SAD Food Addiction

[HeatherAnne]

In Allisa's book, I remember her mentioning that the reason alot of people fail on the raw food diet in the beginning, is because they restrict themselves too much. I understand that she encourages eating all the raw food you want in the beginning and eventually believes you'll start to eat less, etc. However, my mindset says (especially after months of binging on SAD) that I should go on a juice fast first to clean my body out, then move into raw. For those addicted (seriously) to SAD foods, which do you think best to truly move into a raw lifestyle that STICKS? Raw food feast or juice feast? Thanks for sharing.

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

Eat lots of food and have lots of smoothies at the start. Try to consume lots of green smoothies with lots of home grown sprouts in them and drink `em to ya full. Do that for a few months and then think about doing a juice fast.

An easy way to start is to start eating lots of alfalfa sprouts, and to blend sprouted sesame seeds and blend sprouted sunflower seeds, and try sprouting nuts and blending those. lt will help fill you without all the high concentrated fats. At worst, blend soaked nuts, but be careful not to over-do it. Lots of greens too, drink `em down like no tommorra.

[MysticTree]

I think Alissa's method is very sensible.

Eat raw foods. Eat as much of them as you want. It is easier to sustain this than it is to do a (juice) fast and then move into raw. Moving from SAD to just juice is a huge step. Give your body a break and go raw first then think about juice fasts later.

You'll last 30 days raw much more easily than you'd last 30 days of just juicing. You can't just sit down and instantly reach Nirvana so it is with changing the way you eat. It is likely to be a journey that lasts at least as long as the one that got you where you are presently. Take your time and learn all you can from the journey because it will last longer than the time spent at the destination.

[EscapeArtist]

Yeah I'd too say do raw food, and be easy on yourself. Let yourself have anything you want as long as it's raw at the beginning, eventually you'll get to a place that is comfortable and can further challenge yourself/improve it.

Whenever I try and juice I get into the yo-yo pattern of juicing and back to SAD eating. It's this almost addictive feeling of extremism and of needing something to counteract the bad I've been putting in my body, but it's so hard to stick to, especially if you haven't tried raw yet. Some people do fine on juice right off of a SAD diet if they are used to exercising extreme self discipline or have a really life-threatening situation motivating them, but the risk of the back-firing of juice fasting is not worth jumping straight into IMO