Spring

The past two weeks have been unexpectedly hybrid for me in terms of nutrition. I have discovered a vegetarian “Tenedor Libre” (an all you can eat restaurant) named Spring. They offer a high quality vegetarian dishes for an affordable price. The service is great, the TV is muted, the lighting is soft, the napkins are made of cloth, and the owner is actually working and making sure that the open buffet is well garnished at all times.

Dining at Spring feels more like eating out at a real restaurant than going to a regular “Tenedor Libre”. One of the aspects I like the most about Spring, is the social component. I find it easier to talk to people in a setting were we go get our own food than being in a setting with full on waiting service, where each table happens to be in its own private bubble.

For the past two weeks, I’ve had my single solid meal of the day at Spring, for a total of eight times! It may sound crazy, but with the combination of me making my juices and smoothies at home, dry-fasting on Sundays, and salt-flushing mid-week, I’ve been feeling amazingly good, and once again I feel like I’ve reached a new level of well-being. I feel more powerful physically than when I only eat raw/plant based. My kidneys filter abundantly the day after I eat at Spring, and I’ve been able to raise the intensity level of my workouts throughout the week.

This whole experience makes me reconsider and fine tune once again my approach to nutrition. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the way I’ve been eating for the past two weeks is the perfect diet for me in the long run. I do think that I am also reaping the benefits from the weeks when I was solely eating raw/plant based food. As I often mention it throughout this blog, I believe in listening to my body so it can guide me towards the right direction. Now that I’ve been feeling extremely good for the past eight weeks or so, I am going to try to make the right move every week, so I can sustain this constant state of feeling great as much as I can.

No Diet is Absolutely Perfect For Me

I think I am in the process of figuring out what is actually the best for me. The complexity relies in the fact that there isn’t necessarily a one and only perfect diet for me. The solution may reside in orchestrating skillfully the different types of diets and other practices every week. Now that I’ve been eating out cooked food in abundance for the past two weeks, I can see the positive effects as I mentioned in the above paragraph. I am also able to notice things like the quality of my hair and skin not being as good as during the weeks when I was eating all raw and plant based. I have to mention that at Spring I’ve been consuming a good quantity of eggs, and a little bit of cheese they put in some of their dishes. Products of animal origin may be the root cause of the decrease in my skin and hair quality.

Where to Go from Here

My findings are quite interesting and surprising to me at this point. I am willing to be a bit more flexible with cooked food from now on. If I can keep my cooked food intake with a higher percentage of plant based whole foods, I think I should be fine. I feel like being able to eat food containing starches such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans or corn did me a lot of good. I also think that eating eggs makes me feel more powerful throughout the day when I am doing physical activities. For the upcoming weeks, I am going to keep experimenting, with all the different possibilities I have now in hand. I see each different type of diet as a tool. No one can say that a hammer is better than a screwdriver. Along with the same type of idea, what makes a diet adapted or not for an individual depends in my opinion on what the actual individual is trying to achieve with that diet.

Here’s the recap of the different diets I went through for the past nine weeks:

• Week 1, 2, 3: Raw/plant based, nut free diet (the first week out of the three I was actually not feeling all that good. I started to feel great on the second week of this diet)
• Week 4: Cooked meals with animal products including red meat
• Week 5, 6, 7: Raw/plant based, nut and oil free
• Week 8, 9: Half vegetarian cooked meals, half raw/plant based, for two weeks (during the actual two weeks I had some chicken meat at two occasions)

Debrief and Some Deeper Thoughts on This Journey and My Progress

Out of the nine weeks, the last eight I’ve been feeling extremely  productive with higher energy and morale. I was able to get a lot of things done which are of great importance to me such as recording my music and writing for my two blogs. I had fun working for my freelancer job. I’ve been very active physically with three sessions of physical activity a day. This is a place where I wanted to be for a long time. Working, making music, writing, and of course pursuing this wonderful journey, all at a full intensity.

If I can manage to increase the number of weeks of feeling the way I did for the past eight throughout the year, I do believe that the work I’ll be able to create with such joy and momentum, will eventually lead me to greater things that life has to offer. Overall, I am extremely grateful where this journey has taken me so far since the beginning of the actual adventure. When I think of where I was two years ago when I first started this journey, and where I am now, it’s just an amazing feeling. It’s as if I was able to reverse the effect of time on my body and soul. I feel younger, stronger, brighter, and most importantly happier.

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I AM NOT A HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. I would like to make it very clear that I am only sharing my own experience on this website, and have no intention to give any specific advice on health. Please read the disclaimer section for more information.