A New Month Means: Time to Clean up my Act!

Though this is coming slightly belated: Happy Halloween/Day of the Dead/ Samhain to all! Hope you all had an amazing weekend, I certainly did!

It's funny how during certain times of the year, we are compelled to make changes in our lives. For some it's at the turn of the calendar year, on their birthday, or before bikini season starts, I have always tended to want to make resolutions in the Fall, and that time has come yet again.

I don't know if it's because I've now been a perennial student for the past 20 years (holy crap! I just realized that when I wrote it... scary...) or just because I love Fall, but there's something about the leaves turning and the way the air smells that strikes me as a call to action. More than that, it's the time when I've made resolutions that I've actually stuck to more than during any other time of the year.

So for the Celtic New Year, as market stalls are closing down for the winter here in Ottawa, and as I can feel the temptations of warmth and density slowly creeping back into my food choices (seriously though, it snowed last night!), I'm noticing that my less-than-optimal (but incredibly yummy) dietary choices have also increased my need for sleep, lethargy, skin blemishes, and have diminished my mental clarity and general well-being.

What to do? I've decided to give myself 4 weeks to get my act back together. My latest game plan? Natasha Kyssa's Simply Raw 4 week Detox. As a bonus, supporting Natasha is a great way for me to support local businesses. Now only is she one of our neighborhood raw food coaches, she happens to live right on my street! What I love about her plan is that it's super simple and very straight forward. It gives you a lot of leeway while giving you everything you need to make the right choices. Whether you're a beginner or long-time vegan raw foodist, you can use it to help you achieve that health you always wanted (or want to get back).

As part of the "easing in" process, Week 1 is more of a pre-cleanse than a hardcore detox. It suggests you go 100% vegan, 80+% raw. For me that's no problem, so I'm going to try to push that 80% as much as possible. However, the first week does ask that you eliminate certain things from your diet entirely. While most of them aren't even part of my world anymore (dairy, meat, processed or refined foods), others are slightly more difficult for me to give up. And those culprit are: cacao/chocolate and grains (unless in the form of steamed quinoa, millet, or amaranth).

Of course, I'm finding that the more one can't have something, the more one wants it. The one thought on my mind today:

By dinner, I was craving the density of grains like nothing else. Little Stream Bakery's organic quinoa bread was calling my name from the pantry, my packages of Lydia's Granola was whispering sweet nothings to me from inside the cupboard... So I opted for the 20% steamed veggie option and had half a gorgeous steamed romanesco, and a little millet (which I never knew tasted so much like grits). It was marvelous. Oh, that and I made Andrew some grawnola which I had to taste before dehydrating of course...

However, the rest of the day went super. There's still nothing quite like starting your day with a green smoothie (1/2 pear, kale, and cilantro) and having an awesome lunch of lettuce, avocado, sauerkraut and tomatoes (that may sound gross, but the combination is amazing).

So all in all, a good start. Here's to 27 more days leading me back to... well, me!