Who else is all or nothing???

[Ocean]

I've been like this my whole life. If I'm gonna do it, it has to be 100%. It either is, or it isn't.

If I'm eating raw and mess up, well, then...may as well wait til tomorrow to start over again.

It's so annoying! Like OCD type behavior.

I was doing good, and then last week I was up til 3:30 am as we went to the hospital to be with my SIL as she delivered her first baby (she did amazing! 26 hour labor with no epidural, she'd been awake for 42 hours by the time she delivered!).

Well, since then I haven't done as well. I even had some ice cream last night! I mean I'm still eating big salads and fruit only in the am. I just feel disappointed in myself.

I'd been feeling so much better on raw. Today I feel kinda blah, but I had a Lyme treatment yesterday with a cold laser, so that could be why.

I know other's here fall of the wagon so to speak, so I'm sure there are other black and white thinkers here too.

How do you change it??


Take care,
Ocean

[Moretta]

Don't beat yourself up. Tomorrow is a different day. One meal at a time.

Good luck.

[commoncents]

I am so like that. I had to forgive myself my humanness and let it go. Whenever I'm tempted to beat up on myself for something I feel I need to be doing or not doing, I remember that God loves me AS IS!!!!!!

I had been 100% Raw for two months. I went on vacation and still managed to stay Raw. Was very pround of lil old me. On the way back home, I had a sutffed portabella mushroom. Ate that and felt like that was not good enough and high tailed it over to Burger King and had a veggie burger and fries. Then, that evening, since the day was busted had dinner at my old favorite chinese restaurant. I was so tempted to beat up on myself until I was Black and Blue. Stopped myself and knew that God loves me AS IS and started right back the next day on Raw. I refuse to dishonor myself any longer because of my food choises. It is so not worth it.

Appreciate every step in the journey!!!!!!

Congratulations on the new addition to your family.

[Ocean]

Thanks guys,

Putting the baseball bat away now....


Commoncents,

You have some good common sense! You are right in that God does love us no matter what. He doesn't care if we mess up. I love my kids no matter what they do, and God has the capacity to love us infinitely more than I love my kids (whom I would die for).

Thanks for sharing your story too, I appreciate it! Vacation and staying raw??? Wow! That is impressive! Can't say I've done that! Good job! Yes I do the same. I'll eat and then think, 'well, that just didn't hit the spot, I need something else...' It almost always happens in the late evening for me. Like my guard gets let down or something and it doesn't seem that bad. I guess I should stop looking at it as 'bad'.

Anyhow, take care!

Ocean

[RawHeaven]

I love that commoncents. :)

I think the longer you're at this, the more tired you get at the prospect of beating yourself up. ha.

You learn to truly let go of the societal whispers, raw community voices and all of the shoulds and just go with the flow. You can always just get back to raw. And perhaps we're never really "away" from it. It is what it is. It's just food. And we have free will to eat whatever we want. For me personally, it comes down to how I feel now. I know I'm probably not going to feel so great eating certain foods, whereas when I eat high raw I feel like I could fly. and i love this feeling. But if I eat a food that takes me out of my body...well that's okay. I'm still a raw foodist either way. hey hey now. :p

[commoncents]

Ocean, just know that this is a great journey we have undertaken!!!! The fact that we endeavor to eat Raw at all is fantastic in and of itself.

A year ago I would not have dreamed of going on vacation and staying Raw. I would have just started the vacation knowing that I would eat cooked vegan. One year has passed and I was able to do it. So, you see, it is a journey and I've found it helpful to congratulate yourself each and every step of the way, even in those moments when you feel you have "slipped".

When I ate the cooked food this last time, I blessed it and enjoyed the food thoroughly. I did have a headache the next day and immediately got back to Raw.

Put that Bat away and like you said God loves us infinitely and does not judge us on what we eat. If God can forgive us our trepasses, we should do likewise and be patient, kind and loving with ourselves.

Take care.

[commoncents]

I love that commoncents. :)

I think the longer you're at this, the more tired you get at the prospect of beating yourself up. ha.

You learn to truly let go of the societal whispers, raw community voices and all of the shoulds and just go with the flow. You can always just get back to raw. And perhaps we're never really "away" from it. It is what it is. It's just food. And we have free will to eat whatever we want. For me personally, it comes down to how I feel now. I know I'm probably not going to feel so great eating certain foods, whereas when I eat high raw I feel like I could fly. and i love this feeling. But if I eat a food that takes me out of my body...well that's okay. I'm still a raw foodist either way. hey hey now. :p

So true, so true, so true. No matter how many times I've "slipped" I always come back Home and beating myself up is just a waste of precious energy. Like you said, I'm still and always will be a Raw foodist!!!!! What a great thought.

[Springtime]

I'm pretty much an all or nothing person myself too.

What i try to do is to constantly remind myself that the choices i make every day are not definete, fixed or for life. That it is all a process, changing all the time and it's one meal at a time.

I can't remember how many thousands of times i tried to stop biting my nails, but always failed. "from now on i'm never ever gonna do that again" ofcorse it did not work.
Now i have not been picking at my nails for months, and i can't eve remember how it happened. I just grew into it.

Everything is like that. We can try to control all we like, spend our time developing neurotic need for control. Or we can focus on the things that make us genuinly joyful, and trust the process that will put everything in its right place.

[Green_Woman]

I've come to recognize that raw is my LIFESTYLE, not a diet.

A wise RFT'er posted that on her blog. ;)

[lynnc72]

Yes, it's all or nothing for me too.

I let myself make the mistake once and learned from it. I was sick for 3 days. Now there is no desire to get that sick ever again ... forever and ever :D

[Redrocket]

I'm the same way when I do something, I have to do it 100% and there is nothing wrong with doing something the best you can or doing it what you think is the correct way. I've learned if it means that much to me then I will do it and see it through at all costs. People say to me "once in a while you can eat this chicken or eat this steak, one piece of meat isn't going to kill you" I say to them "you obviously don't know me very well". They call me anal and I laugh and say "it sure comes in handy when you need me to do something for you like a repair or fix something". They know if I say I can do something, it will be done right. If I can't do it I've learned to say NO! As far as this diet and lifestyle is concerned, let's say I was very sick and needed to do this diet as a matter of life and death, that's how I feel about it right now. I need to this and do it right. This means a lot to me and I deserve to feel good therefore how bad can it be? I am thinking less about food now then I was before. I mean, I bet I spent hours a day thinking about which eating establishment I had a craving for, how sick is that? Look, just stick with it and find other things that interest you to keep your mind busy, that's what's getting you into trouble, it's your wondering busy mind. What hobbies do you love.........do them now. Learn how to prepare this kind of food, others here have created wonderful recipes...... thank you all so much!!!!!! Please don't beat yourself up, just do it!!!

[EZ rider]

What you feed grows. I have found that I cannot have even A bite of cooked food or the cooked monster comes roaring back much stronger and harder to resist. The last time I "slipped" was last summer and it took me 6 weeks to get back. Now I don't have that first bite of cooked food and the cooked monster has been getting smaller and weaker the less I feed it.

[Green_Woman]

EZ Rider... the cooked monster was kind of a cute analogy. :D

[Ocean]

I read all of our responses and thanks so much for the encouragement and for your own stories, wow! I did much better yesterday thanks to all of you! I didn't feel like I had 'pressure' on myself which was a nice feeling!

You guys are fantastic!


Ocean

[freelive]

When got into raw foods I had that belief, that cooked foods is awful addiction, so if I eat anything cooked, I will go right back into negative eating patterns. So I litterally got what I believed in.
We were visiting people, and they knew, that I was raw, so they made especially for me a salad .... with cheese(not raw one, either). That was a beginning of my "fall". I was so dissapointed in myself, that it started downward spiral. Now I came back to raw foods with completely different attitude and 1 year of deliberate learning to change my thoughts, and it is so much easier this time. Now I am perfectly fine with some cooked(and I can easily do small amounts of it), and still eat mostly raw and some days just raw.Beliefs don't change though in one day - belief is a habitual(or automatic)thought, so it is a process. The best is to keep doing, what you believe and then slowly change your belief before you change your action.
Any aproach, what works for you is the best aproach.

[RawSweetie]

I am not all or nothing.

In other words, I am not not allowing myself to not be perfect.:cool:

[Ilse W.]

I'm very much an all-or-nothing person. I think it goes along with my ADD. Unless I make it an ALL, I forget about it. I can either hyperfocus or it gets lost somewhere in the brain fog. Once the ALL is broken, it takes a while to commit again. Eventually it will click and I'm back to ALL. Give it time, but never give up on a good thing!

[commoncents]

What you feed grows. I have found that I cannot have even A bite of cooked food or the cooked monster comes roaring back much stronger and harder to resist. The last time I "slipped" was last summer and it took me 6 weeks to get back. Now I don't have that first bite of cooked food and the cooked monster has been getting smaller and weaker the less I feed it.

So, so, so so true!!!!!!

[JuanaV]

Victoria Boutenko wrote a book called 12 steps to Raw food. It is about the addictiveness of cooked food.
I found it very interesting and very helpful. She has many ideas/suggestions to help stay raw.
I like this book because I am that way - if I am 100% it seems easier to stay raw. I feel so much better - cooked food - any cooked food and the aches and pains increase.

[Mikey_H]

This week I've been out of town and with a lot of family... they are all healthy people but no where near totally raw eaters, or even veg.

I don't think I'm an all-or-nothing guy, but it's weird cause I barely crave cooked foods in the past few months and this week it's like I told myself I was gonna allow for some, I was actually excited about it. :confused:
Basically, I've been eating mostly raw all day the past 2 days but then at night I have indulged in cooked sweet potatoes, brown rice, and peanut butter. That's pretty much my allowance of cooked for a while:p

[TaupeRawMan]

I too am all or nothing. This keeps me from ever getting out of line of whatever my current rules are. Right now, that means nothing cooked, no animal products, no grains, no beans, no oils, nothing processed, no bad food combining, etc. It is a blessing and a curse to be all-or-nothing. Gets me on the bandwagon of whatever I am wanting to do, but restricts me from a lot that life has to offer...

[DeborahB]

I was exactly like that when I first started raw over 2 years ago. I found that the stricter I was, the more likely I was to mess up.

After about a year I relaxed a lot and allowed small amounts of cooked ingredients, if it helped in the long run. Such as honey and agave so that I could make sweet treats and therefore avoid shop bought junk.
This helped immensely and I've found that I've naturally started to desire these cooked ingredients less in favour for plain natural fruit and vegetables.

For some people it is hard to make the transition from cooked to fully raw, especially after our bodies have a lifetime of cooked food junky habits. Our minds might want to be 100% raw but our bodies take a little while to catch up!

I've heard that the longer raw a person is, the easier they find it to become higher raw.
I've found this to be true.

Also, not being so hard and strict on myself leads to feeling less guilty about when I do make slight slipups and more confident that I'm doing something good for my body in the long run, which all adds up over time.