You are what you eat? I think so. Maybe our hearts save room for forgiveness but our bodies will reflect reality soon and often too late for proper action to reverse effects. So with care and discipline: Faites-attention to what you eat!
I came across Natalia’s blogs by accident months ago, and it was not until I committed to a juicing diet that I decided to learn more about her ways. She has several books in print. First I read “The Raw Food Detox Diet”, followed by “Raw Food Life Force Energy”. Her writing style is very simple, conversational, and a similar style expected from any diet or nutrition books. Natalia’s book takes you through the effects of a poor diet, sadly nicknamed as the American diet, and the pre-mature aging you can cause your body by the poor choices you make in every occasion. The core of her message is detoxing our bodies and as a result, our minds. The weight loss and feeling fabulous follows naturally as a consequence.
Detoxing is certainly a hip word these days. I first heard it from my cousin in Canada, and decided to look into it. In October’07, I was on a wonderful trip in Germany and funny enough, it is exactly when I felt helpless for the first time in my life on not being able to control my body weight, something I had never had a problem with. During the last 3 years, the infamous 10 pounds had slowly crept in. Not being able to make it vanish swiftly created an emotional and psychological barrier to success in my mind. In life, I refuse to give into failure, and no matter what the task, I believe success shall be mine sooner or later. With the renewed vows to myself, I started a journey and deep dive into understanding my body. One of my first journeys was into raw foods and hence Natalia’s books and methods.
I realized if I wanted to see dramatic results, I needed to cleanse inside out – I have to understand what is happening inside my body first, and the impact it has on my outer shell. In the last few years, I have been in the quest of the ideal diet – by now, I was entirely convinced that there is no such diet on a consistent basis – yet I always want to dramatically change what and how I eat. I enjoy shuffling my eating habits like a deck of cards every now and again – I live for change and so should my body and my internal organs. Change does such good things to my soul and my spirits, why not to my body? If one method of improvement or eating does not prove well for you, then change it out – shake it up – seek new ways.
What attracted me to Natalia was her flexibility to a practical approach; with all her strictness, she makes room for negotiables and provides many modified approaches to raw eating. I wanted a diet that was very simple, based on as much raw natural organic fresh food as possible, and yet not limited to just those foods. Natalia provides that flexibility through varying phases of adoption of her ultimate approach to eating.
From recent purchase of my Omega juicer, I had already been thoroughly enjoying juicing vegetables. Juicing raw vegetables early mornings is Natalia’s most repeated message. Her passion for juicing vegetables to detox your body resonated very well because of my success with it so far. While I do not juice 20 oz. every single day, I have incorporated this into my life for a semi-regular basis and can only sing the praises of juiced vegetables and the marvelous cleansing effects on my body!
Eating well is a mental decision that the body follows easily, if and only if such a decision has been made. If you are determined that your food will be bland, your task difficult, and your resolve temporary, you will most definitely fail, and resort to your old ways. Such is the way of human beings in quitting a bad habit, regardless of the harms that habit may be wreaking on our mind or body. We can be and often are stubborn and stupid in negotiating with our better smarter self. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps you need a reason to remember and believe in. The best reason worth doing every bit of this for is that it makes you feel absolutely fantastic. You fall in love with your body and the new born energy. I dare you to beat a feeling of falling in love with yourself and only yourself, selfishly, truly and completely. I am in love with a great many things in this life, but my love for all those is at its best when I first am in love with who I am and how I feel.
In my case, I was going to attempt this method and keep it up if I felt great, and toss it if I did not. Natalia takes you through her cleansing system, her reasons for juicing, and most importantly, her food combinations. Not eating certain things is challenging no doubt, but combining foods with new rules is an ever-present difficulty for me. The most difficult modification has been the Fruit Rules, as I call them:
- Eat fruit only on an empty stomach and in the mornings
- Never combine fruits with anything else except raw vegetables
- Abstain from eating fruit after dinner or any meal
Natalia’s reasons for the Fruit Rules are simple: Fruit eaten on an empty stomach exits the body in 30min to an hour. Fruit eaten on a full stomach, especially after a cooked meal, will only fester and the acids will do damage to your intestines, and hinder digestion for the meal and the fruit itself.
Among other surprises in this book is Natalia’s hard-core theory on eating light-to-heavy, where dinner is your biggest meal, and if you will be having foods not on any of the cleansing programs, best to do it later in the day than earlier. She explains in detail how the food reacts and breaks down in the body and her take on what best to avoid and what best to enjoy.
Natalia’s single favorite food has got to be the avocado. Avocado is delicious – raw and all by itself, it makes a filling and delicious snack. My relationship with it has grown tremendously since it has become a regular part of my diet, especially at breakfast. I like to mix it with the raw vegetables – carrots, celery, cucumbers – and sometimes raw nuts, pine nuts, raw pecans. Avocado does wonders for your internal organs and the natural fats from the vegetable are particularly beneficial to your body as a nutrient.
The book is filled with great fun creative recipes for raw-foods, semi-raw foods, smoothies and juices. I have made the delicious Liquid Gold Elixir, in my blender, and love the taste. For the “Green lemonade”, a recipe for one of her green juices, I have taken ideas away from her recipes but I simply mix and match my own vegetables. It’s heaps more fun to be creative and I suggest that when you first start juicing, keep everything in a Juicing Journal, because your taste buds are unique and you will forget the combinations you liked and those you did not, so best to write about it.
I must add that I loved the little health habits that Natalia introduced throughout her book. One that I have really liked and used is dry-brushing the body! The idea is to use a soft natural fiber brush with a long handle and brush in strokes against your dry skin right after the shower. It is a wonderful way to invigorate the body and brush off the extra dead skins and generate energy and blood flow.
Even though I have incorporated several ideas from Natalia, I am on a transition plan that may last for years. My body is ecstatic with itself, and my mind feels clean and clear and determined. The habits I have selectively picked up from Natalia have been serving me well and I look forward to the new possibilities ahead in my path to eating well and living a healthy lifestyle.
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