Day 9

I've been doing so well eating this way until last night when I was making a raw food cake for someone, I ate things that I've been trying to avoid.     I find this to be a challenge sometimes as a raw food chef, where more high fat proteins are utilized and I feel it's important to taste everything.     The cake probably could easily be made into nut-free LFRV though:  :)

Base:

Soaked Cashews, Apples, Soaked Raisins

Filling:

Figs, Bananas, Coconut, Raw Carob, Raisins

Topping:

Dates, a few cashews, vanilla bean..and loads of strawberries on top!

I've FINALLY been feeling like I'm losing weight now though.    Up until maybe a day ago, I was gaining weight and felt awful- breaking out, retaining a lot of water.    It makes me really sad but the only difference is that two days ago, I stopped eating dates.   I'm afraid that I've probably developed some kind of an allergy to them. Last night after eating some while making the cake, I noticed that I all of a sudden had all these bumps starting to appear on my face and it was very upsetting.   Dates are my favorite food!    I guess I'll need to find a new favorite food.     The only cravings that I've had since making the transition to 811 have been dates and sunflower butter, which I recently started enjoying before going 811.

Before going 811, I was still mostly raw and completely vegan, trying to avoid processed foods also, so the transition hasn't been too bad except for my increasing frustration about the weight gain and breakouts and face puffiness and sudden love-handles (scary!).   Luckily they are going away.    

My energy has been way better.   I started "running" when I started eating LFRV.    At first I could only jog for short sprints down my street, mostly I would just walk.    Then I ran for the whole road.   Then I expanded the circuit and added a few more roads that I was miraculously able to jog for most of the way down.  Now I'm running for an hour straight and I keep having to add more roads to my run so that I can get a full hour in!   This is the first time in my life that I have been able to run this much--I tried hard for many years and the only difference now is my new way of eating.

My goal:   I read The Beauty Detox Solution by Kimberly Snyder last May and I became really inspired to concentrate more on my vegetable intake and pay more attention to my food combining.    I was eating a raw food diet and I wasn't feeling good.   I had INCREDIBLE results.    I got my dream body almost immediately and I wasn't working out at all.   Once I did start to work out a little  (walking, hehe)-- the results were even better.     I did get really lazy with drinking the green smoothies though and mostly I was just eating fruits.   My day would look something like this:

Morning:  Lemon tea (lemon and hot water), two bananas

Morning at work: (as a raw food chef):  lots of fruits, mainly dates, tasting foods I made, trying to avoid nuts

Lunch:  Big salad, fruits  (eventually I learned that I had to have a gentle discipline with myself at work and not freak out if I ate nuts because there were nuts and seeds and grains and oils everywhere.

Snack: Fruit, mainly dried fruits like dates and dried mangoes

Dinner: Salad, nori wraps, fruits

After a while, for some reason, I really wanted some forbidden black rice all the time and so at dinner I would have a mono meal of black rice or sometimes amaranth.    Overtime, this led me being more flexible---I started eating cooked vegetables and then I really got into eating nuts and seeds.   I fell in love with macadamia nuts and sunflower butter and then I started gaining weight.   I was craving more and more fat--I was eating gigantic guacamole feasts, diving into jar after jar of sunflower butter and pounding down dates like they were nothing.    Over a pound a day of dates.   I was gaining weight fast, I would have awful cramping and my skin had never looked so bad.   I was eating a "fruitarian" diet at this point--fruits, nuts and seeds and I had already cut out my beloved black rice which I was eating with coconut milk for dinners. 

Enough was enough!

I continued eating a lot of dates-at least a pound a day while I was transitioning to 811 and I was not doing well.   My face had the worst acne/rosacea rash ever.    I was fuzzy-headed and dehydrated despite drinking sometimes 8 liters of water each day.   This was the time when I wasn't really able to run yet either.   Mainly I was walking and cycling and feeling very frustrated.     Also, my relationship with the dates seemed to take on this dark quality- reminiscent of an eating disorder I had 15 years ago and I was not happy about it.

So enough was enough AGAIN!

I went cold turkey without the dates.    I started eating fruit that had more water in it- cantaloupe, pears, apples, oranges, mangoes, anything but dates!   I also started making sure to eat at minimum-a head of lettuce per day.    A world of difference!   My running improved, my skin improved, my motivation improved.  I was starting to see my body take form out of the white pounds that accumulated just in the past two months since I stopped eating the Beauty Detox way that I had before.  

Then last night!  The raw cake!   I'm not going to sweat it but I just felt bad.   Cramping in my stomach before bed and a huge, hard painful belly in the morning!  Dates...I love you so much!  But we may have to say goodbye forever!   How sad that even just a few of you sparked a bad reaction...how much damage I must have been doing with eating a pound or more of you a day!    And why the reaction all of a sudden?   I ate so many dates before and I was fine.   It's a mystery but it's undeniably true that they are the culprit, unless it's the cashews but I literally only ingested a single cashew compared to 10 medjool dates.

I ate my bananas!   Now I must run--I'm looking forward to it!