I was feeling a bit mentally frazzled earlier this week- I decided to 'give up' cooked food for Lent as the solution to my mental muddiness and grasping for tranquility - now I have 36 more days of eating raw food. It might be notable to say that I have never 'given up' anything for Lent, or really celebrated the practice any other years of my life - why I decided to dive into the religious practice is a funny mystery to me. And, a testament to how swiftly my mind will cling to an idea outside of myself - hey whatever works, works if it works.
During lunch today, as I watched a co-worker eat her tofu sandwich, spring rolls, and danish, I speared my salad unappreciatively and thought "this sucks. I don't want to do this. WHAT was I THINKING?" Then a colleague commented genuinely to me "that salad looks exciting." I looked blankly at her and gave a quarter-hearted "yeah..." Then a couple others chimed in "no, it does look really good." True, very true. It was a delicious salad. And, I didn't want to be eating it in that moment. I wanted something warm that would fill my stomach and quell my emotions. I had a conversation with the lunch group about my raw intention, which sealed the deal - I outed myself, bumped up my chances of following through.
My impulse decision to 'go raw' was largely and primarily inspired by Tim VanOrden. I stumbled upon his website/project ( http://runningraw.com/ ) This guy is a professional athlete who eats a 100% raw diet, and started five years ago. Coupled with the 'Thrive Fitness' book I read by vegan triathlete Brendan Brazier, Tim V.'s testimony opened a possibility in my mind that I could eat a raw, vegan diet AND train for Mt. Rainier. We'll see how forty days goes - earlier today I felt irritable, grouchy, flighty in the mind, and had an unproductively short attention span. After eating a sensually gratifying raw meal at the 'Thrive' restaurant in Ravenna off 65th Street for dinner, my spirits are reignited for raw. Updates on my prognosis to follow.
The decision to go raw for forty days reminds me of a part in the classical yogic text -
the "Bhagavad Gita"
"(3:8) Perform those actions which your duty dictates, for action is better than inaction. Without action, indeed, even the act of maintaining life in the body would not be possible."
The analysis in the book I have, written by Swami Kriyananda, offers that this passage indicates we as humans ought to do what it is our 'karma' - what we as an individual are slated to do in this world, and to tackle whatever challenge is directly in front of us and feasible to accomplish, rather than try to solve our most deepest, difficult problem - each step in the way is a step forward towards the ultimate goal, whatever that may be for each person.
I've swung on the continuum with food and diets - from a picky/no vegetables-or-I'll-throw-a-fit child to fast foodie carnivorous teen, to low-calorie sugar/fat free anorexic vegetarian older teen/young twenty, to part-time vegan, part-time bulimic junk-foodie early twenties, to moderately balanced vegetarian adult who has a new Vita-Mix blender and is a serious green smoothie convert. I wonder every so often what and how a 'normal' person eats, and often use that wondering to throw assaults at the way I choose to eat - and that isn't helpful - there are raw foodists out there, and fast foodists, and in the end, its all ok. We're all going to choose what we want, and it really is up to us to make that choice. Sometimes committing to a choice is the most difficult part. Particularly when it feels really hard.
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