Hmmm, I've noticed it's been a couple of days over one year since I last ate anything cooked (which happened to be a donut!). I never thought it was be that easy. I thought that if I did make it to a year, I would celebrate by having a cooked vegan indian meal ('cause I miss a good indian curry), but I didn't and really don't feel the drive to.

Ah well, maybe next year.

Cheers,
Ian.

Congrats!
Could you share your detailed diet (maybe a day example)?
How long was the transition time before this year?

Hi Planta,

I try to varry my diet as much as possible and avoid repetetive menus/meals.

I tipical day might involve something like:

A cup of water.

A run (1 to 3.5 miles)

Fruit smoothy for breakfast (two apples, two oranges, two bananas, a chunk of ginger, a tsp of flax seeds), this is my fav. and I don't varry it much.

A salad for lunch (avo, pair, basil, greens, carrot, onion, Or, mango, ginger, coconut, greens, onion, water chestnuts, Or, whatever I feel like throwing together).

Something interesting for dinner. Tonight it's hummas, but could be zuccini pasta with either a brazil nut cream sauce, or marinara sauce, thai coconut soup, sushi, saurkraut and seaweed salad, tabuli, veggie pulp bread and dip, just an avo and a little seaweed...

Desert (ah, this is important), pie (rasberry, strawberry, banana, etc. with a almond/date crust topped with cashewnut/coconut cream), icecream (nut or banana based), fruit salad, whatever yummy exotic fruit I find.

Snacks are important too. I like to keep some nuts and fruit handy at work, although I'm really getting into young coconuts (keep them chilled, drink the juice and eat the flesh). Raw cocoa is another great snack, but I try to avoid it in the afternoon incase it affects my sleep.

I was lato-ovo vegetarain for 10 years before raw vegan. There was pretty much zero transition. There was a major change (very emotional) in my life that caused me great unhappyness and distress. This happened shorty after I finished that last donut (although unrelated to food). I stopped eating for seven days, only drinking water. Worry about what would happen to my system when I started eating again, I did research on what was good to eat when comming off a water fast, most research pointed to raw foods. So I started eating raw foods, then amazing things started to happen. ;-)

None of this was intentional, even after a year I don't plan to eat raw tomorrow, I never set raw goals, or time lines or say I'm raw forever. But it suits me so well, I know with a fair amount of certainity that when I listen to my body tomorrow it will want raw foods, and the odds are I will still not have eaten any cooked food by this time next years.

Ah, I'm rambling now.

Ian.

i have a tendency to eat too much fruit and am worried that i'm getting sugar in excess. any advice?

Well, my first thoughts are, listen to your body. Some people are sugar eats and burners, for some people eating fat and burning it suits them better than sugars.

I would also say be aware of sugar addiction. I think I might have had sugar addiction problems at first (carrying over from my none raw diet), although I'm not 100% sure 'if' or 'how much' this is a real problem.

Are you experience any adverise/negative side effects from eating sugary fruits? In fact, which sugary fruits are you eating and how much?

I'm trying to put together a text on this that I will share, but I feel that there are three main reason that people eat, Engery, Nutrition and Entertainment (there are also others, but those are the main ones you'll deal with in day to day life). A lot people just focus on the balancing nutrition and engery needs, or even just nutrition, but it's important to get some entertainment into your diet. If you are lacking the entertainment aspects of food, then you will crave it. And, oh boy are sugary things a great source of entertainment. If you don't take into account and balance all three, an ignored aspect might pull you in direction you don't like.

So, I would suggest listen to your body, but also understand what it is asking. Is it asking for energy, or nutrition, or is it craving entertainment?

Between meals, or at the end of meals, I like to provide entertaining foods. Things like young thai coconuts, or raw cocoa beans, fatty nuts or sugary fruits. When I'm making meals for other, I like finish on a crazy desert that has plenty of sugars, fats, and looks nothing like any normal person would expect a raw vegan desert to look like. I think ending on a great desert really lets them think they have had a complete meal (note, most of the people I make food for are not raw vegans).

I know a lot people are saying "Stay off the sugary fruits", or "modern fruits have been bread for high sugar content and are not healthy". But I tent to ignore those people as much as the people telling me I need to eat meat or I'll die.

Also, eating a bunch of sugary fruits is SOOOOOO MUCH MORE HEALTHY than eating a candy bar containing processed oils, sugars, chemical preservatives and coloring agents.

The thing I love about eating raw is that it doesn't matter what I eat. I look at a food and ask myself "has it been heated over 105F?", if the answer is no, I can eat as much as I like.

Bare in mind I'm not an expert, it's your body and you are the only expert in that field. I'm only on journey which I'm enjoying, your journey might be differnt, but I'm more than happy to share information about my journey. And I think most of our journeys will share intersections and stretches of the same path.

Cheers,
Ian.

It's official. Ian kicks ass!

Thanks! And you've not even seen me fight!

How do you feel? What changes are there in your everything? Roll out the details for us drooling soon-to-be's skipping behind you...

;~D Congrats

Adrienne

Hmmmm, where to start...

Most of my friends don't reconize me, in a good way.

I've lost weight, at least as first. I'm not sure how much I've lost because I hadn't weighed myself for about two years before I started raw. But at minimum I've lost 70lbs. My weight dropped to 190lbs at first, now it's pretty stable (or maybe climbing slightly) at 195lbs, but my waist size continues shrink.

A year ago, if I ran across a road, I'd be breathless and sweating on the other side. Now I don't normally break sweat until after the first mile of a run. I can run farther than I've ever ran before. On monday my new personal best became 4.5miles. The running in a new endever which I only took on in the last few months. Previously I've hated running and never did it. I took it on as a challenge, tackle the things you are worst at to improve ones self. Now I really enjoy it.

All aspects of my physcial side have improved dramatically. I work out every day, either running or kayaking (or something else, or everything). I've started teaching martial arts again. I fought in a "no-holds-barred" mixed martial arts fight early this year. I look great, I've got muscles with strength and those nice lines defining them (and I don't body build or weight train).

I think all aspects of my mental and spiritual side have under gone dramatic changes. Although probably less apparent to the outside observer since I'm kind of reserved. I feel a great deal happier and positive. I rarely get 'down' emotionally (although I'll 'get down' on the dance floor), even when bad things happen to me, I just shrug them off, or go for a run and convert the negative engerys and feels into positive ones. I've be come a more social person, or at least more confident in social situations. Spiritually I feel a stronger connection with my beliefs and the path I've chosen.

My raw (un)cook skills rock and keep getting better. I love making food for people a sharing it. If I bring a bunch of raw vegan dishes to a party, some body normally asks if I'd get together with them sometime and give them a cooking lesson.

It's not like I was that bad before I started eating raw, in fact I was doing great (with a couple of exceptions of course) but wasn't improving. Now, however, I find it difficult to pick a word to describe how fantastic I'm doing. I feel near immortal.

I once described being raw vegan as "I like being a vampire who has been eating hambugers all their life, then takes their first drink of a virgin's blood". ;-)
Maybe raw/living foods are a gateway to vampirism!

Ian.

Ahhhh....if you only knew the POWER of the raw-side!

-David Mason

So...like...can you not be a virgin and eat raw?? says the mommy...

(oops I did a "valley girl" pretending to be a "valley girl"

that's hilarious

haha... I suspect most people here aren't "virgins", by their own use of the word.

Well, one year later. Nothing has changed as far as my diet goes.

My weight has dropped to 175lbs (slow moves between 168lbs-182lbs depending on what I'm doing/eating).

Still, tomorrow I have no plans to eat raw food or "stay 100% raw", but I have a feeling I will.

Live is pretty damn fantastic!

Cheers,
Ian.

Wow, great!!! I just posted some simple (easy) Indian raw recipes in the recipes section.

Keep up the good job!!!