Ahhhhhh... Spring! My favorite time of year! After months of being under siege, we finally get to shed some of those extra layers of clothing and spend more time outdoors. Mmmmmmm... Gotta open the windows real wide and let in all that fresh air!
Well, spring is certainly settling in at a furious pace around here. Snow is melting so fast you can almost watch it shrink before your eyes. The thermometer climbed all the way up to 16 degrees yesterday (Bring it on, babe!) so we had our first picnic AND sunbathing session of the year! Woo-Hoo!
With the advent of spring, our 'Raw-Through-Winter' experiment is coming to an end, so I thought I'd better report, before winter becomes but a fading memory.
Warming Up To Raw
As I was mentioning in "Fiery Raw Foods to Help Ward Off the Cold Fingers of Winter!", this has been our first fully raw winter since moving to interior BC, 4 years ago. In the past, when the weather would drop down, we used to feel the 'need' to include simple, alkaline cooked foods, such as quinoa, millet, and steamed vegetables, to our mostly raw diet.
The major difference this time has been the introduction of green smoothies as well as dehydrated foods. Well, if you've read my previous post, you already know about our new love affair with greens. As for the dehydrator, not only did it allow us to create more elaborate and 'heavier' dishes, it provided a fast and simple way to warm up our food before eating. I'm quite aware that this is just a psychological thing, but hey, it did the trick! We've noticed, however, that as our bodies/minds have gotten used to the new diet, food temperature gradually stopped being an issue for us. (We are such creatures of habit!)
Actually, Don and I were talking the other day about how so much of what we experience is totally subjective. For instance, now that the outside temperature is climbing up, 10 degrees feels sooooooo warm while the same temp in the summertime or fall would have seemed most definitely cold. Yet, both experiences feel very 'real' to us, which proves the old saying that "we can't trust our senses".
Our Daily Raw Fare
Keeping in the spirit of the 'experiment' we conducted, I thought I'd share with you what our daily food intake has been looking like the past few months:
- 3 to 4 glasses of fresh juice each around 9 or 10 AM (our favorite blend is carrot, apple, beet, celery, ginger and lemon)
- 3 glasses of green smoothie each that we sip throughout the afternoon
- A few freshly cracked nuts as a snack
- We have our main meal around 4 PM (which ensures to give our bodies plenty of time to digest) and consists of: soup, salad, an entree (something simple like a sandwich or a spread on crackers, or something more substantial like pizza, burgers, lasagna, etc...)
- And usually a small dessert a bit later on
Naturally InsulatedWhile our nut intake has been much higher than in the warmer months, it allowed us to put on some 'flesh'; a much welcome
(and natural) insulation against
the cold. I estimate that I've gained perhaps 5 to 8 pounds, giving me rounder, fuller curves, which I must say feels very nice, as I tend to be really thin and wiry on Raw.
My mom is always asking whether I've been putting on some weight. For some reasons, she has this thing about how you need to be 'chubby' in order to look healthy. (Sounds familiar?) Even though she saw how much I was in great shape last summer, (and how I ate like a horse!), she can't let go of that old paradigm. I ended up taking a few photos so that she can see for herself, although I gotta admit that it doesn't really show so much. Oh well...
