Day 11: Pizza is Satan incarnate, and it's stalking me

Yesterday I had a meeting in the evening and brought a couple bananas, some apples and a bag of pecans. I had meant to go to the store earlier but couldn't find the time, so I had to make do. I'm still learning how to accurately plan for the fruit replenishment excursions.

Everyone at the meeting was eating these scrummy looking sandwiches. Even the tunafish sandwich was smelling good to me! No clue why, as I despise all seafood, even seaweed. I pulled out my embryonic chimpanzee feast only to find two half-way mushy bananas, so that left me with even less -- one banana, really, and some apples, which I can really only eat so much of. I ate half the bag of pecans but it was too much -- not filling enough and too heavy. I was still hungry.

I came home famished to find the neighbor kids (who are older) over playing video games with my kids. My neighbor, who was (technically speaking) watching my kids while I was at the meeting, had made pizza for everyone in my oven. I told him this morning I could have killed him for cooking pizza in my house (naw, really I love him dearly like a brother). But this marauding pizza thing has really got to stop! In fact, I think I'm going to start a section at the bottom of each entry called Pizza Encounters. It's like bacteria -- it's everywhere! And it does seem to multiply the more space you try to give it.

As for the shopping, I can't easily conceptualize what I require in a week yet. The fruit mounds have seized my counter and are now advancing lock-step onto the kitchen table. Maybe the kids will eat more of it with such a frontal assault.

Here's an inventory of all the produce deployed to my counter and fridge:

Fruit:

• Red d'anjou pears - 12
• Green d'anjou pears - 1
• Cameo apples - 8
• Other apples (mishmash) - 9
• Tangerines - 7
• Really ripe (soft/spotty) bananas - 14
• Ripe-but-probably-not-by-Doug-Graham-standards-but-the-only-way-I-can-eat-them-whole bananas - 12
• Keitt mangoes - 7
• Hayden mangoes - 8
• Ginormous asian pears - 6
• Grapes, sweet red seedless - about 5 pounds
• Grapes, red seeded - about 1 pound
• Kiwi - 1 from my garden
• Oranges - 11
• Red ruby juicing grapefruits - 25
• Blueberries - 36 oz.
• Papaya - 1 (to see if I can stomach it)
• Watermelons - 2 medium (bargain produce)
• Honeydew melon - 1
• Ugli/unique fruit - 1 (don't ask me!)
• Avocado - 2 small
• Jakfruit - 1 large slice
  

That's 129 pieces of fruit (by my quick count), plus another 8 lbs., 4 oz.

Veg:

• Lettuce heads - 4
• Celery - 2 bunches
• Spinach - 1 bunch

That's basically 7 servings for me, or should be at least.


I don't know ... do you think I'll starve to death eating like this?


Food:
2 bananas
Smoothie: Head of lettuce (332 g), 1 gala apple (140 g), 2 green d'anjou pears (274 g), 2 bananas (222 g)
2 apples, 1 banana, 1 oz pecans

Calories: 1114
Carbohydrate: 77%
Protein: 5%
Fat: 18%

Exercise:

• 20 minutes StepMill
• 20 minutes exercise bike
• 12 minutes glider at high intensity
• 20 minute ab workout

Pizza Encounters:

• Pizza flyer on doorknob in afternoon
• Pizza cooked in my over, upon returning in evening
  

Day 6: Pizza really does come out of the woodworks

Day 6 went off without a hitch, apart from the occasional twinge, like when I was walking up to my gym and was suddenly pummeled by the tantalizing scent of fresh pizza. Why oh why do they do that to me?

I was thinking about how I'm reacting to such things now versus other times when I've followed raw diets. I think I used to have the attitude that I just shouldn't have to put up with cravings, like they should just go away if I'm doing everything right. By the way, that is essentially what Doug Graham, author of The 80/10/10 Diet book told me on his forum, when I asked him how long it takes for cravings to go away. He basically said if you feed yourself right and choose not to have cravings (can't remember the exact words, but something to that effect) it won't be an issue. I have now decided after meticulous personal research that that's a load of crap, no disrespect intended to the man whose advice I am trying to follow. I just don't think he's ever had a food craving in his entire life, that's all.

Now I have the attitude that, yes, I'm going to want pizza and fries and blah blah blah for quite awhile. Hopefully not continuously, and hopefully I can find ways to manage it, but it's gonna hit me probably every single day for some time. It's intense, for me anyway.

Speaking of pizza, I never got that criticism of gourmet raw food that goes something like, "If it looks like pizza and tastes like pizza, it probably digests like pizza and has the same effect." To break it down:

• If it looks like pizza (Er, sort of)
• and tastes like pizza (No freakin' way that tastes like pizza!)
• it probably digests like pizza (????????)
• and has the same effect (Satisfaction? Not!)

Therefore one of my mantras is "Raw pizza? Why bother!"

In a nutshell, I'm not expecting to feel anything great anytime soon about any of this, but I'm still glad I'm doing it, because I wanted to do it, I set out to do it, it's impossible. That's why I'm doing it.

Food:
2-3/4 cups grapefruit juice
about 80% of a small watermelon
4 small apples
Smoothie of 3 yellow bananas (242 g), 90 g of a d'anjou pear (leftover bits after my son bit around it once), 256 g red seedless grapes (1.5 cups?) 224 g lettuce (about a head)
1 oz brazil nuts (I soaked and dehydrated (for storage purposes) a bunch of these some time back)

Calories: 1409
Carbohydrates: 80%
Protein: 6%
Fat: 14%

Sleep: About 8 hours

Exercise: 20 minutes StepMill , 20 minutes treadmill @ 3 mph

Day 5: Gawd, do I have to eat??

I was really busy all day long and didn't have much of a chance to sit down to eat, but I also noticed that I didn't really want much of anything [on the menu, anyway] all day long. I truthfully wasn't that hungry. Dinner was nonetheless annoying, as my husband popped a Di Giorno pizza in the oven; I know they're frozen and that it's highly illegal to like such things, according to the food police, but it smelled soooo goooood. I had my plate of grapes instead. Yum.

Writing now on Wednesday morning (Day 6), I'm still not hungry even though my caloric intake was way down yesterday (*not by as much as I thought though. I spotted a calculation error.). I think there's something going on inside, some kind of rearranging the furniture, bunsen burners firing up, because it's not like me to not want to eat. I'll force feed myself something in a minute ... ugh. I'm really trying to drink tons and tons of water, as much as possible, but my hydration level isn't budging, no siree. I must need a lot of water to expiate all those sins.

One thing that has jumped out at me over the last week is that all my favorite TV shows have something to do with food: Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Last Restaurant Standing, Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, Bizzarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, Biggest Loser. What gives? I guess I've got issues ... I can't help but laugh! I've managed to still watch some of them without caving in.

I did, however, go to McDonalds today
I know, it's just awful isn't it? I arrived really early for my doctor appointment (standard thyroid garbage), kid in tow, so I took him for a small ice cream. The fries just about killed me, but we all survived. I didn't have anything (just to be clear) but I'm not a raw food mom who never lets her kid have anything "bad". I'm not forcing everyone to adopt my outsider ways at this point. Our trips to McDonalds are few and far between (we're all veg anyway, so can't really have much there). We did have a play in the Playland area, and actually laughed inside McDonald's, can you imagine? Still a bit torturous though ... Those fries really are to die for.

Mmmm mmmm good!
This morning I made a smoothie of two mangoes and one giant tree collard leaf from my garden. Took a swig and then noticed that it smelled faintly like stale cat feces. I smelled it about 10 times, wanting to be sure I wasn't going crazy, and finally dumped it out. "When in doubt, throw it out!" says the tried-and-true food service mantra. What a shame! ... probably $3.50 onto the compost mountain. What I'm not sure of is if it actually had feline residue on it or if mango/collard is just a poopey combination. I did brave another, well washed collard leaf in a banana smoothie later in the day and it was fine, if a bit too fibrous.

Food Day 5:
1 cup grapefruit juice (in a big hurry)
2 burro bananas
1 small watermelon
Smoothie of 1 collard leaf and 3 burro bananas
9.75 oz (2 cups?) red globe grapes

Calories: 689 (yikes!)
Carbohydrates: 92%
Protein: 5%
Fat: 3%

Sleep: About 8 hours

Exercise: None to speak of

Note: Since I'm not a good night blogger and tend to do it piecemeal, I've decided to post each day on the following day (inasmuch as I'm able to do so).