You have no idea how graphic and true that title is regarding the last week of my life. I made good on my deal (well, let's be honest, 80 percent good) with Misty Movee to go raw for a week in exchange for her signing up for the half-marathon with me. She did everything within her power to make me a success and I am so grateful to her! She made me all sorts of yummy raw bread and cracker like things, walked me through my raw shopping list and stocked me up with awesome recipes for rawness. Eating the raw stuff is really not a challenge for me. I love pretty much all produce, brussell sprouts aside, and found the raw lifestyle to be enjoyable. It's the whole "don't eat stuff that's bad for you" deal that I have trouble with. But, not that much trouble. I made it through the week without a single soda, diet or otherwise. I drank leadless coffee three days in a row. I think that this week of 80 percent raw will change some habits of mine. I don't want to go back to daily sodas. I need less coffee. I can easily see myself eating raw breakfast and lunch and just incorporating more of it into my whole family's diet. Even Barry, the carnivore, enjoyed everything I put in front of him. But now then, let's get down to what really went raw this week....
....my personal self. My brain. My emotions. My feelings. I had read up a bit on the whole raw food emotional experience and even armed with information, I was not prepared for what happened to me. The deal is, when we use foods to alter our mood, we are preventing ourselves from dealing with things real time and prolonging the inevitable....actually feeling. No surprise, I am an emotional eater. I mentioned that early on. When I am happy, sad, confused, upset, angry, tired....any of it, I use food of some sort to comfort myself or celebrate. I focus on the food and away from the feelings. I keep myself breakneck busy so I won't have to sit still and process. This raw freakin' week, we removed all of the buffers. There was no glass of wine at the end of a tiresome day. There was no gas station chocolate when I had a headache from car-pooling. There were no cheetos when I was anxious. No ice cream when I was teary. Nothin' but pure D emotions. Since I had been "stuffing" mine for quite some time and just coping, there was quite a geyser when I had no choice but to feel it.
Here's what it looked like. It looked like me curled up in a ball at the bottom of the shower with my face pressing into the tub, bawling like a baby. It looked like me walking down the side of the highway, holding hands with my five year old, crying gut cries. I haven't heard this cry come from me since my favorite grandfather died 13 years ago. I frightened myself. It also looked like me curled up fetal-like in my bed letting out moans and groans in periodic sequence. It looked like me sleeping 10 hours. It was awesome and terrible and startling. This was one of the hardest weeks of my life (just plain old life and circumstances), to be sure. Even so, the emotional outpouring was due to a backup in that department. Thank you rawness, for making me.....raw.
I shunned the exercise routine this week. I refused the very thought of it. I ran the 5 miles on Monday with no pain whatsoever and that was it. As a consequence, when I tried to do the long run with Tamy Tale yesterday after having done jack-all the whole week, it totally stunk. My knee hurt too bad to run the last mile. I felt heavy and stiff. So, not doing that again. I am back on the plan this week and will be incorporating a lot of the eating habits I cultivated last week. I am signing up for the half-marathon officially today and I'm back on track. And more than that, I am going to practice being present. I want to process what is happening to me as it happens, so that I don't find myself hyperventilating on the shower floor.
NEXT WEEK: What's on YOUR ipod?
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