Raw Food & Fitness-Day 5

We almost ended our 100 Day Raw Food & Fitness Challenge tonight. While shopping at the grocery store (something I need to do ALONE from now on), Our middle child, for no apparent reason, reaches out from his perch in the grocery cart and yanks on his older sister’s hair--it was a big yank! Derrick lost it. Both kids were sobbing, Derrick was angry and ridden with guilt, and I think I was in shock.

I took the hair-puller to the car (him in tears, myself on the brink of tears), and let Derrick finish the shopping. After a long lecture (from me) in the car, Derrick said, “I just want a pizza." Pizza sounded pretty good to me too at that moment (Trader Joe’s makes a wonderful frozen vegan pizza, by the way).

Visions of this same scenario before this Raw Food Challenge (has it only been 5 days?) flashed through my head--we would’ve soothed this parenting stress with Pea Crisps, low fat potato chips, frozen vegan pizza, and some chocolate (the kids would’ve been in heaven!)--instead we sat with our icky feelings--we actually felt our feelings, talked about what we’re doing to cause our kids to be so mean to one another sometimes, discussed ways of handling their teasing/fighting without losing control of ourselves and and craved all those comforting foods… In the end we ate our salads and felt much better.

Yep, even though we ate pretty healthy foods, we still used them at times to numb ourselves to the challenges we faced. I’m amazed at how powerful food can be, or rather the ways we use food--we use food to numb ourselves, to comfort, to cleanse, to show love, and to heal. The foods we choose can change us and change our world...

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