What a turbulent couple of weeks

I have been distracted from just about every productive activity by the turmoil on the markets around the world. But it has had the most strange effect on me. Far from being worried and fearful I have a strange sense of relief and freedom and also a high level of motivation. I hope this last one continues because I have rather a lot to catch up on.

11.10.08 Update - I have written a full account of what I think all the financial chaos means to me and to all of us.

Raw Diet Update

I have not been keeping up with this blog much because I have had other things that have been more important, especially keeping my main blog on track. It has been getting some very promising traffic and I have been keen to keep updating to make sure I don't lose momentum. I really ought to update the raw diet story though, which has gone off in a totally unexpected direction. Back when I started it in the middle of August the intention was to switch to a total raw diet over a couple of weeks. I hadn't really envisaged it as anything other than an experiment which I would wind down again when I had learnt from it. That isn't how it is turning out. I am now on a regular routine of eating cooked egg and bacon, or something similar, which I eat with some raw veg and fruit. Typically carrots and celery, but sometimes cabbage and cauliflower. Then a banana and an apple. It was wierd at first and to begin with a really missed the toast that seemed to be an essential accompaniement. But I have stuck to this breakfast ever since. It doesn't seem wierd any more and I find it a much better start to the day than a traditional cooked breakfast or cereals. For lunch I just chomp through some more raw veg and fruit. I don't feel either tired or hungry all day. On my conventional diet I usually snacked in the afternoon, and always got home feeling ravenous. Since starting the raw thing I have eaten one solitary packet of barbecue flavoured Mini Cheddars. I don't know what happened that day. But I must point out that avoiding snacking was supposed to be something that I was going to phase in at the end. I am still eating cooked meals in the evening, though with plenty of fruit and no processed puddings. This is the next thing I will work on. I have lost about 4 or 5 pounds but given that I weigh 13 stone plus and am six foot tall this is not much of a deal really. But I have had several people comment that I have lost weight. I have lost about 2" around the waist, so I suppose I look slimmer. Other benefits are feeling less stressed and having a bit more energy. These are noticeable but not huge effects. I feel that I have a bit better ability to concentrate and I sleep better - except when I have a big carbohydrate rich evening meal. Unexpected benefits are that my teeth feel better. I used to be continually worried about them not being clean. And a couple of chronic aches that I had learned to live with seem to have cleared up. I am going to be really interested to see if these benefits persist. I have been going about a month so far and I definitely do not want to go back to my old eating pattern. I will try to keep more regular notes, if only because for my own benefit I want to keep track of what I have changed and when.

Raw Diet Day 4

I finished off my last tin of tomatoes at breakfast this morning, and also got to the last two slices of bread. I will treat this as an omen and switch to a raw breakfast, given that the raw lunches seem to be working at the moment. I can't bring myself to give up my bacon and eggs yet - but I will have them accompanied by something like raw cabbage. I think I will have to be a bit creative here. I am getting to quite like raw cabbage but it may be a bit too much to have it for breakfast and dinner. Today has been interesting. I have done my usual raw food lunch and basically forgotten all about eating the rest of the day. Just as I was about to go home when one of my workmates asked me to get her a bar of chocolate to get her through working late. When I handed it over she quite naturally offered me a piece. I found that I really did not want it, even though this 5.30pm and I hadn't eaten a thing since lunchtime. I found the idea of something as sweet as chocolate in my mouth quite unappealing. Bear in mind I was tucking into and thoroughly enjoying a jam donut and home made cakes just a few days before. I won't read too much into this as I am still a long way from even getting onto a serious raw diet yet, but I do find it interesting that I seem to be losing my sugar cravings. I had better qualify that by saying that I tend not to crave sugar that much anyway, so I it may not have anything like that effect on someone else, and it may just be a flook for me. Got home to a huge, and I mean huge plate of chicken and rice. I have a bit of a problem when it comes to leaving food once it has been served up so I faithfully chomped through the lot. Although I didn't get indigestion or anything, I did find it hard to sleep. I now weigh 13 stone 8 and a quarter. I think the first firm conclusion that I can draw is that incorporating large amounts of raw food into a conventional diet does not lead to an immediate weight loss. I am feeling a bit more energetic, but not a huge amount and it might well be psychological. I am ready to up the ante and make my diet still more raw....

Raw Diet Day 3

Started the day with bacon and eggs with toast. I am beginning to get impatient now, given my good results so far. I think I will soon switch to bacon and eggs with raw cabbage instead of toast and tomatoes. I think the raw diet is associated with veganism but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work with meat as well. Unfortunately the day itself was not really a real raw food success. My colleague who bakes delicious cakes brought some in to celebrate her birthday. And after work I went to see some old workmates and ended up with a KFC and chips for my evening meal. Having said that, I don't think I ate as many chips as I normally would have done. My weight now stands at 13 stone 11lbs which I think is the heaviest I have ever been in my life. (I am six foot if you are interested, so even this doesn't really represent a problem weight in itself.) Things are going to have to get a bit more serious with this diet if I am going to get anything out of it.

Raw Diet Day 2 (Continued)

20:10 update. Just finished a very enjoyable plate of salmon and chips with a bit of rocket salad. Current weight 13 stone 9 and three quarter ounces. Mental state good, energy level above average.

Raw Diet Day 1 - post mortem

After lunch I became absorbed in my job and didn't give my diet a second thought. But on the way home in the car it occurred to me that I had not had a mid-afternoon craving for a snack as I often do. I generally put these down to boredom anyway, so it could just be that my work was a bit more interesting than usual. It could be a coincedence, but I also managed to get a bit more done than I do most afternoons, which tend to be my lowest ebb of the way energy-wise. The other thing I noticed was that I still wasn't particularly hungry when I got home. I wasn't full though, because as soon as I tucked into my evening meal I had no problem polishing it off. It was a particularly big one because we had a large batch of rather old potatoes to eat up. With some chicken in my wife's rather nice creamy sauce and a side salad it was very enjoyable. Conclusions? Well yesterday was far from a raw food day. In fact I probably ate a bit more cooked food than normal what with the donut and the large evening meal. I did nonetheless think that I got some benefit from what was in effect a fairly small raw food snack on top of a conventional diet. I am going to stick to my initial plan of simply adding raw foods at lunchtime for the first week to see if there really is any noticeable effect and how consistent it is. I am not too concerned about my weight. I am 13 stone 5 and three quarter pounds as of today. But I am a scientist and I like measuring things, so I will keep track of my weight as this trial progresses.

Raw Diet Day 1 - Just after lunch

My main blog is beginning to get some serious traffic now. In the last couple of weeks I have never been below 40 visits a day and I have had one over a 100. I have responded by lavishing attention on it in a way I have never done before, but now I need to get back to my other blogs. None of these are getting any visits beyond the odd random one. I somehow need to get more energy from somewhere to keep them going. Well I guess we would all like a bit more energy so I was surprised to find a reference on Steve Pavlina's blog that his raw food diet was giving him so much energy that he was finding the surplus to be a problem. Steve is an interesting and prolific blogger on a wide range of subjects most of which have to do with personal growth, interpreted in the broadest possible sense of the word. One of his interests is diet and he often mentions that he is a vegan. Most people would regard that as a fairly extreme way to eat. But his latest diet is one step beyond that. Last January he ran a thirty day trial of a raw food diet. Since then he has apparently been keeping it up with some lapses. I don't want to steal his thunder and he takes these things a lot further than I think I am ever likely to do so if you are interested you will find a lot of detail on his experiences on his website. As I said, Steve Pavlina is a vegan and also has a reasonably unconventional lifestyle as he supports himself pretty much via income from his blog. Like most people I have a day job. I also have what I think is a pretty conventional diet. I eat meat, fried food, drink tea, consume alcohol and I like the odd cake. I probably eat fewer sweets than most poeple, but I make up for this with a conscientious committment to barbeque flavoured Mini-Cheddars. I have a bag of these most days. Two sometimes when I am bored. Another unusual feature of my eating habits is that I have a cooked breakfast with bacon, eggs toast and tomatoes most mornings. I don't think it would be possible for me to get up one day a become a vegan. It might even be medically unwise to unilaterally impose something so radical on my digestive system without warning. However, I do like the idea of more energy and I am aware that there probably is room for improvement in what I eat. So following Steve's cue I am going to adopt a new eating regime and document my experience with it on a day to day basis. My approach is going to be that I am going to try and incorporate a large amount of raw food into my daily intake. I am going to build it up over time, and I am going to continue eating conventially at least some of the time. However, this is an experiment so I might vary what I am doing over the duration. This morning I tucked into a hearty cooked breakfast consiting of a fried egg, two rashers of locally grown bacon (absolutely delicious!) some tinned tomatoes and toast all washed down with a cup of tea. At tea time in the morning I enjoyed a jam donut to help celebrate a colleague's birthday. As I was rather conscious of what I was eating I eat the apple I had brought for lunch straight away afterwards to sort of clear my mouth of sugar. Lunchtime represents my first raw food meal. Some raw cabbage, a few cauliflower florets and a couple of carrots. I then ate an enormous banana, and settled down to blog about it. How do I feel? Well no surge of energy yet. I will say though that the meal was a lot more satisfying than I imagined it would be and I am certainly not craving my normal savoury biscuit treat I usually have about now.