Jayelle C's Page

Jayelle C

Joined January 3, 2022

In 2004, when I was pregnant with my daughter (born in March 2005), I found that I couldn't hold down anything cooked no matter how healthy or gentle on the stomach it was.  It was worse than regular morning sickness and I was so hungry.  A friend of mine asked how I was if I ate something uncooked.  I told her I was fine with fruits and veggies if they were raw, but didn't feel that it would be healthy to eat that way for the entire pregnancy.  My friend showed me how wrong that belief was.   She introduced me to the raw vegan diet and I had a pregnancy where I was full of energy, happy more often than not, and in general felt great.  I had one day that I decided to have some rice dream and my ankles swelled up.  That was the worst of it.  I always say that when I was raw during my daughter's pregnant I had 'no negative pregnancy symptoms.' When my daughter was 3 months old I started eating cooked foods again (I blame snickers) and it was maybe a few months after that when I was back on the SAD diet.  Since then I've gone on and off of raw, always wanting to do it but having trouble sticking with it.  Although I do make raw dishes from time to time, I haven't been a raw vegan in a very long time. At the end of 2021 I decided I NEED to be raw again.  I have a ton of digestive issues,  My friends laugh that the list of what I can eat is shorter than the list of what I need to avoid.  However, thanks to depression I have been eating the foods I shouldn't for 4 years, gained a ton of weight, and am in extreme pain.  I know that I need to restrict my diet in order to feel healthy again.  I'm coming out of this depression and know that feeling the way I did while raw will help, and healthy weight loss will help me feel good too. (my goal is 135 lbs)   I'm here so that I can have support and learn ways to permanently incorporate this diet into my life.  Logically I know I'm at my healthiest while raw, and I don't believe in forcing everyone in my home to go raw as well (my son is now 20 and my daughter is 16, they're old enough to decide their own diet though they do like the raw deserts I make from time to time.  I want to lead by example.)  I have a ton of recipes that I've gathered over the years (lost some, gained others) and found an app that I think will help with meal planning (including a reminder set for things that need to be soaked or dehydrated so I can start them a day or two in advance).  Currently I'm adding my recipes to the app.