So how am I feeling? my readers ask

Breakfast today was a spinach-acai-mango smoothie with a touch of cilantro.  I have so many people following this blog (lol) - well just the ones that count! I was asked how am I feeling since I started the Raw diet almost 5 weeks ago. Let me list the Pros and Cons of what I have been going thru for you...


PROS:

• Hmm..the biggest PRO - I GO POTY NOW! I swear I was in a new evolutionary phase when I was born as I never, ever go! One month on this diet and I go everyday with no senekot - woo-hoo..those that know me know how huge of an issue this was for me!
• I love fruit - and I eat lots of fruit!
• I eat all I want (lots of volume) - If I am hungry I eat more
• Lots of variety actually especially when you get some raw recipes books
• I have met some really awesome and cool people online
  

CONS:

• Detox symptoms - I was so tired the first few weeks but I think my RA was flaring as I had bad joint pain too
• No sourdough toast (well I dont seem to crave it now though) - should'nt have it anyways right?
  Eating out is HARD to do - You have to plan to bring your raw stuff with you if you go somewhere
• I still have to cook for my family who eats meat and other stuff I wont touch anymore - though I am getting more veggies and fruit in them now ( but this means I make two meals one for me, one for them)

I cannot really say if this diet has helped my RA, as I started back on my enbrel two weeks ago and I think that is helping. I am off prednisone now though. My skin still breaks out a little, so I do not have that glow everyone talks about! My hair seems like it has grown a little faster as I can see roots much faster this time since my last highlight. I am thinking of going natural. I am sick of the cost, and sitting in that darn chair for 2 hours just so I can be blonde.

Back on the PCT - awesome!

Hey Raw peeps! My hubby and I decided to drive down to Palm Springs and check out the farmers market there for some organic produce...well, alot of vendors must have been on a holiday (which is OK) - got some pears, and lemons, and some dates..but the best part is we decided to hook up to the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and found where it crosses the 10 frwy thanks to my BFF Leslie via texting. Here is a typical PCT trailmarker with the PCT crest symbol. That is my hubby in the background. More pics to come. I am so excited as I did 3 miles with almost no joint pain (lets talk tomorrow morning and see how I feel then - lol) I keep begging the hubby for a PCT thru-hike! Maybe someday!

That is me with Mt. San Jacinto in the background

ICE CREAM - YUM

Who knew dairy free would be so fun? I made brazil nut vanilla ice cream and raw chocolate sauce with coconut butter and agave - yowza! Even he kept commenting on how good it was! I feel like I am eating too many nuts though lately...way more than I ever have (before I went Raw I hardly ever ate nuts). Well I was thinking on going on a 2 day juice and smoothie fast...just fruits and veggies juiced or in the vitamix...what do you all think?

Have A Merry Christmas! Jesus is the Reason for the Season!

Oh and I have to tell you about the best corn tortilla chips I made...from The Raw Food Chef - fresh organic corn, red bell pepper, cumin...and lots of YUM! Dehydrated for hours, then fresh guacamole with yummy fresh garlic and cilantro and anything else I could toss in there...who said Raw was boring!

Can you say Fettucine? yep - that is right! Raw Fettucine sauce!

I am learning to "uncook" - I made this today and it was fantastic... Tomato-Macadamia "mozzarella" Linguine courtesy of the Raw Food Chef - it was sooooo good...This was the first time in my life I have ever eaten a parsnip! They smell like perfume!

Breakfast in a Bowl

Look at my new juicer in the background! The Hurom juicer...so far my hubby and I really like it. My breakfast is in the pink bowl...can you imagine trying to eat all that! Oh and the coffee cup is filled with Teccino (an herbal tea that resembles coffee) - our coffee pot broke the other day and we are not replacing it! We just use our backpacking filter presses to make Teccino (although the hubby sneaks in Pete's coffee sometimes!)

So I juiced everything in the bowl above, strained it, and voila! My green breakfast! Kale, celery, carrots, cilantro, ginger, apple, orange, lemon - Did I miss anything?

GOT MY JUICER!!!!! Im So Excited...and I just cant Hide it!

Got the Hurom juicer tonight!  In a flash we were shoving broccoli and carrots and apples down that thing! Tomorrow I need to buy pounds of celery and carrots and all that good organic stuff...what a great way to get more veggies into my raw lifestyle. Tomorrow for breakfast (before church) I have to use whats in the frig but I will hit our organic market and stock up on the way home! Pictures to follow soon...the hubby cant wait to make fresh juice for fresh fruit martinis! Haha, if only vodka was raw!

Rawlicious!

Raw is Goooood! I made Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Marinara Sauce with Zucchini Angel Hair Pasta and OH MY GOSH! This stuff ROCKS! If you had a plate of real spaghetti next to it I would turn my back on it! This so exceeded my expectations. I hope zucchini is good for you as I plan on eating ALOT of this!


This was super-duper yummy! Kristen's Chocolate Bread (check out her awesome site here http://kristensraw.blogspot.com/) I have Artisana Cocoa Bliss spread with Raw peanut butter and bananas on this baby! You can see the chocolate bread below this post on the dehydrator tray. It turned out awesome and the chocolate taste is mild. Tomorrow I am going to make Kristen's Rasberry Jam for Raw PB and Js...cannot wait!

I am so digging dehydrating!

Look what I have been doing tonight!  I made pancakes and chocolate bread and they are dehydrating away as I type. Of course both recipes are from Kristen's awesome recipe books. I cannot wait to have pancakes tomorrow!  I am still waiting for my juicer and cannot wait to get my family into juicing. Goodnight my friends!

Kristen is a GENIUS! I had Velvety Chocolate Mousse for dinner!

Hey all you non-raw guys and gals..guess what I had for dinner..na-na-na-na-na!  I know I am acting childish, but OH MY GOSH. I just made Kristen Suzanne's Velvety Chocolate Mousse and I swear I died and went to heaven. This was WAY better (and I mean on a logarithmic scale better) than any normal chocolate pudding or mousse I have ever had in my life! I was licking the Vitamix blender container...seriously...I did have lots of veggies today too...Look at the bomb salad I made with fresh avo dressing...tons of organic veggies in this salad. And look at my pretty new bowl from Crate and Barrel!

It's Clean out the Frig Day!

Hey all - Happy Wednesday! It's a clean out the frig smoothie breakfast kind of day! Let's see - Romaine, Kale, Cilantro, Pineapple, Mango, and Banana...one for now in a beautiful goblet fit for a queen and one for later. I cannot wait to get my Hurom juicer as I really need more greens and veggies in my diet.  Chomping on salad all the time gets tiresome! I get plenty of fruit that is for sure - Today I am going to start doing yoga everyday. Since my hysterectomy in Spetember my exercise regime has gone down the tubes! And I always exercised! My RA is so bad though, but I don't care anymore - I have got to get my muscles strong again.  Anyways, I will post lunch and dinner items later. I do not even know what I am having! Perhaps some guacomole with chia crackers and carrots and celery. Sounds good to me!

JUICER on the Way! Woo-Hoo! and NO MS!

I just ordered my very first juicer and I am so excited to get more greens into my daily routine! I really did alot of research, read a ton of reviews, and watched video demos and I really feel I made the right choice! I will post a pic when it arrives!

Now the more important item of the day: The Neurologist at Loma Linda says I definitely DO NOT have MS...how cool is that! God has been answering prayers and has been so good to me lately. I had peace with the entire situation and I was ready for whatever was coming my way...and now I know I do not have MS...I just have an abnormal brain (abby normal)

UPDATE: I added a pic of the beautiful Hurom Juicer

Hey hey My my - Kiss my RA Goodbye!

Haha, had that song stuck in my head! Hmmm...day two and a half from my 60 mg cortisone shot in the buttocks region and not much better - oh well, lets see what the good ole raw diet did for me today!

Breakfast was a nice large Kale smoothie with strawberries and papaya and cilantro, Lunch was the most fantastico Tuscan Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto with carrots for dippen' by the lovely Miss Kristen at Kristen's Raw (a site fully-loaded with Raw tips, recipes, and excellent raw expertise!) Oh my gosh! It was so awesome I could not stop eating it - and why should I? Who counts calories on the raw food diet - not me!  Dinner was a big leafy green salad loaded with veggies with some fresh lemon and herb dressing, some more fab pesto and some fresh pineapple.  Ya know, I am such a dessert freak, I made one of Jennifer Cornbleet's desserts in her book Raw for Dessert - the Rasberry bars and it has a shortbread crust. Pretty darn good! I had more pineapple too. I think I am having a love affair with pineapple.  It is soooo good and supposed to help with inflammation.  On a side note, I have to hide my organic dates from my son as they keep disappearing and I know he is eating them!

Okay so what happened on the RA front today? Not much - my knees feel like I weigh 300 pounds - and I never had bad knees even with RA - this just started 2 weeks ago...but I did a Cathe stretch tape and a shoulder segment with light weights. I used to be able to lift so much heavier, but when Im flaring, I have to do what I can do right?

Goodnight Rawpeoples!

Bananas and Cortisone

Hey raw peoples! Well, today as part of my foodage intake I had three bananas! More than I have eaten in a life time! I do not like bananas but I am making myself adore them and it is easier than I thought (now if I could just apply this logic to spores, molds, and fungus - i.e. Shrooms - yuk!). Anyways, I ate one by itself, and two in a yummy hemp smoothie, recipe courtesy of the beautiful Kristen at Kristen's Raw.

So off to the Rheumy Doc and ended up getting 60 mg of cortisone injected into my boo-tay....yowee it hurts still, but hoping it kicks in soon as I feel like an old rusty bucket of bolts! A nice hot buttered rum sounds yummy...is there a raw alternative recipe for that?

Okay another backpacking trip picture...Our 2004 Family trip to the North Fork of the Kings River. The kids had fun but at the end of 5 days they were dreaming about In-N-Out burgers (a California legendary burger joint). One of my tasks for going raw is to come up with a raw backpacking menu - now this will be a daunting task since you like burn 5000-8000 calories a day hauling a 40 lb pack for 8 hours at elevations above 10,000 feet! usually its carbs, carbs, carbs, and all boiled stuff. So, any of you out there have any ideas? I figure plenty of dehydrated veggies and fruit, and maybe larabars, homemade raw granola bars and raw nut butters and raw crackers. I am guessing I will have to have some cooked stuff like veggie and bean soup at night. I am going to research raw backpacking and see if there is any other crazy raw backpackers out there!  Have a terrific night and I wish you a very peaceful slumber!

My hand modeling days are over!

Okay its not a pic of a delicious raw food item, but I thought I better document in photos why I need to do everything I can to ease my RA!  And as bad as my hand looks it hurts even more!  Well, on to better thoughts this morning...for breakfast I had a Pineapple Spice Green Smoothie and the recipe is from the book Green for Life. I have to go down the hill today and see my rheumatologist. Should I tell him I am using the Raw Food diet to help my RA? He will scoff, they all do. They would rather have me on poisonous drugs that help ease your RA symptoms, but cause nerve damage, cancer, and TB. Sometimes I feel like a human guinea pig. I have to pre-pack my raw lunch so I don't starve. A little Christmas shopping today at Victoria Gardens and we will pass by my favorite restaurant The Cheesecake Factory that makes fab red rasberry martinis and deep fried macaroni and cheese...but I have given that all up for a healthier lifestyle and hopefully some relief from my joint pain!  Everyone have a great morning! 

Why the blog name Rawsierra you may be asking?

Me and the hubby over Piute Pass at Golden Trout Wilderness in the High Sierra's - Summer 2009

Okay, well I had to choose a name for my blog and have the word RAW in it I suppose...and R.A. is in the word RAW...so I thought I would pair it with something I love! The High Sierra's - My backpacking buddy, soulmate, awesome hubby and I love to backpack every summer into the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Heck I want to be John Muir and just stay up there for months on end!  We also frequent the PCT and would love to do a thru-hike one day...Maybe if this Raw diet can help my RA, a thru-hike is in my future? Yes? I will need lots of trail angels (Leslie that means you!). Okay peeps...my foodage for today included:

Breakfast: Banana-Coconut-Hemp Smoothie (super yummy and I dont even like bananas!)

Lunch: Cauliflower Jumble - well it has cauliflower and carrots and asparagus and fresh herbs all tossed in my food processor with some olive oil and fresh orange juice. I got this recipe from www.choosingraw.com - its a fab site and Gena is so sweet! I had some fresh pineapple too...wow, pineapple must be the fruit God eats!

Dinner: Spinach-Mango-Cilantro Smoothie with a sprig of mint, and a red leaf lettuce salad with carrots and yummy avocado dressing, a couple of raw chocolate dipped strawberries to top it all off!

My family had spaghetti - alas - my favorite childhood food! When I get my spiral slicer do ya think zucchini noodles will taste the same? I can dream right?

Say Hey! RA go away! My Raw Food Journey

Welcome everyone - well where to begin...lets start at the beginning...At first the earth cooled and the dinosaurs came...oh wait, that is a different story. I started on a High Raw diet about two weeks ago. For the past 13 years I have battled that yukky disease called Rheumatoid Arthritis in which I will use the abbreviation of RASUCKS - just kidding - how 'bout plain old RA okay? Due to things beyond my control (like nerve pain and skin burning) I have to stop Enbrel - a great medication for helping RA but with super nasty side effects. So here I am - deciding to take control of what I can take control of - my diet. Thus, I started a journey to discover the Raw Food world. There are alot of awesome sites out there that will help you discover Raw food. I absolutely love Kristen's Raw - an awesome site filled with expert information on Raw Food and her books are the bomb! Okay I am rambling - off to make a banana-coconut-hemp smoothie (and you have no idea how much I hate bananas - strange I know).

Sidenote: After 13 days on a High Raw diet (for me at least 90% Raw) I still feel yukky! My RA is flaring bad! Knees are very stiff and I know I would feel much better if I could chop off my wrists and hands! (well I have thought about it from time to time as these joints cause horrid pain).