One thing, as far as my health, that I have always been mystified by, and one of the strongest barriers to me being 100% raw, is my RAVENOUS hunger. I can never get satiated on 100% raw food.

This really bugs me, because I want to have the healthiest pregnancy (and life) possible, but even healthier cooked food like brown rice, steamed veggies, quinoa, and other alkaline-type stuff just leaves me starving... whether I'm preggo or not... and my stomach just gives me this retchy-type DEEP painful mind-boggling hunger. I could eat all day long. I could eat HUGE raw meals. I can count my calories and they are in the 2000 or even 3000 range. I'm not atypically active. (Not inactive either.) But sometimes it seems like the only thing that stops the physical hunger is some fatty creamy milk-like junk food. And I DO NOT want to eat milk but I'm finding I can't tolerate the stomach feeling if I don't, at least once a day.

What is up with this? Some of my symptoms seem to mimic ulcers. Could I have ulcers?

I'm curious how one would heal ulcers - what raw foods should I try eating, and what should I avoid?

What is a good test for ulcers?

What does everyone think?


Me (30), Joseph (24 mo.) Jeremiah (4 mo.)

We are enjoying spring and being outside!!!

When I first went all raw, I also had ravenous hunger. I was eating 5 or 6 meals a day, and each of them filled my belly. This was very unusual for me, but I enjoyed the process and how my body was healing with the raw foods. Over time (after being all raw for a year or so) this hunger went away.

Part of it is getting used to what feeling full is like on raw, as it is different than on cooked. But also the body is loving the new raw foods, and wants to rebuild your entire body with the new superior raw materials. This is a lot of new raw material (raw proteins and raw nutrients) that need to be ingested to fully rebuild every cell in your body with the better materials.

Ulcers are caused by stress, and foods that make ulcers worse are high protein foods because they require a lot of acid to digest. So the milk your are eating is actually making things worse, not better.

Second guessing ulcers and trying to treat them is a mistake I think. If that unsure, get it checked out before addressing it.

Your hunger really sounds like a mental state to me. Many years ago I was eating raw in the 3000-4000+ calorie range and was STILL hungry all the time. Now it's totally different for me. It takes practice, refinement and sometimes months if not years of patience. EXPERIEMENT with the type of foods that leave you more satisfied and eat more of those. Try more smaller frequent meals, try larger fewer meals, etc.. The list is endless. Don't eat to make calories or to get certain nutrients. For long term raw this is generally anti-productive. Everyone new tends to do this though unfortunately. Find the foods that agree with you and work and do it all in a forward progression basing your progress on you alone not on others.

Hope some of these thoughts may help.

>Ulcers are caused by stress

Stomach ulcers are mainly caused by the bacteria Heliobacter pylori, which can survive the acidic environment of the stomach by secreting alkaline substances around their capsules.

One of the guys who figured out the ulcer connection injected himself with H. pylori. He and his partner won a Nobel prize for it.

Right. My experiences were like Bryan. For the first year or so....of all raw....I would eat like 20 bananas in a sitting! Ha! ha! Now....8 years later or so....I can barely eat 3! LOL.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

I went all fresh raw all at once and my experiences were like Bryan and DZM in that I would not feel "full" and at the time I thought the "full" signal didn't work very well. After reading Bryan's post above I realize that it needed time to adjust to raw as the raw "full" is different then the cooked "full" signal. Amazingly the fat on my body "melted" away even though I was eating copious amounts of raw food. Make sure you are getting a variety of raw foods in your daily diet including natural fats and leafy greens. Take a look at this post by DZM as it speaks to this change also: [www.rawfoodsupport.com] I think cooked eaters are basically eating in a pre-diabetic way and need time to switch to a slower carbs way of eating. Patience and perseverance solved this desire to eat more raw food for me and now everyday I eat small meals all the time and feel satisfied.

Ditto!

I thought for a while, how in heck can I keep doing this? I'm never full!

I had ravenous hunger all the time. I was eating a lot in terms of volume. Over time, that problem has lessened quite a bit -- sometimes it comes back a bit but nothing like early on.

I think the body becomes more efficient in extracting nutrients from nutrient dense foods as you stay the course and keep eating nutrient dense foods.


Lee

[www.dhamma.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2008 07:19PM by Lee_123.

Hmm. So this takes months and years to overcome? Ee gads. Well I guess it does make sense that it takes time for the body to "unlearn" the desire for the quick-carbs. I just wish it wasn't so agonizing in the process!!!! Well, thanks everyone for your input. I will be checking back, so if anyone else wants to add anything feel free. Thanks!

Angie


Me (30), Joseph (24 mo.) Jeremiah (4 mo.)

We are enjoying spring and being outside!!!

I eat constantly. Most days I am always hungry. I eat probably four times as much as my husband and I am 5'2" and 110 pounds as oposed to his 6' and 180 pounds. I never gain wieght eating raw. When I am really hungry (the kind of hungry that in the past would would make me grab a huge veggie burger and tons of fries) sprouts help me a LOT. Sprouts make me full for hours. Sometimes I will be making a sprout salad and I won't want it. I can't imagine eating it and then it is the most delicious thing ever. I will actually want another and then I am so full for hours. I love flax oil, lemon juice and garlic dressing over mixed, chopped sprouts. It is my thinking that you (we) need more nutrients and that is why you are hungry. When I was sad I would continue to eat long after my stomach was stuffed. I believe I was starved for nutrition. I think you should keep eating healthy food until you are full. Since you are pregnant I think it is very important that you fill up. Maybe it takes a year or more for our bodies to make up for the lack of nutrition of our previous diets after going raw. Your body is telling you it needs something and it is important to listen.