Could this be the answer?
Ok, so I previously mentioned that I've been looking into the raw food diet to see if that will finally help me shed this excess weight. My biggest concern about the raw food diet was my initial false assumption that I would have to go cold turkey and cut out anything that isn't a fruit, vegetable or legume. I was so pleased to discover that I can transition to this and I might not even have to go 100% raw, although raw food purists think that it's an all or nothing deal. Obviously my main goal is to lose weight and be healthy, so if I can achieve that by incorporating more raw food into my diet, then I'm happy.
In all my internet browsing, I stumbled upon some reviews for a book entitled The Raw Detox Diet by Natalia Rose. According to reviews of the book, Ms. Rose doesn't advocate an all or nothing approach to raw eating. She apparently lists several stages of raw eating to accommodate different types of eaters. For instance, someone who eats lots of junk food might start on a different stage than someone who already eats fruits and veggies daily. This makes the transition less drastic and if you like you can work your way to a 100% raw lifestyle. I must mention that because I live in Ghana, I can't purchase the book from the Amazon website (which is where I read the customer reviews and gathered this info). I've googled to find tons of websites and blogs about raw food to compare discussions and information. There's everything ranging from eating basic fruits and veggies to cooking gourmet raw food and raw desserts. At this time, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible for myself, so I'll take more fruits and veggies to start.
One helpful thing I noted from the Detox book reviews was the concept of eating raw till dinner. The idea is that you can eat only fruits until noon, then veggies till dinner time, then have a meal with some cooked food for dinner. This definitely appeals to me for so many reasons! First of all, those of us who are carnivores, carbaholics and resistant to restrictive eating will probably be more likely to stick with this if we know that we can have a little "reward" at dinner for our daytime efforts. It will also probably reduce the urge to binge or overeat at dinner, after eating fresh, healthy food during the day.I'm willing to give it a try for at least 2 weeks to see if I can tell the difference. Thankfully, I bought a good deal of fruits and veggies on Monday so I have enough to get started for the next few days. Here's hoping that my willpower will stay intact to give this a real shot!
One of my biggest issues is maintaining a healthy lifestyle on weekends. Those tend to be the most tempting days for falling off the wagon, especially when there's some kind of function to attend (and in Ghana that's quite frequent!). It also doesn't help when my beloved hubby decides to load up on some of his favourite foods to enjoy over the weekend. The one advantage we have over here is the availability of affordable local fruits like oranges, mangoes, bananas, pineapples, coconuts, pawpaw (papaya), etc., so even though it's nice to have some variety sometimes with fruits like apples, pears, plums, peaches, kiwi, raspberries, etc., at least we can get the local fruits that are a bit cheaper and occasionally splurge on some of the more expensive imported stuff. We have a few coconut trees in our garden so those are free :). My mum has an orange tree and an avocado tree, and my aunt has mango trees. It really helps to be able to grow your own produce. Talk about free and organic!
We'll see how it goes. Hubby is working from home today and he ordered some waakye (a rice and beans meal) with meat stew, eggs and a big bottle of sprite.Yes, that was his breakfast. My bowl of pineapple tasted delicious though! ;)
In all my internet browsing, I stumbled upon some reviews for a book entitled The Raw Detox Diet by Natalia Rose. According to reviews of the book, Ms. Rose doesn't advocate an all or nothing approach to raw eating. She apparently lists several stages of raw eating to accommodate different types of eaters. For instance, someone who eats lots of junk food might start on a different stage than someone who already eats fruits and veggies daily. This makes the transition less drastic and if you like you can work your way to a 100% raw lifestyle. I must mention that because I live in Ghana, I can't purchase the book from the Amazon website (which is where I read the customer reviews and gathered this info). I've googled to find tons of websites and blogs about raw food to compare discussions and information. There's everything ranging from eating basic fruits and veggies to cooking gourmet raw food and raw desserts. At this time, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible for myself, so I'll take more fruits and veggies to start.
One helpful thing I noted from the Detox book reviews was the concept of eating raw till dinner. The idea is that you can eat only fruits until noon, then veggies till dinner time, then have a meal with some cooked food for dinner. This definitely appeals to me for so many reasons! First of all, those of us who are carnivores, carbaholics and resistant to restrictive eating will probably be more likely to stick with this if we know that we can have a little "reward" at dinner for our daytime efforts. It will also probably reduce the urge to binge or overeat at dinner, after eating fresh, healthy food during the day.I'm willing to give it a try for at least 2 weeks to see if I can tell the difference. Thankfully, I bought a good deal of fruits and veggies on Monday so I have enough to get started for the next few days. Here's hoping that my willpower will stay intact to give this a real shot!
One of my biggest issues is maintaining a healthy lifestyle on weekends. Those tend to be the most tempting days for falling off the wagon, especially when there's some kind of function to attend (and in Ghana that's quite frequent!). It also doesn't help when my beloved hubby decides to load up on some of his favourite foods to enjoy over the weekend. The one advantage we have over here is the availability of affordable local fruits like oranges, mangoes, bananas, pineapples, coconuts, pawpaw (papaya), etc., so even though it's nice to have some variety sometimes with fruits like apples, pears, plums, peaches, kiwi, raspberries, etc., at least we can get the local fruits that are a bit cheaper and occasionally splurge on some of the more expensive imported stuff. We have a few coconut trees in our garden so those are free :). My mum has an orange tree and an avocado tree, and my aunt has mango trees. It really helps to be able to grow your own produce. Talk about free and organic!
We'll see how it goes. Hubby is working from home today and he ordered some waakye (a rice and beans meal) with meat stew, eggs and a big bottle of sprite.Yes, that was his breakfast. My bowl of pineapple tasted delicious though! ;)
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