Raw Foods Trial: Day 6

I have never told anyone that shifting to a raw food diet is easy. In fact, it was very hard for us. Our bodies were demanding foods that we used to eat. From the very first day, and for a couple weeks, minute after minute, I daydreamed of eating bagels with cream cheese, hot soups, chocolate, or at the very least, various types of chips. At night in my sleep, I was searching for French fries under my pillow. I sneaked two dollars from our family budget and kept them in my pocket. I kept plotting that one day, I would have half an hour alone to run down to the corner restaurant and buy a slice of hot, cheesy pizza, eat it fast without being seen, run back, and continue the raw food diet. Luckily I never found that chance.
--Victoria Boutenko, 12 Steps to Raw Foods
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Welcome to Day 6 of Casual Kitchen's seven day raw foods trial! I'm sure you're all used to the routine by now: first I'll list the foods I ate and the eating schedule I kept, and then below I'll share my closing thoughts on the day. [See the full archive of posts on my raw foods trial.]

Breakfast: 8:30am
1 avocado and ~3 cups fresh pineapple chunks

Lunch: 1:00pm
Smoothie: 1 apple, 1 cup blackberries, 5-6 Tblsp wheat berries and a few ounces of water. Yield: 1 1/2 cups.

Snack 3:00pm
1 apple and a handful of lentils and buckwheat for nibbling

Dinner 6:30pm
Vegetable platter: 5 carrots, 1/2 a large cucumber, 1/2 a green bell pepper, broccoli, with a small amount of tahini dip (pretty much like last night). I had one apple for "dessert."

I didn't feel I wanted a smoothie after this enormous plate of food, so I allowed myself to not have one. Last night's smoothie on top of a similar plate of food was just too much. Also, tonight's veggie platter was delicious, and it wasn't hard work at all to graze my way through it.

Concluding Notes/Thoughts on the Day:
1) Once again I'm not feeling all that well, in fact this morning I feel pretty much the worst I've felt all week. I felt a little queasy for much of the day and I had a bad headache from the moment I woke up, although it fortunately faded somewhat after breakfast. It felt exactly like a hangover headache--except I didn't have the pleasure of drinking too much last night.

2) One positive thing: that weird taste in my mouth is mostly gone.

3) At the same time, despite the "hangover," I had one of my most productive mornings of writing in months. I think the takeaway here is that pain focuses the mind and I should hit my head on something every morning before I sit down to write.

4) Yesterday's breakfast worked well for me. I think the fat content of the avocado not only was good for my body, it also was exactly what I wanted. I'll probably eat the same thing to start off Day 7.

5) A couple of kooky food craving anecdotes today:
a) I was measuring out some rice for Laura's dinner, and, weirdly, the smell of it was enormously tempting to me. That's right. Uncooked, plain white rice. It never occurred to me that uncooked rice even had a smell, much less that it could smell so delicious.

b) I spent an hour today excitedly flipping through cookbooks for "cooked" recipes. I've been in a bad cooking rut, and this is the first time in several weeks that I find myself actually excited to cook. That's gotta take the cake for the most unexpected side effect of a week of eating 100% raw.

Onward to Day 7--just one more day to go!

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9 comments:

Unknown said...

"...pain focuses the mind...I should hit my head on something every morning before I sit down to write..."

Boy, am I glad that's not posted on Quick Writing Tips..

MikeV
DadCooksDinner

edj3 said...

I've forgotten when you were to run your 10k race--if it's already occurred, how did you do?

I realized I would struggle most with the concept of so many smoothies. I'm probably the only person in the US who gags over a smoothie but the texture just gets me. I'd have to go with the tired jaw scenario and just chew, chew, chew!

Heather B said...

Interesting series. I haven't noticed that you mentioned tracking calories; have you been doing that? I ask because I analyzed your intake for this day and it came out at around 1300 calories, with calcium and iron running low. If you've been eating that few calories all week, it may be some of the cause of the symptoms you listed.

Daniel said...

Mike: hehe, I figured that might be an unpopular tip to share on my writing blog. :)

Kx3: Nope, I run my 10k on Day 7, tomorrow's post. Stay tuned!

Heather: This is a great insight, and it's one of the reasons why anyone who wants to lose weight should seriously consider exploring raw foods. It is so easy to eat fewer calories on this diet without suffering from hunger. I'll discuss this in more depth when I write up my conclusions. Thanks for adding your thoughts.

And to answer your question, no, I wasn't explicitly tracking calories; I'm really trying to test out the logistics of going raw and see what it feels like to sample the diet over a brief period.

DK

Sara said...

I wish I had been paying attention sooner. I did this sort of thing a few months back. I never did smoothies though and I don't think I would have made it if I tried. Here is a website that I used for variety in food choices: http://vegweb.com/index.php?board=154.0
Sorry so late in sharing.

The Diva on a Diet said...

I just caught up on your Trial posts, Dan, and I must say I admire your stick-to-it-a-tiveness! Especially in light of the smoothie burn-out. Are smoothies the only alternative? Are there other raw options such as making a raw lasagna or something? Or am I way off base?

I mean, I like smoothies, but I don't know that I could handle more than one in a day.

As an aside, the little conversation snippets between you and Laura are entirely charming!

Daniel said...

Sara, that site is a great resource! Thanks for stopping by and sharing.

Diva: Thanks so much for your positive vibes and the great feedback. Regarding smoothies, they can be made of so many different foods that it might be hard to generalize about getting sick of them. My mistake was probably in sticking to a too-limited range of foods. Next time.

Finally, I'm so glad you're enjoying the series. The traffic here is been higher than ever lately, so clearly this subject has struck a chord with readers. Only one day to go!

DK

Liz T. said...

I also am just catching up on your trial, and although I doubt I could go 100% raw, I am thinking of doing a raw breakfast trial.

Thanks so much for being the guinea pig! :)

Daniel said...

Hi Liz, I would definitely recommend trying out a period of raw b'fasts and/or raw lunches. I'll discuss this more in my conclusions post, which should be up in a few days.

And I'm happy to be a guinea pig for readers as long as they get value out of it!

DK