Wow, time really does fly by! It seems like just a few days ago I was contemplating this little experiment. It really has not been anywhere near as challenging as I thought it would be. My food cravings for cooked foods have diminished even more as I’ve gotten smarter about eating more total calories and also eating the right types of foods.

Over the past week, I’ve started to experiment with some new foods and recipes, and have started to cultivate a keen taste for my morning fruit smoothies and evening veggie soups (un – cooked of course)! I actually look forward to these!

In my last update, after 11 days on the 100% raw food diet, I lost a bit of weight – quite a bit actually. Despite going out of my way to keep my caloric intake even, I lost 6 pounds in the first 11 days, almost all of that coming off in the first week alone. Luckily, the weight loss has stopped, and actually started to reverse itself a bit. This is good since I am already lean and not looking to lose much total body-weight overall.

Some highlights I’ve experienced since my check-in on Day 11:

• This morning I weighed in at 1375lbs and 12% bodyfat, which is a gain of 1.5lbs over the past 10 days. The bodyfat %  varies a bit due to hydration levels, so I assume that is pretty constant – which is great!
• I find it a lot easier to eat large quantities of veggies, fruits and salads. Either my brain has come to recognize that meals can consist of only veggies or fruits, my stomach has become more elastic – or both!
• My skin continues to be far clearer than normal.
• My overall flexibility levels are far better than on my vegan diet. I have not practiced yoga nearly as much as normal in the past week, but I still feel very limber.
• My energy levels are quite high overall – no “crashes” in the afternoon at work or in the evenings after eating. I feel quite light and energetic all the time.
• I have lost any desire whatesoever for coffee or caffeinated products.
• I sleep very well, and wake up feeling refreshed. This hasn’t changed.
• I am getting much better vascularity over my body – I can see veins that I never knew I had! No – I won’t be entering a bodybuilding competition any time soon.
• I am realizing that it is totally possible to be a junk food raw vegan! How? Well – let’s just say I’ve discovered the world of gourmet raw food. We have a few great raw cafes around here, and the food is amazing (and far better for you than most cooked food meals) but eating heavy meals with lots of nuts, seeds and sprouted grains, oils and rich raw desserts will leave you feeling lethargic and heavy. There are also things like raw flax crackers, raw breadsticks (made from seeds) and of course…raw almond and coconut butter! Overeating these foods could spell disaster, so I am keeping myself from over-indulging on these things.

What have I been eating?

I am still eating fruit smoothies in the morning and veggie soups in the evening. This hasn’t changed. I’ve been branching out and eating other fruits like honeydews, watermelon, strawberries as well since they are in season. I also buy papayas every now and then. However, I’ve been cutting back on the raw cacao consumption a bit. I like the stuff, but notice that overdoing it will give me a mild headache.

Here are a few random food pics:

(Romaine lettuce, tomato, sprouts and a home-made avocado and pineeapple dressing!)

(Papaya is great for breakfast! I’ll eat a large one before work.)

(Who says you need Gatorade? Watermelon is the among the world’s best post-workout foods. I ate this small watermelon after cycling 30 miles in the sunny Seattle roads around Lake Washington!)

I have been lacto-ovo vegetarian for essentially my entire life. It was really the only diet I have known, and I suppose I have felt fine and am fairly healthy. A few years ago I was inspired to go-Vegan by a yoga teacher (Sharon Gannon) and after having educated myself on the issues of sustainable agriculture and mass-market egg and dairy farming, decided to give it a try.

During this period I lost quite a lot of weight, given the fact that I was already quite thin. I went from 145lbs to low 130′s. Many of my friends and family thought that I was getting too skinny. Looking back at pictures of me from that period lead me to believe them now, though at the time I was convinced that I was as healthy as humanly possible. I had insanely high energy levels compared to my vegetarian days, and completed two Ironman Triathlons and a few other ridiculous endurance events during the 1 and ½ years I was vegan. I was also working like crazy.

I eventually decided that vegan was not the best thing for me. The straw that broke my back was going to my sisters wedding, and feeling that I couldn’t eat any of the food (many Indian foods use clarified butter). I decided that I would be a responsible vegetarian, buying only organic eggs and cheese, and not stressing out if I had a piece of non-organic cake or some cheese pizza at Papa Johns.

That was about 3 years ago. It is amazing how subtle changes can cause major shifts over the long term. It had gotten to the point where I was really struggling to get back into good shape. Throughout the past three years, I have run a few half-marathons, and done some other long distance events (swam across Puget Sound), but I never really felt like I had the energy levels that I had when I was vegan.

Slowly reintroducing dairy into my diet had, over a few years, made me feel like crap. I gained about 20 pounds (some of it muscle as I was lifting) and while I felt much stronger, was more lethargic than I had ever been. Waking up in the morning seemed harder to do. I started drinking coffee to wake up and keep myself awake. I ate food but never really felt satisfied. When you start to think about it; if you sit down and have a Super Burrito at noon, should you really be starving by 5pm? Of course not. It just doesn’t make sense.

A few months I decided to make a change. I started to go back to yoga, and have been increasing the amount of aerobic activity I’ve been doing.

Last week, I made a radical change to my diet.

While I want to get back in peak shape, I want to avoid going to some extreme just for the heck of it. I want to eat in a way that gives me more energy than I have ever had before. I also don’t want to turn into a walking stick of skin and bones. I’ve been searching for the right answer to this question for a while. I don’t know if I have found it, but I feel like I am getting close.

Tomorrow I’ll talk more about the diet I followed for the past week, the effect it has had on me and the science behind it.