Quick? Decision

How should this blog look? There are so many different ways I can approach it.

Basically what I want is to explore my well being and trace the changes that will take place in the coming months as I venture into the world of total Rawness. I would like to go deeper into many things as all is interconnected and there is no way of just talking about one thing. I should also go and get my blood work done…

I think what I will do is – write a bit about myself – and the reasons for this change in life style. Then as we go into the daily or weekly updates I will write more tidbits connected with the choices – nutrition – environmental impact – it is all very connected and I would like to treat it all as a whole rather than separate parts.

By no means am I a professional – so Im not qualified to give medical or otherwise advices. I don’t also want to sound like Im preaching or trying to convert anybody! I do this for my own self. This is NOT an ideology. I modify it however I see fit.

A little bit about myself then health wise – I have been a vegetarian for over a year now… which for the most part made me more regular in the bathroom (if we are suppose to be honest – there it is). I have developed a slight allergy to milk a few years back – slight meaning – one yogurt OK; a glass of milk stomach cramps. I was never a huge meat eater and for environmental reasons I totally gave up – cow first (Australia’s influence plus hug environmental impact), pig (pig was never my thing accept for occasional bacon with eggs) then chicken and all else… I still ate seafood from time to time. Ate yogurt few times a week and added a bit of skim milk to my daily coffee. AND Eggs. I love eggs. This will be the hardest thing to give up really.

I got use to drinking my coffee black – I find that drinking black coffee makes You appreciate the flavor of it much more; milk changes coffee’s taste. I’m however somewhat of a fan of coffee and like to buy whole beans, grind them myself (or have them ground at the store) and taste different coffees from all over the world … I don’t drink instant coffee (as it is processed).

A few years back I got use to drinking my tea without sugar (occasionally I add honey to my black tea with lemon), the honey is of course just simply for the sweetness as all the nutrients it has are killed in hot water <– this is exactly why it is hard to just give straight facts .. always something to be added.

I have a head start – I ventured into the rawness around December 25ish till February 10^th ish … accept for eating eggs… I pretty much just kept it at Juices (fresh twice or three times a day with Spirulina which is my source of protein), salads (spinach and kale are my favorite bases and whatever else veggies I have), smoothies (soy milk, hemp milk, almond milk, coconut water and milk, rice milk) with bananas, strawberries, mix berries. Snacks – almonds, walnuts, just nuts, baby carrots. I started adding my superfoods into the diet – more on those later.

My first observations – lots of energy and more alertness – after 5h of sleep I was up ready to go. Before I would have to sleep 8h and was never a morning person. Plus if I worked out and was on a diet I would be super tired and needed more than 8h of sleep. Here I was working out 2h a day and not eating a lot and had more energy than I ever remember outside of being a kid!

My skin looks better (I also started to use only natural products aka cosmetics without parabens and oils).

I’m a lot more regular – bathroom department. I was never very regular on normal food habits. Border lining issues I must say…

As with any food eating changes we have to be very careful with depravation. When we embark on these missions – be it a diet or an experiment or what not – we should always do enough research to make sure we have all the areas covered – nutrition wise. There is so much that goes into the daily food intake and with our organ function – every time I did it in the past I ended up depriving myself of some important trace element, vitamin or mineral (not even taking on the enzymes, coenzymes, amino acids, fats and so on).. as we get older I noticed that they are more and more prominent and important and results show up almost right away. Not even considering long term damage done through reckless dieting and malnutrition.

For example – I developed bad dandruff in summer 2010 – what I thought was dandruff anyhow. I bought some heavy duty shampoos (yeah it was quite bad). I couldn’t figure out the cause, first I though it was the water and climate change (I have just come back from Australia) then from a fungus or something of that sort and then I thought about my diet – and naturally it all comes back to our diet! I researched and read up on similar conditions and TaDaa – I was lacking Zinc. Zinc as it turns out is required as a catalyst of enzymes (about a 100 of them), protein synthesis, plays an important role in immune functions, wound healing, cell division, DNA synthesis… Zinc deficiency is responsible for hair loss (I have experienced that!) impaired immune function, impotence and so on. Now daily we need to supply our bodies with Zinc as it is not stored in our bodies. (http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/)

Now most of the Zinc we consume as humans comes from poultry and red meat and whole gains (but zinc is present in a lot more things)… Vegetarians and Vegans eat legumes (beans and lentils and chick peas). To compare – ½ cup of chick peas or beans is around 1.2mg of zinc – and daily recommended allowance for an adult woman is 8mg; 3oz of beef cooked is 8.9mg. As you can imagine – it would be quite hard to eat so many beans in one day… not impossible – but daily… quite a task!

Now I take a daily zinc supplement – I would like to get to the point of not having to take it – even though it is natural and has some good additives…. However I need to do more research about It – if it’s necessary to take it – or can I make a daily meal plan and not have to depend on the supplement. Everything is back to normal with my scalp and my wounds heal fine!

So with that – the possibility of more energy, good looking/healthy body/skin, less health issues and more overall happiness – I begin … wooohooo