8 Things (i wish someone would have told me) About Raw

...taking flight...

Anywhere you see a bright blue color...there's links for you!! xoxo

Almost Fearless posted an awesome blog that inspired me to write 8 things I wish someone would have told me about eating all RAW.

The totally unexpected, strange, amazing & exciting changes RAW might just put you through...

Here's the r  i  d  e:
1.  Clutter Discrimination: My tolerance for clutter has become about, um, none. If you know me personally, you know that I'm not known for a clean room or car. I will burn the midnight oil, but not to clean. It's always been an "in the mood" thing for me...and that happens once every few months. Lately though, I can't STAND my car or room being a mess. I see papers and have to organize them, weird. Cleaning the inside demands cleaning the outside apparently.

2. Green Side: My green side is showing.  It now drives me a little batty to buy a juice or tea drink out without my own reusable cup.  Not just that, but the reason my car is still a mess is because I refuse to throw my plastic & paper in the trash...the recycling bin IS in fact where it belongs. Yes.  Kind of relates to #1.

3. Feeding Yourself: I make pretty much all my own food & bring it with wherever I go. (The only food I ate yesterday was at True Food as they now have a raw hummus & veggie plate. OH MY GOSH delicious!! After I ate it though, I felt too full and my brain told me no more food for the day. So come late last night when I headed home, I was starving and had a very long drive so I grabbed a piece of banana walnut bread and munched it. My head had already started hurting and my stomach was achey from lack of food so I thought I should eat so I could sleep. Well, it would have been a better idea to stick a ten foot pole between the bread and I. My tummy really felt it after that. Woah.
Lesson learned. Bring more food.

4. Law of Attraction: Bringing the things I want into my life has never been easier!! Seriously.  I can literally think about something and minutes or hours later it's happening.
Fun. Amazing. Convenient. So, so, so much gratitude!

5. Mucus: Even raw cheese creates mucus in the body. (I know you're probably thinking DUH but it tasted so amazing and didn't leave an upset stomach or coated mouth behind, so I thought it was terrific!) Every time I eat it though, I wake up a little bit congested!  Another thing I just learned about congestion in general, is that anything cold will aggravate it...so you want to eat warm veggies, soups & probiotics to help kick it's slober-i-ness in the rear. ;-)

6.  Networking: My network extends daily. It's such a blast. People say, "Wait, you're doing what?!" It's great to extend the knowledge when others ask and it's totally fun to listen to all the different reactions.

7. Get Flat: My tummy got flat, fast. I haven't worked out and I'm not missing the pudge! It's so much fun.  I do, however, know that it's time to start sWeAtInG again. I've GOT to get the toxins that are releasing out of my body!

8. Fantastically Creative: (Well, I sort of knew this) Truly though, it is such a creative adventure. When I'm home, I mix things I never would have expected to go together...and THEN IT TASTES GOOD! When I'm out, I talk to the waiters about what I need and they are (usually) so accommodating. It's a total blast!

PLUS...

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." - Michael Jordan

Love. love. LoVe. Love. LOVE.

Recipes-Craving Busters

The Indiana boy who has been providing me loads of support just loveingly passed these two awesome recipes along:


Bread Craving Zapper
*1/4 cupish flax meal
*1/8-1/4 cupish ground nuts (I used pecans as that's what I had in the fridge)
*1/2 a lemon's juice
*A couple dashes of garlic powder or freshly chopped garlic
*A good shot of braggs amino acids. If you're not interested in using the braggs or nama shoyu the salt with water works just as well.
Mix to whatever consistency you desire, I went for a mush as I was hungry and didn't want to wait to dehydrate it all. 

Green Juice-Sugar Zzzzapper!
*Celery
*Green bok choy
*Napa cabbage
*Meier lemon
*Pink lady apple
Run through juicer and love love love it as it goes down!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

P.S. Do you have something to add? An experience, questions, recipes...creative ideas? Please please let me know and I'll post them! You can e-mail me anytime at 365daysofraw@gmail.com!

The "No Poo" Hair Solution-FINALLY!

BAKING SODA + LEMON JUICE = Golden Hair!

Here's the story:

About a year and a half ago, I went on a make up binge and spent $80.00 on eyeshadow and that stuff that conceals it on your eyes.  Three months later,  I quit wearing makeup for good.
I've actually found my true beauty underneath it all...and it's oh-so-sugary sweet!
I take about 20 minutes to get ready and that includes a shower. The longest part of my morning routine is making my food for the day...simple.

However, my hair has always been my "it" thing.  The one thing that I want to have cut and colored nicely because that means when I jump out of the shower in the morning, I can run my fingers through it, zig zag the part and have great hair all day long. Easy, right? Right.

So, the past 26 days have been a challenge for me.  I originally researched the "no-poo" method and found the baking soda and apple cider vinegar wash and went with it.  My hair has been greasy and then fluffy-dryish weird and then this past week I had the ultimate grease ball experience. We're talking, I could brush it and it would stick straight out...horizontally. No one seemed to notice when I pulled it back, but I knew!

I was just about ready to use shampoo & conditioner...I just didn't know what else to do...except try to make my little conscious that was saying, "just get creative" go away. I didn't want to get creative, I wanted to pour bleach on my head to get the oiliness out.

Alas, the little voice got louder, so I started researching this "no-poo" hair stuff some more. (They call it that all over the internet. Hilarious.)   I was only finding avocado scrubs and things to enrich the oil. I ran. 

While I was driving to see Jim (2 nights ago), I had a thought! that popped into my head. HOW ABOUT LEMON with the baking soda?! Nah...it couldn't be that easy.

When I got to Jim, his mom was there and as we were talking about it, she said "how about lemon?"!

How I love life. So, I headed home and I was so excited to try it out. I squeezed the lemon and got the baking soda ready in the cup. THEN...the hot water wouldn't get hot. So I didn't shower.

Last night I went out to Jim's house and his kind parents bought some baking soda. I mixed the baking soda and lemon together and jumped in the shower. I rubbed it all over my hair and really massaged my scalp....washed it out. 

Turning off the shower, I touched my hair...okay...alright...so there's no grease but is it going to be dry as dehydrated fruit?

Driving home, it started to dry and I touched my bangs. OH MY!!!! It was soooo baby soft.

IT WORKED!!! IT WORKED!!!!! IT WORKED!!!!

;-)


THANK YOU for all your comments and support. My gratitude floods unto you. You are amazing and I love you, so much.

Shannon- Jim is not all raw. (I don't know how to respond to comments...so I'll blog it!) He eats very healthfully and is an amazing cook! With his build and metabolism (he's 6'3"), it's not right for him at this point in his life to eat an entirely raw lifestyle. He is one of my biggest motivators and supporters and will always be the love of my life.
---

I have so much to tell you...but I have to wait a little while to share. It's all so fresh.

Love. LOVE. Love. love. LoVE.

Dinner=Raw Tacos

Thanks to my Cali friend, Joseph for making these! They were such a wonderful treat. Jim & I LOVED them and try to recreate them all the time!

Breakdowns & Cooked Food

Yesterday I ate cooked food.

It's really hard to tell you that because not only do I want to seem like a superhero but I want to be one too ;-) But seriously, I didn't have to write it down and I would have just assumed forget about it completely. But that's not really fair. Because when the great things happen, they won't seem as real and you and me, we wouldn't be as close...because I would be pretending that it's all peachy. And yesterday just wasn't peachy.

In times past, yesterday would have been it. That would have been my final straw and breaking point. It has been a really rough week, which I plan to do a video blog about shortly, and I just started bawling yesterday morning. I couldn't help it. It felt like my whole world had come crashing down on me.

Not only did I eat cooked food, I really ate. I went to the local coffee shop here in Cave Creek and ordered a nice hot egg, cheese, avocado panini and mint tea. (I even contemplated getting a coffee, but at the point my system is at, coffee with syrups and half and half would have probably sent me into bed for the day.) So, I ate it. The bread, surprisingly was the only thing I didn't love. The rest, I practically swallowed...but not without burning my tongue a bit.

Later in the day, I went to Whole Foods to get Jim some food and I was already in an eating frenzy (in my head) so I bought myself a decedent $4.39- 4" cheesecake. Not just any old cheesecake though, a Carmel, nut cheesecake. And I'm not going to lie, it was really freakin' good.

Next, I ate some roasted vegetables, quinoa salad and then some tabouli. (I also had fresh apple juice and a salad, but in my mind...those weren't even considered after everything else I had been eating.) I didn't feel awful at the end of the day and I didn't wake up feeling terrible either. I really thought I would, but I didn't. So, that was cool. Normally, I would have eaten myself into oblivion again today because I didn't feel sick yesterday, but today was different. I ate my manna bread (which I consider raw-enough AND deliciously healthy) and raw organic almond butter. I had my raw cacao/agave nectar drink this morning and made grapefruit juice this evening to finish off my day and that was it.

So, I think things are actually changing. I think that this is going to work out.

I've been doing a lot of research on RAW food lifestyles and the differences between them and other lifestyles. I'm finding overall that raw is a good base but might not be the best over all. More soon.


Love. love. love. love.