One of many, many saladsYou know, I really thought that this raw thing was going to be a piece of (figurative) cake. Eat fruits and veggies, feel great, drop those 10 lbs, easy peasy. After more than three months, though, I'm not where I want to be. After graduation, though, I am recommitting myself to starting over, to eating better and exercising more. To taking care of myself. That's always the first thing I let slide when I get stressed out, and I can only imagine that grad school is not going to get any easier. I stopped weighing myself a couple weeks back, because I wasn't making any progress and it was occupying too much of my mind.
I think that the most difficult thing has been trying to break the habit of using food as emotional comfort. I suppose this is hardly a revelation, nor is it uncommon by any means, but I have the uncanny ability to make even raw food unhealthy (did you know that dates stuffed with cacao nibs taste like an inside out Raisinet? And whereas Madeline will eat half of one and enjoy it, I will eat four and feel guilty).
There has been a really interesting shift going on in both our diets, though. We're eating far fewer nuts, much less oil and way more fruit. The few nut heavy recipes I've made over the past few weeks, even the things we used to heartily enjoy, like walnut pate, leave us feeling sluggish and heavy. I haven't posted any recipes recently because in addition to being too busy to prepare anything interesting, we're eating primarily whole fruits and vegetable, nothing revolutionary.
So here's the plan: I bought The 80/10/10 Diet, which I am going to read. I've had it for a few weeks, but I think I've been scared to find reasons to want to change my diet further. I've also been really annoyed with the junk science in some of the raw books I've read previously, so I hope that this will be different.
We also purchased a treadmill, which was an incredibly huge investment. Scarily huge. I've been reading everything I can find about treadmills, and a lot of lower end models are good for walking, but don't have the structural integrity to withstand running, which is what Mad and I both want to do. So we went with a more expensive model that will hopefully last us for a long, long time. Once it arrives, I am going to start working on Couch to 5k, which is something I've wanted to do for a while.
This has been good. And it will get better.
-Eloise
2 comments:
Hi, I read your blog when I remember to check my Google Reader :P I'm enjoying the accounts of your experiences on the raw diet. I wanted to comment on this one because I just recently found out about the Couch to 5k program! I'm wanting to try that out but I'll probably take longer than the 9 weeks described in the program to do my first 5k. I'm also working on a treadmill (for now).
80/10/10 seems to make sense for me - When I eat heavy/fatty meals, I feel tired, sluggish, as though every movement requires more effort. Interesting to notice, isn't it?
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for stopping by! I'm just finishing up week one of Couch to 5k, and so far so good. It might take me longer than 9 weeks, too, but that's okay. I'm just going to keep working through it.
And I agree about feeling lighter and more energetic on 80/10/10. It's definitely a good feeling.
-Eloise
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