So I was thinking about this the other day because people send me emails all the time expressing love and gratitude to me for the work I do, the articles I write, or the readings I’ve given them. And it occurred to me that the power of love and gratitude is so awesome that we really should get in the habit of expressing love and gratitude to the people in our lives as much as possible. I want to make this a habit. So I’ve decided to do a 30-Day Love and Gratitude Trial, and I’d love for you to join me.

For the next 30 days we’re going to express love and/or gratitude to one person each day. The medium doesn’t matter. You could do it by phone, in person, email, text, body language, morse code, or even smoke signals. The trick is you must do it consciously and sincerely.

If you’d like, you can make a list of 30 people you’re going to do this with, or you can just decide each morning. Think about how this person contributes to your life and how much you love them. Then communicate that love, appreciation, gratitude, and affection to them directly. If you can’t think of 30 people, it’s okay to duplicate people along the way, but I think you can find 30 people in the world who deserve your love and gratitude. Besides the usual suspects (family, friends, co-workers) you could include bloggers, authors, your masseuse, your postal worker, the lady at the grocery store that you see week after week, your spirit guides, angels, higher self, God. You could even send a note to yourself!

It doesn’t have to take long. You could write a short one-line email, or a simple text. Or you could craft an entire letter to them. Whatever moves you. Just really give some thought to how this person affects your life positively and thank them for it. You will be utterly amazed at what happens to you for sending it and what happens to them when they receive it.

On August 31, I’ll check in with you to see how you did and what you learned. And I’ll post some of the stories, so please feel free to submit them to me using my contact form.

Are you ready to have a ripple effect? Are you ready to put positive energy into the lives of others? Are you in?

Lots of Advice
I have received about 60 emails from various people all with ideas to help me lose weight on this diet.  I can’t think of two people who told me to try the same thing.  Interesting, no?  My weight loss journey has been one of trying to develop my own authority over my own health, and I think all the advice is reflective of showing me that no one is an authority over my body except me, and that I need to find out what works for this body.  But I sincerely, deeply appreciate all the advice, support, and encouragement from everyone who has contacted me.  I am finding nuggets of wisdom in every email.  And a big thank you to everyone who has shared their personal journey of weight loss with me.  I am learning a lot.

Weight Loss
My weight was stalled for a while and then actually started going up.  Oh horror!  That really annoyed and discouraged me.  But I persevered.  I decided to stop eating so much fat.  I stopped eating olive oil and coconut oil altogether.  No more raw cheesecake either.  I continued to eat a little almondaise, and a little nut butter, and added avocado.  I also added more greens to my diet.  This morning I weighed 192.6 which is down a little from my last update.  So we’re looking at a net loss of 6 pounds.  Six pounds in 20 days.  That’s still better than how things were going for most of the year, so I’m going to stop complaining (at least a little).  But I am feeling like the raw diet is no better for weight loss than what I was doing before, where I was losing about a pound a week. 

Future Plans
After the 30-day trial on 100% raw I doubt I will continue doing 100% raw, however I still haven’t made a final decision.  I may do 80% raw, or I might go back to the low fat, high fiber, high protein diet I was on for most of the year.  But one thing this trial has definitely taught me is to keep trying something definitive (e.g. 30-day trials) until I find something that works.  As Steve is fond of saying, “The time is going to pass anyway” so I may as well keep on experimenting until I find the optimal diet for me and my body.

Psychic Abilities
Steve is walking around making the sign of the cross at me.  LOL, just kidding!  But seriously, we’re both being blown away by how much my psychic abilities have increased.  For the most part, we’re seeing the devil in the details.  Poor choice of words, but I like to shake people up occasionally.  I’m picking up on a lot more specific details than before.  As an example, before going raw during a reading I might pick up that a person was in an abusive marriage during their 20′s, but now with the increased psychic ability it’s more like, “You entered into an abusive marriage at the age of 22 and by 26 you’d had enough and got divorced.  Is this correct?”  So, more detail.  But it’s still the same information and it doesn’t really affect the flow of the reading to have the extra details.  It is more impressive though.  Even I’m impressed sometimes. 

Steve and I have noticed a significant increase in our telepathy.  Again, it’s the details.  The other day he was sitting on the couch and mentioned he had a strange dream about a bird.  I said, “It was a phoenix right?”  And he confirmed that it was.  As soon as he said it was a bird I saw a phoenix.  Another night I was sitting on the couch reading and I suddenly had the thought, “I wonder where Steve sees himself in 5 years.”  I went upstairs where Steve was taking a bath to find him meditating.  He said, “I’m doing a meditation where I talk to myself 5 years from now.”  It was trippy.  That sort of thing happens to us frequently, but right now it’s just at a new level.  I wonder what will happen once the raw trial is over.

Blood Sugar
A lot of people are wondering if all the fruit I’m eating is negatively affecting my blood sugar.  It doesn’t appear to be.  My blood sugar is very stable in the morning which is when I eat fruit for breakfast.  I haven’t noticed a problem at all.  I think this might fly in the face of what diabetes educators will tell you, but what can I say except that my experiences must differ from others.  I stopped having the blood sugar crashes in the afternoon.  I think my body adjusted.  I haven’t been checking the blood sugar as often as I probably should, so for these last 10 days I’m going to do more of that.

What My Guides Have to Say
A lot of people write asking what my spirit guides have to say about my health, weight loss goals, and the raw diet.  They are enjoying watching me accept responsibility for my health.  They have no desire to step in and tell me what I should do as that would defeat the lesson of me learning to have authority over my health.  This is my journey, my trial, and I’m content to sink or swim on my own authority.

The Family
The kids are definitely enjoying more raw food in their diets.  For this I am supremely grateful I did this trial.  Our daughter, Emily, is especially open to trying all these new foods.  She adores my Lydia’s crackers and likes to eat them with almondaise and cucumber, just like me.  She’s also eating more salad with avocado.  Both kids have increased their intake of fruit as I often make a big fruit shake in the evening that we share, and they’re eating fruit in the morning too.  I put spinach in the smoothies and they don’t seem to mind.  No matter what happens at the end of this trial, I want to see to it that the kids are eating healthier foods.  My daughter’s teacher commented during our parent/teacher conference that Emily’s lunches are the healthiest of all the kids, and that she is amazed at what Emily will eat while the other kids are eating Lunchables, Cheetos, and Twinkies.  I often send the kids to school with clementines, sprouted pumpkin seeds, fresh fruit, and tamari almonds.

Steve has been very supportive, of course.  I expected we would do a lot more food preparation together but that hasn’t happened.  Our busy schedules still make that difficult.  In this house you sort of throw things together and eat them in your office while continuing to work.  He’s also been sick this past week so that affected how much time we spent together eating.  Steve taught me how to make a good avocado “dressing” for my salad.  That has helped me considerably to eat more greens.

I had to laugh last weekend when we went to a buffet and I sat there with just a plate of fruit and a plate of salad.  Usually my plate is a little more carb-loaded (bagel, potatoes, and cereal).  I can’t say it was worth $18, but it was an interesting outing.  And I wasn’t sleepy after eating at the buffet which is often what happened in the past.

One thing that has surprised me is that I’m not having the cravings for cooked food like I thought I would.  Around day 8 or 9 I did.  I wanted pizza, a veggie burger, and the ever-addictive french fries.  But as time went on, that went away.  I’m not saying I wouldn’t enjoy those things, but focusing on the new raw foods I’m eating has been just dandy and I’m not jonesing for the other foods.  So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens at day 30.  Onward ho!

My weight is doing some funky things.  I’ve actually begun to steadily gain weight instead of losing it steadily.  So the first week I lost almost 7 pounds reaching a low of 191.8.  Today on the scale I saw 193.8, for a net loss of 4.8 pounds.  That is not the right direction!  It’s been creeping back up for days.  I always thought that just going raw and staying raw was enough to lose weight, but apparently I need to adjust something to get myself going back in the right direction.  But what?

I’ve received a lot of emails from people who all seem to know the answer.  Eat more fruit.  Stop eating fruit.  Eat more greens.  Stop eating fat.  Stop combining different fats.  Eat natural fats like avocado and coconut but skip the oil.  Stop eating after 6pm.  Exercise more to make up for the fat consumption.  Eat any fat you want except nuts.  Try 80-10-10.  Eat what you want, just eat less of it.  And on and on.  Consequently, I have no idea what to try.  It all sounds like the same advice I got when I was on Weight Watchers or any other diet program. 

I have stepped up my exercise again.  That should help with something.  And I’ve cut way back on olive oil and nuts.  I’m not eating coconut any more at all.  Today Steve is going to make some of his awesome guacamole so I’ll try that as my main fat source.  I’ve upped the eating of raw veggies as well (carrot and cucumber mainly).  I just started eating Lydia’s crackers (man they’re good, thanks for the recommendations everyone!).  I put a dab of almondaise on a cracker, then add cucumber.  It’s delicious.  Then I eat a bunch of raw cucumber because I don’t want to fill up on crackers.  I usually limit myself to three of these yummy crackers per day.

I don’t want to end this 30-day trial at the same weight I started, so I’m going to begin making stronger adjustments to get myself moving back in the right direction.  I noticed yesterday that Steve eats a lot more food than I do, possibly 3 or 4 times as much, and yet he isn’t gaining weight on the raw food diet.  I wonder if his body is just more suited to this kind of diet.

I’m not feeling increased mental clarity, which many raw foodists report.  So either I was already very mentally clear, or it just isn’t happening for me.  I am feeling better physically and I have pretty good energy.  I’m going to the bathroom a lot LESS on this way of eating than I was when I was eating a cooked vegan diet.  I spent last week with a lot of pain in my gut and somewhat constipated, but that seems to have passed now.

I’m not having any social problems.  I went to a Christmas party and brought a large organic fruit salad as my potluck contribution.  I also made myself a salad ahead of time and I stopped and got a slice of raw cheesecake for my dessert.  I sat with my dietician friend and we discussed diet all night long.  It was nice talking to someone who understood the benefits of a raw food diet and didn’t just poo-poo it.

I’m not sure the raw diet will work for me long term, but one invaluable thing I’ve learned is that you cannot know how something will work for you if you don’t try it yourself.  I am still committed to staying 100% raw during my trial.  After that, I’ll try another 30-day trial.  My goal is weight loss and better health.  There has to be something out there that will work for me.  And I won’t stop until I find it.