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Login Here Signup Here Signup using FacebookHow do all of you stick to this way of living? I have only been doing raw for about 6 weeks and I do really good for a couple of days and then I go on a binge and eat really bad. It isn’t that I am hungry for other food, it’s just that I start thinking about things like brownies and pizza and then I have to have it. And once I get it I binge. I always feel horrible after I eat bad food but that doesn’t stop me from doing it. I really want to stick to a raw diet but I can’t seem to do it for more than a couple of days at a time. How do you guys do it? Does anyone else have this problem>
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Welcome monica! I’m sure you’ll get lots of support and advice here. You can pick and choose, do whatever helps you the most. Three things that have helped me. 1) Learn to make delicious raw food – I bought Ani Phyo’s book, and I Am Grateful (available at Amazon). A food processor and blender help me to make this yummy food. Why would I want cooked when my raw dishes taste SO super good? 2) Go slow. It took me 1.5 years to transition to eating mostly raw. Yeah it was slow- but it’s not a race. It doesn’t matter – I took my time, learned to uncook. 3) Read about raw and why it’s beneficial. Or watch youtube videos of raw people. Regularly. Remind yourself of why you’d like to eat this way. 4) Be nice to yourself! Don’t think of ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ food. Think to yourself… I CAN eat whatever I want. I CHOOSE to eat nutritious, delicious food most of the time. And if there are times you eat non nutritious food, who cares. it happens. 5) join and stay with a support sight. RawFu is helpful – let me know if you want to join it.
What has really helped me is doing a lot of research and learning the benefits of raw food. Anytime I am tempted to eat poorly I remind myself of how beneficial raw food is, plus I am at the point now where that when I do eat cooked food I feel it. For example I ate a falafel sandwich today for lunch and I was feeling it earlier today, I was sluggish. Now that I re-boosting my energy with water and fruits.
I feel best on the days that I am 100% raw and I just keep reminding myself of that. The main reason I still eat cooked food on occasion is convenience and social, but for the most part I am eating 80% raw.
I also keep it simple and don’t try to worry so much about preparing meals. Most of my raw diet is smoothies, simple but filling salads and lots of fruit and or nuts/seeds during the day. Seven days out of the week two of my meals are a smoothie and a salad. Keeping it simple helps me stick to it and I vary my drinks and salads to keep it interesting.
I have faith, you can do it. If somebody like me who used to not touch veggies with a 10 foot pole can go raw, I am sure you can too! :)
Add more green smoothies and you can do it too!!! Remember your goal, if you have one… Trying to be as healthy as possible makes it easy…
There is an old saying that most people spend the first half of their life, doing everything to kill themselves and the second half trying to be healthy so they can live long… Maybe you are still in the first half… smile
My personal goal is to eat as healthy as possible so I can live out my full life expectancy without disease… By the time I make sure I get all the different colorful anti-oxidants three times a day, I don’t have room in my stomach for anything else… Sure make life simple and easy!!!
Good Luck on your new journey, you will see that you become HIGH on life when eating RAW!!!
Make a day that you are allowed to “cheat”.
I have craving Sunday. All week long I write down all the things I crave and then on Sunday I try to eat them all!
This keeps me in line and as the weeks go by my cravings get lesser and I crave healthier foods. Last Sunday I took my cravings to Cafe Gratitude and had a $12 slice of raw pizza! Heaven. I cried at the table.
Thanks for all of the advice you guys. I need as much info and support as I can get. I’ve come to learn that certain foods are trigger foods for me and therefore not allowed in my house.
I have another question…I have incredibly weird very vivid dreams when I sleep at night after eating raw all day. They are so vivid I often wake up wondering if they were real. And what is really strange is a lot of times they aren’t good dreams…they are dreams about me being verbally or physically abused. I’ve never been abused. I don’t have a real close relationship with my parents but I don’t have any memories of them abusing me in any way but a lot of times I dream about them.
Think I am being weird or is it possible there something in my past that I am uncovering? I’ve been thinking about trying hypnotherapy to see if there is something there?
Anyone else have dreams like this? Has anyone tried being hypnotized?
I don’t know about your dreams, or about hypnotherapy, but often people have covered up issues with food, so when they eat pure food, it doesn’t cover up emotions like the other stuff used to. Also, I’ve had dreams/perceptions that showed how I felt about something, even if it wasn’t reality.
I’m not a dream expert in any way, shape or form, but whatever bothers me consciously or subconsciously seems to work its way into my dreams at night. When I was a SAD-eating bulimic, I was often so exhausted at night that I’d wake up and not remember having had any dreams. Now that I’m pretty high raw, I’m recalling dream fragments every single night. I think a couple of things are at work here. My body and brain are less clogged up than they were when I nourished them poorly, and they’re less taxed on the whole, so I function at a higher level during the day and night. My dreams can be a bit mundane at times or really weird, but I’m sometimes waking up in the mornings feeling like I’ve actually worked through something via my dreams.
There are things in each of our lives that might bother us constantly, if we let them come to the surface. To protect ourselves from obsessing or being unable to function in our day-to-day lives we push those thoughts and issues deep inside and often “forget” about them, as a defense mechanism. Our defenses are down when we’re asleep, though. The supressed thoughts are free to be showcased in dreams. Monica110, I’m not telling you that you’ve been verbally or physically abused in your past, but maybe something else in your life makes you feel fear or as if you’re being attacked in some way. Your dreams just happen to be taking the abuser/abused form. Maybe the attacker is actually you! Your dream could be demonstrating how hard you are on yourself. These are just random suggestions, but they may be dead on.
hmm, your dreams could be emotional detox.
The way I stick to my raw food diet is when I started I wrote out a sheet with rules, regulations and exceptions. I made it so that things that were important to me like tea and coffee and honey(I didn’t know about raw honey then, hehe) were included in the my diet as well as exceptions where I could eat normal food at social gatherings and family events. As I became successful I decided that I could slowly cut back on things. I stopped drinking coffee, I cut back my exceptions to only family events and I do month long times when I choose to do completely 100% raw just to rejuvenate. Go at your own pace!
I am two months in now and what helps me is that I didnt’ have this set rule in cement that I MUST never touch cooked food again. So I don’t really feel denied. When I have a date, I eat a cooked meal at the restaurant. I know that I can, and I enjoy it, and I don’t beat myself up the next day because I know it was allowed. I DO ask for extra vegetables on othe side instead of white refined rice and I always make sure to get a big salad. I actually look forward to my cooked food again.
I also have learned to make the things I crave into raw. If I crave pizza, I make raw pizza.
It’s amazing how my cravings have changed. I actually crave romaine and apples now sometimes. If i have SAD food, I notice how unfresh and unalive it is and I can’t wait to get home and have some Kale salad.
Lately I repeat in my mind “I am building a healthy body” and I make a salad or something else raw. That drives away any temptation. Then, when I wonder again 30 minutes later :P, I get on here and read a new discussion, or look at a new recipe, or go exercise…
I’m nibbling on a brownie right this second! It a raw cacao hemp brownie from Ulimana and its better than any cooked brownie I’ve ever had by far (and a superfood!).
For me the trick is having quick and easy staples like Dr. cow’s cashew cheese, brownies, raw bread—that way I have those foods raw when I want them. Be prepared for cravings. Otherwise I keep it really simple, I don’t do really complicated recipes, just easy veggie dishes that I always love.
It’s important to transition into seeing food as nutrition, as an energy source, as fuel- as well as delicious and satisfying.
Also, when I crave something I always try to break down what I’m craving – sweetness, salty- then I substitute with raw. Or some cravings come from emotional reasons i.e. rewarding yourself.
Going raw has completely broken the binge cycle for me and I am so grateful for that. Give it time!
Anna Tipps, the woman who started “Purely Delicious” Mag. has found out she has breast cancer. I understand it can take 10 years for cancer to manifest itself. I doubt that she ate raw 10 years ago, but if she had I wounder if she would be in this battle right now.
I am 66, if I had eaten raw when in my 30’s or 40’s I know I would not be battling health issues right now. So now I stay 99% raw to remove all the problems, expecting that when I am 109 I will be in perfect health.
What you eat and drink now WILL effect your life stlye latter on down the road.
I know I am not talking about food or cravings, but I am explaining the real reason behind it all. You have to have a full hard understanding of why you are doing this. Then you can over come anything.
Beany~ Well said!!! I don’t know about you but I don’t get food craving for anything anymore… I believe if you don’t bother with giving in to the SAD craving after first going raw, then your body learns it can trust us to continue to provide pure nutrition, then the cravings stop… These are my opinions, anyone have similar experiences??? This change in my lifestyle was just so easy knowing the goal… smile
A little perspective:
6 years ago i gave up beef and dairy
5 years ago i gave up pork
4 years ago i gave up all products that listed “sugar” or “hydrogenated…” as an ingredient
3 years ago i gave up all meat except chicken & fish, and most refined sugar and flours
1 1/2 years ago i gave up all animal products and bi-products, and most cooked food
as winona said, this isn’t a race. and the great thing is, the longer you take the more likely you are to make permanent changes. even with my changes i’d go back and forth a few times until i realized it was a good idea to stick with it.
vivid dreams happen with we shed toxins, as we peel layers away, getting closer to our true nature. it may be past lives, but it could also be thoughts or feelings that are putting on a little play for you so you can notice them and let them go away.
best of luck!
try alot of greens. to break cravings. for me i made 100 oz smoothies for a month of romaine and granny smith apples w/ water. that is just me. i figured it was a good way to get a clean slate. so i would not carry over any bad habits into a raw food lifestyle. like eating 8 bananas with a pound of almond butter in one sitting. now that i think about it and am so far from it. that was some crazy impulsiveness.
It also sounds like you are eating for 2. 2 meaning candida. these guys love their starch, sugars, and mold. it makes them big and strong.
it takes time. its a process. the journey is more fulfilling then the goal. if you fall off the horse, no worries get back on.
beany-that is really inspiration and wise words