The Raw Union, the 'itchies' and unexpected gains!

Beginning Raw Vegan Weight: 425

Beginning Blog Weight: 277

Weight Yesterday: 253.5

Weight Today: 254

Today’s Loss: +.5

Total Blog Loss: 23 lbs in 1 day shy of 3 weeks!

NEW GOAL: 249 - only 5 lbs away!!

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Greetings on this dreary humid and rainy Philadelphia morning!

HOW I COPE WITH 80-10-10ing IN A RAW CAFE
For those of you who don't know, I am a raw vegan chef at Arnolds Way Raw Vegetarian Cafe' and Education Center in Lansdale, PA. http://www.arnoldsway.com/

Arnolds Way is such a fabulous awesome place and I love it. But working in a raw kitchen has been really challenging for me as a compulsive eater. Raw bread gallore, nut spreads at my fingertip, burgers ready to grab and gobble. My work days in the kitchen at Arnolds Way have always been filled with compulsive non stop snacking.

Until I started 80-10-10.

On 80-10-10, my choices are severely limited, and veggies and fruits are NON-STIMULATING. I eat when i get HUNGRY now, instead of eating when i want to EXCITE MY TASTEBUDS. It's really pretty ground breaking for such a voracious chronic binge eater as myself, to have been COMPLETELY released from that compulsion to eat. As long as i steer clear of all offending foods. My worst offending food is salt. I bloat like there's no tomorrow if i even LOOK at salt. On 80-10-10, fat is severely limited. As long as i follow the guideline of 10% fat or less, I'm good.

Controlling my banana intake and my date/agave intake is an idea from www.rawfoodbootcamp.com to help me, as a morbidly obese person, lose weight quicker.

I was such a good little girl at work yesterday. I didn't taste ONE THING!

At Arnolds Way, we use olives and olive oil and celtic salt and nama shoyu in our dishes. Although Arnold and Arnolds Way are HUGE supporter of 80-10-10, many of our dishes are aimed to appeal to a wider audience of raw foodists, who appreciate salt and fat and flavor. If we served bland 80-10-10 dishes to people unaccostomed to the natural taste of unseasoned raw foods, many would be turned off. So, season, we do. I don't see anything wrong with it. We'll soon be creating a menu of strict 80-10-10 dishes because so many of us at the store are 80-10-10ing.

As a RAW CHEF on 80-10-10 where salt and oil are OUT, what am i left to do when making a dish containing salt and oil....How do i make sure it is seasconed properly? Well, I can no longer TASTE dishes to check their seasoning. I have to just trust my cooking common sense, trust my senses, like my sense of smell, and use my common sense, my cooking common sense.

I seemed to luck out despite not being able to taste yesterday, even when i made 'special', off the menu dishes for customers. I had prepared a special raw marinara sauce for a customer and when delivered the completed dish to her table, i simply explained to her that i couldn't taste the sauce as i was on a 'diet', and I wanted to make sure everything tasted alright, so 'please let me know if your dish is too salty or not salty enough, or needs to be adjusted in any way, and i'll fix it for you'. The girl was pleasnt, tasted it, and told it was delicious. So, there, who needs to taste?

I also found plenty of willing taste testers to help with my other special dishes that we'll feature this week. I made raw pesto that we top pizza with, and a sauce called 'Spicy Thai Sauce' (totally UN-80-10-10-ish as it is ALL cashews with fresh ginger and garlic). The marvelous "DJ Shamrock", Tim, was my main go-to-taste tester the entire day. God bless him! He really helped out and i am very appreciative. 'Tim....can you do me a favor....again....? Can you just taste this? Is it too salty? too lemony? too spicy? too garlicy? too gingery? too thin?' I assaulted him with questions and little niblets to test out. I took his advice and made the adjustments! Today people said the sauces were delicious. So there! Who says "I" have to taste?

Being a chef, the 'tounge' and how food tastes is EVERYTHING. Well, maybe it's not EVERYTHING, but it's ALMOST EVERYTHING. Or so i thought.

I've always been very fond of telling clients that i 'cook to taste'. I suppose i should now say that i 'used' to cook by taste. Shame, shame, shame on me. (Did you ever watch Hell's Kitchen? You know what a verbal lashing the contestents receive from the abusive, but sexy Ramsey if they don't taste EVERYTHING before it reaches the customer!) I have always been adament about tasting. If something tastes good and balanced to ME, then i figure, it will appeal to everyone else. And so far, everyone loves the creative gourmet raw dishes that my taste buds led me to come up with.

I have been blessed with a sensitive tounge or a good 'palate', a good sense of taste, as Ramsey, would say, and i have used that to my advantage, in creating raw dishes.

BUT, i've also ABUSED that palate. I've so gotten lost in TASTING, that i made myself sick and gain weight. That's not good.

Now that i'm NOT tasting, it is more challenging to cook raw for customers, but also strangely freeing. Instead of small tastes escalading into outright chowing down all day/tasting everything just to revel in the glory of TASTE, I have an army of taste testers i'm constantly hounding....things STILL come out tasting GOOD, and i'm LOSING WEIGHT...AND....i've completely STOPPED BINGE EATING. Yay!

Let them taste the food...so it doesn't end up on my hips! ~A moment on the lips, forever on the hips~

The fact that Arnold is a HUMONGOUS supporter of the 80-10-10 diet makes doing the program at Arnolds Way really a snap, though. There is fruit everywhere. As workers, we are permitted to eat for free while working. That meant all of the fatty salty stuff before, but now it means banana-less shakes, grapefruits or oranges or fresh veggie salads or fresh spiralized spaghetti. It is always within reach. What a blessing! Thank you Arnold!

It is so GOOD to say that I've changed from grabbing the stuff that sets me 'off' ....to the stuff that keeps me on track!

FAT, BANANAS AND LOSING WEIGHT
I don't know what came over me yesterday, but I forewent the one banana i am permitting myself, and did not even partake in any cashew butter or tahini or avocado. I was really wanting a good loss and KNEW the way to do it!

Man, was I was set for a GREAT LOSS THIS MORNING as i hopped on the scale!!!!

I gained a half a pound.

If I were a scientist, i would be very confused right now. But, alas, there are MORE variables to this thing than fat and bananas alone.

EXERCISE
Yesterday, i had to leave for work extra early and did not make enough time to do my walk.

I had planned on doing Yoga last night, too. It's just a nice stretching class, but it would have been something. But i was dog-tired after work, and because i had gotten to work so early, i was finished my day by 5:30. Yoga is at 6:30, so i scadaddled outta there just in time to miss it, on purpose. I was too tired. I had been up since 4:45a.m.

I've become a certifiable early riser.

Saving exercise for the evening as an early riser is definitely a very very bad idea. It's TOO easy to just say 'ehhh, i don't feel like it' because i am genuinely tired.

Cliff will be up soon and we are going to get out and get an early start. I don't have to be to work until 10a.m., so i'll have plenty of time.

CANDIDA UPDATE
It's kind of disconcerting that my body has become so sensitive to overconsumption of fat. I can't quite believe that ONE AVOCADO gave me a yeast infection.

Yeast infections have been an ongoing occurance for the last several months since i've been 80-10-10ing. Whenever I overconsume fat, I get the burning and the itching in my cooch and in my heinie hole. This is not pleasant!! I feel as if my body is AT WAR WITH ME or AGAINST ME.

But when i really think about it, i think it's my body's way of saying, 'hey, honey, you do not NEED all of that FAT! you may WANT it, but you don't NEED it, ' and that my body is really working to try to HELP me shed the pounds and RID itself of the FAT. It doesn't really WANT or NEED any extra. Just enough to live and be well. It's like my body knows excess fat is not good for me.

That kinda sucks. Now i have to be responsible.

RAW WEDDING UPDATE
I'll be leaving next Thursday for Oregon for the Raw Wedding! I'll be singing: 'Ave Maria' and 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain' at the ceremony on Sunday eve, as well as some romantic slow tunes at the reception afterwards - 'unforgettable', 'my funny valentine', 'cheek to cheek', 'wind beneath my wings', 'can you feel the love tonight' and 'at last'.

At some point during the festival, i've been promised the opportunity to tell my story, and hopefully i can sing an aria then, too. I'll be dissapointed if i don't get to share some of my opera as well!

My friends, Meredith http://www.therawseed.com/ and Dustin, her husband, http://www.dustinkellogg.com/ are driving from Colorodo to attend the event!!! I'm so excited to have friends coming! I'm sure i'll need some hugs as nerves will no doubt get to me!

Meredith and Dustin just moved to Colorodo and are LOVING it! They are a rawesome couple, and being raw foodists are more than a little dissappointed to have discovered that there are zero raw restaurants in the Boulder area.

Well, little Ms. Meredith, the most talented raw chef I know, will just have to OPEN ONE!!! I know i'll be hearing about that from her...soon!

THE RAW WEDDING - HOW WILL I DEAL WITH THE FOOD?
There is going to be 'gourmet' food galore at the festie, and as the 'gourmet' wreaks havoc on my reflux laryngitis, swelling my vocal cords, i'll not be partaking of any before i sing. I am staying with some Arnolds Way customers, who coincidentally moved to Oregon, and plan on marketing and stocking their house with plenty of fruit and greens for myself, and then packing my food for the festival.

Sadly, being that i sing Sunday night at the end of the festival, that pretty much wipes out any fun gourmet hogfests i might have had on Saturday or Sunday during the day. rats.

Sunday night at the raw wedding buffet, HOWEVER, after i sing, PERHAPS, i'll 'treat' myself? Could i? should i?

I may have the itchies on the plane ride home.

Hm. Let's weigh this out. Vaginal comfort. Gourmet fun. Vaginal comfort...gourmet... Which will be the winner? We shall see!!!

My gown that barely fit last summer is falling off of me. I bought a new gown 2 weeks ago, and the bust area is huge on me now after only 2 weeks of blogging weight loss success. For a big person, i have little boobies. (I'm a pear). They make all of these big girl gowns assuming we're all as mammorially well endowed as Aretha Franklin. I may wear the one that's falling off of me, but just use the little support strap that came with it.

If you look really close, i'm in the Festie banner above, toward the left, down below, in my gown!

FOOD / ACTIVITY

BR: Mango Strawberry Smoothie: 1 banana, 2 fresh ripe mangos, a few strawberries, 1 tsp coconut flakes. Was yummy.

EXERCISE: 1 hour 10 min walk in the light drizzle. Deceptively good work out. Not many hills today, tried to keep it on level streets, to rest, since i had to work today.

LIQUID: 1 large unsweetened mango iced tea. 2 glasses of water.

SN: Green Smoothie at work: 1/2 bag spinach, pineapple and mango. no dates/agave

LN: big chopped salad: LOTS of mushrooms, 1/4 avocado (my fat for day), red pepper, red onion, celery, carrot, zucchini, cilantro, garlic, ginger, tomato. Pulse chopped w/S blade in cuisinart. YUMMMM. No salt or oil and yummo.

SN: Tart cranberry Smoothie: cranberries, green grapes, mango, pineapple. After i got used to the tartness, DELISH!

DN: At home: Fresh whole mushrooms, fresh whole tomatoes, 2 ears of raw corn. Lovely!

SN: 1/2 medium watermelon

Blessings!

xoxo michelle joy