The first time I decided to go raw was in October of 2008. Actually, I made the decision at the end of September – it was Rosh Hashanah, and though I am not Jewish, the fall as a “New Year” has always resonated strongly with me. At the time, I felt very down, depressed and lacking energy and just on the whole feeling “weighed down”. I wanted to do something to “lighten me” spiritually, energetically, and I felt intuitively this connection with cooked food weighing me down. It felt, more than anything else, energetically heavy, dead, and I wanted to let go of that.
Now, up until this point, I had only had the briefest of contact with raw food as a way of eating, in the form of a roommate who had been raw before I met her. When she moved out, she left behind two raw food cookbooks (recipe books?). I LOVE cookbooks in general, so of course I browsed through them, and found them full of yummy recipes, however they are both gourmet (versus everyday raw) books, and the complicated recipes involved dehydrators and long lists of obscure ingredients – in other words, enticing to drool over, but not something I was going to whip up in my kitchen any time soon. Over the years, they went largely unopened. So the first thing I did when deciding to go raw was to google it! Steve Pavlina’s excellent blog series on his 30-day trial of raw food eating helped me a great deal, helping me to see some of the potential pitfalls and benefits of this way of eating, as well as showing me that yes, other people really do this. In fact, those posts are one of the reasons I want to blog about my raw food experiences as well. 
I researched several more days, and then started off in the beginning of October. I blogged about it briefly, but the gist of it is this: going off caffeine sucked balls for three days but then was over and fine. My energy went through the roof. I occasionally found myself overwhelmed with inexplicable happiness – seriously, it was like being high. And above all, I found it very VERY easy. A few things to note here: I was already used to eating pretty healthily. I LOVE salads, and fruit. I was *not* (and am not) vegan, indulging in sashimi upon occasion, though usually not more than once every week or two. Other than that, I did not set myself any limits particularly, and found myself happy to continue raw when my 30 days had passed. Until Thanksgiving… Now actually on Thanksgiving I did pretty well, having some ham and a bit of mashed potato, but otherwise every item we made for dinner was raw – and delicious! But shortly after Thanksgiving comes my birthday, and a bit of indulgence seemed okay, and then after that comes Christmas you know, and then maybe a bit of food here and there at dinner, and the next thing you know I am not quite eating raw anymore.
So! That being said, I am recommitting to eating raw. While I will allow limited exceptions for certain occasions, for this month there will be none of that while I get reestablished. While I am most looking forward to getting back the fabulous energy levels (it was quite a mindfuck to realize that I was well rested after 5 hours of sleep!) I also would not mind losing some of the weight I have put on since the beginning of the year. To that end, I will also be resuming my Afterburn workouts (think weights and HIIT) and of yes, blogging (with photos!) the whole experience in obsessive compulsive detail. So now’s a great time to ask if there are any questions you have about raw food, and I’ll make sure to answer along the way!
