I am a little disappointed. I felt by going mostly raw I would see dramatic improvements in my health and energy. When I started about six weeks ago on a 75-100% a day raw diet.. I didn't notice any significant changes except for freqeunt bowel movements (which I was quite happy about!). But now, I no longer have daily bowel movements...without having made any major changes to my diet. I got very sick recently (the first time in years) with a fever, and now a cold followed by an eye infection. I feel very unhealthy and I am not sure why as I should be the healthiest I have ever been in my life! I really expected raw foods to make a dramatic improvement on my health and I am a little discouraged. I have been a vegetarian for a year now.. and am mostly vegan. I avoid processed foods and by processed I mean foods that are prepared and have long shelf-lives. When I cook it generally is all from scratch.

I usually start the day off with raw almond milk with granola/rolled oats cereal and some fresh fruit (usually a banana). For lunch I may have a spinnach salad usually with green & yellow squash and carrots with raw olive-oil and raw apple-cider vinger or balsamic with more fruit and maybe a slice of whole wheat toast and organic butter. For dinner, I usually have a cooked meal (home-made soup, organic whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce, etc.) with a salad and fruit as a dessert. I usually drink at least one fruit shake or veg juice a day. Although I still eat cooked foods, I feel like I eat healthy and should be seeing some benefits. Anyone have suggestions? Would starting a detox regimine be a good idea? And if so, which one do I follow? I have read David Jubb's and find it to be too intense for me.

Thanks for your help!!

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I usually start the day off with raw almond milk with granola/rolled oats cereal and some fresh fruit (usually a banana). For lunch I may have a spinnach salad usually with green & yellow squash and carrots with raw olive-oil and raw apple-cider vinger or balsamic with more fruit and maybe a slice of whole wheat toast and organic butter. For dinner, I usually have a cooked meal (home-made soup, organic whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce, etc.) with a salad and fruit as a dessert.

There may be food combining issues with your diet. I will not go for almond, gronola and banana in the morning or for wheat, squash, butter and fruit for lunch. There may be too many items in your meal and not combined properly.

There is a thread on juice fasting that may be good to read. [www.rawfoodsupport.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2007 03:29AM by djatchi.

I don't see much protien in your discription of your diet. When I added cooked beans, raw milk and more protien foods to my diet, my health improved and my hair grew back. This is not debatable,as far as what is best for me, as I'm my own test rat. I'm about 80% raw, and look, feel and am healthier than when 100% raw.

Detox is so important. I look at the years before turning raw as if I had never cleaned my house or paid my bills except when the bill collector came to the door. When I finally changed my ways, I still had years of neglect and dirt to work through, like leaky faucets, cracked foundation, caked on gunk, etc.
Detox is like fixing some of the old problems. Your body is working at fixing problems you probably aren't even aware of.
For me, raw isn't enough and I think I'll be doing detoxes for another year or more.
I get discouraged too, so I read about other people's successes.

minou,

The healthiest change you could make to your current mixed/cooked raw diet is to remove all the overt fats from the diet, both raw fats and cooked fats. Your breakfast (with 1/4 almonds to make 1 cup milk, 1 cup granola, 1 medium banana) is 53% fat, or 50 grams of fat.

The lunch, with 1 slice of toast, 1 pat of butter, 2 tbsp oil, and 1 small head of lettuce is 77% fat, or 33 grams of fat.

The dinner, at least the raw component, is going to have 75% fat or worse.

There is a good chance that your diet is 50% fat, even including all the cooked carbohydrate you are eating.

Get rid of the overt fats, and after some detox, you should feel better. Replace the almond milk with banana-milk (blend banana and water). No butter, no oils, and make your dressing from blended vegetables or fruit.

Eat more streamed vegetables and steamed yams or sweet potatoes rather than pasta, which is a junk food. Replace the bread with steamed starchy root vegetables. Or better yet, eat more sweet fruit.

Whatever your raw percentage is, most of those raw calories are fat, perhaps as much as 70% (or more) fat. So if you are 75% raw, then 25% of your calories are coming from cooked foods (carb/prot/fat), 50% of your calories are coming from raw fat, and 25% of your calories are coming from raw carb and protein.

As far as calories from raw veggies (non fats), I wouldn't be surprised if those calorie were under 10% of your caloric intake.

Bryan,

Those are some great suggestions. I honestly never pay much attention to fat. I am slightly underweight, so I always felt as if it couldn't hurt to eat more fats. I actually just recently purchased some raw coconut oil.. I guess this was not a smart idea?...

I really do enjoy the almond milk.. (and banana milk really sounds good and I plan to try it) but I can definitly get rid of the butter (which I don't eat often anyway) and the oils. Do you have any suggestions for a good dressing of mixed veggies?

I guess a big problem of mine is not really having a good collection of raw recipes under my belt to whip up after I get home from work. I work about 10 hours a day so when I get home I am usually starving and I find a cooked meal to be much heavier and satisfying.

it is a process I guess and I thank everyone for their help.

My first thought in looking at your diet is that your proportion of fruits and veggies seems very low. IMHO it's less important to be 80% raw than it is to be 80% fruits and veggies.

If you add some more fruits like apples, pears, etc. (juicy fruits), the bowels will move more, too.

greenie,

It is way healthier to be a low fat cooked vegan (10% fat) than a 100% high fat raw foodist (70%+ fat).

minou,

The simplest dressing would be just orange juice or blended tomatoes or just blended strawberries. That might be too plain for you.

One of my more complex non fat dresssing is to make a tomato salsa: 2 heirlooms, 10 tomatillos, red bell pepper, cilantro a food processed and poured over a bed of sliced celery.

Doug Graham shared how to make dressing out of whole foods:

Take an acid fruit: orange/lemon/pineapple/tomato/tamarind/etc
A whole fat: 1 oz seeds /1 oz nuts / 3 oz avo
And a filler: cucumber / celery /

and blend. Having the filler thickens up the dressing without using fats to thicken.

If you are eating an overt fat everyday, limit the overt fat to under 100 calories per day. If you are eating them every only other day, you can double the fat. When I am eating overt fats just once a week, I throw in a whole avocado.

I agree with Bryan completely. I would also offer my experience that as you progress along YOUR goals, you may want to eat simpler...with less food combining.....along with occasional light fasting....to better sensitize your body to what it really likes / dislikes without mixed digestive signals. Try 1 day of mono-meals per week...and see how this makes you feel. Let me know!

-David Z. Mason

I just wanted to second what Bryan said! I personally feel much, much better on a low fat, high fruit diet. Also, remember that you are still eating a fairly large amount of cooked food, so you are not going to experience the full effects of going raw. Also, you need to be patient. Give your body some time to adjust and to heal.

All the best,

Audrey
www.rawhealing.com

it took a lifetime for your health to get to where it is and you expect drastic improvement in 6 weeks? wow. raw is a great way to attain greater health but it isn't a miracle instant cure. healing takes time, keep up the good habits and you'll see an improvement in time.

coco-- I understand. I just hear from others who are new to raw foods and talk about all these wonderful changes they are experiencing practically overnight. I do find it a bit hard to motivate myself to keep going when I honestly don't see much overall improvement.

Bryan-- What fruits & veggies should I avoid on a daily basis? I don't eat avacodas usually but I eat several bananas a day. I also eat a lot of kiwi, strawberries, raspberries, mangos, oranges, apples and lemons.

I am a bit nervous that too much fruit isn't very healthy.. I guess the whole sugar thing has been drilled into my head. I hardly no what to eat anymore these days.. what is healthy and what isn't. It is very frusterating. One person may tell me to eat more beans and nuts for protein but another will tell me to avoid them. I really don't know what to do anymore! Even the books I read contradict each other.

There is no one size fits all diet. What Bryan is laying out is a generally good idea, but it also depends on where you are coming from. If you are used to eating a certain way, you are not necesarily going to feel better if you make a drastic switch to another diet. When I went off cooked grains, I actually had what felt like withdrawel symtoms. When I went totally raw, I actually lost a lot of weight because I simply couldn't eat five bannanas in one sitting. My body wasn't used to it. It is different for everybody. I would recommend that you find a diet that FEELS good first. Then adjust it slowly toward the raw ideal, replacing as you are able and feels comfortable. You may have to step outside that comfort zone a little and experiment, but when it comes to your body, you are the ultimate authority.

ryandvan, that's the best advice so far.
minou, when you start a work out program you don't see any results for ages.
when you start a weight loss program it's common that at first you Gain weight.
for many people starting raw has a psychological affect that actually has no physical compliment. yet. it does take time to see and feel a change in your body though your mind may feel better at once.
pursuing health is a lifestyle choice, not an exercise that you do for a while to feel better then stop. if you really aren't comfortable keeping what you are doing up and refining it to suit your needs you may want to look at what in your mind is hindering your perfect health. it's all in your mind, after all, and mind is the key to success in anything. you have to enjoy this path to see it through. trying to force yourself to do something that you dislike is a sure way to fail.