About a month ago, my youngest asked if she could eat raw too. We were in the car with the other kids at the time who proceeded to rattle off a list of things she wouldn’t be able to eat if she was eating raw.

“Hmm, maybe I’ll wait till after my birthday,” she said.

Fast forward a few weeks, her eighth birthday passed and she forgot about eating raw. That is, until today. She saw me eating a big bowl of fruit and said, “Mom, can I eat raw too?” I asked if she was sure and when she wanted to begin. “Right now,” she said. The older three were in the kitchen and again began listing things that weren’t raw. She said she didn’t care, she wanted to eat raw anyway. She did ask if she could eat some of my dried pineapple if she was raw (they aren’t allowed to touch it). I guess I’ll have to share now.

I’m not looking forward to watching my eight year old go through detox. I warned her that she may feel bad at first… she was undaunted. Since I haven’t been 100% raw lately (despite wanting to be), I’m going to use this opportunity to have a “raw buddy”. I’ve mentioned before how difficult it is to be a lone raw vegan in a cooked vegan house (I can’t imagine how difficult it would be in a SAD house). Hopefully, knowing I’m not alone will help me make it through the first few days again.

This is also the child who has asked to run with me many times. I did take her out on a walk/run last week (and we’ll go again this week). She’s got to build up for a few weeks or so as she can’t run a mile without walking just yet.  She tends to go full speed, and then, of course, doesn’t have the energy to finish. I think the Husband plans to work with her as well on his lighter workout days. He did bribe all three girls to run 3/4 of a mile for seven bucks… which they did. Hmm, it’s amazing what a bit of cash will do for one’s motivation.

In light of my having a buddy, I think I will do another RAW challenge. I have 53 days till my next half-marathon. Could I eat raw for 53 days? My last challenge was 30 days (although I think I did 44 days before having cooked food)….. brief interruption…

… Ha ha! Well, the eight year old came in and noticed I was writing about her. She wants to do 53 days of raw too. Wow! This won’t be easy. I think I’ll help her make a chart for her room so she can mark her progress. I can’t help but wonder if there is someone out there who might want to join me in the challenge. Maybe you don’t want to go raw, but rather would like to try vegetarian or vegan first? Or maybe you have some other plan you would like to follow and participating in a challenge might give you some accountability. If that’s you, please leave a comment and then check in daily (or weekly if daily is too much) to let me know how you’re doing. If you’re planning to blog your progress, by all means, let me know where you live on the web. The 53 days doesn’t start till in the morning (although, so far, I’m 100% raw today), but you can jump in at whatever point works for you. You could begin on Saturday (that’s when I will log my starting weight because I try not to weigh myself during the week), which would give you a few days to work out your plan of attack for your challenge.

I’ll post tomorrow with more information about my personal challenge guidelines.