hi..new here and have some ?'s

[lovefruits!]

Ok here it is. I am 32 years old and severely obese. Though I do like fruits (hence my ID) it is rare for me to eat them and I have never liked veggies. I am very aware that these 2 facts are probably why I'm obese to begin with.

I was told about the Raw Food way of eating from a friend. She swears by it and has lost around 75 pounds with it. The thing is that she loves veggies...all different kinds of veggies.

I want to try this way of eating for 2 reasons. One is weight loss obviously, the other is that I am not a healthy person and I want to live a long life for my son.

My questions are these:

Is it truly possible to lose weight so quickly on the Raw Food lifestyle?
Will I really learn to like veggies?
Will my cravings for junk go away?

I know virtually nothing about vegetables and I have thyroid disease. I've read that there are certain veggies you should avoid when you have hypothyroid, such as: cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohirabi, mustard, lima beans, linseed, sweet potato.

So what is left? Seriously, I know almost nothing about vegetables! (except that I've never liked the taste:o )

[michigan roman]

welcome to site :)

theres tons of people that lose tons of weight quickly around here

and i believe if you change diet your taste buds shall cllean off
and vegis shall start tasting good to you . but also theres ' fruitarians '
that eat mostly all fruit

just keep hanging out here and youll get alot of great advice

ide go to youtube and search ' ani phyo ' to see a bunch of here raw recipe videos to get you in the game

cheers :)

[Dimond]

Whenever I hear " I don't like vegetables (or fruit).", my thought is "You just THINK you don't like them." I'm completely amazed that I went through life thinking many foods didn't taste good or need to be altered and how much foods, especially raw, that I didn't ever taste. You will find yourself loving produce more and more and realizing how good it is. There is practically nothing I won't eat now and only a couple I could never eat without any processing like blending. Cooking actually ruins the taste of most vegetables, which makes you wonder why it's ever done.

The best thing to do is start experimenting with various recipes such as salads, soups, wraps, etc. to find what you like. There's so many meals you can make that there's bound to be several you'll enjoy.

[Jehote]

DO NOT freak out on green smoothies because they are green! you can add a little greens to your smoothies and work your way up to more.
if the green freaks you out add some blueberries and it makes them purple. blending veggies with fruits will totally help you get them in!
look around here and get ideas. its a great place!
Matthew

[jane b]

I'm also fairly new to raw, and it was suggested smoothies are a great way to start.

This morning, I made a smoothie with about 1/2 cup of sliced raw almonds (soaked for about an hour), 2 tsp coconut oil, 3 heaping T of carob (you can use cocoa instead), 1 ripe banana, 1/8 of a cantalope, and a couple of loose handfuls of kale. Didn't need any additional sweetening because of the banana and cantalope, but I did add a dash of good Mexican vanilla extract and a pinch of sea salt.

Blend it all up and it looks just like a really creamy chocolate shake! Even better if you put it in the fridge/freezer for a while to chill and let the flavors meld.

I am soooo not deprived.

The great thing about smoothies is that you can start out mostly fruit and just start adding greens a little bit at a time. I never cared for cooked kale, but raw is almost an invisible flavor if used fresh in a smoothie. Victoria Bourenko said even if you only add one leaf of greens, it's more than you had before.

And you might find that green smoothies can be very, very addictive. This is one area in which you really are encouraged to play with your food.

[RawHemp]

Is it truly possible to lose weight so quickly on the Raw Food lifestyle? Yes!
Will I really learn to like veggies? Yes!
Will my cravings for junk go away? Yes!



I was somwhat like you before i started on my raw food path, i didn't like the taste of nearly all raw food because my taste buds were soo "cooked". Now i love everything raw, its really amazing how you can train your body to crave anything (now i crave cashews, fruits and avocado salads instead of brownies, hamburgers and pasta). Its probally gonna be tough at first cus it sounds like your cooked food addcition is pretty bad but if you slowly ease into it you should be able to accomplish a 100% raw diet

[RawHeaven]

I think it's already been said by some very savvy folks on here...it's your taste buds. You are accustomed to fats, sodium, sugars and chemicals. Believe me, you will not know the flavorgasms you can experience until you heal your taste buds. I used to avoid and dislike tons of vegetables, cooked and raw and I was a vegetarian!!! LOL. It's all about the taste buds and other things of course. But I do believe once you get started, you will understand this for yourself.

Release the focus on weight loss! I know it may seem insensitive of me to say that or that I couldn't possibly understand where you're at, but I do understand because I was obese too...I'm only 5'2 and carried 190 at my highest weight in my 30's. Please, please put the focus on your health and take it off of weight loss. The weight and fat release will come easily and effortlessly once you get on the track of focusing on your health. Once you center your goals and get on that path, nothing can derail you. And even if it does, you'll find it easier to hop back on the train. Weight loss is only a beautiful benefit, the rest is even better. Good luck.

[iluvmangos]

Ok here it is. I am 32 years old and severely obese. Though I do like fruits (hence my ID) it is rare for me to eat them and I have never liked veggies. I am very aware that these 2 facts are probably why I'm obese to begin with.

I was told about the Raw Food way of eating from a friend. She swears by it and has lost around 75 pounds with it. The thing is that she loves veggies...all different kinds of veggies.

I want to try this way of eating for 2 reasons. One is weight loss obviously, the other is that I am not a healthy person and I want to live a long life for my son.

My questions are these:

Is it truly possible to lose weight so quickly on the Raw Food lifestyle?
Will I really learn to like veggies?
Will my cravings for junk go away?

I know virtually nothing about vegetables and I have thyroid disease. I've read that there are certain veggies you should avoid when you have hypothyroid, such as: cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohirabi, mustard, lima beans, linseed, sweet potato.

So what is left? Seriously, I know almost nothing about vegetables! (except that I've never liked the taste:o )

Yes, you WILL lose weight eating this way. You'll lose it even faster if you exercise. I've lost 105 pounds, so far, and I started in April 2008. I have 40 pounds to go. I probably could have been at goal by now if I hadn't gotten lazy with my exercise. I used to walk 3-5 miles per day.

Yes, your tastebuds will change. Make a dip for your veggies and make yummy salad dressings for your salads. Alissa's book will help with that. It has a yummy avocado dressing that I also use as a dip. If you don't want salads, throw some greens in your smoothies. Green smoothies really are good and you can make them as sweet as you want them. Add raw honey or dates to them if that helps you.

Your cravings for junk will go away or be greatly diminished. When I feel like I want something junky, I eat medjool dates or figs or I make raw ice cream in my food processor by blending a frozen banana or two with a handful of other frozen fruit. Even just blending the frozen bananas by themselves is good. I make "chocolate" ice cream by blending in a couple tablespoons of raw carob powder with the frozen bananas.

I don't think Veganforlife has posted here in awhile, but her thyroid was healed by eating raw and incorporating sea veggies into her diet. Read this thread:

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=26306

[gabriele]

I'm like you, have 120 pounds to lose, and always hated vegetables my whole life. I remember the limp, cooked spinach i had to eat growing up at dinner. I have avoided vegetables all my life.

Now, i have come to love a mixed salad, although i have trouble finding the right dressing, and i MUST have dressing because i don't love the salad that much!!

And if you have a blender, even a little one (i started out with a TINY, old Cuisinart) you can make a smoothie with just a little baby spinach or other greens added to lots of fruits. You won't even taste it. And never mind the color - i made some kind of smoothie the other day that was brown, forgot what i put in it but it was still delicious.

[Soose]

Hi, Lovefruits! :)

Years ago, watching friends who loved salads and veg without any dressings, I was in disbelief.

Now, my whole family LOVES their salads without dressings! Amazing.

I NEVER would have believed we would eat this way. For that matter, I never would have believed we would go Vegetarian then Vegan. Much less raw.

Like you, I have a lot to live for. I firmly believe we can get healthy, to a healthy body size, and live a fuller life by cleaning up our food. I've watched others die from what they eat and how they medicate their body. For me it's a no-brainer to NOT go down THAT path!

[jane b]

I can also vouch for taste buds changing.

Last weekend, DH grilled up a huge batch of hamburgers on the outdoor grill. I not only wasn't interested in the burgers, I didn't even want to toast marshmellows, and I'm practically Pavlovian when it comes to campfires and marshmellows. If someone had told me a month ago that I wouldn't even care, I would never have believed it.

Keep trying. You don't have to like EVERY vegetable in the world. I personally can't stand plain cucumbers or green peppers. So I just don't eat them that way.

[michigan roman]

i just realized :rolleyes: that before raw 4 years ago ide been on a whole food vegan diet 11 years , eating mostly dry beans / rice / potato / oats / banana / peanuts / salads / steamed vegi . BUT no fruits besides bananas .
but now i love fruit :D

[kidkid]

I used to dislike vegetables too! My advice: Go ahead and treat yourself to some beautiful, fancy gourmet vegetables (like interesting and pretty lettuces, or fiddlehead ferns, heirloom tomatoes, purple carrots, velvety black radishes!). I don't know where you live, but maybe there's a farmer's market somewhere near you, or some farms (or even better, some lovely and diverse vegetable garden somewhere), or even just a fancy grocery store. I wouldn't recommend eating super fancy gourmet vegetables all the time because it can be expensive, but sampling beautiful flavors, textures and colors that seem exotic and special is what made me interested in vegetables. I'm a really visual person, so food really has to look good (PURPLE CARROTS!). I found I could eventually go back to the basics and have an appreciation for them as well. But I always make sure I'm eating very fresh, organic produce. It tastes better, it's more interesting to think about, and its better for you. It's downright romantic!

OH OH! and the other thing I would suggest is seasoning with herbs! I'm a huge fan of crushing up some cilantro or parsley with some olive oil and garlic and onion, a little lime, salt and pepper. Maybe some cayenne on top of that. It's just a nice flavor to add to any vegetable (or fruit too!). But yeah, herbs are wonderful! and they are vegetables too!

Also, it's cool to get familiar with all the different kinds of greens. There are so many different kinds of lettuces out there, some of them sweet, some of them spicy, some of them bitter, some of them hardy, or soft, or cruchy, green, purple, yellow white etc. And then there are dark greens which are hard core and tough, filling and nutritious.

Have fun! You're about to embark on an adventure! :)

[lovefruits!]

Thanks for all the support and advice. It is silly but I am actually nervous about giving up cooked foods:o

What about the thyroid problem? Can I eat any veggie or am I limited because of the disease?

[T-Bird]

Whenever I hear " I don't like vegetables (or fruit).", my thought is "You just THINK you don't like them."

I disagree Dimond. I really REALLY didn't like veggies!

After touring europe - and seeing european butcher shops, I turned vegetarian involuntarily - I just could not eat - or even look at meat.

But how could I be a vegetarian when I didn't like any vegetables???

I started out with one of the most hated of all vegetables - spinach. I thought I needed it for the iron. I started adding in small quantities in stir frys and soups, small enough that I couldn't really tasted it. Within a year, I liked it. Weird. After several years - I loved it! It is now a favorite food.

This repeated with many other veggies: Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, romain lettuce, kale, dandelion greens, etc. etc.

The trick I think is to start with something you like. Add in a tiny amount of a "good for you" veggie, not enough to gag you or anything, just a hint of it.

Over time, I believe, your body associates the taste of it with what it needs and you eventually come to like, if not love, the formerly offending veggie.

As I said - the spinach was the first one I remember as a new vegetarian (22 years ago) and it took a few years. Most recently --as a raw fooder, was dandelion greens. I knew they were good for me, and I had them in a nice curried cashew sour creme dressing. I ate just 1- 2 forkfuls of this little salad before lunch and dinner as a liver tonic. Not every day - just when I had it and it'd last for 4-5 days.

Within a month I was craving it, and having a large dandelion green salad as a meal. It still tasted bitter to me, but I LOVED it. Could not get enough of it.

It's kind of like when you 'accidentally' sleep with someone you don't like all that much - and then it's super-fantastic-awesome, and then you're falling in love with them unexpectedly.

It's like that.

[mary2122]

thank you for asking these questions. its funny, i just started today actually and i had the same exact questions. the before/after pics on this forum are VERY inspirational, im sure you agree! I am not a fan of veggies either so this worried me as well. i think we just both have to stick with it and everything will be okay. Also i know for myself...i need to focus more on the journey than the end result. Good luck!

[Soose]

I can't say about the thyroid worry -- whether you can go raw and be able to give up the meds or not, etc..

I can say that my husband has always been hypoglycemic. He seemed to do best by eliminating anything that made his blood sugar fluctuate, which unfortunately included very healthy foods, tomatoes, carrots, most fruits... back then, he was on a high-protein diet. When we transitioned to Vegan, even though he ate very moderately and healthily, he started putting on weight/pudge, and it was bad enough after 2.5 years that I convinced him to try raw.

We were all amazed that on raw, despite a diet of mostly fruit at first, his blood sugar stabilized immediately. He's not had any blood sugar fluctuations. YMMV.

Just recently we've noticed that his lifelong and progressive problem with hand tremors has gone to almost nil. His hands are steady. Very steady. Can't wait to see if there are more healings to report after the cleanse he's doing.

[T-Bird]

Hey Soose -

How long has the hubby been raw?

What kind of cleanse is he on?

[Soose]

Hey Soose -

How long has the hubby been raw?

What kind of cleanse is he on?


Hi, T-bird. :) I've sort of lost track of the exact weeks raw... let me go look at my emails. (My memory banks.) Okay, I think he moved from Vegan mostly raw to 100% raw on April 29th. (And just to clarify, while I know there are still some contaminations in my own and my son's food -- like the green beans being frozen before dehydrating so they likely were blanched, and the almonds not being true raw, and my son ate some tofu jerky on his camping trip, my husband has really been clean with his raw.)

Transitioning from Vegan meant mostly giving up a little cooked oats for b'fast, or even rolled oats [not raw, I know] with a little raw honey and nuts; and a small cooked entree for lunch that I would send him -- like chili with beans or sometimes a veggie sandwich if he had to eat out, only occasionally any refined foods like soy TVP in the chili. So I think it's rather surprising the difference in eating much more whole fruits and dropping anything cooked. He's never seemed to be able to digest the beans, I do know that.

He'd lost some weight after going raw. He wanted to accelerate his healing with a fast. Then, that has turned into a cleanse which we figured ought to be easier from starting at a water-only fast. (I was told by a doc that cleanses would be very much easier on the body if starting from a rehydrated body.) He started with a water-only fast last Monday (so a week today), and transitioned into a juice fast Saturday night, and started a colon cleanse and heavy metal detox, using one of the detox kits available, which he's going to do for 5-7 days on the accelerated plan. We'll see how he does with it. I'll report on the fasting forum.

[iluvmangos]

Thanks for all the support and advice. It is silly but I am actually nervous about giving up cooked foods:o

What about the thyroid problem? Can I eat any veggie or am I limited because of the disease?

Some people say to stay away from certain foods, but Veganforlife didn't. She just ate raw and included lots of sea veggies. The sea veggies are a must. If you're not gonna eat sea veggies, my advice would be to stay away from the goitrogens.

From that thread I linked to earlier:


Veganforlife, I hadn't seen this thread before... Congrats on your recovery, and thanks for sharing your story, it's really inspiring and hopeful!

I've been looking into thyroid issues lately, and found big lists of food people with hypothyroid aren't supposed to eat a lot of, including kale, cabbage, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, strawberries, peaches... and a lot more. Did you have to cut out any foods like these? Or did you still eat them? I noticed you added sea veggies and spirulina, I'll definitely look into those!


No. When I went raw, I cut nothing out. I'm thinking this "list of foods to avoid" is meaning cooked foods.
Green smoothies have ready helped me - tremendously! That's why I push them so much.

Go read that thread to find out exactly what Veganforlife did. You don't have to read every single post. Just look for Veganforlife's posts.

[ruffsongraw]

hi LoveFruits & welcome!

for balancing the thyroid naturally you can try Maca. it is a super food and re-balances hormoes and thryoid among other things. i buy raw organic maca root powder from a Seller on ebay and i am sure there are many other places to get it. it tastes like dirt (IMO) but i add it to fresh juiced OJ and it hides the taste.

i truly believe and know from countless experiences here that raw can heal anything (in time). my BP was not hi at all but it has dropped and i have MS and went off ALL meds. not saying you should do that, but rezearch and ask Q's and search the archives for thyroid experiences. maybe you can wean off meds eventually once you start to heal.

be positive, look ahead, if you crave junk, try anythoing with avocado (guac) and dip bell pepper strips in it. it has a fat content (good fat not bad) that will greatly help cravings AND most importantly, when you make the transition DO NOT let yourself get hungry or you will cave in to temptation. always carry a lot of raw snacks with you no matter where you go.
goodluck!!!
jen

[iluvmangos]

for balancing the thyroid naturally you can try Maca. it is a super food and re-balances hormoes and thryoid among other things. i buy raw organic maca root powder from a Seller on ebay and i am sure there are many other places to get it. it tastes like dirt (IMO) but i add it to fresh juiced OJ and it hides the taste.

I use a tablespoon of maca in my green smoothies and can barely tell it's there. Sometimes I put in in a smoothie with bananas and carob powder and it makes it taste kinda like a chocolate malt.

[lovefruits!]

Thanks again for the replies!

iluvmangos...I must apologize, I did go back and read the post you linked to, unfortunately I didn't read far enough:o thank you for quoting it for me and I'm going to go now and read it in its entirety.