Unfortunately I read for a bit too long and didn’t make it to the gym until 5:30. I had a couple options at that point: try and blend in to the kids class that was in the back room I wanted to use or head over to the main room and take Dino Costeas’ (www.DinoCosteas.tv) beginner Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class. I hadn’t actually taken part in a BJJ class since last spring when I partially tore my acl, mcl and bruised three different areas of one of my knees sparring.  

I seriously considered option one since those students were more along my skill level and pace but ultimately decided on seeing what was going on in Coach Dino’s class. I already knew that I had enough mobility to drill certain techniques off of my back, but kneeling is out of the question because of the bone bruises.

I asked and sure enough Coach said that he planned to be teaching some basic (right up my alley) guard techniques. I gave it a go.

And boy did it feel good. There was nothing fancy, I just drilled some great techniques (escape from the knee on stomach position and an arm drag from inside your closed guard into an arm bar) with my excellent teammates, but being on the mat and moving step by step along maneuvers really was wonderful thing to experience again.

It’s a little hard to explain but essentially it comes down to the fact that I was again doing, in some capacity, one of the things I enjoy most in this world for the first time in a long while. Substitute in your mind whatever it is you enjoy doing and I’m sure you’ll be able to understand.

My partners were gentle, my knee held up and yes, I had enough energy for about a half hour of drilling from my raw/vegan meals. No question.

I still look forward to pushing my heart rate a little bit and seeing if my lungs will be clearer and more functional from the cheese ease of the last few days. Right now, the tentative plan is to head back to the gym tomorrow afternoon before the Sabbath (that would be Friday sunset until Saturday sunset for all you wondering what I mean).

I’ll try to remember to bring a camera and get some shots of the gym, any teammates milling around and hopefully not of me gasping for air in some corner of the mats.

More of my long-promised details soon to come as well.

This detox program I’m on involves four stages – one for each week- and since I have yet to, I’ll be sure to break down what stage one is made up of. For example, morning meditation is a part of it (I’ve been attempting to read and meditate on a different Bible verse each day. Today was Romans 8:28)

We just picked up our second “live box” (all our prepared food) of the week and I have my eye on the two pieces of “cheese” cake (carrot and chocolate. I’ve had them both and they are crazy good) as well as a lasagna.

By the way, before I forget: I spoke with the Chef and owner of Cousin’s IV (Chef Mehmet) tonight and asked him one of the most common questions I’ve been getting from all of you and I think you will like the answer…Cousin’s IV does overnight meals out of state.

I don’t know all the details, obviously there would be an extra shipping charge, but he said the thing for all those interested to do is simply call and ask about it. Head to www.Cousinsiv.com for their phone number and give them a ring!

So today I’m going to put my raw/vegan fueled energy to the test with my first real workout in about two weeks. I’ve had bronchitis for awhile and forced myself to take it easy. Since starting the diet/cleanse on Sunday night I’ve thrown in a little leg exercises for my injured knee as well as push ups and walking in but nothing very taxing.

Tonight I’ll be heading over to Team Dino Costeas’ in the POW gym and seeing what I can do on all these good greens I’ve been ingesting. I’m still somewhat limited by what I can do by my knee but there’s plenty I can still do to break a sweat. Here’s my goal for tonight:

• Three, five minute rounds on the heavy bag.

• One five minute round of ab work. • Fifty arm bars drilled from the guard.

• Not pass out.

To be fair to the diet, I’ll take into account the fact that I’m coming off of being pretty sick and that I just haven’t gotten off my butt much for two weeks. But I think I’ll be able to separate that from just low energy overall and assess how much I’ve got in there from the change in diet.

I’ll keep you all posted and I’ll also get some photos so stay tuned!

Also check out my coach Dino’s website. It’s pretty crazy but there’s simply no better Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA coach in the world as far as I’m concerned.

www.dinocosteas.tv

-Elias

www.InsideFighting.com

A meal from Cousin’s IV in Chicago, IL. Photo credit: http://cousinsiv.com/gallery.htm    

Just 24 hours into this whole raw/vegan detox program, I noticed an interesting thing happening. I was both satisfied and craving like a mother.

With each meal I had managed to get quite full, so in that sense I was satisfied. I was also more than satisfied with the flavor of all of the foods.

Yet, I couldn’t keep the thoughts of potato chips, handfuls of cheese, slices of toasted bread and many other things from almost quite literally flying around in my head. I’ve never been one of those vivid food dreamers.

I just usually wake up very hungry and proceed to eat with little interruption throughout the day. But by night fall of my very first full day (Monday) of eating all uncooked vegan food I was scared of closing my eyes because little hamburgers with wings kept teasing me.

 That’s actually what I saw with my mind’s eye. Honestly, I feel a bit guilty for this.

There I was, entirely full of food that I enjoyed thoroughly, yet all I could think of was “more” and “fatty” (foods, that is).

 It’s one thing to justify overeating by saying you need to “fuel” your workouts and things like that. Or to even slip up and gorge on junk food after going too long without eating.

But to realize that you just crave food because you’re a bit of a slob is a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t feel weak, hungry and wasn’t left with a bitter taste in my mouth. I just wanted to eat more of what I wanted because I wanted it.

Actual impoverished and hungry kids across the world probably get an extra pain in their tummies any time a person like me wastes food. And eating more than one needs is just another way of wasting food.

Is that it, I wonder? Am I just a pig?

Or perhaps a more complex way of looking at it; have I conditioned myself to overindulge so much that I don’t even know what real hunger is, what it can feel like?

I didn’t know what I was feeling that first day (and this has pretty much continued Tuesday and today). Was I hungry? No. My stomach was full.

So is what I have always thought of as “hunger” actually just some sort of psychological craving? Or am I in some way actually physically addicted to the fats, salts and sweets that I eat tons of?

It feels like a combination of both at this point. My mind reflexively tells me to reach out to that item in the fridge that I’m currently abstaining from and when I resist I actually feel something deeper in my body saying something’s missing.

Yet I’m not less energetic, in fact my throat is beginning to feel better from the bronchitis, so I don’t think I’m being undernourished meal per meal. I’ve also begun to do some minor exercising again.

I think I’ve realized something about myself. A big reason of why I eat most of the time I do is just because I eat. It’s something, or a main thing, that I do.

Maybe this is realization is healthy, maybe not. But I’m not sure I’m at ease with it. Will I enjoy food less if I look forward to it less greedily (and if you think the term “greedy” is harsh, you obviously haven’t seen me go through several plates of pasta in two and a half bites and 3 minutes)?

As always, if you’re new to the Blog, scroll down for the part preceding this entry. Tomorrow I’m going to start breaking down my days in more detail and with more simplicity. Ie. What do I weigh each morning? What do I eat? Have I fallen off in any way and how? You know, the good stuff of personal failing and lack of discipline.

God Bless,

-Elias

Thanks to everyone for reading, I’m so happy with the amounts of people reading this, it’s growing every day. And thanks also to all the other sites, blogs and people on forums that are posting links to this. I’ll do my best to keep everyone posted.

Oh yeah, I’ll be putting up som basic facts about myself in simple form so that not all of my poasts will be in long ranting form. Things I’ve been asked like,”why are you doing this?”  Are you keeping track of your weight? Little things like that.

For the time being, check out some of these links:

www.CousinsIV.com The restaurant that is providing my meals.

www.PaulNison.com Very interesting raw food chef with a great story. He cured himself of Crohn’s Disease with lifestyle changes. Heard him give a talk last weekend. Crazy fascinating stuff. Gets you thinking and gets you moving.

Thanks for all the letters to Elias@insidefighting.com Keep them coming. If I get enough I’ll do a “mailbag” feature here. Thanks to the UG (www.mma.tv/tuf ) especially for checking this out and those at www.FightLinker.com as well for all their links to the blog.

 Take care and God Bless,

-Elias

Kebobs of goodness (far left and far right). One with a nice meaty texture and taste and the other with some tasteful but lightly seasoned vegetables. Center, on a bed of lettuce, is a scrumptious mound of rice-like stuff that is sweet and satisfying, topped with a sun dried tomato.

Stuffed red bell pepper (left) and stuffed mushroom (right). Two of my favorites so far. I’ve always been particular with stuffed bell peppers of any sort in the past and I’ve never, ever really enjoyed them raw in any fashion. But the peppers they use at Cousin’s must be some of the best in the world as I found this one full of flavors I never knew existed in an uncooked bell pepper before. Crisp and sweet and bright. I can’t stop eating these. Food mushrooms, on the other hand are something I’ve always liked in just about any way in any type of cuisine- except not too much when they were raw, ie. in salads – so I was worried that these un cooked version might ruin mushrooms for me. Not at all. They manage to get the mushroom nice and tender and it’s just very good. The things both are stuffed with seem to be a combination of nuts and seeds (but I’ll find out what, exactly) and is as tasty as popcorn to me. That may sound wierd, but to me, it’s a good thing.

Ok, first the bad news. When I signed on to “go raw” (and vegan) for a month I thought the deal was that I’d have to switch all my meals to raw meals -being prepared by Cousin’s IV- and that was one thing.

I was actually fine with that in concept since I had already sampled some of their dishes and was satisfied with the taste and substance. There was a Sunday night meeting each week, I knew, and I figured they’d just be giving us tips on how to prepare raw things for ourselves and explaining the science behind things.

It was with that notion in mind that I headed to Cousin’s last night. But I soon realized that one side effect of not actually reading into things myself is that I don’t always know what’s going on.

You see, it’s true that I’ll be getting the “live box” meals from Cousin’s but that’s not all there’s to this “detox” diet. There’s also a “cleanse.”

Honestly, beyond an occasional shower and washing my hands before eating I am pretty unfamiliar with “cleanses.” Given that I’m pretty ignorant all around and in this area in particular I’ll get to the guts of what hit me hard in learning that we’d be cleansing: At some point in the month, we’ll be eating less. And then with seven days left we’ll be fasting.

Just when I had sort of come to terms with going a month without cheese I now realize there will be some time that I’ll have to come to terms with not eating much at all. Medically, there doesn’t seem to be any risk of not getting enough calories as even the “fasting” period contains as much fresh juices and herbs as we can put in, but still…I don’t know.

There was one time I chose to eat a pizza in front of the computer while reading and I got so engrossed in the material that a half hour later I realized I hadn’t finished the entire pizza. There was one slice sitting there unattended, I realized, for what must have been fifteen minutes.

As I have been known to eat in my sleep, that incident was probably the closest thing I’ve ever done to fasting for any period of time.

The Good News

So yes, I’m a bit scared about the fact that at some point I may be called upon to fast but there’s a pleasantly surprising silver lining to all this. I went to a dinner lecture at Cousin’s on Saturday night (more on that soon coming) and then started the program last night.

And after two all you can buffets (from the back to back lectures) and two meals in to this new day and I can say to anyone with assurance that the food made at Cousin’s IV is unbelievably good tasting. Good, period.

Many of us are used to putting qualifiers before descriptions of “healthy food” we eat. It’s really a case of low expectations coupled with good intentions.

That was pretty good for a fake hamburger, not bad for a vegan cheese cake,  we might remember saying at best between curled-lip bites.

Now everything at Cousin’s is raw, vegan and mostly if not all organic. And everything I’ve had so far (at least twenty different items at each buffet and several more in my own live box so far) tastes very good. Not for raw food, not for meatless food. It’s just delicious food.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this so far. I mean I had pretty high expectations taste wise going in because I was familiar with Chef Mehmet Ak’s work from year’s past.

Chef Mehmet was the owner and chef of quite a few Cousin’s locations here in Chicago and my family and I had frequented some of his locations over the years for some time in the past. The environment was comfortable and elegant, the prices nice and most importantly, the food fantastic.

It was just great Turkish/Mediterranean food. When I learned that Chef Mehmet had switched to raw and vegan, I thought, “huh, that can’t be too bad. After all, I know this guy can cook up a storm. “

I’d rather try the product from a great chef who later learned to prepare healthy food than that of a healthy person who doesn’t know how to cook. My expectations were high but the food is even better than I thought.

It ain’t bad to look at either. I’ve got photos of dishes coming up soon so everyone can get a feel for the stuff I’m eating from day to day.

Day 1

Every morning as a part of this program we are to do a few things including some quiet meditation (a nice passage from Matthew chapter 5 verses 13 through 16 worked well for me today), and the spaced out drinking of ten herb pills. These things are from the Ejuva cleanse.

After giving that some time to chill out in my stomach I gave some simple exercises a shot for first time in over a week. I have bronchitis and am on antibiotics (wrapping that up today) and have tried to take it easy lately. I ate a banana and then did a couple push ups and leg exercises for rehabbing my injured knee and headed down to the fridge.

I pulled out some “sushi” wraps, tossed in some avocado from my spinach salad and another bit of this green cilantro salad, and a dessert of a raw chocolate pie and headed back up to read the latest on the presidential races. It was all very tasty. And filling.

That’s something that I’m pretty concerned with. I got a question on the mma.tv underground forum from our friend Ron asking why I’m doing this. Is it weight loss? He’s met me before and knows that my bean pole physique can probably not handle losing any muscle.

I’m not trying to lose weight. I want to basically try and put highly alkaline foods into my body and see what happens. Chef Mehmet says he works out every day and he certainly seems full of energy. He told the group last night that he just did the cleanse and he looked far from weak or too light.

Plus, the whole thing is all you can eat so I’m definitely going to try and avoid losing weight. The truth is I’ve been starting to get all sorts of pains after I eat and I think it’s because a. I eat too much at a time and b. maybe some of the meals (or a lot of them) are not too good for me.

I think it’s possible that eating better, drinking more water and sleeping more might help me be less sickly, rehab my knee and get me back into training. Not to mention the fact that I’m not too keen on getting any lifestyle diseases. I want to see what this stuff can do towards that end.

Since my breakfast I’ve eaten an apple and done a little more exercise. Feeling full and pretty good. I’ve gotten a bunch more questions already and I thank everyone for them.

I’m going to try and address some of them in each post. One of the big ones has to do with people just wanting to know what I’m eating. So I’ve already gotten some photos and I’ll be putting them up soon. For now, please enjoy photos of my herb kit and me. The herb kit is in a box. I’m in a confused and nervous state thinking about eventually fasting.

My herbs. Boy that’s a lot of pills!

Peanuts isn’t doing the cleanse. But she’s already on an almost all organic diet. Her sun dress is organic hemp as well.

Holding my herbs thinking about how I’m going to have to fast at some point

Thanks for reading!

Over the next weeks and month I’ll be busy interviewing fighters, writing and editing stories and coordinating coverage of big events like those of the UFC. That’s normal. But what will be a bit different is the fact that I’ll be trying to do it, as well as everything else in my life, fueled entirely by raw food.

Interestingly enough, raw food isn’t an oxymoronic phrase much to my own surprise. Apparently there’s a whole world of appetizers, entrees and desserts prepared without actual heated cooking. What’s more, there are those who say such meals are actually healthier than my typical (and wonderful, if I do say so myself) fare of all sorts of battered, fried, baked, stewed, at least sautéed delicacies.

Even crazier some of this weird stuff is supposed to be pretty tasty. We’ll, I guess I’m now officially one of the people  with such an opinion as recently I’ve occassionally free loaded some pretty good items from Chicago’s Cousin’s Incredible Vitality (IV, for short) from my mother, who is giving a raw food diet a sincere go, and I have to say I’ve enjoyed it.  

I made the mistake of commenting openly about how the odd falafel wrap and tomato soup from Cousin’s kitchen was pretty good and now a generous late Christmas gift offer from my beautiful girlfriend has me set to begin a month long period of all raw meals beginning tonight.

Last week I ate pizza on three different days. I considered that an average week.

This morning I fried some eggs, beans, sausage (yes, it was veggie but it was still nice and greasy) for breakfast and when I step away from the computer in a few moments it will be to make a few grilled cheese sandwiches (All this may not be so great for my lingering bronchitis but hey, I love cheese and oil).  The closest I’ve ever gotten to eating full raw meals before was gorging myself on entirely too much tempura-laden sushi (for example, a week from last Friday at the Sushi Lounge all you can eat buffet. Yes, I recommend it highly.) and that wasn’t even fully raw.

Occasionally I’ve eaten cold pizza but unfortunately I’ve also recently learned that doesn’t count as raw. I know I like the items at Cousins, but I’m not sure how well I’ll react at, let’s say, hour 12 without cheese (raw cheese exists, but I’ll be eating raw and vegan).

I won’t get into now what cheese has meant to my life, but I will say that my “Eat Cheese or Die” t-shirt is at this very second downstairs in the clean clothes pile waiting for me to bring it up to my closet. I am genuinely interested to see what this “detox” diet will do for my overall health. Covering boxing and MMA, I’ve run into many fighters who eliminate dairy from  at least their training camp diets and go out of their way to eat dark leafy green vegetables to balance their body, reduce acid and have the energy to do the amazing things they do in the ring.

Will this diet along with sleeping more and drinking enough water help me get rid of this bronchitis? If it does and I can get back to my own meager physical training, will I have enough energy from this raw, vegan diet not to pass out on the mats?

We’ll see. I’ll also ask health, fitness and fighting (for my base) experts to weigh in on this whole raw thing.  

All this in addition to detailed accounts of my hunger pangs, dairy withdrawal, and photos of my food, will make up this blog. So will answers to any questions I get from readers.    

I hope you enjoy it. If not, I’d rather you write me at Elias@insidefighting.com to tell me why and give me time to possibly improve it before you check out entirely.