Hi Everyone,

I'm currently trying to adopt a raw diet and am having a lot of problems. I've had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for about 10 years now, about 6 years ago I found out about raw food and introduced a lot of fruit into my diet. As a result my health improved a lot, many of the symptoms of my illness (depression, insomnia, headaches etc) disappeared.

About 6 weeks ago I decided that I had to move to a full raw diet. I started out eating raw until 4pm each day, the next week I went to 5pm then 6pm etc. After a couple of weeks I noticed that many of the symptoms of my illness were getting worse. My insomnia came back even though it hadn't been an issue for many years, I started getting headaches and I've been feeling really really depressed.

Despite this I percevered and when I got to the point I was comfortably eating raw food each day until 11pm I decided to go 100% raw. This lasted for about a week, during that time my general wellbeing got worse and worse. I had a horrible feeling in my gut almost constantly, a horrible heavy feeling that just made me feel sick. During my week of 100% raw I started to feel more and more depressed and my sleeping has gotten worse I've gone from sleeping at 11pm each night to not being able to sleep until 3am at the earliest (sometimes a lot later).

The real clincher was the depression, after being raw for a week I felt so bad that I couldn't take it any longer. I started eating cooked food again (I can now only last until about 4pm each day before I feel I need cooked food but I'm trying to increase this each week again).

Now that I'm eating some cooked food again the pain in my gut has gone and the depression has gotten a lot better (I'm still not feeling as good as I did 6 weeks ago though) but my sleep is still really bad.

Can anyone give me some advice or share their own experiences, I want to continue transitioning to 100% raw food but I just want to understand whats happening to me, why I feel so bad and how long can I expect it to last.

I dont know why you had those symptoms or why you felt depressed. Maybe being raw is too hard for you? I guess raw isnt for everyone, and dont beat your self up over it if you cant be 100% raw, try and do half and half? I personally dont have any negative symptoms. Im just waiting for the previous symptoms I had before raw, to subside. I wish you luck.

bibboraw,

I agree with trinity. There's a really good doctor, Dr. Fuhrman (http://drfuhrman.com/) who believes raw with some cooked is healthier. He's an MD and natural hygenist, uses fasting and diet. I'm quite favorably impressed with his stuff. Anyhow, you might want to check out his site and if you live nearby go for a visit. People who follow his diet advice (which he has in a book), seem to have similar results to the raw stories you read here. In other words, their diseases go away, well-being, happiness, and youthfulness increase, they lose weight, sleep better, and so on.

Bibboraw,

Not every negative symptom we feel can be inproved with a change in our diet. Diet certainly has a huge impact on our overall health and well-being, but there may be other things going on here as well. What you're describing sounds (to my admittedly uneducated mind) psychosomatic. And I truly do not mean that in a negative, or dismissive way. The insomnia, digestive issues (i.e. the pain in your gut) and depression may simply be your body/mind telling you that you really aren't ready to go 100% raw. It is stopping you with these physical symptoms. How do you really feel about being 100% raw? How do those around you feel, and does that affect your own feelings on the subject?

Does that make any sense? Hope this helps in some way.

Good luck!

zuzu

Not knowing anything but what you've written, my guess is that you are not getting enough kcals on your raw days. This can lead to irritability, depression, intolerance to cold, etc. It's a lot easier to get enough kcals when you also eat some cooked foods.

But I do not know for certain, I would have to see your height, weight, age, activity level, and everything you put in your mouth, to be certain.

I went through a detox 20 years ago. The depression was the WORST! The worst day all I could do was cry for no apparent reason. It had been getting worse for about a week. The following morning I awoke feeling better mentally than I had in years!!!! Our detox is going to be different for each of us depending on our genetic weakness. Mine almost always includes mental stuff and I don't have as many physical symptoms as others.

Do you have mercury fillings?

My experience wasn't nearly as bad as yours, and I don't know if it was just my perception or what, but I seemed to feel better when I first did raw rather than at 8 months raw - at 8 months raw I felt more lethargic, depressed, and unmotivated than I should have - I knew it wasn't from the diet but rather something my body was trying to detox from. My guess was mercury or heavy metals.

bibboraw --

I also had similiar symptoms making the transition to a mostly raw diet. Rather than feelier happier, lighter an more clear-lighted (as most people speak of) I felt lethargic, had headaches that lasted everyday, stomach aches and felt so weak an drained that I ended up going to sleep most nights at around 9:30pm.. which is not like me at all!

I was not even 100% raw.. probably around 75% or more most days. I attributed my symptoms to "detox" but after more sick-days I felt as if it was way too early in the process to be experiencing detox symptoms (most people experience this after several months not days!). So I added some cooked foods back in and started feeling much better.

I had been told that diet is different for everyone. Everyone has different dietary needs. I know people who have tried to give up meat but would feel very ill despite their efforts an patience (look at the Dalai Lama!). I had no such symptoms when I gave up meat and found it to be very easy (except of course for the psychological part). If you are feeling sick.. your body is telling you that what you are doing is not healthy. I do not see myself ever becoming 100% raw nor do I really want to..but I do think that is important for me to remove all heavily processed foods from my diet (all the packaged pre-prepared chemical laden crap) and I feel as if anyone would benefit from removing unnatural foods from their diet. I will continue to enjoy cooked foods that I prepare myself with all-natural ingredients...but I am very grateful for the raw foods diet and make a point of eating raw foods as much as possible. One thing I do not see myself doing is making cooked desserts ever again!

Hi

Get as much consensus as you can from people and their experiences. Each body is like its own chemical factory. One can differ from another due to many factors. For some, this could be due to certain kinds of medications taken in the past... even in youth. It could possibly be hereditary, tho I doubt it. But for sure, we are carrying surprising amounts of toxins in our bodies due to the diet of modern civilization.

Trust more in natural therapists than doctors, as they go after causes and doctors only treat symptoms.

I suspect your problem mainly has to do with diet history and toxins, tho I wouldn't rule out things like mercury fillings. Search it out.

Go gradual. Try intermittent fasts, or fruit juice fasts or liquid diets. Be patient, for it took many years for us to get into the condition so many of us find ourselves in today.

Don't give up on your highest convictions.

All-raw is very high up the food hierarchy:

Fruit
Vegs/herbs
Seeds/nuts
----------
Legumes
Grains
---------
Dairy
Flesh foods

If you ultimately find you cannot sustain an all raw diet, then just sustain at the next highest level - perhaps vegan.

Climb every mountain
Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow
Til you find your dream

Let me close with this short story...

I suffered terribly from depression. Long story short, I was getting increasingly ill all thru the 90s. No doctors I saw had a clue.

I suffered 3 symptoms: muscle ache, fever & weakness. I would get ill once a month, then once a week, then twice a week, as the 90s progressed.I began losing lots of work time. It was scary!

A natural therapist helped me with herbal extracts and such for a while. I did not yet know that I had depression. And tho I believed in psychosomatic illness, I had no idea that depression could cause physical illness). I had relief for 2 months, then my symptoms came back. My therapist concluded that I had an infection of the gall bladder, which I believed, because I had had mild pain there, on & off, mostly off, for many years.

Finally, I saw an old friend who was a doctor. He took a look at me and said that I looked depressed. I was incredulous. I didn't believe it. Long story short, he gave me prozac. And within 2 weeks or so, all the illness that had tormented me throughout the 90s had completely vanished!

bibboraw,

When you were eating 100% raw, what did your typical daily menu look like. Can you tell us at what times you ate, the foods and the amounts. Here is an example of what I ate today:

12 noon: 6 medium persimmons
6pm: 4 persimmons, banana strawberry smoothies with 3/4 cup of strawberries, 12 small bananas. 6 celery ribs.