Usually when I am on a “raw food” eating plan, I just eat stuff right out of the refrigerator.  Occasionally, I will prepare a cabbage salad with lime, tomato and cucumber (a Costa Rican favorite).  Other times I might marinade some cucumber in lime juice, salt and pepper.

Most of the time though, I’m just grabbing another banana or cutting up a pineapple or mango.

This time, I thought I would look around to see if there were any recipes for raw foodists.  I found one that caught my attention.  Hummus.

I love Hummus.  It didn’t matter that I couldn’t have pita with it.  I could probably just eat it with a spoon.  But, cucumber slices sounded good.

Here’s the raw Hummus recipe:

1. Soak one cup of dry garbanzo beans overnight in 3 or 4 cups of water.

2. Drain water.

3. Add to food processor with “S” blade.

4. Add juice of one lime.

5. Add 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon cumin and 1 teaspoon chili powder (adjust later to taste).

6. Add three or four tablespoons of olive oil.

7. Process until smooth.  If it sticks, add more olive oil.  If you are trying to stock up on omega 3’s, feel free to use flax seed oil.  I doubt there is enough oil to taste regardless of consistency in the final preparation.  You could probably even sneak in some cod liver oil if needed.

8. Taste.  Add more spices to taste.  Want some real kick?  Marinade a jalapeno in lime juice overnight and then add it to the mixture after draining the lime juice.

9. Slice cucumber.  Use the cucumber slices to scoop up the hummus.  Yummy!

Later, after I ran out of cucumber and put the rest of the hummus away, I got hungry again.  I grabbed a banana and remembered the hummus.  Yep.  Hummus is great on a banana too!

-James D. Brausch

That’s the end of the “meat only” diet.

If you are tempted to look only at weight, the “meat only” diet (which includes meat, poultry, fish and eggs) is a loser… or a gainer… whichever way you look at it.  I always gain weight on the meat only diet.

However, if you look at fat weight, I always lose fat weight.  That’s the real goal.  The result is more muscle mass which helps to keep the weight off.  Nobody ever complained about gaining 5 pounds if you actually lost 2.5 pounds of fat and gained 7.5 pounds of muscle.

BTW, this is with zero “exercise” by the new definition of that term (hanging out in a gym lifting weights or running on a treadmill).  Of course it does include the normal exercise by the old definition of the term (ie: using your muscles to do everyday tasks and recreation).  I never force myself to exercise.  I move at the rate dictated by my body.  As I lose weight, I naturally have more motion and recreation that involves using my muscles.  That’s just natural as you become healthier.

Another claimed benefit of a meat only diet is lowering insulin and leptin levels.  I never bothered to check my old levels.  I knew I was very sick and at least pre-diabetic prior to getting my gall bladder removed and starting to lose weight.  My blood pressure was very high.  I had chest pains almost daily.  I was pretty messed up.

I didn’t test those levels because then I would start getting pressure from doctors to use the normal treatment for diabetes or pre-diabetes.  I had no intention of doing that.  I still don’t.

However, I did finally check my insulin levels and it was pretty high.  That’s to be expected.  It’s difficult to check insulin levels on a daily or weekly basis, so I picked up a blood sugar monitor instead.  Sure enough, my blood sugar levels are fairly high.  You can see that in the last measurement.

Meat only has very low carbohydrates.  Blood sugar should be fairly low.  In fact, most people go into ketosis on a meat-only diet.  Mine is still high.  We’ll see what happens on the other eating plans.

In any case, this week I’m going to try raw eating again.  I remember last time that I lost weight and felt great.  This eating plan is anything except meat… and all raw.  So I can have as much fruits and vegetables as I desire.

I may end up aborting mid-week because I’m checking my blood sugar.  Or I may restrict to vegetables only to control blood sugar.  Theoretically, raw fruit has a low glycemic index due to all of the fiber remaining intact, so it may not be a problem.

I was reminded of the raw food diet when I recently ordered some coconut oil.  That is my preferred oil for cooking and I couldn’t find it anywhere here in Costa Rica.  That’s very odd because all of the coconut oil I’ve ever purchased in the U.S. came from Costa Rica.  In any case, I eventually ordered some on Amazon and it came from a raw foods retailer.  That retailer enclosed a letter and a URL.

When I visited the URL, I saw that the owner looked very similar to the first raw foods enthusiast I ever heard from.  He is skinny, has glowing skin (elf like) and looks extremely young for his age.  I have always avoided a vegan eating plan because every vegan I ever knew was fat and unhealthy (not to mention annoying).  So far, I’ve only seen pictures of two raw food enthusiasts and both looked skinny and extremely healthy.

So, that’s this week’s eating plan.

As I’ve mentioned before, I would expect to see results even if the eating plan wasn’t so great long term.  That’s because it is radically different than last week’s plan and will therefore confuse my body for a while (up to a week).  That causes weight loss or has for me every single time I’ve tried it.

-James D. Brausch

We took a vacation out of the country from Wednesday through Saturday of last week.  Those days were free days because we wanted to experience Nicaraguan food.

Since returning, we had a fast Sunday and then decided to do four days of grapes and water again followed by four days of meat only.

My wife is then returning to the U.S. for a week and so I’ll probably take a free week that week as well since I’ll be taking care of the kids.

-James D. Brausch