Here we are at week nine, and every time I tell people what I am doing they are still fascinated, scared, interested — in general, I still get a huge mixed ball of emotions. I want to emphasize to anyone that this may seem like a difficult journey to take on, but as with any practice in life, it ends up becoming second nature. Habits start developing faster than you even thought possible. For example, I would never eat breakfast in the morning prior to this diet. In fact, I felt nauseated half the time when I would actually eat this most important meal of the day! Now, it’s become a natural part of life—we wake up, drain the oat groats, refill the other containers, add in whatever fruits or nuts we want and enjoy the flavors of the morning.
These habits are also beneficial to those with a busy lifestyle—and seriously folks, who isn’t busy these days? If you think about it, taking one day to go grocery shopping, prepare your food for the week and have it nicely ready to go when you are is a huge time saver. The lifelong question “What are we going to eat for this meal?” is solved before it’s even asked. This alone gives me extra free time to get more tasks done, meanwhile everyone around me is still debating over whether to go to Arby’s or McDs.
Purified water, just one of the many essentials needed for a raw foodies diet, since most raw recipes require lots of soaking.
Which means lots of refilling bottles during grocery shopping.
The really exciting part for me (amongst all the other benefits) is when someone else notices my energy level and get just as energized and excited about utilizing the diet as Cameron and I am. One coworker in particular latched on completely, asking me questions from where I buy my food, to what my favorite recipes were, to how much time it takes. After first referring to the articles here on Goodlifer, I had him jot down a few basic components that we found helpful. This included previous books mentioned and the CSA locator website.
New tools for some new raw pasta.
One warning I gave to him was that indeed raw food prep is a very time consuming process that takes up the majority of our Sundays. Although this has given Cameron and I an opportunity to explore new ways of spending time together. After hearing an interview with an author of an interesting book, The Zookeeper’s Wife, Cameron and I decided to download the audio book. Chopping, washing and prepping our food for the week became such a prime time to listen to an audio book. For some the thought of spending five hours in the kitchen seems like an eternity. Listening to a good audio book, podcast, or music station is a perfect way to help those five hours seem like just a few. I must admit there are some Sunday mornings where I just want to stay in bed and have someone else do the work. Though, once I get going, the day allows for new thoughts to flood my head and I again remember the joys of reconnecting to my food and its preparation.
Reconnecting with my food never felt so good. Shelling pistachios clears the mind.
This notion of reconnecting to my food and ideas flooding my head is something I haven’t felt since my college years. I must say that the newfound energy and creativity that this diet has provided has impressed me. In fact, I have so many new concepts and ideas that pour into my head I had to invest in new technology, a laptop, to keep up with the rapid pace at which my thoughts were going. Being a graphic designer, it is apparent to me that this diet has helped spawn new creative energy. And as my weeks of this journey are nearing the end, I look forward to adapting the diet and continuing on this raw creative energetic path.
