Back to Raw

Hello,

It has been a while since I have blogged. I started eating 100% raw two days ago. I have thought a lot about why I started eating cooked foods but mostly why I have not been able to get back to eating raw and one of the main reasons I have come to realize is my support system. Since I switched jobs in the early part of March I lost a very large structure of support. My previous co-workers were very instrumental in my day-to-day diet. They were always very curious and would have lots of questions. Many of them changed various parts of their diets to incorporate raw foods, juicing or overall healthier diets.

Earlier this week I realized that I would have to do this diet and get self-motivated. Well I did that and today I was talking with a new co-worker about The Master Cleanse and about healthy eating. She stated that she was glad that I was around to talk to about healthful eating and that she wanted to learn more about the raw food lifestyle. Here is where I came full circle. Kait is the start of my support system in my new job. Our interactions will lead to many new posts on this blog. This should help her, help me and help everyone else reading this.

So welcome back everyone. May this be a renewed friendship!

Celebrate Life,

Alma

Grezzo Restaurant

Hello all,
I am in Boston and I had the pleasure of eating at Grezzo's last night. We had an incredible meal. Pics to follow. There were three of us and we ate the following:
Sweet white corn soup with jicama, avocado & cayenne
House salad - soft baby lettuce with house-made cheese, croutons and green goddess vinaigrette
Native tomato ravioli - house-made Boursin, micro mint, Italian parsley and truffle
Gnocchi carbonara - house-made dumplings, creamy rawmesan and fresh English peas with crispy eggplant and pea shoots

We all ate the same entree -
Vegetable lasagna - winter vegetable lasagna layered with béchamel, house-made pomodoro and fresh oregano

We split a desert because we were stuffed -Sinfully delicious cheesecake - fresh berries, kiwi and lavender

Oh and to drink we had a mojito made with kambucha. I tell you we loved it and would love to go back for more. Alissa was not there but the staff was really friendly and knowledgeable of all the food. The restaurant is tastefully done and I would highly recommend it.

Celebrate Life!

Beijing Here I Come

I am entering a contest at work that would give me the opportunity to travel to Beijing for a week as an online correspondent for the Olympic games. The prize consists of being equipped with a laptop, an all-expense-paid trip to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games to attend Olympic events, meet athletes and much more. The company claims that in order for the athletes to make their Olympic dreams a reality, rely on a network of caregivers including their family, physicians and trainers to give them the support they need to achieve their peak performance. In 300 words or less, write about the caregiver(s) in your life who have helped you to achieve your goals and dreams. Personally I cannot see how I could not win this contest but instead of sounding so confident I just want to put it out in the universe that I want to win this. Do you hear me universe, I WANT TO WIN THIS!!!

Well yesterday and today I have eaten pretty much the same things. I figure if I eat fruit and salad all day then I can have desert for dinner. So that is what I did. Dinner was blueberry pie and cheesecake. I think this is a marvelous idea and I might just keep this habit up!

When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate." - Ann Landers

Celebrate Life,
Alma

Food Kicks

I have been on food kicks lately. I ate chocolate cheesecake for about 3 weeks. I ate an entire cheesecake one weekend and then that kick was over. After that I had a cheesecake in the freezer for 2 weeks before I even tried a piece.

That is because I went into a coconut milk kick. I get the juice and flesh of 2 to 3 young Thai coconuts and put them in the vitamix and add some vanilla, cinnamon and Stevia and indulge. This has been going on for about 2 weeks now.

Last night I made Alissa's blueberry pie. Now we're talking! Tonight for dinner I had a large piece of blueberry pie and a piece of cheesecake. Dinner of champions.Now I am off to volleyball. Have a great night everyone!

Celebrate Life

pH Balance – achieving a healthy acid/alkaline balance

Our blood must maintain a slightly alkaline state for our survival and many of our metabolic processes and enzyme reactions require this type of environment in order to function properly. The good news is that it is easy to correct improper pH balances by eating alkaline-forming foods. The bad news is that the American diet is mainly composed of foods that are highly acidic or turn highly acidic when digested.

Many acidic foods digest as alkaline in your body like citrus fruits so some research should be done. I recommend reading The Acid-Alkaline Diet and The Acid Alkaline Balance Diet.

Highly acidic foods: processed, sugary, fried, animal proteins and gluten

Highly alkaline foods: fruits, vegetables, seaweeds, almonds and cashews

Some quick ideas:
Take deep breaths
Use liquid amino acids instead of vinegar in salads
Use sea salt or eat more sea vegetables like dulse and kelp instead of table salt
Eat lots of green foods including alfalfa, chlorella and spirulina

"All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you" - Wayne Dyer

Celebrate Life
Alma

Double Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake

I have been eating a lot of raw cheesecake lately and the recipe that I have used is Kristen’s Double Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake. I have altered the receipe using crasins for ½ the amount of raisins, I have used cacao butter and coconut butter instead of coconut oil and just fiddled around with the recipe and the results were all good. I actually used the vitamix for the filling as it makes it much smoother and silkier. So give it a try. I am sure you will love it as much as I do.

Here are a couple of pictures of some friends. President’s day meant to volleyball so we got together anyway. Have you heard of bobbleheads? Here is our version of drinkheads?

“Enjoy life. This is not a dress rehearsal.” - Author Unknown

Celebrate Life,

Alma

In Memory of Carol Baer...

I will miss her phone calls
I will miss her laughter as it still echos in my mind

We laughed and played like children,
We misbehaved like mischeivous teenagers
We cried and grieved like adults

Always supportive,
Encouraging,
Full of compliments
Wanting to know my next steps
Celebrating my little wins
While her health was declining rapidly.

My dad found this link and sent it to me in honor of Carol. Please view
The Dash

I Celebrate your Life Carol

5 Month - Before and After

01/25/08

09/02/07

It has been so hard to stay raw the last couple of days. I have done it but it I have been eating mostly packaged goods. I have been living on live food bars, dehydrated crackers, almond butter and homemade trail mix. Tomorrow I work from home from about 1 to 9PM so I am going shopping in the morning. I am going to buy produce out the wazoo! I miss my fruit and salads! Yes salads! I cannot believe I just said that. I usually drink my salads but the other day I made the best impromptu salad dressing and now I am craving salads. I guess that is what my body needs. Oh, I forgot, I made a chocolate cheesecake last night that is pretty good

I just need to keep myself motivated because I have not lost a lot of weight but rather inches. I am almost over it about now but like my buddy greenday I am going to watch my nut intake, take my digestive enzymes regularly and stick with this healthy program. I will succeed! I think it is time to show my before and after to keep my motor going. It will serve as a reminder for myself and perhaps it will help and inspire some of you. It’s a WIN-WIN situation for all of us. You can see my after picture taken last Friday 1/25/8 and my before taken 9/2/7.

"This one step - choosing a goal and staying to it - changes everything."- Scott Reed

Celebrate Life

Exhausted & Exhilarated

I played in a volleyball tournament yesterday. We played from 11AM to 4PM with breaks in between but I was exhausted. I napped for 2 hours after the game but that was not enough. I went back to bed thereafter until this morning.

I did a search for a raw food restaurant in the area and it looks like there is a new one about 20 minutes away. I will be calling them today!

The good news of the day was that someone from Facebook invited me to give a talk at one of their potluck meetups. It is in TN so we will have to work out the logistics however, I put the message out there and there was someone wanting the service.

I love this life, world and universe! Have a great day!

"Never give up, never, never give up." - Winston Churchill

Celebrate Life!

Happy, happy, joy, joy

Picture taken by Wendy Lynch

As if the last 1.5 weeks has not been magical enough. I wrote to a few professional photographers I know about my writing my life story and I asked them about publishing. Well Elizabeth Opalenik (Opa) wrote back to me and she was thrilled for me and all my news. She read many of my blog posts and loved the glow on my face! I am suppose to meet in July in Colorado with a few friends to hike, hang out and take photos. Anyway my point is that she offered to do my author’s portrait or work with me so I could do a self-portrait. YIPEE, YAHOO! That dancing figure in my chest keeps doing cartwheels! Opa has published a book entitled Poetic Grace, is featured in many photographic magazines and it well know in her industry. She has a passion for teaching that I have never encountered in anyone else and her website shows some of her work. I will share a couple of pictures that she has taken of me but this is one my friend Wendy Lynch took of Opa and me from a distance. This is where I spent about 5 weeks in the last 3 years on vacation and retreats.

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." - Albert Einstein

Rawk on! Life is good!

Celebrate Life

Orb? White Light? Energy?

Remember in yesterday’s blog how I said “I am so happy and so crazed about celebrating life that I feel a little "mini-me" inside my chest jumping around saying YIPEE, YAHOO, WOOHOO.” I have never felt joy and happiness like this before. This little “mini-me” example was the best way for me to describe this. I told one co-worker, Kerrianne, this story yesterday and today my co-workers threw a surprise party for me to celebrate my 3 years of being cancer free. We had all agreed to wear red for woman’s heart disease awareness. So I took a picture with Kerrianne. We immediately looked at the picture to see how it came out. I saw something white on my sweater in the picture and when I looked at my actual sweater there was nothing there. Kerrianne actually voiced this. I immediately said it was an angel. Hours went by and Kerrianne said let’s zoom into that white thing on your chest. Now things got more interesting. It definitely looks like a source of energy, an orb. Two other people stated that it was an angel. What do you think?

Don't be afraid of the space between yourdreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so." - Belva Davis

Celebrate Life

Dancing Person in my Chest

I am so happy and so crazed about celebrating life that I feel a little "mini-me" inside my chest jumping around saying YIPEE, YAHOO, WOOHOO!!!

I am so happy that I went up to Maine and took Alissa Cohen's certification class. It was about the food and not about the food. I learned a lot about raw foods but learned even more about myself. I am charged up and ready to go! I am happy to say that I am going to publish the story of my life and include some poems and photography. The plan is set in motion and this is the beginning of a new journey for me! YES

I got good news today. I have had a nurse calling me every three months for the last three years checking up on me and my health. Today she said that she was going to close my case because I am doing so well. She said she was proud of my progress and how I took control of my life with exercising and diet. I was very happy and very emotional. I had a bittersweet response but realized that her time was better spent on people who really need her help. Our last few phone calls were more social. This nurse has been with me through hell and back and it was kind of a relief and a closing of a chapter of my life. "I am done with that for FOREVER!"

I am eating again

Yahoo, I finished my fast. I did my 5 day colon cleanse and I am off to play volleyball in a short while. I must write a quick post because I want to eat something before I go. I have to say that I really missed the “eating” experience. I missed chewing! I had an apple this morning and waited a couple of hours and then had another one. I lunch I had vegetable soup with fresh avocado. YUM, did I say YUM? I love avocados. I also had an orange. For a snack I had another orange. Now I am going to make some kind of concoction with young Thai coconuts. I am doing the happy dance in honor of raw foods!

"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation." - Pearl S. Buck

Celebrate Life,
Alma

Fast Day 5

Today was a lot easier than yesterday. Part of the reason why is because I have spent my entire day at the volleyball court. I got up this morning, did a few things around the house and went to play VB. I played for 2.5 hours. We did 1.5 hour + of drills and almost 1 hour of game play. Then I sat there and watched the advanced players for almost 2 hours. I was exhausted and I wanted my body temperature to return to normal before I left. I got so involved into the games that I lost track of time. What I am most proud of is the workout I had and the ability of my body to keep up. This was definitely the toughest day for me yet and I am very joyful of the outcome. I actually got teared up several times when I would think of what I put my body through today and it was able to respond. WOW! YAHOO!

"For every failure, there's an alternative courseof action. You just have to find it. When youcome to a roadblock, take a detour." - Mary Kay

Celebrate Life,
Alma

Fast Day 4

I made it through another day and today was rough. Last night it started getting rough and it was not that I was hungry. I think I just missed chewing. So I took a thin slice of an apple and chewed it to get all the juice out and spit out the rest of it. Tonight I made dinner for a friend that has spent the day with me. I was soooooooo tempted but I did not eat. I am glad that is over because it was difficult. I also got a steam burn on my writst that is pretty bad. I put raw potato on it so it would not blister but I had to go to ice. It was hours ago and if I do not keep ice on it, like now while I am typing, it stings like crazy.

"The greatest mistake you can make in life isto be continually fearing you will

make one." - Elbert Hubbard

Celebrate Life,

Alma

Fast Day 3

I am happy to say that I am on day 3 and everything is going better than I expected as far as hunger pangs go. I thought it would be harder, that is until I read another blog and the author wrote about pizza. I could smell it and kindof taste it. Wow, did that hit me in the saliva glands! I am drinking water but it is not doing the trick. Anyhow, I received an interesting phone call this morning. A good friend of mine just told me that she is going raw. I was shocked! I did not expect it. She had asked me to help her with some recipes because one of her daughters wanted to eat vegetarian for a week. Soon after someone else in the family wanted to try it. My friend said that she has seen what I have done with my life and she has seen all the positive changes that have occurred that she has to try this for herself. This has made me feel very special. To think I inspired someone to go raw. She has checked out RFT (RFT) and she will be joining soon. Oh, and her kids love Alissa’s banana ice cream. They have been asking for it every night.

I love the dailyrawcafe. I make many of their recipes. I tried these out and I wanted to share. You can find the recipes for the following pictures right here.

Spinach-Stuffed Meatloaf

Lemon Green Beans

Honey-Glazed Carrots

"Yesterday's failures are today's seeds that must be diligently planted to be able to abundantly harvest tomorrow's successes." - Author Unknown

Celebrate Life,

Alma

Fast Day 2

Day 2 of 5 day fast, which has now turned into a 6 day fast because I have enough product and why not? That means I get to eat on Tuesday. It has not been hard, the not eating thing, until I see food. I found myself salivating before so I changed the TV channel. I was going to go through my raw cookbooks but I think I will wait on that too. The headaches subsided some today. Hallelujah! I woke up with a real sore throat and have gone through a few coughing spells today. Overall, I am keeping my good attitude because I know I will be feeling much better in a few days!

"What you get by reaching your destination is not nearly as important as what you will become by reaching your destination." - Zig Ziglar

Celebrate Life ,

Alma

Fast Day 1

Today is my first day of a 5 day fast. I felt so awesome after a 2 day fast that I decided to do a colon cleanse and this herbal dietary supplement I am using recommends a 5 day juice fast for best results. So today I have been dealing with a bad headache for most the day. It comes and goes at times but it is there big time. Every time I have felt a little hunger pang it is time for my apple juice and herbal formula. It has not been too bad as far as the hunger goes. I cannot wait to experience the effects after this one. I can eat again on Monday. Then Thursday I am off to Maine where I will be eating 100% raw organic foods for 5 days. It seems like the next two weeks will be life changing. Stay tuned for updates.

"Success doesn't come to you, you go to it." - Marva Collins

Celebrate life,

Alma

Mexican Meal - Welcome Rianna

I tried this recipe compliments of The Daily Raw Cafe and it was delicious.

Here is the recipe:

WALNUT TACO MEAT
1 c walnut, soaked 2 hours
½ c sun-dried tomatoes, soaked 30 minutes, save water
¼ c finely chopped yellow onion
½ t taco seasoning
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ sun-dried tomato water
½ t sea salt

Combine ingredients in food processor until mixed well.
***For a less moist texture, put in dehydrator for 1 hour.

SOUR CREAM
½ c macadamia nuts
juice of one lemon
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ t sea salt
6-7 T water

Blend macadamia nuts, lemon juice, garlic and salt. Add 1 tablespoon water at a time to create a smooth consistency.

TOPPINGS
2 tomatoes, de-seeded and chopped
Avocado, chopped or Guacamole
4 cups shredded lettuce

Place 1 cup lettuce, a portion of the walnut taco meat, tomatoes, avocado and sour cream on a plate.

Spicy Refried Beans
Compliments of Alissa Cohen's Cookbook (checkout my link at top of blog)

2 cups sprouted chickpeas
1 cup walnuts
2 avocados
2 limes, juiced
1 clove garlic
2 tsp olive oil
4 tsp cumin
1/4 to 1/2 tsp cayenne (optional)
1/2 tsp sea salt (or more)
pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together in a food processor and blend until smooth.


Salsa

6 tomatoes

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lime

¾ - 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes,

2 tbso extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

jalapenos (optional)

Mix together onion and garlic. Then add juice of 1 lime and chopped tomatoes. Add the rest of the ingredients and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Best if made the day before!

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." - Elbert Hubbard

Celebrate Life,
Alma

2 day Fast - 60 hours

I decided to do a 2 day fast and I am happy to say that I did it. I have never gone on a fast before so this was a totally new experience. I have to thank Alissa Cohen for her message boards at RawFoodTalk because the feeds on fasting really helped me out. I read the majority of the posts yesterday and that gave me the strength to do this fast. By the time I get up tomorrow morning it will be a 60 hour fast.

1/1/8

40 oz salt water colon cleanse

40 oz apple celery juice

8 oz raw apple cider vinegar with water and raw honey

32 oz carrot lettuce juice

32 oz carrot juice

80 oz water

32 oz apple celery juice

10 oz herbal tea

The first symptoms I started feeling on my first day were cold fingers, toes and lips. Due to my oxygen needs there are many times when I cannot get warm and my fingers and toes get real cold but I have not realized the cold lips. Next a headache set in so now I know for sure that I am detoxing. I had these symptoms most of the day but I made it. It has been over 24 hours that I did not eat anything. Woohoo!

1/2/8

10 oz salt water colon cleanse

16 oz apple celery juice

10 oz herbal tea

32 oz carrot lettuce juice2

4 oz strawberry juice

24 oz tangerine juice

32 oz apple celery cabbage juice

32 oz water

The symptoms today were headache on and off all day and night and cold feet and hands again. I thought I would extend this another day but I have changed my mind. I went to the produce market today and bought some cherries, strawberries, lettuce, cabbage and avacados. I already made coleslaw for tomorrow and I cannot wait til the morning to bite into some cherries. YUM.

"All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you" - Wayne Dyer

Celebrate Life,

Alma