BBQ is not just for the 4th of July

Happy Thanksgiving

Update

In case you were wondering, I'm eating a combination of raw and cooked food now, and have been since the end of June. (In fact on July 1st I hosted a bar-be-que that was delicious.) I can say that I enjoy raw food and the community that eats it exclusively, who, by the way, is anything but exclusive--they are very welcoming. For me, a mix of raw and cooked food seems to be best.

In case you were wondering, we've taken on some challenges around here that will last longer than a month.

And if you are wondering why I haven't been blogging, I'll let the fact that I didn't finish mowing my yard until well after it was dark tonight be my answer. (Yes, I really am so horrible at keeping my life in order that I had to mow by Braille.)

In Cooked Food and In Raw

Last weekend we took our shopping dollars to a couple of farmer’s markets. The cherries are delicious. We also picked up some spinach, lettuce, peas, and carrots. Strawberry season is pretty much finished. The last pint Christa brought home from Whole Foods were moldy. I can see the winter months becoming pretty bleak for raw food choices. But now it’s perfect.

The best part about this month’s challenge was that I didn’t do it alone. It has been a joy to walk this path with my wife. Throughout the month we’ve been able to uniquely encourage each other. When she ate the last banana on day 8, I understood the importance of her text-message that simply said, “We need more bananas”. When I was on day 15 wondering if I could ever eat another banana, she was right there with me.

I’ve undertaken plenty of solo challenges, but this one seems more satisfying because I shared it with her.

Something Smells Funny

Funny thing I’ve noticed about folks that eat cooked food—they have an odor. Kindof like bad breath but not as nasty. Just a little bit of a funk. And the longer I go without cooked food, the more I notice it. I wonder if my sense of smell is becoming re-sensitized; or if in the absence of smelling that way myself I notice it in others.

When it first started happening I thought it was me that stunk. But, I asked a few friends and they couldn’t pick up my scent. So I asked my wife and she confided that food cookers were starting to smell a little to her as well. She also said, to her, everyone now smells the way I do after eating Indian food.

We were both getting whiffs of it while sitting in the theater tonight, weird.

(Mmm, Indian food….)

Got Bananas?

I'm starting to feel the groove of this raw fruit thing. After my last post I decided I would stop eating just to reach a certain number of calories. Instead, I've been eating to satisfaction. This has resulted in about 1400 calories a day and no more mid-meal stomach aches. I dropped about 10 pounds, but have been at the same weight for the last 4 days.

Our current challenge is finding ripe bananas. It seems that all anyone carries is green bananas, which is fine, but we already have 2 boxes of green bananas from Costco that we are waiting to ripen. What we need now is yellow! Christa and I stopped at 5 stores the other night until we finally found some. Delighted with our bounty, we rushed home and made smoothies. (4 bananas, 2 peaches and a handful of strawberries is my favorite.) We picked up enough to last a couple of days. When we went to work today we left our calorie-filled treasures on the counter. I guess the dog is jealous of our new found diet, because when Christa came home she found peels on the living room floor.

Christa emailed her friend Sarah P, and told her about my little postings. Sarah has made some great comments on my previous posts that I'd encourage you to go back and read.

One thing I hear a lot from people who are educated in the ways of eating healthy is, "O, you are on a cleanse." To that I say: "yes and no." Most "cleanses" are undertaken for the express purpose of de-toxing the body. They usually involve a strict diet that may not be healthy if continued for a long period of time. One in particular, the Master Cleanse, is all about lemon juice and fasting. During these ordeals people are rapidly attempting to flush toxins and in some cases parasites from the body. That is not what the 80/10/10 diet is about. We purposefully chose this diet because it is a healthy lifestyle, not a short-term treatment. While it is true, we have only committed to 30 days and we are certainly flushing out some toxins, this diet could easily become permanent. We are not on a cleanse.

Attachments

This weekend was wretched for treehousing. (A verbization which I take credit for; although each time I say it, it reminds me of that kid with the video and the puppets in The Sixth Sense.) It rained all day Saturday. I only got out for a couple of hours on Sunday. On Sunday I did manage to get one hole drilled and a new and improved piece of threaded-rod into it.

Tonight, the weather was perfect. Greg heard that I was climbing the trees and came over. He can be seen here wrenching one of the rods into place. Also clearly visible is the other attachment point for that tree. I came across these cool hillside washers in my quest to find stronger threaded-rod and they are sweet.

While Greg worked on that socket I drilled two holes in the other tree. One of them was unreachable from any branches so I had to get out the old climbing harness. Man its good to be back in the trees. Tonight it felt like we were making some real progress. If we can get the beams hanging from the actual attachment points by ropes, I can take measurements for the cables. And if the cables get done this week I could be hanging joists this weekend!

Also, the other night Christa brought Molly Steele over while her mommy had an appendectomy. I took that opportunity to give Molly a few choices and wouldn't ya know it? She went right for the apple.

Melon Blues

I'm certainly enjoying raw fruits. And I get the argument for eating stuff that our bodies seem predisposed for. However, if this is the stuff that I'm supposed to be eating, why is it a chore to eat so much? It seems that I'm in a constant battle to shovel fruit into my mouth. I don't eat when I'm hungry, because I never get hungry. As soon as I'm not full, I eat. Yet, I haven't topped 1513 calories in a day since we started.

It's too bad there has to be a catch.

"We have this wonderful diet of foods that you will love and your body can use. Oh, but you have to eat buckets full (bucketfulls?) of it."

Dr. Graham promises that my stomach will "stretch quickly to allow you to consume normal/health quantities of fruit." That may be true, but it hasn't happened yet.

I guess if it were easy, we wouldn't call it a challenge.

Drink Your Calories

I made a new friend to day. His name is OJ. He was hanging out a Jamba Juice and for only $4.85 he gave me 450 calories. Which is crazy since on my first 3 days of this raw food diet I averaged 900 calories.

Here's what I ate today:

Item	Grams	Calories
Breakfast
Jamba Juice Orange Juice, freshly squeezed, Power Size	992	450
Bananas (3)	354	315
Apples - Granny Smith (1)	241	121
Lunch
Bananas (2)	236	210
Peaches (1)	157	61
Dinner
Spinach, Baby (about 3 cups)	59	14
Lettuce, Looseleaf - Raw (about 2 cups)	112	17
Cucumber - With Peel, Raw (1 cup)	104	16
Tomatoes, Red, Ripe - Raw (1.5)	185	33
Carrots, Baby - Raw (10)	100	35
Raw Whole Almonds (1/4 cup)	30	180
Snacks
Peaches (1)	157	61
Total Calories Consumed		1,513

It breaks down like this:

• Carbs: 81.3%


• Protein: 7%


• Fat: 11.6%

Right on target as far as the percentages go. Still a little short on calories. I wonder if OJ has any friends?