Can you feel a difference between, say, 3 months raw, 6 months raw, one year, or more, or is there a "plateau" somewhere ? As if nothing more is happening in terms of health and well-being?

I think maybe one could have the more intense detox in the beginnings and then not much more improvements after?

Thank you for sharing

Blessings to you all,

Cynthia

I'm sure it varies from individual to individual. I'd say you'd hit a good plateau of health after 6 months. And you CAN regulate your own detox...and keep it manageable. Heck, how else would ANYONE achieve 100% raw? Heh...heh.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

From a somewhat different perspective, I think it could also be said that the benefits of a healthful raw food diet may actually become more evident as time goes by.

(Sorry about getting a little wordy here. Wish I were better at writing short and to-the-point answers like David's above).

Right at first, we often see and feel amazing improvements as we go from cooked food to raw. We should probably not expect that level of dramatic positive change to continue on indefinitely. But, on the other hand, we'll hopefully be improving our raw food diet for a long time to come - even after becoming all raw; and those new improvements will bring new benefits.

Then, as the years go by, the benefits - though seemingly more subtle in the moment - will continue to add up. And what will really begin to count for us later is the difference in the way we age.

For instance, if I had stayed on my old path of overeating every yucky cooked food thing I could find (horrors), I'd be obese by now, probably arthritic, possibly heading toward alzheimers, depressed, hopeless, and sedentary. Instead, I'm enthusiastically headed toward my senior life - in a somewhat wirey and possibly even semi-muscular elder body, enjoying exercise more now than ever before, taking on new projects, and even planning to go back to school (Yes!).

So I think, from that perspective, those subtle benefits that take place over years and years, can make a huge difference - possibly the difference between a healthy happy life, and a life of struggling with health problems and depression. How huge is that?! Pretty huge, even compared to those wonderful improvements we see and feel right at first.

As for plateaus: (Again, this is from a somewhat different perspective, and probably has nothing to do with the intent of the question) Plateaus need only be temporary, since there's always room for improvement, and it seems we can always improve on SOMEthing.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2009 02:07AM by suncloud.

cynthia Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can you feel a difference between, say, 3 months
> raw, 6 months raw, one year, or more, or is there
> a "plateau" somewhere ? As if nothing more is
> happening in terms of health and well-being?
>
> Cynthia

You should feel differences as time goes by, but, it varies person to person and what raw diet your doing, as well as if it's the correct one for you. Add your lifestyle choices and you have no clear answer unfortunately to exact time frames ;O)

The "plateau" you refer to I relate to more of coming to terms and finding what works for you and is second nature to achieve and just live your life with food as one aspect of it. This again can vary for everyone. I went 8 years raw but never truly fell into it and just following everyone else. I came to terms with myself, learned from myself and it is second nature and part of me now.

Thank you David, Suncloud and Tanawana,

Nice answers - I think I'm on a plateau (smiles)

Things are fine - just wanted to know what to expect next...

I enjoy very much my raw life.

blessings to all of you

Cynthia

For me it goes in cycles...after each cleaning block/phase you step up to the next level of cleansing. This depends of course how your going raw, if your not going 100% raw cold turkey, things may be as the guys above me described.

JS

Victoria Boutenko covered her plateau in her book "Green for Life"
[www.hcgfatloss.com]

"After several years of being raw foodists, however, each one of us began to feel like we had reached a plateau where our healing process stopped and even somewhat began to go backwards. After approximately seven years on a completely raw diet, once in a while, more and more often, we started feeling discontent with our existing food program."

and then she started to make green smoothies, and the rest is history.