I really need help with this

[bellona]

I just wrote this big long post...but somehow it just didn't work.

Anyway, here's the deal. I feel like crap but am having a really hard time doing anything about it.

Last summer I was raw for about 2 months. I lost about 20 lbs, I was full of energy, I didn't need much sleep. My kids were with me and their behavior improved dramatically. This was while my dh was away for the summer working.

When he came home in the fall we reverted to our old ways. At first I was really, really sick. I knew intellectually it wasn't good for me and that I should stick to the raw food, but I had this undescribable compulsion to eat cooked foods. It started with bread and meat (even though meat and dairy made me the sickest) and progressively got worser. I put about 30 lbs back on.

Right now I'm having a hard time loosing weight. I'm tired all the time, even when I get 8 - 10 hours of sleep. I have so little energy. I'm often irritable and spacy. I crave anything with high fructose cornsyrup and caffeine in it, it seems.

I know that I would be best off on a raw food diet, but in my half asleep daze that I walk around in I have very little self control. I am tired and I know that the caffeine in a soda will wake me up enough to get some work, homework or homeschooling stuff done and once I think about it, it is all I can think about until I actually get some. It's really seeming like a hard core addiction.

If I could, I would empty every thing out of my house and donate it to the food pantry. From that point on I would only buy raw food. I think if I did this I would have alot more luck. However, in addition to me and my three kids (who I could talk into it) in my house there is also my dh and usually two of my sibs. Everyone else eats a sad, including junk food and meat/dairy.

I cannot even describe for you all how difficult it is for me to resolve that I'm going to have fruit for dinner and keep that resolve while I smell regular food cooking. When I see someone with a bowl of icecream it just about drives me crazy until I get some.

Also, all winter (since eating a sad again) vegetables have been a major turn off. I was told by my doctor (who's husband is a chinese medicine practioner) that I am damp, so I've incorporated ginger and cinnamon and things like that in my diet for the past month. My cravings have been less than before, and I have no problem eating carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers, but any leafy greens gag me bad.

I just feel so screwed up right now in every aspect of my body. I really want to get it back on track, but I need help somehow.

[dreamrawalwz]

I'm sorry you're dealing this this (again)! If you can't go cold turkey, which can seem overwhelming at some points, I suggest elliminating one item, or group of items at a time. Remove the soda and up the water, or cut out all junk and eat whole grain breads, just fish, steamed veggies,rice, ect. Then after maybe even a few months up the raw slowly until you're 100%.

Can you sit down and talk with your DH heart to heart and see if you can make if a family commitment? Not the raw, but just eating healthier in general.

The addictions are from the cooked foods nad what is iN the processed food . Corn syrup, sugar, wheat, milk, ect. you could be sensitive to or even an allergy that cause you tro crave them uncontrollably, trust me, I know how this feels!

Try your best to do this for YOU. You want the health. Try to overide those cravings one at a time. When they hit hard close your eyes and take very deep slow breaths and maybe count to 100. Sometimes those help. The breathing helped the most for me. I wish you luck. If you remove the foods you crave all at once you'll crave them a lot for about 3 days, but after that mark you won't desire them at all. They're pretty much out of your system until you do a deeper detox.

[Lay-Lay]

I know it can be a struggle. Transition slowly if you feel the need and bumped it up as you feel ready. The first 2 or 3 days are usually the hardest to get through and then things get seemily alot easier at least this was how it has been for me. My husband is a SAD eater. At lunch he fixed a big juicy steak with all my beautiful dried spices, hmmm the arouma of that steak on his little household grill was sooo good. But at this point in my journey I know how I would feel if I indulged in that steak and so I indulged in some yummy juice and headed out the door for work. My husband doesn't even realize how sick he is and that food is making him that way. I do not ever, ever complain about how he eats. He sees how I eat and sometimes it causes him to make healthier chooses. He is my raw buddy. He knows and has seen what raw has done for me and he really encourages me to continue to eat the way I do. You may ask youe husband this: "I do not expect you to eat this way if you do not want to, but if you don't minds fixing your own meat and breads and sweets for a week while I can transition onto this raw diet I would be so grateful and honey I could really use your support, like I said you don't have to do it, but if you could just encourage me to do it it would mean so much to me. Can you do this for me sweetie?"

This was exactly what I said and he soooo helps me and supports me.

[bellona]

My dh is totally supportive in an 'anything that makes you happy' way. However, if my resolve waivers the slightest he doesn't see it as a bad thing to encourage me to indulge once in a while. The problem is, it never becomes once in a while...it becomes a habit.

He thinks that he's healthy so he dosen't have any interest in going at it with me, although he does eat a lot of junk food and his cholesterol was 220 last year when he had it checked.

I think he could benefit from a raw diet, but I haven't really said anything about it. I know that he would probably cook his own food, though there are usually other people (meat eaters) here that I'm cooking for. I don't NEED to cook for them...it's just my nature. I am going to try and stop. They can eat what I wanna eat or they can wait for dh to come home and cook his.

I wish that there was someone I knew around here that was raw. I think the real person contact (not that you all aren't real :) ) on a regular basis would be an encouragement. I know that's how it's worked with exercise. I could never work up the energy or motivation to go walking after the kids were in bed - I got out once a week maybe. I joined Curves and I've been going about 5 times a week.

But, alas, I seem to live in a hamburger helper and rice a roni town. I don't think I'll find any raw foodists here.

[mindelicious]

The best thing I find that keeps me raw is running. When I first went back to sad and wanted to return to raw I had a horrible time. I made my self run which I absolutely hated to do. So then I felt so horrible about putting junk into my body after I had done so much work to sweat toxins out. So I kept running and before I knew it I was 100% again. Now with each raw challenge there is a running challenge to increase my time, length & endurance.