A few years ago, I got hooked on a YouTube channel featuring Freelee the Banana Girl. Freelee is an Australian chick, who advocates a raw, vegan lifestyle and while I was vegan at the time and still am, I had no desire to go raw (um it snows in Ohio like 5 out of 12 months and sometimes if feels longer). But, I continued to watch because, well she's cool and she's positive and she has good things to say and she's real and I like her and her little dog too...Recently, Freelee has evolved her diet to be Raw Till 4, a concept in which you eat raw until 4pm. So breakfast, lunch and any snacky snacks are raw and then come dinner time, you "carb the fuck up" (Gee, why do I like her so much...) with a high carb, no-oil, vegan meal. P.S. I'm generalizing, get the full Raw Till 4 rules, here!
Once the winter winds & snow left Ohio and summer descended, this diet seemed doable. I decided to give it a go. I'm a working girl & time is scarce, so my plan of attack was to have a smoothie for breakfast and a smoothie ("A Shake for Breakfast, a Shake for Lunch and a Sensible Dinner" - sound familiar? Yeah, I did that.) for lunch as well as some baby carrots, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and homemade pickles. Freelee would keep it all fruit till 4 and monomeal - check out her videos to learn what that is & more. In order to work this into my schedule, I make my lunch smoothie the night before and store in mason jars. Then I trek off to work with an insulated lunch bag, works great!
I feared that this would be boring and monotonous and well, not enough food to get me through the day.
I'm two months in and well...I LOVE IT!!!
I'm not bored; in fact, I'm craving freshly made smoothies. I am having a blast coming up with new smoothie concoctions, some winners, some not so much. I'm even freezing my own fruit, fresh from the farmer's markets! I have more energy (on the spur of the moment, I did 216 sun salutations in 80 degree sun - 60 people started, 2 hours later, 20 people finished and I was one of them!!!), my skin is glowing (I'm not conceded, that's what people are telling me), the love handles have disappeared and I'm loving the freedom of the minimal, quick prep-work.
I really hope I can keep this going into fall & winter, but time & weather will tell. Since it's like winter in my office yearlong, my body might not notice the difference. Either way, I'm glad that I took the leap into the raw food world and can't wait to see what good things follow!
My job here is done, I have now planted the Raw till 4 (FB support group) seed in your mind.
What will you do with it?
Check it out!
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