Tuesday, January 19, 2010

To Raw or Not to Raw


That is the question. I have recently been feeling a lot of not so good things. Let me list a few in no particular order for you: fat, lazy, sluggish, bored, slow, gross, toxic, sick! As most of you would certainly agree with me, none of these above mentioned adjectives are conducive to a healthy lifestyle. This is why I would like to make some changes. Like a lot of people I was thinking with the new year I would start my "New Year's Resolution" phase and get exercising and eating healthy to just fall into place and become my life! Wow, that sounds really nice and thanks to all the infomercials and gimmicks that are offered to go along with the new year it will be a piece of cake (bad analogie considering no cake will be allowed) Yeah right! That is so hard to do. I am an absolute creature of habit and nothing more. It is so hard to consciously eat right and keep up a routine that is completely active at all times. Frankly, I like to sit on my couch, open a bottle of cheap wine, start the DVR programs rolling, and put my laptop in position to FULL BLOWN COUCH POTATO EXTRAORDINAIRE! There I said it, that's honest I am feeling lazy because I AM lazy. You would think this is an easy thing to fix.....just get off you lazy ass and do something different. Not so easy my friends.

In an effort to find new tactics to start my resolution I have been doing a little research. I need to teach myself to be healthier, education is a powerful thing! I read about people changing their life by diet, and I don't mean fad diet, I mean real diet....as in everything that goes into your body and being conscious of reading labels (which I never do) of the food you consume. For someone like me this would not be that simple. As I mentioned before about my Creature of Habit problem, it is not like I will just go home and throw out all the bad food and go to Whole Foods with an open mind and stock up. First of all my family would absolutely freak out! Second of all I would just stand there staring at the pantry and the fridge like, "what the hell is all this weird stuff"! I am actually a really good cook, I love to prepare fresh homemade meals for my family and they are generally happy to eat it :) I just don't have a lot of recipes that don't contain starch, carbs and heavy sauces ( umm yummy my mouth just started watering....SEE!).

In my research for healthy living I keep coming to the same topic of whole foods and RAW foods. To me, raw food does not sound appetizing? I think of it this way.....let's take carrots for example. Raw carrot vs. buttery, seasoned, warm, soft, cooked carrot. Okay really, if you can choose the raw you are seriously something. That something is what I am trying to figure out how to BE!!!!!! One of my favorite blogs to read is Poor Pitiful Pearl. She is a holistic, organic artist, wife, and mother of sorts. Not to put labels, but those are not to shabby in the label department if you ask me. She does these really awesome Green Drinks. She is a fan of the Raw Food Detox Diet and she seems to be pretty centered and super HOTT to boot. I know that there is no way on God's green earth I can give up all the cooked foods that I really enjoy, but I need to make small changes and that may mean giving one meal a day to the RAW FOOD GODS to get me started on this challenge. I recently emailed her to ask her advice on what type of Green drink to try and this is the recipe that she gave me:
oh yes... i highly recommend "raw food detox diet". book
and the green drink that she suggests:

5 stalks of kale
i head lettuce
nub of ginger
apple
lemon

in a juicer... you will be AMAZED!

good luck.. let me know how it goes!Poor Pitiful Pearl
OK, first off where do I get KALE? Anyone? Whole Foods is no where near me and I don't know where else that would even be available. I called my Grandmother who I know got a juicer that is still in the box for a gift about 2 or 3 years ago. Thank you Grandma for letting me borrow your Jack LaLanne Juicer this week ( I pick up on Thursday)!

So, please send me your good vibes and your positive thoughts on what this could do for me. I would love to hear if you have any good raw or whole food recipes too! I really want to make a diet and lifestyle change that will improve ME, without changing ME. Well, I wouldn't mind if my dress size changed a little bit. That would be okay :)


Blessed,

Nik

3 comments:

Anna said...

Best of luck friend! I bet Dierbergs will have kale. Just ask someone filling the veggies where it is.
I like your raw food idea a lot. If you are looking for other healthy food tips, here are a few I live by that the rest of the fam will probably not even notice. Only buy 100% whole grain bread and pasta. Bunny Bread even makes 100% whole wheat now, so I've heard. Real the labels, but know what to look for. Stay away from high fructose corn syrup, enriched wheat flour and partially hydrogenated soybean oil. You don't have to shop at whole foods to be healthy, just make a few small changes and big changes happen!

Watching The River Run said...

Nikki~Love this post, once I have this baby, my household will be a non-lazy one. I too need to make some changes. I've asked P to rid of the t.v. but that didn't go over too well....either way, I will jump on-board full force with you to lose the baby weight, (and then some), and become much more healthy. Good luck girl!!

Little T said...

Good for you! Kale can be found at any grocery store next to the leafy greens. I used to have a recipe that called for it too.