Diet: New Direction

I went back to 80/10/10 last week (was too busy to blog about it), and failed again on the weekend. This is clearly not working for me. So what to do now? I can keep failing until the end of my life, but I actually have more interesting projects to put my energy into. So, I need to tackle this issue differently.

I asked my spirit guides for input and inspiration. I especially asked them what actions I could take that would help me stick to a diet that is healthy for me. Here is what I came up with:

1) Shift in Mindset and Attitude

It's time for me to let go of my aggressive attitude. I got great results with it when I quit smoking, but that was six years ago. I was a completely different person back then. Maybe the old method simply does not work for the new me. I feel it's time for me to apply my non-violent, peaceful attitude also to food.

I resist this change quite a lot. I have years and years of struggle and war against food behind me. I remember writing to Eduardo that being TOO zen bores me. Now is the time to make peace and learn that it is not boring.

I am excellent at shifting my mindset and transforming myself, so I guess this will be easy. From now on, my interaction with food, any food, will happen in a spirit of peace and healing.

2) Intuitive Eating

My intuition tells me to listen to my intuition when it comes to choosing my food, and not to some theories from someone else. After all, I'm a psychic. I rely on my intuition for everything else, why not for food?

I already did an intuitive eating trial in February. It led to huge binges! I was able to clearly hear my intuition, but was unable to follow it, and ate addictive trigger foods instead. But then again, I still had this combative attitude in February. Let's see if the change in mindset will make a difference.

Aside from this food related input, I also got some ideas from my spirit guides that are not directly related to diet. But as you know, intuition is logical. ;)

3) New Hobbies

They advise me to get some new hobbies. Especially activities involving nonhuman animals in some way. I don't know yet what I will do.

4) Driver's License

I have no clue why, but they seem to think that getting my driver's license would help me stick to a healthy diet.

5) First Aid Class

Similarly, they recommend that I take a first aid course.

How exciting! Looking forward to seeing where all this will lead! :-)

One New Habit a Month Challenge #6: 100% Raw Vegan

This month I will be focusing on maintaining a 100% raw, vegan diet. I will do it primarily in order to boost my psychic abilities.

Today, as every month, I had a hard time choosing my new habit. I made a huge list of all the awesome habits I want to have some day, and asked my Higher Self:

- Is there a habit that I can adopt this month, that I did not list here, and that would be better aligned with all of my goals than all those listed here?
- Yes.
- Oh. Which life area does it belong to?
- Psychic development.
- Cool! I love working on my psychic development. Which habit is it?
- Eating 100% raw.
- Whaaat?!

In my eyes a raw diet belongs to health matters, not to psychic development. But it is true that my Higher Self keeps telling me to eat raw in order to improve my psychic abilities.

Some people say their diet doesn't affect their psychic abilities. But it definitely does for me. I guess there are people with various degrees of sensitivity towards foods. Some people also say that they notice no overall difference on a raw diet. For me, the difference is huge, though. It's like being sick vs. being healthy. I am particularly sensitive so I guess I really, really need to pay attention to my diet. Looks like this is not only about my health!

On June 1st I went back to 100% raw. After six days raw, I connected to my spirit guides and for the first time was able to talk with all of them. It was absolutely awesome. The communication was so clear! The experience swept me off my feet. Later I slipped up and went back to eating some cooked food. I'm still over 75% raw, but not 100%. And now, I'm not really able to connect to my guides anymore. I can, but the communication is extremely foggy and difficult. It was so frustrating that I gave up until I'm raw again.

So I can see how a raw diet does relate to my psychic development indeed. What an interesting shift in perspective!

The last time I connected to my guides, I asked

- What can I do to connect to you more easily?
- GO RAW.

It's not the first time I hear this! My Higher Self also keeps repeating this advice in a patient but DAMN PERSISTENT way. When I was eating cooked food between April 10th and May 31st, and struggling to go back to raw so much, I asked

- What can I do to make it easier for me to go back to raw?

and got the answer

- Just do it.

... which kinda annoyed me. :p

At first it did irritate me to be told to go raw this month. I know this is going to be a helluvah lot of work and take a helluvah lot of time. I'll need to entirely shift my mindset about a lot of things. I'm already very busy shifting my mindset about money, plus taking classes, working through books and audio programs, trying to blog productively, and a lot more. I was hoping to pick a "cool" habit this month, one that would not take much time, like meditating twice a day or getting up early.

Of course our spiritual resources never tell us what to do. I asked for information and got an answer. Now I can do with it whatever I want. We have free will, and I am perfectly free to say no and pick another habit. But I will listen to them.

Deep down I just know they're right. Solving the nasty diet issue once and for all now is the most obvious next step on my path. I can chicken out and ignore this truth, but it won't make it any less true, and I know it.

Plus, my goal is to grow. Picking a different habit would not be completely stupid, as they all are awesome and conducive to growth. But it wouldn't be the maximal growth I am capable of. So, let's go raw at last.

I'm looking foward to tackling this challenge!

How To Sprout Stuff, for Beginners

Sprouting is easy. It works like this: soaking, draining, rinsing.

Step 1: Soaking


Let your sprouting material soak for one night in cold water. One tablespoon seeds should be enough, as they grow much bigger when they sprout.

If you can, buy organic sprouting material.


Those are special sprouting glasses. They are very practical, but you don't absolutely need such a thing. Normal jars are fine too.
In the picture, the green things are mung beans, and the red ones are adzuki beans.

Step 2: Draining

In the morning after the soaking night, drain the water out of the glasses.

Now you can see why sprouting glasses are convenient.

Step 3: Rinsing

From now on, rinse your sprouts twice a day: just fill the glass with cold water and then drain it. Do it once in the morning and once in the evening.
If you are using normal jars instead of sprouting glasses, please drain them carefully, or else your sprouts could mold.
Keep mung beans in a dark place (for example inside a closet). Other species enjoy light. Avoid direct sunlight though.
After some time (a couple hours to a couple days), your stuff will start sprouting.

If you sprout beans like these, they'll drop their green/red skins during the process. Remove the loose ones. Same for sunflower seeds.


And soon the sprouts will be ready.

The time it takes until your sprouts are ready varies. It can take one day or five of them, depending on what you are sprouting, and also on your taste. Some sprouts taste differently as they grow older. Just experiment and find out what is best for you.
You'll find detailed information on appropriate soaking times and rinsing frequencies for each kind of seeds online. In my experience, one night of soaking then rinsing twice a day works for pretty much everything I sprout. I have no experience with sprouting grains and pseudo-grains, though. If you think the sprouts have a too strong or unpleasant smell, rinse more often.
What to sprout?
You can sprout all kinds of things:


small beans (adzuki, mung...)
other legumes (lentils, chickpeas...)
nuts (almonds...)
seeds (sunflower seeds, sesame...)
veggies (mustard, radish...)
grains (wheat, rye...)
pseudo-grains (quinoa, amaranth, rice...)

Truly raw nuts can be difficult to find. Sprouting them is a good method to find out if they're raw: it will only work if they are.

Do NOT sprout large beans (kidney, soy, fava, pinto, navy...). These are toxic!

Is sprouting ethical?

The only problem I have with sprouts is that I always feel sorry for eating them. It's magical to see them suddenly awaken to life, unfold, and, if you wait long enough, grow little leaves. Instead of eating them I'd rather plant them and see them grow. I always feel like an ogre raising cute little babies to devour them. :-(

Raw Vegan Strength Training

As you know, I dream of being very strong. The new habit I'm adopting this month is "at least five minutes of strength training every day". Things are going great so far!

The second project I have for my body is weight loss. I've had mixed feelings about both my overweight and the idea of losing weight in the past. I wanted to lose weight, but also refused to lose weight, thought I couldn't lose weight, but should lose weight, and simultaneously didn't care about my weight! Consequently, my weight has been going up and down in a quite chaotic way. But now that I'm befriending my body and getting to love it the (overweight) way it is, I find myself better able to formulate clear wishes and goals about it. One of them is to reach my ideal weight.

So I am now starting a challenging project: fat loss + muscle gain. I'm starting from zero (untrained and overweight), and want to end up with little fat and lots of muscle. The challenge will be to do it on a 100% raw, vegan diet.

I officially started on April 1st. Every month I will post a report about both the weight loss part and the muscle building part of the project.

April 1st report:

Weight: 68,4kg
BMI: 27,2

Weight loss report:

I have no target weight. I said I want to reach my ideal weight, but I have no clue what this ideal weight is. I've been overweight (even obese for a few years) for all of my adult life. Having never been thin as an adult, I have no clue what my weight should be. I do not even know what I look like as a thin adult. This is exciting but also scary.

What's going to be difficult for me on this journey is that I'll have to address a bunch of limiting beliefs and fears about weight loss. Losing weight definitely is a scary thing for me. When I went raw I lost so much weight initially that I had to take a break from the raw diet after three months, simply because I couldn't stand the quick melting away.

Now I am determined to lose weight, but I know I'll have to overcome serious blocks and probably a psycho-energetic reversal as well. Maybe I'll write about that in another post.

The weight loss part of the project won't be difficult from a physical viewpoint: I automatically lose weight when I'm 100% raw anyway, without having anything special to do about it. However, I expect it to be very challenging psychologically. I'll share what comes up.

Muscle building report:

Here it's the contrary: I expect it to be challenging physically, but very easy mentally. I love lifting weights! I feel so happy when I'm training. It just feels right. It feels like I'm doing what I'm meant to do. No problem.

I'm still in the input phase, learning a lot and randomly trying things out. What's sure is that I train daily, but with varying intensity (varying weight and/or varying numbers of reps). I tend to alternate "fit" days with maximal power and "lazy" days where I do about half as much or less. I don't try to progress every day. I also do not train to failure. Instead I focus more on being fully concentrated and on learning the proper technique. And on having fun. :-)

I do a few bodyweight exercises, but I admit that I prefer training with weights and with my kettlebell. Yesterday I bought a few new weights and have now a 28kg barbell. And a big problem! Because the barbell is both too light and too heavy. 28kg isn't heavy enough for squats or deadlifts. I could do much more. Unfortunately 28kg is also way too heavy for me to get the barbell on my shoulders! I have no problem with lifting it up to my waist. Once it's on my shoulders, I have no problem with squatting. But there's no way I can get it from my waist to my shoulders alone. Every time I want to squat, I have to ask my friend Tom, who's currently staying at my place, to first place the barbell on my shoulders. >:-(

From now on I will be keeping a training journal, just for the record. I won't put it online though, this would be boring for you. I'll just post my current weights in my monthly reports. It won't mean much to you, it's just to keep track of my progress. Here are they for April 1st:

Squat: 28kg
Deadlift: 28kg
Shoulders: 10kg
Triceps: 4kg
Biceps: 8kg
Back: 2kg
Kettlebell: 12kg (swing, one-handed swing, clean)

And since I said I'd post more pictures, here is what I looked like on April 1st:



Admire the soccer player legs. ;-)

Grounding for Vegans and Raw Fooders

A dear friend of mine recently went high-raw and completely vegan. He told me he feels mentally too light now, and has a hard time concentrating on deep thoughts.

I know this phenomenon very well. Cooked foods, and especially meat and dairy, are very heavy. They sit in us like stones and drag us down. So when you quit eating them, you might take off like a rocket. This can be very confusing!

I had a hard time dealing with this lightness too when I went raw. It felt so unusual and even scary. I had concentration problems, sometimes I could not even hold a thought long enough to think logically.

If this is happening to you, don't worry: it'll pass. Or rather, it won't pass, you will remain that light. But you will get used to it. After a while it feels normal, and your mental abilities will come back.

What helps is to eat heavier raw foods, like bananas, avocados, nuts, dried fruit or sprouts. Depending on which raw diet you chose this might not be ideal, but it'll help you not to freak out.

Here's also an exercise I've put together from diverse sources. I find it very useful in order to stay grounded. I do it every time I feel I'm "taking off". Maybe it can help you too?

1) Stand with your arms hanging down passively. Breathe white light into your belly and then breathe out forcefully, imagine you breathe dirt out. Let your shoulders hang heavily while breathing out. Do this three times or more. Every time you breathe out, you normally sink into the earth a little bit more and become heavier.

2) Then stay in this heavy position and feel the energy in all your body parts, one after the other. Feel the energy in your feet, in your legs, ... and so on. Then feel your body from inside as a whole energy field. Feel it vibrate. Go deeper and deeper into your body. That's basically what Eckhart Tolle explains in the Power of Now and it's also the first part of the Presence Meditation I'm talking about here.

3) Imagine enormous roots growing out of your feet and into the earth, miles and miles deep, anchoring you solidly into the ground. Imagine the same "roots" but made of light reaching very high up into the sky to act as a sender/receiver for your connection to the Universe (or Source or God or whatever else you believe in).

4) Hold your hands as if you were praying and center yourself. Feel centered in your axis. If you're still floating around at this point, let energy flow from you upper chakras into your lower chakras.

5) If you want, imagine a bulb of shining white light surrounding you to protect you.

The energy healers I met said to me "The more you're grounded, the more you'll be powerful".

Hope this helps! I wish you a wonderful day today. :-)

PS: A note on "raw fooder": I generally don't use the term "raw foodist" because the suffix "-ist" is often used to designate the follower of an ideology. That's an association I'd like to avoid. For me, eating raw foods certainly is based on ethical and political reasons among many others, but I see it primarily as a simple lifestyle choice. I'm someone who happens to eat raw foods, so I'm a raw fooder, just like someone who smokes is a smoker and someone who enjoys dancing is a dancer. You don't talk about dancists or smokists, do you? :p

How To Cure Heartburn?

Today, I feel like writing about something easy. Getting rid of heartburn is easy :-) I used to have massive, chronic heartburn in the past. Now, it never happens to me anymore. Here's how to cure it:

Short-term solution: green clay

I've found green clay to be the best cure for heartburn. Green clay is totally awesome anyway, it's a natural yet very powerful remedy for many ailments. You can use it externally to wash yourself or as a beauty mask to clear the skin. Ingesting it helps with all kinds of digestive worries.

I don't know why or how it works. I often read that green clay binds and neutralizes toxins. I've heard it's rich in minerals. I've also heard it has a high pH level, which would explain why it's so efficient against heartburn. What I know for sure is that it helps!

You can find green clay in wholefood shops and certainly also online. Mix 1-2 spoonful with a glass of cold water and drink it. If it's not enough, repeat. Your heartburn will disappear, I promise.

But of course that's only a short-term solution, once you've managed to mess with your stomach enough to cause heartburn. How to avoid that?

Long-term solution: a diet change

Heartburn is not something you get by accident or coincidence. Swallowing drugs to suppress it might eliminate your discomfort but doesn't address the real issue. If you get heartburn, then your diet sucks, it's as simple as that.

You could experiment a bit with food to identify what causes the heartburn, and then all you need to do is to cut this out of your diet. Be honest with yourself, even if you don't like what you find out.

What I personally found to cause heartburn is:

coffee
soda and fruit juices
sugar-fat mixes, like fatty cakes
refined sugar, corn syrup and chemical sweeteners
meat
grains, even unrefined
dairy
alcohol
cigarettes

I'm not surprised, as all this is very unhealthy stuff anyway.

My advice: reduce your consumption of these items - if possible to zero - and eat more raw, organic, whole, fresh fruit and veggies instead. You'll soon forget about heartburn :-)

Wanna go raw? A few practical tips

This post is for those who already want to go raw. I don't mean to push this diet on anybody.

So you want to go raw? Here a few things that could help you.

A conscious decision

I already stressed the importance of clarity in my previous post. Please go back and ask yourself all the questions I listed there in the paragraph about clarity. Write the answers down. Take some time to think it through.

If you still want to go raw, make the conscious decision to do so, no matter how difficult it could get. I'm saying this because when you get cravings it's easy to fall back, unless you remember that you once very consciously chose to go this path no matter how difficult it could get. If your decision sounds like "I will go raw! Well, unless it becomes painful... " this won't help you much. Don't leave any backdoors open for you to escape your decision in case it gets uncomfortable.

If such a commitment sounds too radical to you, set a time limit for your raw trial. You don't have to go raw at all costs and forever now. You can choose to try it out for thirty days. Or for ten days or even for just two days. The time amount doesn't matter, but decide on it before you start. And then, for this amount of time, stay committed to your decision - no matter how difficult it could get.

A good preparation

Going raw isn't easy. You'll have to overcome a strong, daily habit. You'll have to deal with a lot of social pressure. Always having something raw to eat at hand also requires organization. Not to forget that some substances in cooked foods are highly addictive. Breaking an addiction can get tough, and you'll be surrounded with temptations everywhere. For me personally, going raw was more difficult than quitting smoking.

That's why I think it's important to prepare oneself very well before going raw, not just jump into it spontaneously. Choose a date a few weeks ahead and prepare yourself during this time. Victoria Boutenko recommends drinking green smoothies every day for several weeks before going raw, to give the body nutrients and avoid too severe cravings later. I didn't do that, but maybe it's a good idea.

Here a few more things you can do before D-Day:

A written plan

Making a written plan has helped me tremendously. I found it much easier to go raw when seeing it as a game, or war. Your goal is to beat your opponent! Prepare yourself for the battle. Develop your strategies on paper!

In case you are overweight, you will lose weight. Are you prepared for such an eventuality? Write down what you will do about your weight loss. About new clothes you'll need. About how you will deal with comments from others. Such things. Write everything down.

You're very likely to experience a noticeable energy increase when you go raw. What will you do with this excess energy? You need to find an outlet for it just in case, or else it could overwhelm you so much that you'll return to cooked foods just to stop feeling uncomfortable. Can you think of something you're dreaming of doing but hadn't enough energy to do until now? Or maybe exercising more? Or starting a new creative activity? Find out what you would do with more energy, and write that down, too.

Now the main part of the battle plan:

Observe yourself for a few days and write down what you eat, when you eat it, and why. Don't judge your eating habits, just analyze them.
Based on this, imagine all kinds of situations in which you normally would eat cooked foods, or might feel like eating something even though you're not really hungry, or might get a craving.
Then, for each one of these situations, imagine what you will do in such a moment, instead of eating something cooked. It can be eating raw food if you're being hungry, but it can also be something completely different from eating, like going for a walk, performing ten push-ups or cleansing your chakras. Just pick something that makes sense in that precise situation and keeps you occupied. Write everything down.

Visualizations

Practice visualizing these situations and your desired reaction every day before going raw (but not while you are in those situations themselves). After going raw, when you're in one of the listed situations, all you'll need to do is to apply your great plan. You'll already be conditioned to have your desired reaction. It makes it much easier!

Also visualize your life and yourself as a raw fooder regularly before going raw, as if it were now. What are you wearing, doing, feeling, being, looking like? Imagine everything in details. Here it's helpful to use this emotional main reason for going raw I talked about in my previous post. What's the emotion you're aiming at creating? How do you hope to feel once you've gone raw for this particular reason? Healthy? Balanced? Free? Light? Proud? Productive? When you're visualizing, concentrate on feeling this emotion as if it were already present in your life now.

Support and information

It helps to talk to other raw fooders, to get involved in a raw forum, to join a raw community, to read books about raw foods, etc. Go search for resources on the net. Your intuition will guide you.

Also surround yourself with supportive people in real life. Ask your family/friends to help you. Avoid people who discourage you.

Build a favorable environment for your upcoming shift already before actually making this shift.

When D-Day has come, throw all cooked foods, pots and pans out! And jump into the Unknown. What might help you after D-Day is:

Overeating

When you go raw you'll probably get a strange feeling of lightness that you're not used to. Like your stomach is empty, even when you're not hungry. This is strange enough! If you let yourself be hungry on top of that, you'll get cravings for heavy cooked things. Eating really really A LOT in the first few weeks helps. Don't worry, as time goes by you'll end up eating less anyway.

EFT

Do you already know EFT? It's an awesome technique to deal with unpleasant emotions and/or physical pain. It's often used to treat phobias or cravings. In case you get extremely strong cravings, it could be worth learning EFT and applying it to your cravings. You can find an easy tutorial for beginners (as well as many other resources) on this site.

A few failures

Bitterly failing a few times is extremely useful. I know this sounds like a contradiction to what I said above about leaving no backdoor open. But it's not. If you are fully committed and fail, you'll learn a lot out of it.

My first trial in November 2007 lasted only one week. It showed me that I feel much better on raw foods but that it's not easy. I also learned that eating raw grains is not a good idea for me! My second trial in January 2008 taught me that I had a disempowering mindset. I broke off after two weeks to fix my mindset, which took me a few months. In April, I started trial #3, this time feeling absolutely ready and firmly committed to go raw forever. Nevertheless, I wasn't able to stay 100% raw all the time. I experienced a few disappointing set-backs, and after exactly three months I had to take a break because I couldn't stand losing weight that fast. It taught me that I had unresolved issues that I needed to address first. It also taught me how addictive cooked food really is.

Failing is part of the learning process. You won't learn much if you're not truly committed to your new decision though. Be willing to fail, and give your best to succeed!

Hope this helps a little bit. Good luck :-)

Does it take self-discipline to go raw?

No, it doesn't.

I completely lack self-discipline. I hate self-discipline. If it took self-discipline to go raw, I'd never have done it.

So what does it take to go raw?

Clarity

Most of all, clarity, clarity, and clarity. If you want to go raw, it really helps to know exactly what you want, why you want it, who you are and what this diet change means to you.

So what do you want exactly? 100% raw? 90%? 75%? Why this number?

Why do you want to do it? What are your reasons for wanting to go raw in the first place? Write them down. Writing it down produces another result than just thinking of it. Brainstorm for a while. When I did it, I had over 20 reasons to go raw.

It helps to make it clear to yourself why you want to do it. Look at your reasons and ask yourself which one of them is the main reason, the most important one. Please don't listen to what your mind says. Your mind will pick the most "sensible" reason, the one you think should be the most important one. But that's not necessarily the one that most resonates with you deep down. Listen to your guts, because the day you have a serious craving and are about to give up, reminding yourself of your emotional main reason might save you. Reminding yourself of your logical main reason won't do much for you.

What does going raw mean to you? Is it strictly a health matter, or does it have another signification?

What does food in general mean to you? What is your relationship to cooked food? When and why do you eat exactly?

Who are you as a person? What's your life purpose? What are your core values? How does eating raw fit in?

Can you imagine yourself as a raw fooder? Have you thought of all the negative consequences of going raw? Look at them boldly, and compare with your reasons for wanting to go raw. Do you still really want to go raw?

Know all this and you won't need self-discipline.

Willingness to change

If you want to go raw, you have to welcome change in your life. Even if you choose to cut the cooked food out of your diet very gradually - there's still a point of no return where you'll have to go cold turkey at least for those foods that are addictive (like sugar, grains, meat or dairy). This WILL be a shock.

Going raw will completely mess with your life. Not only will you have to eat different foods, with all the social consequences of that, you'll also experience physical, mental and emotional changes. All raw fooders I know of report an increase in energy, creativity and clarity of mind after going raw. If you're overweight, you'll lose weight. You'll have to find a way to deal with these changes. We are what we eat. On raw foods, you will become another person entirely.

To go raw, you need to welcome this new person. If you're someone who's very uncomfortable with too radical change, you have a problem. You'll need to let go of control, let go of your identification with who you are currently being, and trust that you are safe.

Courage

Jumping into the Unknown like this requires some courage. Not much, it's not that terrible ;-) but yes, it's scary at first. I was scared, not knowing what was expecting me. I was especially scared to see my body melt and my weight drop dramatically, so much that I had to take a break. Don't worry, once you've been raw for a while, it's ok. You get used to this new food, to your new habits, your new body and your new personality and won't need any courage anymore. But at first, yes, you need some courage to jump off the cliff.

Curiosity and Strategic thinking

Absolute clarity, the willingness to change, and courage at the beginning, this is what I personally find most important for those who want to go raw. Of course it also helps to be curious, because it'll make experimenting with new foods more fun. And if you enjoy strategic thinking, that's even better. It helps to think of it like a game or a war and to make plans to beat the opponent! But I'll talk about this in my next post, as this one was more about what it takes mentally to go raw, and less about concrete strategies to do so.

I'll share a few practical tips in my next post. If you follow them, you definitely won't need self-discipline.

Have a wonderful day!