Merry Christmas! 11 days raw! No Binges!

Hello, friends,

We had a lovely Christmas day today, visiting friends and family and sharing good times with all.

I've had an exciting past few days!

I had a catering job with Susan. We have a raw catering company called "Mostly Raw". (We'll use cooked beans if you desire them). We made a tray of raw raspberry cream tartlettes, and raw key lime tartlettes, a raw pumpkin spice cheezecake, and a tray of our famous "thai veggie rainbow wraps". they are so good. I'll hopefully share pics with you tomorrow. I hope our goodies make the holidays special for our very special customers!

Great news...I've been raw again since last Monday, Dec 14th, 11 days, yay!

Previously, i was raw for 3 years. Coincidentally or not, just around my 3rd year anniversary, things went haywire. When i went off, i, uh, i really went off. I have a binge eating disorder, so, things get high volume very very very quickly. No meat, thank god (it's so good, could i have even stopped???), but lots of cheese and eggs and bread and butter and pasta all eaten in uncontrollable binge fashion.

So, it's so amazing to be back on raw, and amazingly enough, the more liberal stance i'm taking now on raw fat and raw dairy is having tremendously beneficial consequences on my binge eating. I've not binged for 11 days!

I'm working on listening to my hunger/fullness and chosing what i want to eat regardless of how i think it will affect my weight. This is challenging, but i feel worthwhile. I have cravings for cooked food sometimes, like last night, i only wanted like 6 scrambled eggs in secret, but i cried and let Cliff hold me and stroke my hair and it passed. I was upset over feeling and looking heavy. Scrambled eggs would have soothed my pain but ruined my new re-committment to raw.

I have a few classes i'm starting in 2 weeks at Arnolds Way. One is called "12 Steps To Raw". How could i lead the group if i gave into scrambled eggs? It was a good motivation.

During my weeks of cooked vegetarian binge eating, I gained at least 20 lbs.

Instead of going on a diet afterwards to lose everything, like i normally do, i've decided it's time for a new approach. It's time to make peace with raw gourmet food, with raw gourmet fat, with raw dairy, and just enjoy it, savor it, really taste it, time to stop running away from what i really like.

Trusting myself along this course has been on and off. I get scared alot. But i also feel confident alot.

I know i'm on a special sacred path. I feel it in my bones. I feel this is the beginning of a very special time of healing.

Overall, this approach is really working splendidly, but day to day, it's sometimes hard to say, but overall, i FEEL the tremendous difference. I'm soooo much LESS obsessed with food!

For example, tonight at Christmas dinner, i brought a raw vanilla cream apple pie i made to our company's house, and enjoyed one slice supremely, and now, back home, I couldn't even IMAGINE wanting to binge or indulge in anything else. Why? I'm not hungry, so i'm not interested in food.

Tonight, I managed to ALLOW myself to ENJOY the pie it in the moment. So, now i don't need any more of it now! Pretty awesome journey i'm on, i must say.

My weight is sometimes a worry. I'm going through quite a bit of fear about my weight. And how this learning to trust myself with gourmet raw food, fat, and feeding my desires all will affect my weight.

As i said, i've gained a substantial amount of weight recently, when i binged for weeks on cooked.

Now that i'm doing gourmet, one might confuse the weight gain with THAT. But, i'm able, thank god, most of the time, to see the two events in my life as separate. I don't think i'm gaining from eating gourmet anymore. I think i've gained from BINGE EATING GOURMET alot. But i've never learned to eat gourmet raw in small enjoyable blissful quantities. I think this is really what my goal is now.

Sometimes i look in the mirror and I hate the heavier me. Sometimes i look in the mirror and i think i look great, regardless of being heavier.

Impulses to go on a diet overcome me often, but I think i'm going to take a new approach if i chose to lose weight: more exercise, enjoy food EVEN MORE with whatever raw gourmet decadence i chose, learn to eat slower, savor smaller portions....

I used to become obsessed with cutting out fat to lose weight. These kinds of rigid plans work short term for me brilliantly, but i can't maintain them and they ultimately exacerbate my binge eating, because when i go off, i'm obsessed with fat again.

My sensual nature, i'm discovering, demands food that is supremely delicious and luxuriant to the palate. My goal is to simply eat less...because i enjoy it more.

Cliff's been eating more cooked food, through no fault of mine. There is all raw food in the fridge, but he's had some meals out that were cooked. What's cool is he notices how much better he feels on raw. But since eating MUCH more raw overall, he is absolutely overjoyed with how his arthritis is decreasing. His ankles have stopped burning. And, his rosacia on his nose dissappeared! All of this, just from 11 days of eating mostly raw and taking E3Live.

Pretty powerful, huh?

Merry Christmas, all! I wish you all a blessed journey with raw food. Hang in there and if you pay attention, you will teach yourself what you need. It may take some time, but the proof, they say, shall be in the pudding. When it works, you'll know!

xoxox michelle joy