DAY 30... Yes you can...

Eat too much raw food! I'm not kidding. Last night I ate too much. Yes, I did. I ate too much buckwheat...

Oh I know, pick yourself up off the floor and stop laughing. Funny isn't it. No seriously, dry your eyes, stop the convulsions, get rid of the post-hysterical-laughter hiccups and look at me seriously. No mirth allowed here.

Boy how things can change in 10 days. I never thought I would hear myself say 'Gee, enough already, curb the buckwheat!'. But I have an excuse, really I do. Let me explain.

Although I celebrated getting through one week of raw, the book Minisizeme, celebrates after 10 days. It makes sense really. It's a 40 day plan and 10 days in is a quarter of the way through. So because I am a person of excess, I like to celebrate both occasions - after every 7 day week and then because I'm following the book after every 10 days too. Hell, why not? I may as well get all the excitement I can it's not like I'm going to crack open a bottle of champagne or anything.

So on day 10, The Book (I'll now refer to my Minisizeme guide as The Book) gives you a recipe for raw pizza to celebrate. Raw pizza huh? Yes, I thought the same - yuk. And let me tell you, it's one of the more complicated recipes because of it's timing. Soak the buckwheat for 30 hours, prepare the 'cheeze' (that's a raw word for cheese) and let set for 2 hours. Man, it was like orchestrating a dinner for 20 people.

Anyway, as I am prone to do, I followed the recipe diligently and completed all the steps in the order I was supposed to. And, the more I sliced, blended, chopped, mixed, grated and mashed, the more I thought "This is going to taste disgusting".

As my prep time got longer, my hopes and dreams got shorter. Here was my big celebration dinner, the first pizza I'd eaten in 10 days and it was going to suck.

Let's face it, cheeze made from pine nuts simply isn't comparable to cheese made from cows milk. And pizza sauce made with red cabbage is not the same as the red goo oozing out from that piping hot Dominoes pizza that gets delivered to your door now is it?

Big fat NO is my answer. Yes, I used the word fat. Fat, fat, fat - big fat no!

But I forged ahead, because that's what I do, I forge. And, because the ingredients were really expensive and I simply hate waste. And, because I had spent what seemed like ages making this, I wasn't going to give up. And, because I'd promised my husband, my lovely husband who held my hair back when I puked on day 2, pizza for dinner. And, after 10 days of salad for dinner, if I didn't deserve pizza, he certainly did.

So, I made my buckwheat crust, and I topped it with red cabbage pizza sauce and covered that in pine nut cheeze and held my breath as I cut it using a pizza wheel (talk about hanging onto another life and living in hope) and I mentally wondered how quickly I could whip up another raw dinner at 7:30pm because I knew after the first bite we would throw it out and still be hungry.

My husband giggled nervously and said 'why don't you go ahead and have the first piece, you worked really hard to make it, and after all, it's your celebration.' And I knew then, he was preparing for a fall. He wasn't going to touch that stuff until he had seen the expression on my face.

I took a deep breath and bit. Then chewed and chewed and chewed. In that moment, I realised that my life still lacked trust.

When I went to my first yoga class all those years ago, I had to let go and put myself in the hands of the teacher - that teacher happened to be Siri Datta. And she held me, and helped me and nurtured me through those first trembling steps.

When I went to my first yoga retreat alone and was exposed to different ways of looking at life, and different ways to heal and different ways to eat, I had to trust. And Siri Datta, again stepped up and guided me through the uncertainty.

And when I was ready to try my first bite of raw pizza, I should have trusted that the very same Siri Datta would not have suggested something disgusting for me to eat on this new journey into health. And she didn't.

My eyes flew open, a smile spread across my lips, ' this tastes just like pizza I almost screamed', losing some of my topping down the front of my shirt at the same time. 'It is soooooo good'. And I gobbled and gobbled and gobbled until I had eaten just a little too much of this raw pizza, in exactly the same way as for years, I'd eaten just a little too much of cooked pizza whenever I'd eaten it.

Now let me add a little disclaimer here. Hubby did not feel the same way. He kept mumbling something about 'where's the cheese?', which he had every right to mumble about. But he hasn't been totally raw for 10 days. And he isn't the one who has committed to not eating a smidgen of cheese for 40 days. And he isn't the one who thought that the word 'pizza' was out of his lexicon for good. So, I think I can safely say he had a little less invested in this dinner than I did.

For me however, this was a momentous occassion. Raw pizza, who would have thought? And so that is how I came to overeat a buckwheat-filled pizza crust.

So do you know what I'm going to do today? I think I'll have some left overs for lunch and I'll deal with the over-excess of buckwheat a little later.

DAY 36... I forgot to mention

That I'm not just winging this cleanse on my own. I'm using a wonderful book written by my very first yoga teacher Siri Datta (also known as Julie Cuddihy) and Dunkan Campbell. It's a fantastic book that includes a build up to the cleanse - what you need to do and how you should prepare physically and mentally - and then takes you through all 40 days step by step including yoga sets for the 40 days and questions you should be asking yourself before, during and after. Most importantly, the book has an array of delicious menus for the duration.

The book is called Minisizeme and is available on the American side of the pond at http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/mini-size-me---ride-the-raw-yoga-revolution/3694108?productTrackingContext=center_search_results

So, if you are one of those people who thinks that going raw means a life sentence of iceberg lettuce and boring salad, you are horribly mistaken. Don't worry I was one of those people and every day I am amazed and astounded by the menu I am following and the wonderful taste sensations I am discovering. I could not have done this on my own.

Just this evening, I had a dressing for my broccoli made with nuts, lemon juice, herbs and spices, and it's easily as good as anything I have bought in a store or paid for in a restaurant, only better, because I know exactly what went into it and I know it is healthy.

By the way, the reason I won't go into detail about the meals I'm eating on this blog and exactly what is involved in creating them is because it wouldn't be fair (or legal) to Siri Datta and Dunkan to share these after all the work they have put into creating this wonderful book. However, there are many raw food recipes on the internet if you look for them that can give you an idea of what to expect.

If I decide to become a raw food gourmet chef after this, I promise I'll share all my recipes!

If you are considering changing your lifestyle, this is the book I would recommend. There are a lot of books out there to help you with a raw food lifestyle and many of them are excellent. The reason I chose this one was two fold.

Firstly because of Siri Datta. I met her in London in 2001 and fell in love with her yoga classes after my first 60 minutes. As I developed my practice and got to know her I realised what a gem I had stumbled upon. She is an inspiring teacher and a wonderful person. She is small compared to my 5' 9", but she lights up any room she walks into immediately, as if she is the biggest person there. Her soul glows through her face and her eyes shine brightly with all that life has to offer. She lives the life she teaches and I trust her guidance. I'm truly grateful that our paths crossed all those years ago. She has unwittingly remained an inspiration to me all these years later although we live on different continents.

The second reason I chose this book is because of the menus, meal plans and food ideas. When you go raw, it's easy to get stuck in the land of green salad with olive oil and lemon dressing. That is simply not sustainable. Not only will you be hungry and bored and frustrated by day 3, you will also miss many of the nutrients you need to stay healthy and maintain this lifestyle. Having a guide on hand for how to eat has already opened up so many doors for me. I just had no idea you could combine foods in this way and come up with such awesome results. And, while I navigate this new life, it's nice having one less thing to worry about each day. I don't have to try and come up with what I'll eat, I just have to make sure I have the ingredients in my home and follow the directions.

So if you are thinking of doing this. Look around, see what's out there. You know yourself well, you know what you need, you know where your weaknesses are and where your strengths lie. Find a plan that will help you to succeed and then just dive in.

Enjoy!