#21

I will keep this brief as I just woke up and I am extra tired. Why? because I (once again) was doing good with the raw foods-staying on the course  then last night I ate a frozen pizza and a twinkie. The pizza was spinach and cheese and it had soybean oil in it (another no-no because of the gmo issue). Well, I got a real nice case of bloat and gas pains that was really painful and ongoing. In addition my legs felt restless as the night wore on. So as I am getting clean my body is now not digging the SAD crap food. Earlier I had some french fries but those didn't bother me AND as I transition I will allow myself the odd fries to keep cravings at bay. BUT the big eye opener was how my body reacted to the bread, cheese, and whatever else (food additives) pizza. SO I am definitely learning very important lessons along this journey back to my authentic self. Also I needed more sleep because of the truck load of food that went in to my body after dark therefore my body had to spend precious energy on digestion during the night. I also had a "Eureka!" moment as I lay in bed last night: I realized that most if not all of these little bothersome symptoms that people get i.e. restless legs are caused by food additives. I will just betcha!!! :-)
 Lesson learned!

Number 20

Tonite I gave in to a massive unrelenting craving for MacDonald's Filet 'o Fish sandwiches, and fries and an apple pie.  As I was stuffing myself with the hot salty chemically laden addictive substances I analyzed the process of the craving and the succumbing to the craving. I realized that by feeling as if I "can't" have the garbage fake food I want it even more. I gave it way more importance than it deserved thus weakening my resolve to NOT put that shit into my body. Damn it!
I MUST REMEMBER I CAN EAT WHATEVER I WANT WHENEVER I WANT-
BUT DO I WANT IT?
OK it is not the end of the world. I will get back up and brush myself off and continue on my journey towards the best health and energy and fitness I can create. Key word: CREATE, I need to keep this concept in my mind at all times. I need to remember that it is up to me to create the lifestyle I want and dream of. Only I can sculpt an athlete from what I am now, Only I can bring myself back to my authentic self. Only I can give my body the materials it needs to rebuild itself.
So right now I will start with lots of water to start the flushing out process and get a good nights sleep. What's done is done.
The warm weather will be here real soon and will I be able to look good in shorts? I can look great if I start now and put this on project status with laser like focus and let nothing deter me! Let nothing stop me!
Every time I give in to a feast or even a snack of processed crap I delay my bliss and I delay my time to shine and be noticed for a change. I also add more toxic burden to my body which is trying very hard to heal.
C'mon now Elizabeth it is time to make up for lost time and step up the pace here as in "BOOT CAMP" style. Let's GO!!!!!

Number 19

OK I know I haven't been blogging daily like I said I would but the whole idea behind this online diary is for me to write when the feeling strikes me- it's just that I was hoping it would strike me daily. Oh well. :-)
I am so excited right now because I have been immersing myself in raw vegan blogs and YouTube channels listening and learning from other raw food vegans.  I have been soaking up as much inspiration as I possibly can. The more I learn, the more this new way of living feels so incredibly right. It is right and it is just everything coming full circle. We as humans started out eating from the Garden of Eden and somehow along the way we thought our ways were better instead of God's way and Nature's way. We thought that animals were ours to use and abuse, we thought better living could be had through chemistry and we thought that sickness and disease was just a part of life. We also use to think the world was flat. It is time to evolve people! I can't wait to be an inspiration to others. I just started this journey and can not impress anybody yet but I sure hope to by summer. If I can get my family members to change their ways perhaps we can create a ripple effect BUT I have to get further down the path before I can beckon others to follow.
I asked God for help and he is showing me the way. Thank you God. For everything! I haven't felt this alive and inspired in soooo long. I know there will be bumps along the way-so what! Life is a journey not a destination and I want to continue my journey looking and feeling my authentic best physically AND mentally.
Peace. :-)

18th Entry

Ok Today is Sunday. I woke up feeling extremely tired because I kind of over did it yesterday with foods I shouldn't be eating. I was doing real good too. Flying right along mentally and physically. In fact I have been so much more active lately due to my eating almost exclusively high raw vegan. Then last night my lower back started aching (from all the extra movement I guess) and so I decided to break into a bottle of wine I had been saving. I had one big glass and it was delicious and I felt it. Next thing you know I decide I might as well boil up the last of the organic eggs because I figured might as well "get rid of them" and then the plan is to not buy them ever again. So I boiled up those last 5 eggs and cooled them and then put them in our salads. They were delicious I might add. I've always loved eggs more than the average person. Well, seeing how I blew the vegan part of my diet AND I was still hungry after my less than filling salad I decided to make one of these lovely frozen pizzas from Dr. Oetker that has mozzarella and pesto on it. They are YUMMY-but the ingredients are not very good. I ate the whole pizza AND some pepsi AND a devil dog AND a klondike bar. ALL last night. Talk about falling off the wagon. So now today has been somewhat better so far. Still not what it should be though as I put a little butter on my broccoli and I had a devil dog.
The good news today is that I am down to 213 lbs. - it is effortless to lose weight when you eat right. High raw or all raw vegan that is. So we shall see how much resolve I can muster for the rest of today. I am stressed because of this whole needing of a job thing. I will write more later.

17th Entry

I had a good day. I am proud to say.. I really feel satisfied with my progress today. No animal products today except for the tiny amount of dairy that was in my leftover iced coffee. I mean like a teaspoon-if that. So, it has been a great day diet wise and I took an hour plus walk with and for my dogs. I ate mostly raw-80%  would be a fair estimate. So all in all I feel good all the way around. I had a good mental attitude and felt a nice consistent flow of energy all day. What I ate today was as follows:
-leftover iced coffee (organic with sugar and a tiny bit of cream) I added soy milk
-a smoothie made with organic banana, mango, kiwi and pineapple (2 good size glasses of it)
-a few steamed organic carrots but they were lousy so it ended up being about one carrot that I actually ate
-a half dozen unsalted saltines with almond butter
-a nice big salad of organic greens, cucumber, tomato, red onion, raw mushroom, carrots and one olive all with a light application of asian dressing
-shortly I will have an orange and that should just about do it for today.

I will ride the bike tomorrow for sure and perhaps take a walk in the rain. :-)

Thank-you God for a great day. I know with your guidance I will be a better human.

16th Entry

Well, I am finally getting my act together slowly but surely. Actually a little bit more slowly than I would like but at least I am making progress even if it is sometimes one step forward and two steps back. I slipped up today and ate chicken. I couldn't refuse it because my boyfriend tried to be nice and get me fish but they (Wendy's) messed up the order and gave him a chicken sandwich instead. I couldn't be that ungrateful for his thoughtfulness...so I ate it. I tried to be thankful for the chicken's sacrifice and move on as best I could.  But on the plus side I just got through watching a YouTube video of animal rights activist and vegan Gary Yourofsky's speech he made at Georgia Tech. It really put some serious wind in my sails and resolve in my brain. Thank you, Gary. There is not one more second to waste on supporting the use, abuse and slavery of animals. I get it. I'm getting it and I will keep getting it until I AM it. I watched some extremely disturbing, horrific footage of some of the abuse that regularly goes on at a dairy farm. I cried. Again. I am going to keep facing the truth until the truth becomes a part of me. There is not one second to waste looking away and I am so very regretful that I have spent most of my life looking away. For that I hate myself. I could have affected change along time ago and furthermore I could have affected change in my family had I seen the light. People have died because change was put off. I have seen people that meant the world to me die prematurely mostly because of lifestyle changes that were never made. It is time to stop the cycle of apathy, procrastination and downright laziness. It is time for all of us humans to evolve into the compassionate, peaceful beings God wants us to be. It is almost 8 p.m. on a Wednesday in early March. Instead of letting this day go by like another nondescript page in the wind I want to really shed my meat, fish, dairy and egg eating skin. I am changing right here right now. No MORE slip-ups. NO More justifications. NO more but just this little bit of dairy or cheese or pizza or fish or cream in my coffee. NO. NO MORE!! NOT AGAIN. I hereby ask God to give me the extra strength I will need when my resolve might falter. Thank you God. Amen.

15th Entry

OK I am back and I am going to try and write daily even if it is brief. BUT I am not gonna stress if I miss a day here and there either. :-) Gotta keep peace in my mind if I can. Well, since I have last written I haven't had any flesh from farm animals. I gave in and  had a little bit of fish since I made my commitment to  go high raw vegan so I definitely need to take it somewhat slower than I would like.  That is pretty darn good for me since I have had to prepare meat for my boyfriend's suppers and smell it. It smelled good but I just didn't want it. I hope my mind stays in that frame forever. Transitioning off of meat and cooked food all at once is not really a good idea for me to do overnight. I have been eating SAD (standard American diet) for 45 plus years so I feel I should wean myself off of cooked food specifically. I have made an agreement with myself that if I want to have a seafood from time to time than I can but to  try and only have it if it is really high quality wild caught. None of this farm raised frankenfish garbage.  I LOVE seafood more than any other kind of food so it will be hard to give that up entirely for awhile. But I WANT to get to a point where I am a comfortable, natural, high or all raw vegan. Preferably ALL RAW. I think I could take the plunge better if I wasn't afraid of too many detox symptoms. So I have made my mind up to control the detox as best I can because I don't want to flood my bloodstream with an overload of toxins all at once. Slow and steady should win the race.
As of this afternoon I was on a pretty good roll of all raw until Ed brought home the fish sandwich and fries and ice coffee. SO I need to spend the rest of today with high water and only raw food. Exercise would be a really good idea BUT now my energy level ( that was excellent earlier today) is now crapped out. I feel bloated, tired, and practically ready for a nap. Not to mention very thirsty.  Earlier while eating only raw fruit, and raw coconut I felt really good and started getting things done around my house. Now I need to finish vacuuming and I just don't feel like it. It is a no wonder that people eating SAD are relying on 5 hour energy drinks, coffee, tea, sugar and other substances just to get through the day. I am surprised we aren't all demanding nap times at work to get through the exhaustion that hits most people by mid-afternoon. Is it any wonder that people are crazy, depressed, scatter brained, bi-polar, hostile and angry. Is it any wonder that people spend so much time and money trying to self medicate just to feel better. When all the while if they just started eating a clean non-violent diet then maybe they would see the light and the world would be a better place.
I just got up out of my chair to give my dog her blanket that she likes and I noticed how stiff my joints feel-again. Funny they didn't feel that bad earlier today. Could it be that my whole body is reacting in a inflammatory way to the ingredients in the fast food shit I just put into my precious body. I think so! I really do. My body is overloaded and can't whizz through a load of chemically laden fake food-it gets bogged down with the burden. It so wants to be healthy, I so want to be healthy. I just want to eat to live. I want more life in my years and more years to my life. I don't want to be a spectator in life anymore. I want the faded snug sexy jeans, and the white eyelet summer sexy top, and the tanned healthy glow, and the cute pedicure, and the cute hair cut and the athletic body that when anyone sees me they know immediately that I work out ALOT and take excellent care of myself. It is my turn to turn heads. :-)