AQX

When I got into raw foods in 2006, I had no idea how it was going to change my life so much. I dabbled in raw gourmet while I was teaching fitness classes, I became a personal chef, and then I discovered The 80/10/10 Diet. In that book, I found the answers to my questions regarding what was going on with my body. 

If I remember correctly, I was probably searching on the internet for why I was feeling so tired all of the time. I had cured most of my chronic pain, allergies, chronic bronchitis, skin rashes, etc. on a raw food diet. When I found The 80/10/10 Diet book I just couldn’t wait for it to come in the mail. I was so pumped to clean up what I thought was an already clean (but giving me problems) diet. Everything the book talks about really hit home. It wasn’t just addressing problems I was having on a high-fat raw vegan diet, it was addressing problems I’d had with food my whole life.

There was always an excuse why I couldn’t stick with it. Having to taste the raw gourmet food I was preparing for clients made it hard. Lack of fruit variety while living in Minneapolis, MN made it boring. Not drinking alcohol or eating cooked vegan food once in a while made it isolating. I was good at coming up with every excuse. My partner at the time was anorexic so she didn’t seem to care what I ate at all. I was binge eating like a MF, though. The main excuse was that my hunger wasn’t satisfied. Well, DUH. I was teaching three hours of fitness classes every other day and trying to keep my calories under 2000! I was always hungry because I wasn’t eating enough. When I did get enough calories, they were empty and coming from fatty nuts. 

This spring, I had a very short, but intense, relationship with a man almost 15 years older than me. I had already stopped eating meat (There was a little over a year of time where I tried eating animal products - horrible, I know - to see if it made me feel better. The craziness!) and I was ready to cut out the dairy. Meat had made me fat and tired. Dairy, although from goats and sheep, was still giving me mucus problems AND making me fat. I had lost ten pounds after ditching the meat. It was easy. The problem was, this boyfriend of mine was really into not just drinking (sometimes EXTREMELY HEAVY) but he also smoked a lot more weed and cigarettes than he had claimed to when we met. 

The animal products weren’t working out. The relationship with the older guy wasn’t working out. I went back to my veganism. Then he broke up with me. He said we were too different. It wasn’t that he cared about what I was eating, or not eating. He knew I was unhappy with his habits. He didn’t want to change. I was devastated and so very heartbroken for about a month. I felt like I wasn’t good enough for him to improve himself. Or, that’s how I saw it for that brief, hot second. 

Just when I was about to go back to my eating disordered coping mechanisms of binge eating and hating myself, something clicked. Something from the depths of me shouted out a reminder. “Hey, Apryl. Remember how you always wanted to move back to California and eat lots of fruit? You’ve been in LA for almost two years and you’re still polluting your body? Remember how you have never felt better than how you did when you were a high-carb raw vegan?” This time, I listened.  

I jumped in, head-first, to what I knew was better than any other way of living: 80/10/10. I quit drinking, started eating HCRV, started getting solid sleep, wanted to work out more. Another ten pounds melted away almost instantly. I stuck with it for almost 3 months and then fell off the wagon (not too much) for a few weeks. I was eating sweet fruits in the mornings but by afternoon I wanted Mexican food. WTF, Apryl?!?!? That wasn’t working at all. I just wasn’t feeding myself enough greens. The minerals were missing so I craved salt. I gained five pounds and felt like crap. 

So, that brings me here. I made a serious commitment to myself last week to stop being a fuck-up. Fuck, nobody else is committing to me! Ha! I woke up this morning, went for a run, came home and ordered a case of bananas and a half-case of lettuce from the organic wholesaler. Shit, I know I’m only on day six, but this time I feel like I’m in the right state of mind to go the distance.

BONUS:
There’s only six weeks until my crush comes to visit me! He eats just like me and he’s absolutely wonderful. We’ve been friends since June and it’s amazing how our friendship has grown. It goes to show that the more true you are to who you want to be, the easier it is for the things you want to come to you. Thankfully, I’m done putting up road blocks for myself. I’m on the freeway now, baby!

Be good to each other, be good to yourself!
- Apryl

*** I’m very tempted to start making videos. I’ve been at this raw foods thing for what seems like a lifetime now and people are always asking me questions. If I made videos, do you think anyone would watch them? ***