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new to vegan/raw lifestyle, but trying hard!

short intro...

My name is shelli, i am in my thirties, a christian, and a professional photographer for over 15 years.... i am transitioning from a "Zone" diet to trying veganism and raw.

It is a total switch for me, because i came from having 77-100 grams of protein a day from meat and dairy to only allowing myself 1 meat meal a day.... next week, 1 or 2 a week, the following, none. i am finding it doesn't taste as good already and i've only been doing this for about 3-4 days. I just tried raw made easy for 1 or 2 peoples apple pie... OH MY GOSH! IT IS DELICIOUS!!!! i couldn't wait the 8 hours for trhe apples to soften, i had to try some after 1 hour. it was so very good.

also tried the chocolate cake... used carob... that has a twang... should have used cocoa.

a few questions...

i have studied nutrition, and really got into it by mike adams natural news site at first.... the zone diet of course helped me, and i lost almost 100 lbs. I work out (normally) 3-4 days a week at a gym. i also do pilates type stuff. i am 15 pounds from my goal weight. how do i switch from the "zone " mindset and get cozy with getting adaquate protein from plant sources? i've been doing some beans and rice at dinner trying to avoid meat a bit more... but it makes me feel like a puffer fish!

sample daily menu

green smoothie for breakfast

salad for lunch or leftovers

regular healthy dinner, if meatless than i've been doing something yummy like the other day i made portobello mushroom fajitas in corn tortillas... that made me say, i could do 2 meals a day raw and a cooked one during transition and be JUST FINE meatless. i also had ani phyos baja raw tacos one day, they were pretty yummy! the cashew cheese requires some adjusting, but i like cashews so it will be ok. lol

Anyway...

1. i know the zone diet worked, as i lost all the weight and i was NEVER hungry... it goes against every grain in my body to eat all carbs and no animal or dairy protein (complete 180!)_... i know dairy is bad, that is why i'm trying to stop it.... any suggestions? science?

2. during transition, i'm looking for healthy very tasty vegan recipes, cooked or raw... some cooked preferably to help my family try it too.

3. how long does it take for the energy to kick in? i have been trying to stop coffee too, and i am pretty tired... sort of scary i've been like this a while and it was disguised with caffeine!

4. if i eat too many fruits, it makes me queezy, just like NO MORE SWEETS!!! but i'm scared of the high nut and fat diets because of obvious reasons... what do you suggest... i like the different nut based meat substitutes! rawvolutions mock chicken salad...; YUM

why am i going vegan? just in case you have curiousity... one i hate the way the coorporations have control of the food supplies. 2. i hate animals being treated badly.

3. i don't want to feed my family processed crap. 4. God says this body is my temple, it also says i am a temple for the Holy Ghost... so if i am abusing my body, i am preventing myself from accomplishing my purpose, and setting a bad example. if you have a guest, you straighten the house! :) 5. i want to be healthy and enjoy adventures, not look back in 50 years and wish i had treated myself better!

4. i want a blendtech, but have to save up. what do you use them for besides smoothies???

5. i want to lose some of the excess baggage that comes along with losing that much weight, and i have a few cysts under the skin, (doc says fatty deposits and such) i want to go away... will this help any?

Thanks, and any advice is helpful.... any suggestions for great recipes that don't require much more than a blender and food processor is great too. right now i have a cuisinart blender/food proc combo....i'm normally a bit shorter, but this is my first post and i had lots of questions...

Comments

  • freewitheftfreewitheft Raw Newbie

    Hi Shelli,

    I think doing 2 raw meals then a cooked dinner is a great transition. Don't push yourself too hard or you will rebel and binge on stuff that you wish you hadn't. ;)

    1. If you feel like you need more protein, try hemp powder. I use it in my post-workout smoothie and I do think it makes a difference if you are trying to gain some muscle with weight-bearing exercise. That will also probably be a factor in your question #5, getting rid of loose skin and such - weight training should help with that.

    3. I didn't notice a huge difference when I switched to raw last summer, but I noticed a difference a couple years ago when I first eliminated gluten, casein, soy, etc. It took about a month, maybe a little longer. I just woke up one morning and it was like a switch had been flipped. I hadn't even realized the level of fatigue I had reached until it was gone and I was back to my old self!

    4. Your body will probably adjust to eating more fruit, so just try upping your amount every now and then and see how you react.

    Off to get dinner, I'm sure someone else will pop in with your other questions. :)

  • I will second the hemp as a good complete protein (otherwords, it has all the amino acids in it your body can not make on it's own, the "essential amino acids" ). Quinoa is another good complete protein. Yes, you can get all your essential amino acids from only greens and fruit, but you have to eat alot more of them. So, you may want to start with adding hemp, quinoa or another good complete protein to your diet first.

    I don't believe the problem is not getting enough protein, but getting enough of all the essential amino acids. Here's a link to a vegan site listing RDA requirements for the essential amino acids, and the amount that is in different foods.

    http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/protein

    As you can see, it's definately "doable. " And as you'll see in the article, you don't have to neccessarily get all of them in one meal. You just wouldn't want to neglect getting enough of a particular one for a long time. That's why variety is helpful if you are not eating a complete protein. Variety helps you get different vitamins anyways, which is good in itself.

    The beans and rice made you feel puffy? Try eating them in separate meals- it may be the beans. If your eating rice, best to stick with the brown (much healthier). Soaking beans overnight before cooking sometimes helps with the gas too. A raw option would be to try bean sprouts. Many here like them. I don't care for bean sprouts so much, but I don't mind the mung bean sprouts. They don't make me gassy at least:-)

    If getting away from meat is important to you, I say give some of the meat substitues a try. They do help with transitioning. But, try not to rely on them as a staple of your diet.

    And the fruit- have you tried mixing a fruit salad up with chopped romain lettuce (or another easy on the stomach type like bibb or even iceburg?). For some reason it "cuts up the sweet" for me and I can eat more fruit that way.

    Anyways, good luck. Sounds like your doing awesome already:-)

  • PUFFY, i looked pregnant i was so bloated.. LOL, I am spoiled with jay robbs protein powder, it is good, not chalky, and unfortunately, dairy! i had some veg protein once it was awful... what type tastes best, and what do you mix it with?

    also, do you worry about the high glycemic index and insulin etc from all the bananas etc?

    thanks for your help so far, it is GREATLY appreciated!

  • sv3sv3 Raw Newbie

    You should not worry about GI/insulin issues from ANY fresh fruit. It's totally natural!

    You should read this: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/02/raw-food-diet/

    It's a sum up of this guy's 30 day trial of the low-fat raw food diet (801010) and shows eating a shed load of fruit has no effect on blood sugar.

  • jakkrabbitjakkrabbit Raw Newbie

    1. Milk Is A Deadly Poison:

    http://www.notmilk.com/

    There are TONS of milk alternatives: rice milk, potato milk, coconut milk, soy milk (which I don't personally recommend, given the amount of health issues associated with unfermented soy), almond milk, cashew/pecan/walnut/macadamia milk, hemp milk, probably even sesame milk... Some of these you can buy, and all of them you can make in a blender and strain with a nutmilk bag, or if you want things to go even quicker and easier, just buy a SoyaBella, SoyJoy, SoyQuick, SoyPower, or any other nutmilk maker, for $100, or under if you get one on kijiji or ebay. Check out this site (also tons of juicers on there as well) http://www.discountjuicers.com/soyabella.html

    There's even fruit milks which you make in a blender or food processor, such as date, fig, or apricot milk.

    2. Try why.veg, the gone raw recipe section, http://veganpeace.blogspot.com, etc. The internet is overflowing with recipes. Check out books from your local library as well. Just type raw or vegan into the library catalogue search engine.

    3. About a week. Your body is going through detox, and all it's energy is being used to rid your body of toxins, mucus, debris, and years of stored waste. Also, the enrgy is being diverted from you muscles, to your internal organs, for healing. Take it easy on yourself - don't do too much physical activity during the first week.

    4. Experiment around. High fruit, or high veggies/greens, or high fat... all work well for certain people. It's all about finding out what YOUR body needs. You'll find the balance eventually. I had planned high greens but my body does best on lots of fruit, and screams at me with even modest amounts of fat, so I keep my fat intake really low. The 80/10/10 style naturally works for me without forcing, since it's what my body wants.

    5. You'll hear debate forever of Vitamix vs. Blendtech, but I personally went with a Vitamix because it's slightly less expensive and you can also get a discount if you buy a demo model - just speak to a customer service rep about this. My Vitamix works fantastic, I couldn't be happier. It comes with a recipe book as well, and besides smoothies you can make juice, nut milks, nut butters, vegetable cocktails, blended salads, soups/chowders (the Vitamix can make them hot for you if you want), sauces, dips, spreads, dressings and marinades, desserts, pie fillings, puddings, ice cream, sorbet, salsa, and bread/muffin/cookie/brownie dough. It can also make icing sugar, and cut up some foods for food prep. If I got the dry blade, I could make flours and nutmeal as well.

    Extra:

    Do NOT worry about protein. You only need 30-50g/day max. Some believe even less. Too much protein is actually the cause of a number of health issues, including liver problems and calcium deficiencies. I tend to agree with the line of thought which says we don't need protein at all and don't need to worry about 'complete' proteins, that the only thing we need is the building blocks themselves, amino acids, which come from fresh produce.

    Do yourself a HUGE favor and watch this video, it'll clear up a lot of confusion for you:

  • jakkrabbitjakkrabbit Raw Newbie

    BTW, here's a list for food cravings from a raw food uncookbook - it's just somewhere to get started and give you some ideas:

    When you crave: apple pie

    Eat or drink this: raw apple pie

    When you crave: burritos

    Eat or drink this: sunflower herb pate

    When you crave: candy bar

    Eat or drink this: almond butter candy

    When you crave: cheese

    Eat or drink this: tahini cheese

    When you crave: chip dip

    Eat or drink this: sprouted hummus

    When you crave: chocolate

    Eat or drink this: raw carob treat

    When you crave: dessert

    Eat or drink this: sensous fruit salad

    When you crave: drugs and alcohol

    Eat or drink this: green juice

    When you crave: ice cream

    Eat or drink this: nut milk smoothie with almond butter, chilled

    When you crave: ice cream, milkshakes, candy

    Eat or drink this: fruit smoothies

    When you crave: liverwurst, meat, beans & rice

    Eat or drink this: seed pate

    When you crave: meat, meat loaf

    Eat or drink this: nut loaf

    When you crave: meat, sushi

    Eat or drink this: nut sushi, veggie sushi rolls

    When you crave: milk

    Eat or drink this: canteloupe milk, or nutmilk, etc etc

    When you crave: milkshake

    Eat or drink this: nutmilk smoothie

    When you crave: pastry, breakfast cereal, pies

    Eat or drink this: oatmeal treat

    When you crave: pizza

    Eat or drink this: nut pizza, raw pizza

    When you crave: protein shake

    Eat or drink this: tahini milk

    When you crave: puree, pudding, jello

    Eat or drink this: watermelon juice, chia pudding, avocado chocolate pudding

    When you crave: ratatouille, italian sauce dishes

    Eat or drink this: raw ratatouille, raw tomato sauce

    When you crave: salad dressings

    Eat or drink this: raw salad dressings

    When you crave: thai food

    Eat or drink this: raw thai lemon coconut soup

    Some other basic cooking replacements are flax oil in place of butter, nut meal in place of meat, and marinated veggies in place of cooked veggies.

    While the above is based on recipes from that particular uncookbook itself, here's a great and simple raw food conversion chart that you could even print off and put on your fridge:

    http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/raw-food-diet-conversion-chart.html

  • powerliferpowerlifer Raw Newbie

    caffiene wears out the adrenal glands much like any other CNS stimulant, it will take time for your adrenals to kick back into gear, if you want to speed up the restoration of the adrenals whilst giving your a energy boost plus a whole host of other benefits then adaptogenic herbs such as ashwagandha, suma root, jiaogulan, siberian ginseng, schizandra are good sources.

     

  • Shelli,

    To address some of your questions more directly:

    I would highly recommend a book called "Anni's Raw Food Kitchen". It has a lot of good recipies and ideas to base your diet on.

    I also have the same blender and food processor you have as well as an Acme juicer. Although I will be buying an Omega vert juicer in the near future since it allows me to juice a wider variety of things.

    As far as dairy products go, I guess if you were a baby cow, then you might want to continue to take them since that is what they are designed for. Other than that, I don't know of any rational reason why a human should ingest dairy products. There are transitional products you can easily buy at most supermarkets like almond milk. coconut milk, almond cheeze, and soy cheeze(although I am not a big fan of soy milk or products)

    I'm not sure about what your doctor is calling cysts or fatty deposits. Depending on their size, It seems like you might want to have them excised and checked to make sure they are not something else or at least just to get rid of them.

    I hope this helps.

    Steve

  • just for the record, i was saying that i have been stopping dairy, and needed a vegetable or hemp protein powder that has great taste, not chalky! :)

    http://www.jayrobb.com/cat_proteinRiceAll.asp i may have found an alternative. :)

  • jakkrabbitjakkrabbit Raw Newbie

    If you really think you need extra protein, try Sun Warrior Rice Protein.

  • thank you for the extensive and helpful answers, jakkrabbit, thanks for all the links as well, great resources! :)

    I've been trying to get a copy of the china study, but i have like a hundred dollars of books i want right now... going to have to get one at at time!

    My only concern for protein at this time, is one, i work out, and two, i am not sure if i'm getting the dietary variety i need yet, since this is all new, and i am trying to figure it out.'

    today i didn't do so hot... but back on the wagon tomorrow.

  • jakkrabbitjakkrabbit Raw Newbie

    Protein Myth and Raw Foods (posted by a raw vegan bodybuilder)

    Part 1

    Part 2

    BTW, don't think of yourself as 'falling off the wagon' right now, think of it as the fact that you're transitioning. Let yourself transition at the rate you need to.

    But just sme thoughts on the on the wagon/off the wagon yo-yo, here's a good excerpt from "The Raw Food Lifestyle" by Ruthann Russ, MD: - I've got the book on my lap and I'm typing this out just for you:)

    "In my travels through the raw food diet community, I have run into individuals who describe themselves as constantly going back an forth between raw and non-raw cuisine. This is not necessarily a bad thing if you subscribe to the raw food philosophy overall and just bounce back and forth in your percentags. For example, I have heard many people describe themselves as being 75 % raw in the cold months and 100% in the summer months. Because these ndividuals usually crave hot, cooked foods in the cold months, cooked foods constitute the remaining 25 % during the winter.

    Raw food leaders, like Gabriel Cousens, describe this type of practice as healthful. And individuals who practice this are likely to obtain sustained benefits from eating a diet of living foods. These folks return to a higher percentage of raw foods when it makes sense for them. They stay in the healthful rnge overall, but leave themselves some slack to respond to their body's changes.

    On the other hand, extremists are individuals who go from on end of the diet spectrum to the other, eating toally raw for a month or two and then eating totally cooked and/or processed food for a few months. A good example of this was during a recent raw food preparation retreat I attended. While in class, everyone at least professed to be a raw foodist. And the only type of food available on the retreat campus was indeed raw. However, there were usually three or four of the students who would drive into town each evening , find a restaurant, and load up on cooked food, desserts, and sweets that they would sneak back nto the retreat. You could usually hear the discussions the next morning before the instructor started class. Tis is not unlike othe types of dietary extremes we hear about. For example, it is not uncommon for individuals to bounce back and forth from the Atkns diet to the Stadard American Diet. One secretary to a CEO at a large corporation once told me that in her lifetime she had lost more than two thousand pounds on the Atkins diet. It took me a while before I realized that the weight she was talking about was cumulative losses over time. Her story as an example o dietary extremism, also known as the yo-yo effect.

    The problem with the dietary extremists at the raw foo retreat was thatthey treate the raw lifestyle as a diet. As long as you believe it is a diet, you will likely react asyou would to any diet: adhering for a short time (or maybe even a long time), but eventually reverting back to old habits. Thispractice is not a healthy one. It is possible that any health benefits gained from the raw food intake would be neated by consistently reverting bak to intake of cooked and processed foods. The costant stress of change on the body can be damaging. The raw food and living foods lifestyle is mean to bring about ease, not stress. So practicing extreme eating is conterproductive to the lifestyle."

  • jakkrabbitjakkrabbit Raw Newbie

    I want to know what you consider 'falling off the wagon' because if you had a cooked meal or a dessert or non-raw treat, that's not 'falling off' anything. No one says you have to be 100% raw. Or that yo hve to do it overnight. Or that you have to be 100% raw 100% of the time. Here's a really balanced opinion on raw, just to bring things into a little bit of perspective:

    Re: Rawfood vs paleo diet - hormones, neuropathy, palpitations, hypertensiopn by Larryb ..... Raw Food Debate Forum

    Date: 6/16/2008 4:46:47 AM ( 20 mon ago)

    Popularity: 1860

    URL: http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1195855

    Even though I'm working to go a much higher percent raw, I think lots of raw foodist who think they need to be 100% raw are missing the forest for the trees. So many people define themselves on what they DON'T eat. Our bodies were made to extract as much nutrition as possible from ANY food source. Otherwise mankind wouldnt flourish in so many varied environments.

    With soil depletion, and a generally increasingly inferior world wide food supply, maximizing nutrition intake with raw foods makes a lot of sense. However the truth is, there are lots of vegetables, grains etc that are actually unusable by the body unless they're cooked. As long as food's made with good ingredients, variety is key to hedging your nutritional bets.

    I see people all the time bragging that they want to get down to eating just this one food item as some kind of pure diet. I can never understand how people think limiting variety in their diet is a positive (as long as the usual poisons of refined sugar, salts, starches and other zero nutritional scourges are eliminated). The more varied good food sources are, the more nutritional bases you're covering.

    In your case, your body is obviously not well and you should be getting as much nutrition from as many sources as possible. Lightly cooked foods, superfoods, even more animal sources like dairy, high quality meats etc. Try it all to find what you're missing and give your body something to work with to heal itself.

    Being a lacto-vegetarian I understand the lack of desire for meats and don't think you need to go that far if you're firmly against it. But my suggestion would be to forget about 100% raw food or any other narrow nutritional dogma and help your body with as many nutritional sources as you can find. Pump your body full of nutrients and you'll be surprised how well it can heal itself.

    I'd also recommend some adaptagen food sources such as Goji berries, Korean Ginseng extract, etc. Adaptagen's by definition work by nutritionally adapting to the body to give it whatever it's lacking, and put things back in balance. It sounds too good to be true, but I can tell you in the case of high quality Ginseng extract and high quality Goji berries they absolutely work as advertised. When I'm feeling out of whack and don't know what's wrong with me, a cup of pure Korean Ginseng extract tea, always seems to fix whatever it is. And even as a preventative, it's one of the best blood tonics anywhere.

    Overall, to repeat, I'd say forget about ANY kind of restrictive diet and go for any kind of nutrtional food source you can find. It's not about Brownie points or bragging rights, it should be all about maximum maximum nutrition to heal yourself.

  • jakkrabbitjakkrabbit Raw Newbie

    Hee's a free, printable workbook to hep you journal your raw journey daily and keep on track, very useful. It's specifically geared towards low fat raw vegans (i.e. non-gourmet) but it's a great thing for anyone going raw.

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/17640579/Workbook

  • Thanks for that link Jakkrabbit :-)

  • I stopped on here tonight and saw that my post was updated, and said woohoo! then i see all this GREAT information... thank you, i will be checking this out! I am trying to come up with a menu plan, (i always work better this way), but it is so hard when learning an new cooking style... when i was obese, it was easy, i cooked that food SO WELL, i could taste a recipe at a restaurant and copy it aat home... then i got healthier, went Zone dieting, lost weight, but had to learn to cook differently. it was a challenge learning how to cook healthy, and tasty. now my taste buds have adapted, and i like so much i use to dislike. Anyway, but i am trying to learn tasty raw and cooked vegan recipes to use during transition, especially something all of us will like, and maybe some that i can use meat substitute for mine, and reserve some for my family and add meat to it. i have to admit, i had 2 meat meals yesterday instead of one, and i slipped up and had the tiniest scoop of ice cream, but i have been needing chocolate... i just HAD to have a little hot fudge. rare treat for me. anyway, i hated eating it twice, and had only allotted up to 1 meat meal per day. next week i go down to 2 or 3 for the entire week. anyway, i am going to check out these links today, any recipe suggestions? i am scouring the recipe section... just hard to tell which ones are good for newbies. thank you all very much again. i really appreciate your quick and thoughtful response.

  • jakkrabbitjakkrabbit Raw Newbie

    You can make raw ice cream and eat raw chocolate :)

  • Just watched the youtube link, that is so encouraging! thanks! YEs, i do plan on making raw ice cream and raw chocolate sauce... rawdawgrory, had some chocolate sauce i want to try. i have been wanting a coconut cream pie badly lately, raw of course... looking for an awesome recipe.

  • I am so excited, i just got my blendtech!!!!!! the guy at the demo, gave me a sample of ice cream, and it was avacado spinach ice cream.... i thought it was a green smoothie and went ACK! this has dairy in it... my mouth turned into a coated mucous factory in seconds... how did i ever drink that? no wonder i have sinus troubles!

    dont get me wrong, milk tastes good to me, i have only drank organic for years... but it definately FEELS different now.

  • jakkrabbitjakkrabbit Raw Newbie

    I'm a vegan of course and so do not advocate drinking raw milk or farming dairy cattle. However, here's something which will explain to you why even organic milk causes mucus reactions and is bad for the body if non-raw:

    The Whole Truth About Milk

  • shelli, first off I just wanted to say congrats on releasing almost 100 pounds. Yay! I'm so happy for you :)

    As far as non-chalky protein powders go, Living Harvest Hemp Protein is quite tasty, so maybe you could try that one and see how you like it.

    Joel Fuhrman, M.D., has some great scientific explanations about the dangers of too much animal protein and dairy in diets in his Eat to Live book. There are even bits and pieces from the China Project (Study) in there. He disses some diets, though, so maybe if you read it just skip over the parts about the zone diet :) Hopefully it's okay for me to post that here. It's not a raw diet, but it was the book that helped me drop dairy and understand the importance of raw fruit/veggies so when I read Alissa Cohen's Living on Live Food book and went mostly raw vegan everything made more sense to me.

    Anyway, hopefully that helps :)

  • A lot of talk about coffee and caffiene here but there are a lot of contradicting studies comming out about the benefits and detriments of coffee. Maybe decaf is the way to go just to be safe. Get rid of the caffiene and keep the antioxitants. I guess you just have to be careful how the coffee was processed and make sure its organic. Coffee is one of the most highly sprayed "food" crops.

    Of course if you were Brasillian like my wife, then you would start getting coffee mixed in your bottle when you were a baby and live your whole life drinking coffee and not know any better. lol.

  • well said Jakkrabbit!

  • i will also check that out!

  • I have become quite frustrated with the outcome of any & all raw soups I have prepared thus far because of the amount of air bubbles & foam as the end result. It's extremely unappealing to me and immediately gives me the dry heaves & excessive burping. Green smoothies on the other hand are lovely & I look forward to them all throughout the day. I honestly think if I could afford it I would juice feast & nourish myself with green smoothies & green juices for at least 30 days with no complaints other than the financial dent it would leave me. We grew many of our greens this year & have not been able to rely solely on our garden. I have used my vita-mix each time & tried a variation of speeds & duration, etc... I just can't seem to get the hang of it & am even on the verge of giving up on these kinds of blended foods. Everything was much simpler for me prior to attempting to follow recipes. I feel as though my only choice is to go back to eating extremely basic meals where I will eliminate the use of recipes & just chop, slice, shred, spiralize, etc... up a bunch of stuff which feels appealing to me @ the time & serve it with a side of seaweed , some homemade flax crackers and / or sprouts. A dash of this, a dash of that... garlic, celtic or himalayan sea salt, curry, chili, chipotle, turmeric, ginger, essential food oils from Elaina Love's website etc... you know... whatever fits the bill @ the moment. I need a larger spice cabinet. The list goes on & on. Does anyone else ever just "WING" it without getting bored. I am soooooo BORED & want to successfully prepare a meal with the aid of a recipe without feeling like a dismal failure, wasting a bunch of produce, & feeling intimidated about giving it another shot. RAMBLING blah blah =) Sincere thanks for the vent.

  • lolarose, i also hate cold soup... it just seems so foreign !!!

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