Did you juice fast, Master Cleanse, go cold turkey? And how long did it take you to GET IT? I'm looking for the best way for ME. I'm juice fasting today.

I water fasted for seven days before starting to eat raw food. I didn't really intend to follow the raw life style, I couldn't keep cooked food down and was looking for a something that would provide a soft/smooth transition from the water fast back to eating again, all my research pointed to raw vegan foods. So I started eating raw foods (greens mainly, with a little fruit, nuts, and root veggie), and I've not looked back since.

I didn't experience any of the problems people talk about when transitioning to 100% raw food diet, but I can certainly claim to have gotten the benifits. I lost 70-80lbs (I don't really know my start weight), I went from loosing my breath running across the street, to being able to run miles and still be able to hold a conversation. I look great, feel great and fitter than I've been since a teen.

The whole thing (raw food, water fast, etc.) was quite an accident, but I'm glad it happened.

Cheers,
Ian.

Read in some books that having a certain percentage of raw food is good and figured, why not 100%?

I'd given up dairy and wheat a few months early and going completely raw from there was easier.

I've had some major slipbacks but no regrets.

My experience:

-I was highly motivated to change my health (I had become quite heavy...with high blood pressure.....and I was only 28). So I asked myself what I thought was the best thing I could do to improve my health......and started doing reserach....and determined that changing my diet would be best.

-It didn't take me long to determine (in classic engineering fashion) what would be the most efficient and healthy diet..........a diet of fresh fruits / greens & vegetables.

-Since I quickly determined (in scientific fashion) that cooking did nothing to improve the vitamin or nutrient content of food.....I started setting goals to eat fresh fruits & vegetables....and to journal my progress.

-I set myself many small goals and a generous time frame of 2 years to get to my goal of all raw. I constantly brainstormed and tried new things.

-5 years later...I enjoy excellent health, muscularity...and maintain good physique and weight with little or no effort!

-My suggestion is that a person be HONEST with what they really want. Analyze and eat the fruits & vegetables that you LOVE and really like and are satisfied with.

-I think all folks should analyze the current level / percentage of fresh fruits and vegetables that they ARE comfortable with (say...10%.....) and then set small goals to improve...say 1-2% per week. At that rate....a person could transition in a year! Which in my case......is at least as much time as I expected to take to undo 15 years of abuse! Ha! ha!

-Just my experiences, which I hope are helpful!

-David Mason

Setting small goals really does seem to work, as well as putting in time to really focus on what you want... I've given up refined sugar entirely... I've had it (in very small amounts) MAYBE twice in the last two weeks. I've also been able to go without salt for quite a few days as well. Add to that the fact that I have had a nice handful of 100% raw days in the last couple months (and I gave up dairy and meat a couple years back with very little since then), and I'm off to a great start!


David your posts rock as always, very eloquent. Thanks to everyone else for posting too! I love these kinds of threads! Success stories, YEAHHHH!

Thanks David!
Great advice about being honest with what you really want. I know in the past I have 'tried to eat the RIGHT things' only ending up with cravings that led me to eating the "wrong" things.

-Thanks guys. I felt I reached a mature level....when I could simultaneously accept (inside me) the things that pleased the senses.....and hold clearly what I wanted and thought was good in my mind.....and allow them both....and still choose what I wanted. So much about overcoming hardship is to accept it deep inside inside yourself. When evil finds acceptance in your soul...it loses all life in the world.

-A person often has to do many 'bad' or unhealthy things.....and be more conscious of them...before being truly motivated at the grass roots level to make a change. That is why many must become ill or disabled or meet with misfortune before making a change. The motivating fire is often not there........and discipline, rules & routine are poor cousins to simply being highly motivated on a moment to moment basis. Don't you think?

-David Mason

Thanks to everyone for sharing stories and advice! I've 'tried' to eat raw food before and gone back to my addictions when life got stressful. I've gained a ton of weight this year and have felt like my body was dying. At the same time I have had many breakthroughs regarding my relationship with myself. I'm ready to heal my soul and my body. I know now I can't deal with them seperately like I had before.
Much gratitude!
Lora

Also, want to thank Ian for his great testimonial. How inspiring!

After 20 years of being a True Health Seeker and 'into' Nutrition for years and experimenting with various diets with my family and myself -- I was in my garden eating flowers, and thinking about how much energy they had and visualizing the energy field surrounding them, when 'a light bulb went off in my head' and I thought -- "Why don't I eat all raw food!"

So I went cold turkey overnight to 100% Raw. It's been 5 years now, with some slip-ups along the way, but I would suggest that 100% Raw is the only way to experience the full effect of the RFD.

A handful of years ago, I got "sick" camping in the woods at a gathering, detoxed now I think in a crisis, after binge-eating and being an emotional wreck..."Coincidentally", I had found on the ground the day before a book on raw food and fasting. I read it that week while I couldn't eat and had stuff flying out of both ends, and truly believed it and what it would mean: that all the real nasties that had given me the chills about life, like cancer and whatnot, did NOT have to be a part of life!!!! I set about writing lists of what I would eat raw when I felt like eating, say, pizza...because I WAS thinking a lot about food...(I've always loved food and though never been really overweight, eat compulsively a lot, and knew something was wrong...the sound of candywrappers would give me the creeps, and words package and etc...)
I'd already been vegetarian since falling in love with a veggie angel-on-earth, the most beautiful man I'd ever met inside and out (that I recognized).
Anyway, by the end of the involuntary fast, spent in the woods and in a lake, culminated with a sweat lodge, I was positively weeping with joy, I felt reconnected with my love for life and my purpose, my enthusiasm. Yoga became a whole different experience, I could stand on my head for half and hour, interesting!!
But sticking to raw proved to be much more difficult than I had even anticipated, and return to the city led to a few months of binge-eating cooked crap and other stuff...The following few years have been very educational, I've taken many different approaches, grown a lot in self-love, basically prepared my body perhaps for the new life named Dovelin who has come through now, and I feel I've realized and accepted that Great Spirit showed me that time in the woods of Quebec a huge gift, and what was possible...and that I would have to journey back there of my own will in order to live in it.
Since then, I have recognized the way that I felt in the eyes of very small children...
Today is my fifth day all raw this time, and it's marvelous. Spirituality has become enmeshed in it fully again...
The thing about eating all raw food is it's different and the same for everyone...like for some people it's a simple switch, for others it comes attached to many other ghosts in the closet, a huge journey that pulls everything apart like a loose string on a sweater. That's how it's been for me, so far.

a year and a half ago I got to help the chef at a David Wolfe retreat in Hawaii...I, to my surprise, found him to be a great spiritual teacher, at least for myself at the time, and it's a great teaching his of having "the best day ever." something about the "ever", and even adding "by far" opens up a whole new way of living each day. And expect it...

Life is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beyond our wildest dreams...

Nothing we experience is garbage, it is so chock full of meaning and beauty...

Welcome, living!!!!!

:~) Adrienne

Ahh, good question. This was a natural transition to me. I had been a vegan for twenty years and had been reading information on natural hygiene and raw food for most of that time. I knew that Natural Hygiene had major issues and so going forward toward a standard, vegan, raw food diet was more appropriate for me. The good thing is that, without being negative, vegans that become raw usually have an easier time because they were already eating veggies and fruit. However, many people have made a good transition from the SAD (Standard American Diet) to a raw food one. Gentle fasting and the Master Cleanse is a good thing. Curezone.org is a great place to find all sorts of info on transitioning to a raw food diet and cleansing. Just don't get overwhelmed by all the info.

Peace,

Marcos

Go Vegan for your life, your health, the planet and, most importantly, the animals that we share this wonderful world with!

I have been a vegetarian for over a decade and I remember about 5 years ago hearing about a college friend who had "started eating raw food." This guy is a little crazy so naturally we thought he was chasing down chickens and eating them raw! Never gave it much thought. Then about 6 months ago my wife's cousin and her husband announced to us that they had transitioned to raw. They both felt energized, alive, healthier, and were losing weight like crazy. We thought, "bully for them" but that this was impossible for us because we have two very small children. Then at the beginning of this year I had a series of illnesses that, in the end, made it next to impossible for me to eat anything but raw fruits and veggies. After about a month of this, I said to my wife, "let's do it!" and we have been now for about 3 months. My stomach problems have cleared completely and I have been losing a lot of weight (even though I was already very thin to start with -- I think I am stabilizing now though, which is good!). We feel great, we love the fact that we never feel bad about what we eat, and our kids have embraced raw as a new part of their lives. They are not 100% raw -- impossible with a child in pre-school where you pick up your child who says "today was so and so's birthday so we had cupcakes, ice cream, and milk!" -- but we do our best. It was a hard transition at first because we were doing Alissa Cohen's transition menu, which was geared more toward meat eaters than organic vegans. We discovered Pure Food and Wine here in NYC and have not looked back. This past weekend we were away from home and found it very hard to eat completely raw the whole time -- and it is amazing how even cooked vegan food can make you feel a little more lethargic than eating raw. As I type this I'm eating my jicama, pear, and beet salad, drinking my green juice and smiling. Livin' Raw and lovin' eat.

RawDaddy -- cfd7f

Raw Daddy,
Were your wife and children resistant at all to eating raw foods with you? I have a husband that is quite attached to his junk food and my mom is supportive, but I don't even know any other vegetarians except for a few that don't eat red meat and call themselves vegetarians. I wish my husband would eat raw along with me but I know better than to try and convince him. He's not anywhere near ready to give up his drive thrus. It scares me a bit at times when I'm really living my life true to what I believe we seem like we're growing apart. I share my beliefs with him, but he doesn't understand and I think it scares him.

Fortunately my wife was thrilled to begin eating raw with me. Our kids are very young -- 4 and 1 and 1/2, so they are not resistant to grand ideas, just little things (like going to bed!). They have loved the raw food, though as I said we have not put them exclusively on it. What we have done (and something you could try with your husband) is to make main dishes that are raw, and then offer cooked food side dishes (even non-veg side dishes if need be). That way you can adjust his palate to raw food slowly. Talk to him about it, better to discuss it than to worry that you are growing apart. And make him watch Supersize Me and have hgim read Fast Food Nation, and maybe, just maybe, he'll think twice about those drive-throughs!

best of luck,
raw daddy

I was very sick with asthma and did a one-month juice fast. I started researching raw foods during that time, and after I came off the fast I found that raw foods just made me feel better and kept me healthy. That was a year and a half ago. I've had some slipups, but I've been mostly raw since then.

Some people can transition gradually, some prefer cold turkey, it just depends on the person.

My husband is cooked vegan, my son eats mostly vegetarian but sometimes he will

I had been vegetarian for several years, and always enjoyed reading nutrition and natural health books. I had never really thought about eating just raw until I stumbled across some books at my public library. I read them and instantly decided that This is what I needed to do. I went all-raw right away. Since then, there have been a lot of ups and downs - periods of all-raw, high-raw, and not-so-high-raw. Right now I'm high-raw. I know I have a lot of emotional eating issues that I still need to deal with, but I'm trying.

Raw has been SO amazing. I never knew I could vibrate at such a high energy level, or love life so much. It has been truly a blessing.

~~mystic~~