Welcome to Part 2 of this all-important series, started last issue. If you haven’t completed last week’s exercise then please do not attempt to do this second one until you have, as you simply mustn’t skip what is quite undoubtedly the most important step of all.
So when you’ve completed it *and not before!* come back to this exercise which I’m hiding from you, you have to click through to continue reading! No cheating now!
If you’ve done it, congratulations, how do you feel? If you’re not revved and raring to go then perhaps you didn’t fully embrace what I shared with you about finding your big why? If this is the case, I encourage you to revisit last week’s exercise and dig that bit deeper. If you’re keen, you must persevere, it should (and will) set your world on fire!
When you’re done, click through to Step 2.
Your eating habits are interwoven into your daily life, and while changing your life may not be on the cards, it is important to make sure that your life supports good eating habits, so we need to see what we have here!
TODAY'S ACTION:
On a clean sheet of paper or a new page, take 10 minutes to complete the following:
1) Mark a time line down the left hand side of your paper in hourly increments starting with the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed. For example, if you wake at 7:00am every day write that down at the top of your page and then write 8:00am, 9:00am and so on until 10:00pm, 11:00pm or whatever time you finish for the day.
2) Next, write in the fixed activities of a normal working week day, such as the time you must leave for work, or take the children to school, etc. Usually early morning activities such as washing, dressing and having breakfast are fairly flexible, so pencil those in around the times you normally do the things that can’t bend. If breakfast is currently a non-event for you but you’d like that to change, don’t worry, we’ll cover that later.
3) Continue adding in the other fixed activities – your lunch hour if you have a set time to take it, the time you leave work, pick up children, make dinner, any evening classes or meetings, when you go to bed etc.
4) Once you have all these fixed activities marked in, take a look at the time left. Make a list to one side of all the other activities you need to fit in somewhere during your day, but don’t add them into your timeline just yet.
5) The next step is to think about how many times per day you typically eat. However, the question you need to ask yourself before putting pen to paper is: Is this the number of times per day I want and need to eat? You need to ask this question of yourself because sometimes you may not be eating regularly enough and then grab an unhealthy snack because you are ravenous, or you may be eating too often or too little due to other unhealthy patterns you may have developed such as compulsive eating, comfort eating, eating for stimulation, or being “too busy” to eat. Take a moment to think about your life and your needs in a caring and being-kind-to-yourself way, and make a decision about how many meals a day you want and need to eat (your “want” and “need” should ideally be the same. If they’re not, this is a separate issue which, depending on its severity, may be worth consulting the appropriate professional about). In most cases the answer to this question will be “three times per day”, but each of us is unique and this is what you need to be focusing on here. If you are transitioning to a raw food diet but are used to eating big meals, you may find that you need to add in a snack or two as well as three meals per day for the time being.
TOP TIP: Be mindful of when you slot your mealtimes in. Your last meal of the day should ideally be eaten at least 3 hours before you go to bed otherwise you run the risk of waking up feeling sluggish and your food not having been digested properly. Bear this in mind when planning your meals - it's very important!
6) When you have your answer to the question above, once more think about your day and pencil in the times you would like to eat these meals. Hopefully you’ll find no obvious clashes with activities already marked on your timeline, but if there are, there’s solutions to be had, so don’t panic! We’ll come to that later. Mark them in anyway.
All done? See, this is easy!
I’m sure you can already see that there’s a lot of benefit to be had from the simple, straightforward approach as we get things moving in a slow but steady and highly-directed way. This is all tied in with the “grounding” element of going raw – you need to know where you are starting from and lay the foundations for a future that is built on rock rather than sand – that way you won’t need to keep starting all over again.
And how about today’s reward? (Yes, you need to reward yourself every time you complete one of these exercises because you’re doing so well). What will it be today? Today you get to choose. Will it be a night out on the town, a night in reading a new book, or maybe ordering or buying a new book? Perhaps a long hot soak in the bath with some candles or bubbles will hit the spot? Whatever you choose, make it suitably fitting as you’ve not only found your BIG WHY but you’ve also got your day down on paper AND you’ve figured out how many times per day you’d like to eat. Good going!
Next Friday we’ll be moving on to look at how much cooked and raw food you want to eat. NB: There’s no right or wrong answer to this, but you finding your own right answer is imperative. Until then, if you’re really and truly serious about going raw do make sure that you do more than just read this stuff, won’t you?! Tomorrow's reality is being created by YOU – NOW!
© 2012 Karen Knowler WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR ON YOUR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Karen Knowler, The Raw Food Coach publishes "Successfully Raw" - a free weekly eZine for raw food lovers everywhere. If you're ready to look good, feel great and create a raw life you love get your FREE tips, tools and recipes now at www.TheRawFoodCoach.com.
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