I’ve heard the message before but there’s something about the way Paul Nison said it that made me take action.  I’m talking about Paul’s Fresh Network Teleclass and the invaluable information he imparted on that call.  Now some of you reading this entry will be saying, "what, it’s taken you this long to realise?".  And some of you will be saying, "wow, I never knew fat and sugar could make that much difference, isn’t everything raw good?  After all, it is raw!"  From my personal experience, it appears that I was eating too many nuts and fruit!

What’s been going on?…

For the last 3 days I’ve almost completely (I had some Brazil nuts in a chocolate smoothie yesterday) been nut free!  I’ve also drastically cut down on my fruit intake, particularly the dates.  You see, dates have become my thing.  When I’m on-the-go with no time (my perception, but that’s a whole different blog entry!) to make something, I find it so easy to eat dates with cashews or macadamias stuffed inside.  The problem is, they fill you up but mean that you don’t feel like eating anything else, ie the good stuff likes greens!

So, by being nut-free and cutting down on the highly hybridised fruit, here’s what I’ve found…

I’m feeling raw again!  I’m getting the energy back that everyone talks about when being on raw, I feel light, and my skin is looking great (if I say so myself!).  I get hungry first thing in the morning, which may not be the best news for some people but it’s really important to me because it means I haven’t got any ‘stodge’ sitting in my system, clogging things up.

I’m feeling more mentally strong to deal with things, even day to day stuff.  My get-up-and-go, that had previously got-up-and-gone, is back!

I’ve also found, in just 3 days that I’m becoming more sensitive to various foods.  Paul mentioned 2 foods in particular that interested me, cacao and maca.  Wanting to make it clear he’s not saying you have to give up these foods, he did point out that they might not be the ‘superfoods’ they’re being sold as.  They are essentially stimulants.
I wanted a treat yesterday so I made myself a cacao powder, maca, banana, dates (only 2 dates) and brazil nut smoothie at lunch time.  I felt great for the rest of the day but could I get to sleep?  Between midnight and 2am I had a kind of ‘am I asleep, or aren’t I?’ period and then woke repeatedly throughout the night.  I also had some very vivid and bizarre dreams!  I am open to the idea that it wasn’t down to the cacao and maca.  I may have had this because I was ‘clearing out’, a kind of mild detox due to my system being given the chance to breathe and cleanse.  I don’t know, it’s just very strange.

So here’s what I’ve been eating over the past 3 days:

• 1 large or 2 smaller kale & avocado salads every day
• strawberries
• blueberries
• raspberries
• ‘That’ chocolate smoothie
• melon and bee pollen in a Vita Mix to make a gorgeous creamy smoothie
• one massive mango
• coconut water

Not exactly the perfect raw diet, in fact, now I’ve written it down it still looks like alot of fruit but I’ve kept it mostly berries.  Plus the kale is such a strong green that it seems to have balanced everything out nicely.  There’s nothing like tucking into a kale & avocado salad when you’re genuinely hungry, I promise you :-)  And that’s been the key for me, allowing myself to get naturally hungry by not clogging up the pipes with nuts.  Eating only when you’re hungry is the way forward.

So am I saying I’m not eating cacao, nuts and all the ‘good stuff’ anymore?  No!  I’m a chef, I have to taste these things :-)  Seriously though, I will continue to eat ‘recreational raw foods’ because I love creating them and eating them, I just love food.  But I will be staying off the dates and nuts for snacking because it’s made such a difference.

A friend wrote me an email saying that he believes the primary benefit of raw over cooked is the living water.  I think I’d have to agree with his comment, "without water, we’re just nuts!"

So where to from here?  Well, next on my list is to start getting more sleep. zzzzzzz