Will This Work for Everyone?

[Pailani]

I'm on day 5 of a renewed commitment to eating 100 % raw. I've felt okay so far, no different, until today - I'm starting to drag and feel icky and thick-headed. Lucky me, just in time for dh's one day off for the week.

I've been mostly raw for over a year, but very lax about it the last 3 or 4 months. I first started eating healthy when I had a 2-year-old and I was catching every cold and virus that went around. I started a vegan diet, and I lost some weight and stopped getting sick. Then I had another baby and started eating raw/high raw. Switch to this past winter, I had a two-year-old and I've been catching every cold and virus that's gone around - and on a high raw diet! I think that discouraged me, and between that and lots of things going on (including the viruses where I didn't feel so hot) I just haven't been as committed. Every month it seems like I've been slipping farther and farther away from my raw eating. For the last month, I'd have green smoothies for breakfast and lunch, but then some kind of cooked vegan something in the evening, followed by popcorn or corn chips. A lot of times, I'd be dragging and shaky on the smoothies and would only start to feel okay after dinner.

Now I'm trying again because I'm tired of feeling tired. But here I am, sticking to it, not cheating, and I'm tired and draggy, and my head feels filled with glue. Everybody else does this and they feel great. Could it just be that it's never going to happen for me?

Could it be that it won't happen while I'm drinking herbal tea or green tea? I do understand the benefits of a 100 percent raw diet, but it seems like that one concession shouldn't prevent me from having some kind of improvement. And I'm not sure I can drag myself through the day without it, not if I'm this exhausted.

[Pailani]

Hmmm. Maybe I'm just starting a detox and, instead of eating something or drinking something to stop it like I've been doing the past few weeks, I should see what happens if I ride it out. Maybe my discouragement is just a detox kind of moodiness.

[Rawkinlocs]

Hi Pailani and welcome back!!

Yeah, I think you kinda answered your own question there. I think that cooked food tends to sometimes have a numbing effect on our emotions and certain physical feelings as well and we feel "better" after eating it because we have stifled whatever (sometimes unpleasant) cleansing process the body was going through.

But it sounds like you're off to a great start, I know it sucks feeling tired and all...I went through that too and the times I've gone off on a cooked food frenzy and then stopped to return to eating all raw, I'd go through it then too!

But I believe that your body will balance itself back out with time and patience...try to hang in there!

[dreamrawalwz]

I think the cooked dinner and feeling better after was fufuilling the craving (wheater you physcially feel a NEED for the cooked or just internall...if that makes sense?) and it'll continue the cycle. To me it definitely sounds like you're detoxing at the moment since you're back on 100% raw (am I correct?). Just wait it out. Give your body some time.

[Pailani]

Must have been some kind of detox. I didn't grab a cup of tea or eat something to get through it, and it's gone, I feel normal now. Maybe I just haven't been letting my body do what it needs to, maybe I've been too quick to try to alleviate the energy crash when I should have waited it out.