Raw Vegan Diet - I bought a Vitamix!

Since I started this Raw Vegan Diet I also started to watch a lot of YouTube videos about Raw Vegan recipes, I'm mostly learning tips and new ingredients used in Raw Vegan diets. One item that I was missing in my kitchen was the Vitamix, an expensive tool that everyone seems loving and worth all the money. But really the idea of spending $600 was not exciting me, so I found one on kijiji, I went yesterday after work to pick it up; it is almost new and I got it for $350, I don't think I can find it for less than that, but in any case now I have an almost new Vitamix that I can start to use to do tons of new recipes.

Yesterday at the end I was able to stick to my plan and avoid eating 8 bananas with tons of peanut butter powder and dates. I just had a giant salad with my superb tahini sauce! I still felt that I was eating a lot at the end of my dinner, but I kept on going into my huge salad bowl, I think I was still somehow binging on my salad, deliciousness though. Thankful this morning I saw a small decrease on my weight, only 400gr but for me a loss is a loss, and if I could count on 400gr every day I'll be happy with that.

Today I should have a smaller dinner though, not sure if I'll be eating out yet, I was supposed to see a friend after work but we didn't keep in touch in the past few days so I might ended up being home with my cucumber noodles, which I like a lot as option anyway. I know I eat too much in my meals but this is what helps me to crave sweets and food in general, some days it's harder I have to admit it, but it would be much harder if I wasn't eating enough or feeling constantly on diet.

I planned to do another short Water Fast on December 5 and I'm still of the idea on doing it, I have some weight that I want to lose, I fell I didn't complete my cleansing and detoxing process and my mental clarity will be definitely thank me after the Water Fast. I'm debating about the number of days, but roughly I would like to be in ketosis for at least 5/6 days, so at the end my 10-day estimation should not be too off from reality, I'm also counting like 3/4 days for a good refeeding process, so in total will last almost 2 weeks, just before Christmas time.

A day for my Raw Vegan Diet

I didn't fast during this past weekend, mostly because my weight really didn't change much, well apart from today that I registered a 1.2Kg in gain! But I know why, that's due to the fact that I had my dinner at 10:30pm last night, eating 4 bananas, insane I know but I'm definitely weak when dealing with banana and peanut butter! But I promised myself to stick to my healthy habits today, lots of greens and water. Nothing sweet for dinner tonight, only vegetables, since I already had my portion of fruits in my breakfast and lunch, I should be ok to stick to the plan….hopefully.

Yesterday I prepared for the first time Raw Vegan Tahini, with a very simple recipe, well I improvised really. I don't have yet a Vitamix so I used my grinder to chop a bit the sesame seeds, then I passed them into the blender, but it was really not working very well without liquids, the blades were running without doing much, so I added enough water to let them spin a bit and work on the consistency of the Tahini, I also added few organic sundried tomatoes, parsley, a couple of celery leafs and a half tsp of nutritional yeast, but don't ask why because I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish, I never used before this nutritional yeast blend. In any case the Tahini came out better than my expectations, it was a lot and I was really pleased of the outcome; I used in my zucchini noodles for dinner adding some greens and diced tomatoes, I was in heaven!

My personal opinion of the vegetable noodles that I made with the spiralizer is that zucchini are the perfect choice for it, cucumbers not so much, they lose lots of water and really cucumbers are so much better when diced, well or at least I prefer them in small cubes rather than a spaghetti shape. From now on I don't think I will use the spiralizer for cucumbers, but I will look around looking for different vegetables maybe, something that can go nicely with the cucumbers, in case I want to mix them. 

My Kitchen tools Ideas for a Raw Food Diet

Yesterday after watching few videos of some deliciously looking raw vegan recipes, I decided to purchase online a spiralizer; I found one for $24 at Walmart so I thought I will give it a try, the zucchini noodles look very cool to prepare with it and the cucumbers too. I'm planning to create some fun in my salads, especially for my dressings, since this type of diet is something I want to continue for long time, so I need to love it 100%, and for an Italian how food looks like is really a key part of the cooking process.

Another thing I did today is my grocery shopping online, with a long list of organic fruits and vegetables that I'll start consuming very soon. So I got my basic vegetables with high water contents, as well as some sweet fruits that I can add to smoothies or – in small quantities – in my green salads. I got a bunch of bananas, my favourite fruit I think, but I have to promise myself to eat it only in smoothies, I can get too carried on with them otherwise and definitely I don't want to go back on binging on food, even if healthy and organic.

Another kitchen tool that I would love to have is the Vitamix, but $500 are way too over my budget for any kitchen tool whatsoever, so I will keep on using my regular blender, even for dressing sauces, at the end it has a pulse button too, I hope it works ok when doing dressing sauces, they usually are supposed to be a bit more thick than what a blender does….of course, without burning the blender.

In my fruits & vegetables list I got some avocados and some basil, what I really look forward to is a dressing with these 2 ingredients, not necessary together but I love them both in anything, I'm sure they will taste amazing, maybe too blended but who cares!