Easy Breezy

TWELVE pound each! Our 30 days raw ended last night. Yeah chocolate! Yeah wine! Pam and I set out to try something that we both thought would be a little bit of a challenge, but we hoped to detox the holidays away and get a jump start on losing some weight. We didn't think we would learn about a way of life that we both agree we could live with if necessary. We hoped that we would feel more energy even though we would be without caffeine and we found that we did have a ton of energy and barely missed our beloved coffee. We hoped that we could lose weight in a healthy way while we were nursing foot injuries that kept us limited in activity and the results speak for themselves.

This was the easiest thing either of us have ever done to lose weight and the results are fantastic. I now stand 6 pounds from my goal weight of 195 and Pam is now within 24 pounds of hers meaning she is already 1/3 of the way to her goal! 

Since the real test is how you keep it off after the transition back to more cooked foods we will continue to post through the next month or so.

For the record, we broke the raw 30 days with a salad that had some chicken on it. We had Oat Groats with dried apricots and blueberries for breakfast and it was fantastic. The downside is it takes 50 minutes simmering and 10 minutes resting to prepare, but it is tasty. A little turkey chili for lunch and dinner that was "the best chili you've ever made, Paul" according to Pam. She may have been eating raw a little too long, but it was good.

We will likely start next year with a 2 week raw "Holiday Detox" as well. If the doom sayers are right 2012 is the end of the world so we won't need to detox in 2013.

More soon....

Better Raw Than Fileted

On the second to last day of our raw 30 days I actually feel very fortunate since 1 year ago I was having a Thorocotomy to clean up a bad pleural effusion in my left chest. There's nothing like scaring your wife to death to get a guy thinking about being more healthy, and there's nothing better than having no ability to exercise to make you want to do it.

As it turned out, I began walking per Dr's order on 2/15/10 and by year end I had walked or hiked over 1000 miles - most of it in the first 5 months after surgery. The year ended much better than it started with our month in Peru and Ecuador which included the 4 day trek on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Not to mention our fantastic group and climb of Mt St Helens.

We have had some questions about what our daily menu looks like so here goes. Until this last week when we have been having juice for breakfast and mid-morning snack, we were eating muesli with blueberries and almond milk for breakfast, veggie juice for a mid-morning snack, salad for lunch, an apple for an afternoon snack and either a big salad or one of the faux pastas with marinara or pesto or my "not really" chili. We normally have some nuts for a snack in the evening too.

More later.....

Nuts. They're All nuts!

I have been roasting my own nuts for a while, but with the raw food thing I couldn't cook them. I decided to experiment with raw nuts and my spice mixtures and they turned out great. As a matter of fact, the spicy ones are better than my cooked ones because the spices come through better. The difference between cooked and raw is strictly texture. The cooked ones have a crispier texture. The other difference is that the raw nuts have a much fresher flavor. So here's the way I make them.

Costco's mix nut jugs work good for mixing and storing. I use a mixture of almonds, walnuts and pecans. I fill the jug about 2/3rds the way and then add 1 tsp of water to the nuts put the lid on and gently shake the nuts to get them all a little wet. Next add whatever spices you like. I make 2 types - salt and pepper and spicy. For the salt and pepper I add maybe a tbsp of each and I run sea salt through my spice grinder (little coffee grinder) until it is very fine. Replace the lid and gently shake to add seasoning to all the nuts then pour them onto a cookie sheet to dry a couple of minutes and wipe the container out with a paper towel. Store in the container and enjoy.

For the spicy I use fine sea salt, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, fine dried parsley and oregano, cumin, black pepper, and my homemade chili powder (if using store bought chili powder add cayenne). You need to add 1tsp of salt with the spice blend on the nuts.

You quickly get used to the texture difference and enjoy the taste difference.

I love smokehouse almonds, but they have enough sodium to kill you and they're cooked so After some experimenting I found my own recipe with much less sodium. You need to buy some Liquid Smoke - available at most grocery stores. Take your almonds (I use a 16 oz ball jar) and fill container 2/3rds of the way. Add 1/4 tsp of the liquid smoke to 1/2 tsp of water and pour on the nuts. Close and shake to coat and add 1/2 tsp (more or less to taste) to the jar and shake some more. Put on cookie sheet to dry for 5 minutes. Clean out jar and store nuts in the jar. These guys are good! If you want more smoky add more liquid smoke and vice verse.

Now you all know everything I know about nuts. If one of you makes some smokehouse pistachios or hazelnuts that taste good let me know and I'll try them as well.

More soon. 2 days left after today!

Easy As Faux Pie

Anyone of you who might be considering raw for a week or month or life should know that it actually gets easier as time goes by. Really! You fall into a rhythm and you actually get used to room temperature or cold food. I made my "Not Really" Chili tonight and it was spicy and delicious. I likely will use some of my raw creations when the weather warms up and you are looking for cooler food to eat, as well as the fact that without meat and dairy it will keep at room temperature much longer.

Not that anyone is counting....

My best guess is that we have used 50-60 lbs of carrots, 8 or 9 packages of the Costco organic apples (15 apples each). 100 beets, 40 -50 cucumbers, 15 heads of celery, 10 or 12 bunches of chard/ kale /collards, 5 chunks of ginger root, 15 heads of romaine, 8 Costco containers each of Baby Spinach and Mixed greens, 15 zucchini, 4 Costco bags of mandarins. 20 bananas, 40-50 lemons and limes, 40 avocados, 6 or 7 Costco bags of broccoli, 40 - 50 tomatoes and an assortment of raw crackers and some other miscellaneous health food store stuff. Our fridge is a very green place these days. Whew!

My precious music studio in the basement is now a gym equipped with a Concept 2 ergometer, a stairstepper, a Sole E35 elliptical, a TRX system, a few free weights and our road bikes on wind trainers. We have it set up with a flatscreen and a DVD player that is WIFI so we can stream lots of stuff while we work out. Sometime I will steal the smaller bedroom down there for a studio again.  It has proven to be a great place to work out!

I learned that the better Omega 3 fats are really only available in salmon, sardines, and supplements so I am now taking a fish oil pill that provides me with 750 units of the good Omega 3s. Apparently, the ones from nuts and avocados are only so digestible. Something new every day...

Counting Down

With 5 days to go counting today it seems sure that we will complete this adventure. We didn't go into this planning a long colon cleanse, but it has been interesting. First, when they say you'll shrink your belly doing it they're right. I'm not sure there is anything more magical than the fact that the cleanse helps to flush things out. The goal in the book is that you would have a bowel movement shortly after each main meal (30 minutes). They say the first time through a lot of people could take 2 weeks to get there depending on your original diet. My diet must have been pretty good because I am not even a full 4 days into this and I am like a clock now. There is the proof I always needed that I'm not full of crap or at least not literally.

Pam remains at 10 pounds lost and I just jumped past with 10.5 pounds. That is obviously related to the cleanse and it's results. I'm actually chomping at the bit to get into the Dr. for my yearly checkup so I can see the difference in  the lab results from last year. I have to wait until early March for that, and since I turn 50 in April I know he is going to send me off for a colonoscopy, but I still can't wait.

Here  are some things to consider. 90% of the pesticides left on citrus fruit is in the peal. If you are planning to peal and eat your citrus buy whatever is cheapest, but if you plan to squeeze it into a drink or zest it for a recipe, or run it through a juicer buy organic. The last thing you want is concentrated pesticides in your juice or recipes. The same is true of cucumbers, squash, and anything else that grows above ground. If you don't buy organic peal it.

The cheapest place to buy organic salad greens, carrots, baby spinach, and apples is Costco. They don't have organic cucumbers or citrus. Trader Joe's has organic lemons and some other veggies. Fred Meyer has lots of other organic green such as Kale and Chard, cucumbers and squash. Since the peal of most vegetables carries a lot of nutrients it is worth any additional cost to reap all of the benefits.

I'll stop preaching after this last one. We vote for what is available and actually what is produced with our shopping dollars. When stores see the organics going faster they order more and the wholesalers do the same and at the end of the day the farmers that actually care about the quality and healthfulness of our food supply grow more and prosper which makes it more viable for the next organic farmer to begin and prosper.

Pesticide free food sounds good doesn't it? More later.....

Sludge: Part II

So sludge isn't something you have to develop a taste for. It sucks every time you drink it. Wah Wah Wah. Okay I'm all done feeling sorry for myself.

Today was another easy day - sludge not withstanding- on this little adventure. I am happy to say that Pam has passed me on the weight loss progress. She has now lost 10 pounds and I'm still stuck on 9. From where we really began about a year ago I still have her though as I have lost 61 pounds and she has lost 32. If you add those up it's a 6th or 7th grader. For the first year all we really did was eat better and exercise more.

For dinner tonight we made a basil and spinach pesto and tossed it on julienned zucchini "pasta" along with some broccoli salad. I would serve either of those to guests. They were both very good.

We still have another glass of sludge later, but that will end day 24 on this adventure. Six more days to go! For those of you wondering, the bottle of organic wine remains unopened. We were able to find a raw chocolate bar, but it was very nasty. Anyone want the rest?

Did You Know...

Any of you out there reading our blog that is looking for some weight loss or weight management tools should check out Livestrong.com . You are able to enter your current weight and age and height and it gives you a nice baseline for what you should target for calories. While it isn't as accurate as having a proper metabolic test done, it is free and at least a rough idea. You can also log your food and it will allow you to enter your own recipes. That is all FREE! If you want you can have sharing of stats with a friend or two so you can keep each other honest. Pretty cool stuff.

You can adapt very quickly to eating most of your veggies whole and uncooked. The hardest thing to get used to is the extra energy you get from them. I haven't even considered a nap since we started this adventure. That kills me a little since we haven't had any coffee or chocolate either.

Juicing is likely the easiest and tastiest way a person could lose weight while still maintaining the vitamins and minerals you need. Our midmorning juice has 160 or so calories but it has 3-4 carrots, 1/2 a beet, 1/2 a lemon or lime, 1/2 inch of ginger root, 1/2 a cucumber, and 1/2 a green apple PER SERVING! I guessing that accounts for at least 3 of your veggie and fruit servings a day. The only down side is the initial cost of a machine ($230 or so), but you get hooked and when you start adjusting and creating on your own you can't be stopped.

Enough of the FYIs.  This "fiber shake" from our book should honestly be called sludge or runny mud pie or something like that. Man this stuff is funky. Not only does it taste like dirt, it has a very funky mouth feel to go along with it. Yuck. Luckily we just need to drink it 4 times a day. I know! 4 times a day! Other than that the colon cleanse it going along swimmingly.

We actually went out for lunch at the Top of Tacoma. RELAX, we had a garden salad with balsamic vinaigrette on the side and water. Raw Raw Raw.

I have become the king of the green salad this month including everything I can think of like mandarin slices,  blueberries and apples just to name a few. We probably have eaten 3 times the avocado we were eating before as well. I keep making my raw broccoli salad with a different twist every time. This one is a lemon and lime vinaigrette with curry which is tasty.

OK. Enough about us. Back to your lives. More soon.

Icky Stuff...or the last week

So with just over a week left to go in our raw food month Pam has lost 8 pounds and I have lost 9. Pam has kicked up her workout schedule to match her recommendations from the metabolic testing we did, with a rest day Friday and Sundays. I am lagging a little with a pulled muscle in my back that seems to be getting a little better. Our BP's and resting heart rates remain in the same range as when we started. Neither of us has had any side-effects to report. We're really feeling surprisingly good!  That may change next week.

I guess I should have hidden the detox and cleanse book from Pam. She read a little too much and found that they recommend beginning their cleanses with a colon cleanse. Relax! There aren't any scary things involved as far as I can tell. We just need to add 4 fiber drinks per day made from ground flax seed, bentonite clay, ground psyllium seed and activated charcoal mixed with water or juice. We also add a probiotic supplement twice a day and an herbal cleanse capsule once a day. Other than that we swap out our granola for breakfast with a veggie juice. This happens for a week. The result is supposed to be a more efficient digestive system which is meant to supply you with more energy and less sickness along with aiding in weight loss goals.
There's nothing like going out with a bang! Wish us luck.

Thoughts Over Halfway Through

This little project has been interesting so far. Our goals remain the same, and we will likely carry raw on as a pre-dinner program - meaning that we will eat raw until dinner and then eat a reasonable dinner. I also think we will likely eat even less animal protein than before. The other thing we will continue is to have at least one juice everyday.
What we know now that we didn't know before is not deeply profound and likely not even worthy of publishing here, but here we go anyway.
Vegetable juice mixes taste great and give you a nice, sustained pop of energy while taking care of your appetite. A 1 or 2 day juice fast is doable, but it is better if you do it away from home or when there is nothing else to eat around. Our Saturday fast was cheated by each of us with a salad - Pam for lunch and me for dinner. I never said we were perfect.
There aren't a plethora of great raw food recipes that don't require a dehydrator, and many of them involve several days of prep time to either soak (and even sprout in some cases) nuts and seeds or to dehydrate things. Luckily, I am a little bit free form in the kitchen or I'd be bored to death on their recipes by now.
Just because the recipe says you can make brown rice by soaking it for 24-36 hours it ain't necessarily so. I soaked mine for 4 days and gave up and cooked it this morning rather than waste it. We'll only mix veggies with it once it is cooled to preserve the rawness of them.
If you surf the web long enough you can justify lots of exceptions to the hard fast "raw rules." There are people who justify coffee and we found one that says organic wine is OK. WE HAVE A BOTTLE OF ORGANIC WINE! It is on the wine rack upstairs, but we haven't opened it yet. Yet being the operative word of that sentence.
Blender marinara is OK, but there are 100 times the scientific sources that agree that cooked tomatoes provide you with many more antioxidants than raw so I cook my tomato sauces and then cool them prior to adding veggies.
We have each lost another .5 lb since the last time we reported so Pam is minus 7.5 and I am minus 8.5. I think I've blabbered on enough for today so enjoy your MLK day and we'll post again soon.

Oh, yesterday for dinner I made "Not Really Chili." It was pretty good and very spicy.

Half Way Through!

So, now we are a little better than half way through our raw food month and we are still going strong. Pam was even able to resist Lasagna made with homemade pasta at her wine club gathering last night - opting instead for an extra juice for dinner. At this halfway point we miss our red wine, chocolate, coffee, and popcorn, but strangely we aren't ready to kill for some chicken. I would like some of the recipes better cooked, and after the first marinara from the blender I turned to science where you will find that tomatoes are better for you cooked, and cooked and then cooled the sauce prior to building our lasagna.
Learning how to make "meat" out of soaked nuts is not a skill I would have thought I'd need, but it turns out it's mostly like making chicken and turkey taste like meatballs, etc anyway. The "chorizo" from the other day was really good sprinkled on a salad like taco salad.
A regular day I eat granola for breakfast with some blueberries and almond milk. I have a juice for a snack mid-morning, a big salad for lunch, some fruit for mid-afternoon , and either a big salad or what we report on the blog for dinner. Tonight we had a corn chowder with avocado made with almond milk. Pam's day is a little granola with almond milk prior to heading out the door then at work she has a small bowl of quinoa and oatmeal with dried fruit, half of her juice mid-morning and the rest mid-afternoon, and for lunch a salad of spinach and mixed greens along with an apple or orange.
We are still stuck on 7 lbs lost for Pam and 8 for me, and while that is great and everything we are going to juice fast tomorrow for a little kick start off of the plateau. BP's and heart rates remain the same.

A Paullian Raw Invention

I figured it was about time I got off my butt and made up a recipe or two in this raw food adventure so here we go. Tonight I made Soft Tacos with Chorizo, Chunky Guacamole, and Tomatoes and "Hot not Cole" Slaw. The "meat" for the tacos is soaked ground walnuts spiced with my homemade chili powder, paprika, cumin and garlic salt mixed with a little olive oil and processed in the food processor until it is a taco meat like consistency. The taco shell is a large romaine leaf, and I shouldn't have to tell you how to make guacamole. It's like chicken soup - everyone has their own recipe.
The slaw is red cabbage and some red onion with a spicy vinaigrette. Pam tells me that she enjoyed it and I can't be trusted to give an honest opinion, but I liked it as well.

One more pound a piece today which is 8 for me and 7 for Pam. We'll do BPs and stuff tomorrow as it will mark the end of week two on this adventure.

I have been looking at raw recipe websites and it seems to me that there isn't a lot of great "cooking" in the raw world. Lots of nuts pates and not a lot of whole veggie stuff. I am determined to strike a blow for foodies everywhere before I am done with this.

We are not planning on going raw for ever, nor is Pam planning on growing her leg hair and changing her name to Sunny Girl, but we will be adding more raw veggie sides into our after adventure daily diet. We both feel great and energetic with no odd side effects so far.
More tomorrow.....

Lasagna Dinner

Paul made a great lasagna tonight for dinner. 

It's amazing that a faux meat sauce and zucchini can make such a tasty dish.  Layers included thin sliced green olives, minced red bell pepper, a thin layer of raw chevre goat cheese, faux meat (made of soaked ground walnuts, fennel seed, basil, garlic, oregano and olive oil) and lots of marinara. And it was beautiful too!  Who would have thought that a raw/cold/vegatarian diet could be so good?  Not us!

Plateau No More!

Okay it's only a pound a piece but that is something after nearly a week and no budging. So Pam has lost 6 pounds and I have lost 7. We were tested yesterday for our Resting and Active Metabolic rates which gives you a ton of information on your body's ability to work and what you burn for calories just by doing what you do everyday without exercise. I burn 2200 calories while doing my thing everyday and Pam burns 1400. I wouldn't have thought that the difference would be that great.

Paul testing with Annelise from infitness (www.infitnessforlife.com)

The test also gives you information on where you go from aerobic to anaerobic or how your body utilizes fat versus carbs for fuel during activity. That information allows you to target your workouts to your needs. You would think that if you work out as hard as you can work all the time that you would get the best results, but that is not so for most people.

We found some organic raw crackers to eat with guacamole we made to watch the Seahawks game. Where was that team all year? Those guys seriously looked like a football team. But I digress. The crackers (made by GoRaw) are dehydrated instead of baked so they maintain their essential food quality and enzymes and they were good. They were mainly made of seeds and had different flavors from spicy to pizza. We could have stuck with plain because the Guac was really good.
Tonight we will have the lasagna made with thin sliced zucchini for noodles and some raw goat cheese along with some faux Italian sausage - made like the "meatballs" and marinara. If it's pretty I'm sure Pam will take a picture for you. More soon....

One Down Three To Go

Today is the last day of the first week of our little food adventure. We have been maintaining the weight loss from the fast while eating solid food for the last 5 days. Pam remains -5 and me at -6. Other than spending time looking for what else is raw on the Internet, we have been doing great through this week.
Plateauing sucks and the regular yapping about how that's good because it's your body resetting itself at the new weight doesn't make me feel better. I'd like to plateau at my goal weight yesterday. Patience, Paully, Patience.
Our refrigerator is the greenest place in the Northwest. Every time I open it I am blown away. We have gone through more carrots since we started this than we would have in 2 or 3 months normally and 5 times as much celery. There is a good 3 dozen apples on the bar and I have no fear that some will spoil. I no longer think beets are for other people to eat. They are fantastic in juices. Other veggies that you wouldn't normally think of when you think juice include fennel and collard greens. Some of you are saying "Collard greens in juice? Yuck!" but I swear in the right mix they are great.

BP numbers for the end of the week are Pam 114/68 and me 115/69.  Heart rates are Pam 61 and me 59.

The last couple of days we have had big salads for dinner so nothing in the way of great recipes to share - they are coming. You can only eat so much salad.

A picture of our "spaghetti" dinner

The color is a little off, but the faux spaghetti and meatballs are really quite good!   It was so pretty that I had to take a picture for you to enjoy too.

Surprisingly Good Fake Spaghetti

The recipe for Spaghetti and "Not" Meatballs called for me to make a marinara in a blender which was easy for me. It was a mix of Sun dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, olive oil, water, herbs, garlic and spices. Virtually the same as you would cooked but you do it in a food processor. The "spaghetti" is just zucchini ran through the julienne blade of my mandolin slicer. Meatballs were made of walnuts soaked for 4-6 hours and then processed with the appropriate combination of herbs and olive oil to make a paste. You ball them up and serve them with some marinara. I didn't like the recipe in the book so I made mine ala Paully. If you can make ground chicken or turkey taste like meatballs, why not walnuts?
The whole recipe was very tasty. It is a little weird eating room temperature food, but it was good.
Along with the Spaghetti I made their Muesli recipe which I had to add more oats to as it was way too sweet for us, and I made mixed nuts with salt and pepper without cooking them by squeezing lime juice on them - tossing them with the salt and pepper, and putting them on a drying rack to dry. They taste great but lack the normal crunch.
I also made almond milk for the muesli which requires soaking almonds and blending them with water, raisins and a little vanilla. It is good but a little thick.
All in all we are hanging in there. We'll post some weigh in and BP stuff soon.

The First Numbers

I am going to try to keep this in perspective, but it will be hard. Pam lost 5 lbs and I lost 6 since our weigh ins on Friday. If the only side effect of this was some minor headaches while fasting - which are gone now- I'm thinking this fasting isn't so crazy after all.
It was cold at the coast as it was all over Washington last weekend so we were somewhat limited by that and further limited by my broken foot and Pam's planter fasciitis so we walked a grand total of 4.2 miles on the beach in 3 days. That hour and a half of exercise likely wasn't a factor in the weight loss.
Yesterday the juice fast was broken and we moved on to a breakfast of banana, apple and pear - snacked on some more apple and some carrots on the drive home, had a big salad for lunch, more snacking in the afternoon and a big salad for dinner. So far the great thing about the fast is the change in appetite.
We are having juice for breakfast today. Salad for lunch and a Faux spaghetti made from zucchini that is more or less julienned and a blended tomato sauce.
More soon.....

The Two Day Juice Fast/Detox Is Over

We just finished the last of our 5 juices for day 2 of our juice fast. We can report that we both had minor headaches- me both days and Pam mainly the second day. The weird thing is that we have not been hungry even though the total calorie count for both of us for the 2 days is 3200 calories. So much for side affects.
The juicer worked like a champ. The hardest thing to work through the machine is spinach. It wants to cause a log jam - especially when I try to do it too fast. Only the afternoon snack juice was less than great. It needed some Tabasco to spice it up and we didn't bring any - Bad Bad, Bad.
We are really looking forward to fresh fruit for breakfast and we have some carrots and cukes cut up for the drive back from the ocean tomorrow. Next weigh in on Monday....