After a wild weekend in Austin Texas with my very best friend from Cali, I ventured into a new way of eating. My friend recommended a book called The Raw Food Detox by Natalia Rose. I went on Amazon and purchased that one as well as Detox 4 women. She talks about different levels of the raw diet, and how you should go slow at first.
I implemented the "Green Lemonade" and fruit only all morning. Except I still had a cup of coffee. I then had a BIG salad for lunch with either avocado or goat cheese. Then I would have a Lara Bar, because I was definitely feeling crazed without any protein. Or I would have some celery with Raw Almond butter. Then for dinner another big raw veggie salad and fish with steamed veggies, a slice of sprouted bread with a little butter. For desert a few squares of Green & Blacks 70% cocoa/chocolate . Very satisfying....very filling.
The trick is to eat the raw salad for lunch and dinner before anything else. It fills you up and you do not need to over eat the things that proceed. That alone has helped immensely.I made pasta the other night and after my big salad I only needed a small helping of the pasta. I felt satisfied because I didn't want to eat more pasta. Before, I would have tried to eat a small helping and would most likely go in for seconds. But it's totally different when you feel satisfied and don't want it. Something about "dieting" and feeling deprived. It's so painful.
She also goes into food combining and digestive info on improperly combined foods. It's no wonder there are so many products for digestive health on the market.
It is basically broken down into two groups: Fast exit foods and slow exit foods. Slow exit foods take a long time to digest. They sit in your intestines and body so long they begin to ferment. I think of the term "stick to your ribs" when I think of this type of meal. These foods are obvious. Meat, white flour anything, processed food...
Fast exit food is the quickest food to digest; veggies, fruit etc... This is the best way to eat for good health for so many reasons. Slow exit foods cause weight gain as well. Fast exit cleans all the gunk out. The quicker it exits the less accumulates as fat.
I also came across a very interesting movie called "Raw for thirty days".It is a documentary about a group of people with Diabetes who go on a retreat and go raw for thirty days. I have not seen it yet but the trailer is intriguing.
For me, it's not that I want to go totally raw. But I have really improved my diet by adding all these wonderful raw foods. I have always strived to incorporate "live foods" in our diet. Now it has increased immensely and I do not crave the bad foods I used to. I always considered myself an accidental vegetarian. So it seems this is the next obvious step on my path.
Bottom line, if you could add two raw salads as the first course of lunch and dinner, drank fresh green juice each morning, at the very least never eat fruit after any meal and always wait 30 minutes after eating fruit to eat anything else, omit pasteurized dairy products and all white flour & sugar, and all processed foods. We'll be good to go! Sounds easy right?
I highly recommend her books! Very informative and great for the beginner raw foodist!
