shdunc
03-30-2009, 06:08 AM
I am a person blessed to know my purpose in life. For the past couple of years, I have been wondering to myself if I could physically pull it off. I had to rest 12-14 hours to make it through a work day. My joints were stiff and the aches and pains too tedious to list. I was anemic and deficient in B vitamins so I wasn't processing what I was eating. I tried going gluten-free for the past year with some relief of a sinus condition but no real difference in terms of indigestion. I have acid reflux and had gotten to the point with on the medical assembly line that I was up for an operation called a fundal plication that involved wrapping part of my stomach around the opening to my esophagus. I got really angry that I was offered no alternative, that the doctor never asked me what I ate (we were talking about digestion), and that he scoffed at my account of my body's primal reaction to the latest tube down my throat. I consciously used my anger to fuel my compulsion to find a solution on my own. A friend had recovered from cancer and it's treatment through raw foods. She didn't stay on the diet but talked about how incredible she felt when she was on it. I knew intuitively that this could be it. I bought the books I could find at the bookstore and started. The first three days were rough but I have fasted for five days on just water and this was easier because I could eat and I ate rather large quantities. Lots of nuts and avocados to make me feel full. After three days, the pains went away. I realized that I had been feeling like I was slowly dying inside and now i wasn't. After a week, I no longer felt the constant acid in my stomach. Other symptom that I had associated with age disappeared. Then, I went to Europe for a trip that i had scheduled. I wasn't prepared for the challenge of eating raw on the road and I was staying with a new friend who cooked for me. I fell off the diet for 5 days and all of my symptoms came right back at me. The last part of my two week trip was in Spain where I found an incredible market in Barcelona, went raw, and recovered my progress. Now I am home and ready to embark on this amazing life change.