This post is appropriately titled. I ate a lot of food on day 12 and it was awesome. Eating tons of food is awesome. It feels pretty weird to be eating so much food, almost constantly, and still be losing weight like I am. One of the things I like best about this diet though is the fact that you can eat and eat and eat all that your little heart desires. There’s no fear of overeating during this 30 day raw food challenge. Not for me anyway.

When I started this quest I thought that I was going to feel extra weak, sickly, and that I would be hungry for a lot of things I couldn’t eat. I’m so happy to be reporting that it’s not nearly as bad as I had imagined. The majority of this trial has been overwhelmingly easy compared to what I thought it would be.

I must admit that I am getting quite bored with my food lately. A lot of the time I feel like I am only eating for sustenance and nothing more. Lately I haven’t been all that excited about any of my meals. This is partly because I’ve been pretty busy over the last few days and have lacked time to prepare anything overly complex or anything that is new and I haven’t made before. I hope to gather a few new recipes and ideas for some new meals this week in some spare time. When I try a new dish I will take some more pictures but until then I don’t think I’ll bother taking any pictures if it’s just another boring salad or some fruit.

The night at work went pretty smooth. Near the end of the shift I started feeling fairly fatigued. No more fatigued than I would feel at the end of a normal shift when eating the Standard North American Diet. However, since starting this trial I have not felt that fatigued at all so I thought it was worth noting here.

My mind was sharp and I was happy and optimistic most of the day. Even when a couple of my coworkers were getting stressed over some minor issues we were having I remained fairly unaffected by it. I just didn’t think it was worth stressing out over, so I didn’t stress out over it even though some others had definitely been infected with the stress-bug.

What did you eat today, Mitch?

I’m glad you asked! I started out with a banana on the way to work. I seem to eat a lot of foods around the same time each day. Maybe this is contributing to my recent boredom and lack of interest with these foods. At first it seemed like I had so many options and I would just chow down on different kinds of fruits and veggies, but it seems that I have developed a pattern over the last week or so and the options are starting to all look similar. I seem to eat bananas early in the day, strawberries half way through, and salads later on after work. I’ll ponder this idea and maybe try switching it up a bit during the rest of this trial to try and make it a little bit more interesting.

At work I ate a 600g container of cubed melon. It was a mixture of watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe, about 200g of each I’d say.  This ‘meal’ was very refreshing and some of the cubes tasted absolutely amazing to me. I haven’t incorporated a whole lot of melon into this diet so far but I really enjoyed it this time. I will probably eat a higher quantity of melons during the remainder of these 30 days if it keeps tasting as good as it did today.

After the melons I scarfed down a quick salad. This was another one of those Dole premixed bags that I’ve been eating religiously because they are so convenient and aren’t a bad price. I didn’t add anything extra to this one and ate it right out of the bag to save myself having to wash another salad bowl. That way there was hardly any mess to clean up, which was nice.

On a later break I ate 4 mandarins and some pineapple. The guys thought this was a little heavy on the oranges but I told them I had been considering eating all 8 that I brought to work. Their brains predictably began to turn into shit at that point. It was cool to have some amusement while I ate my mandarins.

The last bit I ate at work was 2 large organic gala apples. They were really tasty apples. I think those particular apples are my favorite ones so far. I’ll keep buying those ones, they have such great flavor, they’re a good size, and they are in great shape with little or no bruising.

When I got home from work I had 50g of pistachios and a banana but I still felt pretty hungry so I made another salad. I used another one of those 300g Dole premixed salads and added 2 handfuls of spinach to this one. That salad hit the spot and filled me up for the night.

Detoxification

Not a whole lot to report here this time. The nausea and headaches have subsided but my teeth still feel weird. My stools have been consistent around 4 times per day, quick, runny/soft, odorless, light colored (occasionally one will be blackish colored though), and require very little ‘clean up’. I’m getting used to this now.

I’m still not very thirsty but have been trying to force myself to down at least a few glasses of clean water each day. Eating so much fruit and veggies seems like a lot of water content but its important to keep drinking water too. It’s hard to remember when you aren’t thirsty at all though.

I’m still experiencing the hot/cool thing I mentioned in a previous post. Right now I feel quite warm, almost hot. But earlier today I felt kind of chilled. I’ve been noticing this swing happening each day and I’m now sure that it’s related to the detox. This appears to be common among other raw foodists and people who attempt similar 30 day raw food diets.

I’ve noticed some of my muscles are more sore than usual. At the end of my shift I was starting to feel like my muscles were getting tired. The work seemed harder and heavier than usual but it was no big deal to push through it until my shift was over. For the most part during the last 12 days my back has felt fairly stable and with a normal amount of pain, but it was starting to hurt more than usual on day 12 and this carried over into day 13 as well. Back pain is a common complain for people doing a detox like this so I have been expecting more pain than usual. I’m glad it hasn’t been too bad thus far and I hope it doesn’t get any worse. I hate constant back pain!

Raw Food Weight Loss

An interesting day on the scale. I gained a few pounds today. I weigh 157lbs again. That’s probably because I ate so much today. It’s good to gain a few pounds back. I don’t really want to be any lighter than I currently am! I do think I am looking healthier and in better shape because of this diet. It would definitely be an effective diet for weight loss, as long as there’s no cheating!

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