genetic disorders

[Rawkinlocs]

There are a lot of people who have gotten a lot of benefits from eating raw and being ridden of depression and even worse mental conditions. But maybe it does take you seeking some help in other forms such as talking to someone.

I know you don't agree with a lot of what Rawnora has said to you, but she has a lot of knowledge and information and I really think if you just talk to her...the internet can be such a misguiding way of communicating - you might see that she has a lot to offer you in the way of help. Just think about it - consider that one phone call, hear the sincerity and the calm in her voice. She's been doing this a long time and she has a lot to offer. No, not all of what Nora advocates is always the easiest to chew and digest - but she is a great wealth of knowledge and information. You two may end up talking and she become one of your best friends...you never know! I've seen some VERY bitter/sour relationships end up VERY sweet right here on this very forum and in real life! :)

But even if you decide not to talk to her, again, don't give up hope. Keep coming here even if it's just to read and not say much. We would like to see you come on here one day and say, "OMG...I can't believe it...my depression is GONE!"

Also, keep in mind that just as you've heard about eating raw foods and no longer eating cooked foods brings about detox in the body, it also brings about emotional detox (do a search on it, you'll see some interesting stories and testimonials about people's experiences with that here) and sometimes a lot of things are brought up to be dealt with. Sometimes in addition to eating raw, you have to seek help in other areas too - physical support groups as well as online ones are sometimes helpful just to talk and vent out your feelings.

Well, I think I've rambled enough. I hope my words don't end up fueling the fire, but rather help you to keep focused on your goal and to not give up hope!

Peace and Blessings to you!

[rawnora]

blueberryice,
I didn't say a person could get cancer while eating only raw foods. I said it's possible to be raw and diseased/toxic at the same time. Degenerative disease is a consequence of overwhelming the body with toxins that accumulate faster than the body can eliminate them. Organs and tissues being fed by a perpetually polluted bloodstream become irritated, inflamed, ulcerated and indurated (hardened, or scarred), such that they don't function properly. Because nature is kind and gives us many second chances, the vast majority of these cases are entirely reversible. However, people coming to the raw food diet with degenerative disease are best served by centering their diets around foods which are easily digested and do not impede healing, and they need to steer clear of those 'foods' and substances which not only directly pollute the body but interfere with the digestion of the foods they accompany into the stomach. There are many foods that are considered 'raw' which fall into the latter category.

Often, even a junky raw diet is enough to allow healing from chronic disease, since chronic disease takes a lot of sustained, flagrant abuse to create. But when a person suffering from degenerative illness has been raw for months and has not had relief, it will be necessary to be more strict with the diet, or do an extended fast on water only.

I hope this helps clarify; thanks for letting me explain further.

Warmly,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[blueberryice]

THANK YOU!!!

You took the time for that & I'm very thankful.


*whew*


What about those who are eating 100% raw but not 100% organic?? I do what I can, when I can, but as I eat those non organic fruits I take pride in the fact that it's not nearly as worse as some of the other stuff ppl eat here.

Can someone still get wonderful effects not being organic??

[Rawkinlocs]

...What about those who are eating 100% raw but not 100% organic?? I do what I can, when I can, but as I eat those non organic fruits I take pride in the fact that it's not nearly as worse as some of the other stuff ppl eat here.

Can someone still get wonderful effects not being organic??

*Waves hand* - I did!!

You're right, you do the best that you can, when you can - you will still benefit and your body will be in a MUCH better position to eliminate any toxic substances from conventionally grown produce than if you didn't eat raw at all.

[Sharon in Colorado]

mer - just to let you know again, my genetic cholesterol problem is a life-long issue. I have been on and off raw for 5 years and with it the levels have dipped and rose like crazy. I just have to be very persistent in my raw walk, keep my fat low (which is a challenge for me) and do daily cardio.

So when I do these things routinely, the levels are more acceptable, if not, they are high, even on raw. MOST people's cholesterol dips on raw or even vegan without having to watch the fat, but not mine. So I am a totally different case than everyone else.


Also I think Rawkinlocs has got something there with the emotional detox. If you have been 100% raw for 5 months straight, this could be what is happening to you, since 5 months is a fairly common time when many start really seeing and feeling results.

Often-times people detox what ails them. Some people break out in excema which they hadn't seen since they were children, others may feel pain in joints or bones from old injuries. I personally felt a novocaine detox - the whole side of my face was tingly and numb from some novocaine injections I got during a root canal - years ago when I had got the work done, the numbness and tingling stayed for a week.

So it is very, very possible that you could be experiencing a whole lot of depression as an emotional detox symptom.

Please just stick with it a little bit longer. Try getting out in the sun and some extra activity which should help reduce your symptoms.

[luckitri]

I have always wondered about something I call cell memory. Supposedly our cells are replenishing rebuilding themselves constantly so that the original cell and injury are gone. Maybe it is similar to when someone loses a limb but still can feel it? Certain illnesses like fibromyalgia can cause one to re-experience (term here is retrace?) body trauma that has to be older than the cells so somehow they are transmitting the memory of the injury to the new components? And I will get to re-experience my old depressions as a form of detoxing them (as well as other prior injuries)? This is an excellent thread.

So I am drawing many ideas from this thread.

[luckitri]

For the record, I can trace genetic tendencies, (actualized like depression) back 4 generations and we ALL ate differently due to geographic location, time in history, family occupation, etc. Maybe RAW will finally end it.

[mershwista]

Thanks, everyone, for the encouragement...I feel really apathetic in general about everything right now, and I have zero willpower. I'm sick of being told by all my friends here (not on this board) that I either have anorexia or that the raw diet is surely the cause of whatever problem I'm experiencing at the moment. It's hard to stay raw when your friends always know you as the one that used to cook the most awesome gourmet dishes with whatever we could scrounge up and are constantly pestering you to come join in such activities again...so much of our culture is centered around food. No one can believe that a single apple satiates me..."You're starving yourself, and if you don't stop, as your friend I'm going to have to get you some help..." And btw, I counted what I eat. It's usually around 1500 calories or so, which is a healthy amount to eat for someone my size with a fair amount of muscle mass.

I've dug myself into quite the hole (I do this often, raw or not), and I am hoping this fast I'm doing starting tomorrow will help out. Longest fast I ever did was 5 days, so I don't feel I've really given that a fair shot. This one, I hope, will be longer.

You're right, there's that little part of me that still wants to stay raw. I hope the fast will help me get back on track. (My friends are religious and can at least understand fasting...so ironic). I will let you know how things go if you're interested.

And yes, Rawkinlocs, I'd love to come on here and write about how I'm not feeling depressed anymore....that would be amazing.

Well, that's all, folks.....I guess

[mershwista]

Rawnora....

Ok, I have been thinking about your offer to help, and although I am quite insulted by your way of getting my attention, I would be interested in taking you up on your offer if it's still available.

A lot of what I say and do doesn't make much sense, and the degree of apathy/depression/etc I'm experiencing at any given moment will influence that.

My problems are periodic, but when they are there, I find them inescapable. Every woman in my mom's side of the family struggles with similar problems.

I'm a senior in college whose parents are divorced. My mother is distant and my father was always a control freak. I'm the oldest of 6 in my family. From about age 13 I mostly raised myself because Dad was a control freak and Mom was emotionally broken, so neither house was a good environment. From that I became annoyingly persistent, impossible to read, not able to trust anyone, with little self-esteem, and a mild eating disorder along with my omnipresent anxiety and depression issues.

One thing I knew for sure throughout my whole life was that I didn't want to become like my dad, who worked all the time and was always grumpy and pissed off. I also didn't want to be like my mom, who ended up so emotionally scarred from her nasty, nasty divorce that she could not function normally for years.

And, if I do say so myself, my way of living my life has seemed to work out pretty well for me compared to the two of them. I'd like to say I'm the happy, successful, peaceful person I portray to the world daily (and I'm a pretty good actress), but in truth, that's not where I am most of the time. One thing that has always plagued me is emotional eating, and as I mentioned before, it got to be a pretty big problem a couple different times. Never was anorexic....never was bulimic. And I suppose the binging episodes were really no different than the stress eating many other people I knew/know do. But my reaction to such falls is what makes them stand out for me. One little binge and I will just start crying about that...and about everything else in my life...and never stop.

And it's not just with emotional eating, either...anything at all can send me over the edge into a huge depression. I wish I could identify the triggers, but they're so diverse and different from each other than really, anything can trigger.

I am often unhappy with situations and then frustrated with myself for being too apathetic to change them...

Just some thoughts on that. Obviously, that's not everything that there is to it, but hopefully that summarizes some. I could quote things from my own journal, and that might help, too.

[rawnora]

Mershwista,
Thanks for all that info. That's not what I need, though. I need to know your age, what your diet was like before you went raw, and what you've been eating for the last 5 months. Write down every single thing you ate in a recent 3-day period, including the time of day and quantities in standard forms of measure, like ounces or cups. In addition, it's not enough to say you ate a "flax cracker", it is helpful for me to know the ingredients. If your binge days are frequent (more than 3 times a week), write them down. If they're rare (<3-4 times per month), just briefly describe what you eat when you binge in addition to the 3 day diary. If you can't remember everything you ate in any typical 3 day period, start writing everything down for the next 3 days but it's very important to not eat differently because you know you're going to be writing it down. Unless what I'm looking at is representative of what you've been doing, I can't help you.

Your family history has much less to do with your depression than you think. Depression is a physiological disease, like all others. It needs to be healed from the inside out. There will be some things you'll need to change once you're healthy to keep from getting yourself into the mental ruts you're in now but it will be easy when your body has the energy. We all make up stories in our heads that allow us to deal with unpleasant circumstances. When the circumstances go away, the stories are still there, messing up our relationships with other people. For example, if my father criticized me as a child, rather than think "my father is too critical of others", I might think "I'm not good enough". It's just a mistaken assumption, but I'll go for the rest of my life thinking it's true if I don't recognize the mistake and start thinking differently. It's easier than you think.

Let's just focus on getting your body healthy, and the rest will fall into place.

Warm wishes,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[rawnora]

Depending on what your diet diary reveals, it may also be helpful to know your sleep and exercise habits, in addition to any medications, herbs or supplements that you take now or have taken in the past. Also whether you've been diagnosed with any diseases. You can either provide this info now or we can look into it after we've seen what your diet is like.
Thanks,
Nora

[mershwista]

I'm in the middle of a fast right now, but I will look through old food diaries and get back to you on that.

[mershwista]

Before I went raw, my diet was a healthy vegan one: I never consumed refined carbs like white rice or bread except on occasions where it was impolite to refuse such things...I would generally eat rolled rye with cranberries or raisins for breakfast, bring a salad and sandwich/soup/something else for lunch, a piece of fruit to snack on in the afternoon when I'd inevitably need an energy boost around 3pm or so, and enjoy a wheat pasta or brown rice creation for dinner. That's been the pattern since I got to college (3 and a half years or so). Before that, I was vegetarian for another 3 years or so. I'm 20 years old.

For the last 5 months...I started out not really knowing what to eat, and I tried to eat a lot of sprouts because I knew they were cheap, but I quickly got sick or sprout salads and seeds. The pattern I settled into is closer to the following:

Morning, about 7am:
banana
1 TBS seed cheese made with soaked sunflower seeds, parsley, lime juice, and rejuvelac.

around 9am, when my morning class ends:
1 apple

around 11:30
a salad of romaine lettuce and raw hummos (sprouted chick peas, tahini, lemon juice, parsley, garlic)

Around 5:30 or so, when I got home that day:
an avocado
some more seed cheese...maybe 1/4 cup worth
another banana
an apple

NEXT DAY

In the morning, around 7:30am
2 bananas
big handful of sunflower seeds
raw hummos (as described above)

8:30, in the middle of class because I was hungry again:
a banana that I had brought with me in hopes of eating later that day

12ish
same hummos salad as yesterday
another banana

4ish
another romaine salad...this one with a tahini, lemon juice, and sundried tomato dressing
1 pear

8ish
some nut cheese...not really because I was terribly hungry but because I wanted something savory right then. I had maybe 2-3 TBS. Maybe I'm an idiot; I loooove the stuff by itself.

NEXT DAY

7:30am, as usual:
2 bananas
approx. 1 cup homemade blender applesauce (apples, water, cloves)

10ish
a salad of romaine and aforementioned tahini dressing
1 pear and an apple

3ish?
Sometime in the afternoon, anyways, as I was starting to get tired again...
2 avocados
some seed cheese
banana

then I was out of food, since I hadn't brought anymore with me.

----

Typically I will binge at least once a month during pms time. I'll also do it when I'm stressed out, which has apparently happened a lot lately. If I also slip up and eat something cooked, then I will certainly binge shortly thereafter because I'm feeling so rotten and mad at myself and apathetic about improving at that point. The things I generally have during those episodes are usually:

bananas, avocadoes, sundried tomatoes, seeds or seed cheese. I suppose because those are easy to overdo...and those are the things I like most. Oh, and grapes. I dare not overeat grapes, though, because not only am I nauseous as usualy after too many but extremely extra jittery.

Also, if I do not include the above mentioned items in my diet, I feel extremely deprived...and then I get really depressed and stressed out.

Ironically, other than those issues (which, from what I've heard, my "binges" are much less harmful than most women's stress eating episodes,) I'm in excellent health. I have great endurance, work out, run, ride my bike for long distances, etc. I'm usually the one that people ask when they need health advice on campus. And I know that my advice has helped many people. For dietary/nutritional health, anyways. As far as depression...I tell people how I personally have reacted to various things I have tried and tell them that I'm still figuring parts of that out for myself but that I know I've come a long way from where I was.

Hope that is the info you needed.

[Gosia]

"Generally, when I am solving a problem and cannot find a solution, there IS none. It works that way in math."

Not accurate! When I am solving a problem and cannot find a solution, it only means that I haven't found none. The only way to be certain that there isn't one is to provide a proof that a solution does not exist.

Taking up on Nora's generous offer is the best thing you could do! Good luck! :)

Cheers,
Gosia
(a mathematician)

[rawnora]

Mershwista,
Having just read over Rawkinloc's reminder that comments on this board should not reflect negatively on Alyssa's approach to raw foods, I'm thinking that it would be best if we take this conversation elsewhere, like perhaps my discussion list or private email. I think you need specific, definitive information. The recommendations I will make for you will be different than they might be for someone in different circumstances. For the sake of others reading this thread I'll just say that basically you need to change what you're doing and you need to stick with it for as long as it takes for you to know you're completely well. In addition, to have the confidence and perseverence to ride out the difficult times, you will need to educate yourself on the truth about how to be healthy (which has been established, despite the popular claim that it's all controversial).

It will be especially important to your goal of being healthy to discard the belief in cures or quick fixes. That doesn't mean remedies can't ever be used, it just means that they should always be seen as a compromise, an impediment to healing, and a short-term crutch.

"I have great endurance, work out, run, ride my bike for long distances, etc. I'm usually the one that people ask when they need health advice on campus. And I know that my advice has helped many people. For dietary/nutritional health, anyways. As far as depression...I tell people how I personally have reacted to various things I have tried and tell them that I'm still figuring parts of that out for myself but that I know I've come a long way from where I was..."

For all your talk about giving up, the quote above doesn't sound like it was written by someone who's ready to throw in the towel. You may be discouraged and frustrated that you're not well yet, but everyone goes through those times when they're new. You have a lot to learn, not only about how to be healthy but about yourself and how good you need to be with your diet and lifestyle habits in order to realize your health goals.

I know a little about mood polarity and depression myself because my father was bi-polar as I was growing up and is still on meds to control it. My body deals with toxicity in much the same way and I was headed in the same direction as my dad when I went raw. While I was growing up, my nickname was "the grump". Most of the time I didn't have the energy or inclination to be cheerful or friendly with my family. I'm not going to say my moods are always up now but my parents are amazed at the difference in me, as are others who knew me before I went raw. And when my mood is low, I can always connect it to a mistake I made with my diet. When I mess up, that's where it shows up first. It's no different than the obviously physiological problems that others bring with them when they discover how to be healthy. Over and over you'll hear people saying that their symptoms of chronic disease go away when they're good and return when they mess up. They realize that if they want to feel good all the time, they need to take their food choices very seriously.

I'll go see if your email is listed here and if it is I'll email you privately. If not, please write to me at: nmlenz@speakeasy.net. See you there.

Warmly,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com