I began my raw month this year on May 1st 2012, and have stuck to it flawlessly. It's not something hard for me, because I adore fruits and vegetables, but it was tempting (without much temptation) to have some hot cocoa...because I do believe that cocoa has health properties and so does the ho shou wu that I always include, including the cinnamon and palm crystals...and nothing comforts me more than a cup of cocoa on a cold chilly morning. Thankfully most of the morning have been fairly warm, so I crave a smoothie. The only heated thing I have is herbal tea, but only had it twice so far. This time around I want to be more strict though. Keeping foods more simple and eliminating caffeine (which will include my raw cacao) and be vegan for this month as well...so no eggs either. I'm going for "simple monkey diet" lol. Well that's what it looks like anyways.
I've been doing a lot of reading about cleansing the body naturally and just reaching higher levels of health, and through that I kept coming across the 80-10-10 lifestyle. It's a high carb, low fat raw vegan diet. I wanted to learn more so I hopped into the 30bananasaday community site for several weeks of reading (I actually signed up there a couple months ago), which can get pretty aggressive, there's a long list of "non-vegan discussion no no topics that aren't tolerated", and they're very strict about that. It includes some of my favorites lol like cocoa, maca, honey, Chlorella, Spirulina and others. But I did have the opportunity to learn more about the lifestyle and how people are doing on it. The lifestyle consists of pretty much a vegan frutarian diet with high calories, plenty of fluid, greens, moderate exercise and ample rest. The amount of fat consumption would be equivalent of a 1/3 of a large avocado or 1-2 ounces of nuts, less that 10% of the calories of the day...and boxes and boxes for fruit! It's pretty extreme, but it's caught my attention nonetheless.
Now, when I came across it many months ago I will be honest, I thought it was Nuts...no wait, Bananas lol! But having watched and read so much more information on it recently I'm surprised at how my opinion has changed! There is a method to the madness. I got so interested in it that I ordered the book on it, and look forward to reading it and getting the detailed on how it all works, once it arrives. Long term advocates (who do it right) are pillars of health apparently so that catches my interest. I still don't see myself downing 30 bananas a day and eating a 20 lb watermelon for a meal without feeling like I'll be looked at like I'm insane, but the more I read about it the more it sucked me in and made me want to try it! It's hard though when living with others to have such a dramatic eating plan...my raw foods alone was shifting enough this past year. But it influenced me So much so that without consciously realizing it I found myself eating 6 bananas in one day, when that was unheard of for me...guilt free lol. I definitely was in the mindset before, that for healthy living, not going too high on the fruit and more so on veggies and even introduced eggs and fish back in my diet for the health benefits was the right thing to do, for health. But I'm always open to trying new things. It's a new summer and a new time to explore something New.
So, what is the 80-10-10 diet? In a nutshell...sorry in a banana peal...it's 80% carbs, 10% protein (which is a max %) and 10% fat. The basic rule to stay on track...ie do it right? Eat a ton of calories. Around 3,000 calories for a guy and I believe around 2,000-2,500 cals would be recommended for me, according to the forum 2,500 would be too little but I'm waiting for the book to get the true details of it all (the recommendation of more calories seem to be the answer to anyone's problems on the site lol), yes it sounds insane, which is why I never looked much further into it when I first came across it. It goes against everything we learn, about calories and fruit sugars.
The book was written by a dr. who developed so before going too bananas, I want to read what he has to say as opposed to basing all my decisions in the social 80-10-10 community website. Basically from what I have eaten so far this month, the only thing that will need to change is 'eat more calories" and that is a must according to the info on "getting it to really work"...getting enough nutrition. Sounds far fetched at first, but discussions on the topic can be quite convincing looking at the health aspects of what they say is goes on in the body. After reading more I did reduce my fat consumption...but but I do include a green juice daily still, which is not really recommended, an actual salad of smoothie is advised to get in all the fiber instead of filtered sugars. So my day basically consists of a lot of fruit, a green colorful salad for a dinner meal with lemon as the dressing (as always), and a green juice (that's sometimes a deep brown color due to adding beets:p)
