Less calories today, I feel better.

Well it's day 3 on 80-10-10 low fat raw vegan. I have mixed feelings from today and the past few days.. I think it's normal for someone interested in this life style and trying to take the jump to want to latch on to support groups and certain viewpoints. I've gotten a lot of my inspiration and information from 30bananasaday.com and definitely a lot from my uncle as well, who has been on and off raw the past 5 years. 30 bananas a day offers a lot of support to new people but has a very strict regimen for how they think you can succeed on this lifestyle. I have been reading and watching their videos for a long time now, and the general theme is - do not calorie restrict, eat as much as you want from fruit, aim for 3000 calories a day. I agree with the fact that we should not calorie restrict, because that just causes problems for a lot of people - and relapses. It depends on what you're eating I guess. If you're eating a meat and dairy based diet then yes, you probably don't want to go above 2000/day because of the density of the calories. On this diet it takes a lot more calories to feel satisfied.
However.. I was watching a video from another raw vegan person, Megan Elizabeth, and she kind of went the other way as far as calories go, saying eat when your body tells you to stop.. don't eat to meet a caloric quota... I feel like I was doing that yesterday and the day before because i was so afraid I would get too hungry and want a pizza if I didn't have 3000 calories worth of fruit in me.
Now I had a good run yesterday and in general I am feeling okay, but last night I was in pretty rough shape. I had this intense smoothie of bananas and dates of 2000 calories - I felt bloated, gassy, and a little off. Not to mention before bed I had a really bad headache. I had some lavender tea (I don't know if that's allowed, but I am allowing myself to drink tea, please..) and it helped a lot. I had to think last night.. do I really need this many calories? Is it really necessary? And then today I came upon a video Megan made recently about weight-gain on fruit diets and how there is no one specific prescription for everyone. She's absolutely right, we are all different, we absorb things differently, we metabolize differently, and most importantly, we are not all on the same activity level. I mean it should have been obvious to me from the get go, but like.. Why would I want to eat the same amount of calories as say, an ultra-marathon runner? I'm nowhere near that and I doubt I ever will be. If I find myself running a long distance one day, then yes, perhaps I should have a 2000 calorie smoothie. But if I am just going to run 30 minutes a day give or take... I should really re-think my eating and caloric intake.

So anyway... I did not have a date and banana smoothie like last night. I did consume around 10 bananas and 5 dates throughout the day and after my run. And that felt okay. Tonight I made raw collard wraps and this cold corn/avocado/zucchini/dill soup. They came out pretty nice actually. I did my best to log the food and I am just under 2000 calories. And I do not feel starved or under-carbed. I also came to the realization that perhaps fully raw is not for me and I may allow myself to have a healthy cooked vegan meal at dinner if I want. I still agree that low salt and low fat and low oil is very key. Anyway, I am learning a lot these past few days and even though it's only been a couple days, I think I know that I probably won't end up being 100% raw. Perhaps some days may be different than others. But anyway..
I really really like Megan's approach to helping people and spreading her knowledge. She is not in your face, she is almost never in a bikini (lol), and she is very laid back in her videos. I think I would benefit from having her as a mentor vs. Freelee. Nothing against Freelee, but I just don't think I respond well to that kind of in your face educating.

Today's run wasn't as good as yesterday's. I actually ended up running on nearly an empty stomach - I had one banana prior, and plenty of water. Yesterday I had 2 liters of citrus juice in me. I think it would have been okay if I had started way earlier in the day. But I didn't start running until around 1:30. So yeah... lesson learned, if I'm going to run later in the day definitely have a meal first, otherwise go for a run in the morning. I did 2.8 miles in 34 minutes and that was slower than yesterday but that's okay. Also, I meant to mention that Chris has been running with me these past few days, and it's been nice. It's always helpful to have someone with you when you run to kind of keep you going.

I'm pretty happy with tonight's dinner actually - I got the raw collard wraps from the youtube channel Fit on Raw. They were basically collard greens with shredded carrot, bell pepper, cukes, and this creamy dressing. The dressing was: 1/2 avocado (I added that), 2 ounces walnuts (so my fat intake was a little over than I wanted it to be at 15%), one orange bell pepper, cumin to taste, and it also called for celery powder to taste - dehydrated celery essentially, but I didn't have that. Even without the celery powder it tasted pretty good. It's still hard to get used to not having any added salt or oil - like the wraps obviously would have been even more delicious with creamy hummus, but it was still pretty good.
And then I got this soup recipe from one of the message boards: I basically blended 3 cups of raw corn (from the cob), 1/2 a zucchini, 1/2 avocado (yeah my fat intake was a bit high today, oops), generous handful of dill (I think I may have used too much actually), and it called for 2 spring onions but I used 2 scallions instead, oh and I also added the juice of 1 lemon and 2 oranges. It came out pretty good! It makes a difference with the orange juice.

Over all today was an okay day, I learned that I am going to listen to my body and what it tells me. And what feels right. As far as caloric intake goes. Here's a picture of tonight's dinner. :-) I didn't eat the whole thing, Chris shared some with me, even though I'm not sure how much he liked it, but I'm glad he gave it a try. He added some hummus to his and I think it made it better for him.