Hi, folks - update on eating less......I've finally found my way to coping with my overeating....and healing my fruit addiction, which got started when I began eating LOTS of fruit on raw fooding. It set up a carb addiction that made it so I'd go through withdrawal when I tried to cut down. I was running on fruit sugar.

If anyone out there is needing support to get off of the fruit, maybe we could support each other. I don't go on line often (about weekly) but we could perhaps talk on the phone, once we've exchanged some info on line.

I'm not eating three meals a day, nothing in between. I went through itnense withdrawal, but it's been worth it. And no fruit at all really helps.

I hope you're all well.

GeneticPromise

Congrats on kicking the habit!

Would love to know what you are doing to substitute your calories from fruit that you were getting, and for energy?

Hey, Shineon -

My food plan is lots of greens, some legumes, some seeds, some cold pressed oils, three meals a day, nothing in betwween, about two cups per meals. It's working!

Thanks for replying! I know that lots of raw fooders have a fruit addiction/sugar sensitivity, and I'd love for us to talk about it more. It's a real health risk for all of us..

Genetic Promise

"I know that lots of raw fooders have a fruit addiction/sugar sensitivity"

As far as I can see, fruit is my problem as well. I went 100% raw for some 10 weeks. Although I had no detoxproblems, I just didn't have any energy. I feel better on cooked food without fruit than on raw with fruit. Now that I finally reached that conclusion I have to find a way to be raw without fruit. Usually I have a green smoothie for breakfast, but I do put some fruit in. I can't see myself having a salad for breakfast. Or a carrot for that matter..
What do you do?

Rozemarijn

Come one guys. You need a balance. Fruit is a good source of energy. You need to eat a balance of fruit, greens and fat. That balance is different for everyone, but going out and saying that fruit is evil is not the way forward

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

To those interested in hearing my opinion: I do not recommend excluding fruit from their diet. As an extreme example, I am currently coaching a young woman who did exactly that (because she believed that she should not eat fruit due to candida). This led to her body starving, and numerous health problems, including excessive weight loss (from 65kg to 40kg), hair growth (in unwanted places), and acne, as examples. My advice is always: feed your body what it needs, listen to your body, do not let your unreliable mental processes override the needs of your body. My many raw friends who follow a simple rule: "Eat food you love" are spontaneously drawn to fruit (and doing very well). Being a raw foodist does not have to be a struggle (as a result of our various mental processes). It can be effortless!

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

One of the reasons I switched to raw was lack of energy. As I wanted to stick to it, I didn't want to make it a struggle. As I'm not that fond of green salads I started to eat more fruit and seeds. Usually I work out in the morning, then I take a green smoothie with some fruit and half an hour later I fall asleep. For lunch I have a fruitsalad and half an hour later I fall asleep again. Dinner is usually a green salad. Now after 1 1/2 year high raw I still don't have the energy to do more than the absolute bare minimum, and I didn't lose any weight. (I have to lose 10 kg, being 67kg). My mind says that raw is a lot healthier than cooked with a lot of meat and fish and without fruit (a diet I followed a couple of yaers ago), but my body does not agree, energywise. As I keep falling asleep after eating fruit I thought that that is the problem. When you have another solution I'd be very happy to try it, because the fruitpart is the most pleasant part of being raw, as far as I'm concerned and raw without fruit is going to be a struggle.

Rozemarijn

Hi, Rosmarjin -

I do eat saladfor breakfast, and, as noted above, lots of vegetables, some legumes...it goes about like this:

breakfast: 1 c. packed vegetables, 2/3 c. sprouted legumes, 1 tbsp oil

Lunch: same as for breakfast, with a bit of seaweed in it.

Dinner 1 1/2 c packed vegetables plus one ounce soaked seeds and a brazil nut (for selenium)

The veggies are all green.

That's what I do, with 4-6 hours betwwen meals, nothing but water betwwen. And I'm getting it all teogether, feeling much better.

Good luck and let me know how goes!

GP

You can talk until your blue in the face about how bad this and that is...the fact that we cannot run away from is that when we go Raw the body needs to cleanse all the debris and filth we have built up over the years....and to do this it needs to use it's energy....now putting more food (raw or not) on top of that is not going to give you more energy...it's going to take energy away....we also have generations of bad eating habits to change and this change does not come easy!!!!

What am I trying to say?

I'm trying to say be gentle and kind with yourself...when you go treat yourself with love and kindness....and give it the credit and help it deserves instead of ignoring and being ungrateful....

Fruits are powerful cleansers and if you have not had any experience with deep cleansing or been a 100% raw vegan for several years then your gonna have a hard time on a mostly fruit diet until you have reached the point where you are clean enough internaly to be able to cope with the continous cleansing power of fruits....

FRUIT ADDICTION....I call it overeating the same way we used to overeat on candies and refined cooked foods...except we use SWEET fruits as a substistute... it's emotional....

We need to be patient and learn to re-educat our bodies and eat responsibly instead of blaming raw foods...like the other guys said eat what you love and be happy....

Juss my 2 cents...

F1





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2006 10:40PM by The Fruitarian One.

Hi guys,

Please don't be afraid of fruit!!! Fruit is our natural diet. Any problems encountered on a raw diet that include fruit is not due to eating fruit! I promise! :-) It can be due to many other factors (usually too much fat in the diet). Please do some more research. Check out these sites in addition to Gosia's. :-) Being able to eat luscious, juicy, delicious fruit IS the best part of being raw! :-)

[www.rawschool.com]
www.foodnsport.com (Check out the FAQ section)
[www.rawfoodexplained.com]

Take care,

Audrey
www.rawhealing.com

Hi,

Just thought I'd add to this thread as I have had a recent experience to relate.

I normally have bananas for breakfast, usually just one, mixed with romaine or spinach. I recently picked up a greens supplement in powder form (not raw) but thought I'd try it anyways. Well, I have so much more energy throughout the day now. I am not "spacy" or feeling a lack of something as I did with only fruit. The particular brand I'm using is Natural Factors, it was on sale at Wild Oats, here's a link to the product: [us.naturalfactors.com]

I know that balancing a raw diet with greens is important, although not entirely raw, this is helping me for now.

This is in addition to huge green salads for dinner, it has so many different kind of veggies in it that I just can't get to throughout the day. I can run all day on just one banana mixed with a spoonful of this stuff, and I'm active as a physical instructor.

Hope this helps...

I would eat it in it's raw natural state and see if you still feel the same.

Hi, all -

Yeh, I still believe, as does hippocrates Health institue, that fruit is unhealthy. So good luck to you all who are eating it - and check your blood glucose levels sometimes....if they're much over 100 after eating your fruit, you're at great risk for diabetes, dental problem, greying hair, etc.


I didn't write this thread for a debate on fruit eating, I wrote it to connect with others who are trying to end the addiction and get REALLY healthy on raw fooding.

If you fruit eaters would be interested in checking your blood sugar levels and reporting them here, I'd love to know what's going on with you. You can get a glucometeraat any drug store for about 30 dollars and the strips for about 25 dollars. It's a great way to keep in touch with what your inner organs are doing, beyond JUST FOEELING THE RUSH AND THE HIGH OF FRUIT SUGAR, folks. Let's be honest with ourselves and get really healthy. WE DESERVE NO LESS!

GP

I don't tolerate sweet fruits well, either - I would recommend eating the non-sweet fruits like bell peppers, cucumbers, squash, etc. - I generally eat 1 bell pepper a day, 1 cucumber, and 1 zucchini - and I feel great. Then I eat salads, nuts, seeds and chocolate (ok that's an addiction but whatever).

I recently had a medical, chest x-rays and bloodwork done....Every thing was normal....I don't get a high or a rush from eating fruits and I don't think the "FRUIT EATERS" are ordering everyone to just eat fruits....

I don't think there's one size fits all raw diet....just learn what works for you and get on with life...

Anyway have a great day.

I am defenitely not against eating fruit. I love it and I think it is very good for most people. It's just that I'am so fed up with being tired all the time, even when I have been 80-100% raw for more than 1 1/2 year, that I try to figure out what's the reason for that. I would like to have the energy to do what I have to do without forcing myself and a little bit more. So when I ask my self what I would really like to do for the next four hours I would get another answer than: take a nap.
There seems to be a connection between hayfever (between end of march till the second week of June I better stay indoors) and a reaction to fruit.
The results of a bloodtest indicate that I'm allergic to all kinds of fruit.
When I started raw I read so many stories that allergy is nonsense and will disappear when you are high raw or soon when 100% that I wanted to give it a chance. Now I think it might be a good idea to leave fruit more or less alone for some time and see what happens.

Rozemarijn

Well....when I first went Fruitarian I spent 3-5 years feeling exhausted 24/7....I was an emotional wreck....I also became a walking skelenton...but even though it was the worst time of my life I knew that it was all part of my cleansing process and I also knew that for me ...for things to get better they had to get worse.....I quit many times because of it but I had to weather the storm to reach my goal...I had ample opportunity to say that fruits were no good for me but for me it was all part of my cleansing process....

Now I'm on top of the world and feeling better as time goes by....I don't get the teeth problems that people love to talk about even though I go whole seasons on citrus alone....

If your allergic to fruit and it doesn't do you good right now then don't have fruit....maybe at some point you will be able to accept it better...

It's important to learn what works for you and follow your instincts...for instants I thrive on just fruits...but you don't ever hear me putting down or posting bad stuff about veggies, nuts/seeds....I just eat what I thrive on...

End of story...

Thanks fruitarian one,

I’ll try to better follow my instincts and not only my mind. Try to understand what my body is telling me.
When I really have to force myself to eat veggies for breakfast, maybe I just shouldn’t do that.
When I keep falling asleep after eating fruit, and being sleepy for the rest of the day, maybe I shouldn’t do that either.
As a transition it might be good to eat grain like quinoa for breakfast and veggies for the rest of the day.
When I feel more in balance I could introduce low glycemic fruit and see how that goes.
You say you were an exhausted and emotionally a wreck for 3-5 years, because of cleansing with fruit. I’m at a point in my life that I cannot afford that as I have to take care of my family and my brothers going through a rough period for the last 5 years, and I don’t see the end of it yet. That stress takes a lot of energy too, I know.
My cleansing process will be slower when I eat grain for breakfast, but at this point I think it’s more important to me to have the energy to keep going.

The top of the world will have to wait a bit....

Rozemarijn

Just like we've been saying...just find what works for you...

peace....F1

People who get "HIGH" from eating fruit are sick. It may be that a huge percentage of the SAD eating population has this sickness. In a healthy body, fruit doesn't make a person high, its just food.

Hippocrates is catering to the SAD crowd. And most of the folk that come to hippocrates are really sick before they arrive. They often have diabetes, cancer, or some other incurable chronic illness. When the body is this sick, it can't handle fruit while eating its same old diet.

However, with a low fat raw vegan diet (under 10% fat), the body can heal itself and be able to eat fruit again, if the person so desires.

too much fruit is certainly bad though, too much of anything.

I agree with Bryan...I would go as far as to say that most of us are in such a poor state and we don't even know it...

Overeating is bad period......the problem is tha people don't realise how cleansing fruits are....they are far more cleansing than veggies and that's why people can tolerate veggies more than fruits.....and when people are so sick....the fruits will bring that sickness to the surface and if your not able to get that sickness/toxins out fast enough then that's when you start feeling bad...

Modern fruit is much sweeter than the crabapples our ancesters used to eat. I think that we, as a community of raw, are in denial about our addictions overall with regard to patterns of eating raw. Sustaining both physical and mental addictive processes. I'm just wishing that we'd give ourselves the gift of naturla, optimal health based on healthy, sustaining foods, rather than high sugar foods.

I'm encouraging all of us to get truly healthy, sustained. I don't think fruit is good for anybody.

By the way, Hippocrates diet is not just for SAD eaters. It's for anyone who wants to be really well.

Let's get really well. Let's deal with the addictions.

GeneticPromise

-I agree with the Fruitarian One (I always do!...LOL.....but then again...I'm biased!

-I think the hidden factor (why some people CAN eat crap and still thrive) is doing what YOU think is right with JOY. If you think you need to eat a wide variety of foods to stay balanced - you probably should...and will consequently thrive. If you feel it is necessary to eat only cleansing fruit (as I and some others do)...then I encourage you to talk to those who have done so...and to pursue YOUR goals.

-My personal opinion is that setting we are in a time of great diversity....and thus all ways must be accepted as valid....if they are successful for the individual.....rather than an 'ideal' way for all.

-David Mason

What Bryan said makes sense.

geneticpromise Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Modern fruit is much sweeter than the crabapples
> our ancesters used to eat.

I think you will find that the wild fruit is sweeter than domestic in many cases. Since fruit is sold by weight, size matters more than anything else, and domestic fruit tastes watery. Links which mention this:

[cabd0.tripod.com]

The wild strawberry . . . Use it like you would a domestic strawberry, bearing in mind that the flavour is more intense and sweeter in the true wild strawberry.


raspberries are one of the finest wild fruits you're ever going to find. They often have a more intense flavour than the bloated farmed berries, which they can replace in any recipes providing you can find enough of them.


[www.texas-ec.org]

Dewberries (Rubus trivialis) arrive in late May. Texas' wild blackberries are just as sweet or sweeter than their domestic cousins.

So what exactly do you have in mind for a menu to save us from fruit addiction.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2006 11:22PM by Lillianswan.

Lillianswan,

I've also noticed that wild strawberries have a sweeter and more intense taste than farm grown strawberries.


geneticpromise,

As for people getting sick and going to hippocrates, they didn't get sick from eating fruit. And anyone who goes to hippocrates didn't start life eating fruit and getting sick. People get sick from their lifestyles of unnatural foods. Most people who start raw are this sick, and yes, at first they can't tolerate fruit. But if they regain their health, they not only tolerate, but thrive on fruit.

If anyone here is raw and gets sick or high from eating fruit, they are NOT healthy. This is because a healthy body can thrive on fruit. For many folk who are sick but still have a well functioning pancreas and can still create insulin, it is possible to change the lifestyle such that the body can tolerate at first, and then thrive on fruit.

By the way, the folk at Hippocrates don't recommend a 100% raw diet. They say that 80% is good enough. While 80% raw may be fine for them, and for much of the population, I am loving my 100% raw vegan diet. Also, the raw diet they recommend doesn't allow one to eat a 100% raw diet without getting seriously sick, as its major source of calories is fat and it doesn't include sweet fruit.

Hi, esp. Bryan -

We just disagree, and I'm just hoping that we, as raw fooders, can get really healthy at some point, indivudally.

Actually, Hippocrates does recommend 100% raw diet, unless you're not able to handle it. They also recommend not eating any fruit if ill, and very very little (rarely) if well.

I think people do get ill on fruit, and, again, I'd be interested to know your blood sugar levels, Bryan, after eating all the fruit you eat. Try testing it two hours after eating bananas, for example, and let us know the outcome. Only them can you say that fruit is okay in the diet, if your glucose doesn't rise above 105 - 115, the point at which cellular damage is occurring. Not something most MDs will tlk about, but very important, and for that matter, most MDs don't talk about raw fooding either. Excess sugar/insullin is just as aging as cooked food is.

As for the menu for recovering from fruit addiction, the food i've worked with eating over the years to come off fruit is diverse: lots of greens, other vegetables, seeds and legumes sprouted, of course, and now, several meals a day with 4-6 hours between. That's been working for me to get my system back on track, move through the withdrawal, detox further, and feel vibrant.

Good luck to everyone, and here's to our true health!

GP

GP

My experience has been that fruit is the natural human food. Fruit is the staple in my family's diet, and this is the result of a totaly spontaneous transition. My children (who are finally all raw, hooray!) instinctively choose fruit and I have no hesitation about their choice. My family is doing great on a fruit-based raw diet, but of course, beyond our experience, I met numerous raw foodists who are just like us. To me, the effects of transition from standard raw food diet to fruit-based raw food diet were more powerful than the effects of transition from cooked to raw.

Fruitfully,
Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

Rozemarijn,

I noticed you say you work out in the morning, then take a green smoothie with some fruit. Could it be the green smoothie that is actually making you feel tired? Maybe not, but just a thought. You might try just fruit and maybe, if you're still hungry, some avocado or even a very few nuts or seeds for your breakfast, and have your green smoothie (or a salad) later on.

Also, maybe you could use just a short nap after breakfast. Just a half hour or so to rest your body after your workout and help your body do the hard work of digesting your food.

You do seem busy. But if you ever get the time, a short water fast might help. Once a week, one whole day and one whole night, would be great if possible. I find for me that fasting is like rewinding my inner machinery. The fast is hard, but afterwards, I feel bouncy, bouncy, bouncy!

Best wishes, Ally



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2006 01:12AM by Ally.