I have been 100% raw for 8 days now, not that it matters because I do not want to focus on the # days as I plan to be raw for a long period of time. I can not help but obsess over my body to the point where it is all that is on my mind. I am so much bigger than I want to be and it is really uncomfortable. I can feel all the fat resting on me and it is driving me crazy. I just want it gone!! It makes me feel clausterphobic... I thought being raw would really help get rid of it fast but that is not the case. I am not giving up because I love eating like this and I know I am doing what is best for my body. I might have to reduce the amount of nuts/avocado that I eat until I do start to shed some pounds and then I can be more slack once I reach my goal (my ideal weight would be 110 pounds). Anyways, over the weekend, I made a corn salad that was AMAZING- I mixed raw corn with peppers, onions, red cabbage, tomatoes and avocado and I put it on a bed of parsley- the dressing was a red wine vinegar with olive oil, garlic, cayenne, lemon and honey. It was soooo good and filling. I am likely going to make my "pasta" dish made with Zuchini and raw tomato sauce tomorrow. It has been unbearably hot here- in the house at the moment it is 89 degrees, I am sweating like crazy at the moment! When it is so hot, I am less motivated to be inthe kitchen but at least I do not have to cook...

Today I went to the gym and ran for 45 minutes at 6.0 with intervals of 6.6, then I did the cross trainer for 20 minutes. I may avoid weight for now as I just want to first focus on weight loss. I will experiment and see what works.

Had a rough night and am having a little bit of a rough morning with Rylee. Kyle took the Julia and Noah to Stanley Park and I thought I would get a lot done, but not so. I did do groceries which is a big deal and managed to put them away and clean the fridge. I haven't had the chance to have lunch, so I am having a green drink and had an apple and some brocolli. Very boring I know but I can not seem to get anything prepared as I am always holding her. This week I plan on trying a "pasta" made of Zuchini and other veggies. The sauce is blended and made of tomatoes and spices. I can not wait to see if it will be good. I know Leah has made raw pasta dishes before and really loves them. She will be here next week and I can not wait. We will be preparing raw stuff the whole time, hahaha... should be fun and interesting to see how we manage with 4 kids. She has experimented more than me and knows how to prepare more of a variety of things so I am anxious to learn some new recipes.

This morning I again made the mistake of weighing myself and I was actually 132!! A weight gain??!! I am still not giving up and thought "if I were not raw I may weigh 140- who knows?" I have to remain positive and stay away from the scale. What is so shocking is that I feel smaller and my clothes seem to fit better and I find that I look smaller - ?? Very odd- I just have to remind myself that I just had Rylee less than 2 months ago and this is going to take time. I am committed to staying raw for at least the 60 days at 100% to see what comes of it. It is very easy and almost effortless being raw at this point. I did have a craving for cooked foods this morning- It was pretty strong but I was quickly distracted (kids) and forgot about it. It may be a detoxifying effect as I am getting cleaner. Well, Rylee is finally sleeping- should get stuff done b4 the gang gets back!!

Thank you Krista for your comments, always appreciate your input- and the green drink sounds good, maybe I will try it next week!! This morning I add more pear, a half of a banana and a pre mixed green smoothie from the grocery store- the result is delicious!!

Yesterday the kids and I were out for the day and once again stayed too long at the park/beach. The kids were having a blast and it is always hard to get them home. I figured making diner for them would be difficult since they would be tired and whiney, so I decided to go thru the McDonald's drive thru for them on our way home. How horrible is that? Here I am eating raw and thinking of health and living a long clean life and yet feeding my kids death. I mean really, it is dead food that is going to sit in them for days and days and basically decompose inside of them. The guilt that this imposes on my brain is hard to take. I have got to try and incorporate them into my lifestyle. I want them to eat as clean as they can and I am responsible for what they eat. I can at least make them salads at night and sit and eat with them. If they see the way I eat they make be more likely to copy me. This morning I gave them both organic berries and they loved them. Noah tried my green smoothie the other morning and gagged- I realize there are some things they will not like and that is okay. I guess I just have to make an honest effort to include them in this way of eating. I know many raw moms include their kids 100% and turn their family entirely raw, but I know for us that is not realistic. Kyle is a huge meat eater and does not want to try anything new. He supports me in the sense that he is fine with me being raw and thinks it is great for me, but he has no desire to learn about it or to try it himself. As for the kids, we are just too mainstream with our lifestyle that it would not work either. We are always around other moms and kids who eat "normal" and the temptation for them would be too much. The best I can do is to keep them as vegetarian as possible, and include as much live foods as I can.

Happy Birthday to me- today I turn 36- I do not really care about age and birthdays, I am indifferent to them. I have no issues with age as long as I take care of myself the best I can. There are many women and men who look amazing for their age and I plan on being on of them. I want to feel young for the rest of my life and one way of ensuring that is to eat raw. Today was so great as far as my eating went. For breakfast I had another Green Smoothie which was better than yesterday's since I added a bit of apple juice and re blended it to make it smooth. Then I had a raw bar from the organic store (very yummy!); for lunch I had a pretty boring salad at a restaurant; and now I am having the most amazing salad and wraps that I made out of romaine lettuce. The wraps are soooo good- I used to eat wraps with Nori, but found the taste to be too fishy so I decided to try this lettuce as it is sturdy enough to hold all the veggies. I put an avocado/guacamole type dressing in the ridge of the lettuce and added very finely cut onions, tomato, carrots and celery- I then spiced it up with cayenne pepper. It is so unbelievably good!!

Eating raw makes me feel powerful and in control of my life. When I am raw, I have a lot more confidence and feel that anything is possible, I also become far more optomistic about life in general. In the past 3 months, I get it, I finally get it, and it has taken me 10 years of trial and error with Raw to finally "get it". My mind is now in the right place and I now know I am in this for the right reasons. My family was up visiting recently and I know they think I am crazy and that I am doing this as a "diet" or another weight loss thing. But it is not that at all, and I hope over time people will realize that. I am becoming more and more comfortable with telling people about this lifestyle. I do not want to be ashamed or embarrassed; I want to be proud. I think it is becoming more main stream than ever before and is only a matter of time before it is common knowledge. I can not believe the amount of info that is out there and how many websites and groups and restaurants exists. It is becoming very big! Even at the local Organic Store, they have an entire section dedicated to Raw foods and many different Raw bars right by the cashier. This means that there must be Raw foodists in my community which I find very interesting. Part of me enjoys the fact that it is growing so fast but another part of me enjoyed having something that not many people knew about- I just hope it does not become too trendy. The ultimate goal is improved health and of course I want everyone to benefit from it and so I want the message to get out. The world would be such a better place if people would eat a healthy diet which does NOT consist of any animal products and is primarily living foods.

Well that is all for tonight, I have lots of cleaning to do before I can get to bed. It is stinking hot here and sleeping is unbearable in this heat... Tomorrow we are off to the beach with some friends, I will have to pack lots of stuff to eat so I don't get too hungry!!

For some reason my first entry got deleted so I will recap what was said in my first blog. I am currently on a 60 day dedication to be 100% raw. Today was day one and it is going very smoothly. I have been about 75-90% raw for about 3 months and have been tampering with the raw food lifestyle for almost 10 years now. When I first discovered the raw lifestyle, I was so excited and it made so much sense to me. I ordered the raw food book by David Wolfe, read it in no time and became raw immediately. I was 100% for a few months and then before long I began binging on the weekends to the point I almost had an eating disorder. My weight dropped to 102 pounds which I was thrilled about but it became more about the weight and less about the health. I am only about 5'1 so I beleive my ideal weight is likely 105-110 pounds. I have always had weight issues and was teased as a child. My weight peaked at 156 pounds in University when I did nothing but party and eat junk. I was so disgusted with myself but had no clue how to stop the vicious cycle. When I discovered raw I was at about 120 pounds or so and felt that being vegan was still not enough. I still felt "heavy" and bloated after most meals and just plain gross. Anyways, I had to abandon the raw lifestyle because of the mind games. I was devastated and felt like I had lost a friend. I actually grieved and felt depressed that I had given up- I felt as though I failed at something I believed so strongly in. I tried numerous times over the years to go back to it but could not seem to get in the right frame of mind to keep it up. I was always obsessing over food and craving cooked foods.

Then in my 3rd pregnancy I began getting rapid heart beats immediately after I ate. It started with foods high in sugar/salt but before long, it seemd to happen after each meal and everything I was eating. I was eating very "healthy" cooked foods- lots of beans, lentils; rice milk; tofu and soy products... but it did not seem to matter, my heart would race up to 160 or higher and stay like that for a long time after I ate. I dreaded meal time and avoided snacking. The doctor said it was just hormones and not to worry about it. Out of desperation, I decided to go raw for a day to see how I would feel and of course I had no heart palpitations and felt amazing. The last 6 wks of my pregnancy I was almost completely raw except for the tofu and soy cheese I would add to my salads. Now my baby is 7 1/2 wks old and I am determined to stay raw and to loose these last 15 pounds. This time around I am in it for all the right reasons. I am not craving cooked foods at all. When I do eat them, I feel horrible, hot and irritated, like I want to crawl out of my skin. My slip ups have not been from cravings but from lack of access to raw foods (like this past wkd, we went to a wedding in a small town where there was nothing to choose). I am so excited that I finally "get"it and really want to embrace the lifestyle long term. I love feeling light without the hunger. My appetite is less than normal when I am raw becasue I know my body is taking what it needs, not what it craves. This past weekend when I ate cooked foods, I was always hungry and wanted junk, I realized how f--- our bodies are(when eating "cooked") and how addicted they are when we put poison in us. This is when I decided I had to go 100% raw just to reset my body, to get rid of all the toxins and to reap the benefits.

I also have to loose this weight as it is driving me crazy. I only gained 30 pounds in my pregnancy ( same with my first 2), and lost 15-20 pounds almost immdiately but have been stuck at 130 pounds for the past month. I am not sure why my body is holding on to it, but I figure going 100% will solve the problem. I am recording my experience to keep me motivated and to keep me on track. I have never blogged or been on this website, I could care less if anyone reads it as this is not my reason for blogging. I am basically journaling this experience for me. I am not annoucing to anyone that I am blogging as this is not my purpose. I wish myself luck and am setting the goal of at least 118 pounds in the next 59 days- today my weight sits at approx 130 pounds. Can I loose 12 pounds in 59 days?? We shall see- I believe that if I believe it can happen, then it will happen.

I am currently "enjoying" my green detox smoothie- if it weren't so chunky it would actually be good, but the chunk is making it a little less bearable. I guess it would be worth having a super blender but the cost is a little much at this point. I have to eat it with a spoon as it is too thick. I am so looking forward to this 60 day 100% raw and can not wait to see what sorts of results I get! On a completely different topic, today I received a call from my sister and was told mygrandfather has had a heart attack and likely will pass on in the next few days. He is in his 80's and has lived with obesity and diabetes for at least 20 years. I feel very sad for him, for my grandmother and for my father and all those who love him.