Matt - Day 31

I too have finished my 30 days raw. Unlike Samantha I can indeed say that I have clearer skin, and generally I feel healthy. The biggest improvement is weight loss - and no negative side effects like extra hunger, increased tiredness or anything like that normally associated with other diets I've done. This diet works for me.

I'm still going to add a few cooked things back into my diet only for lunches. But not yet. It's so easy for me to stay raw that I'm in no hurry to get back to cooked food. I also tend to eat quite a bit more than Samantha so that could be why I don't feel tired like she does.

We both have pictures, maybe she will post mine up there tonight too. I weighed and I was still 211.5 today.

Matt - Day 29

Almost done with my 30 day challenge!

Weight: 211.5
Gain/Loss: -16 lbs

Today we took some pictures. Hopefully I can get them posted soon. I'm actually anxious to see how much of a difference there is.

We had a RAW food potluck today in our apartment. I should post the pictures from that as well. There were 7 of us altogether that came. The dishes that we had were as follows:

Ranch Dip with Veggies
Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms
Gazpacho
Pasta with Marinara Sauce
Nut Loaf (Meatloaf)
Banana Ice Cream

Everyone really enjoyed everything and I even took some down for Meesh to try. He really liked everything as well - I was suprised. I'm amazed at how people really like the ranch dressing too. It's good to know that I'm not the only one that thinks it's insanely good.

We're going to stay 100% raw for a few extra days since our houseguest Candice is just starting RAW and we want to be sure that she has support her first week. After that we are going to incorporate some whole grain bread (homemade only), rice, and beans into our diet. We will only eat these for our lunch meal. We're going to continue being mostly raw, and remain vegan. We'll see how that goes.

I'm glad to see that I've lost quite a bit of weight. I do weigh myself every day, but I've noticed that I lose a couple pounds, then I gain back a pound or two and stay there for a few days before losing again. This week I was hanging around 213 for like 5 days before I finally broke through that level. On Sunday I'll probably be back to 212 for a day or two. I can't wait until I break the 208 level. That was how much I weighed my senior year in college in 2001. Then the next target is to break 200. Then the next major one will be 185 which is the lowest I ever weighed in college.

I had a community member in the cafe ask me if I was losing weight and tell me that I looked good! I was really happy about that because it's hard for me to tell sometimes that I'm losing weight. I do feel a little lighter, but it's hard to notice sometimes. Anyway - that made me feel good.

That's all for now. More later (and hopefully some pictures too!)

Matt - Day 22

Here it is:

Weight: 213 lbs
Gain/Loss: -14.5 lbs

Still feeling great. I do miss bread though. Samantha are thinking that after the 30 days we might start making our own bread and add that to our diet for lunch only. We'll eat raw for breakfast and our evening meal.

That's all for now.

Matt - Day 21

Hello again,

I'm just one day away from my third week raw so I think I'm going to hold off on giving my stats until tomorrow.

I've been continuing to stay raw during this whole time. The only things I've eaten that are not raw has been a little hot sauce on some mexican style raw food.

I've noticed that as I do this diet longer that I'm less and less "addicted to food". I mean, I find that I'm eating a lot less lately, and I'm not really feeling hungry all the time. I also don't seem to feel tired for whatever reason more than normal.

About a year ago I went to the doctor and was told that I have high blood pressure. Although I don't know what the numbers were exactly, but I took it the other night and my blood pressure is totally within normal ranges again.

Other than this, and the fact that I've lost weight, I can't say that I've noticed any other improvements health wise. I'm sure that my cells are much happier, and that I'm healthier over all (besides losing the weight,) but other than that I can't say that I've had any miracle cures or anything. Of course I'm still fairly young, and I think other than being obese when I started, and having high blood pressure, I think I started out in relatively good health.

Tomorrow I'll weigh in and see where I'm at. I think I've lost a few pounds since the last time I weighed in for sure.

Matt - Day 15

Greetings again everyone. Today is my 15th day raw.

I'm going to post some pictures a little later but wanted to give you an update as to my progress.

Weight: 218.0 lbs
Gain/Loss: -9.5 lbs

I am feeling pretty good. Last night we made a raw crab recipe and both Samantha and I ate a LOT of it. Afterwards I felt really sick to my stomach. I thinkt it's because we didn't soak the almonds and so we were eating a lot of raw nuts - which are harder to digest. I woke up this morning feeling normal.

I can't say I've noticed many other benefits of being raw. I am sure that my blood pressure and cholesterol are much lower since going raw, but I haven't had either of those checked since I started. Other than that the main benefit for me seems to be the weight loss. I hope this continues into the next few weeks.

Samantha and I have been talking about how or if we will continue this kind of diet for the rest of our lives. Both of us are convinced that it's a very healthy way to eat, but it is more difficult than going to the grocery store and buying pre-prepared and processed foods.

We've decided that we are not going to modify our diet at all until at the earliest 30 days of being raw. At that point we're going to reevaluate and see if we want to add any cooked foods back into our diet. One thing that we miss currently is having bread - we haven't yet found any replacements that we like. No matter what we do we are going to remain Vegans, and keep the majority of our diet raw. As a matter of fact, it's easier and faster to eat raw - just grab something and go. Even easier than going to the grocery store because you don't have to even microwave anything. However, there are times that we miss having a warm soup, or veggies on a slice of bread. I think the key (if we were to not remain 100%) would be to integrate small ammounts of these things into our diet again, but remain over 90% raw. We'll see what happens after the 30 days. I might continue doing 100% raw until I get to a more healthy weight.

We just got our juicer today so we'll be trying out juices, nut butters, and things like that in the upcoming week. I am looking forward to trying some things out.

Raw Ranch Dressing

We've been eating a lot of this lately. It's REALLY good with veggies. You can make all kinds of variations of it, for example you don't have to use cashews every time, we've tried sprouted lentils, walnuts, pine nuts, and other stuff. Experiment - it's very versatile.

Raw Ranch Dressing

1.5 Cups Raw Cashews
4 teaspoons lemon juice or 2.5 teaspoons raw apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
1 teaspoon italian seasoning
1 basil leaf

Blend it up. Can store up to 2 weeks in fridge. Feel free to vary any of the ingredients - I like mine a little stronger than this so I add more garlic and onion.

From: The Complete Book of Raw Food

Day 10 - Matt

As of today I've completed one full week of eating raw food, and am into my second week.

These are my stats currently:

Weight: 220.5 lbs
Gain/Loss: -7 lbs

The last week started out with the diet being fairly hard for me. I was really craving cooked food (pizza, pasta, chips). However, after about 36-48 hours of being raw the cravings got to a totally managable level and for the rest of the time it's been easy to stay raw.

We've experimented with a lot of different foods this week. We found a GREAT recipe for "ranch dip" in one of our raw books ("The Complete Book of Raw Food"). We've made several variations on the recipe and all of them are really good. I can eat an entire Cauliflower or bag of carrots with this dip it's so good.

I also finally was able to make some mexican style food. I made a refried bean paste from sprouted chick peas, a cheddar style spread from red pepper and nuts, and added avocados, onions, tomatoes and hot sauce (my only non raw food for the week) on to a big lettuce leaf. It was good. Not quite as good as I remember it being on a tortilla, but it sure tasted good, and was a lot more healthy.

I also went out to eat this week. I met a friend for lunch and just ordered a big salad. It went fine. I stayed raw without any trouble.

The first few days I seemed to lose weight really fast. I think the first few pounds were the easiest because those were the ones that were put on most recently. It seems that my average weight over the last coulpe years has hovered around 220, so it makes sense that I'll hang out here for a few days. Sure enough, when I hit 220 I've stayed there for the last 3 days. I'm sure more weight will come off in in time - but it feels great to have lost 7 lbs already, in 9 days. At one point I had hit 219.5, but went back up to 220.5.

I plan to stay raw this entire week, it should be easy now that I have a few "favorite" things to eat that happen to be raw. It makes it a LOT easier once you get the feel of raw cooking and find a few things that you really enjoy eating.