Stiletto Diaries

Raw Foods - Day Three

Posted on February 3rd, 2009 in Budge That Pudge

Don’t people always say that the third day is the hardest?

I certainly hope it is.

Today has been a struggle for me.  I’m recovering from a bout of the flu, and all I’ve wanted since Sunday is a cup of coffee and a hot bowl of soup.  While it would be easy for me to justify abandoning this raw foods thing in light of feeling like three pails of dead cats, I haven’t given in.  Unfortunately, I haven’t eaten much today either because I just don’t want anything that I’m allowed to have.

For breakfast I had a cocktail of juiced spinach, oranges, and kiwis.  For lunch I had an apple.  For supper I’m having a whole orange bell pepper and a cup of raw cashews.  It’s not even that I feel hungry, because I don’t.  I attribute that to the flu, which generally kills my appetite considerably, but it’s difficult to know that I would be eating more if only I could eat what I want.

Already I’ve discovered how kind of warped my relationship with food has been.  I feel now as though all of the joy has been removed from the act of consuming food, and I’m only eating what I need to survive (actually less at the moment, but please know that I am not starving myself or anything).  It’s peculiar for me to feel so…indifferent about eating, when previously it was something I looked forward to.  Maybe this is a more normal relationship with food?  Eating because you need to sustain your body, and not because it’s the highlight of your afternoon, or your method of relieving stress after a difficult day?

That’s not to say that one should never take pleasure from eating, I just wonder if perhaps some of us get more excited about it than others?  Personally, I know that I don’t often eat because I’m actually hungry.  I eat for the flavour, for the comfort, for the sensation of it.  It has nothing to do with nourishment and everything to do with indulgence.  Clearly that’s not the way to go.  Neither is removing all sense of enjoyment.  As with all things in life, some sense of balance must be obtained.

This evening I discovered, quite painfully, what happens if you eat only a single apple over the course of the day.  I won’t get into details, but this discovery was made in the bathroom, when my spinach-colored crap was the consistency of thin soup.

Raw foods, by the way, does all sorts of exciting things to your feces.  I’m sure you wanted to know.

Really, I’m not trying to disgust you, I’m only attempting to keep a written record of how I feel, and what is going on with me during this extreme change in eating habits.  If you’re of a weak constitution, maybe skip these posts