A Preview into My Rawality!

Everyone deserves happiness, health, and to live the life of their dreams. It doesn’t matter if you have 200 lbs to lose or if you have none to lose, but you want to feel healthy and full of energy. Life moves too fast to miss anymore of it! Whether you are suffering from a debilitating disease or just don’t feel like getting out of bed in the morning, because you are in so much pain that you can’t imagine another day of work. This is just how I felt. Here’s how I got started eating a mostly raw diet.
March 30, 2009 – I get a text message from my manager at work asking me if I wanted to cook and prepare raw food for a 74 year young gentleman that is a customer in our store. He does the Hallelujah Diet from Dr. George Malkmus, and has followed this plan for over 2 years. As soon as he said that he ate a Vegan diet that was 85% raw food and 15% cooked food. I thought, “Well, that is nice for you! You won’t see me doing it!” He went on to explain that he cut out meat, cheese, processed foods, dairy, sweets and caffeine, as if the word Vegan didn’t quite catch my ear the first time. I looked at him in amazement and all the while thought that this poor little man must be suffering and miserable all the time. What I was soon to find out was that this was further from the truth!
April 1, 2009 – I start preparing food for my new client, and start with a simple dish of 15 bean soup. I had to make the soup twice, because as I read, I realized that I didn’t do it right the first time! LOL. I began reading the Hallelujah Diet book that he gave me so that I could get his diet right. I just wanted to skim the pages, and get the jest so that I could do my job properly. I kept saying to myself that I was not going to fall for this, and I am not doing it! I have tried every diet known to man, and this is just some other diet that won’t work for me. In the past 7 years, I have gained over 80 lbs. Most of this weight came on quickly after the birth of my child. I was miserable, depressed, achy, and just overall felt ick!
April 2, 2009 – My sister was reading some of the Hallelujah Diet book to help me with food ideas for my client. She was telling me about the book, but thought that it was a little extreme. She told me to read it, and tell her what I thought.
April 6, 2009 – I was done reading the book, and was almost convinced that I needed to do the Hallelujah Diet myself to see what would happen. In the book, it says, “Just try it for 21 days”. Well, I figured that I could live through anything for 21 days. No big deal. Well, Easter was right around the corner, and I couldn’t miss out on our big Easter dinner with my family. There was going to be fried chicken, potato salad, ham, corn salad, broccoli salad with bacon, and you know all those salads were filled with good old mayonnaise. Yum! What would a Southern meal be without that? Green beans would definitely be cooked with bacon grease, and did I mention the deserts? Oooh. We were having coconut cake, chocolate cupcakes with white icing, peanut butter cake, and another chocolate cake with extra gooey stuff. Did I mention the homemade key lime pies that my mother always makes with Eagle brand milk and butter? They are so delicious they make you want to whimper a little while you eat them. I bet you are still wondering how in the world I ever gained that weight. Yes, well, you guessed it. I came from a Southern family that cooks better than anything you can eat at a restaurant. Although, we go out to restaurants to try them out every chance we get. So, from the big dinners that we have at every occasion, and the eating out at buffet restaurants, I had become someone that I didn’t recognize.
April 13, 2009 – Day one on the Hallelujah diet. It’s not so bad. I forgo my 2 eggs and little smokies for breakfast for fruit. I had no coffee! I usually drink at least 2 large cups (3 cup mug) of coffee with a good amount of cream and sugar. I took my first dose of Barley Max. That was an ordeal all by itself. I put this green powder into a cup and pour in some apple juice. The green powder didn’t dissolve the way Cool Aide or Tang does when you add it to water. It just clumps and spins around. I am wondering how to get it down, so I just turn the cup up and gulp some. Well, I didn’t actually gulp. I just held it in my mouth. I was trying to gulp, and it didn’t want to go down. Finally, I got it down, but I wasn’t at all happy about it. I read in the book that I would have to do this several times a day. Eck! Lord, help me! For lunch, I had a salad. Then, for dinner, I ate some bean soup. Well, I made it through day one, and I didn’t eat any ice cream after dinner or eat anything that I wasn’t supposed to.
April 20, 2009 – Guess what? I have been eating mostly raw for 7 days and I have lost 10 lbs!! I feel good, and I am so happy about the weight loss. I hope that I continue with this success.
May 4, 2009 – I have lost 20 lbs, and my birthday is right around the corner. I am definitely doing this for the rest of the month! Eating raw is easier than you think, and I have a lot of energy! Thank God!
May 8 – 10, 2009 – I went to birthday parties and dinners, and for the first time in almost a month ate meat and sweets. I was shocked that it didn’t make me sick. I was ok.
May 23 – 29, 2009 – I ate meat sporadically throughout this week. A meal here or a meal there. By Friday of this week, I had a low grade fever and went to bed to sleep it off for a day or so. I decided after this that I really should stick to my eating healthy plan, and work for more weight loss.
June 25, 2009 – I have been continuing my healthy eating with random moments of eating meat. Not just an organic grass fed chicken, but a Sonic foot long chili cheese Coney with fries and a cherry limeade. My friends would laugh, because they were so impressed with my results, and by now, had lost 30 lbs, but when I decided to eat off the plan, I really went off. Crazy fast food or who knows what? I felt horrible every time I ate off the plan, and swore that I wouldn’t do it again.
Today, I had a blood cell analysis done. It was really interesting! I have parasites! Woohoo! It’s all I ever wanted! Well, not really, how do I get rid of them? More on that to come! Also, the blood cell analysis let me know that my blood doesn’t work well when I am eating off of the raw, vegan diet. Grr… I really did love just eating whatever I chose. Oh well. I guess this is my new Rawality!!