Know Any Literary Animal Lovers?
Hi there PureJeevan readers! We wanted to let you know that Jim's new novel CHROO is available on Amazon. It's a crazy adventure involving a billionaire heiress, her Chihuahua BFF ("Chroo") and a host of human and animal characters. Find out more on Amazon! Here are some links:
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
I can't remember what I ate today. I'll try to recall as best as I can.
I know I ate something for breakfast, but I just can't recall what it was. :-/
Salad (romaine, Brazil nuts, pepitos, lemon, salt, garlic powder, Italian herbs)
I was up around six this morning, unable to fall back asleep even though I felt that my body was still tired. I watered the seedlings, did some random things around the house, and then around eight I was ready to get back into bed. I crawled in next to my husband and fell into one of those sleeps where every sound makes you jump a bit, but then you are stuck in this sleep where you don't want to be sleeping anymore, you can hear everything going on around you, but you can't bring yourself back to reality and wake up. UGH So, I was stuck in that state for about two hours, before my daughter started talking to me and helped me wake up.
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* leftover smoothie that I didn't care for, but didn't want to waste
Eating on the road isn't so bad when you are raw. We cut up a bunch of carrots, celery, red peppers and brought along a nut dip (walnuts, parsley, carrots, garlic, salt, lemon) as well as fruit. My family ate more than half of the nut dip and I had to remind them that they had their hummus and chips and crackers and stuff like that to eat. I felt kind of like a jerk saying it, but at the same time once the raw food was gone I'd be left with nothing and they'd still have all kinds of stuff that I wouldn't be able to eat. :-/
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* not so great coconut shake because the coconut was way too mature/firm
Today I was on the road again, and this time I didn't bring any food to eat that included nuts. I had a lot more energy and felt less like I was going to get a headache like I have been feeling a lot of lately.
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* coconut shake in the morning (same as usual recipe)
I'm glad the bananas are ripe. I was telling a good friend the other day how I really like to eat bananas. They take away my hunger, fill me up so that I don't feel like I've eaten next to nothing, and I feel good after eating them. I had a few bunches of bananas and they were taking forever to ripen. Now they are ready. Yay! Just in time because I'm a bit peckish.
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* coconut shake (usual recipe without the banana, since I somehow forgot to include it !)
Well, it's the beginning of another month and I'm still raw. Yay for me! :-D Since I started 100% raw in the middle of December, that makes me 4 1/2 months raw. That's not overly long, but it's still great!
I've been having cravings more lately. I don't know if it's from stress, from my body detoxing from the things I'm craving (as some raw foodists believe), or from cutting back on the more gourmet raw foods that are similar to cooked foods (at least for my taste buds). I try to analyze the craving...what is it that I'm looking for? Is it salt, sugar, fat, sour, etc. It usually works, and the craving goes away. I just noticed that the cravings are a lot more recently. In the beginning, I don't think I really had many cravings, if any at all. The things I've been craving are things like pizza, grilled cheese, pasta with some sort of cheese sauce or oil and garlic. It's all seeming like mostly the fat and salt that I want, but the pizza craving the other day seemed to be telling me that I wanted the sauce (which would include the oil and salt). So, I'm probably going to make those nut balls with marinara that taste so yummy.
I'm down just three pounds this month, since I gained two and had to lose that in addition to what my body is naturally shedding. So, really I lost five pounds this past month, but it only counts as three. I like the way my body is responding, seeming to change faster than the weight loss. My mind still isn't caught up with my body, however, and I still don't want to wear clothes that can show what I look like. I'm still wearing my same clothes, but I have to rely on a belt to keep my jeans up. One pair of jeans can't be worn in public anymore because they look so ridiculous. The pair I have been wearing the most used to only come up half way on my butt and I'd wear a long shirt over it. I had to buy them, because I couldn't find anything else at the time that would fit (because all the jeans were that style where they are hip huggers with tight thighs). Now they fit like a "normal" pair of jeans, coming up to my waist and not being tight in the legs at all. My daughter wants me to get new tops because most of my tops are too big in the arms and they droop down and you can see right in, under my arm, to my arm pits and sides of my torso. I'm not ready for new clothes, though. The psychologist I see said that someday my mind will catch up with my body and I won't be uncomfortable with the whole change. It's not that I'm uncomfortable with losing the weight--I want to be healthy. I'm just uncomfortable with the idea that people will be looking at me. No one really looks at fat people much, except to maybe think that they are fat. I can handle that kind of stuff, feeling hurt inside and forcing a smile on the outside. Being looked at in the other way, however, I can't handle. That kind of look makes me feel unsafe. Someday I will be strong, I know. I look forward to that day of total freedom--of feeling like I'm alive and I'm not under any threat.