Day 1: Feeling fine....

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

So today was wonderful. ALthough it's SERIOUSLY muggy here in NYC, which normally means my energy dips tremendously, I didn't feel particularly tired. I swung by the new Whole Foods in my neighbourhood and grabbed some Udo's oil which I'd run out of, and a couple of avos. I was outside most of the day with my kids in the park, so I even thought ahead and bagged my salad, putting my dressing in a seperate ziplock. See?? I'm committed.

I had a huge green smoothie for breakfast with 2 bananas, blueberries, raspberries, kale, and some flax seeds, and then that huge salad for lunch with greens, tomatoes, avo, cukes, Udo's Oil and raw ACV. I ate a small cantaloupe and some berries for a snack, and for dinner I made a delicious celery soup from the Boutenko's cookbook Fresh: The Ultimate Live Food Cookbook. I am cutting back on the recommended 1/4 olive oil (for the total recipe, which makes 6 cups) to 2 tablespoons, so that will cut my fat intake a bit! I also had a large glass of delish orange juice...fresh squeezed is the best!! And a couple of bananas for dessert :)

I am sharing the recipe for the celery soup here:

Delicious Celery Soup
1 medium celery bunch
1 tsp raw honey or other raw sweetener if you prefer no honey
2 tbs raw olive oil
3 cups distilled water
1/2 an avocado (the recipe called for one whole one, so feel free!)
salt and pepper to taste

Blend it all in your Blendtec for a yummy cold soup. I usually throw in some ice cubes so it's really chilled...

If you want to track your nutritional intake during the course of this challenge (not to obsess, but just for curiosity's sake!) then I recommend either Nutri-diary at nutridiary.com or the Cronometer. The latter is software you download to your computer, and it's faster and has more detail (like tracking Omega-3 intake, which is critical for me).

But if you plan on logging your food intake via different computers, then nutridiary.com is the way to go. Both are really cool tools, especially for gauging your fat intake as a percentage of your total daily calories. T. Colin Campbell, in his seminal work, The China Study, finds that keeping your fat % low is ideal (and using vegetable fat sources, not animal), but keeping it really low every day might be hard to achieve for some, especially if you want to simply focus on being raw and not on percentages per say.

I do check in with cronometer every few days to see how I am doing, and am more than occasionally shocked at my fat intake as a percentage of total calories. The actual total amount of fat grams is almost always quite low, but as a percentage of my total intake, it's often high. I don't know what to make of this. I mean, of course if all I eat is greens and fruit, and then throw in an avocado, the avo's denser calories and higher fat means that my fat intake as a % of total intake might shoot up to 40 or 50%!! But all I had was one avocado, which feels okay to me on certain days. So I don't know. I'd be curious to hear opinions on this...is fat percentage more important to you, or fat grams, or do you just say "Eh, screw it...I eat what I want, when I want, as long as it's raw!"

I did find a really, really interesting journal article published in the Public Health Nutrition Journal (I believe it's based in Australia, given all the references to an Australian diet)...any way, as relates to a vegan diet (not raw, but vegan) the authors drew the following conclusions: "A high intake of vegetable-based foods, even with substantially added fat (emphasis mine) can reduce energy-density and protect against weight gain." Meaning, more or less, that even high fat vegan diets don't neccesarily promote weight gain because they're less caloric, even if you're eating a lot of "fatty" vegan foods like oils, avos, etc. The foods they used in the study included couscous and veggies, potatoes, marinated grilled veggies and tofu broccoli stirfry (among other dishes). So obviously not raw, but still interesting results, no? In the study (if I am reading it right) the "high fat" veggie diet had 50% of its calories from fat, on average. That's pretty high. But calorically, their diet was still much lower. If nothing else, the study proved you can't lose weight on SnackWells (since their lower fat is offset by their higher calories)!!!

Anyway, nevermind fat...I didn't eat enough calories today, only about 1200...given that I am running I should probably try and eat more.

Here are my cronometer stats:
Carbs/Fat/Protein: 62/32/6
Protein: 27 grams
Fats: 50 grams
Vitamin A: 1700% (WOW!)
Vitamin C: 650% (yea baby!)
Vitamin K: 1200% (I'm on a roll...)

I am going to be training for a 4 mile race on the 19th of July so I am going to run or do the elliptical 4-5 days a week. For me, it really helps my mood and my energy...anyway, enough about me!!

Post here about your day 1 experiences below!!!