Day one, very hungry?

[JinxieKat]

Ok, so I jumped in with two feet after being so inspired from all the reading, both web and books the past week. So I started this morning. I've been mainly eating just veggies and fruit, not 'dishes', as I I don't have the means to make any of the dehydrated crackers and such yet. I want to see if this is going to work for me before I dump a bunch of money into it.
But, back to my question. I am so hungry today it is silly! I ate sprouted quiona with berries and some honey for breakfast. About an hour later I was hungry so I had a small apple. About an hour and a half later I was hungry so I pulled out the carrots. I was hungry at lunch and had an avacado and a fruit salad bowl with cantalope, honey dew melon, apple slices, and pineapple. I was still a bit hungry after that so I had some sugar snap peas and that helped. About an hour and a half later I was hungry again, so out come the carrots.
I know I'm going to have to figure out what satisfies me, and that there is no calorie counting here, but Wow.. is it normal to be so hungry? Is it because this food is so easy to digest that my stomach starts rumbling right away?
Any insights are very appreciated!

Jinx

*edited for spelling blunder*

[Queen2]

I feel your pain. Someone on another post mentioned eating raw coconut oil to help with that whole craving/hunger thing so I'm going to try that.

Apparently as your body gets used to the raw food you start to feel full but it takes a while.

Eat very slowly and juice every bite in your mouth. That really helps me but it means each meal is long, like an hour!!

Good luck! I'm going to try to do the coconut oil myself and see how it goes.

q2

[faith4u]

Just eat more food. Like if you were going to eat a banana, instead of having just one have several.

You need volume right now to get that full feeling that you are used to from cooked food. The best thing is that your body will kick in soon and you will feel satisfied without that heavy, full feeling.

[JinxieKat]

I did read some of that thread today too. Didn't think too much about it as I'm not doing the crave thing.. yet. Let's face it, anyone can do almost anything for a day. It is the months, years, etc that is the hard part! I did buy a young coconut today, looking at dinner tonight. It's kinda funny, I'm normally a planner not a impulsive person. I'll see if that helps me tonight.

Thanks!

Jinx

[Rawkinlocs]

Hi Jinxiekat,

Yes, it is very common to feel more hungry when you first start raw. As it has been said, you must eat more! Find those raw things you love or really like and eat a LOT of it...eat many small meals throughout the day rather than trying to do the typical breakfast, lunch, and dinner thing.

Your body is making some major adjustments and you will find yourself eating more until it fully adjusts to the lighter feeling of eating raw foods and until your stomach shrinks down to a more normal size and I don't mean the "outter" stomach that you look at in the mirror...but the "inner", ACTUAL, stomach that many of us have overstretched with overeating - because let's face it, that is what most of us on the SAD do or have done.

Don't worry, it won't be like this forever...but it is common in the early stages of switching over to raw. Eat more filling foods as well, things like avocado, nuts/seeds, nut butters, bananas, drink smoothies (assuming you have a blender). Raw almond butter and bananas was a MAJOR staple in my diet when I first went raw!

[IamLoved]

Hi!

I second what Rawkinlocks said.

Eat more nuts and "richer" tye foods. Don't worry about if you are eating too much of the denser foods either. When I first started I would sit down at night and eat a big bowl full of cashews almost every night. Now I can't do it anymore, it is just too much and too rich for me. I'd rather have some grapes or an orange. At first I was puzzled by this and even a little upset, I WANTED those cashews! :D But then I realized that my taste buds were changing along with my body and I didn't REALLY want them anymore.

Hope this helps.

Oh, and welcome to raw! It is AMAZING! :)

[JinxieKat]

Thank you again!

It does help. I had a banana about an hour ago and I want another. So I'm getting ready to have another. I've got raw almonds soaking at home, so I think I'll find a way to pair them up with my coconut I got today.
It's like a big adventure to me right now. That is what keeps me going in the begining, exploring and finding new things. The challenge will be keeping it new and interesting. Espically when I'll be cooking for the husband, but raw for me. This Sunday will be a challenge also, we do Sunday dinner every week and this is Super Bowl weekend on top of it. Wow! We'll see how I do. Progress not perfection!

Jinx

[RowanC]

It's very normal. For one thing, compare a big breakfast of toast, eggs, bacon or pancakes to the one or two pieces of fruit you ate. It's not going to satisfy you. It's also going to digest MUCH faster - your body is going to use it up quicker.. so you have to eat more, at least in the beginning.

Do you have a blender? If not, go to goodwill and get one. If yes, do this:

Peel a couple of those ripe bananas and put them in the freezer tonight.
Go buy a pineapple and some other soft fruit in season. Pears are good. I have frozen organic berries. In the morning, put 2 bananas, a big ole slice of pineapple about an inch thick, and a cup of berries in the blender. Add a cup of water and blend it up. This holds me from about 7 am untl 10 am.

Soak some dates or raisins and blend them with some walnuts or cashews. Make them into balls and everytime you get hungry, pop one of those.

Or make a banana pie and eat half of it for breakfast or dinner.

Look through this material or the recipes at "From SAD to RAW" and find some you don't need a dehydrator for. There are boatloads. Make some of the recipes.

A raw piece of fruit here and there isn't gonna cut it in the beginning. You're too used to a "meal."

Good luck.

[karenisraw]

I try to get my fats in earlier in the day to sustain me. Also, the first week I went raw I shoveled in soooo much food. I just ate all of the time. It has slowed down quite a bit. I am happy about that because it costs less.

You will also probably discover which foods your body needs to be nourished and find you may keep returning to those frequently.

k :p :p

[sport]

I think that the date nut tort is very filling and easy to make and does not need a dehydrator

[JinxieKat]

Hmm.. I just tried the coconut smoothie that was listed in the recipie section under the baby coconut thread. Oh my.. delish and filling. Just had two glasses of it and I'm full! Whee! Going to try Rowan's idea for a smoothie tomorrow, forgot to freeze the banana's last night. I had no idea that anything made from almond mylk could taste so good! But then the soaked almonds themselves were very good. I now understand why my macaw soaks her nuts. It's good!

Jinx

[yeahbethany]

Jinxiecat,
I thought it might prove helpful to repost an article that Sharon in Colorado posted before, so here it is!


Fruit: The Most Misunderstood Food, PART 2

by Dr. Douglas Graham
www.foodnsport.com

Is fruit a snack, a dessert, a meal, or to be avoided entirely?

“I get so hungry when I eat only fruit.”

One of the most common complaints related to fruit is the idea that fruit's satiating power is not lasting. “I tried that 'fruit in the morning' thing and about an hour later I was starving,” is about the way the story usually goes.

At first glance, this may look like a valid indictment of fruit's inadequacy as a meal, but the situation deserves a bit more investigation. When I ask the nature of the fruit meal, I am usually told, “I had an orange,” or, “a slice of melon,” “ a banana” or “some grapes.”

For most people, a typical breakfast usually contains close to 750 calories. A medium sized piece of fruit averages about 75 calories. When we eat a breakfast of just “a piece of fruit or two,” we are eating only 10-20% of the calories that we previously did, thus we feel empty and low on energy.

Even if the goal is weight loss, this is too extreme a reduction to be satiating, maintainable, or nutritionally adequate. When explaining that fruit has a lower caloric density than all other foods except for vegetables and, therefore, fruit must be eaten in greater volume if one endeavors to consume sufficient calories, there is sometimes a glimmer of comprehension before the curtain of dismissal falls again.

“Yeah, but how much fruit can I eat at one sitting? You're telling me to eat more than one slice of a melon or two bananas?” “Yes,” I say. We can train ourselves to comfortably eat satisfying fruit meals, allowing ourselves to actually eat fruit until completely satiated. this could mean that you eat an entire melon for breakfast or six, twelve, or even a greater number of bananas for lunch. There are three main factors involved in feeling satiated, and here is how fruit figures in each.

It is very likely that as a child you heard your mom say, “Don't eat sweets before your meal, it will spoil your appetite.” In effect she was explaining that fruits are a satiating food, although she may have been speaking of candy or other less acceptable foods at the time.

Even a small rise in blood sugar to the above-normal range results in a satiated feeling. Fruit certainly supplies the necessary sugars for such a rise and, hence, is very satiating. This is why many people are initially satisfied to eat just a small amount of fruit.

Another reason why fruit eating results in satiation is their high content of essential nutrients. The nutritional composition of fruit comes closer to mimicking the full spectrum of human nutrient needs than that of any other food group.

Also, the nutrients in fruit are the most easily accessed and absorbed, as fruit requires less digestion than do other foods. Many of the nutrients in fruit require no digestion at all-they are readily absorbed. These include, but are not limited to: water, sugar, minerals, vitamins and many phytonutrients.

Although not digestible, the fiber in fruit is soft and soluble and thus gentle on the delicate membranes of the digestive tract while affording relatively easy access to the nutrients it encapsulates. These factors combine to make fruit the most satiating of foods.

Last but not least, our level of satiation is directly related to the volume of food we consume. As such, in order to feel satiated, we must ingest a significant volume of food. All of our essential nutrients can be concentrated into a tablet or cube and consumed in just a few bites.

While some experts may consider such a concentrated “meal” to be nutritionally complete, research has repeatedly shown that people are not satisfactorily satiated because of the meager volume. Exactly because of its low caloric densitY, fruit perfectly supplies satiating volumes of food per meal.

In fact, for many people who have become accustomed to the commonly consumed low-volume, fat-rich meals, deriving satisfaction from a meal of all fruit at first typically poses a seemingly insurmountable volume challenge. “My stomach can't hold all of that!” people believe.

Yet, if they take the challenge and stick with it for a few days, they will learn they can eat sufficient quantities and they will feel satisfied and reap the benefits of improved health.

Fruit makes the ideal meal

It takes a bit of practice to learn how much fruit is sufficient for a meal which will satiate for several hours until the next meal. It is equally true that a mental adjustment is required in order to expand one's understanding of how much fruit is actually appropriate at a meal.

With sufficient experience, one's ability to consume extremely satisfying fruit meals will grow to become one of life's great pleasures. After all, fruit is health food. Anyone interested in attaining, maintaining, and gaining increased health should consider consuming fruit as their predominant food.

[JinxieKat]

Thank you Yeahbethany!

That does clear up some issues I've been having. I did find that smoothies stay around longer so to speak. But then I think about how much fruit I put into one. This morning was one orange one and a half frozen bananas and most of a mango with a dab of water. It almost filled up my whole blender but I drank it all and had a handfull of soaked almonds to go with it. I think I'll get the hang of this, I'm just not used to eating so much volumn wise... That article makes perfect sence though!

Jinx