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6 Ways to Make Healthy Resolutions That Stick
It’s December already! This month and next are probably the best months for new gym memberships, nutrition plans, and health classes because of all of the enticing discounts that hope to get you to commit to a healthier version of you in the New Year. We all say we want to make changes come January, but then what happens? For many, by mid-year their resolve to stick with that new diet or workout regimen is completely gone and they are back to square one, right before bikini season. Below are a few thoughts on how you can make some resolutions that you will stick with in 2013. -XoXo Raw Girl
- Use Whatever Word Works for You. I personally don’t like the word resolution. I usually set goals for the New Year. Having a goal for me, is more activating than having a resolution. That’s just me and how the words affect me psychologically. Figure out what works for you and use the word that motivates you to make something happen, rather than just dream about it. Here are some other words you can use if you don’t like resolution: goal, objective, target, intention. Many people are afraid to even begin the process of resolution setting because they accept defeat from the beginning. Give yourself permission to dream but obviously don’t make your goals too far of a stretch so you don’t loose heart before you begin.
- Make The Resolutions Measurable. Avoid the tendency to set vague intentions for the New Year. Don’t just say, I want to lose weight, say I want to lose 10 lbs and decrease my body fat percentage by five points. Use numbers, use a time limit if you want, just make sure your goal can be easily quantified. If you want to go raw or eat more raw, maybe you set a goal to eat completely raw three or four days a week. You get the idea. This is super important because without the specifics you cannot know when you’ve reached your goal and should be celebrating, or what numbers or data you should be tracking on a regular basis to obtain the goal.
- Find Someone to Hold you Accountable. It’s so much easier to fall off the healthy bandwagon if you have a goal an no one else knows about it. Then you can slip right back into your bad habits with no one to shame you but yourself. Having someone hold you accountable, whether it be a workout buddy, a trainer, a nutritionist, or your bestie may help you feel more motivated to stick with the plan. The trick here is that the person must be understanding but tough enough on you when you fall off so that you feel the need to get back on track. Don’t pick friends who will listen to your lame excuses for missing the gym for two weeks and tell you it’s OK.
- Have a Plan. As the saying goings, vision without perspiration is hallucination. Don’t say you are going to loose 10 pounds but not have a strategic plan. Write down in detail what you need to do daily and weekly to see that goal through, and be willing to seek advise of someone more seasoned in whatever area you are trying to change if you need pointers on how to go about it. Having your plan is also a way to hold yourself accountable to whatever actions are outlined in it. It saves you from being vague and missing your mark altogether.
- Write it Down and/or Visualize It. Apparently most people skip the essential step of writing down their goals. There is magic in writing it down, it starts the process of creation. It’s just on paper but its a start, now you can work from there to create steps to achieve it or even better let them come to you. As someone who is intense about goal setting, I have learned that it is possible and perfectly OK to have the goal and have no idea how to make it work. Just holding the intention can be magical and you will run into the right people or situations that point you to yor final destination. However, that can only happen when you have a clear, written objective. You can also do something I love to do and vision board it. Cut out images that correspond to your resolution, collage them, and put them in a place you will look at daily. I love the Vision Boarding application through Oprah.com called O Dream Board. It lets you make vision boards online using your images and stock images, collage them and make a jpeg image of the board. I made mine and then uploaded it as my desktop image on my computer.
- Track Your Progress. So you have the goal, you wrote it down, you visualized it, and maybe you also have a game plan. You are way ahead of the crowd, but still in danger of waking up mid-year wondering where the resolution went if you do not track your progress. A personal example I can use, is that I have workout goals I am trying to meet, so I track my workouts weekly and monthly. I have a calendar in my room and for each day I workout a sticker goes on the day with a brief description of what I did. This gives me a very visual evaluation of how I am doing. If I look at the calendar and its virtually blank by weeks end I’ve missed my mark. Find whatever methods of tracking work for you and make sure they are fun and not obsessive. For me the sticker on the calendar thing is fun and I feel awesome when I see a month where I really put in work.
Raw Girl’s 3 Year Blogiversary!
Last Friday I got a notification from WordPress congratulating me on three years of blogging. Raw Girl is officially three years old! To celebrate I am going to take a walk down memory lane this week and reblog some older posts that are my favorite. Please read through old posts and share with others in celebration of our Blogiversary!
My first reaction was excitement, but then I have to admit to you, negative Nancy started to creep in and say her piece. By the time Nancy (the negative voice in my head) was done telling me how far I was from my ultimate goal and how tired I was blah blah, I was seriously considering giving up altogether and walking away from this blog. Whenever I have those moments though, you guys, MY AWESOME READERS seem to know and I get a slew of encouraging comments and motivation to keep going. At the end of the day, this blog has always been a labor of love. My goal is to be able to live my lifestyle to the fullest and inspire as many people as possible to begin taking control of their health. In the dream that I am convinced will come true because I am very close, I will be able to do this full-time around my other artistic pursuits, and invest myself or find an investor willing to take Raw Girl to the next level. Which would include remodeling the website, lots of video, more inspiration, and more recipes. Until that time, I’m here. Although I get tired sometimes, I know that every journey to a dream takes time.
I’ve come a long way from zero readers to over 15,000 of you all over the world a month. Please know that I appreciate your support and your willingness to receive the inspiration that I intend to give. Some of you have sent me unsolicited donations, you know who you are and I thank you. If you want to give back share the blog with a friend, or buy my e-book. Finishing my second e-book soon, putting in work today on a really awesome juice recipe book and detox plan. This blog journey has taught me patience, and also the importance of doing the work, one day at a time. Just like sticking to a new lifestyle or changing your eating habits, it’s best to focus on doing what you need to do each day, and letting the rest take care of itself. -XoXo RawGirl
My Big Fat Vegan Thanksgiving: Stuffed Bell Peppers
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. It was an interesting Thanksgiving this year for many reasons, one being there was no turkey on our table!! When you go from eating meat to eating veg it can be a little unsettling and you may feel like you don’t know how to cook anything you used to eat. Good news is, it’s really not that complicated. I got in the kitchen to help my mom and show her that is it possible to make somethings you made before, but with some substitutions in place of the meat products. We ended up working with her idea to make stuffed bell peppers which were incredible, cooked collard greens, raw collard greens with a cilantro avocado dressing (I made mine raw), cranberry sauce, and Haitian sweet potatoes. Let me tell you something, if you have never had a Hawaiian (purple on inside) or Haitian sweet potato you are missing out! If you all are interested and haven’t had enough of my many ways to eat an avocado I can post the avocado cilantro dressing next week.
I went light on my usual industrious dessert making this year because the week prior I made coconut macaroons, and then the avocado key lime pie. So I just made a vegan blueberry pie with a spelt crust. Below is the recipe for the stuffed bell peppers. The recipe is kind of vague because I totally improvised it, but you’ll get the gist. We had leftover black beans in the fridge so I mixed that in with the quinoa and added mushrooms and onions and stuffed it all in the pepper. A-MAZING. They are really festive and add to the holiday spirit if you buy various colors as well. What’s the best part about a big fat Vegan Thanksgiving? Your chances of actually getting fat or gaining those usual holiday pounds are slim to none. We all finished the meal and were full, satisfied, with waistlines still in tact, and had some yummy leftovers for the next day. -XoXo Raw Girl
Bell Peppers Stuffed w/ Quinoa & Black Beans
Ingredients:
Various Colored Bell Peppers (organic preferred)
quinoa
black beans
red onion
mushrooms
tomatoes
garlic
Spices: cumin, sea salt
Soak black beans overnight and cook them in whatever method you prefer. We cooked them using a slow cooker and then sautéed them with mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cumin, and sea salt. Also cook quinoa in separate pot. Mix the mushroom black bean mix with the quinoa, and add additional spices as needed. Wash the bell peppers and cut them into little containers by keeping a ‘lid’ with the stem attached.
Remove the white parts from the inside carefully with a knife and then scoop in the quinoa mixture until the pepper is full to the brim. Place the bell pepper lid back on. Wrap each pepper with its lid, in foil, and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes or eat the pepper raw, whichever you prefer. Remove from oven, serve and enjoy!
The Power of Gratitude
Happy Thanksgiving Veggie Lovers! Wishing all of you a wonderful day filled with love and laughter. I know some people get caught up in the troubling origins of this holiday, but I think what is to be treasured and focused on is creating room in our lives for gratitude. We all get so caught up day to day in measuring what we think we need that we neglect to cherish what is right in front of us. This year I feel an even deeper sense of gratitude because of a recent experience. Early this week I attended a film premiere for a film I am in about homelessness. In the film I play a homeless girl from South East DC who is literally living out of a car with her boyfriend and has to prostitute herself to get money. The screening was a benefit for a shelter called Central Union Mission. I was reminded through the movie and talking to the employees at the shelter that our basic necessities should never ever be taken for granted and no matter how rough your current situation is, someone out there has it worse.
The question is, can you find something in your life that you can be grateful for? To start off, you woke up this morning. If you have all your family members alive and with you today, that’s another thing to give thanks for. When we shift to a place of gratitude we are telling the universe THANK YOU for all this wonderful stuff, and sending the message that we are open to receiving more. It’s a magical and powerful thing that we should all tap into from day to day, and thankfully, Thanksgiving is the formal day that forces us to remember. Today I am thankful for many things, my life, health, family, friends, and also very thankful to all of you readers. Thank you for reading my blog, for commenting, for sending me messages, and sending lots of love and light and appreciation. You all give me fuel to continue the journey. I am getting ready to get in the kitchen and make some blueberry pie for my Dad. Recipe is on the blog, link is below. We are having a vegan thanksgiving over here! First time ever that my parents are on the vegan bandwagon. Pretty cool. Enjoy your day, don’t over do it, and EAT TO LIVE! -XoXo Raw Girl
http://rawgirltoxicworld.com/2010/11/27/heavenly-vegan-blueberry-pie/
Recipe: Raw Coconut Vanilla Macaroons
Remember when I told you made two desserts at once the other day when I made the key lime pie? Well here’s the second one. Below is a recipe for coconut vanilla macaroons and a short video. There are many variations of this recipe you can find out there but the ingredients pretty much stay the same. Feel free to adjust the ingredients to suit your taste buds and also add in other ingredients you make like. For instance if you love lemon, squeeze in some lemon juice and grate lemon zest for a lemon-y tasting macaroon. I love chocolate so I’m going to have to try making some chocolate dipped macaroons in the near future. You can also make completely chocolate macaroons by adding cacao powder. If you have a dehydrator, that works best. If you don’t, I have seen recipes that recommend refrigerating the macaroons until they get hard, so you can try that. My goal was to have some great how-to-videos, but ho-hum, my super cool HD Flip camera broke! Not happy about that at all, but perhaps Raw Vegan Santa will bring a better camera my way soon. -XoXo Raw Girl
Coconut Vanilla Macaroons
Ingredients:
4 cups shredded coconut
1.5-2 cups almond flour
1 cup agave or grade B maple syrup
1/3 cup coconut oil
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Use small ice cream scoop or your hands to form into small balls. Place on dehydrator trays and dehydrate for around 8-12 hours max at 105. Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jp9dvaJfbM&feature=youtu.be]
Recipe: Raw Key Lime Pie
Finally! Below is the long awaited recipe for raw key lime pie just in time for the holidays. I had fun making this. When I made my pies, (yes I made two—I’m dealing with an avocado crisis remember?) I actually made two desserts in one sitting because the crust is made from the same ingredients as coconut macaroons, which are equally as marvelous. I’ll post recipe for those later.
This recipe is on www.sweetlyraw.com as an Avocado Cheesecake. I finished making my version and it tasted like a key lime pie, hence the renaming. If you don’t have a food processor, you can do what I did and in place of the almonds for the crust use almond flour (already ground up almonds). I got my bag at Trader Joes. I’m not really a follow the rules of the recipe exactly girl, so I made two pies, one smaller and one larger and kind of free-styled for the larger pie. If you don’t have a spring form pan don’t worry you can just use a regular pie pan. I didn’t use any stevia as the recipe calls for and it still tasted pretty miraculous. Enjoy, and remember not to hog the pie! It’s that good. -XoXo Raw Girl
Crust
1/3 cup blanched almonds
1/4 cup shredded coconut
2 dates, pitted
1/2 – 1 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon melted coconut oil
Grind the almonds in a food processor.
Add the coconut, dates, and water and grind into a dough.
Add the coconut oil last. Grind again into a mixture that will hold together when pressed in your hand.
Press into the bottom of mini or 6″ spring form pan (crust will be thin in a 6″ – you can double the recipe if you want it thicker) and set aside.
Filling
2 medium/large avocados
6 tablespoons agave or honey
1/2 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
6 drops stevia
5 tablespoons melted coconut oil
4 tablespoons melted coconut butter
lime zest, to taste
Blend the avocados, agave, lime, vanilla, and stevia until smooth and creamy.
Add the oil, butter, and some zest. Blend to incorporate. Add more zest if needed.
Pour over the crust.
Allow to firm in the fridge for at least 8 hours.
Raw Recipe: Avocado Lime Pudding
Raw Girl here, and yes it is still avocado week! 🙂 This past weekend I experimented with making a pudding that still had some nutrition in it. It’s almost like a yogurt as well. I enlisted some guinea pigs to taste test it and we all loved it. Can be breakfast or dessert. I like the combination of avocado and lime, so I’m cooking up some additional dessert ideas coming soon. Hope you try it, enjoy! -XoXo Raw Girl
Ingredients:
1/2 FloridaAvocado (the huge ones) or 1.5-2 Haas Avocados
1 1/2 cups diced fresh pineapple
5 frozen strawberries
3 Pitted Dates
1 handful of spinach
1 Teaspoon Spirulina (optional)
1/2 -3/4 of a Lime Squeezed (Squeeze whole lime if you want it really sour)
To prepare put all ingredients in the blender. Add in a very small amount, maybe 1/4 cup of water and blend. If it’s too tough add a little more, but don’t go overboard with water or else it won’t be pudding, it’ll be a smoothie. Once everything is blended together, immediately pour into bowls and serve! Makes enough pudding for two.
Veggie Love: Why I’m Deeply Enamoured With Avocados
It is officially AVOCADO WEEK! If I had to profess my undying love to any particular fruit or veggie, it would be a hard call between avocados and coconuts. What is not to love about this amazing creamy fruit that can be combined with both sweet and more bitter meals. Plus I can make yogurt or pudding with it, smoothies, and add it to salads. Since I have long been rescued from the hell that is processed food addiction, I would say avocados do for me what ice cream or yogurt does for die hard dairy lovers. The creamy texture, literally makes my heart sing, and ears perk up when I hear someone say the lovely name avocado. Oh, and the joy of cutting one open and it being completely perfect! I could go on and on. I know I’m tripping, but I really love them that much. They are also on my list of aphrodisiacs, so perhaps (***clears throat and bats eyelashes***), avocados are exciting for me in more ways than one. For grown folks only: the name avocado comes from the Aztec word ‘ahuacatl’ which, um, literally, um, means testicle (I don’t like that word, hence the hesitation). I assume you can guess that avocados got the name from the way they look. So beyond just eating avocados, you also have the option to make some dirty jokes about them.
You know that saying: “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it?” Well, for a year or so I’ve had this amazing dream that I have mentioned to friends about owning a farm somewhere tropical that produced avocados, bananas, and coconuts. The reason for this is because I feel my life would elevated to a new level of bliss if I could have all of those things in unlimited amounts year round. Especially since avocados and coconuts are getting pricy these days. Well, the wish partly came true in a roundabout way. A family friend happens to have avocado trees amongst other trees growing in their backyard in Florida! And guess what? They have way too many avocados to eat. The surplus is so bad they have to give them away. So right now I have a a giant moving box FULL TO THE BRIM with huge Florida avocados. Seriously, Raw Vegan Santa must’ve answered my wish before Christmas! These aren’t the dark green small ones (Haas) we get in the grocery store. They are the mammoth avocados that are a lighter green color. Amazing right? So now, I got to figure out what to do with all these avocados! I’ve been having one a day and luckily a ton of them are still not ripe yet. I say all this to warn you, because avocados have consumed my kitchen, there are a few more avocado posts coming to the blog, but I’ll mix it up and also do a recipe or two.
So what groovy benefits do you get from eating avocado, which is also known as ‘alligator pear’? Well, they happen to be one of the healthiest foods on the planet! Avocados contain 25 essential nutrients including vitamin A, B, C, E, K, copper, iron, phosphorous, magnesium, potassium, protein, phytochemicals, and fiber. You would actually need to eat at least two bananas to get the amount of potassium in one avocado. Avocados have a large fat content, almost twenty times the amount of fat in other fruits but they are extremely good-for-you monounsaturated fats. People often worry that because of this avocados will make you gain weight. Not the case, I’ll get to that in another post soon. If you eat avocados from Florida which are huge, note that they have 50% LESS fat than the Haas kind, so they are sort of the “low-fat” brand of avocados.
Onto the long list of fabulous things the wonderful fruit named avocado can do for you. Some key benefits include: maintains a healthy heart and reduce risk of heart disease, efficiently lowers bad cholesterol and can boost good cholesterol, helps to regulate blood pressure levels, has anti-inflammatory properties that help ward off inflammation related diseases, promotes eye health and prevents macular degeneration, regulates blood sugar levels, reduces the risk of stroke because of high levels of folate, protects against breast cancer and has been shown to inhibit prostate cancer, contains glutathione which fights free radicals in the body, boosts immune system, slows aging, and encourages a healthy nervous system. If all of those benefits alone were not a mouthful add to that the fact that avocados are known the world over for boosting the health and natural glow of your skin.
So my challenge this week is: How many ways can you eat an avocado? While I go off to work on that, I hope you have now been convinced that avocados are an awesome food to add to your diet. As much as I would love to keep my love for them all to myself, I know there’s more than enough love to go around so you can count on me to continue spreading the gospel. -XoXo Raw Girl
Nutritional Benefits of Starfruit
I was just introduced to the strange-looking greenish colored fruit called starfruit also known as carambola. Starfruit is native to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. My family was sent an entire box of these funny looking fruits, in addition to two GIANT boxes of avocados from our new friends in Florida who have starfruit trees growing in their backyard. I’ll get into the absolutely insane amount of avocados I have right now in another post sometime soon. When I first saw the star fruit, I was totally turned off. It looks really strange! At least to me it looked like some sort of alien fruit. Finally I got the nerve to look up more about it and how to eat it. When I took my first bite I was pleasantly surprised! To me it tasted something like a pear, plum, or grapefruit. It has a slightly sweet but sour taste. The coolest part about the fruit is the reason why it got its name. When you cut across it, it literally forms pieces of fruit in the shape of a star! You may have seen starfruit used as a garnish for cocktails for this reason.
Starfruit has some great nutritional benefits including providing 75% of the RDA of vitamin C, vitamin A, E, B complex, iron, fiber, and trace amounts of calcium, magnesium, selenium, copper, and zinc. The fact that starfruit is loaded with antioxidants and has a nice amount of zinc, makes it a great addition to an acne-free diet. There is also research being done on the fruit, because researchers believe that consuming starfruit helps to slow the aging process and delay the appearance of wrinkles. Some additional benefits of eating starfruit include: lowers your cholesterol, prevents heart disease, prevents and treats constipation, slows down agin, promotes weight loss, boosts immune function, and is useful for treating infection from bacteria like salmonella and e.coli. Starfruit has also been used as a natural remedy to recover from a hangover.
***WARNING!*** The only thing that is frightening is you should NOT consume this fruit if you have kidney failure, kidney stones, or are on dialysis. Starfruit contains oxallic acid which can be dangerous and harmful for anyone with kidney issues and cause hiccups, vomiting, numbness of limbs, decreased muscle power, mental confusion, and in bad cases, DEATH. This does not sound like something you want to mess with. In my research I read several accounts of people with kidney problems who died after consuming starfruit. If you do not have kidney problems, please don’t worry, you’ll be completely fine.
If you are interested in trying this funny looking fruit, there are a few ways you can eat it. You can wash the fruit, and remove all blemished parts and eat as is, add it to fruit salads, smoothies, or use it as an exotic salad topping. You can juice starfruit as well, and it makes a great light sweetener for your green juices instead of apple. Hopefully, the next time you see this exotic fruit you won’t run for the hills like I almost did; I recommend you try it to add some variety to your fruit choices and get a nice serving of antioxidants to keep you youthful. A starfruit a day can apparently keep the plastic surgeon away. -XoXo Raw Girl
7 Essential Tips for Going and Staying Raw for Life
I’ve been doing this whole pseudo-raw foodist thing now for four years strong, and I’ve been vegan now for over ten years. One question that always seems to come up is how do you go the distance? Especially with raw foods it can be extremely daunting at times to stay on the path, because doing so is never what is most convenient. It would be way more convenient to shove your face with processed foods, meat, dairy, and everything else widely available and cheap in our toxic world, but if we did, we would loose our sexy vegan badges quick! Besides that along with convenience comes bad skin, sour moods, and maybe even the inconvenience of a very large hospital bill years later. What you eat catches up with you. To help you stay on the sexy and raw track below I’ve listed some tips that I hope may be useful to you.
Don’t be a Raw Natzi. There are so many people out there preaching the gospel of raw like it’s a religion, and the best one at that. Please don’t let yoursellf turn into one of those preachy people. Nobody likes a Raw Evangelist anymore that they like Jehovah witnesses pounding down their doors every single day. I find the best way to make an impression on people with any ideology is to live it, not preach it. When you are preaching it a lot of times you are even trying to convince yourself. There is much more power in just doing your thing, and not feeling the need to impose your beliefs on others.
Release The Obsession With Being 100% Raw. It’s really funny how no matter who you chat with if you say you are a raw foodist they eagerly chime in “Are you 100%?” Please do not stress about this! At the end of the day your goal should be to be the healthiest version of you by any means necessary. When you are just starting just keep eliminating foods one at a time and keep increasing your amounts of raw foods. Maybe you’ll wake up one day and realize, that you are 100% raw and have no cravings for cooked food. Or perhaps you’ll end up eating 80%-90% raw foods and some cooked food and feel awesome! We all know there are benefits to eating raw and of course those benefits increase the more you eat that way, but you can be optimal without it. So, relax, please, and enjoy the process of adding living foods to your diet.
Find your SHE-ROES/ HEROS. This is something that always helps me get back on track. You don’t have to personally know a raw foodist who can mentor you or “show you the ropes” so to speak, but you can find online and through research stories of incredible people walking the path. Part of why I have the SHE-RO section on this blog is that the women I feature all inspire me to stick with it so I can see the same awesome results that they are experiencing long term. Watching a video on Annette Larkins, for example, always immediately makes me up my raw game. It’s visible proof of what is possible for you. Find those go to people and tap into their stories whenever you are feeling weak or you have fallen off the path. If other people’s stories don’t work, think about putting a visible reminder of your personal reasons for going raw on your fridge or in your kitchen. It’s all about staying in touch with your motivation long term.
Get Your Nutritional Balance Act Together. It took me a whole year of being 100% raw when I first started to realize something was starting to be out of whack with my body. The major problem was that I was not supplementing B12 and I was not eating enough superfoods to ensure well rounded nutrition. This is incredibly important. When you are doing any diet/lifestyle right, your body is getting the nutrients that it needs which makes you in turn less susceptible to craving the bad stuff you left behind.
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare in Advance. If you really expect to have any success being raw and not immediately give in to cravings that come up on a whim, you need to be prepared. This is not a fly by the seat of your pants kind of diet. If you know you are going on a road trip and you pack nothing, guess what, you will be cranky, and your stomach will be growling the whole way. If you are making more elaborate raw meals, which can be fun, you need to soak things sometimes days in advance or at the very least one day. Think through your schedule every day to make sure you are never stranded without raw rations. This will save you from caving in and eating fast food or whatever processed junk is at the only convenience store you can find.
Don’t Get Hung Up on Gourmet Meals. If you are just starting out I think its awesome to experiment and create some of the more gourmet raw meals that take a great deal of time. You may start doing it and fall in love with preparing food and have the time to do it. If you are a busy body like myself, please don’t feel bad that you are not feeling up to being Raw Rachel Ray today. Go easy and have meals that are quick but pack a strong nutritional punch like smoothies, sprouts, super foods, and power-packed salads. Then when you get a little breather time you can always make something more elaborate or take your sexy vegan self out to a nice raw restaurant and experience the bliss that is gourmet raw foods.
Surround Yourself With Positive Energy. This is definitely crucial. You do not want to be in an environment where people are intentionally or maliciously trying to keep you from sticking to your raw plan! It is already tough enough to commit to a raw diet, Lord knows you don’t need additional help falling off. When you begin this path, your family and friends may not understand, that is typical. Its up to you to gradually get more comfortable in your reasons for sticking to your diet, (you may want to start rehearsing a “Where do you get your protein speech”), and also ensure that you take care of yourself at social gatherings. Bring something with you to eat, or make something over the holidays so you won’t be starving. You’ll be surprised, some family members may end up eating more off of your plate. -XoXo Raw Girl