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Login Here Signup Here Signup using FacebookI have been struggling to find balance. After some intensive personal inquiries and research, I have come to the conclusion that I am severely deficient in my consumption of nutrients. I have a list of all the vitamins and minerals I need, and how much of them I need based on my age and gender. It’s amazing, I’ve been living all this time with enormously inadequate amounts of these things. It’s not that my diet has been unhealthy (aside from cooked foods), I’ve always eaten lots of fruits and vegetables, but even with all the fruits and vegetables, I haven’t been provided with the right amount of vitamins and minerals. To get these things just from food, I would have to consume gargantuan portions of a variety of fruits and vegetables, which I can’t do… I mean, I can only eat so much food, and generally it only takes small portions of food to fill me up. Well, if I were to eat to be full, it would take small portions… I’ve struggled some what with over-indulging, which is obviously a result of my body trying to compensate for everything it’s lacking.
Not to mention, sufficient amounts of calories and protein. At my age, gender, weight, and activity level (and with the little fat I have to lose), I need to consume about 1,900-2,400 calories a day (depending on my activity level; the 1,900 being if my activity level is moderate; the latter being if I were to engage in more strenuous exercise- which is what I aim for, as I like to run, and I like to run long and hard).
Okay, so here’s my problem… how in the hell am I going to get all the calories I need to? Realistically, I can’t eat huge portions of food, 10 cups of fruit and vegetables a day is too much for my stomach. And the protein-related issue. I need 46 grams of protein… again, I would have to consume lots and lots of food to get this protein. Not to mention all the vitamins and minerals I need to be healthy…
I think I need supplements. I need some sort of multivitamin that provides me with an adequate amount of vitamins (I recently bought a multivitamin, which I’m going to have to return; when I was in the store, I failed to look at the serving size… the serving size is 6 capsules; so I would have to down 6 capsules every day; ha, that’s a little too much pill-popping for my prefernce, especially since I’ll still have to take other supplements to make sure I get everything in the right amounts). I know from all the suffering I put my body through that having all these nutrients is absolutely essential and I believe it’s the only solution to correcting my imbalances. So, here are my questions:
1) How do all of you make sure you’re getting enough essential vitamins?
2) Is there a reputable protein supplement I can get? I know a lot of people put too much emphasis on protein consumption, but we do need it, and I am definitely deficient in my in take.
I feel as if I might as well have been starving myself. Which I guess technically, I’ve been doing just this, without realizing it. My fatigue, weakness, food cravings, hair loss, depression, etc… deficiencies in everything from Folate to Iodine to Potassium, etc, can cause ALL of these things. It all makes sense, how miserable I’ve been.
Comments
Have you been tested for these deficiencies? If you have, great, but if not I wouldn’t rely on just your symptoms to determine whether or not you’re malnourished. These could be symptoms of a systemic candida overgrowth just as easily as deficiencies, or many other things. You might want to look into some raw reading by authors like Victoria Boutenko or Gabriel Cousens. They will explain how plant based protein is much different from animal protein in how your body assimilates it.
The one thing that has struck me about the raw diet and all the recipes you see here, is that these are nutritionally DENSE foods. The dark green veggies are very high in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants and if you have a green smoothie a day, you can fill up a blender (not sure if you have a Vitamix – it might help) with dark greens and blend it down to a manageable drink that’s also high in fiber. The book Green for Life will explain how blending the greens breaks down the cellulose to allow your body to assimilate the nutrients, but you will need a high speed blender. You can also look at the new generation of superfoods – foods that have been valued by ancient cultures and are now becoming more available, like chia seeds, goji berries, cacao, and maca root powder. These are off the charts in vitamins and minerals. As far as calories go, if you’re including some fats like extra virgin coconut oil, hemp oil, olive oil, nuts and nut butters, plus dried fruits, they should provide more than enough calories. The only supplement that I and many other raw foodists take is B12, but you can take whatever you feel you need.
Just so you know, there are many raw athletes you don’t supplement with pills or protein powders at all who perform amazingly well at their sports on a raw diet. You can check out the discussions about raw athletes on this site if that’s helpful.
rawbeginner, I don’t know how else to put this and I know it’s gonna sound dumb, but between this post and the last one of yours that I read, I just think you have the most charming way of freaking out I’ve ever seen:-D
Totally don’t worry so much about the amount of nutrients that you read for the typical SAD diet. That’s what you’re reading and you’ve got to keep in mind that cooked diets and meat/milk eating diets are devoid of much nutrients by virtue of the cooking process and because so many of those foods are unfit for human consumption, so in order to cram in this bogus nutrient amount, they call for copious amounts of food.
Just concentrate on rounding out your raw vegan diet with enough greens, fruits and vegetables and don’t rely on those SAD charts so much.
I would look into Bee collected pollen. It is very high in vitamins and minerals, and high in protien as well. If you don’t believe in using the Pollen, I suggest eating loads of leafy green vegetables, and looking into making your own infusions,and decoctions. I left these links on another topic as well:
http://www.prodigalgardens.info/Tonic%20Infusio...http://medherb.com/Materia_Medica/The_Mineral_C…
I recently made some herbal vinegars as well. They won’t be ready for a few weeks, but will be extermely nutricious and worth the wait.
http://www.ayurvedahc.com/articlelive/articles/...