But I am still here. Life kind of got in the way, and eating crappy food seemed easier. Numbing even.

I currently weigh 237 lbs. Pretty much exactly where I started in May. At that time I managed to drop well over 20 lbs, and I’m hoping to do that and more this time around. I’ve been raw for the last few days. Today is day 4, and as usual the fog has lifted, I feel more alive than I have for the last few months, and my energy is back.

It’s absolutely incredible what eating raw foods can do for your state of mind.  I hope this is the last time I have to start my blog entry explaining my absence

I never did like to follow the rules I’m going to personally adapt the Alissa Coen 30 day raw challenge to better suit my needs. Yes, I want to eat primarily raw. Yes, I want to lose weight. I also need to be realistic.   My plan is: - breakfast, lunch, snacks and a part of dinner to be raw. If I really crave some whole grain pasta, rice, or bread, or cooked beans, I’m going to eat them, no guilt If I do want to make this a lifestyle change (which I do), I need this to work for the long term.

food today:

green smoothie (16 oz) (mache, raddichio, mango, cucumber)

zucchini pasta with “alfredo” sauce (cashews, olive oil, pine nuts)

carrot/ginger/cabbage coleslaw

a few dates

a raw cacao/carob/banana/almond milk shake

a few flax seed crackers

day 7 - weight 231.5 lbs

I’m actually still here, and back on raw.

Vacation was wonderful, but while I was away my diet suffered. Unfortunately, it continued to suffer after I came back. For the last two months I’ve been eating horribly, with the odd day or two thrown in where I half heartedly attempted to eat raw again.

This time around, I’ve decided that for the next two months or so, I’ll transition into a fully raw diet. Taking it slow might make it easier. Pretty much all meals and snacks are raw, with the exception of dinner. This has always been my weak point. So far this is workign out quite well. I started back on raw foods on Monday or Tuesday of this week. The last three days I didn’t even bother with cooked meals, and ate all raw.

more tomorrow, it’s late but I wanted to get back into  keeping up my journal.

weight today 229.4

non raw, all junk. Well, not all junk….but a lot. I think I’m back up 225. My husband and I just realized how horrible we feel, and we’ve made a firm commitment to ourselves and each other to go back on raw food.

I’m still extremely busy at work, so it will be interesting to see how I can manage the kids, and 12 hour work days without going for the “comfort” food. - Thanks Anastazia for mentioning the raw challenge. I think that may be what I need right now.

I’m not too worried about the little weight gain. I’ve hopefully nipped this in the bud without it going too far.  After next week I’m going to be going on a road trip for a two week vacation to Nova Scotia. I’m bringing my laptop, so I should be able to update from the road.

More tomorrow with a weight and measurement summary…… eeeek.

I’ve been at work pretty much non stop - all day/all night since last week. I had my first day off today, and it felt good to do absolutely nothing

We’ll just say that I completely went off my diet over the last week or so. I did try to eat as healthy as possible, lots of fruit and salad, but also a ton of stuff I shouldn’t have. Today was my transition day back to raw.

1 small green smoothie this morning

a banana, an apple, 4 fresh figs

dinner was not raw - peel and eat shrimp with corn on the cob, and a hot dog - (grin) - I really gotta ditch this hotdog obsession

I’m starving, so i’m also about to eat tortilla chips with salsa - back to raw tomorrow.

I haven’t weighed myself, i’m too frightened! I will tomorrow though.

forget this week ever happened?

Not good, and getting worse. I was pretty good yesterday, and dropped a pound this morning. Today, I was fine until dinner time. Some stuff came up at work, and i’m now going to have to be there 12 to 15 hour days for the next three or 4 days.

I ended up having swiss chalet for dinner, as I was starving. I hadn’t planned on staying late, so didn’t come prepared at all. Now that I know I’m going to be there all weekend, I’ll hit the grocery store on my way in tomorrow and stock up on fresh veggies , nuts, and fruits to keep there.

I probably won’t get a chance to update again until Sunday. I haven’t completely lost the plot just yet

Thank you to all of you who have left notes. I’ve been too busy lately to respond individually, but I do really appreciate everyones comments. Thanks!

The last couple of days have been interesting. I fell off the wagon again for certain meals (dinners out, pizza night, and dinner out with friends). The remainder of those days (and meals) have been consistantly raw. What I find the most interesting is the weight gain. My “off the wagon” dinners were not binges. Normal portions of the healthiest alternative that I could manage. At the restaraunt last night, which was a buffet, was mainly the salad bar. I even stayed away from the heavier options on that table. I did have a small selection of desert, but certainly nothing huge.

SO, in the last three days I’ve gained 4.4 lbs I think. Something like that anyway. I’m really hoping this is water, and it will flow right out over the next couple of days. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m heading to the grocery store to seriously stock up on raw. I’ve lost too much weight, and I feel way too healthy now to give up. I feel like I need to isolate myself for a while from temptation. I may do that.

so, this morning i weighed in at 222.4

no exercise over the last few days, that will change tonight.

Didn’t get a chance to post an update yesterday. We ended up going to my husbands fathers house for Fathers Day dinner. I wasn’t prepared, and of course there were absolutely NO raw food options. They even put in cooked rice into the salad.  I stayed raw the remainder of the day though with a green smoothie, lots of fruit, cashews, goji berries and a couple of dates.

My weight has been going up a bit the last two days. Yesterday morning I weighed in at 219.4, and this morning 219.8 - I suspect I’m retaining a bit of water, since prior to yesterday my weight was dropping quite rapidly. We’ll see what happens over the next few days.

I’ll probably be eating entirely raw today, no surprises that I’m aware of.

More tomorrow, as I have a late night this evening.

Had a surprisingly good day. We were running around all day on errands, so I made sure to pack lots of good snacks for the hours in the car/park/stores. This way I wouldn’t have to be tempted with any fast food restaurants. We had promised the kids an ice cream cone from a local dairy. We discovered that a new organic produce store opened up right next door. I’m quite thrilled. Everything in the shop was organic, and the prices were more reasonable than our big box grocery store. This place had a much better selection. We’ll certainly support them now on a weekly basis.

We then headed downtown to go to Toronto Sprouts to pick up our sprouting seeds, we found that inside they had a little cafe. They had raw sandwiches on the menu! - Dan and I each had a sprout/sunflower pate sandwich on some sort of raw cracker.

Breakfast was almost a full quart green smoothie (spring mix, spinach, cucumber, apples, peach, flax seeds)

during the day I munched on dates, goji berries, a sunburger, a banana, and the raw sandwich

Dinner was a small portion of stir fried veggies and tofu that the kids had. I also had a bunch of various cut up fruit with raw chocolate sauce from the Naked Chocolate book. It’s made from Raw cacao, agave nectar and a bit of coconut oil. - divine!

We bought a selection of sprouting seeds which we’ll try to get started tonight. We bought

sandwich booster mix - clover, alfalfa, radish, canola

Alfalfa

Sunflower

crunchy bean mix - peas, lentils, garbanzos

ancient eastern blend - fenugreek, french lentils, kamut, adzuki beans

buckwheat 

Weekly stats

Weight - 218.4 (down 3.6 lbs for the week, and down 27.6 lbs total)

Arms - 16.0 (-1.0)

Bust - 43.5 (-3.0)

back - 38.0 (-3.0)

waist - 39 (-3.0)

hips - 54.5  (-3.5)

thighs - 29 (-1.0)

calves - 17.5 (-.50)

I resisted temptation at dinner! Quite proud of myself, and it was my favourite - pasta. I made it for the kids and my mom who was over for dinner. While that was cooking, I made up a big bowl of guacamole, along with a cucumber and a “sunburger” from one of my raw cook books (can’t remember which one)

Breakfast was a green smoothie, and an additional 25 oz of green smoothies later in the day. I also ate 2 more sunburgers at lunch. I’m probably going to snack on fruit later tonight after I workout. I’ll probably follow the same workout I did yesterday as it felt really good, and was a decent challenge.

 Tomorrow, we’re heading to Toronto Sprouts, to pick up a bunch of organic sprouting seeds. I have a big indoor “greenhouse” that I was going to use to start all of my garden plants from seed. Unfortunately, I have not been even remotely successful in keeping anything alive. However, it’s perfect for growing sprouts. I think I can manage that.

This morning I weighed in at 119.8 lbs!