Since August, my lovely wife and I have embarked on a truly life changing journey. We transitioned from standard American fare, aka eating copious amounts of pizza, meat, cheese and just about anything,  to a low-fat, raw food diet inspiried by the 80/10/10 diet.  Now, if this sounds extreme, it’s because it absolutely is extreme.  Eating only raw fruits and veggies (sometimes up to 15 bananas a day) while maintaining a ridiculous level of physical activity (I train 10+ hours a week and my wife is a professional dancer) is not even close to being easy.  Forget being a vegetarian or even vegan, this is a whole new level of food kookiness.  If I had a nickel for ever time someone asked me how I could get enough protein in my diet, I would seriously be rich.

Though a raw food diet sounds more like punishment than a happy conscious choice two people would make, the process and transformation your body goes through is simply incredible.  Jennifer and I have both lost excess flabby weight, emotionally and mentally felt clarity and overall have felt an incredible increase in wellness.  The impact of eating real, whole and nutritious foods really cannot be shouted loud enough from the rooftops.  I would recommend examining a raw food diet (or at least one with NO animal byproducts and loaded with fruits and veggies) to anyone.  In fact, if anyone who knows me is reading this you’ll know this is true .

After about two days of eating raw food my body went through a cleanse.   After years of filling my body with horrible foods, my body was anxious and desperate to get them out.  Gross, I know, but it also highlights the damage done by a traditional diet.  A huge part of the cleanse is letting go of our emotional and spiritual connection to fatty and destructive food.  It is tough, and there are times when I literally felt angry, sad, happy or snippy for no reason.  The point I’m trying to make is that it is easy to eat horrible foods to cover up emotions, thoughts and conditions of our minds.    I would venture to say we all use food to fill emotional holes in our lives, especially during times of stress.  I know this sounds like something you’ve heard a million times, but until you really experience the power food has over your emotions it is something hard to fully comprehend.  All this to say people literally “eat their feelings” when life becomes too much.

Which really begs the question.. “Why the hell do we need to eat our feelings?”  And furthermore, if eating crap food can numb my entire being, what effect does the endless amounts of television, facebook, video games, drinking, feeling important, day dreaming etc etc etc have on me?  Now let me take a moment and say that I don’t believe there is anything wrong with eating good food, watching TV or really anything else.  I think the issue happens when we use these things to escape out of this reality and into another.  Which, leads me to the whole point of this entry…

With all this in mind, Jenn and I decided to go through a complete 30 day cleanse in an effort to strip away all of the things we use to numb us to the real life we aren’t leading.  We’ll only be eating simple, mainly raw foods.  We’re going to cut everything else out that we use as a crutch, which for me is video games, mindlessly surfing the web and watching TV.  I have no expectations for what will happen on day thirty (there really is no overall goal), but through constant journaling and meditation I do expect to get to know myself and my reality in a much more intimate way.  I’m going to try to write as much as  I can in because I believe most people can really relate to the way I live – completely absorbed in my own mind thinking about absolutely nothing while this beautiful world blissfully passes by.  I hope in someway someone can relate to these feelings and encourage another person to stare into the abyss.

Here goes!