Is it normal to feel this way?

[ReneL]

My wife and I have just started the raw food diet. My wife has been doing it for 6 days now and today she has been feeling pretty turned off by food. She feels nauseous yet is hungry and should eat. Could this be part of a detox? Is it even normal? She has no cravings for SAD food which is good but also can barely eat a few bites of what she eats.

Any incite on this?

I have to add that over the last few days I have had NO cravings myself and actually feel very satisfied with the smaller portions I have been eating. I can't ever imagine sitting down and eating a whole pizza like I used to be able to do. Crazy how much my attitude has changed towards food in just a few days.

[pdx kris]

Sounds a little early for detox. :) The nausea very well may be digestive transition to her new style of eating. A raw diet is much higher in fiber than a standart north american diet, and usually at first, also much higher in fat. It takes a little time for your digestion to catch up!

[dreamrawalwz]

Sounds a little early for detox. :) The nausea very well may be digestive transition to her new style of eating. A raw diet is much higher in fiber than a standart north american diet, and usually at first, also much higher in fat. It takes a little time for your digestion to catch up!

There is no "little early" for detox :) Know those headaches some get if they don't eat for a few hours? That is detox from what they ate previously. Detox can happen within a few hours of eating a particular food that your body does not agree with. Nausea can be detox. Some of the stuff can rush to certain body areas and cause discomfort. It also may be the digestive transitioning as you mentioned!

If she's nausea, could she try a light fast? Don't force her to eat. Eating will slow the process down. Her body may be trying to tell her to NOT eat so it can do it's job.

[DavidZaneMason]

Sure its normal. Multiple years of poor food choice habits and mindsets are normally not transcended in a few days, weeks, or even months of healthy lifestyles. When beginning to eat healthy, there may be a time where poor foods completely lose their appeal....but healthy foods have not yet become appealing or truly sustaining yet due to old habits and poor digestion / absorption.

-Just some thoughts.

-David Mason

[Lay-Lay]

I agree w/all of the above, so no sense adding my 2 cents. Hope you feel better soon! Keep up the great work.

[StudentforLife]

I remember when I first tried the raw food diet in the spring it only took a couple of days to see detox symptoms. It might seem kind of crummy now, but it's a very positive thing to have happen. Better to get those toxins out sooner than later.

[rawnora]

The biggest favor you can do for yourself is to read up on what to expect when a person makes the sweeping dietary improvements that going raw entails. By far the one thing that trips most new raw fooders up most is thinking that when they encounter symptoms it means they're doing something 'wrong' or that bad things are happening in their bodies. It's just the opposite. Symptoms are felt as harmful stored wastes are liberated into the bloodstream and eliminated from the body. Often, new raw fooders do the worst possible thing and seek medical help or take remedies (including herbs) for their symptoms of detoxification. If something stops the symptom, it stops the healing as well. Even food can forestall the cleansing process, as was previously mentioned. When symptoms are present, rest is required by the body and that means not only what we normally regard as physical rest but most importantly, rest from digestion. If there's no appetite, this means food is not needed by the body.

Happy cleansing,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com
P.S. The archives at my discussion list (which can be joined by clicking on the button on the RawSchool home page) contain a lot of information about symptoms, detoxification, etc.

[ReneL]

Thank you everyone for your replies.. this is the WIFE (Shala)here , lol. Rene just told me he wrote asking about my lack of appetite.

The funny part is we were relatively healthy before hand. I consider myself to be a pretty natural nutritionally educated, however I still ate meat and of course some junk food. After seeing tons of changes over the last 2 years with my diet I felt stuck and just didn't feel as healed as I had hoped, so now I am turning to Raw. I have done the Master Cleanse 3 times and my last one lasted for 17 days. I have done whole body cleanses & colon cleanses too so I have experienced detox yet honestly I have never really expereinced anything more than a day of headaches or cravings. So this lack of wanting to eat yet feeling hungry is interesting to me.
I found your comments very interesting and good to know, I just don't know if I am ready for a fast such as the Master Cleanse again (that salt water flush is deadly). I don't have a juicer yet either to do a juice fast. And I feel too hungry to do just water. Should I just suck it up and do the water one? I have been eating fruits and greens.
You know the problem is usually I crave food which makes for a big appetite but now I am not craving anything which is making me have no appetite. This Raw gig certainly is interesting to the mind & body.

[bittersweet]

I was a very healthful eater before raw, and the same thing happened to me.

[Pailani]

Might you be pregnant? Pregnancy can do weird things to the appetite.

[ReneL]

Oh Dear Gawd I hope not!! I have 2.5 year old twins. I am so not ready for another, lol!!

Bittersweet ~ How long did this feeling last for you? Did you eventually learn to love the food.

[greeninloanageles1]

I had a very bad nausea when I was pregnant, and I still get nausea once in a while(just like fleeting moments, nothing like morning sickness, thank goodness, but it is much better on raw. I think it is a detox. I am raw for a year(with two fall offs couple weeks each.)
Not everyone has the same toxins or the same amount of them, so we all will have different detox.

[Sharon in Colorado]

Nausea can happen when starting, or it can be a PMS symptom.

Anyway, it's all detox.

We are in constant detox, but when you improve your diet or lifestyle, the detox is in full force so you can get a variety of symptoms like:

nausea
dizzyness
light-headedness
skin eruptions
low grade fevers
back aches
head aches
lethargy
cravings
itchiness-rashes
achy joints
flu symptoms
sore throat
phlegm
bad breath
coated tongue
fuzzy teeth
loose/frequent BM's
gas - flatulence
emotional distress

stuff like that... enjoy! ;)

[Raw Magwene]

ReneL

I felt similarly at first (and am going throught it again at the moment). Ought to eat something, but feeling totally turned off by most foods. If you really feel like you are experiencing real hunger (as opposed to the psychological need to eat), what about young coconut water? I can always keep that down.

I also get very turned off by "prepared" raw foods (especially stuff w/ nuts, or "mock" anything!), but I can almost always enjoy a wonderful green salad or some sliced veggies. I sometimes think the emphasis is too much on making raw food that resembles cooked food, and we forget that we can just eat stuff "as is".

You are so lucky to have one another for support in your journey!

[bittersweet]

I felt nauseous almost as soon as I made the switch to raw. I lasted about four days I think, but got soon got better. For the first week I didn't much of an appetite at all, I remember eating baby carrots and drinking water mostly. My appetite steadily grew after that, until I was eating quite a bit, more then I used to before raw.
I restricted my fat intake to either 1/2 avocado or 1/4 cup of nuts or seeds per day, and I think that that helped me. After about a year on raw, my appetite decreased, and now I only eat about 900 calories a day. (I do 80-10-10, so mostly fruit, sometimes greens etc. I don't eat much fat at all now.)