Rawlight's Rawlife

If you spend anytime on raw food forums, you see posts about this thing we do called beating ourselves up because we had a few bites of something cooked or we had a whole SAD meal and now we’re in an emotional tailspin. Because we can’t seem to stay 100% raw, we’re failures in life. We might be pretty raw most days, but we have one muffin or bite of stew and we might as well, ‘eat everything else’ and start all over. This is diet talk to me and I just don’t understand it. This is what dieters do who go on the latest fad diet or count calories, who have “blown it and will start again tomorrow.”

The decision to become a raw foodist is different for each of us. It can be a desire for this as a lifestyle, part of a spiritual path or a healthy way to eat and feel better. In all of these categories, not everyone will be 100% all the time. If we make an iron clad vow that we are going to be 100% raw NOW, yet each day we continually struggle to stay raw, we totally disrespect ourselves and our own individual path. Just because someone else effortlessly goes from day to day not tempted or able to overcome cooked food cravings, doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you or that they are better than you. Most people do not go raw overnight allowing the process to unfold for them with each day. If 100% is your goal, love yourself through the process, understanding that transitioning and percentage is different for each of us. And also consider maybe your purpose is not to be 100%....

There is a difference between challenging ourselves to achieve a goal and knowing when to ease up on the rapidity of attaining that goal. If I want to swim from Long Beach to Catalina Island and I really believe I can do it, I have to train my body to do what my mind wants. Training has its ups and downs and I have to know when to push myself and when I need a rest day. But if I have a rest day, that doesn’t mean I am weak or need to start the whole training process again. It means I know the difference between over training and going at a slower pace. But if I feel I am training too slowly and try to use someone else’s program, I could hurt myself. I need to know what is right for me. And I think this is the same for raw foodists.

I see too many ill feelings toward ourselves because we compare our so called failures to someone else’s so called successes. There is no need for this. We can learn from each other, as long as we don’t let it change us. The biggest danger is hurting ourselves by going back and forth from 100% raw and 100% cooked over and over and over again. If we put ourselves on a steady track of progression, then we will know individually, organically and with kindness to ourselves when it is right to step it up to the next level. When we look at it that way, a cooked bite here or a whole meal cooked shouldn’t send us over the edge into disappointment toward ourselves and promises that we “will be good tomorrow. “ We are good today, no matter what we eat!