I'm Baaaack!

Well - my intention was to get this first post back from my mini vacation done yesterday but some connectivity issues between my laptop and our Wi-fi gave me some difficulty.  Then it just got too late for me to bother with it and I gave up.  So...here's yesterday's back to business update and hopefully later today I can post about day one of the Raw Detox.

Hi all and sorry to any of you who thought I'd abandoned my resolve to eat well and follow my selected diet books.  I think way, way back when I started this project I mentioned that my sister was coming to town and that we were driving up the coast of California to see her son graduate from the prestigious military Defense Language Institute.  He's been there a bit over a year and completed their 63 week course where they cram Chinese into these active duty military folks.  It is tough to get into the school and even tougher to get through any of their courses.  Chinese is the hardest so we are understandably proud of his accomplishment.

Red Pepper Flax Crackers

Granola

Since we would be travelling I picked the dehydrator day to be the last day of the "Raw Revolution" book so I could fix some take along food and snacks to decrease the level of temptation we would face.  I made some Granola and some Red Pepper Flax Crackers.  I may have mentioned before that the dehydrating thing is quite involved due to the the lengthy time the food spends in the actual dehydrator as well as the occasional soaking and sprouting the occurs prior to placement on the dehydrator sheets.  However, despite the amount of pre-planning it takes to make these treats I do think it is a worthwhile way to keep yourself supplied while travelling or just to have some snacks on hand so that you don't succumb to the random vending machine in your path.  The granola recipe was delish with its raisins and sprouted oats.  The crackers where more of an acquired taste as there were a lot of flax seeds and flax meal in them that gave them the oily taste that is characteristic of flax.  The red peppers though were quite nice and gave the "crackers" a nice taste.  I put crackers in parenthesis since they were not exactly crisp despite a full day on the dehydrator.  Perhaps if they were truly crispy I would have enjoyed them more.  In addition I made some Spicy Sprouted Lentils to snack on as well.  They were pretty good although I put them on the dehydrator prior to giving them a full 24 hours to sprout so they were probably harder than Cherie wanted them to be.  They were ok but so small that it was hard to eat them as a snack.

The other thing I did to try and maintain my diet was bring along just about everything I had in the refrigerator as well as all the nuts, some raisins and the complete list of recipes from the Ani's Fat Blast All Stars I published prior to leaving for our little vacay.  In order to bring along all the produce that would require refrigeration I unearthed our plug in cooler the Igloo Koolmate from the garage.  This is a wonderful invention for transporting food.  It not only plugs into the lighter outlet in the car but it comes with an AC converter so you can plug it in a regular outlet in your hotel room like a mini fridge!  I love this thing!  Another cool aspect of this item is that you can flip the plug and turn it into a heater that will keep something like a cassarole for a potluck warm during transport.  Great invention!  I also brought along my newly purchased Cuisinart cup blender set.  Several times I was able to make smoothies or soups for meals in the room vs. going to a restaurant.  I did this several times during the trip so I could stay with my dog in the hotel room and let my sister have some private time with her son at dinner.  This was really win/win since each time we ate at a restaurant I just didn't feel as great as I did when I made my own food.

In addition to our drive and the graduation the other highlight of the trip was inadvertently walking along the beach in Monterey and noticing that there were people standing along the shore looking up in the sky.  It dawned on us that the space shuttle was scheduled to fly by soon.  I quickly checked Twitter and saw that it had just flown by San Francisco so I knew we were next!  I barely had enough time to switch my phone from Twitter to a camera before the awesome sight came into view!  Lucky us!  We not only got to see it but to get some pictures as well!  Sadly, the end of an era.  This is the second time I got to see the shuttle transported "piggy back" style since I saw it do a low and slow flight around the DC beltway sometime in 1982/83 when I was a student there and had an apartment in a hi rise building just south of the beltway.  It seemed so close I thought I could almost reach out and touch it!


So - now on to our next diet!  Today we start the first day of two weeks with the The Raw Detox Diet by Natalia Rose. There are a lot of things about this diet that I really like.  First off - although it is raw there is no sprouting so the time constraints and need to do a ton of prior planning is less than with some of the recipes we encountered with the Raw Revolution.  Secondly, she meets you where you are and gently guides you to a more raw, healthier way of eating vs. declaring that all meals all the time must be raw.  At the beginning of the book she asks a series of questions to determine where in the five step plan you should place yourself. We'll go thru the questions tomorrow to see where you would fit in the steps.

Based upon the questions - given my weight, age and history of eating boxed cereal, and caffeine, etc... I placed in the second group.  Those with the farthest to go or "worst" diet start at step one of the five so I was a bit surprised to see me in the second group since I think I've been eating pretty responsibly for quite some time in addition to our recent diet adventure.  In reading the more detailed description of who should be in this group I felt I was much more suited to group four on the five steps due to my current adherence to a raw, completely vegan diet.  This works out for the schedule as well since this week we'll follow step four of the five and then next week move to the last step.

Unlike my usual posts in the past where I give a summary of the day's adventure with food I'm going to switch to a summary of the previous day starting tomorrow for today's food.  This week is a bit chaotic with evening obligations and I've noted my writing get's more sloppy when I'm tired.  I'm hoping to make up my guitar class I missed last week tonight.  He teaches two classes of beginners and luckily for me the Monday class recapitulates the one I go to on Thursdays.  I then get to run home, pick up my dog and go have dinner with some dear friends that I haven't seen in a long time.  I figure it will be too late to write much after I get home so I'll check back here tomorrow to let you know how the day went.

Let me know if you've ever heard of Natalia Rose and this book before.  Have you tried eating a raw diet?  How do you feel when eating this way?  We'll talk about some of the things she also advocates and my take on them as well in future posts.  I'm looking forward to hearing your comments and getting back on track.  Oh- by the way - I'm now down 7 pounds since MSB headed off to Africa!  Yeah!