I went to a lecture by Tim Van Orden, a raw food runner, and it was just what I needed to jump-start my enthusiasm. This month has been driven by hormones, and once the Time of the Moon passed, I found myself naturally gravitating more to raw foods. The time change and shift of season by calender did not help, but hey, now it's spring and the loopiness has passed.
But when I heard that extra something in the vibes of this speaker's voice, and felt positive energy radiating from his fit body/mind, I suddenly remembered why I'm doing this! The lecture was about reaching peak performance for athletes; as a martial artist I was very interested. What got to me, though, was that this fellow basically up and went from a sack of chronic fatigue to a competition athlete -- in five short years!
Now, I have been dabbling in this lifestyle for about eight years now, and I am nowhere near peak performance. But that's because I have never been too consistent. This lean, keen, running machine IS consistent, and naturally his results are consistent. How much more obvious of an example could I hope for?
The most important info I gleaned is actually a fact that I'd had presented to me before, but somehow forgotten: our livers fun on fructose, a fruit sugar, which is what converts to brain fuel, and after a night of sleep during which you repair your busted stuff, that liver is hungry. And if you don't feed it, your body has no choice but to start yanking fuel from other places -- like muscle mass! I won't bore you with the details -- this is not a scientific paper and you can go research all this yourself -- but suffice it to say that for some reason, this time that image clicked. Just that morning, I'd rationalized going out for coffee: there's my starving liver, and I dump burned toxic bean residue into my gut for it to deal with! And then nothing else for hours. Gaaaaaah!!
Here's the part even I can't quite believe. The next morning, I got up and DID NOT WANT COFFEE!! Not only that, I didn't want tea, either -- all I wanted was to dump a green smoothy into that belly and imagine my liver smiling, Aaah, thanks Skya, you figured it out. So that's exactly what I did, and to my surprize I was every bit as woken-up by the nutrients as I usually am by caffeine!! I went the whole day just fine, and I have so far done the same today.
OMG, could it be that I have just shucked off a habit that's started my day for over 30 years, just like that, instantly?! Regardless of chemical arguments, the amount of mental energy I have expended worrying over my caffeine consumption has been significant enough that if I can just stop craving it -- instantly! -- then I am freed from a powerful addiction. It's too soon to guarantee anything, but I honestly don't want the stuff, it does not even sound good right now. Talk about peak performance!!