Just a few days ago I ran into a lady that works at my office. This lady is 46 years old and runs marathons, competes in body building competitions, eats super healthy…and needless to say….looks phenomenal. So she comes into my office to meet little Ryan and mentions to me, “You know i’ve gone 80% raw.”

I know about people who are raw vegan , but when she said she was 80% raw, I really didn’t understand what she meant, so I asked her. She told me I eat raw most of the day. Meaning salads, seeds, nuts, fruits, fats, etc. And then she explained that she hasn’t really been able to let go completely of “hot” food so in the evening she may sautee some veggies or cook a salmon.

Throughout this whole journey, I’ve read about a lot of different diets if you will. Paleo, Raw, Vegan, Raw Vegan, Vegetarian, etc. I really can’t say I subscribe fully to any of these lifestyles fully because there are things I eat that don’t fall within their plans. What I try to do is take good information from each system (from any system really) and try to apply it to my life as much as possible. But our needs vary as our ages and lifestyles vary. There are times when you need more of a particular food than another and that is always changing.

Back to RAW – so what does this really mean:  The theory is that heating food over 118 degrees Fahrenheit destroys much of the nutrients in your food. So the claim is that if you eat food in its preserved state, you will have increased energy, weightloss, better sleep, better bowel movements, less illness, and more hydration and oxygenation (anti-aging).

Every article I’ve read suggests that  it is not necessary to go 100% raw to get the benefits of this lifestyle. In fact, to go completely raw without any sort of transition might cause your body too much stress because it starts to cleanse too quickly. So it is encouraged to simply increase the amount of raw foods in your diet slowly and gradually.

After my friend explained to me her diet, I realized Orlando and I are pretty “raw” ourselves!!! It was something that happened so subtly that I didn’t even realize there was a name for it.

So our daily diet looks a little like this:

• SMOOTHIES IN THE MORNING FOR BREAKFAST
• SALADS AT LUNCH
• SEEDS, FRUITS, NUTS, FOR SNACKS
• HOT FOOD FOR DINNER – VEGGIES WITH A SIDE OF SOMETHING ELSE
• DARK CHOCOLATE FOR DESSERT 🙂

Naturally there are variations to this. For example, I incorporate hard boiled eggs a few times a week into our diet. Or maybe one day I’ll have steel cut oatmeal for breakfast or maybe the prior days hot veggies get tossed in my otherwise raw salad.

But the point is that we spend most of our day eating whole, unaltered foods that help improve our digestion and keep our weight down.

Interesting story: Orlando gained about 8 pounds in the holiday months. Orlando has a tendency to gain weight so we were not surprised since the holidays involve lots of parties, alcohol, work functions, and change of routine. But in January when our lives settled back to normal, we were talking one day and Orlando commented that although we did make a lot of exceptions during the Holidays, he really never stopped eating lots of vegetables. We started to run through our dinners and they had not changed much except the days we were not home. So why the weight gain? And it hit us like a ton of bricks. LUNCH. Lunches were Orlando’s worst enemy. Where I normally make his salad for him to take to the office, that routine was most affected because of scheduling, lack of planning, and holiday lunches. So although it did not seem like a drastic change, he went from eating raw pretty much all day until dinnertime…to eating hot food at restaurants. Nothing major, maybe a soup and a sandwich, or a grilled chicken…nothing totally unhealthy but enough to make a difference in his weight.

So our challenge to you this week is to take a hard look at your diet and see how RAW you are. Are you feeding your body enough raw, unprocessed, unaltered foods? If you’re not, what part of your day can you add a little raw to? Maybe a smoothie for breakfast? Just type in smoothie in the search box on our home page and pull up some of our smoothie recipes to try. Or maybe just a salad for lunch where you can sneak in some raw veggies? We will post a couple of our salads this week so you can take a look. Who knows…maybe it’ll make a difference in your life as much as it has in ours!