Hi everyone! I'm slowly immersing myself into the raw community. I'm 18 years old and going off to college soon and I have decided to make this change in my life for my health. I have had bad health problems for the past few years and I decided it was time for a change. I'm making my transition very slowly, right now I only consider myself a vegetarian, but my food intake mostly consists of raw fruits and veggies. Since I'm still a teen I LOVE the junk food and pasta and all that, but I have noticed that when I eat it I don't feel so well. I just wanted to introduce myself and see if I could get any tips on resisting cravings and going through college with this lifestyle. I know this is what I really want to do, and that it will take some work, and I really do need alot of help
Thank you for reading all of that

Tea: In my experience, a desire to eat healthy and be healthy is not enough. You have to have laser-clear life goals / dreams / passions that REQUIRE healthy eating as a tool. Cravings are not resisted...and don't need to be....when there is an over-riding passion that renders them obsolete.

My advice is to determine the LIFETIME PERCENTAGE of raw food diet that you are going to incorporate PERMANENTLY. Analyze the level that you are 100% comfortable with now...and set very small goals (with timetables) to increase this amount 1-2% per week...until you reach YOUR goals. You follow?

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Hi tea937!
It is a good choice to go raw, trying to resist eating certain foods you know will end up in failure.
From my experience in being 100% raw living foodist, ideally once you get to 100% raw, and you build up the minerals in your body, your cravings for those foods will diminish.
Cravings for any cooked food is the body trying to tell you it needs minerals.
What i reccomend like davidzanemason has said is increase your intake of raw that you feel comfortable with, but do not go 100% raw right away, as you will have heavy detox symptoms. Just increase alittle at a time. The old saying goes "In with the good out with the bad" so start by removing foods from your diet like #1 MILK, breads, cereal, pasta, MEAT-(dead animal), and get off the sugar, replacement for sugar if you have to sweeten something use raw wild Honey like our ancestors did.

The type of foods that will help mineralize you are:
*hemp
*goji Berries
*Cacao- which is raw chocolate-(a very, very powerful superfood)
*Raw wild Honey
*Bee pollen
*Sea Vegetables like-
.Nori
.Dulse
.Kelp
.Kombu
.Arame
those are just a few of the many.
You can get the sea vetgtabes -->[www.seaveg.com]

For all the others and many other rawfood products that will help you on your journey go to www.rawfoods.com

And

Reccomended reading
books by David Wolfe
*Nature's First Law: The raw food Diet
*The Sunfood Diet Success System
*Eating for beauty
*Naked Chocolate--this is a book all about Cacao "Food of the Gods"

Book by Peter Ragnar
*How Long do you choose to livePeter's website -->[roaringlionpublishing.com]

A website you should check out about the rawfood movement-->
[www.markusrothkranz.com]

David Wolfe's site--> [www.thebestdayever.com]

Lastly get on Utube and type in rawfoods,David Wolfe,gorawnow, and anything else that has to do with raw.

This is a lifestyle not a diet, it will alter your reality and give you things no other diet can give you, A joyous, beautiful life full of synergy, and love!

Hope this helps, take care of yourself!
julianraw

thank you so much for the information, i really do appreciate it, but i wonder if anyone else has gone through college raw and what helped the most?

Drinking smoothies, having a salads, and eating rawfood meal bars could help you too. overall edjucate yourself. ideas from other can help very much but go read, and research, and test things out, experiment, you alone a very powerful person and can do amazing things if you want to, just do it.
Your decisions will not faulter raw will help you make right decisions by having a clear mind, you will be returnted to your orginal being you were meant to be, you will be ideally what your are supposed to be and become.
For every result, is wisdom in your pocket!
Step up your world girl, you'll do just fine!

Hello tea937 and everyone! (hope you don't mind long comment...)

I'm 16 and I'll also be going to college soon (spring 2009!) SCAD! Where'll you be going? Tell me more about yourself.

I was raised to...& still ...: omnivorous & eat cooked food. BUT, I also: love vegetables, "healthy" food and take supplements. Balanced Nutrition - huh? No. Like you, tea937, I've learned by the way I feel, how I am, (fatigued, lethargic, always oversleeping, with acne, herpes simplex 1, eczema, etc!), that I am doing a great disservice to my body by feeding it improperly - LIVING improperly!

So during the summer, I'll be transitioning into my new lifestyle. I'll emerge from all the filth that my lineage has passed on to me (unhealthy traditions and genetics!). I've already begun!- Simply by educating myself on the changes I will make! But acquiring knowledge without USING it is pointless. No worries though! I'll definitely be using it - for LIFE! It's become a major part of my philosophy, my AdVenture, and I want to help others, through using it as well.

It's great that you're transitioning very slowly (I'll be doing that too!) and that you're mostly a raw vegetarian! Commendable start on regaining good health! But about the CRAVINGS for "junk food and pasta and all that"!

I've been reading around this site, and I've noticed that Standard American Diet CRAVINGS are a major issue with many in the Raw Living food lifestyle, even with 'veterans'. So imagine us NOVICES?! I know you all have GREAT intentions, by feeding your body with the right food - Excellent! - but "resisting cravings" with willpower isn't enough & willpower shouldn't be used as a crutch. Don't you want it to be NATURAL, INSTINCTUAL, AUTOMATIC? Instead of struggling to maintain it, falling off, feeling depressed and guilty, then jumping back on again, fearfully awaiting the next fall?

There's a group of raw foodists who never have to worry about cravings, because they have "re-programmed" their bodies (by cleansing the colon, gradually over about a 12 month period, and having 3 to 5 lb. of healthy aerobic bacteria in the intestines...), and now SAD junk actually is REPULSIVE to them! SAD food tastes salty, bitter or rancid to them, so - NO slipping back to SAD!

They are SYMBIOTIC Raw Vegan Foodists. They're not vegan though; they still eat animal...! They're quite different. Check out their following websites:

[www.blindguru.com] and [www.rawfoodadvantage.com]

I don't accept all their information though; some things on the sites are wrong, like them saying that The Raw Living Foods lifestyle is a SCAM...(LIES!) Among other things, but the truth that is there is edifying and good! I've sifted the truth from them and I'm in the process of contacting the webmaster or some authority figure to set the facts straight - and have only TRUTH there.

Firstly, I suggest you do more research on the Raw Living foods Lifestyle: Any raw friends? Books, & Internet. This site is a good place to start! The Book that got me started on this was "Be Your Own Doctor", by Ann Wigmore. A free autobiographical ebook by Dr. Ann is on [www.chidiet.com/blog] called "Why Suffer". At that website, & [www.chidiet.com], there are great video testimonies of the Lifestyle. [www.therawdiet.com] ; [www.therawdiet.com/evolve.html] ; [www.fredericpatenaude.com] ; [www.youtube.com]
There are lots of resources! Draw your own conclusions about it. Research more if stuff are contradictory. Remove all doubts in your research.

After doing my research, I now plan to transform my life to my own customised MIXTURE of the Raw Living foods Lifestyle (Ann Wigmore, etc! ), and the Symbiotic Raw Vegan Lifestyle. Find what works best for YOU. I like this synergy for me.

Great Raw food is so much more satisfying and healthier than SAD food! Once you've learned about it (through research!), you'll be as excited as I am to start! Remember to detox first! Gotta clean out the bad stuff (especially the intestines), then put good stuff in, (like what julianraw says!) and don't worry about it! You'll do great!

Thank you for reading ALL of this & I hope it is helpful! Great advice everyone!

Love, Good Health, and a positive mentality!
God bless you!
~Greensatva, Kingston, Jamaica, W.I.

Love, Good Health, and God bless you!
~Greensatva, Kingston, Jamaica, W.I.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2008 12:38PM by greensatva.

heyyyyyyyyyyyy!! i'm 18, and going off to college this fall as well!! we're in the same boat. except i've been raw for a year now.

tips eh?? make a ton of raw pies, cookies, that kinda stuff holds me over very well.

feel free to message me for further advice