Day 4-Emily

I'm very tired tonight so this blog will be short. Today Stephen and I had his and hers smoothies for breakfast. I had a strawberry banana pineapple smoothie and Stephen had his coconut banana smoothie. Today I was ready for some mix up. 

For lunch we had the same salad as usual and a fruit salad, but the kicker was dinner. I was really in the mood for something 'exotic' so I mixed up a big bowl of raw spaghetti. For the noodles I spiralized three zucchinis. I then blended five roma tomatoes with 1 cup of fresh basil in the blender, and added that mix to three smashed avocados. The sauce ended up being very similar to a basil pesto. I added chopped squash and red and green bell peppers in order to give it a real spaghetti sauce taste.

I'm beginning to feel my body detox from the diet. It's nice and somewhat disturbing to know what my body had in it before. We literally poison ourselves everyday when eating conventional foods. :( Stephen and I are both doing very well, though. I'm looking forward to the warm weather weekend. :)

Day 3-Emily

I think today has been the hardest day for me to focus on what I'm eating rather than what I wish I could eat. Stephen kept brining up how good the food we used to eat tasted, like chips and salsa, and cheese.
For breakfast we had another coconut banana smoothie accompanied by fresh squeezed glasses of valencia orange juice.

Over the course of the day from about 1 until 7 we ate a fruit salad with kiwi, strawberry, banana, pineapple, apple, and orange juice, another green salad with beets and carrots, and a huge bowl of simple guacamole that had 5 avocados in it and cucumber slices for "chips".

Everything we have been eating has tasted fantastic. As far as changes to my body go, it is pretty much the same. Today I was a bit sleepy, but I think my body is adjusting to the diet change. It might also be from the mental stress of college. Overall, though, I feel much better than before. I feel physically better since I have more physical energy, and emotionally better without the guilt of the food I eat. This is the easiest change I have ever made. I can't believe it's already the end of day 3!
-Emily

Day 2-Stephen

Hi everyone. Today's breakfast was the usual, two young coconuts and two bananas blended together. (Pictured below) For lunch Emily and I made a big salad with leafy greens, green onion, white onion, beets, carrots, broccoli, and cucumber (also pictured below) and another fruit salad with pineapple, apple, banana, and strawberry. 

We typically eat similar things everyday, so for dinner we decided to mix it up. Emily made what she calls "Boaties". They consisted of four large romaine lettuce leaves (which are rounded so they look like boats) filled with two smashed avocados mixed with one whole juiced lemon and covered in 1/2 of a shredded cucumber and two shredded whole carrots. They don't look like much, but they are green bundles of deliciousness. :) 

I have struggled with acne for about three years and my skin is finally clearing up thanks to this lifestyle change. I have been using a mix of coconut oil and turmeric powder on my face, which I sleep in, as well as rubbing it down with raw garlic and letting it sit for 1 hour before washing it off. I have read that garlic can burn the skin so I pay attention to the way my face is feeling. 

Garlic has many health benefits like being a natural anti-biotic, anti-viral, and anti-fungal and also breaks down heavy metals in the blood stream, so it cleans your liver. I eat 1-2 cloves of raw garlic every day.

I do many things to promote my health, and Emily has even started referring to me as a witch doctor. But I am looking forward to being the healthiest me that nature intends.

-Stephen

Day 1-Emily

Today is the first day of Stephen and I eating 100% holistic raw together. For the past few days he has been eating the change but I jumped on the bandwagon today. I have been doing research for the past three months on raw food lifestyles and all of the factors that go in to becoming a raw foodist, but have still been uninterested in trying the diet for myself. (The research paper will be posted in the next few days.) I love treats, and I've had a hard time giving up the occasional trip to chick-fil-a for an icedream cone. Then I realized that when Stephen and I met I only weighed 135 pounds, down from the 169 I weighed at age 16, and I now weigh close to 142. Believe it or not, 7 pounds makes a difference on the way I look. I gained back 17 pounds in the spring of 2008 and kept it on until August of 2009 when I had a brutal wakeup call about the way I looked. I went on a 10 day raw fresh fruit and veggie juice fast which kick started a 10 pound weight loss. Since then I have kept it off but my cravings for sweets have made my exercise regiment only maintain my weight, and not lose it. I'm hoping that this lifestyle change will return my body back to the way nature intends it to look. 

We are preparing to go on a 3 month work exchange in Hawaii for the summer, where we will have access to huge amounts of unlimited raw fruits and vegetables, and I had planned to begin eating 100% raw there, but Stephen asked me "why wait?". So here I am, officially a holistic raw foodist for the last 18 hours. :)

Today for breakfast I made a fresh young coconut banana smoothie for Stephen and I. The smoothie had two whole young thai coconuts and two ripe bananas blended together. It tastes just like a vanilla milkshake. That smoothie is pretty much what we eat for breakfast daily, even when we aren't raw foodists.

Right before lunch we went out and invested in two 6 piece sets of very nice mixing bowls, since up until now we have had limited supply to eat our huge salads and fruit salads out of. We made a huge kale, romaine, red leaf, beet, carrot, avocado, onion, cucumber, lemon juice salad (pictured above right) in addition to a pineapple, fuji apple, strawberry, banana fruit salad and a bowl of simple smashed avocado and lemon guacamole with cucumber dippers. I experimented with a fancy fruit cup made with the fruit salad and fresh self squeezed valencia orange juice poured over it. (Pictured above left) It was delicious. :) So day one of our lifestyle change has gone very well, not to mention the fact that we are both much more attracted to one another now that we know how much the other person cares about their body. I am looking forward to where this journey takes us. :)

-Emily