Need advice badly!

[vickie52]

3 months ago I went from Diet Coke (all day), sugar, fried meat, meat, and starches to water, fresh juices, fruit, salads, some meatless days and seafood dinners.
I hoped to do the challege in July. I've hit a bad slump.
In reading books and the internet, I've become afraid to take my wonderful hot bath! Wayne Dyer says the water coming out of the heater is so harmful! I don't know if I need to buy distilled, spring, r/o, alkanized etc. The filters can be as much as $1500. And nothing in plastic. Everything is packed and shipped in plastic! I was so proud of kicking the coke habit and now I find out that tap water may be worse. Then there's wheatgrass, sprouts, fruit or no fruit, and supplements. I was doing this to avoid the 16 pills a day my mom takes. Oh and olive oil is out. I thought I was doing good with my orange juice and olive oil dressing.
I went (3 and 1\2 hour round trip) to meet a raw food group and hear a speaker talk about brewing cheap probiotics (which I had never heard of). The people were great and the food was good but the speaker went on about bi-locating yogis, government assinations of his friends, and shape shifting (lizards!) agents who were photographed infiltrating a presentation by David Wolfe. The drive home was dismal.
I can buy spring or distilled water. But avoiding plastic is like avoiding air.
I'm trying to hang onto the fact that I've lost 10 pounds, no longer suffer from daily acid reflux, feel lighter when I eat healthy and am exercising daily. But I really would love a flood of encouragement and advice as to where this is heading me. Thanks.

[kaleboy]

there are a miriad of filters on the market for tap water. I wouldn't be drinking it straight from the tap. Tastes like pool water where I come from.

[green goddess]

That raw food presentation sounds really weird! Really, what do government assassinations have to do with raw foods and healthy living?

There is so much mixed information out there about healthy living, and the more one learns, the more one gets confused! :confused It's really hard to know what's best when so much information is contradictory (like the fruit vs. no fruit, no oils vs. oils are good, calorie restriction vs. eat until you are satiated, and many others). I've absorbed a lot of info as I've been learning about raw, and take everything with a (ocean-sourced? iodine-added? rock-mined? sodium-free?) grain of salt. What makes the most sense to me? What makes sense to me is natural, whole foods in their pure state. If I can find it in nature, chances are it's what I should be eating.

What makes sense to you? You've probably come across information that you don't really agree with, and some other things have likely resonated with you. go with what strikes a chord with you! Eating living foods shouldn't be complicated.

Hang in there, and good luck! Keep us posted on how you're doing!

:heart

[green goddess]

Oh, and as for hot water, hmm, I've never thought about it being not good for me! I don't know much about this, but I figure it's got to be better for us than a daily, all-day diet coke habit! ;) It's true that the water we get in taps is not the same that we'd find in a natural hot spring, but I guess it's up to you how you feel about this is what you want to do with it. Have baths less often, as a treat? Switch to showers? Get a filter or something in that direction? Or not bathe at all? tee hee!

[vickie52]

I really needed the responses. Thanks so much. I will keep on trucking with the green juices, some fruit, big salads, and strive for evening recipes I can use in July. Some of Dyer's suggestions are right on line with my thinking. I avoid TV and especially broadcast news and I try to keep fresh flowers in my house when I can afford them. He just really made a fuss about tap water and blasted the leeching out of bad stuff into the water that takes place in your heater's water. Don't know if he didn't want you bathing in it. Just not cooking by adding hot water to the pan. Hey if I make it on the challenge, I won't have to worry about adding water to the cook pot!

[green goddess]

3but the speaker went on about bi-locating yogis, government assinations of his friends, and shape shifting (lizards!) agents who were photographed infiltrating a presentation by David Wolfe. The drive home was dismal.

I re-read your post, and I'm not sure I understand what this ^ means. Could you please clarify this sentence?

[vickie52]

This man began his talk describing his journey from kit kats and coke to healthy eating. He dropped all the big well known names like Gabriel Cousins and David Wolfe. He refered to eastern cultures and their expanded knowledge that we discount. Then as he continued the "talk" got more offbeat and out there. He refered to the man who had people pay huge amounts to stay in a sweat lodge and 3 died. He said he always had native americans help him when he ran a sweat lodge. He claimed to have dealt with yogis who could be in two places at the same time. He began talking about a man who supposedly designed a attachment that lets your car run on water instead of gas, saying he had been a dealer for the man who was assasinated. He told us to check out several sites on Utube. He said he was giving another talk in Houston next week about "Opening up one's mind." All of this was while he stood in front of a 5 gallon bucket and a couple of bottles, one molassess and one some culture, E5 or something. He was selling the kit and claimed it made 5 gallons of probiotics and was far cheaper than buying the products sold by the big names he's mentioned. We broke to eat and as I was helping clear the table I heard him telling 3 of the people about how there were those who were capable of changing their shape. He claimed one of these shapeshifters had been caught mid change in a photo. That they (the government) follow people like Wolfe and any others who try to offer alternatives to the public from what we are fed on television. It was getting way too weird for me. I'm not a confrontational type but I felt like I was in the fable "The Emperor's Clothes." I would love to visit the group next month and ask what they thought of this guy, but I don't know if I'm up for the long drive again. Plus one of the guest did have a thing about plastics and talked about how he fills big glass jugs at a local spring and transports them in his pickup. I am using spring water and will keep to that but the plastic is a problem I can't accept. I could not get over how normal this speaker looked. He claimed to have started off in engineering and then to have suddenly decided to give up his career and become a potter. He claimed that people saw the abundance of raw foods in his frig and he finally decided to give a talk to explain the lifestyle. Supposedly that led to more talks. I know there's lots that western culture does not willingly accept, but the stuff he was pushing just got weirder all the time. The folks in Houston are sure going to get an earful!

[vickie52]

I might as well say the speaker's name. Ken Rohla and he has a website titled Beyond Raw Foods.

[Psychalone]

3 months ago I went from Diet Coke (all day), sugar, fried meat, meat, and starches to water, fresh juices, fruit, salads, some meatless days and seafood dinners.
I hoped to do the challege in July. I've hit a bad slump.
In reading books and the internet, I've become afraid to take my wonderful hot bath! Wayne Dyer says the water coming out of the heater is so harmful! I don't know if I need to buy distilled, spring, r/o, alkanized etc. The filters can be as much as $1500. And nothing in plastic. Everything is packed and shipped in plastic! I was so proud of kicking the coke habit and now I find out that tap water may be worse. Then there's wheatgrass, sprouts, fruit or no fruit, and supplements. I was doing this to avoid the 16 pills a day my mom takes. Oh and olive oil is out. I thought I was doing good with my orange juice and olive oil dressing.
I went (3 and 1\2 hour round trip) to meet a raw food group and hear a speaker talk about brewing cheap probiotics (which I had never heard of). The people were great and the food was good but the speaker went on about bi-locating yogis, government assinations of his friends, and shape shifting (lizards!) agents who were photographed infiltrating a presentation by David Wolfe. The drive home was dismal.
I can buy spring or distilled water. But avoiding plastic is like avoiding air.
I'm trying to hang onto the fact that I've lost 10 pounds, no longer suffer from daily acid reflux, feel lighter when I eat healthy and am exercising daily. But I really would love a flood of encouragement and advice as to where this is heading me. Thanks.

A few things. 1st off, stainless steel water distiller with glass jug. I bought one for like $116 comes with activated charcoal and water residue cleaner. Make 1 gallon every like 5-8 hours. It's best not to buy distilled water because most of it is acidic. If you're going to buy bottled water I'd suggest Fiji.

Don't worry about the showers thing. Just take them short and take them cold or at least finish with cold water. Alot of dry skin issues arise from hot showers but they tend to go away by simply making them COOL (don't have to be freezing). I'd assume this is because when the water is at body temperature or lower your pores don't open up and thus don't absorb any of the "crap" in the water.

Sprouts are the easiest way to ensure you're getting local, organic, nutritionally PACKED live food. If nutrition is your focus then sprouts are your answer. Wheatgrass is known as the grain highest in chlorophyll, a potent blood cleanser. While it is indeed the highest it is by no means the only source, green juices from dark green leafy vegetable and home grown sprouts also work great. Sprouting with sea salt increase mineral content and "shelf life" considerably.

Fruit is great for energy, and no it doesn't rot your teeth, lol, that was an isolated myth from the raw paleo community. It provides one with a "light" feeling and a good boost of energy. As for nutrition, especially minerals, it's not quite as potent as sprouts or greens. Also if you eat alot of fruit is a good idea to burn it off with exercise. Otherwise you'll get restless and start to crave bad food to drain your energy because you have too much.

Probiotics- there are 2 sources of probiotics. One is mammal milk (including humans), the other is soil based. Since this is a raw VEGAN forums the mods will not allow me to say anything further on the former kind so I'll speak only on the soil based ones. Basically you want to make sure you get a good array of probiotic, not just acidiphillus (spelling?), even though that alone will do well for you. But MOST importantly you need to make sure they're ACTIVE cultures. Here's a good way to test:
http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2009/03/is-my-probiotic-supplement-active-at.html
Now the next trick is making them last so you don't have to keep buying them. This is something I'm working on testing, but i'll share my theory. What do bacteria eat? They eat yeast and they decompose waste (for the most part), so by creating say a tub of water mixed with yeast and perhaps some other kind of "food" for the bacteria, it would give them an idea place to multiply and thrive. For example (This is JUST AN EXAMPLE) when you make yogurt, if you don't eat it all and just add more milk to it you'll have more yogurt because the bacertia left in the old batch will multiply and predigest the new stuff. Same thing with Kimchi. If you fill a jar with salt-water, algae and a probiotic then put some shredded veggies, you can use the same water for multiple rounds of kimchi. So I'm not quite sure how to continually breed probiotics but you may want to look into it as it's cheaper than continuously buying them.

Avoiding plastic is good and quite easy if you focus on sprouts and use the stainless steel distiller with glass jars/jugs. If you're tight on cash you can make a pretty good one using the sun, I'd have to think of something to use other than plastic wrap though... here's the vid to show you how:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sqRvUzqDCE
There definately a way to use glass instead, but i'm not aware of the exact resources one would use. I'm sure you could find something.

Lastly, The raw foods movement isn't as "shallow" as you think, there elements of it that remain hidden and for good reason. Raw foods do more than just make us "healthy", it's part of a greater healing process that certain beings would rather us not go through. I don't want to say too much on this, but don't really worry about it. Just keep on your journey and enjoy everything it has to offer, for there is much :) Exercise is your friend in the raw foods journey, but also be in touch with our body and know when it's time to rest. Your body is going to be repairing itself and reconstructing itself in different ways that may take up alot of energy and make you feel weak at times. There will also be times when your body starts to dumps toxins in your bloodstream for removal. The fact that you've already cured yourself of acid reflux and 10lbs of excess weight is EXCITING XD I'm happy for you. I think you'll find as you continue this path and kinda "debug" it and make it work for you alot of great things will happen. Keep at it and may Love light your path!

[Mrs. Papaya]

First, take a deep breath. You cannot do everything at once! The changes you have made so far are going to be AMAZING for your body. Please don't freak out when other people point out all the other horrible, toxic influences in life. The fact that you gave up soda and are moving to juices, salads, whole foods and even raw foods is, again, simply amazing. Be proud of yourself. You are doing great!

Don't worry about the water issue right now. You can go buy a Brita filter or something if you want. That's what I use right now. It's not perfect but I'm not in the place to go buy tons of huge glass-bottled water jugs full of spring water or whatever. We do what we can, when we can, and it's okay. You may never be able to eliminate all toxins/impurities from our modern lifestyles, but you can slowly make changes and improvements -- like you've already been doing. It does make a difference, even if you're not perfect.

And how do I put this lightly? Vickie. That speaker you went to see? CRAZY. I'm sorry, but once someone drops the "lizard people" bomb, I'm outta there. If you got anything useful out of that day, then great, but leave all the crazy at the door and remember that not all raw foodists or health nuts are, well, nuts.

Gravitate toward what feels right, natural, and true to YOU. It sounds like you are already doing that with your new food choices. Best of luck. We're all on different personal journeys, but the same basic journey nonetheless!

[vickie52]

I will check on the water suggestions and use this site for emotional support. Saves gasoline and the posts sound like people who have their heads on straight. This month's goal is to increase meatless meals. Next month is to gradually add more raw days. I have a 12 day vacation planned in June so I am hoping to hit the challenge in July. I tried it years back but only made 8 days. :( I would love to say I pulled it off.