Rawsome or Rawful? The Jury's Still Out
Well, months (nay, a year or more) of gluttony have caught up to me, and in 3 weeks I'll be back in Capri in a bikini. A daunting thought to say the least. So, I have enlisted the emergency help of a master trainer, who has put *me*, a professional eater and taster of everything, on a protein + raw food diet, in addition to putting me through an arse-kicking workout every day. He insists that if I follow his instructions, I will be bikini-ready in three weeks. Sounds too good to be true, but following this program requires intense focus and discipline. It's not easy, but it's doable.
I am the third day in, and I have to say, I am tired of eating all of the time. Adherence to this diet requires eating five meals of day, each to include the following: 2 cups of raw vegetables (I can choose from a list of twenty-six different kinds), 3 ounces of protein (not to include protein shakes or bars), and a liter of water. Every day. Five times a day. I have to say, I am not feeling any hunger pangs, and that's slightly worrying to me. By the time my third, fourth, and fifth meal come around, I have to force myself to eat because I am really not that hungry. On the plus side, in three days I've probably consumed more raw vegetables than I normally would in a month. My body's probably really happy about that.
Thus far I have resorted to roasted chicken, tuna, and hard boiled eggs for my protein, and carrots, mixed greens, and avocados for my veggies, with lemon, lime, salt, pepper and olive oil for condiments, but I am gonna have to start mixing it up soon, or I will risk boredom and temptation. So far I have been able to walk away from homemade pizza and rosemary butter cookies. No small feat.
Whether this eating detour proves to be rawesome or rawful remains to be seen. I will keep you posted.
Any rawesome Al Dente readers out there who can help me build an interesting raw food meal plan? I'd love to hear your suggestions. And if any of you have been/or on a raw food diet, I'd love to know about your successes/setbacks, and any helpful hints.
Related products:
--Stella "Raw Food" Cadente*
Follow me on Twitter @pomodorista
Amy Wilson (StreamingGourmet) on August 04, 2010 at 07:47 AM
I host the cooking video site, StreamingGourmet, and we have a collection of more than 40 Raw Food videos http://streaminggourmet.com/pages/raw many of them created by Diana Stobo, author of the book, "Get Naked Fast: A Guide to Stripping Away the Foods that Weigh You Down" (available at Amazon). There is even a recipe for Chili Cheese Jicama Fries, but since her recipes are vegan/raw, you're not really eating cheese. She always has a creative alternative to cheese, usually involving crushed nuts. Anyway, check it out and good luck!
StellaCadente* on August 04, 2010 at 08:36 AM
@Amy Wilson: Thanks! I will definitely check it out.
Paul A'Barge on August 05, 2010 at 07:35 AM
Good for you and here's wishing you great success!
Take some before and after pictures for us!
Paul A'Barge on August 05, 2010 at 07:39 AM
Hey! What's up with this:
"http://blog.americanfeast.com/2007/07/speaking_with_stella_cadentes_1.html"
HopeSew on August 05, 2010 at 08:44 AM
You might want to double check how much water you should drink. Five liters seems like a lot if you're not doing hours of heavy labor and sweating like crazy all day. Yes, you have an intense daily workout, but that's not 5 hours per day, is it? It's no surprise you're not hungry if you're drinking that much.
Would broccoli slaw count as your veg? Plus if you have a list of 26 approved veggies, make a point of going through them all by the end of 3 weeks instead of eating the same 3 vegs every day. Grind some into smoothies now and then if you don't feel like chewing. If your protein can be anything, eat them all: lamb, beef, pork, every fish, venison, shellfish, mollusks, etc prepared every different way. No reason to get bored. Protein plus veg is a normal, non-special-diet meal; the only difference on your program is that you can't cook the veg, and that's actually pretty helpful during the hot summer. Don't think of raw veg as only the chunks you find on a platter with dip. Have fun!
Kurt on August 05, 2010 at 09:04 AM
That sounds like an interesting idea. Is there a list anywhere on the web of the 26 recommended vegetables or of the recommended types of protein?
I also always wonder, though, how people who work regular hours (8-5) can ever fit a diet like that into their schedules. In order to eat 5 times a day, I'd have to eat at least twice when I was at work.
zipity on August 05, 2010 at 12:19 PM
Make sure you don't back up near any open flames.....
Joe on August 05, 2010 at 12:46 PM
We evolved to eat cooked food. Seriously, our jaws and teeth are not equipped to eat like silver back gorrillas on the vegitarian side and we lack the canines of chimps on the omnivore side of things.
Is some raw food better for you? Of course. I am sure greens, veggies, berries, fruits, etc. are better for you in raw form. But some fruits, like tomatoes, may be healthier for you cooked.
And why not have raw meat too? That is only (arguably) healthier if the meat/protein in question is exceedingly fresh and clean.
So in the interest of taking the middle ground, I do a bit of both. I try to eat some raw veggies. When I do cook veggies, I try not to destroy them in the process (lite steaming as opposed to boiling).
wyzbok on August 05, 2010 at 12:51 PM
I eat 5-6 small meals per day and work 8-5..it's actually harder to do that on the weekends, than it is at work. I have a protein shake and banana at 7am, egg-white omelet w/cheese and veggies at 10:00 am, leftover from dinner at 1pm, wheat toast with peanut butter and some fruit at 4pm for snack, then dinner at 7pm. It does take some initial investment in some Gladware or something similar but I've been doing it for 4yrs now and don't even think about it anymore.
Amy on August 05, 2010 at 01:13 PM
Stella, you are [unknowingly] in The Zone. :-) Not that the Zone Diet requires you to eat all raw (it doesn't), but in it's purest form, this is it. Due to the ideal protein to carb ratio and favorably spaced mealtimes, your blood sugar and insulin levels are stable and normal all the time, not spiking and crashing from the rollercoaster of eating refined/high glycemic load carbs. This is why you feel no hunger, and why the Zone is such a great way to lose weight if you need to.
My advice is to go for those rosemary butter cookies, though. Stuff like that doesn't come around all the time. ;-)
J on August 05, 2010 at 01:21 PM
I will just say that if I knew my next meal would look like yours, I don't think I would be very hungry either. ;)
John Campbell on August 05, 2010 at 01:55 PM
Not wanting to hijack this discussion or anything, but I agree with Joe. I would go further - we evolved to eat a paleo diet. There is controversy about everything in nutrition, but the evolutionary diet makes too much sense for me to ignore.
You want to burn fat? Eat fat - lots of saturated fat, moderate protein and light on the carbs - this is not Atkins, but he pointed in this direction. Once you turn your body into a fat burner rather than a carb burner, you lose that insatiable hunger - blood sugar? who cares - fat is the fuel. Carbs are simply unnecessary although they are certainly nice as a smaller part of the diet. Raw veggies and berries - excellent in reasonable doses.
In the two years plus that I have been eating this way, I have never felt better, lost 30 pounds gradually and kept it off. All of my blood markers have improved substantially, although I am not obsessed by them.
If you are searching for nutritional guidance and considering raw and or vegetarian, you owe it to yourself to at least check out paleo or evolutionary diet. We are all caveman living in the modern world - largely eating like one works for me.
memomachine on August 05, 2010 at 02:11 PM
Hmmm.
1. Raw food diet = utter nonsense.
What precisely are you supposed to get from a "raw food diet" that you wouldn't get from a regular diet? Are some nutrients destroyed during the cooking process? Sure. But the cooking process also transforms proteins and other nutrients to aid in the digestion and *absorption* of nutrients.
So you're eating more ... but in a form that is harder for your body to digest and absorb. Well that's a winner.
IMO:
Start off each meal with a large bowl of salad or mixed greens. Throw in stuff you like, but in moderation. Keep the carbs involved very low with at most a handful of cooked pasta thrown in. After the salad a protein oriented meal with reduced carbs should follow. Not "no carbs" but reduced carbs. Carbs often get turned into sugars and then into fat. To reverse the process you need to reduce carbs so that the body will make up the difference by consuming body fat.
Eliminate sugar, corn syrup and fructose.
Eliminate snacking.
Eliminate fruity yogurt and salad "dressing". Use olive oil and vinegar.
If you must snack: eat protein heavy things like nuts, cheese, bacon, beef jerky, etc. No more than what will fit in a closed fist at any one time, e.g. no bowls of snacks, and at least 1 hour between snacks.
For carbs: toasted light bread with butter, cooked pasta or other cooked grains.
2. 5 liters of water a day?
Even worse than nonsense. If you're thirsty, drink. If not, do not.
Anything else is pure hokum.
3. Exercising every day?
Helllooooooo orthopedic surgeon.
I've worked out since I was 14. I did the whole split schedule business, daily workouts, aerobics, iron plates (platehead here) and the result of it all is that it isn't the amount you work out or the frequency. Or even the amount of weights, if you use weights.
It's the technique and form.
Frankly if you're working out every day I seriously doubt your technique or form is being maintained properly. Perhaps your trainer is keeping a serious eye on this but as fatigue sets in you're going to be sloppy and no amount of trainers barking at you is going to change that. Exercising every day is a promo line in a brochure. Exercising every other day is perhaps a better way but doing serious exercising more than 3 times a week is a waste of time and sweat.
Personally I advocate: Superslow or "muscle contraction with measured movement". Google it.
Essentially the formula for force is F= mass x acceleration. When you see people throwing weights around, even their own body weight, they are putting excessive force on their joints. And it all adds up. Additionally a lot of people misunderstand how muscles are constructed. They are a single fiber. Instead they consist of a multitude of muscle fibers all oriented in different directions attached to one another with connective tissue.
When you do an exercise too fast not all of the muscle fibers have a chance to get into the game, so to speak. Slow things down, do a 10 second count between each *half* of a repetition for a 20 second cycle while maintaining tension at each end of a cycle for another 3-5 seconds. This will result in less trauma to the body and more effect.
Using this technique I went from a 450lb leg press to a 800lb leg press in 4 weeks @ 2 sessions/week = 8 sessions. Just as an example.
Your workout should be intense but precisely defined and limited. 5-7 exercises in all with 10 repetitions per exercise. If you're capable of doing 12 repetitions, then you need to increase weights, resistance or difficulty. 30 minutes for the workout from start to finish with the heart rate maintained throughout. No goofing off, talking, visiting, gossiping or anything other nonsense. Workout and then play or play and then workout. Playing while working out is how people get hurt.
Go, do, done, go home.
...
*shrug* my 2 shekels.
memomachine on August 05, 2010 at 02:15 PM
Hmmm.
As an aside. I went from 290lbs, lazy computer programmer that I am, to 190lbs in 4 months with *zero* exercise. Not even time spent on a treadmill, because frankly that nonsense reminds me of a hamster in a wheel.
I'll go back to a regular exercise regime when I've lost another 30lbs because until I've lost the weight working out would be not only pointless but potentially injurious. Is that against the grain of modern exercise CW? Sure.
But if modern exercise CW meant anything then we wouldn't have so many ... orthopedic sports surgeons now would we?
Karen Bordner on August 05, 2010 at 03:55 PM
Stella,
Don't despair! Check out www.ezrawfood101.com. Chef Alicia (classically trained who transitioned to raw food 8 years ago and hasn't looked back!) Alicia is the head chef and menu developer at Beet's Cafe in Austin, TX which has gotten all kinds of media attention, including the local Fox Network. www.BeetsCafe.com. You gotta be good to attract that kind of attention in meat eating TX! John Mackey CEO of Whole Foods is a huge fan and particularly of her Hemp Ranch Salad Dressing.
She also has a new cookbook, (both e and print version) to be up on amazon.com soon, which is titled Salads & Dressings Going Beyond the Basics. This includes 20+ pages of "how to's" on organics, veggies, flavor composition in dressings, natural sweeteners, buying/handling/washing/storing your greens. Then there's all of the yummy and easy recipes that won't leave you NOT wanting to eat your raw diet. You won't even notice it's raw.
So don't despair, there's hope and happiness in Raw Food-land!
Andrew_M_Garland on August 05, 2010 at 03:58 PM
A liter is about 1 quart = 4 x 8-oz cups.
5 liters per day is 20 cups. I hope you are not drinking that much.
This would be a good reason to check out the credentials and training of your "master trainer".
http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp
Snopes: 8 cups water myth
======== Quote
Kidney specialists do agree on one thing, however: that the 8 cups per day rule is a gross overestimate of any required minimum. To replace daily losses of water, an average-sized adult with healthy kidneys sitting in a temperate climate needs no more than one liter of fluid, according to Jurgen Schnermann, a kidney physiologist at the National Institutes of Health.
One liter is the equivalent of about four 8-ounce glasses. According to most estimates, that's roughly the amount of water most Americans get in solid food. In short, though doctors don't recommend it, many of us could cover our bare-minimum daily water needs without drinking anything during the day.
========
Jim on August 05, 2010 at 04:16 PM
I realize this will fall on deaf ears, but the last major outbreaks of E.Coli have been from undercooked/raw vegetables.
Andy on August 05, 2010 at 06:19 PM
Why can't you eat protein bars or shakes?
Can you eat those but not count them as your protein source or are those forbidden for some reason?
Thanks
-A
StellaCadente* on August 05, 2010 at 07:18 PM
Wow, I didn't realize this would spark such a discussion, but I am pleased. @Andy--re: no protein bars or shakes, he didn't outright say they were forbidden, but he says people normally get better results with whole foods. @Andrew_M_Garland: I have been drinking a gallon a day. My trainer says this is required in order to burn fat, in addition to taking cod oil. Not negotiable. I am not sure where he came by this info., though. Perhaps I should research. @Kurt:alfalfa sprouts, avocado, bean sprouts, bell pepper, broccoli, cabbage (all kinds), whole carrots, cauliflower, celery, collard greens, cucumber, garlic, kale, lettuce (all kinds), mushroom, onion, radish, romaine, seaweed, shallot, spaghetti squash, spinach, squashes, string beans, turnip greens, zucchini (technically not 26 as there are some redundancies i.e. lettuce and romaine.) Thanks everyone for the advice and suggestions. I will certainly keep you posted on my progress. Wish me luck! --Stella* (P.S.@Amy--I haven't fallen for the rosemary butter cookies. Not yet!)
@Jim: Thomas (my trainer) warned of this. He suggested washing the veggies with a vinegar solution and also hitting them with a hydrogen peroxide solution.
Beth Donovan on August 06, 2010 at 05:26 AM
I'll be so interested in how your progress goes. Do you prepare the proteins ahead of time so you don't have to cook 5 times a day? I think that would be difficult for me!
HopeSew on August 06, 2010 at 07:42 AM
The veg list reads like the entire produce department of a regular grocery store (minus fruits). Boredom isn't an option.
I'm glad the extreme version of this diet will last only 3 weeks for you. Eating 5 full meals each day, even when you're not hungry, can't be very useful in the long term. And so much water...staying hydrated is one thing, going overboard is another. I guess it must be part of some kind of cleanse or kick-start at this point, but it'll be nice to reduce to a reasonable intake later.
Maureen on August 06, 2010 at 11:31 AM
Eating large amounts of veggies or fruits = diarrhea.
On the bright side, you do lose a lot of weight down the toilet, and you can pretend it's "detox" instead of intestinal revolt.
memomachine on August 07, 2010 at 06:28 AM
Hmmmm.
Drinking water to burn fat? Chemically how does that work? Biologically how does that work? As a survival mechanism?
Prior to modern agriculture food was expensive and/or difficult to come by. I can't imagine any logical biological process that would make it even reasonably possible that a human hunter-gatherer could *lose* precious body fat by drinking water.
The only thing that happens when you drink more water is that you go to the bathroom more often. Nothing else.
REN on September 06, 2010 at 11:39 AM
There sure seems to be an awful lot of armchair nutritionists here on this thread. Stella Cadente, would you please give us an update on your progress?