5 Most Important Things to Do BEFORE You Go Raw

1. Learn what detox is.

Seriously, I think this is the MOST important thing to do before switching to raw foods. Why? Because otherwise you will think raw food makes you sick, and that you can’t “handle” raw foods. That it might work for other people, but not YOU.

It’s garbage. You have the same internal organs as every other human (unless they were born with a genetic defect or had something removed beforehand).

You cannot expect to go raw overnight, or even within a week or a month without having some crazy “symptoms” – which is just your body cleaning out all the old crap you’ve put into it your whole life. This is a process!

I was eating some cooked food over the winter – not even anything “bad” – just potatoes, and steamed veggies! I went back to all raw at the beginning of June and had no problems, until a few days ago – then I got the same symptoms I always get if I eat cooked and go back to raw – sore throat (acidic, mucusy crap getting ready to heave!), a small cough, then mucus to cough up, a sniffly nose with more mucus to come out, and lethargy – I get light headed and very sleepy. Oh and I get zits. Yay.

All this from a few months of having a little cooked food.

Now imagine what will happen when you go from eating meat, or processed foods, or whatever else you have been eating your whole life? You will probably have a NASTY time and think that raw food is making you sick – actually, it is making you BETTER. It is not actually the food making you better or worse, though – it is the removal of everything that has been making you sick. When I first went raw I was HAPPY to get “sick” because I knew my body was cleaning out. I had read a lot about what would happen so I was like “Gurl, okay!”

I went about it over a course of two months and cut out things one at a time. I hadn’t had red meat or poultry for 12 years, fish for a year, and in those two months up to going raw I had zero animal products. So my detox was not so bad, but if I had not known what to expect, I may have blamed the food and gone back to what I had always done and just medicated myself forever. Booooooo.

If you have had a history of eating a diet with a lot of animal products, I can imagine you will get pretty “sick” so go slowly. You may even want to get colonics or do enemas at home. If you have a degenerative disease, you may want to look into supervised water fasting.

There is a lot of info out there about detoxing via raw foods, so look into it. Ignore the “detox” crap out there that is just looking to make money off you (the stuff you see in stores) – why detox to retox? You have to completely change your lifestyle otherwise you are wasting your time. Once you get through the crappy feelings, you will emerge a DYNAMO. Seriously. Expect miracles.

2. Be prepared.

Make sure you always have a bounty of food around you – fill your fridge with fresh produce. Fill your counter with fruit. Fill your garden with seeds! Fill your cupboards with bowls (you should not have much in your cupboards because you want fresh food – if anything is in your cupboards it should be nuts, seeds, seaweeds, dried herbs if you want. Nix oils, vinegar, salt.

Also be prepared to spend more money on food. You will save money in the long run on doctors, medicine, make-up, etc – you won’t need it. Invest in yourself.

Also expect to eat MORE. Raw foods have less calories than you may be used to, so the volume of food you will be eating may seem excessive. Eventually it will seem normal. Eat as much raw food as you want – the more fruit + greens the better – take it easy on the nuts and seeds (though at first, don’t worry too much – eventually you will not want so much of those things. I was eating 4-5 avocados a day when I started, now 1/2 is enough for me).

3. Toss out everything you won’t eat anymore, or donate it.

This is self-explanatory – but if it’s around you, you are more likely to have a weak moment and indulge, especially if you are not eating enough carbohydrates (FRUIT).

4. Have constant inspiration.

Read as much as you can, and watch videos. I do this daily and have for almost 5 years now. I never get bored of it, so find some good raw inspo. Here are my favourite blogs + youtube channels:

Youtube:
Fully Raw Kristina. My favourite! She is beautiful, eloquent, passionate, and exuberant!
Tim van Orden. He is the most INSPIRING guy! LOVE him.
Freelee. She’s a saucy one! Not everyone’s cup of tea but I love her passion! Plus she is a hottie!
Megan Elizabeth. A sweet slice of raw pie, this one! Great recipes and humour.
80/10/10 + Douglas Graham. Lots of inspiring interviews here, too.
Durianrider. Funny and controversial.
Matt Monarch + Angela Stokes – I’ve followed these two for over 4 years and they definitely have a lot of great info to share!
Dan the Life Regenerator. Full of passion and love.

Blogs + Websites:

30 Bananas a Day. Raw food community!
The Garden Diet. A long-term, raw food family.
Addicted to Veggies. My friend Sarahfae has some inspiring gourmet raw recipes.
Natalia Rose. She has some AMAZING old articles, check them out.
Tera Warner. This woman is non-stop information!

Books: All listed here.

5. Have an ethical stance.

Getting cravings is normal – you will have memories of  certain things tasting amazing, or things that calmed you down, comforted you, whatever. Some of these things may be foods that come from animals or are animal flesh.

Without an ethical stance behind your decisions you may be tempted to eat these foods again. Make sure you know what goes on behind the scenes and burn those images into your brain.

This movie will change your life:

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Photo by Dragan*

One Words: Consume

I am a consumer.

I consume luster, and begonias.

I delight in butterflies, dandelions, waterslides.

I devour watercolours and diamond capped mountains.

I breathe in the air on the crests of waves.

I eat up nectarines dropping off branches.

I lick the sweat of lovers.

I let my eyes and brain decipher letters on paper into stories and lessons and I swallow them forever, they become a part of me.

I dive into oceans and wade with fish.

I will swim along with the sharks instead of harming them.

I bear witness to the horrors of life so I can avoid contributing to them.

I beautify myself with plants instead of buying potions to disguise the symptoms of faulty living.

I buy that which actually fills me up instead of that which is only a temporary bandage.

I notice the small things, I slow down, I focus my attention on things no one ever sees,
the miniscule, the lovely.

The consumption of life is so much better than the consumption of objects.

Shiny Things

I am just too interested in everything.

I am like a crow with shiny things – except shiny things to me can be almost anything (including shiny things.)

This love of information is overwhelming, crushing, and terrifying, because I know I will never take it all in – the amount of beauty out there is staggering – it’s on the same scale as the horrors, but so many people only focus on the bad stuff – and as much as I try to bear witness, I cannot get too deep into the despair because I will seriously drown, and it will mar the beauty I want to swim in.

I was in a lovely mood tonight but when out for dinner, the first hour of conversation was so bleak that I just felt myself crumble. Eventually I mumbled, “Can we talk about something else?”

I am so sensitive – I have always been this way. It made me a target and eventually I conjured the shield of snarliness and venom. I can take offense at the dumbest things, but lately I have been very aware of my reactions and try not to get too upset when someone might just ask something at the wrong time (usually when I am tired). I am also sensitive to negativity, and when everything becomes too dark I want to run away to a shiny, pretty, candy mountain, or float off like a dandelion puff.

I like to focus on beauty. This strawberry I am eating is orgasmic. I could be swept away in the juicy scarlet luster of this strawberry – I could even get one tattooed on my neck (oh wait, I did that).

The highlight of my day was receiving two books I ordered at work, an expensive novel and an illustrated novel. I was enchanted by an interview with Neil Gaiman and then felt excitement well up in me to read his stuff again after not reading it for years.

I get gooey every time I see a little dog puttering down the street. I get flames of love when I think about all the beautiful creatures I will help in Thailand. I was so catapulted by fruit sugar and a rare piece of cacao that during work all I could imagine was jumping like a dingbat on my rebounder. I am delirious with excitement about my work’s raw vegan summer party tomorrow, and even more stoked to go pillage the downtown library for more graphic novels.

I could live at the library. I could spend all my day writing and drawing. I could vanish into a K-hole of travel as if I was in a tube of rainbows.

Yeah, a lot of aspects of life blow huge bloody globules, but man, there is so much other gorgeousity, look UP for once.

~~

Here’s a pic of me in shiny things, taken at a Peaches concert in 2009.

One Words: Brave

I am planning a trip to Thailand and Australia (where I’ve already been) for next winter, around January or February, so I can escape the winter here, at least for a while. This is my long-term goal – to travel all winter, and to live it up in Vancouver in the summer – I love Vancouver summers, with the lovely tree lined beaches and the copious blueberries.

At first the idea of Thailand excited me – after a few months, though, the idea started to terrify me. I started focusing on all the possible BAD things – the way animals are treated and the types of things they eat (!), the possible diseases (and I do NOT want vaccines or medication), the HEAT, the language barrier, the long distances between all the places I want to go (of course my two specifics are in south and northern Thailand). At least I have a friend in Bangkok. Of course my family and boyfriend have told me other horrible things, too.

I have never traveled to a country that does not speak English, by myself. I have been to Brazil (my uncle lives there and speaks Portuguese), and I have been to France (also with my uncle, who speaks French), but otherwise everywhere I have been has been English speaking and not scary at all.

I decided to hype myself up about it today, and realize that going there is going to make me even more brave. I am a pretty ballsy person and not much scares me – in fact I eradicated my only phobia a couple of years ago (earthquakes) because of a quote I read about anxiety (damn I wish I had that quote) – basically it was akin to saying that when you are in a bad situation, your fight-or-flight will kick in and you just KNOW how to respond, which will be entirely different than you could ever picture – so worrying about it is kind of pointless.

This is not to say I don’t want to know any inherent dangers – my boyfriend and my parents are worried about me going there alone, but I am an obsessive researcher and by the time I go, I will be really well-read about the country. I even did this before I went to New Zealand and Australia – that was my first huge trip on my own.

Every time I have made a big decision, things have occurred that have made me braver, stronger, and more inclined to take on intimidating pursuits. I’ve also come away from all of those experiences a much smarter person.

Bravery is one of those kinds of things that flow – the more you do, the more brave you become, and the ballsier you get. I went from the kid afraid of the low diving board to being excited to jump off high rocks into a mountain creek. I went from being the most sensitive, scared child to being the most whip-snap defensive woman you can imagine (not that I am always like that, but I have the ability!)

So why do I want to go to Thailand?

It’s cheap (once you’re there). Tropical, ripe, local fruit to gorge on. Volunteering at an elephant sanctuary. Volunteering at an amazing dog shelter. To see my friend. To dance into the night. To lay in the sun. To swim in WARM waters. To relax. To heal. To get massages on a regular basis. To see beautiful sights. Bury myself in beach sands. To experience something completely foreign. To be taken out of my comfort zone. To challenge myself. To have something awesome to write about. To meet other people. So many reasons, and these are the things I must focus on, to keep a positive, excited attitude instead of getting sucked in my fears – my own and other people’s.

Australia I just want to go again because I want to see my amazing friend, in a new city where I have not been (Melbourne) and enjoy the country in a way I was not able to do the first time around.

Travel, I think, makes you a much braver person, a smarter person, and happier. At the end of life, I will be glad I went.

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One Words are a series of one-word prompts I felt compelled to do. This is the first.

Photo source: Unknown (found on tumblr).

No WHAT Without WHY

Wants are going to fizzle out, or go nowhere, without WHYS.

What do you want? Why do you want it?

I always wanted to be happier, healthier, fitter – but I never stuck to it until I had a real reason, and one that was really important to me – or even a life or death thing, like changing my diet.

I had no degenerative disease (that I know of, but things percolate for years before showing up, usually) but I was so mentally distressed that I was at a point of wanting to kill myself, which had never crossed my mind before. I didn’t really want to die but sometimes it was so incessant that I really believed I did.

So there was my reason – I wanted to live, and in order to do that, I had to get healthy, and I knew my diet was the place to start.

But now, my goal is to be even healthier. In fact, last night I realized my goal was to be “Healthy as FUCK.”

But why? Why am I suddenly able to stick to an exercise routine, especially jogging/running which tends to bore me after 5 minutes? I can push past it now and enjoy it.

This is a really good thing to break down for ANY aspiration you may have – be like an obnoxious toddler and ask WHY until you get to the DEEPEST reason.

I already know why I want to eat well. So, why do I want to be fit?

To be healthier, leaner, stronger, more youthful. For longevity.

Why?

So I can live longer to experience more. So I can say YES to anything and be able to keep up. So I can look great for a very long time. So I will be self-sufficient and mobile until I die. So I can escape people who want to harm me. So I can be capable and independent.

Why?

So I can experience more. To be happy. So I can take part in more things without getting tired. Self-confidence.

Why?

So I feel like I am really living.

Why?

To feel free.

Generally all my goals come down to the same thing: Freedom.

And why do I want freedom? Because I want to really live – this flips back and forth: really living, freedom, really living, freedom, etc.

So I know those are my base reasons for doing pretty much everything.

I learned this method a long time ago in a little class I took, and we ended up writing our “Why” words on wooden boards (mine was Freedom), and then over a half hour we revved ourselves up and learned how to break the boards with our hands. Once you do that, you feel like you can do anything! I kept that board for years, and it was a good reminder that my ultimate goal was freedom, so I can do all the things I REALLY love to do.

I am not completely free – true freedom in North America is a complete illusion – but I am definitely on my way, and I have a lot more freedom than most people I know, because I focus on it.

To know the WHY is a good way to figure out if your desires and pursuits are even worthy of your time. Your base reasons may be completely frivolous and you won’t even know it – you may realize that you want something for such a backwards reason – like buying shoes because you want to be loved, or wanting to go sky-diving so people think you are brave, but those are not really things you want to do for your SELF.

So what is your WHY?

Revelation : You Don’t Have to Think

When you find yourself, like I did, the other day, with thoughts that will just not leave you alone, with thoughts that scream at you, pester you, and cling to you like all eight octopus legs, smothering and suffocating you – you may be hit with an epiphany. The thought “UGH, I am so tired of thinking about this” led me to answering myself:

“You don’t HAVE to think about it, you know.”

I sort of thought to myself, “What? Huh…that’s true.” And with that, my mind cleared and my body relaxed. I sunk deeper into my pillow, further into my bones. I pushed those worries aside and chose to think other things. I didn’t HAVE to worry. I didn’t HAVE to obsess. I didn’t HAVE to linger.

And I could sleep.

~

A really amazing practice to “stop thinking” was introduced to me via The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (I must admit I never finished the book) – you know when you are thinking endlessly, and it feels like you cannot control your thoughts – but you just want to turn them off?

Well, think “I wonder what my next thought will be?” and then wait for it. You are now in the “listening” part of your mind – when you assimilating with that area of your consciousness, and you start to be the LISTENER…your thoughts VANISH. It’s weird. When I did it, initially, it didn’t last for a huge length of time. But it was enough to  give me some reprieve. I was heartbroken and wanted so badly to not think of that asshole, to just have some peace, even for a minute.

It works, and it works well.

Anytime you are sick of thinking, turn off your brain this way. Choose your thoughts.

Realize you don’t HAVE to think at all. You can just dream.

I Want to Do Everything

I need to cast off “jobs” and gain “EXPERIENCES.”

I need to turn sleep into an imagination factory – dreams into drawings, dreams into novels. dreams into music.

I need to bless every second with conscious OOMPH. i need to fire up every moment with a zing that it would not have otherwise – those zings are always there – neurons and atoms and little crazy invisible things happening, if we tune into them we can jump in and  ride their carpets – dancing and flipping cartwheels on top of radio waves.

It’s time to ride the wild ribbons of life, people. put on a cowboy hat and prepare to hang on, because when you are truly living, you end up naked, vulnerable, and absolutely glowing.

The Joy of Solitude

The thrill of being alone – do you know what it’s like?

The people who don’t like being alone don’t like themselves, or they would relish their time by themselves.

When else can you do your best work? When else can you just BE? When else can you just feel a divine spark whirling away in your brain? When else can you just LISTEN and see what you really want out of your life?

I have a two year old niece who will play by herself and sing about how much she loves to be alone. She is fiercely independent. Her sister is the opposite – they’ve been raised the same way.

I am an only child (I acquired two step-brothers as an adult, hence the nieces) and because of this, I learned early to immerse myself in my imagination.

Initially I hated being left alone, and I always had issues making friends because I was weird and sensitive. My vivid imagination was supported, my father told me Greek myths for bedtime stories, he would draw out flags for me to colour, and my artistic nature was very much supported, as was writing when that piqued my interest. I was able to chase after all my creative lusts – music, drawing, word-weaving.

I was also told to be realistic as I got older, something I wish I had never listened to. Most of the time I didn’t listen to anyone except myself – I had enough alone time to really hear my desires, and to really know what was true for me. I had no pressures from imbeciles – any of those people sort of removed themselves from my life, anyway, or showed me their true nature right off the bat – kids are good at doing that. They have no screens like adults do.

People who like being alone tend to love themselves – otherwise they are bored, always searching for someone else to do things with, anxious over doing anything alone, or convinced that their lives would be better if they could share everything. I agree that doing things with other people tends to make things more fun, depending on what it is – but when you feel confident enough to do even basic things on your own, you know you adore yourself, and guess what? No one is judging you – they are thinking you are awesome because you are independent and wicked enough to just do shit – they’re jealous.

Maps + Update for May

I find that getting motivated and sticking to goals requires some SPECIFIC goals.

Like when I initially went raw, I had a timeline for myself:

Feb 1st, 2008, vegan, no refined sugar. Every week I would cut something else out – tofu, rice, potatoes, bread, other sweeteners like cane juice, etc.

April 1st, 2008, 100% raw vegan.

It worked, I stuck to it. I’ve had some little ups and downs but generally I have been raw for over 4 years with some minor blips. And I have never returned to refined sugars, cheese, cakes, etc – nothing like that. The worst I got was some baguette in Paris.

And so it is June 1st – I have been low-fat for the whole month of May, with the exception of today – it was a bit of a celebration, and also a good-bye – a good-bye to potatoes (which I used to help me stay low-fat this month, occasionally), and a good-bye to salt. I have been eating it way too much (I
don’t want to eat it at all) and I can push out my stomach so far that I look pregnant – that’s how bloated I am. When I gave up salt before I lost 10 lbs in a week.

Now I am dropping the salt. I am keeping low-fat and back to 100% raw.

I am also very proud of my exercise dedication this last month, and my chart has really helped – I took it seriously and wanted to make sure I filled it as much as possible. This was doable because I had very specific goals instead of “I want to be 80/10/10″ – why? Without a why, I had no real reason to stick with it.

This last month I have discovered the following:

With low-fat, I get ZERO menstrual cramps. I finally found out the mystery of why I have had awful periods since going raw (everything else improved, that got worse – I had no issues with menstruation before raw, only after).

With low-fat…I can run.

Seriously, in my whole life whenever I have attempted to run, or jog…I lasted a minute at most. When I was trying to be a runner in 2000, I never improved much – I could go 30-60 seconds and have to take a break. This month I was inspired to go jogging and would improve every time. At first I could only go a minute without a break. The next week (I only went every couple of days) I could do 5 minutes without stopping – this for me was amazing.

Two days later (doing nothing on those two days except some arm weights) I went 20 minutes with NO breaks – I was BAFFLED. All this in two weeks of going every 2-3 days. I improved so much, and felt so good, that I started to ENJOY jogging. Now I WANT to go. Now I WANT to be able to do it for an hour! A new goal!

And why am I exercising? To be fit. To have a lean body. To stay healthy. To have strong bones. To have good endurance. To work out my heart – it’s a muscle, and it needs to be worked. To move lymph fluid. To prove to myself I can do something I thought I could NEVER do.

Also when I am low-fat, my skin is better. When I have no salt, my skin is better and my stomach is leaner. So is my face. Food tastes better. I can eat lettuce by itself and it’s amazing. Avocado starts to be delicious without anything added.

And on and on.

Which brings me to the map.

Along with my simple chart, I thought it would be fun to have a simple map I could just add any goal to and then mark specific steps over the month – this way I have something to follow instead of being all haphazard – maybe some people can just be like “Okay, this is this and I’m doing it” – for me, I like to have a basic idea to follow.

Little steps are much easier to reach, and to break down a big goal to small steps makes it a lot easier to get to the “end” – the whole reason I managed to run that 20 minutes the first time (which I would have thought impossible, especially since my max before that was 5 mins) was that I just kept saying “Okay you can make it to that tree…okay now you can make it to that driveway…okay now make it to that post” and eventually I thought…wow, I am almost at Oak street! Maybe I can make it there! Then I did, and I thought holy crap, I am still moving! Maybe I can make it all the way home! And I did.

ALL BECAUSE I USED POSITIVES – not “Oh god, I can’t do it, I’m so tired, omg I need a break” etc – I pushed myself maybe 10 steps at a time, and focused only on those 10 steps, and that got me all the way.

I have no doubt that I can reach one hour now. Maybe not within the next week, but that is my new goal for the next month or two – I am going to stretch it to two, but if I do it before then, AWESOME.

Same with my diet – over the next month I want to really simplify it – first week no salt, and any combo of fruits and greens, low-fat. 2nd week, still no salt, no fats, 3rd + 4th weeks, mono-meals of fruit, salads in evening, low-fat every couple of days.

In July, when it’s blueberry season, I want to do a week of JUST blueberries. Like 10 lbs a day. Oh my god I cannot wait.

I also want to drink 2 litres + of water per day and get as much sleep as possible, earlier the better.

I am going to photograph my physical progress and write down my daily and weekly changes, then share them at the end of the month.

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Regarding the rest of my goals in the past month, I did quite a bit of writing – I only missed 12 days of the month for writing fiction, and I only missed 6 days of writing for the blog. I only missed 5 days of exercise. I stayed 80/10/10 (with occasional potatoes) 30 days of the 31 – today being my bye-bye to salt and fancy foods. I had a bit too much fat today! Oh well.

So, bye-bye to May! I enjoyed you and the first sunny days of 2012. June is going to rule!

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I have been finding this guy’s videos hella inspiring.