Rawvulation?

I think raw week might have affected my fertility. I have been tracking my fertility using fertility awareness for the past eight months. This month, according to my daily basal temperatures, it looks like I did not ovulate.

Usually, you will see a nice change temperature like so:

Not so this month. Perhaps it was the change in my diet? Perhaps I wasn’t eating enough calories? I believe I was because I made sure to include lots of healthy fats like those in avocado, Brazil nuts, pepitas, cold-pressed virgin olive oil, sesame oil and veggies (even though vegetables have small amounts). I ate to satiety and never felt overly hungry or hypoglycemic, albeit deprived a few times. Very interesting. I have to say, sometimes even when I'm eating normally, I don't get an obvious temp shift.

I’ll fill you in on how raw week ended. I decided to end raw week one meal early of the official full week. So, I went from Saturday morning to Friday afternoon. Ending it early was a thought-out, purposeful choice, and I was ok with this compromise. The reason I did it was to share a meal with a friend. I felt it was meaningful to do so as the opportunities for spending time with my Richmond friends are growing fewer and fewer. More on that later!

I also would like to confess that since returning to a “normal” diet, I feel like I am overcompensating for my “deprivation” during raw week. I mean… Hello baked goods! I have definitely been overindulging in the breads, sugars, and baked goods this week. And… I’ve been feeling it. In the first few days since I went back to normal, I think I developed a minor yeast infection. I also didn’t feel as fresh, light, and guilt-free, positive and healthy. I definitely experienced a mental shift in clarity and consciousness while eating raw. Surely there is a happy medium between the ascetic 100% raw diet and that which involves white flour and sugar. It just seems to be a hard balancing act for me. While I’ve been taught to preach that there shouldn’t be any “off-limits” foods, I can’t help but feel guilty after eating something I know is negative nutrition (sugar). It is always easier for me to have strict lines; it requires less will power to say “No” to tempting foods when I have diet rules in place.

I have been toying with the idea of doing a week on, then week off raw foods diet. That way, I won’t need to feel the need to overcompensate on the off weeks, but won’t be intimidated by a commitment to an all-the-time raw foods diet. I tend to think of raw foods as “cleansing foods” and nutritious cooked foods as “building foods”. Do you think that alternating would work? I realize I will have fewer choices about what is on my place once I become a farming intern this May/June; however, perhaps in the three or so months until then, I could practice this alternating eating plan. Perhaps it would be a good way for me to transition to a mostly raw foods diet – a more permanent change. At least it would force me to try and learn new raw food recipes and staples. The fact is, and there is no denying it, raw foods make me feel lighter, freer, healthier, less guilty, more vibrant and alive!