Tired day.

I've mentioned here and there about adding cooked food back into my diet. I think a large part of why I made that choice was because I was just getting fed up with being tired and depressed and literally not willing to eat all the fruit required to healthily stay raw. The alternative? Joint pain, abdominal discomfort, eye infection, histamine reactions, constipation, acne. This is the myriad of symptoms just from adding things like Fresh salsa (with salt, onion, peppers), yams, canned beans, and grains like rice and wheat. In truth I just want this to be easy, because I have so many other things I want to focus on in my life.

I've learned a couple things throughout this process.

1) Vary your fruits. I'm still not convinced that I'm completely unable to eat bananas, but I know that a diet that was based upon a potentially poor-quality fruit did me no favors.

2) Do your homework. In theory I have all the tools at my disposal to succeed on this diet. I know I need fruit, greens, sunshine, sleep, and exercise. I also know I am not getting these things. Writing that list out actually even brought it into a clearer light. If I do nothing else tonight, I am getting some greens in.

3) Do not let others' negative attitudes affect you. This is one I also haven't mastered. My mother is negative to the core. She's sweet, but she does not make me feel good about what I'm doing. Every time I try to tell her something I've realized on this diet, she finds a way to politely argue. Aside from fatigue (and weight gain from upping my calories to try to combat the fatigue), I had no issues on this diet. All of a sudden, I feel like my health is struggling under the impact of cooked food. I actually just wrote this to my mom:

Hi mom, was on my laptop and thought I'd write you a message. I am not feeling good about something and I just want to get it written down.

I feel like whenever I talk to you about my diet, you [politely] argue with it. Since I added cooked food back, I know you appreciated that I could be like a "normal person." Truth is, as soon as I added cooked food on, a lot of things happened: my face broke out with acne again when it'd finally started to clear up, I started having constipation and digestive discomfort, my spine started giving me problems when I had not even a micro amount of pain when raw, my skin got dry again, and my eye got infected. After eating potatoes, I would have trouble breathing and my eyes would get dry. After eating salsa, I would sneeze and my eyes would water and my nose would run. After eating beans, I would have a lot of gas. None of these problems were there before, not even at all. Going raw has made me "not normal" in your eyes, but going back to cooked is clearly worse for my body.

I am totally alone in this vegan thing, and don't even get me started on raw. I have the internet and that's all. I research this and know more about it than I know about what's going on in our country, but I have no friends to talk to about it. I feel even more alone when I talk to you about it and you instantly give me an argument about why I'm clearly mistaken about whatever I happened to say about it, good or bad. If I tell you something it's to try to feel less alone and just discuss it with someone else, but you tend to make me feel bad about it, and wrong. Either I won't tell you anything about what's going on with me, or you start to support me. I would rather the latter because again it's just me doing this; I don't have anyone around me to help. 

Ok, that's all. Talk to you soon. 

Lori


I have blogging to thank for allowing me to realize the affect she has on me. I do feel totally alone doing the raw food thing. Feeling alone is always a factor in the depressions that I sink into, and I really can't stand to hear another comment from her putting my beliefs down. I never force my views on her or make her feel bad for not eating raw. I do my own thing and occasionally want to talk about it.

Today I have eaten 100% raw until about an hour ago when I got a coffee with soymilk from the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble. I was so tired today and just have to have some faith that it was because I've been eating pasta and polenta and ketchup and tortillas, with so much less emphasis on raw fruit and greens.  Yesterday I had pasta for multiple meals. Yes it tasted good, yes I would love to be "normal," if it meant feeling great, but if that's normal, I don't want to be it. I'm trying to save my body from whatever it is that it would turn into if I continue to abuse it. Coffee will have to be the final frontier.

Finally I have a blog that I think is going to stick. I do just want to be happy! That's it!