Hi all,

My name is Stefan. I'm very happy that i found this forum, and i'm looking forward to meeting some of you. Ten days ago i've started a 100% raw diet. So far it is going reasonably well. I had tried this before a few times, but the longest i ever lasted was one month. This time i'm going for one year, to really find out if the raw diet can help me to improve some of my health issues.

I'll document this personal challenge in my daily blog: [rawfooddiary.kleinpress.com]

That's mainly for myself to keep me going, but also to maybe get a little feedback from other raw eaters

Either way, i'm looking forward to some good conversations in this forum here.

Love

This is probably not what you would want to hear, but IMO it's a bit of a wrong mindset to approach a raw food diet if you want to succeed with it, "I'm gonna do this for a year". And then what, go back to coke and cheeseburgers? Naturally one thinks, what's the point going raw in the first place? And then it comes as a no surprise that you couldn't last longer than a month. Because you weren't genuine when you started the raw diet, simple as that.

And this is so even when, as you say it, your reason for going raw is to really find out whether the diet will help you with your health. Because in order to really find this out, all you need to do is start eating raw food, and as you go along see if it's healthy. And period. Setting a mark "one year" (why not two years? 6 months? 3 months?) is pointless IMO, and can only hinder you in your investigations. Following the raw diet involves not only changing your food, but changing your mind as well - because most of us have been bread and born on the diets which are far removed from being healthy and raw, and these diets have entrenched themselves deeply in our heads, and they still surround us wherever we look. And so to overcome this we have to begin with working on our heads, taking OUT the thoughts of unhealthy and cooked foods whenever possible, NOT keeping these thoughts alive by saying to ourselves, even subconsciously, "I'm gonna do this just for a year".

>Banana ice-cream rocks!<



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2012 11:29AM by chat.

Hi Chat

Thanks for your reply. You are right, in the back of my mind i always carry the option to go back to my old diet. This makes life more interesting for me i guess. The reason why i choose one year minimum is that one month is not enough for me. I'm perfectly able to sneak through a month of raw food with a focused mind, and go right back into my old self afterwards. But to do a raw diet for one year will really bring me out of my comfort zone. And probably change things in a positive way in the long-run. I could have also done 3 years or 3 months, but one year just popped up in my head that night when i made the decision

What happens after this year? I don't know yet, but i'm sure i'll not be the same person anymore, and probably have a much healthier eating habit. I might go back to eat some cooked food, but probably not. I've been eating vegetarian/ vegan before anyway, so no Cheeseburgers for me My wife also brought up the argument if you don't do it forever, why do you do it at all. But life doesn't make sense to me like this. Thinks happen in periods in nature. There is summer and winter, day and night,... Who knows what my nature drives me to do in two years.

I'm glad about your critical post, because this way it's easier for me to explain more about how i actually think. In my friend and family circle there is nobody that understands why someone would go on a raw diet. So the conversations i have on a daily bases about my diet are much more simple then here in this forum i guess

I see, I suppose we all are different! I've started this journey recently too, but find it natural to adopt "all or nothing" approach most of the time. For example, if I learn that some cooked food is harmful to health (such as generating bad chemicals or reactions as a result of being cooked), then I lose the desire to eat it ever again. And similarly if I learn that a raw version of some food is more beneficial to health than the cooked one (such as it has more vitamins, minerals and other good stuff), then I want to always eat the raw version. This is why it wouldn't occur to me to think "I'll eat the raw version just for a year, and then cone back to the inferior cooked version"

I agree that things happen in periods in nature, but does it always mean that we should not (that it is counterproductive to) strive to achieve some constant ideal?

>Banana ice-cream rocks!<

Good Luck, Stefan!

I was almost totally raw food for about a year and it certainly improved the health issues which drew me to raw foods in the first place. I also noticed other benefits of a raw food diet that I hadn't expected. Hopefully you get what you want/need from it too.

After that year, I had reasons to not stay 100% raw, although I still eat MUCH more raw food than I used to. I didn't set out for it to be a year; it just happened that way. Everyone has different bodies and different experiences and even different needs. You'll find your way. And I wish you well.

Trive


My favorite raw vegan