I debated over what I should use for my R blog post. I’ve been a Rottmayer for 36 years today! Yes, indeed, 36 years ago I married the man of my dreams who remains that along with being my best friend, confidant and partner in crime. But we aren’t going to celebrate until this evening so I figured I’d go with something else that’s been pretty important to me over the past eight months: eating a low fat, high carb, RAW diet. 

 I began eating raw on September 1 of last year. I was going to do it at a later date but my friend, Chickee (who is the one who inspired me) challenged me to just do it that day. So I did. 

Earlier in the year, David and I had both made a 21 day trip to Banana Island and I found then that it was the absolutely, positively, easiest way to give up refined sugar. I’ve had such a sweet tooth my whole life. I never could get how, when you go on a diet they say, to replace a cookie with an apple. It just didn’t compute.

 Fruit is a huge part of my morning and afternoon meals, though. For the first month of eating this way, I felt so sweeted out that I felt like I had a pico de gallo deficiency. 😀 I would seriously crave something unsweet by the time the dinner meal rolled around and it was usually pico de gallo for several weeks. 

I’ve come to a more balanced approach over the months and I incorporate greens into my smoothies so I’m not getting entirely fruit. I still have no cravings for sweets and my dinner meal is usually a more savory one.

So what do I eat in a day?

Breakfast is almost 100% of the time a smoothie that I make with 1/2 a bag of spinach, seven bananas, a big handful (I have big hands hee hee) of frozen strawberries and green tea for the liquid. It’s SOOOOOOO good. Even David has it every morning now that we’re living together again.

Oftentimes for lunch I will have the very same thing. Now that we’re getting into spring and there are different varieties of fresh fruits at the store, I will sometimes have a mono meal of just one fruit. Mangoes are a new love and black grapes. Holy smokes I cannot eat enough black grapes! 

I love going to the Mexican grocery and the Asian grocery because they have a lot of different produce than I’m not used to seeing. A gal that David works with is going to give me the addresses for farmers markets so we can start checking those out as well. 

My dinner is usually a huge salad with dressing made out of more veggies. The favorite at present involves a zucchini, half a red pepper, a tablespoon of tahini, some apple cider vinegar and some seasonings. It makes a LOT of dressing. I don’t konw about you but I have a hard time eating an undressed salad. Dressing just makes it more fun and I’m convinced that once you find a raw vegan dressing that you love, this way of eating becomes a whole bunch easier to stick with.

I had to teach myself to be able to eat more veggies. When I first started eating veggie meals for dinner, I’d add up the calories and, even though it seemed like I had eaten so much, it was only 200 calories. Yikes! I’m a big, active person and that’s just not enough calories to keep me going, ultimately.

Now, my salad typically has two heads of romaine in it or the equivalent. If I eat a zoodle dish, I will sometimes eat up to four zucchini not counting any that are in the sauce.

I love that I can eat as much as I want and I’ve lost a ton of weight. More importantly, my face looks different, I look younger. I have boundless energy and I rarely have aches and pains unless it’s because I’ve jacked my training up and those are the good kinds of aches to have. 😀

When I started this, I only wanted to be able to go down the slide at the park with the glambaby and not have to go to bed as soon as I dropped her off at home. But I’ve gained SO much more. I’m pretty sure I’ll eat this way forever. 

Do I eat raw 100% of the time? No. There are some instances where it’s really difficult. For instance, we went to Poland in February. Being a raw vegan in the middle of a Polish winter would have been a tough thing to do. Plus, there are so many other places I want to travel that I’m not sure I will ever get back to Poland so I loosened it up and let myself enjoy a Paczi and other cooked foods. 

As I mentioned above, it’s our 36th wedding anniversary today and we have a reservation at Morton’s Steakhouse for dinner. I do not plan to remain raw tonight and I might actually have a bite or two of chocolate cake. 

But raw living is for me, without a doubt. If you are feeling crappy and want some more energy or want to drop some weight, or sort out blood sugar issues (OMG there are SO many benefits), give a raw diet a whirl. You might like it! 😀