First Marker

Tonight marks my first full week raw.  Things learned so far:

• Cauliflower finely ground in a coffee grinder makes a pretty damn good substitute for cous cous and mashed potatoes.
• There's a restaurant/caterer in the Towson area that sells dishes to Wholefoods called Zia's.  It makes a raw apple cobbler that, though slightly scary looking, is the best apple cobbler I've ever tasted.
• There's a restaurant in Fell's called Liquid Earth that makes an amazing raw Chai Smoothy.
• I'm missing the part of my food processor that makes the blade spin (hence the use of the coffee grinder).

Effects noticed thus far:

• Skin is clearing up, complexion more even.
• Body toning up in arms, legs, and abdomen.
• Bags under eyes pretty much gone.
• Body feels lighter and lankier.
• Eyes more vibrant.

The only downside I've noticed, or rather, benefit I expected but have not yet experienced has been the increase in energy that so amazed me the first time.  However, I don't necessarily attribute this to the diet itself.  Returning from spring break to the college that I no longer want to attend, while the person who I want most to be on this campus is across the world, and freaking out about being behind in school work became somewhat overwhelming.  Not to mention that I have a predisposition for hormone/chemical imbalances, for which I had stopped taking medication last semester (and was doing great up until C left for New Zealand), as well as a predisposition for escapism.  

So, yeah. Not feeling the energy yet and sort of struggling a little (and ironically not with the slightly extremist, quite difficult diet I'm attempting but rather with everything else).  Well, at least something is coming easily right now.  As I work at coping with the school situation and day by day deal with the distance between C and I, I am hoping that the mood and energy will lift.  We're breaking it all into manageable chunks and tackling one at a time.  Today not only marks my first week raw, but also the purchase of my plane ticket to New Zealand on May 8th.  This Friday is the half way point of C and my time apart, as well as the opening night of my friend's musical AND my roommate's and my "Christmas in March."  The week of April 1st I go home for the weekend.  From the weekend after that I only have 1 more month until I leave.  Then it's all down hill with finals, packing up the apartment, packing for New Zealand, etc...  Manageable chunks.  

My aim is to continue with the raw foods up until I leave for New Zealand.  It's a lot more feasible down here than I initially believed (though it's proving to be pricey).  Once I find more farmer's market's and local natural food markets, hopefully I can more effectively cut costs.  Oh well.  Someone once said that it's all about learning.  Even in times where I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything else, I can't deny that I am at least learning something.

A Form of Recovery

As I continued to research the raw diet and search out support, I quickly learned that I was not the only person to use the diet as a means to heal an unhealthy relationship with food.  In all honesty, that is part of what my return to the diet encompasses.  The... problem... the disease... the anorexia... like other forms of addiction, it never truly goes away.  It lingers.  It becomes just as much of an addiction as alcoholism, as drug addiction.  The high of watching pounds fall off, the illusion of control and empowerment it provides makes you willing, hell, eager to reach more and more desperate lengths to sustain, to illicit a stronger high.  As much as I have tried to recover over the last nine years, there remains a part of me that refuses to let go of that outlet completely.

In the midst of stress, turmoil, pain, old habits happily resurfaced, as alluring and promising as old ghosts can be.  I used it to gain back control when I felt helpless, to punish myself for creating the body I had hated, to quiet pain when it was almost unbearable, to detox.  It could serve any purpose I placed before it.

I won't say that I relapsed.  That sounds too harsh.  But when my boyfriend left for New Zealand, well, food took the back burner.  Cooking became a burden, eating a nuisance.  As much as I focused on being strong, on moving forward and not wallowing, self-nourishment (even in something like exercising) was almost painful, as if caring for myself caused me to more vividly feel the absence of the one who most passionately cares for me.      

It's impossible to do the raw diet without caring for yourself, without a love for yourself.  To embark upon such a difficult and even isolatory journey can only be fueled by a passion for your own well being and health.  The raw diet is my determination to recovery.  Hell, I spend most of my time trying to figure out how I can eat more so that I don't become malnourished.

Today's meals: fruit for breakfast, raw pizza from a raw chef back home, and raw pancakes made from flaxmeal, agave, and water (though I want to experiment more with that recipe once I have more produce in the dorm).

Raw 101

Now, to explain the raw diet. You cannot eat anything that at any point of its existence has been cooked, processed, or heated over 110-118 degrees.  This means anything, even liquids, if you are attempting at 100% raw foodism.  I, however, am not.  My goal is somewhere around 95-99%.  I still drink tea and some fruit juices because I have problems ingesting water and don't want to dehydrate.

I first encountered the raw food diet when I was 17.  At the time I was five years into enabling, recovering from, and relapsing into anorexia.  Food and weight plagued me.  I had grown up a somewhat overweight child, only to drastically lose a third of my body mass during 7th grade.  From that point on I moderated my underweight body through fasts, diets, calorie counting, etc...  When I was 17, a friend of mine introduced me to vegan theory.  Being quite intrigued, I researched into the lifestyle and stumbled upon raw foodism.

Basically, if it's raw, you can eat it.  As much of it as you want. There's no thinking or counting.  It's either raw, or it's not.  I remember I "went raw" May 30th of that year.  By the end of the first week, I felt amazing.  With more energy than I knew what to do with, I bounced around school as if on crack.  But more importantly, for the first time in years I no longer thought about food.

Being raw, I felt healthier than I have at any other point in my life.  My skin cleared up.  What flab I had on my body turned into lean muscle.  I had excessive energy.  My allergies cleared up.  Health issues I had had for a while began to clear up.  It was as if I had happened across a miracle diet that provided perfect health and frame.

However, the diet is incredibly hard to maintain.  Stress early that summer caused me to falter, and I went back to previous eating habits.  Since then, something or other (whether convenience, mind set, desire) has prevented me from returning to that lifestyle whole heartedly.  Until now.

To bring back to school with me, I had bought a number of pre-made raw dishes (including pizza, blueberry pie, and spaghetti and meatballs), produce, and certain stables like Bragg's Liquid Aminos and my "cook" books.  So far, as I begin day three, so good.

Prologue

Maori mythology explains creation in three major cycles.  This first, Te Kore, is the stage of nothingness, the void.  The second, Te Po, encompasses the night, or phase of darkness.  Then, finally, comes Te Ao-marama, the phase of light and emergence.

One night about a month ago, while skyping my boyfriend, he excitedly related this aspect of Maori mythology after a day of exploring islands off of the coast of New Zealand.  He had only just landed in the country to study at the University of Auckland for the semester and so was a stranger to the land and culture.  Since he and I had begun dating, we hadn't spent more than two consecutive nights apart.  Despite the excitement of exploring a new country and the promise of my own trip there to meet him in May, the expansive three months apart felt like a death sentence.  The night he told me about these cycles - no more than four or five days in - was the first night that this trial seemed... manageable. Surmountable.  It gave him a beacon.

"You are my light, my love," he said with a serenity that I hadn't heard in few weeks before he left. "You are what I'm working towards. My marama."


I love that he calls me this, that I provide such meaning to him, but at the same time I can't help but wonder how he has found such a light in me when I haven't quite found it in myself. I've seen glimpses.  I know it's there... hell... I know more or less where it is, but laziness, apathy, and/or stubbornness have all prevented me from living in accordance with the truths I have discovered within myself - what I know I want to be.  That means being accountable again.  That means no longer living like I'm avoiding to do so.

So. Firstly, this means going raw - as in the raw food diet.  Also what I call "extreme veganism," going raw means that you don't heat anything you eat (at any point of its existence) over 110 degrees.  No meat, no processed foods, no cooked foods.  Though I initially intended to form this blog on the day that I began the diet - partly as a motivator to stick with it and log its duration - this entry got postponed by school work.  I am now on my second full day raw.  And now you are all caught up.