“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again. ” Benjamin Button from the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

I finished my raw food challenge. It was a phenomenal experience. I lost 11 pounds! My skin looks great. I feel great. I’m definitely going to stick with a mostly raw diet. I’m going to add in fish. I think it’s an important part of a diet. I won’t be as careful when I go out to dinner. I think sticking with a completely raw diet makes going to restaurants extremely difficult. I definitely want to live with the rest of the world. Other than those two things though, it’s raw all of the way. I really love my smoothies and I still want to lose 4 more pounds. The weight loss has slowed down but it really doesn’t matter. If it takes a month or so to lose those 4 pounds, that’s completely fine. I’m really loving the way I’m looking right now.  If you want to learn about raw, I recomment Victoria Boutenko’s books and David Wolf’s books. I particularly love Wolf’s book, Eating for Beauty. Carol Alt’s first book is also very good. You can get all of these books by going to the Reading Annex section on my site and purchasing them through my e-commerce site. If you have any questions, please leave comments and I promise to address them. I’m more than happy to share anything I know. xoxo Tracy

As a coach, I often hear the same issues over and over again. A common one is “I can’t find the right guy.” I have many clients both male and female who are looking for “the one”. I’m a firm believer in timing. You need to be open to finding love but I also believe that you need to know what your looking for and the things that might prevent you from getting what you want. I find this quest to be no different than searching for the right career. You might try out some jobs and think you want to do one type of thing for a living but after you give it a shot, you realize that it’s not for you. You might try out a job and then something different might be presented to you. It might be something you’ve never thought of. You give it a shot and it turns out to be the perfect fit. One thing is for sure once you have an idea of what you’re looking for, you’re going to have to be armed and ready with the appropriate skills so that you know what you’re doing. If you want to make money in your chosen field, you might do something like go to school and take classes in a specific area so that you have the tools you need to succeed in your new (or higher level) area of work.

Finding the man of your dreams is really no different. If you know what you want and you feel that you’re meeting the wrong men, it might be time to update your skills. A coach can help you to help yourself. A coach will keep you focused. One of the things that I like to do is to recommend books to my clients. Food for thought, so to speak. I’ve ready many books about dating, men, women, love. (I’ve ready plenty of books for men on dating women as well. Men need to find the right one too you know. )

About 6 months ago, I read Patti Stanger’s book (Become Your Own Matchmaker: 8 Easy Steps for Attracting Your Perfect Mate). Patti is the Millionaire Matchmaker. Her Bravo show is highly enterntaining. The book looks cheesy. Most dating books are sort of embarrassing. But, I can tell you that the information in there is great. Patti knows her stuff. There’s a reason she gets paid the big bucks. Read Patti’s book and you will learn what you need to do to find the marrying kind of guy and not some player. You want to meet the right guy, not just any guy. Patti’s tips can help you do that. I highly recommend this book. You can buy it right from my site by going to the Reading Annex.

The second book I recommend is something that I’m reading now. It’s by Steve Harvey. It’s called Act Like A Lady, Think Like a Man. One of my closest friends recommended this book. She’s getting herself armed and ready because she wants to go out and date the right way and she doesn’t want to waste her time. She’s a smart girl. She read the Patti Stanger book and the Steve Harvey.

Act Like a Lady is fantastic because you get a no BS man’s perspective. He has chapters on such topics as Questions to Ask Before Getting in Too Deep, How to Get the Ring, and my personal pet peeve, “Mama’s Boys”.

Are you ready to get out there? Do you want someone to help you to help yourself? You know where to find me.

xoxo Tracy

I’m pretty much stopped writing about my raw food challenge because there haven’t been too many changes. Changes are still happening but not in the way I’m feeling. This way of life now really feels normal to me. I’m having a tough time keeping track of the days because this is just the way I eat now. It goes to show you that if you willing to go through about a week of pain, you can do anything. Absolutely anything can become a habit.

I weighed myself today. I lost yet another pound. So far, I’ve lost 9 pounds! I find that to be incredible. They say that your body goes to its natural weight when you go on a raw food diet. That may be true. I was right in the middle of the weight range I’m supposed to be in for my height. My doctor said that if I lost 15 pounds, I’d be at the bottom of the range. I’m mentioning this because I don’t want any of you out there to essentially go on a starvation diet. I made sure to find out from a doctor what weight would be fine for me. I didn’t want to pick a random number, get discouraged if I couldn’t get there, or possibly get sick attempting to do something unrealistic. I’ve got 6 pounds to go. At this rate, it is possible for the weight to come off by the end of this challenge. The thing is that it doesn’t really matter at this point. I’m planning on staying with this lifestyle. There will be one exception. I’m planning on adding in fish. I’m finding it to be almost impossible to go out to dinner with friends.

I’ve now eating at Pure Food and Wine, Quintessence, Caravan of Dreams, and Candle 79. These restaurants are fun and great but everyone I know isn’t into eating this way. Most have been good about it but I don’t want people to start avoiding me because they don’t like the idea of where they might have to go to dinner with me. In my life, anything that’s too strict isn’t good. Adding in fish will be the solution. I’ll pretty much be able to eat anywhere once I add that back in. I’ve basically got 10 more days until I can do that.

I’m almost forgot about the changes that have occured other than weight. Everyone keeps asking me if I recently got botox. The answer is no. Apparently, this really makes your skin look better. Many people have told me that I look very healthy. I don’t have one blemish on my face. This is big. My skin wasn’t so great for some time. I thought I was going to have to take something for it. Now I don’t. Also, the whites of my eyes are very clear. My eyes look bright.

I’m off to walk my dog and then it’s time for a melon and cucumber smoothie.

“Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food!” ~ Hippocrates

I’m actually beginning to lose track of my days now. That’s probably a good thing. It means I’m just eating raw now and not obsessing about it. I tried a new smoothie that’s perfect for summer. I made it with cantaloupe and cucumber. It was so good. It felt like a spa experience. I can’t wait to make this and just hang out by the pool.

I’m checking my weight in the morning. I’ll fill you in…

It’s Day 12. I just can’t believe it. I know I say this a lot. It’s just that the time is going so quickly. I feel no detox symptoms. I’m not hungry. I’m suffering. I lost another pound! I have no cravings. Raw food living is the way to go.

It’s day 11. I just wanted to add a quick post. First, I lost another 1/2 pound. This is great. I’ve now lost 6 pounds!

I also wanted to let you all in on a secret. Normally when I eat a meal, I feel exhausted. If I have a big meal for lunch, it’s food coma time for me. I noticed theother day that after I ate a yellow pepper for lunch, I felt loaded with energy and I was in a great mood. I made nothing of it of it until today. I just had another yellow pepper and I now I have that same feeling. I just have a lot more energy and I feel very upbeat. I can’t prove that peppers have some magical property but I can tell you what I’m experiencing. I’m not sure if this is something that would happen with any type of pepper. I just know that it’s happened twice with yellow peppers. I’ll keep experimenting with different peppers and other types of food and I’ll let you know what happens. Until next time…

It’s been a few days. I’m sorry about that. I was stuck without a computer for a few days out in East Hampton. I think you guys have been getting the general idea of what I’ve been eating. I’m now on day 10. I can’t believe it. I’ve done a third of this challenge and I’m feeling good. Here are the highlights of the last few days.

Once you decide to do something like this, you really have to be a lot more creative with your food choices. Until a couple of days ago, I hadn’t been in any situations where this type of eating might pose a problem. Saturday I went to party in East Hampton. They had tons of delicious looking food out. At that point, I was on day 8. I was surprised to find that I wasn’t even remotely tempted to eat any of it. I basically picked at salad type food the whole day. Parties usually have crudites. That means there’s actually plenty of stuff for a raw foodist to eat. Eating crudites didn’t seem strange to anyone around me. It just made me seem like any other New York woman. When I really think about, my typical party pig-out is probably the thing that seemed unusual to other people considering where I live.

That night, I went to see “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3″. It was excellent. The only that sucked was not being able to eat popcorn. I wasn’t hungry for it but it is fun to eat popcorn in a movie. The movie was so good though that I forgot about the popcorn and just relaxed and enjoyed myself. This movie is a definite must see.

Yesterday, on my way back to the city, I realized I was pretty hungry. I was very far away from a blender which meant I couldn’t rely on one of my usual smoothies. The thing is that it’s pretty much summer time. I stopped at a farm stand which was a lot of fun. I ended up buying a small bag of raw nuts, a yellow pep, a tom, and yellow cherries. I was stuffed after eating all of that. I was stuffed but I felt loaded with energy. I’m used to feeling tired after a meal. I normally feel like taking a nap. You’re actually supposed to have energy after you eat. I had a lot of energy after this meal. I felt fantastic.

That night I met up with a friend for dinner. We went to a raw food restaurant called Quintessence. My friend happens to live a few blocks away from this place. I was pleasantly surprised. The food was very, very good. I almost hate to say this but it was a lot better than Pure Food and Wine. I love the atmosphere of Pure but the place is extremely expensive and the portions are only appropriate for smurf. The portions at Quintessence were actually huge. Remember that I haven’t been eating a lot so it really was too much for me. You live and you learn. Next time I’ll probably stick with a couple of apps or one app and a cacao shake. For my appetizer, I had the taco. This was excellent. The main dish was some sort of nut loaf with a cherry “gravy”. It was good but a little sweet. The tahini sauce on the side was amazing. I almost forgot I was eating raw. That’s how good the food was. My friend had some sort of kelp salad. It was good. Her main dish was a mix of Indian flavored items. I loved the Indian plate but it was huge. It came with a salad on the side. In all honestly, the two of us could have split the Indian dish and shared something sweet after and we both would have been happy.

After our main dish, we shared the “tiramisu”. I have no idea what it was actually made out of. It looked like tiramisu and it tasted creamy and delicious. I wouldn’t say it tasted like tiramisu but it was good. My friend had a “latte” with it. The latte was actually made with Yerba Mate instead of coffee. Yerba Mate is actually a tea. I believe it’s popular in South Africa. It supposedly has all sorts of magical powers. It can elevate your mood and help you lose weight. I don’t know if this is true but it certainly tasted good and was definitely a good coffee alternative.

There used to be a Quintessence a couple of blocks away from where I live. It closed. This is really too bad. I wish I had more restaurant choices up here that could work with this lifestyle. I never did eat at Quintessence when it was up here. When I used to pass by these types of restaurants, the green smell would send me straight to the nearest Chinese restaurant. Truth be told, I still hate the hippie, green smell. I’m willing to deal with it because of the benefits of eating this way. There are just too many ofthem to ignore them. Plus, eating food right from the farmer’s market while sitting outside is pretty cool.

This morning I had my typical smoothie. I ran out of kale and almond milk. I used water instead of the almond milk and I used Greener Grasses powder to get greens. I find Greener Grasses to be better than most of these green powders. It is a whole food. You’re getting your nutrients so it’s really good to have a container of it around. It has a malty taste which goes nicely with maca powder. I can’t say it’s as tasty as having fresh vegetables. It’s not. It has that hippie, green smell that I hate. All of the green powders do. There’s nothing you can do about. I had dark cherries, cacao butter, and almond butter in this smoothie. I could still smell the green. But, if you have no green vegetables left, this is the thing to use. I definitely think anyone eating this way should have this on hand.

One last thing. You didn’t think I could end this post without informing you about what’s going on with my weight, did you? Well, I’ve lost another 1/2 pound. I know that’s not as dramatic as the weight loss I’ve been telling you about. You knew though that this pound a day thing had to come to an end. There’s no way that could have continued. I’ll take that half pound though. You really shouldn’t be losing more than two pounds a week. I’ve got 20 days left of this. I want to lose 10 more pounds. If I lose 6 more during these 20 days, I’ll be very happy. We’ll see what happens

It’s time to go to the health food store. Until next time…

I promised I continue to write about the raw food challenge. So, here goes. Day 6 was hell. I ended up going to a dinner on Day 5 for dinner and eating strawberries. I woke up about 6 times in the middle of the night and ended up eating 8 raw nuts twice in the middle of the night. I was starving. I woke up on day 6, starving. The thing is that I’ve gotten to the weight I always seem to get to when the weight loss stops. I haven’t been able to move past this point in quite some time. That’s one of the reasons I decided to go with vegan raw. That being said, this is going to be a struggle. I basically spent the better part of the day in bad mood. I did have the best smoothie ever. It had the usual stuff in it that I use but it also had cacao butter and frozen dark cherries. All I could taste was chocolate cherry. It was amazing. This is the smoothie if you want to completely cover up the green taste and smell. For lunch I made guacomole was the last avocado I had left. Dinner was a pain. I went to my dad’s and cooked for him. I made him a delicious porterhouse steak. I gave him that with melon. I had a container of strawberries and a few slices of melon. I can say that strawberries are very filling. I don’t know why they’re filling but they really are. If you want to cut down on your portions, eat strawberries with you meal but don’t skimp on them. I was downright stuffed by the time I was done with my meal. I slept like a log. It was great.

Day 7: I woke up later than I’ve been getting up. It was great to indulge in some much needed rest. I weighed myself. I lost another pound! That’s 5 pounds in 7 days. That is amazing. I ate the same cherry smoothie I made the day before. Lunch was a blueberry smoothie. I ran out of bananas. I’m going to the hamptons tonight so I just wanted to use up what I had left. I have watermelon which I’ll have for dinner. I’ll have that and something else. I’m not sure yet. I’m sure this 5 lb weight loss is a one time deal. There’s no way another 5 lbs could go next week. If I keep losing at this weight, then I’ll be exactly where I want to be in two weeks. My guess is that this will slow down and take at least the 21 days I have left of this.

I haven’t really been exercising. Running feels impossible right now. Other people say they have loads of energy for running. I don’t. I did walk a couple of miles yesterday. I’ll do the same thing today. The weather seems to be clearing up so I might walk my dog for a couple of miles and give her a little exercise. She does love her social time. I can’t believe that the first quarter of the challenge is over. I really feel proud of myself.