i don't even know where to begin.
i guess i can start by saying that i have felt "called back" to raw for a few years now, and i'm not going to ignore it any longer.
in 2002, i went 100% raw...because i felt polluted, sick, and unhappy. i was suffering from an eating disorder and it was ruining my entire life. the raw lifestyle certainly helped me a lot, but it seemed like the world was against me. friends, family, friends' families...everyone called me "freak" to my face and told me i was just feeding my eating disorder. i had to leave college (in my senior year!) due to money issues, and i got a corporate job. i went back to my old ways...certainly NOT the standard american diet by far, but definitely not raw. almost immediately, i began having SEVERE digestive problems. constant pain, gas, and a complete inability to have a BM without the use of an enema (sorry for the graphic description here. i'm trying to keep it clean.) i became somewhat of a hermit, because i don't want to be around anyone when i feel so sick and horrible.

fast forward to now. i still have all the digestive problems...no matter how i modify my diet. my eating disorder has slowly gotten worse and worse, and i'm sure that is contributing to the constant pain in my guts. i am stressed and depressed, and the only "help" i keep hearing about is "take antidepressants!" (this from health professionals. i don't take ANY prescription medications, and won't. like i said, i haven't been living the raw lifestyle, but i do avoid many things that most americans see as "normal."
i am finally finishing college (graduation in december) and am getting married on december 15.
but i am still unhappy, sick, and tired all the time. i feel like i've become a burden on my fiance who has put every single bit of spare time and money into making sure i am happy and healthy...but nothing has worked. i was ready to give up everything because i feel like such a slug-always sick, never happy-but he has not and will not let me give up.
i will no longer resist the "pull" that the raw lifestyle still has on me. i listen to my instincts and my body about everything else...i think it is time to return to raw. this time, i am going to stick to it for ME, and not back down because a family member or co-worker gives me a funny look. i'm tired of feeling sick. it's time for me to be happy and feel vibrant again. i can handle weird looks and ridicule...i can no longer handle being ill and unhappy.
i know i can do this. between the wonderful people in my life and the wonderful people on this forum (i was on here years ago under a different name...but i can say with confidence that everyone here is wonderful!) i know i will have the inspiration i need. i'm actually leaving now to go get some juicing supplies and then clean my fridge. i'll try to post here as often as i can...and hopefully inspire other new raw foodists (or others returning to the lifestyle) along my way!
~k~

Welcome back, k, and congrats on listening to the call of raw foods! I have only been here a few months myself, so I am fairly new here.

Btw, there is an ED thread on this Raw Diary forum that is very good and is supporting people with eating disorders who are trying to eat raw. But please post to your own diary too, just thought you might want to check it out.

Hey, enemas, are not graphic. ;-) I talk about colonics (not in detail, of course) on my diary all the time. I really believe in them to help detox and they help me keep the cravings at bay.

You mentioned you have digestive problems. I recently discovered this website that I thought you might find interesting [www.drdahlman.com]

You can download a free Irritable Bowel Syndrome report that might help.

I am looking forward to following your journey with raw foods and see how it helps, which I'm sure it will.

thanks for the link!
i am going to check out the ED thread soon...as well as post the things that have "gone downhill" in the past few years-the things i am hoping i can change with a raw lifestyle. hopefully in the future i will be able to give updates on how things improve!

yea were always talking about poo an stuff no worries

welcome back to forum Yoga-chi ihear ya about the antidepressants .. i really think these imbalances are partially inbalances in our total lives not just in our heads .. all things need to be addressed not just diet an nothing else or mental health and not diet .. etc

i was telling aqua yesterday how for so many years i was prescribed ventolin for asthma and one day in my ealy 20's a doctor did some tests on me and all along id never had asthma a day in my life he said .. i had been suffering anxiety attacks not asthma attacks lol\ ..so all those years i was taking steroids for nothing ! omg !!

sheesh doctors lol

i really have a hard time with them now but i listen to what they say and tell them what i have to say and then i make a decision what to do or not do


looking forward to talking with you

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2007 09:40PM by Jgunn.

i have to run (juicer shopping! fun!) soon, but i can give a brief history of my experience with doctors...

about five years ago, i started having some weird sensations in my pelvic area. i listened to my body and was positive i had a prolapsed uterus. i went to doctor after doctor (i have the bills to prove it) and they all told me i was crazy, and i literally collected prescription sheets for every antidepressant on the market. in three years, i went to over 11 doctors. by this time, i also had a prolapsed bladder, rectum, and small intestine. (finally confirmed by a doctor i went to as a last-ditch effort.) however...the answer is really "we can't do anything"
(i find this amusing, as a male friend was diagnosed with a hernia a few years ago and they sent him RIGHT to the hospital.) anyway.

it may not sound like a big deal, but any time i feel like something is wrong, i listen to my body, and i am right. the medical community usually won't even listen to me, or take MY money to perform tests. i sincerely hope others' experiences are better than mine...all i have gotten is constant offers for more and more drugs...from antidepressants, to tranquilizers, to severely controlled substances (drugs for ADD). that frightens me. i worked in a pharmacy at one point, and it is amazing how over-medicated people are.

wow, i write too much, and i think i am just rambling and not making my point.
but thanks to everyone for reading!

"i sincerely hope others' experiences are better than mine..."


That's amusing.....we all think we're the only ones seeing such doctors, but that describes all the ones I've seen too. They just aren't trained to know how the body really works, I guess.....they certainly adhere to their programming!

Now I just tell myself that I shouldn't expect to convince them of my probs or symptoms and I shouldn't expect them to understand. I mean, it's like me walking up to a Japanese person and speaking to them in English and expecting them to understand, when they've never been taught any English - would be silly of me. But it took me a very long time to accept this fact.

Wow, that was interesting and sad, y_c, and I can totally relate. They just want to throw more medicine at us, don't they. In the end, it's all about the money...

Btw, what happened with your prolapsed uterus, bladder, etc.? Did they finally fix you up with surgery, or are you still suffering?

Mike Adams on [www.newstarget.com] had an article recently about how the government is working on giving pharmacists the power to prescribe medicines to us. That way they can get those drugs to us even quicker! Scary...

no, karennd...i haven't had anything fixed. i do yoga every day. that has helped more than anything. other than that...it just sucks. especially considering that i'm 28 years old and have never had children...it makes no sense.

anyway. here i sit with my green smoothie...so far, nothing different. i have a green smoothie every morning already. i'm excited, though...later i am making apple carrot juice in my new juicer. my fiance loves juice, but has never had fresh apple carrot juice!

last night i had a terrible nightmare. i was riding in my mom's car. she had the top down (unusual. she has a convertible but won't ever take it down...weird.) we were getting on the highway, and the entrance ramp was really steep. she kept going up even when i said "STOP! this isn't right!" and eventually the pavement turned to rocky mud and the incline was completely vertical. then (this is where it gets really weird) she stretched her arms out and grabbed some rocks in the mud and started trying to "climb" the car up the hill. her grip was weak...and then i woke up. strange.

i made a list of things that are really bothering me, health-wise...and emotionally. i realize that i have a huge fear of aging. i know that might sound stupid, and i don't want to insult anyone that is older than me, because i KNOW i am not old...i don't consider my parents old...i don't consider the 80-year old yoginis at the studio old...but i feel old. and i think it is because i never really got to be a kid, at least past the age of 10. my parents divorced and both moved in with someone new when i was almost ten years old, and i had to turn into the little adult. and i never complained once. but boy, i'm complaining now...i know sometimes i think "where did all that time go?" and all i see is eating disorder, and pushy parents and stepparents trying to send me to psychiatrists as a teenager. anyway, i am so scared of getting older, in every way. people tell me that they think i look 21, but inside i feel ancient. i guess i also have a weird envy towards my fiance, who is four years younger than i am. other than that...i wasted my 20's on an eating disorder. i'm still wasting them. i don't go out...i'm "too fat." i daydream about when i can have my nonbingeing body back, so i can go to concerts and out with my fiance...but for some reason that isn't motivation enough or something. grr.

i wanted to list all my health issues, so i can keep track of the positive changes (i find it amazing that i can still even BE positive sometimes. persistence must be my number one quality...) but i have to go finish cleaning before ben gets home...we always make plans, but spend the whole day cleaning together! we make anything fun, but i would rather be outside!

as silly as it may sound...i already feel better.
i want to go back to yoga tomorrow...that is a big step.

let me explain. i do bikram yoga every single day. sometimes twice a day. it's become my "thing," especially since i never really had anything as a child...no sports, no instruments, no artistic talent. i'm a writer...but that's about it.

i'm kind of a star at my studio. i've been there for four years.
but i haven't been to class in over a week.
why?
because i have gained so much weight, and i am tired of how i feel. tired of the mirrors. tired of the stares (no matter how much we wish it didn't exist, it does.) i'm ashamed.
but i don't think i will ever feel vibrant again without yoga in my life. i can't hide from it because i feel "fat" or unhappy.
so i am going back tomorrow (no more classes today).

another thing...i feel like writing again. (let's not judge my writing ability by these posts...i am typing at about 75 words a minute and just freewriting). i haven't felt "well" enough to be creative in months...since about march.

this is good.

yoga_chi,

Welcome back to the raw world. Perhaps this time the world will let you enjoy your raw foods without telling you that you are a freak.

Its great that you have a yoga practice. Perhaps when you are not feeling like going to the class, you can just do your yoga practice at home. For me, having a regular yoga practice and a meditation practice were instrumental in my healing. I was so used to not feeling anything that these practices got me back in touch with my body and my emotions. You might want to check out my article Success on the raw foods diet.

me too bryan on the meditation .. sometimes i dont have time to really sit and do it .. but i do a kind of working meditation i learned in nepal just preparing my fruits and vegetables for the next day ..where i get into a rythmic chop chop chop on the floor with my bowls and my chopping board and the lights low and the air is quiet and still and sometimes thats my onlyy quiet time all day but i cherish it as my time adn dont see it as a chore at all hehe

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

I am a vegan and eat raw foods everyday, I blend this amazing product that makes a smoothie and tastes amazing,i think about it first thing when i wake up, It has all your nutrients that you need and its a complete meal,all for blending you just add whatever fruits and fruit juices you like to it, and it fills me up and tastes amazing! its called elixir you can purchase it at www.elixirmre.com , i dont buy the whey one since im vegan i buy the hemp one. Go get yourself some and start living Raw!

thanks to everyone for the responses!!

i have a semi-regular meditation practice. there is a meditation "group" in my town that meets weekly, but i haven't been in a long time...maybe i need a "refresher."

i have been doing a lot better...the only thing i cannot give up without "weaning" is caffeine. i've been doing organic coffee, though...and only a couple diet pepsis this weekend. eek! i know what everyone says...but to me that is better than high fructose corn syrup any day. i haven't consumed HFCS (or hydrogenated oils, for that matter) in years.

okay. still have been pressed for time and have not listed all the stuff i hope to improve...but i have to mention my "sleep eating." this is the worst of the eating disorder, and heartbreaking because I CANNOT STOP.
this is not "night eating syndrome." this is, literally, sleepwalking combined with eating. i wake up every night and eat until i feel ill. i am not concious of what i am doing, or that it is bad for me. (trust me. i have cut myself, fallen, and almost set the apartment on fire. i am still asleep. i have left the apartment before. it's absolutely frightening.)

oddly enough, this all started immediately when i "quit" raw a few years ago and went back to cooked foods.

i am happy to say that the past two nights, i have woken up for a short time...but have not actually gotten up to go to the kitchen. little victories...

if the sleepwalking persists

yoga-chi there are some ankle-bracelets i saw for sleepwalkers sometime ago that have an alarm that once you start walking it sets off an alarm waking you up ... i cant find them at this moment (in ahurry sorry lol) but if i can i will see if i can find them but i think they are quite expensive

there are also some cheap alternatives you can try .. you can get these little sticky things thta clip to your door frame and door and again when you open a door they alarm loudly enough you should wake up .. ive seen them at flea markets for under 10$

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2007 04:22PM by Jgunn.

Sounds like maybe the raw diet has cured you of the sleep eating - yeah! Keep us posted.

Yoga chi - if you want to get to the root of the matter, I would try Cranio-Sacral therapy. I think it's a parallel of raw diet, in that your own inner wisdom brings up problems you're holding and they are dealt with in CST sessions to the extent you allow them to be. In other words, the unconscious and subconscious problems come to the surface and are released. Sleepwalking etc are just symptoms and they're trying to tell you something. Only you know for sure what that is.

CST is nothing like psychotherapy - it's easy to do and you're the main participant - it's not about analysis or someone else's judgement of you.

If you clean up your diet, detox and repair occurs because your body is programmed to do those. With CST, once mental and emotional blockages are released, healing naturally occurs.

But, you get from it what you put into it, so anyone who actually wants to allow the retained emotions to surface and leave, will get results. My CST therapist said she's never had anyone so enthusiastic about their 'old crap'. That's because I had been retaining it so long and was in huge amounts of pain from PTSD. That's what drove me to pep-talking my way through 2 years of confronting the truth about my past, using mainly CST to draw out the pain.

I guess not everyone likes confronting their truths, because my therapist says that some people get up after one session, hit the ground running and she never hears from them again.

CST is simple - it's a direct therapy not a palliative therapy, so the results are genuine.


Anyway, I have to mention CST to people because I want them to at least know about the best therapy I've found (I've tried several expensive, useless ones).

I agree with you, aqua. I love CST and have taken a class in it. It is great. Not everyone can afford it though, because insurance will not normally cover it.

So, sometimes as an alternative I mention osteopathy and cranial osteopathy. Doctors (some D.O.s) perform this therapy and because they are doctors insurance often covers it. Cranial osteopathy helped my daughter to stop having ear infections. This website would help one to find a practitioner [www.cranialacademy.org]. I think they are very similar, having watched and felt both performed.

thanks again, everyone...i will have to look in to CST. i have heard of it, but have never tried.

my problem is that once upon a time, i did spend my money on useful things like acupuncture (loved it). however, the e.d. has made me so desperate that lately it's just spend, spend, spend on fad after fad...not to mention the doctors, therapists, etc (no insurance right now. eek.)

i just got back from yoga...i am going to make a smoothie. i am so worn out that i am shaky

Karen did you have SER or more basic CST? What course did you take? (I might take one someday) Did you have several sessions or one or ?
The other cranial thing looks intersting.

I just took the basic CST I class. It was very cool though and you got to have others and sometimes the teacher practice on you. I planned to use it on my kids, but never did. In my state, you cannot become a craniosacral practitioner without getting a massage license also which takes many, many hours of school.

y_c, I know what you mean. I have also wasted money on alternatives that did not help much. When I finally just got back to basics - eating raw food and doing colonics, is when I started noticing results.

SER is supposed to have somewhat different results than basic and that's been the experience of the people I know who have had both done.

I was wondering if the other cranial thing was similar to SER or to basic CST, but I wasn't clear in my previous post. I'm thinking perhaps similar to CST.

Have you ever had an SER session, to compare?

Yoga-chi - I think your diary has gone off topic - sorry!

h-h-h-HIGHJACKED !!! LOL

sorry Yoga-chi !

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Probably more similar to basic CST, you are right, sorry.

I'd also like to recommend EFT (emotional freedom technique), a very nice tapping method. They have a free beginner's manual at www.emofree.com and I have taken a couple of classes on this also and gone to practitioners - awesome tool. I started crying in one session, just like some people do with SER.

SER is great also, just mentioning other possibilities.

y_c, sorry for the tangent.

oh, i don't mind...i think i have done the same thing so many times!

i feel good today...woke up with a horrible feeling in my gut, but did at home colonic and felt better IMMEDIATELY!

ugh, so much stuff to do for school. i am ready to be done. being a student is no fun when you also have bills and other stuff to worry about...and everyone else your age has a job.

Good for you on doing the colonic! It has been a couple of weeks since my last one and I need to do one soon. Do you use a colema board or enema bag or bib kit? It does make you feel better doesn't it?

Do you mind me asking how old you are and what you are studying for at school, what degree or program? I do remember you are getting married next month. How are the plans going for that?

right now i actually just use the big enema bag...colema board would be nice but right now all my money goes to school-healthy food (i spend a lot. it's ridiculous)-yoga classes-wedding stuff. i use distilled water when i can (the high amount of flouride in tap water-ugh!)
my only problem is, i hate the, uh, noises i make in the bathroom...and we live in a tiny, tiny place. it has been hard getting used to living with someone, for that one single reason. we have talked about it, but it's still not the most comfortable thing to disappear into the bathroom and know that he knows what i'm doing in there. oh, well...

let's see...my wedding date is actually december 15...i am finally finishing a BA in english (i will have over 200 credits when i graduate, though. i just changed majors a lot, stopped for a while and worked, and finally went back.) i'm 28 years young (i refuse to say old; i feel old enough already, that's one of my biggest emotional blocks and is ridiculous, but i am terrified of aging...i wasted my youth! i can't go back... i hate that).
and wedding plans are going okay...i'm just focusing on healing right now, and i put ben in charge of planning. i never really wanted the fancy big ceremony and a too-big dress...so we are just doing a small destination wedding. then we'll come back and throw a big party

Hmmm, good point on the fluoride. I need to start using my filtered water, I hadn't thought about that. I know what you mean, I make embarrassing noises during them also. But if he can put with that now, then he is the one to marry - right? ;-)

Well, kudos to you for sticking it out and getting that degree. It must feel good. You're still young, lots of time to do it all. But I know what you mean. Also, good for you for delegating the wedding planning - must be way less stressful to let him plan it. Here's to you looking beautiful and healthy on your wedding day!

This thread is convincing me to start home colonics.

I did several colonics with a practitioner many years ago, but I didn't notice much difference - though they might have been very helpful and I wasn't aware of it. I was drinking wheatgrass juice and nearly all raw at the time so must have been eliminating lots of junk, but not much showed in the tube.

Good to hear about other people's experiences with them.

aqua, that is weird that nothing showed up in the tube - that must have kind of felt like a waste of time then. Let us know what happens if you try a home colonic.

i want to try a colonic at a clinic...just to see the difference...

anyway, i kind of disappeared for a while...just busy with school. however, i am doing so much better. my yoga practice has improved greatly, and i can tell i am losing some of this weight (but i won't get on a scale yet...). other than that, school is insane! i am trying to graduate magna cum laude, but not sure yet if that will happen. i have a teacher who seems to be out to get me...when i speak out in class, he pretends he can't hear me (even goes so far as to make like he is adjusting his hearing aid) and then even after i repeat myself, he "repeats" me, but says completely the wrong thing, and makes me sound like an idiot, or like i have asked a dumb question...and then explains for five minutes why i was wrong. he doesn't do this to anyone else...ugh!