TP
03-20-2006, 03:42 PM
Hello all! I have posted a few times so far but decided i should follow etiquette.. :)
My raw journey thus far is as follows:
I became a vegetarian in 1990 at age 19 while in college in San Luis Obispo Ca. Just getting off dairy was HUGE for me and cleared up a lot of problems. My diet became gradually more raw until I was mostly raw/Natural Hygiene/Mostly Fruit and working at Mrs Gooches Health Food Store in Redondo Beach Ca (I used to love my 20% discount!). In mid 1993 after a couple years of mostly raw, I began to slide back down the health hill due to burning out on the isolated health nut lifestyle I was experiencing. I couldn't seem to find support/acceptance from anywhere when it came to diet and my only sickness was of people constantly badgering or questioning me about it. I admittedly was much too focused on my diet in my personal life, but it only made matters worse to have other people constantly focusing on it too, especially when I was trying to not have it be an issue. There were many changes in my life at that time and after a radical salvation experience I became a born again christian in early 1993. Through that conversion I believe part of the process was for me to stop worshipping food and serving my stomach as much, but even moreso within my newfound faith community, the main motive for giving up my healthy diet was still to have a better/easier social life. I tried to just relax the dietary restrictions but that was too hard for me. I eventually decided that I was going to eat what everyone else ate and doing that was where I basically started to enjoy that so much that I eventually abandoned my raw vegan diet. Looking back, I sure wish that hadn't been necessary, but it was for me. I have often wished I could have tried harder to find a middle ground, but it seems like SAD food is just so addicting that once I was under it's clutches enough, it wouldn't let me go. It even seemed to be worse in some ways. Having been out of it's clutches once already, I didn't have any hope of getting out again after being recaptured. I think now that had I had things like the internet and online communities like we have today, it may have been different for me. I could have found some support.
After a couple years of raw vegan, with much of that time spent as what we would classify fruitarian, I had no complaints health wise, besides feeling a little underweight sometimes. I remember feeling better, more energetic, and cleaner than I ever had in my life up to that point. I also remember my first junk food after years of mostly raw. It was a plate of lasagna with sausage, and I actually got sick and threw up after eating it! That sure made for some fun conversation with my friends who I was just glad could finally stop harrassing me about my diet (as soon as I could stop losing my meals in the bathroom)!
At that time while still raw vegan, I weighed around 165lbs. After getting off my diet in 1993, I instantly gained about 20lbs. People around me at that time were shocked. I wasn't even eating that bad yet, but I think I gained all that weight in about a month. I hovered at about 185lbs until I got married in 1995 and then came the era when the wife (willingly) did much of the cooking and happy husband did much eating and pounds padded on until I peaked at 225lbs in 2001 (height 5'10").
225lbs registering on the scale really got my attention. I joined the gym and got into running and through those efforts and trying different diets, I got my weight down to 210/215 and then very occasionally down to 205/200, but I would always bounce back up to 210/215 and hover there, no matter how hard I tried. Last summer I bought a juicer and tried and completed a 3 week raw food and fresh juice fast and got to 190 down from 210. It felt great (losing a pound a day! yehaw!) and I wanted to continue, but we went on a 2 week vacation right at the end of that "fast" and I lost all my momentum. From that time in August to this January, I gained 10lbs back up to 200lbs. I was dissappointed because even over that 5 month time frame, I was at least 50% raw. I would only eat fruit and raw nuts during the day and have SAD dinners and SAD weekends. I knew that I just needed to go all raw and so made it a New Years resolution. I took time to build up my will/nerve to make the change but on January 31st, I started an all raw (except for a few minor slips in the first couple weeks) diet. As of today I am down to 180lbs. Tomorrow will complete 7 weeks raw. I started off just saying that I would stay all raw until I hit my goal of 170lbs, and then go to like 80% raw, but I am feeling so good that I want to stay as close to 100% as I can. I imagine those pesky social situations are again what are really going to test me over time.
The benefits for me so far, in addition to the weight loss are increased energy, improved physical performance, mental clarity, improved vision strength, much improved sleep and much improved elimination. I am hoping to see continued weight loss, detox, continued improvement in physical performance, vision improvement (ideally healing of astigmatism) and I hope to see the complete healing of the dry scalp/eczema that I've had all my life (it has gotten better but I want it gone!). Oh, and I want my grey hairs to go brown again!
As good as I felt in my college days eating vegan and mostly raw, I am feeling even better this time around. It's probably just relative because of how overweight and unhealthy/toxic I started from this time, and so I am just noticing it more. Another thing that is different now is my green food intake. Over time I think I will know for sure how big a difference it is playing for me, but it has to be huge. I read about green smoothies on another board a few weeks ago and immediately started experimenting. In my first go around with raw in the 90's I hardly had any dark leafy green intake compared to what I've been able to do with the green smoothies. After reading many testimonials I also read the book Green for Life and just ordered a Vitamix blender. I have quickly become a believer in the power of the green! :D Slowly but surely I am also converting my family over to the power of the green. My wife and kids are consuming green smoothies more and more frequently and experiencing the benefits. At first they wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. They have never liked the ones I make, but they like them when my wife makes them, and that is good enough for me! The only one left who hasn't tried them yet is the baby (she's almost 2). My wife has joined me as much as she can in eating raw, and my guess is that she is about 50 to 75% raw at this point and will probably go higher over time. SHe is also experiencing weight loss and other health improvements. And lately she keeps saying that when she does eat the bad stuff it makes her feel gross, so I know she is eating raw enough to make a big difference over the long haul. Our two older kids (ages 6 and 8) I would guess are about 25% raw and I don't know how much higher it will get for them, but I am hoping that the green smoothies are going to do the trick to make them crave healthier foods more and more.
Thanks to Alyssa for providing the board here, and to you all for keeping it alive! This place has a really good feel to it! ;)
My raw journey thus far is as follows:
I became a vegetarian in 1990 at age 19 while in college in San Luis Obispo Ca. Just getting off dairy was HUGE for me and cleared up a lot of problems. My diet became gradually more raw until I was mostly raw/Natural Hygiene/Mostly Fruit and working at Mrs Gooches Health Food Store in Redondo Beach Ca (I used to love my 20% discount!). In mid 1993 after a couple years of mostly raw, I began to slide back down the health hill due to burning out on the isolated health nut lifestyle I was experiencing. I couldn't seem to find support/acceptance from anywhere when it came to diet and my only sickness was of people constantly badgering or questioning me about it. I admittedly was much too focused on my diet in my personal life, but it only made matters worse to have other people constantly focusing on it too, especially when I was trying to not have it be an issue. There were many changes in my life at that time and after a radical salvation experience I became a born again christian in early 1993. Through that conversion I believe part of the process was for me to stop worshipping food and serving my stomach as much, but even moreso within my newfound faith community, the main motive for giving up my healthy diet was still to have a better/easier social life. I tried to just relax the dietary restrictions but that was too hard for me. I eventually decided that I was going to eat what everyone else ate and doing that was where I basically started to enjoy that so much that I eventually abandoned my raw vegan diet. Looking back, I sure wish that hadn't been necessary, but it was for me. I have often wished I could have tried harder to find a middle ground, but it seems like SAD food is just so addicting that once I was under it's clutches enough, it wouldn't let me go. It even seemed to be worse in some ways. Having been out of it's clutches once already, I didn't have any hope of getting out again after being recaptured. I think now that had I had things like the internet and online communities like we have today, it may have been different for me. I could have found some support.
After a couple years of raw vegan, with much of that time spent as what we would classify fruitarian, I had no complaints health wise, besides feeling a little underweight sometimes. I remember feeling better, more energetic, and cleaner than I ever had in my life up to that point. I also remember my first junk food after years of mostly raw. It was a plate of lasagna with sausage, and I actually got sick and threw up after eating it! That sure made for some fun conversation with my friends who I was just glad could finally stop harrassing me about my diet (as soon as I could stop losing my meals in the bathroom)!
At that time while still raw vegan, I weighed around 165lbs. After getting off my diet in 1993, I instantly gained about 20lbs. People around me at that time were shocked. I wasn't even eating that bad yet, but I think I gained all that weight in about a month. I hovered at about 185lbs until I got married in 1995 and then came the era when the wife (willingly) did much of the cooking and happy husband did much eating and pounds padded on until I peaked at 225lbs in 2001 (height 5'10").
225lbs registering on the scale really got my attention. I joined the gym and got into running and through those efforts and trying different diets, I got my weight down to 210/215 and then very occasionally down to 205/200, but I would always bounce back up to 210/215 and hover there, no matter how hard I tried. Last summer I bought a juicer and tried and completed a 3 week raw food and fresh juice fast and got to 190 down from 210. It felt great (losing a pound a day! yehaw!) and I wanted to continue, but we went on a 2 week vacation right at the end of that "fast" and I lost all my momentum. From that time in August to this January, I gained 10lbs back up to 200lbs. I was dissappointed because even over that 5 month time frame, I was at least 50% raw. I would only eat fruit and raw nuts during the day and have SAD dinners and SAD weekends. I knew that I just needed to go all raw and so made it a New Years resolution. I took time to build up my will/nerve to make the change but on January 31st, I started an all raw (except for a few minor slips in the first couple weeks) diet. As of today I am down to 180lbs. Tomorrow will complete 7 weeks raw. I started off just saying that I would stay all raw until I hit my goal of 170lbs, and then go to like 80% raw, but I am feeling so good that I want to stay as close to 100% as I can. I imagine those pesky social situations are again what are really going to test me over time.
The benefits for me so far, in addition to the weight loss are increased energy, improved physical performance, mental clarity, improved vision strength, much improved sleep and much improved elimination. I am hoping to see continued weight loss, detox, continued improvement in physical performance, vision improvement (ideally healing of astigmatism) and I hope to see the complete healing of the dry scalp/eczema that I've had all my life (it has gotten better but I want it gone!). Oh, and I want my grey hairs to go brown again!
As good as I felt in my college days eating vegan and mostly raw, I am feeling even better this time around. It's probably just relative because of how overweight and unhealthy/toxic I started from this time, and so I am just noticing it more. Another thing that is different now is my green food intake. Over time I think I will know for sure how big a difference it is playing for me, but it has to be huge. I read about green smoothies on another board a few weeks ago and immediately started experimenting. In my first go around with raw in the 90's I hardly had any dark leafy green intake compared to what I've been able to do with the green smoothies. After reading many testimonials I also read the book Green for Life and just ordered a Vitamix blender. I have quickly become a believer in the power of the green! :D Slowly but surely I am also converting my family over to the power of the green. My wife and kids are consuming green smoothies more and more frequently and experiencing the benefits. At first they wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. They have never liked the ones I make, but they like them when my wife makes them, and that is good enough for me! The only one left who hasn't tried them yet is the baby (she's almost 2). My wife has joined me as much as she can in eating raw, and my guess is that she is about 50 to 75% raw at this point and will probably go higher over time. SHe is also experiencing weight loss and other health improvements. And lately she keeps saying that when she does eat the bad stuff it makes her feel gross, so I know she is eating raw enough to make a big difference over the long haul. Our two older kids (ages 6 and 8) I would guess are about 25% raw and I don't know how much higher it will get for them, but I am hoping that the green smoothies are going to do the trick to make them crave healthier foods more and more.
Thanks to Alyssa for providing the board here, and to you all for keeping it alive! This place has a really good feel to it! ;)