Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . 10 honey tangerines
11:00 . . 1 cantaloupe + a few dates
3:00 . . . 1 cantaloupe + a few local tomatoes
5:00 . . . 2 large bananas + a few dates (Vanilla cake + caramel icing)
10:00 . . pineapple, cantaloupe, kiwi, red pepper

Play: hiking in woods, stretching

Are these bananas GIGANTIC or what?!?! When I saw them in the store, a whole hand of them, I just had to get them. I could tell they were going to be delicious, and they were. Remember how I said that there is about a 5-minute window when bananas are just perfect? Well, I timed it right on these. Perfection! These bananas were so huge the clerks were all laughing about it. Me, too. : )

I want to tell you guys that it took me a LONG time to get free from The Other. I thought I would NEVER stop falling out of the fruit tree. But now, you couldn't pay me to eat that stuff. I went to an event last night that had lots of fancy, catered "food" and it didn't even look like real food to me. It's hard to explain my thought process but it looked like nausea, pain, darkness, and a bad taste in the mouth to me. Luckily, there were large beautiful platters of fruit that I sampled from, but I am so picky and correctly sensitive about my fruit that it didn't taste very ripe/sweet to me, so I didn't eat much. But I do appreciate the effort. ♥

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . 12 small honey tangerines
12:00 . . 8 honey tangerines + a few medjool dates
3:00 . . . 1 lb. cherry tomatoes + a few pickling cukes
4:00 . . . handful of dates
5:00 . . . a few honey tangerines
6:00 . . . 1 cantaloupe + a few dates + 2 bananas

Play: walking/running ~ 4 miles, stretching, relaxing

I'm grateful for these big juicy dates, because they are getting me through this last little bit of late winter/early spring.

A few years ago I wrote down something that I will share with you:

There is always excitement before and during an act of dissipation, but afterwards, only sorrow and regret. ALWAYS.

I wrote this on a card and carried it in the car with me, for those times I was tempted by the idea of The Other. I wanted to remind myself that no matter how I was feeling now, I WOULD regret it to the max later. For sure. Every single time.

We each have these little tricks that help us. Maybe this one will be of some help to you.

Another trick that helped me was carrying an Arnold Ehret book with me in the car. He is one of the most powerful and inspiring writers on the fruit diet and having his book with me felt like having a friend right there, present and guiding. Thank you, Arnold! I love you still. ♥

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . 12 valencia oranges
12:00 . . 1 large cantaloupe + 2 medjool dates
3:00 . . . 1 lb. cherry tomatoes + a few pickling cukes
4:00 . . . a few dates
6:00 . . . 8 oranges + a few dates
7:00 . . . 1 large fuji apple + a few dates (caramel apple!)

Play: yoga, gymnastics

I have been reading around on the internet now for years . . . learning, observing, sharing, and being part of various discussion groups for "raw food," for 811, for fruitarianism. And I have been reading all this time of people's challenges and struggles to change their lifestyle and give up junk food. The challenges are many: illness and disease, lack of support from family, friends, and society in general, emotional issues, comfort from old habits, lack of belief in the new lifestyle due to societal brainwashing, to name a few.

It seems to me that the peeps who have the easiest time of it are athletes who have a focus and a goal other than food. Guys, for example, who are marathon runners or cyclists who want to improve their performance and see diet as just one of many tools to tweak to perfection. They actually get excited to find a new way of eating that will help them achieve their sports goals and boom, they switch over night, no problem, and no looking back.

If food is the center of your life, and everything in your life exists to support this habit, it is going to be a big challenge to change only the food. I believe it will help immensely to have some sort of physical practice that you LOVE doing, and start making this the focus instead of the food. This way the eating of fruit will be fueling you for all these things you love.

And again I will emphasize, because we cannot hear this enough, that one must eat LOTS of fruit to satisfy and fuel this lifestyle. I do not count calories and I do not subscribe to the calorie theory. But I know that I eat between 20-40 pieces of fruit a day. Even more sometimes! It took me a while to really get it that I can eat all I want, no worries and no problems. I wish with all my heart that everyone could know about this and believe it and accept it and give it a try. ♥

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . 1 large cantaloupe (syrupy sweet!)
12:00 . . 1 large cantaloupe + a few dates
3:00 . . . 1 lb. cherry tomatoes + 6 pickling cukes (refreshing!)
4:00 . . . 6 valencia oranges
5:00 . . . 8 valencia oranges
6:00 . . . 10 valencia oranges + a few medjool dates

Play: ballet, acrobatics, stretching

Yesterday I scored some great sweet cantaloupes plus a few pounds of really squishy medjool dates so I feel very satisfied and rich with food at the moment. It makes a HUGE difference to have fruit that is DELICIOUS. I put all my food focus there, on procuring the best I can find.

As always, I see what other people are buying in the store and I feel so sorry for them. Frozen, dead, dry, oily, salty, NASTY stuff.

I was asked why I don't eat tropical fruits. I do eat tropical fruits, like bananas and pineapples and melons. I guess dates and oranges are subtropical, technically. But I don't live in the tropics (yet) so I eat what is available to me. When I have visited the tropics, I have LOVED with all my heart eating all sorts of tropical fruits like mangoes, papayas, sapote, sapodilla, granadilla, and mamey. I sat one afternoon in Costa Rica and ate rollinea right off the tree, one after another, warm and sweet with the sun. Rollinea tastes like lemon custard. And I have eaten mangoes right off the tree, as well. They were SO (!) good. Out of this world. Warm and super sweet, they melt in your mouth.

Fruit is meant to be eaten right off the tree/vine/plant, perfectly RIPE. That way it has received all the sun, air, and nutrients possible to be at peak ripeness. Perfectly ripe fruit is very sweet and mellow. Commercialized tropical fruits are picked green to be shipped long distances, and they never really ripen correctly. Some never ripen at all. At best, they taste "off." Bananas are an exception and that is why they are so popular. I have never once bought a mango in a local grocery store that was delicious. I gave up wasting my money on them a long time ago. I kept being disappointed, knowing what they taste like in their natural element.

I do believe that tropical fruit is the very best and is what we are meant to be eating. Tropical fruit contains some kind of magical stuff, for sure. It'll have you blissed out and trippin.' : )

I am grateful for the abundance of fresh fruit available to me, especially the tropical fruits. As long as it is sweet and delicious, I do not tire of it. ♥

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . 8 valencia oranges
12:00 . . 2 cantaloupes + 2 dates
4:00 . . . 1 lb. grapefruit sections (refreshing!)
5:00 . . . handful of medjool dates
8:00 . . . 6 bananas + a few dates

Play: yoga

These bananas are right on the peak of ripeness. It's a funny thing with bananas. . . it seems that there is about a 5-minute period when they are perfectly ripe. If you can hit on the exact perfect ripeness, bananas are heaven. The smell, the taste, the feeling in your mouth, every cell in your body reacting with happiness. It can make you fall in love with bananas. ♥

And when I have a few juicy dates to enjoy with the bananas, it is fantastic. I call this combo Vanilla Cake with Caramel Icing because it tastes THAT good to me. When I ate this last night it gave me a feeling of euphoria. I also felt euphoric after the cantaloupes. Giddy, even. When I get that feeling, I know the fruit is of a good quality.

I NEVER EVER got that euphoric feeling from eating cooked and/or processed food. Not by a long shot. All I ever felt from that stuff was sick and tired.

I didn't know it was possible to feel SO GOOD from your food until I had been eating just fruit for a few weeks. I think this has to be one of the biggest secrets on the planet. I certainly never heard anyone talk about it my whole life. Well, it is time to start talking about it! ♥

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

10:00 . . 12 valencia oranges
1:00 . . . 1 pineapple + a few cherry tomatoes
3:00 . . . 6 valencia oranges + a few dates
5:00 . . . 4 bananas
6:00 . . . 4 bananas + a few medjool dates
8:00 . . . 1 large fuji apple

Play: walking/running in the fresh air and sunshine ~ 4 miles, stretching to music, relaxing

The beauty and symmetry of fruit is endless and always amazing. Humans cannot create something so beautiful as what is found in Nature.

And for those of us living in places that have winter, the tropical fruits are literally a dose of sunshine.

They are predicting another winter storm this week, with more snow and sleet, freezing rain. When I hear this I think, "Oranges! Pineapples! Must stock up!" In the old days, I would have been thinking Other Things which I won't mention here as it is definitely food porn. Ha! It is a relief to know that my thinking has changed. I changed my behavior and my habits first, and then my thinking begrudgingly lagged along behind. Beware the addictive mind. It has been trained like a seal to think crazy and wrong things. Very strongly and powerfully so.

We all must be patient but consistent with the retraining of the mind. Spending more time in Nature and away from cars, TVs, computers, radios, cell phones, flourescent lights, and other man-made chaos and confusion will help tremendously. Since we are always trying to harmonize with our environment, it helps to choose a simple and natural environment as much as possible. Then our thoughts will be more simple and natural. ♥

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . 6 valencia oranges
12:00 . . 6 valencia oranges + 4 medjool dates
3:00 . . . 1 large cantaloupe
5:00 . . . 1 pineapple + a few dates
7:00 . . . 12 oranges + handful of dates

Play: yoga, stretching, acrobatics

Well. Time flies when you're not sitting in front of a computer all day. Sorry for the lapse, fruity peeps.

I recently came across a journal I was keeping when I first started becoming "raw" about 10 years ago. Actually, I had several short journals because I started over so many times. It was funny to read my sweet and naive entries. I kept being so determined and so frustrated because I was falling off the wagon like every single day! It was redonkulous!

With the wisdom of 20/20 hindsight, it is no wonder I couldn't remain "raw." I would start the day with nothing, go off to work, determined to have an "all-raw day," come home for lunch and for my first meal of the day I would eat 2 oranges and a banana. Ha! Then an afternoon snack of celery and guacamole (avocado, lemon juice, sea salt.) And an evening salad of mixed greens, more avocado, and lemon tahini dressing (tahini, lemon juice, water, sea salt.) Then I would just want to EAT AND EAT all kinds of stuff. Vegan junk! I'd make a big peanut butter smoothie with maple syrup. Two of them. Ugh.

Of course, now I can see that I simply wasn't giving my body what it REALLY needs: Living Water and Fruit Sugar. So my body kept wanting and wanting. . . . something. . . . and that something was fruit sugar. But instead I was giving it all that fat and salt, heavy and addictive and dehydrating, to say the least.

I remember when I started to really get it, that my body wanted FRUIT, and I decided to try an all-fruit day. It was such a revelation and an amazing feeling to eat fruit and nothing else all day. I had some watermelon morning and afternoon, lots of it. Then for dinner I had arranged to buy myself a large fruit platter from Whole Foods. I remember that it cost $20. and was loaded up with cantaloupe, honeydew, kiwi, strawberries, and pineapple. It was HUGE and I imagined that it would last for at least a couple of days. I had been used to having some kind of salad or raw veggies for dinner with sea salt in there somehow, so when I started in on the fruit platter, it just tasted SO DARN GOOD and refreshing and I remember very clearly the feeling that went through every cell in my body. It was a feeling of RELIEF.

And I could not stop eating that fruit platter. I ate the WHOLE THING! And wanted even more!

Yeah, it took me even more time to REALLY get it. There was plenty of back and forth, falling out of the fruit tree and such. Boring. But I just wasn't eating ENOUGH fruit. It takes time to understand how much you really need. No restrictions. Lots of fruit. All you want.

But I couldn't help but notice that every single time I ate just fruit, it felt like a giant RELIEF to my body. Every single time. And that is still the case. Because fruit is like the correct key that fits into your lock. It is just right, perfection!

I have been asked if I had problems with detox on fruit. Honestly, I did not. I only had problems with RETOX. Ha! True! That is, every time I ate just fruit I felt BETTER, and every time I ate some junk I felt WORSE.

As soon as I was able to go 2-3 weeks on just fruit it felt one day like a rebirth. Like a GIANT RELIEF. Like all the days of darkness and sickness and tiredness were GONE. Whew. Thank Goodness. ♥

So each of us have our own path to go, our own levels of toxicity to deal with. I was very sick and toxic when I started on this path. And it did not take long, once I was shown the truth, to clean out the junk.

I wish this RELIEF for everyone. I know it is possible. And so easy and simple that it is hard to believe. Eat fruit. Lots of it. All you want.