I want to stay in this lifestyle - uicing, eating vegetables etc.. I haave rollercoastered this entire year due to efforts to lose weight. I am definately sugar sensitive and indulging in fruit - the way I do - overdoing grapes and cherries - and I do mena over doing - sets me up for failure. I get discouraged and quit - I go bac to protein - try it for 2 days -feel good in my stomach but bad in my head. - Then get bac on the rollercaoster and do it again! Got up today - at 2:00am and uiced anything I could find - tomatoes, cuc, celery. (sorry eyboard is not cooperating!) I want this to be a way of life - I get hesitant becasue in the Northeast we have cold winters and I do not now what I will uice then! - I can always fall bac on geens - I guess I am ust saying - help!! Please let me be successful at this! Thans for listening!

Hey man. I want it to work for you too.

How's your financial situation?

You can buy juicables in the winter even if stuff doesn't grow around you then.

Jmmveg:

-You'll find a level that works for you. Get back to basics and find a level of eating and living that YOU are comfortable with - and stretch (not pull or tear) from there. You'll succeed at YOUR pace. Concentrate on the VERY small goals that YOU are prepared and willing to do every day! Follow your joy........and don't let external circumstances dictate to you whether you can do that or not!

-Thank you for sharing.

-David Mason

David you are soooo wonderful! So non udgemental and willing to help! My mind twists because I am in the gym and see the results people get on a high protein diet - no denying that. I try it - feel emotionally bad and go bac to raw - I then eat fruit - spie a sugar attac throw my arms up eat everything in a 50 mile radius and start again the next day! I did raw veg for 5 years got down to 90 pounds but felt great!!! After rollercoastering these last few years I am up to 120 and am going crazy! I am off for a colonic this morning and will eep plugging one hour at a time. How do sugar sensitive people deal with fruit? I am going to try apples - a 1/4 at a time and hope for the best. And yes - I am maing this more complicated than it needs to be!

What do you mean by "you go crazy" when you have fruit? Fruit is our natural food. Fruit should be the base of our diet. I would have severe problems trying to stay raw eating just vegetables. It would be impossible to get enough calories to feel satisfied. Why are you so afraid of eating fruit? There is nothing wrong with eating enough fruit in one sitting to satisfy you. Our bodies run on carbs, we get those from fruit. I think you would feel a lot more satisfied, and therefore sane, if you ate more fruit. Please see www.rawfoodexplained.com.

All the best,

Audrey
www.rawhealing.com

-Thank you. You'll do fine. You'll incorporate what YOU think is good just like anyone else should: a little at a time....at a pace YOU are comfortable with.

-Philosophical question: Do we suffer because circumstances are so physically painful to us RIGHT NOW? Or do we suffer because we COMPARE our situation to some other situation?

-David Mason

Jmmveg, after reading your posts, I can already tell I like you. I've felt like you do many times, so I hope you don't take this the wrong way, it's only what I wished someone would have said to me.

Get it together, stop going nuts. You want to do raw?? then DO IT!. I know it's hard, but will yourself into doing it. NO MORE WHINING, JUST DO IT! There is always a way out of every predicament. If you need to gain weight, eat more and lift weights, if you need to loose, then eat less and do cardio. There is plenty of fruit in the winter, not as much veriety, but still plenty. Apples are abundant, and if you juice the green ones with vegetables, it should not be too much sugar. If you're determined, you'll aways find a way! Be strong, and find the motivation in yourself!

chilove Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What do you mean by "you go crazy" when you have
> fruit? Fruit is our natural food. Fruit should be
> the base of our diet. I would have severe problems
> trying to stay raw eating just vegetables. It
> would be impossible to get enough calories to feel
> satisfied. Why are you so afraid of eating fruit?
> There is nothing wrong with eating enough fruit in
> one sitting to satisfy you. Our bodies run on
> carbs, we get those from fruit. I think you would
> feel a lot more satisfied, and therefore sane, if
> you ate more fruit. Please see
> www.rawfoodexplained.com.
>
> All the best,
>
> Audrey
> www.rawhealing.com


It's a dangerous thing to tell someone who is having blood sugar problems to eat so much fruit. Modern fruit is so sweet and hybridized; not even close to the "wild" fruits that most frugivorous animals live on. We didn't "evolve" to be eating massible quantities of sugar, and it can cause massive problems in the long run for many (if not most) people. Massive sugar intake from fruit can leache minerals out of the body extremely fast, not to mention that it usually promotes candida and other problems, particurly in someone who is JUST becoming raw.

Considering the vast genetic differences and metabolisms of humanity, saying one diet is our "natural diet" when there is honestly no proof is not rational.

Here is some things I found about fruit sugars and they seem to be all over the glycimic index, but juicing them seems to make sugar problems worse. There seems be lots of low glycimic fruits to choose from, even bananas are rather low in sugar!

[www.drweil.com]

Fruits provide us with health-enhancing vitamins and phytochemicals as well as fiber, all important components of our diets, and there is no reason why people with diabetes should forego these benefits. However, you may have to be careful about the fruits you choose, how often you eat them and when you eat them. If you take a look at the glycemic index (GI), a measure of how fast carbohydrate foods (which include fruits) are converted in the body to blood glucose, you’ll see that there are big differences between fruits. I recommend choosing fruits that rank low on the glycemic index. Low rankings are those that score below 55, intermediate-GI foods score between 55 and 70 and high GI foods score above 70.

For example, some good fruit choices would include an average-sized apple that scores 38; cherries, which score 22; grapefruit (25); an average-sized orange (44); an average-sized pear (38); a plum (39). Intermediate GI fruits include banana (55); cantaloupe (65); mango (55); papaya (58); pineapple (66). High GI fruits include dried dates (103); and canned fruit cocktail (79). How quickly fruit will raise your blood sugar depends on such considerations as whether you eat the fruit after a high-fat meal or drink it as a glass of fruit juice on an empty stomach.


[www.fredericpatenaude.com]

WHAT ABOUT THE GLYCEMIC INDEX?

“And last but not least, when discussing the optimal diet, one of the criteria listed was "low glycemic." Again, this gets back to the fruit issue as many fruits are high glycemic-so again, even though I love fruit I'm beginning to wonder just how wise it is to consume it on a regular basis.”

ANSWER: Most fruits are not “high” on the glycemic index. Banana is 51 (low), Kiwi is 47 (low), Grapefruit is 25 (low), Mango is 41 (low), Oranges is 31 (low), Papaya is 56 (low). Only watermelon is listed as “high” in most charts (72).

According to Dr. Fuhrman, author of the excellent book “Eat to Live,” “Scientific evidence indicates that the glycemic index of a food is not a reliable predictor of the effect food has on blood glucose levels, cholesterol, and insulin levels”

You need not be concerned about the glycemic index of a particular food if it is otherwise nutrient- and fiber-rich. The presence of fiber in whole fruits is much more important in blood glucose control than the glycemic index.

I had your same exact experience until I de-emphasized the high-glycemic fruits I was eating - pineapple, grapes, dried fruit, dates, too many bananas. As soon as I severely decreased these and added greens to my smoothies - raw started really working for me. I don't want to go out and eat a whole chicken after eating a pound of grapes. It was that simple.

As far as putting sugar into the blood, eating something like bread or pasta is going to put much more sugar into the blood at a much faster rate then fresh fruit. This is because the fruit has soluble fibers that regulate the rate at which the sugars enter into the blood.

jmmveg,

By the way, everyone of your 15 trillion cells in your body runs on sugar. While it is possible for the body to convert fat into sugar or protein into sugar, the best way to get sugar into the cells is to eat whole fresh ripe organic fruits. People who don't allow themselves to eat sufficient fruit will find themselves going back to cooked foods to eat starches like bread, pasta, and potatoes.

with all due respect to the Fruitarians aboard, there is just not sufficient evidence out there to support a high fruit diet, quite the contrary. Every book on raw or live food health that I have read, every single one, and there have been many, strongly suggests, if not warns, against excessive fruit consumption. Hyperinsulinism is a REAL syndrome. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by denouncing excessive fruit intake by these experts except scientific evidence.

Many fruitarians claim to "feel" great on a high fruit diet. But "feelings" are not adequate proof of sound health practices. Many things that are bad for us make us "feel" good. If the Surgeon General had not strongly warned us against cigarettes, many of us, based on "feelings" would still be smoking. Sugar provides a tremendous jolt of energy and therefore lots of fruit, especially with nothing else to interfere, probably does feel good. I eat a lot of fruit myself, in the mornings only, and then balanced out with nuts, seeds, and unsweet fruits and leafy greens during the rest of the day. Fruit, in balance and in moderation, is excellent food. But pushing a high-fruit diet, especially to people in transition to raw, is not responsible, imo. There is just not sufficient scientific evidence to support it and loads of scientific evidence that supports avoiding excessive fruit.

The body is enormously adaptive. I have known people, as have we all, who abuse their bodies beyond comprehension and are still kicking. Once the body adapts to a high fruit diet the person may "feel" fine, but that is no guarantee that they are fine. I think it is dangerous to eat "philosophically". I think it is much more wise to be scientific about how we nourish ourselves. Currently, the scientific evidence far from supports a high-fruit (and I mean sugar fruit) diet.

As I continue this journey into raw I understand a lot more concerning the pitfalls that raw foodists can fall into. Fruit, in many ways, seems more satisfying than do leafy greens; they are luscious, sweet, sensual and delicious. They seem to really help with cravings, probably because prior to raw we all ate way to many complex carbs and the sugar in the fruit helps with that. Another reason is that sugar is a first cousin to alcohol and so is highly addictive. And I also realize that this is an evolving process and that in a month my opinions and "take" on this whole thing may very well have changed. But presently, in my opinion, it is as important to eat a balanced diet when raw, if not more so, than it ever was. An all fruit diet is obviously not balanced.

Audrey, I've seen photos of your transformation. You are gorgeous and its hard to argue with that. But this level of transformation can be accomplished eating a more balanced raw food diet (I've enjoyed a bit of a transformation myself), which based on the overwhelming opinion of the vast majority of the experts on raw or whole food nutrition is a lot safer in the long run. And we are in it for the long run, ain't we?

~Kathleen

chilove Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What do you mean by "you go crazy" when you have
> fruit? Fruit is our natural food. Fruit should be
> the base of our diet.


Audrey, why not try listening to the person and dealing with them where they are instead of demanding that they follow a paradigm that you subscribe to?

Everytime someone says they are having blood sugar problems there's always a slew of fruit fundies on there sticking up for the mass consumption of fruit as if it were in danger of becoming illegal. I really don't understand. Do you care at all about the posters on this forum or are you just out to defend your fragile beliefs??

jmmveg, I suggest not worrying so much. Just experiment and see what works for you.

How can I possibly than you all for the excellent respones?! You are all too ind to share your experience with me and I sooo appreciate it

It is definitely possible that high-fruit is not a good idea for our friend, depending on a lot of information based on his/her current lifestyle that we do not currently know.

jmmveg, if you are going to consume fruit anyway, I would probably recommend that you eat it instead of juicing it, as I have read that the fibers in fruit regulate the rate of sugar absorption (Bryan also mentioned that above).

I would suggest adding more raw protein foods - mixed greens (any dark leafy greens are protein foods), blue-green algae, spirulina, seaweeds, nuts, and hemp seeds.

I lift weights myself, and the above foods work beautifully for my protein needs. And I can't eat a lot of fruit either, so I know what you mean.