Seasons and Healthy Living Habits: Higher Raw in Winter

This post is a part of February’s Healthy Living Tuesdays series, focused on how your healthy living habits change with the seasons.  Please send us a 2-3 sentence overview of what you would like to write about this topic, and the first 4-6 unique submissions we receive will be featured in February. Send your overviews to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com. For more information about Healthy Living Tuesdays, check out our original post!

This post comes from JL of JL Goes Vegan!

Higher raw in the winter? Am I crazy?

Crazy like a fox!  I’m not even going to wait until the end of this post to tell you how great it’s going:

• I have higher energy and am requiring less sleep, something that never happens in the winter.
• I don’t feel lethargic in the afternoon at work
• I’m digging myself out of a food rut.

Okay, now that you know I’m convinced going higher raw in the winter was a wise decision for me, let me explain why I wanted to try it.

I get into food ruts. Big time.

I love soups, I love stews, I love hot meals.  They are easy to make in bulk on the weekend and I can reheat all week.  But this means that it decreases the variety of nutrients I’m getting and my soups tend to be higher sodium dishes.  In November and December I lived on soup and quinoa for lunch.  I found myself so sluggish at work.  In January, when I started eating higher raw until dinner, I felt an actual bounce in my step. I felt sharp and alert all day, not just part of it.  I felt light on my feet.

Raw food blogs like Choosing Raw, Bitt of Raw and The Raw Project, and raw cookbooks like Ani’s Raw Food Essentials and Kristen Suzanne’s EASY Raw Vegan Transition Recipes have helped me along the way.

I’m making greener smoothies and juices (try this juice:  granny smith apple, romaine lettuce, celery, cucumbers, ginger and lime juice — delicious!).

I am eating things like raw ravioli and marinara sauce

and cashew cheese on dehydrated rye flatbread.

These meals are easy to make and easy to pack for work.

I want to continue to naturally tackle some of the “things that ail me.”

I started working with a nutrition counselor a year ago to tackle some digestive and skin problems.  Through diet changes (I started eating vegan a year ago) and seasonal cleanses I have noticed marked improvements.  I now take a food enzyme and a probiotic on a daily basis.  I’m eating higher raw to see if this dietary change may replace the enzyme supplement. Only time will tell.

Interestingly, I have discovered that this 45 year old body is requiring less sleep. I wake up at about 4:45 each morning so I can tend to blogging matters and get in my half-marathon training before going to work.  I typically go to bed between 8 and 8:30 each night (I did mention that I get up at 4:45, right?)  because I “needed” eight hours of sleep. Turns out I may have just convinced myself that I needed 8 hours because by the end of January I noticed a funny thing.  I was still up at 8:45, at 9:00, at 10:00. But I was still getting out of bed around 4:45 a.m.  I have to attribute this to my dietary change because, trust me, nothing else has changed.

Yes, it may seem crazy to start eating higher raw during a particularly brutal winter on the east coast. Yet I’m finding that creative, hearty raw dishes leave my belly feeling warm and full and leave my mind and spirit feeling light and sharp.

Want to add more raw foods to your diet? Here are a few simple ways:

• Eat raw, whole foods (snack on fruit and veggies)

• Drink juices with vegetables and fruit
• Drink smoothies with blended vegetables and fruit
• Make hearty salads with raw nut dressings
• Google “raw recipes” and be amazed by the creative recipes you can try!