Our Raw Food Challenge starts the first Wednesday of every month and lasts for 10 days.  The objective is to invigorate your body with vitamins and minerals from natural sources like green leafy veggies, fruits and nuts.  Here are some points to consider...

1. Consumed no cooked or processed food.
2. Eat as much uncooked vegetation as you’d like including all veggies, fruits, dried fruits and nuts.
3. Fruit smoothies are fine to consume, but no added protein or vitamin powders.
4. Stay away from alcohol, refined sugar and caffeine.
5. Keep a food and exercise diary where you log in what you’ve eaten and the time of day, and what exercises you’ve done.
6. Keep your stats, such as weight, blood pressure, body measurements, etcetera, in your diary also.
7. The only exceptions to eating raw vegetation would be for a pre-workout meal.  For instance, if you're going to run a half-marathon or cycle 50 miles, you may want to stick to your current eating plan.  

The previous may sound like a lot, but once you get into the groove, it will become easy.  Each day I will be posting some ideas about what I’m eating and doing so you may follow my lead.  For instance, in my diary yesterday I wrote…

230103

1400 – salad

*1430 – pound cake

1615 – 1 clementine

&1900 – Exercise class 20 minutes

2000 – 1 apple

&2030 – walked at the gym 30 minutes

2200 – salad

*2200 – 2 glasses red wine

2300 – 2 handfuls cashews

This is in a Word file.  The date is “230103” and I use military time to log in everything.  I put special characters to denote exercises, stats and foods that I do not make myself.  This is just my system, however use whatever system works for you.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON TRANSITIONING BACK TO COOKED FOOD  

What we want when transiting back to cooked food is to maintain positive momentum from the challenge.  If you've lost weight, lowered your blood pressure, increased your energy or improved in some other way, you can never go back to old way of eating.  For the next 10 days after the challenge don't eat any meat products.  Limit yourself to cooked vegetation and grains.  Here are a few hints for success.

• Continue to keep your FOOD JOURNAL.  It is the key to eating, exercising and living successfully.  Check out WHY KEEP A FOOD JOURNAL? from Harvard Health.
• Make at least half of the food you eat raw vegetation, basically everything your were consuming during the challenge.
• For breakfast eat something as minimally processed as possible.  Many like steel cut oats, but I suggest putting lots of fruit in it and using water instead of milk.  If you must use milk, use a nut milk that doesn't have any food additives (coloring, emulsifiers, sugar, etc.).  It may be difficult to find that type of nut milk, so making your own is always the best option.
• I often just have fruit or salad for breakfast, but it's always something raw.  Whatever you do, don't go back to bacon and eggs -- or anything from an animal.
• If you're snaking during the day, always snack on fruit as it is the safest option.  Nuts are okay, but do your best to stay away from "roasted" nuts.  They are loaded with cooking oils and the nuts are denatured anway.  The best nuts to buy are unsalted and raw. 
• Nuts are very fattening if you're weight conscious, so exercise some restraint when consuming them.  However, if you are slanted towards a raw veggie  diet and nuts are the only fattening thing you're consuming, you'll probably be just fine and not gain any weight.  But, still be careful.
• For lunch I recommend this be your heaviest meal of the day.  The best cooked food to get started with is steamed veggies.  It forms that least amount of cancerous compounds (heterocyclic amines, acrylamides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons).  Whenever you're burning food to get that browning or smoking effect, danger is lurking.  With the steamed veggies I would recommend quinoa, brown rice or farro.  Also, oil free dressings are the best 
• Stay away from caffeinated drink as much as possible.  Many people love their coffee, but remember that caffeine is a drug and it's highly addictive.  If you can't do without your caffeine and get nauseous when you can't have it, that means there is a serious problem.  Try hickory and chicory nut blends or herbal teas.
• If you must have bread, go to a bakery and get it fresh made.  Yes, it's more expensive, but there will be few additives in it.