight party of the final Harry Potter novel! Yay!! So, for the next two days we’ll be reading outloud and I won’t have time to log onto the computer. I’ll be snacking and eating all kinds of easy-to-create foods since every precious moment should be spent reading and not eating/preparing food! lol

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* two bananas
* veggie salad (tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, cucumber, oil, lemon, garlic powder, chives, salt, thyme)
* banana
* more veggie salad
* last of the leftover basil spread I made the other day
* coconut shake (to fill up on before heading out for the evening)

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It’s a busy day today, so I’m just posting what I’m eating/have eaten.

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* Two bananas
* some of the leftover basil stuff from yesterday, eaten with red peppers and carrots
* banana
* two packs of curry nori snacks
* salad (lettuce, tomato, carrot, olive and flax oil, lemon, Brazil nuts, salt, garlic powder)

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I’ve been going through more and more emotional detoxing–breaking through the walls I’ve built around myself since I was a child, to protect me from the the pain out here in the world. I’m an adult now and I’m pretty sure I can take on the world, for the most part, so I don’t really need this thick, protective shell I’ve cocooned myself in. So, I’m breaking free and little by little getting to see who I really am. A lot of changes are going to be happening, I’m sure, as I see more clearly that I haven’t really been living my own life. It’s kind of hard to live your own life when you are walled up, isn’t it?

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* coconut shake (coconut water and flesh, frozen banana, two honey dates, scoop of hemp protein powder, two scoops raw carob powder)
* curry nori wrap
* basil spread (basil, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, garlic, onion, lemon, olive oil, salt)
* carrots, red peppers to eat spread
* banana

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I’m feeling a lot better this morning. I think that drinking the orange juice (that I watered down, since it was way too sweet) last night helped my stomach digest all of those nuts! I need to remember to eat in moderation when it comes to dehydrated nut meals. It was just tasty and convenient and that’s why I ate so much of it.

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* 1/2 a cantaloupe blended into a smoothie
* some pinenuts
* veggie salad: red and yellow pepper, cucumber, parsley, lemon, flax oil, garlic powder, salt, pine nuts
* more veggie salad with pine nuts
* 1/2 of a raw cookie (cherries, hazelnuts, agave) that I didn’t care for.
* One pack of curry nori wraps
* salad eaten with more of the veggie salad, in addition to carrots

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I have a sluggish digestion today. I think eating so many nuts yesterday and then having some again this morning made my food just kind of stick in my stomach. My stomach is still full and I haven’t eaten much today. I think nuts just take too much time for my stomach, for some reason. I partly think it’s cashews, since every time I can remember feeling this lump in my stomach it’s after consuming a lot of cashews.

I dreamed last night that I was eating an extremely juicy orange–I was really just drinking the orange, because it was so juicy. I’m thinking it would be nice to have some fresh-squeezed OJ right now, but I don’t have any organic oranges in the house. I think the local grocery store probably doesn’t sell them and I’m too lazy to get into the car to go and find out.

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* quick mixture since I was headed out this morning and I didn’t have time to whip up a coconut shake (ground pecans, cinnamon, raisins, agave, dash of salt)

* the rest of the leftover nut loaf with a small amount of the tomato ketchup

* a small apple

* juice of three oranges

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I was out for the day, but I packed a huge amount of nut loaf that kept me very unhungry. The rest of the family enjoyed eating a lot of it, as well. I packed it with some lettuce leaves, chopped onions, and some homemade ketchup. Yum! I ate it as a sandwich with the romaine leaves as the “bun” to hold it all together.

Anyway, I can’t remember all that I ate, but here’s what I do recall:

* leftover sesame shake from yesterday
* nutloaf to snack on
* more nutloaf, followed by more nutloaf, eaten with lots of lettuce, some onion, and ketchup
* a small apple

That may not look like a lot of food, but I ate a lot of that nut loaf! Yum!

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Yesterday we had some hail and it knocked over most of our pepper plants (we have *a lot*). So, today I went out and said some sweet things to them as I helped them stand tall again. I hope they produce a lot of colorful sweet peppers for me!

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* coconut shake (coconut water and flesh, one date, one banana, 1 inch of vanilla bean, little bit of hemp protein powder)
* a lot of nut loaf mixture, before it got into the dehydrator
* sweet sesame shake (sesame seeds, bananas, 1/2 of a vanilla bean, few dates, little bit of agave)
* one of the nut burgers that was warmed by the dehydrator, but it was still all soft
* more of the sweet sesame milk

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Today is farm pickup day! Yay!! This year’s CSA is FANTASTIC!!! We sometimes get so much produce, I wonder if it will all fit in the fridge. They are very generous with the veggies and it’s all so wonderful! They send updates each week about what’s going on at the farm, with pictures of the veggies that are growing and being planted (as well as other pics). It’s great and I love it! The pickup is fairly close to my home, too, where last year’s took me forever to get there and back. I’ll update later with what we were given this week.

UPDATE: Here’s what we got from the farm today: parsley, basil, fennel, scallions, beets with greens, cauliflower, 3 heads lettuce, carrots with greens, bag of lettuce greens (like dandelion, arugula, etc.), 4 HUGE zucchini, 3 yellow squash, cucumber, 2 bags green beans, head of cabbage!!! Yay!

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* banana
* veggie salad (tomatoe, red and yellow pepper, chives, lemon, flax oil, salt, garlic powder) sprinkled with some pine nuts
* about six honey dates
* mashed cauliflower with macademias, oil, salt, garlic
* about six more honey dates

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* banana
* few pieces of fudge
* veggie salad (red pepper, tomato, cucumber, parsley, flax oil, lemon juice, salt, garlic powder)
* about two tablespoons leftover seed mixture from yesterday
* fudge
* small salad (butter lettuce, carrot, scallions, lemon, flax oil)
* small coconut shake (coconut water and flesh, one honey date, 1 1/2 frozen banana, about 1″ of dried vanilla bean)

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