Has any1 had any noticeable phyisical changes since being "raw"? Eyey color changed? Hair color changed? Had grey hair that got it's color back? Bald but grew your hair back? hehe Grew taller? Anything significant besides weight loss?

I am only 18 days raw, but I noticed early on that my eyesight was improving...and today my eyes are lighter, as if they've faded. I've also noticed the rim around my eyes in different today in color.

I've been on raw only three weeks (I only just registered here today).

I've started growing more hair on my arms, longer very soft hairs.
My hair on my head seems to be falling out more than normal.
My fingernails are growing SO much faster than they have ever before.

And I have more energy and feel peaceful-er.

One physical change I experienced is that my wounds heal much faster. Sometimes I will cut myself, and the cut will clot in a matter of a few seconds. I don't seem to need bandaids like I used to need before I went raw. In my preraw days, if I cut myself with a sharp knife, the cut would bleed for 30 minutes or even hours. Nowadays, a similar razor cut will bleed for less than a minute, sometimes ony a few seconds.

This has changed my mental attitudes towards getting cuts. I used to have a lot of mental anguish every time I cut myself, because of the fear of reopening the cut, how long it took to heal, etc. Nowadays, if I cut myself its no big deal, as the cuts heal so quickly. In the past I worried about getting cuts wet in the shower because reopening them was such a big deal. Now I don't even thing about it.

I DID grow quite a bit of the hair back on my head after being raw for many years. My hair loss stopped and somewhat reversed itself. It's easier to see in my family because I now have more hair than either of my younger brothers! LOL.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

I was not fat @ all but have lost 8 lbs. I look & feel MUCH better. My skin is softer & I look younger. I no longer have body odor. I've been raw for a few months w/ a rare slip-up here or there.

oooh, my body odor is nil too!

I love that about this diet

I have been about 99% raw for a few years now. My skin looks great very clear rosy complexion. Im only 30 but people think im 21. I have no fear of the sun anymore I can lay out naked on the beach not worry on bit about a sunburn. I love being raw I could never go back to a fully cooked diet, I just dont think I could not physically handle it.


ENYJOY YOUR MORPHOSIS

I went through menopause somewhere between age 50 and 55 (I'll be 58 this coming June) and I LOST weight in my stomach and hips instead of gaining like most menopausal women do. Also, although I have a small amount of gray hair (about 2-3%) it doesn't seem to have increased over the past 20 years-- it's still almost all brunette. My complexion is clear and my skin is soft, and when I start noticing lines (usually in winter) I just do a juice or water fast and detoxify.

My muscles and bones are stronger, and I'm happier, slimmer, much more energetic, and generally infintely healthier than I was when I was in my 20s and 30s before I started eating raw food.

Sharrhan:


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I love the less BO perk. Ive been mostly raw for about eight months and I have noticed my eyesight is better. I wish my skin were clearer. I am trying to recover from candida and I think it is making my complexion blotchy. Has anyone heard this?

kwan, what do you eat? I would like to know! It seems like you have experienced great things! What do you usually eat?

Thank you!

Love to all!

yea whats the big secret

Hey, Kwan, I like your glowing face and attitude (100/100 from me, couldn't resist as a lecturer ha ha). Now, could you tell us please your favourite juices/ juice-combo recipes? Thank you kindly (me being presumptious here that you will share he he).

As far as fasting, the longest I did was three days, but it was long time ago. I just can't going without food, the mere thought of it makes me hungry. How do you do it???

What juices would you recommend for a short (day to two days) fast for a busy person like me (who can't go to bed in the middle of the day)?

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

ok what do you eat?

Here's something that is very clear to me now. Our "diet" and what we "eat" is not just food, and the non food items "consumed" will ruin and negate the perfect foods we eat. The "secret", I believe, will be more than food.

elnatural_1

You look fantastic Kwan and even more so for your age
I turned 50 this year and am beginning to wonder about menopause.
Did you experience any of the typical symptoms, such as hot flushes?
I have been wondering if raw women have these symptoms.
You're a great example to us raw girls, thanks.

Francis

About fasting, I thought I could never do it, but I tried for 3 days. The 1st 2 were tough specially mentally, then after the 3rd day i felt:perfect! as if I didnt need food at all, I was quite sad I had to break it.

Changes in me? after trying raw for about a month with BIG lapses, I think I notice my skin a lot softer. I definitely notice that I have become far more sensitive to food, even if I wanted to eat proper cooked food, I really dont think I could as it really gives me belly ache.

Rian

Frannie,

I turn 50 in about a week (May 1) and stopped having periods last December. I've yet to experience a hot flash or any other symptom of menopause. I keep wondering what all the hoopla is about. I just stopped the monthly bleeding and that's it! I've never felt better.

Is it the diet? dunno fer shure, but I would definitely say that it hasn't hurt.

khale

Oh! I wanted to chime in on how fantastic Kwan looks too! and how vibrant and youthful her attitude. She makes me feel that life indeed begins at 50! What a blessing.

Thank you Kwan.

khale

Wow, this is so inspirational ladies and gets! Thanks for the indirect encouragement!


^My Daughter, Sage and I^

Wishing you a whole lotta love,
Niftethrifte

hey georgeous!!!

Please tell us what u do from the time u get up, until sleep.

How much do u exrcise??

Eat?

Juices and how often?

Any bad habits? or treats u indulge in?

Do u use any commercial products?

Sorry for all the questions, but I like to absorb any info i can get my hands on. I wish i turned to raw foods earlier and not now. When i get to 58 i want to look radiant as u!!!!

Wow! What does everybody else eat too? Mostly fruit, veggies, fat, etc? Then maybe people can get a picture of what has helped you.

Yay! kwan, I am awaiting to hear!

Love to all!

When I started eating more raw foods, no more swollen ankles or sleepless nights. My heart doesn't race " a mile a minute". And my skin is clearer (yay!)

Wow you guys, I'm totally blown away by your compliments. Thanks!

In answering your questions, I've decided to start with a general response first-- more philosophical in nature-- and the dietary/exercise answers in a separate e-mail.

Okay, so first of all, I'm definitely not a food saint ;-p and I make a LOT of mistakes. I figured out a long time ago that I have a perfectionism problem-- you know, the 'all or nothing' thing-- and when I try too hard to be perfect I get even more stressed out (ultimately defeating my purpose even further) than if I just allow myself to be a little less driven. No sense grinding one's teeth over diet, so to speak. So I'm about 95% raw-- which means sometimes I AM 100% raw, and sometimes I have a bad week where I eat some of Jonathan's (my husband's) cooked vegetables or whatever-- especially if it's really cold outside. My ideal is to stay raw, but I don't always do it, even after 20+ years.

I go through lots of phases, and I'm not consistent in terms of adhereing to one system. I think I'm right in the middle between 80-10-10 and the Cousens/Wolfe emphasis on vegies and fats. I certainly love fruit and vegetables, but I think I probably eat about 30% fat.

But I'm getting distracted from my 'general ovewview' goal: I want to share some observations on raw diet that I've gathered over the years. One is that we're all very different, and it's a good thing! I cringed a little a few weeks back when there was a thread about Alyssa Cohen, and folks (other people, not you guys) were saying that she wasn't a good role model because she was too heavy. Eek!!-- I think she looks healthy and fit. I want to assure those of you who don't look like male or female models that you're fine. I don't look like a model either. Everybody doesn't become super-sleek and glamorous on a raw diet; some women remain a little chubby and some men are very slim. I have always been a bit overweight. Even now, and with all the fasting I do, my skin/muscle tone is a little 'soft'-- think Drew Barrymore, definitely ot Demi Moore! I've got jiggly thighs and despite daily workouts I don't think I'll ever have a six-pack. (Don't worry-- this isn't a diatribe; I'm a happy camper.) I'm happy because I've learned to compare myself to. . . MYSELF! ;-))))) If we compare ourselves to an impossible standard -- young starlets who have had liposuction and botox, or even our genetically advantaged raw gurus/guruesses (sp?!?lol), we're sunk, but if we look at where we WERE, and where we are NOW, we probably have reason to be really happy with ourselves.

My childhood made me an ideal candidate for the raw diet, but I had so much physical 'baggage,' so to speak, that I was slow to show improvement. I jokingly tell my friends that I probably had most of my medical and health karma in my childhood and now I'm in my second childhood, experiencing health for the first time. I was so pumped up with antibiotics (rounds and rounds of shots) and so many vaccinations and booster shots; had my tonsils out when I was 5; had my appendix out when I was 10. When I was 8 I had a few months of chemotherapy shots (for a strange, virulent infection that threatened my vision, with my mom, a nurse, giving me 2 shots, twice a week) which left me suddenly fat and depressed, as well as some other symptoms. From then on I was kind of a mess physically and emotionally, and by the time I was in high school I realized I had hypoglycemia. Obviously I was extremely toxic. I didn't know about candida then, but clearly I had that, as well. So I remember always being bloated, 20-30 pounds overweight, puffy and sluggish. I knew instinctively at an early age that breads, grains, and starches in general made me really heavy. By the time I was in my late 20s I was ready to experiment with my diet and find out what would make me healthy again, and at this time I read one of Arnold Ehret's books.

So before I get carried away and write a book here, I'll cut it short and say: whatever your physical challenges, celebrate your positive physical changes. Base your judgment of yourself only on your own progress, and don't get pulled into the comparison game. Your personal best is good enough. ;-)))

Okay, you gorgeous people, that's my 'general overview.' I'll write about the practical day-to-day considerations (diet, exercise, skincare, etc.) in another message.

Love,
Sharrhan

Sharrhan:


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Thank you,

I agree with you. There is a shift in the raw approach despite all of the technicalities.

the shift I am speaking of is a change from seeing yourself in an image of how others view you to how you see yourself from the inside.
I've noticed that it is almost like the "camera eye" shines from within to outward engaging the world with wonder and joy as opposed to the "camera eye" of your mind scritinizing the image of yourself from the "outside."

Shine from within and eat life-force and the rest will fall into place in it's own way in the most beautiful pattern that is you/me.

Okay, now I'm going to respond to people's practical questions.

Love & jgunn -- I eat mostly fruit and fat in the form of nuts and seeds; also LOVE (crave) vegetable-fruits like red peppers, avocados and tomatoes, also zucchini. I eat too many Lara bars. My morning regimen is almost always an orange/mango smoothie. I get hungry late in the afternoon (Lara bar time) and lately dinner is a huge salad or sometimes my 'special' applesauce, made with apples, dried apple rings, raisins, tahini, lemon juice, and cinnamon. I also like to have a bottle of fermented kombucha juice/tea almost every day-- quite a rush! Before my fast I was really getting heavy into bananas.

Rawgosia -- Aw gee, thanks! If I have a glow (you haven't seen me in the dead of winter, lol), it's probably mainly because I have an incredibly loving mate whom I've been with for 19 years, and he drags me to the gym almost every day.

Let's see, elixir recipes. . . mmm, lately I've been having carrot juiced with a very tiny little bit of garlic, or with a little lemon or ginger juice. I've also been having carrot/apple/ginger. Carrot is good one for someone on the go, because it fills you up and has some substance. I don't get the sugar rush from it that some people warn about; maybe because I dilute it with spring water. It's always wonderful in combination with tomato, red pepper, beet, spinach, parsley and celery in various combinations. The only fruit I usually juice is yellow grapefruit (not pink, for some reason). You can get a lot of juice out of only about 1-1/2 grapefruit, and it's so delicious and foamy. Same for pineapple, but I prefer to blend pineapple with a few greens and benefit from all pulp and not waste the delicious fruit.

Re. how I fast more than 3 days. . . it was harder at first, but I have an ace up my sleeve: I'm a 'cavewoman' with a full larder. Pretty early on in my raw 'career' I found that I could juice fast for 10 days (in those days in the early 1980s it was Tropicana orange juice-- can you imagine?!, lol) without too much trouble because I don't lose weight easily and I'm in no danger of wasting away.

Elnatural -- Yeah!, I think you're onto the real 'Secret' (no, I don't mean the movie ;-p)-- the X-factor that makes the raw diet click for people. In this ongoing experiment I'm doing on myself to live optimally on all levels (in which I've stumbled and been humbled numerous times) I look to the past to inform the present: I look to the sages who radiated clarity and personified health and even often reached astonishing longevity, the Taoists. They treated the body as a holy temple and cultivated their energy and vitality carefully and scrupulously, taking care not just in diet, but in all areas. They were experimenters too, and made plenty of mistakes (such as ingesting harmful metals to see if they had health-giving effects). The more recent Taoists have learned from the past and have turned to herbs, qigong and prana cultivation, fasting and detoxification, living in health-giving environments (mountains in particular) and so on. Many Taoists today are raw foodists; some are even breatharians. It only works, I think, if one has a strong spiritual leaning. The mere cultivation of physical health leaves the X-factor out, and then people can develop problems. I don't know-- maybe I'm wrong. I'm also into Zen 'don't know.'

Francis -- Thank you, you're sweet! Well, the actual menopause itself kind of snuck up on me. My periods just kind of went away slowly, you know? But I went through a non-raw experiment for about 3 years before menopause, and during that time I was having what may have been perimenopausal symptoms -- a lot of sweating and some depression. I don't know how much was perimenopause and how much was just bad diet-- I suspect the bad diet made the menopause symptoms noticeable. When I returned to raw diet I breezed through menopause and felt great again.

Khale -- Oh, that's SUCH a nice compliment. Thank you! You know, I never wore a watch, because I have this 'thing' about trying to live in the eternal moment rather than with the passing of time. (My body doesn't exactly adhere to that paradigm, however.) Anyway, I find myself really enjoying being around people who are younger than I am (and older than I am, too!) because on some level I am aware that we're all just cosmic toddlers at play. (Feels deadly serious at times though, doesn't it?!)

Niftethrifte -- your baby is PRECIOUS!!!

benetgirl --

**Please tell us what u do from the time u get up, until sleep.
Ha!!!, you're going to be bored! I spend too much time on the computer, I work out at the gym almost daily, I meditate, I do qigong or the 5 Tibetan rites, I work on my music and/or art projects, I get out and walk a lot while shopping and stuff, I make stuff and read a little. . . watch TV with my s.o. . . . worry about the fate of the planet too much. . . I perform music from time to time. . . and I moderate a Yahoo group that deals with water fasting. From May through the end of October I have a great p/t job as a sound monitor for the Arts Council (this will be my third year coming up), and I'm paid to walk and walk and walk around Harvard Square checking in on all the street performers. I also play music as a street performer in the subway sometimes, myself. I do a lot of stuff with my mate, Jonathan, because he's my soulmate and also because he's blind. He's amazingly smart, romantic, athletic, intellectually and spiritually stimulating and wise, so we have a lot of fun. I do a lot of camping every summer with him. We're going to have a garden next year (we're on a waiting list) so we can grow a lot of our own food.
**How much do u exrcise??
I usually make it to the gym, where I exercise for about an hour: nothing heroic, just various combinations of step machine, rowing machine, treadmill, running on a circular track (2 mi.), Nautillus equipment, once in awhile the weight room machines or weights, qigong or Tibetan yoga in the stretching room. Sometimes I do qigong at home and go for long walks. I try to exercise every day because it makes me much more relaxed and able to deal with stuff.
**Eat?
See above -- generally a varied diet of fruits, vegies, nuts/seeds. Nothing exceptional.
**Juices and how often?
WHen I'm fasting, I can do juice for 2 - 6 weeks. When I'm not, I will sometimes pick up a fresh organic orange juice at Whole Foods and dilute it with water and have some for breakfast, or a bottle of Kombucha tea or whatever. I don't usually use my juicer that much when I'm not on a fast-- too much hassle.
**Any bad habits? or treats u indulge in?
No, I'm perfect. ;-D (!!KIDDING, KIDDING!!) Yes, loads. It depends on which week you ask me-- I give up one bad habit only to find that I have in no time at all invented a new and even worse one-- I'm uniquely talented in that way. Lately I'm doing better-- my worst craving during the last three weeks was for frozen bananas. Yes, I love to cut really ripe ones up into little bite-sized slices, put them in a container and freeze them for a few hours. To me they taste like ice cream. I've also been known to sip a little of Jonathan's coffee, but not often. It seems pretty disgusting to me now.
**Do u use any commercial products?
Yeah, sometimes. Much as I'd like to slather myself head-to-toe in 100% holistic products, I only do so about half the time due to budget considerations more than anything else. I use Burt's Bees stuff a lot though, and natural toothpaste and mouth wash, etc.

Whew!, all done, I think. Hoe I didn't bore you to death. I'm really a pretty boring everyday raw foodist when you come right down to it, lol. You guys are the best, and I really appreciate this forum. It's my 'home' in cyberspace right now, other than the Yahoo fasting group I moderate. ('Water Fasting,' if you want to check it out.)

Love, joy and peace to all of you--
Sharrhan

Sharrhan:


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ooh physical changes... I've been raw for a year now and besides the 10 pounds or so that I initially lost (I was neither fat before nor am skinny now- 5'2 and about 118 lbs I think, but I don't really weigh myself- size 2 or 4, which I love, I used to YEARN to be that size, in my cooked size 6 days) but anyway recently in the last couple months I just noticed that my waist has gotten SMALLER, while my boobs have actually GROWN. I didn't think that was POSSIBLE! on raw, esp since I've stopped craving fat, and been eating very little fat lately. So I have this hot little hourglass figure now, thanks to raw.... and then another thing recently... ok this is kinda gross (see this is why I have reservations about posting my pic)... I love high heels, and have had corns on my toes for years, which I despised but they wouldn't go away... well they're GONE now, they just went away, despite a winter of pointy-toed shoes. Which leads me to think they were caused more by poor circulation than the shoes... I've always had really cold fingers & toes before. I should add that I take zeolite, too, and that def helped keep me warm in the winter.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2007 05:43AM by sunshine79.

OK Sunshine, clarify this for me:

YOU SHRUNK TO THIS SIZE EVEN THOUGH you lost only 10 lbs in a year?

I am a size 6 currently, just off cooked a month. Wow, inspiring.

I wonder why the boobs are getting bigger, though. Perhaps it is a hormonal thing?

Thanks so much Sharrhan for the inspirational testimonial.

When I first went mostly raw eight months ago I lost about twenty pounds right away. Although I haven't lost any more weight I am shrinking. My mass is lessoning. I keep having to buy smaller pants. Some people say I better watch it or I will get too skinny. Actually it is my nature to be thin and my oldest friends just think I look like I did in high school. When I graduated high school twenty years ago I only weighed ninety pounds. Now I am at one hundred and ten now. I am 5'2". I don't ever want to get that thin again! I am very happy where I am at now.

I'm experiencing the same thing. I'm not showing much of a weight loss according to the scale, but I am definitely "smaller" and my clothes are getting bigger. Anyone have an explanation for this?

khale

Khale--
Perhaps you're either re-proportioning, or your fat/muscle ratio is changing so that you're smaller, but you still weigh the same.

Sharrhan:


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