Make This Summer the Start of Your Raw Food Journey

Is this the summer you were planning to lose weight? Is this the summer you were going to cleanse with fresh fruits and vegetables? Is this the summer you were going to get your feet wet on a raw food diet or even dive in headfirst into these life-affirming waters?

Are any of these still stuck on your to-do list?

If so, bring to mind that you’ve already taken a step just by tapping into your instinctive desire to change, and you’ve made a leap in connecting fruits and vegetables to enhanced health.

Now, we are 54 days into summer, and 40 days remain until the first day of fall, September 23. You’ve still got time to make this summer your launchpad to rejuvenation! Trust me, it will be a time you’ll never forget—a trail marker forever signifying the start of your wonderful raw food journey.

I recall my first summer on the fruitful path, summer 2010. I stop and think about this pivotal moment in time, 11 days before turning 33, standing on a corner of Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, and dreaming up a whole new life for myself—and I am living what I envisioned. I had quit smoking about 10 weeks earlier after just seven days of consuming green smoothies every day, and my days of drinking alcohol and eating barbecued ribs and other animal products were numbered.

I was a man in the midst of changing and building my body anew. I wanted to change and pursued a new me with an appetite I’ve never experienced. I was morphing into a Fruit-Powered being. 🙂

This, too, can be you. Yes, this summer.

In the last two weeks of July, I went on a grape and watermelon cleanse with a limited amount of vegetable (greens, beets and carrots) juicing. It was clear to me early on that my body gravitated toward watermelon, and I honored this call as well as finished my cleanse with four days of watermelon.

I ate slowly during these largely idle days, practicing the Bates Method to reverse my reliance on corrective lenses. This was the first break of a sustained length that I’ve experienced outside a 10-day Vipassana Meditation retreat in fall 2013 in four very busy and productive years. My caloric needs nosedived from 4,000 a day to about 3,000 a day, with some days seeing me eat about 2,700 calories.

I felt rested, refreshed and revived. I got to thinking that anyone wanting to “clean house” or go raw might strongly consider giving themselves a week or two on watermelon and watermelon smoothies. This is an alternative to paddling out to “Banana Island,” where one enjoys solely bananas, and some might find it easier to fill their tummies with, if you think about it, sweet water with very little fiber. They might need to eat practically all day, but this digestive break—it takes about 20 minutes to digest watermelon—is a gift to the body.

This summer, be true to yourself by making serious strides to achieve your goals. Just as I am relearning with my practice of the Bates Method in restoring my eyesight, remember to practice patience and persistence. These words, from the voice of Satya Narayan Goenka, were imprinted in me during the meditation retreat I attended, in Thailand.

“Patience and persistence … .”