WARNING: This is very long. If you just want to answer any questions I might have, those are down at the bottom. The "TL;DR" of this post is that I am working to eat better and need support and answers to my questions.

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Hey everyone! My name is Christina and I'm new here, well, kind of. I tried to go raw about 7 years ago, prior to having my first child (now I have three- whew!), but didn't really have any support and fell off the wagon pretty quickly. Periodically I toy with the idea, but it has been hard to do. I love my husband dearly, but he is a Hot Pocket and Cap'n Crunch kind of guy (though he is extremely supportive!) which makes it hard to do this because of all the temptation in the house. Prior to meeting him three years ago I ate a healthy vegan diet. I had fallen back into eating just vegetarian (I had thrown local pastured eggs back into the mix) a few weeks before that, but after meeting him I not only began a sedentary lifestyle...I started to eat crap. Cookies, chips, fast food, soda, energy drinks! Nothing has been off limits, these were things that prior to this I hadn't eaten or drank in years!

On top of my inherent desire to eat better, I have moral issues with how I have been living my life. Not only do I currently work managing an organic market, I also am a doula (where I mostly work with moms wanting a natural birth and I give them nutrition counseling), and I also run an environmental group. Every day I see the impact that eating the Standard American Diet has on this earth and it just hurts me. Then I go out and get some McDonalds...I'm the hypocrite of all hypocrites! Also, considering my major in college was nutrition (and I had a focus in vegetarian/vegan diets) you would think I would know better!!

Finally yesterday something snapped. I think it was the scale, though not literally thank god. I have kept a steady weight since giving birth to my last child (where I gained a whopping 80 pounds!). Sometimes it would go down when I decided to exercise more for a few days, but generally it stayed the same. Then I didn't weigh myself for about two weeks. I am now 5 pounds heavier than I was. I have NEVER gained weight outside of pregnancy. At least no more than just some typical water weight...and the 5 pounds put me from being in the "normal" range of weight to being considered overweight. I've never been...overweight. I also realize that as I near being 30 things are slowing down and losing weight will be harder as time passes so it is better now than never. I don't want to go raw though just to lose weight, I think it's moreso of how we were meant to eat physiologically/biologically. I don't know that I could ever be high raw...but I'm down for trying!

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Okay now that all the back story is there...I have a few questions...okay, a lot of questions.

1) Have any of you gradually worked yourself up to a total juice cleanse? My plan was to do one juice, one raw meal, and one cooked meal for the first week. One juice and two raw meals the second week, and the third week do all juice. Is this a good plan?

2) With a juice cleanse, what kind of combinations of veggies do you like for vegetable juices? My morning juice today was mostly fruit, but with some spinach and kale. But if I choose to do a juice for lunch (which sounds good to me!) I want something more green. I'm a great smoothie-maker, but I don't begin to know how to throw veggies into the juice mix lol.

3) Realistically on a full juice cleanse, how much would I need to be drinking per day? I am drinking them from quart sized containers if that makes any difference.

4) What things should you absolutely not eat raw, due to things like poisons? I don't buy into some things like not eating apple seeds (I believe they are good for you and ward off cancer, but we won't go into all that)...but I have heard things like potatoes with green on them shouldn't be eaten...?

5) I'm deathly allergic to avocados and I'm not a huge fan of the flavor of coconut (in fact I HATE it) but I see these things mentioned A LOT by raw foodists. What can I eat instead for good healthy fats?


After this I mostly just am looking for support. I need people who are willing to be a part of this journey with me and encourage me. I don't know if I'm allowed to link to my Facebook to make friends on there...but that's where I post the most about things I'm doing so it would be nice to have some like-minded friends if anyone is interested?

Any tips and tricks I should know to make things easier?

Congrats on your renewed efforts to live a healthful lifestyle. I don't have answers to your juicing questions as I don't juice that much.

As for what to eat raw, let your taste buds be the judge. For me, hard and starchy vegetables don't taste good to me, say like a raw potato. Eat a lot of vegetables you would normally eat in a green salad. And don't forget to eat a lot of fruit.

Eat nuts and seeds for your fats. Almonds are the most alkaline of the nuts, see if you can get them unpasteurized. I like hemp seeds, because they have a good omega-3/omega-6 balance. Chia is my favorite source of high omega-3 fats.

Chrilyner, you may also want to look at your cooked food choices. See if you can eliminate fast and processed foods out of your diet. I realize that being a mother takes a lot of time, and these fast/processed foods are convenient. However, eating fruit is also convenient, as its ready to go if it is ripe. The other food that may be keeping weight on your body is salt, causing water retention. The fast/processed foods are often loaded with salt (and sugar and fats).

Oh yea, I am definitely cutting all of that out. It honestly wasn't even for a lack of time that I was eating such crap...but more out of habit from when my husband and I first met and he got me playing video games and I started grabbing fast foods. I've always been a bit of a salt addict, but I've been good about changing certain habits. For example, I no longer eat chips instead I make homemade kale chips. I soak it in Braggs apple cider vinegar and then sprinkle with nutritional yeast.

Prana Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chrilyner, you may also want to look at your
> cooked food choices. See if you can eliminate fast
> and processed foods out of your diet. I realize
> that being a mother takes a lot of time, and these
> fast/processed foods are convenient. However,
> eating fruit is also convenient, as its ready to
> go if it is ripe. The other food that may be
> keeping weight on your body is salt, causing water
> retention. The fast/processed foods are often
> loaded with salt (and sugar and fats).

If you manage an organic market, couldn't you at least get "healthy" junk foods for your husband? Of course they are still not ideal foods, but I do see a difference in Hot Pockets and some natural version (no artificial flavors and colors and hydrogenated oils, for starters). And then progress from there. I think you're being too hard on yourself. I know that most of the people working at my local Whole Foods most likely do not eat clean. That is just how it is. We are raised in a culture where fast food and processed foods are prevalent and it's difficult to cut ties completely. Or sometimes we might get into that rut of eating less cleanly than we would like. The best thing is to be conscious of how you feel physically and then tell yourself that you will feel so much better when you get it together.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2013 07:46PM by banana who.

I do juiceing every month but i do it on a monthly schedual so im not sure if im answering your question properly but this is what i do:

4-5 days solid foods (unblended unjuiced whole foods)
4-5 days blended foods (smoothies)
4-5 days liquid foods (jucing)
2-3 days fasting (water and rest generally over a weekend)
4-5 days liquid foods (jucing)
4-5 days blended foods (smoothies)
8-10 days solid foods (unblended unjuiced whole foods)


1) Have any of you gradually worked yourself up to a total juice cleanse? My plan was to do one juice, one raw meal, and one cooked meal for the first week. One juice and two raw meals the second week, and the third week do all juice. Is this a good plan?

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Hi, Christina, and welcome!

[belated]Happy Mother's Day

You seem very distressed by what's going on in your life, in some ways, because you sense that you aren't eating according to your values. Fortunately, this is something within your control. I agree with recommendations to just start reintroducing raw fruits and veggies back into your daily diet wherever possible, say, big salads before lunch and dinner, and replacing bad snacks with "healthier" ones from the health food store. Your husband's food choices don't promote health or longevity, and that's not great for the family, either. As he's supportive, ask him if he'll partner with you to make necessary changes in the family food regimen to help everyone thrive.

Regarding the juice cleanse, I haven't got much experience with juice cleanses, though I used to juice every day. I did a two week juice cleanse, flanked by several days of whole raw fruits and veggies before and after, while transitioning back to cooked vegan from cooked vegetarian. But this was many years ago, and introduced a several-year period of partly raw veganism and almost daily juicing. Today, I wouldn't do a juice cleanse without being low-fat, high raw vegan for several months first; it would be a bit of a shock otherwise. But perhaps you body will respond well, so just do more research and plan carefully.


Above all, I wish you peace, because that is the key to treating one's body well and feeding it properly. Good luck!

I just found this forum for the same reason you are here. I want to change my diet to raw vegan, but I've had a very difficult time this month since I've started. I have 5 children and a husband I still cook for who eat meat and cheese and cooked food. My mother also lives with me and she is always buying, cooking, and consuming very unhealthy foods. I don't know anyone personally who is vegetarian or vegan, let alone raw vegan. I thought I could do better with some support, so I came to the internet. I figure it will be easier to find support here than to look around me to find a raw vegan or at least someone who is interested in this way of eating.

So I don't have any answers or tips or tricks, but I am here to offer support and, I hope, also receive it. I don't want to correspond on facebook, but I saw on this site there is a place for blogging threads. I thought we could each start a thread and read each other's progress and comment to each other with support or help. I've looked around this forum and there seem to be some really knowledgable and supportive people here. This is all new to me, but I'm going to start now with some fruits and vegetables I have on hand. That's what I'll eat today starting now. Maybe we can update every day or every few days and that will keep us motivated. Just knowing there is someone else with the same goal who I can come correspond with will be a huge help to me.

I wanted to tell you that I understand your experience a little. After my second kid, I was about 50 pounds overweight. When I realized it wasn't going to come off without some work I started dieting and exercising and I was able to lose the weight. I know how hard that was, but I think it would be even harder now since I have a lot more stress and responsibility in my life (and I'm older). Stress and responsibility take a lot out of you and make it difficult to focus on a health goal that often feels like a selfish goal. I think to me it feels like a selfish goal because you are usually doing it on your own and it sometimes involves inconvenience for other people, so it's easy to put it off for later or trivialize it when a particularly difficult day or week or month comes along. But I've decided that I really need to focus some of my daily attention to this goal because my health is important to my family. And I think better diet and health will help me deal with my stress and responsibility better.

I've never done a juice cleanse, but I want to try. When I get a juicer I plan to try that out. Just drinking juice for a week or something. (That's what I think a juice cleanse is. Maybe I'm wrong or missing something.) I know there is a lot of stuff people do when they become raw vegans, but I don't know much about it. I'll be happy to learn as I come read on this forum. I'm typing a lot here. I just want to let you know I'm in a similar boat, just starting out and learning and with some difficulties to struggle through. So maybe we can help each other.

I think we can all benifit from the knowledge of the best in the bussiness Brian Clement. And to do so just go to youtube and search Brian Clement. You can learn so much for free it's just very generous for him to put this out there. They also have a new website thetruthabouthealth.com to read or watch the best info. on raw food diet.
1. You shold not mix fruit with vegies.
2. Smoothies destroy nutrients.
3. The most complete Juices will have some form of protien with fatty acids like sunflower sprouts.
Juces are great if you have the time and money but will not carry some through the day. If you can do them then great. Some won't loose weight on a raw food diet at first or at all sometimes but that should not be of concern at first. I think your plan is fine if it works for you. I would not juice apple seeds or fruit if you have health concerns. I don't know much about apple seeds but the idea is to get toxins out not in lol. Get healthy fats from soaked nuts, hemp seeds, flax seeds a little coconut oil, flax oil, hemp oil. Hope this short answer helps.

I will try my best to answer your questions:

1) Yep. Doing one right now actually.

2) Choose a base:
-Cucumber + parsley
-Cucumber + mint
-Cucumber + romaine

Add something for blending:
-celery, green pepper, small amount of lime/lemon, cabbage, etc.

Add some nutrient-packed greens:
-kale, spinach, broccoli, other dark greens

Something sweet if you like:
-apple, carrot, pineapple

3) I can't give you that answer, as I don't know what's in your juice or how many calories you typically consume. I do several 32-oz jars, and that seems to be what my body wants/needs.

4) If you're not sure, don't. Things are bitter for a reason. It kept our ancestors from eating things that are poisonous. Would you eat it by itself? No? Then probably don't eat it.

5) Extra virgin olive oil, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, nuts

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