Falling Off the Raw Diet Wagon

After getting back from San Francisco last week, I was ready to get back on track with my raw diet.

I started on Tuesday and made it all the way to Saturday when I broke down at a birthday party and had a few beers, a veggie taco and some buneulos. Then on Sunday, I kept the party going with more cooked food and champagne at brunch, and finished the weekend off with a giant bean burrito from Santana's.

And last night, after eating raw all day, I broke down at the Padre game and had wine and a whole bunch of cooked stuff...

This raw thing is harder than I thought it would be!

Running, Eating and Drinking Our Way Across San Francisco

Just got back from the Bay to Breakers 12K (7.46 mile) run in San Francisco. I haven't eaten so much, drank so heavily or laughed so hard in a long time.

This was my first ever travel run and I hadn't been to SF in years, so I was super excited and ready to make a fun weekend out of it!

Mini Raw Challenge, Bay to Breakers Bound

I've been waiting for the right time to kick off my week-long raw food challenge and fun stuff just keeps getting in the way. But I got really excited about it, so I decided to do a 3-day challenge.

Kate and I had planned to go to Vegan Beer night at Sea Rocket Bistro in South Park, so I ate raw from Monday to Thursday night.

On Thursday I felt amazing! I had tons of energy, my mind was clearer, my clothes were fitting looser. It was great!

Running, Wine Tasting, Boxing and Cooking - One Busy Mother's Day Weekend!

This was a wonderful weekend of wine, food and celebrating my moms.

It started yesterday with a 7.5-mile run. Kate, Ciela and I are preparing to run Bay to Breakers next weekend - a 15K in San Francisco.

Next was a trip to the mountains with my mom and sister. We didn't actually make it up to Julian, but we had lots of fun on the way.

Heading up Highway 67, we decided to stop at the Schwaesdall Winery in Ramona. If you haven't been there, it has a cute little tasting room and a patio overlooking the vineyard.

My First Raw Meal...Or..How to Eat Two Zuchinnis and a Bunch of Kale in One Sitting

If you missed my last post, I'm thinking about going raw.

Well, maybe not totally and forever, but I'd at least like to give it a try. I've been doing a lot of reading about it and health benefits seem amazing.

I'm not sure long I could do it for, but I'm thinking about starting with a week-long challenge.

For now, I've been experimenting with a few raw dishes. My first attempt was fettuccine pesto and a kale salad. The fettuccine is actually zucchini, but the pesto was pretty close to the traditional sauce - just veganized (and a little lighter). I added some chopped asparagus to bulk it up, but you'd never know.

They were both actually pretty good for first tries!

I got the ideas for the zucchini pasta and the kale salad here: http://www.learnrawfood.com/ and the pesto here: http://yeahthatveganshit.blogspot.com/.

Here's how I did it:

A Seed Sprouted, An Idea Planted

This weekend my friend Kate lent me the book "Living on Live Food." I've never thought about going "raw," but figured it might have some good vegan recipes.

Before the recipe section of the book, the author explains all of the benefits of going raw - weight loss, glowing skin, shiny hair, feeling younger, healing yourself of pain and disease... who doesn't want all that?

A few pages in I started thinking seriously about giving it a try. Then I realized how hard that would be to do every day. Eating vegan has been challenging at times. Do I really want to make life more challenging? Hmmm, not really... But, I do want to feel my best!