You know what I don't get?

[Amii]

I've been watching a lot of those trailers for raw foods today, and been reading all those testimonials on the raw sites. This is something I do when I'm bored - I'm on my gap year and still living at home, not got a lot to do when it's pouring with rain over here

Anyway I noticed a recurring statement amongst the raw foodists who are aged 30-50: "I haven't felt this good since I was 18."

I have heard this statement so many times across the raw food sites, it's unreal. The reason I say this is because. I'm 18 right now, and I feel relatively crap all the time ; and I would say I'm about 50% raw. I have a BMI of 21.1 so I'm not exactly obese and I exercise daily (walking, it does count for something). But I don't feel "good".

So I don't understand how these raw foodists could have felt good when they were this age, unless the diet back then was in fact more raw-based? Or is this just a statement in comparison to how their health has deteriorated since then? Maybe you didn't feel good when you were a teenager but since then you've just felt so MUCH worse that in comparison, you felt healthy as a teen.

Thoughts?

[Revvell]

Amii, I so agree with you. I never felt good as a teen or even in my 20's which is why I began searching for a better way than what I knew. I WISH I'd felt this good in my teens and 20's.

[lovenlife]

I dont remember feeling this good in my teens or twenties or thirties either. I was not sick but didnt feel as good as raw life feels.

[seRAWnity]

I too have to agree, I don't remember EVER feeling as good as a teen as I do now on raw... I was always active/thin as a teen, walked everywhere, but I grew up in the age of Chef Boy-R-D and microwaves... never had veggies unless my Mom was on a diet and then we weren't allowed to eat them... so even now 100lbs heavier (scary huge realization just now... yikes) then when I was 18 I feel better mentally and physically at 32 when i STAY raw...

[Aleesha Sattva]

but... when you've been eating SAD for 50 years... how you felt at 18 was a whoooooole lot better than at 50! i'm 46 and i know that how i felt before i went raw was like i had one foot in the grave. i figured my 'living life' was over. now i go to yoga, rebound, go for walks, have lots of energy for living...

and i remember... going to parties and dancing ALL night long when i was 18 and then going in to work the next day unphased. so ya... i can honestly say i feel more like i'm 18 than 46!

[Revvell]

and i remember... going to parties and dancing ALL night long when i was 18 and then going in to work the next day unphased.

Yep! I remember that too yet, don't remember feeling much of anything but tired ~ a lot. Mostly, I kept myself numb by doing all that. Now, I feel alive, vibrant, energized. Something I never really felt then.

[Amii]

^ Well right now I'm going out a lot, partying, staying up all night with my friends, drinking way too much, and I can still function properly but I still don't feel good. Being able to cope with a shit lifestyle is different to actually feeling good, no?

[T-Bird]

I ate a pretty standard diet up to about 13-14, then I became somewhat health consicous, but didn't know anything about raw.

I ate plenty of dairy, some meat, hardly any veggies - raw or otherwise. I did try to avoid white flour and sugar, but loved me those tollhouse cookies and twizzlers! So all in all - kind of average.

I usually kept myself pretty thin, and I ran about 1-2 miles most days, plus other exercises.

I always had plenty of energy, could stay up all night to do stuff like writing papers or playing games and hanging out.

So yeah - when you're a young adult, that is when you have the adult mindframe and the best health you're going to have, for most people. If you feel tired and all at that age - there is definitely some problem needs correcting.

What does it take to make it work

[Revvell]

^ Well right now I'm going out a lot, partying, staying up all night with my friends, drinking way too much, and I can still function properly but I still don't feel good. Being able to cope with a shit lifestyle is different to actually feeling good, no?


Absolutely. Actually, it's a way to keep ourselves from feeling. Good you're recognizing this now.

[katchmoleen]

I too think that the difference is the energy level. I had constant headaches and diarrhea since I was a child, but as a teenager I still had enough energy to do everything I wanted, go to bed for a few hours, then get up and do it again. I never remember thinking, "I wish I had more energy." I have thought that all the time for the last 15 years, though it has improved immensly.

[Thick]

I think people mean that their little aches and pains have disappeared, and they have the libido they remember at 18-- maybe they just lack the vocabulary to explain the fountain of youth invigoration that comes along with raw.

Whether you are 50 or 5, if you are eating substandard processed chemical crap--you will feel like substandard processed chemical crap.

Perhaps after you're raw awhile--you'll say "I haven't felt this good since I was 9!" =)

[Green_Woman]

My teens were awful - I was in pain almost 24/7.

My twenties started out awful - then I found RAW!

Right now I'm daily amazed at how strong I feel - I'm still in pain much of the day (injured my back in the middle of the Term) but I can FEEL it leaving my body BY THE DAY. It's as if, when I'm 25... 30... 35... I'll be able to say simply:

Hot D--n, I have NEVER felt so GOOD!!!

:D

[EZ rider]

I find a thread like this one helpful to me in that it causes me to stop and think about how I used to spring out of bed in the morning compared to how I felt after years of the SAD where I felt like I barely had the energy to get out of bed compared to how I feel now. My conclusion is that I am going to continue with a healthy lifestyle because I don't miss feeling like crap.

[Aleesha Sattva]

Yep! I remember that too yet, don't remember feeling much of anything but tired ~ a lot. Mostly, I kept myself numb by doing all that. Now, I feel alive, vibrant, energized. Something I never really felt then.

well it certainly depends on your health and what you were eating then. i never ate junk and fast food was something i never bothered with. of course that changed... i ate crap as i got older and VOILA... i found raw and feel so much better.

but to be clear... unless i had a day of 18 and a day of 46 back to back... i can't honestly compare them... cause we do only remember what we remember. ;)

[Bananna]

I specifically remember saying when I was 18 that I felt like I was 90 :(

[klomasius]

What? Are you people from another planet? LOL.

I felt fantastic when I was 18! I could run around like a mad woman, stay up all night, party, drink, had no aches and pains (well, except for the arthritis but that's another story) skin was great, energy levels good, libido fantastic etc. I did eat relatively healthy though, I found out about the health paradigm fairly young, plus our family didn't eat a lot of meat.

I found as I aged that things gradually got a little worse with each year, but gradually enough for me not to notice. My 'healthy' food still included cooked pasta, breads, rice, etc. and I was also eating processed vegetarian foods as well. I think what happens is that many people don't notice the gradual decline in health (if at 18 you have the energy to party and stay up all night then function the next day, even if it is just function, then your doing better than most 30-40 year olds!).

We are usually able to put our bodies through much greater crap at 18 then we can at 30-40, I'd say most people would agree. I feel that this is an indicator of feeling 'better' at 18.

What we do seem to know also is that when a relatively 'healthy' person switches to a raw foods diet, they feel an order of magnitude better and healthier than they did at the same age, and they suddenly remember all that energy they had at 18 (or even as a child) and they compare it to that.

I think we also must bear in mind that many people who come to raw do so because they have specific ailments that they want to manage/cure, sometimes they have had these conditions since an early age so may not ever have had that sprightly 18 yo feeling.

We also have to remember that we live in an age of processed food and utter crap that is called food and fed to kids but that is actually making them feel like crap. So if a person has eaten relatively healthy throughout their life before going raw, and they've been relatively healthy with no chronic conditions, then the gradual decline in health that comes with age gets significantly reversed and it's like a clock going backwards, de-ageing them, which is exactly what I felt.

Edit: I'd like to mention the hormone thing we have as teenagers, sometimes hormones can make us feel mentally (and sometimes physically) crap and going through puberty then having the hormone thermostat 'tweaked' for several years afterward can also influence how we feel.