I'm embarrassed to admit this, but....for the past several years, my daily breakfast has consisted of a donut, a LARGE chocolate milk and a coffee. Great nutrition, eh? Yeah, the rest of my diet isn't a whole lot better. Needless to say, I've gained much weight and I feel pretty crappy.

I really want to go raw. I know it is for the best. However, here is my problem: every time I try to do it, I feel horrible. To give you an idea of what I mean, I wake up and make a nice green smoothie. I eat healthy raw (mono) foods all day. And I end up feeling irritable, anxious, with heartburn, etc. I soon give up and grab my usual donut & chocolate milk, and before I even finish eating it I feel 100% better. All my symptoms are gone and I feel calm. Does this mean I'm addicted or something? Do people actually get "addicted" to donuts?! Geez, I feel like a druggie searching for a fix or something. Help?

Crunch,

You just took the first step towards breaking your addiction. And yes, it is an addiction and it's more powerful than narcotics. If you truly want to make a positive change in your eating you're going to have to accept that it will get worse before it gets better. The issue is in the tissue. All the toxic food substances, negative emotional events, and physical abuses of life get stored in our bodies. When you make an abrupt transition into low fat raw foods detoxification begins. Depending on the person and their state of health the toxic dumping may cause varying degrees of headache, nausea, flu like symptoms,bowel distress and anger (oh, do I remember the anger!).

Your choice of comfort foods is a deadly combo of empty calories devoid of nutrients and packed with stimulants, caffeine and cannabinoids, and a long list of known toxic or carcinogenic substances. The comfort you feel is simply the narcotic effect on the brain kicking in, masking the pain and harm that is going on.

As to the effect you feel from eating clean and raw one day. You're putting clean nutrition into a digestive system that's not had time to move out the previous day's abuse and it hasn't had time to reset itself to secrete the proper digestive substances for the raw food. It goes into upset.

If you are trying to do this by yourself you are at a higher risk of failure. The guidance and support of a few experienced raw friends or professionals makes a big difference in success. Online consultants can help you. There's lost of good information available on transitioning to Raw.

My first suggestion is to go what I call clean vegan. Begin by eliminating all animal products. Milk is for baby cows. No animal in nature eats milk after it is weaned from its mother's milk. Eliminate stimulants, chocolate, fermented foods, alcohol and caffeine. Eliminate processed sugars and refined grains. Began reducing processed oils and do not eat cooked recipes where oil is heated in the cooking. These things will give your body healing time to establish better digestion. If you can do these things cold turkey, great. Otherwise keep moving in the direction of elimination. If you feel the urge to binge get away from the food immediately and go for a walk, preferably in nature and try to connect with your senses: sight, smell,taste, sounds and touch - this gets you out of your head where the desire to binge is and back into your body.

Being successful with a Raw lifestyle is not about how much information you pack into your head; how much you know about Raw. Being successful means you have learned that the body already has all the knowledge built in from millions of years of living raw before cooked diets evolved and you are in the process of learning to listen to and see the signs of what the body needs in the moment. Our Western civilization has taught us to value the mind above all which is a disservice to the body. Let your learning process and experience be your guide; you'll be on the edge of your learning curve, you won't get bored and everyday you will learn something that takes you one step further down your path to healthy vibrant living.

My personal experience is that I took 2 years to transition from clean vegan to 100% raw. I've read almost nothing about Raw. I have relied on my personal experience and connecting with other Raw fooders. I have a guide who sheds enough light on the path behind him so that I can follow and avoid a lot of the common pitfalls.

I highly reccommend you check out more info from Dr.Doug Graham and Dr. Roz Graham. I recently spent 3 days with them and found their approach and science based guidelines seem to resonate with where I am heading. www.foodnsport.com

-Exercise may be healthy. But starting to run 5 miles a day is not for everyone. You might want to start slowly....with a level that you ARE comfortable with now....and slowly increase your raw from there. Soon you will be sensitive enough to not WANT poor food choices. That is really winning the battle.

-David Mason

Just wanted to say I thought that was great advice from uti and Davidzane!

Thank you so much for the information everyone!!