Help or Advice?

[wiccedfae23]

Hey all! I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me...

I started 100 raw on august 1, and i did great for 15 days then i completely fell off. i had been doing high raw before that and felt great. after going 100% i felt tired, well more like exhausted, and not like myself at all. My main problem i guess is that i was acting obsessive about food. Before i went vegan a year and a half ago i had a serious problem with obsessing about food, like when ...and what will i eat next. But i made the transition from sad to vegan with no problem i really felt like i had found a great way to live! but a friend's sister turned me on to raw and now i am striving to incorporate it as a way of life and i just can't seem to get control. During my two weeks at 100%raw i was having crazy meat and cheese cravings that i never had when i turned vegan. So i guess i am just looking for a way back to raw... to get excited about it again!! I know that it is a great way to eat and so healthy for you! i just wish i didn't have so much guilt and so many issues!! any advice would be great i am just really feeling down in the dumps!!

[RawHeaven]

It sounds like you're experiencing detoxification symptoms. It's the norm. There is a fancy scientific way to explain this, but in layman's terms as your body releases the old toxins you tend to crave what is coming out. Let's say you were a traditional pizza fan. Well as you heal, somehow the magnificent machine that is your body signals to your brain that you're letting go of the old pizza toxins (not exactly the pizza, but the things that were stored - fat for example). Anyway you interpret this as a craving. And then if you believe this, we also have stored emotions in our bodies. And so as you heal and release the layers of junk that have kept the emotions hidden so to speak, you experience them in reverse. If you've been an emotional eater you'll tend to really feel this, not everyone does but it was my experience.

There is SOOO much more to this, but I just wanted to encourage you to keep going and to tell you it will pass. Do the best you can and eat as many raw foods as possible, 100% is best I think but do what you can. Don't put any pressure on yourself and eat when you feel like. This is all highlighted in Alissa's book and I tend to agree with this philosophy of beginning raw foods. It's hard to skip from one extreme to the other. It's taken me a year, not that it was a goal it just happened - to eat more simply. So please don't give up! You'll get through it. Just keep a lot of raw foods handy and when you get a craving eat the raw food. Over time you'll find balance.

Good luck!

[annavon]

If you have Alissa's book, you may want to re-read it. I found it very motivational. If you don't have her book you might want to consider getting it. The DVD is great too!

Try some green smoothies too. They are very satisfying and very nutritious.

[ShelShel]

For me personally... to get over a craving... I try to discover what I'm craving exactly and then fulfill that urge with something raw. If it's meat and cheese. I would go for something fatty and creamy. Or salty. ;) Good luck...just keep plugging away and do the best you can for your body.

[MiahTay]

I have noticed that I obsess much less about food if I have a green smoothie each day. Surprisingly simple but it works!

Blessings,
Heather

[Emma-Liza]

i had been doing high raw before that and felt great. ...<snip>... But i made the transition from sad to vegan with no problem i really felt like i had found a great way to live!

I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but it sounds like you took something that wasn't broken and broke it. You enjoyed being vegan and you enjoyed being high raw, so why not simply enjoy that?

I understand obsessing about food--I'm a bit of a pro at it! :o Maybe arbitrarily deciding to go 100&#37; on a certain day was prompted from the obsessive part of yourself, not the intuitive or physical.

If you're currently in a SAD place, I'd suggest you retrace your steps to vegan, incorporating as much raw as feels good to you. My experience is that raw living "woos" a person with feeling better and better and freer and freer from all kinds of food issues. Just let that process happen naturally.

[Ilse W.]

I absolutely agree with Emma-Liza. Go back to vegan. Once you are back to being comfortable with your eating choices, start incorporating maybe a green smoothie as one of your daily meals. Give it enough time to become a habit you can live with and then go for the next meal goal, maybe a great big salad for dinner. You could also start each meal with a big salad and follow with something cooked vegan. The bigger the salads get, the less you have room for the cooked choice. Don't look at food as all or nothing choices. Vegan cooked occasionally is far better than SAD.
All the greatest days of your life are still ahead!:)

[mongodelight]

Just my opinion: Its a 100&#37; mental game. You dont need any transitioning. You can go raw know and stay raw untill the end of time(you^^)

I wrote about how to send the addiction to sleep in more than one post now. If u like to know, read my posts.

Its not possible to reverse the addiction but its possible to send it to sleep. But these stroke of fates can wake it up again. If you when dont know what you want and why... the addiction(associations caused by memories) will grow again and you will fall of.

[wiccedfae23]

Thank you guys for responding!! i am going to just try to keep it high raw and try to remember to make great choices as much as possible. i haven't cheated on my vegan diet in over a year and a half and i think that i gave myself alot more slack with that so i am going to try not to overthink it and maybe for me transition time is needed! i guess i just have to be okay with that for now. i was just feeling so guilty for not succeeding on the 30 day challenge that i sort of threw it all away! but i WILL find my way back one step at a time

[RawSweetie]

Hi :)

I just wanted to chime in and say that I'm at 12 days all raw, except for my one cup of yerba mate in the morning (i'm getting sick of typing out this little qualifier, so i'll be glad when i'm done with the tea!). I've had all sorts of shifting around with my body, and suddenly, today, i don't want ANY of the food I've been eating. I want PIZZA. I'm either not hungry at all or I want....PIZZA. It's so clear and specific a craving and "demand" from my body. I'm interpreting this cue as time for some yummy, savory, packaged raw foods ordered online. :D Yep, they're expensive, but I don't have a dehydrator yet, so this is my answer today. Time to mix it up so I can stay raw and have what I want. In the lag time between ordering and receiving, I'll just hang in there and do the best I can to feed myself raw foods. No one's ever died from a few days of unfulfilled craving, and I won't either. Staying on this path is waaaaaay more important to me than a momentary fix of crap food. I'll also say that I started my off-on journey with raw almost a year ago, so I've had some time to play with this and decide what I want and when the timing is right for me, etc.

Good luck! Relax. It will all be ok!