Off the Wagon

So, I can choose to be positive about this, or negative. Naturally, I choose to be positive. Therefore, allow me to say: what a great 5-day raw food cleanse that was!

The not-so-subtext is that I was just feeling too tired, too low to do much of anything. So, I just had a bowl of muesli, some raw almonds, and some banana bread. Not exactly uber-sinful, but gee it tasted good. I think I'm going to continue the cleansing elements for the next 5 days, but not exclusively. For all the promises of doubling my energy, I felt the cleanse was doing just the reverse. It was never meant to be a fast, but rather an energy and mood enhancer.

I am a little confused, and I do wonder if I had given it a couple of more days, if perhaps my energy level would have shot up, exploding upwards as promised. But today was Republic Day, a holiday, and part of me just wanted to sleep the whole day away. I felt so lethargic, even as I watched an amazing parade (more on that in the next post). Then I remembered, wait a second, I didn't feel bad before I started this. I had quite a bit of energy. Then a friend of mine made a joke about bacon, and I almost started to cry. (Well, ok, that's overstating it, but I certainly felt an overwhelming fondness for crispy bacon... Sigh. All this after a measly five days. Am I a weakling, or just sensible?)

So, my new plan surrounding raw foods is to broaden my sample size of people who are doing it, and get their experiences. If you are a raw foodie, you have my admiration. Would you mind telling me - did you feel a marked energy drain at the beginning of your diet switch? I tried eating more fruit for the good carbs, but it wasn't enough. Perhaps I just needed to eat even more. I certainly learned quite a bit regarding fats, carbs, and proteins in raw, "living" food.

And I think the idea of raw foods is still intriguing; the possibility that raw foods are more alive, are processed by our bodies more easily, and allow us to live dramatically lower on the food chain is very appealing. I just know I wouldn't be writing this post right now unless I had eaten the aforementioned forbidden food.

I also admit to wondering: are some people just, metabolically speaking, a better fit for veganism, raw foodism, or even vegetarianism? Is there something to the whole blood-type diet, perhaps? I'm O+, which puts me in the omnivorous slot.

Any thoughts? In the meantime, I think I'm going to have a veggie pizza and complete my fall from living food grace.