I have some questions!

[Mosaic]

Hello,
I just signed up for this forum a few minutes ago and I am excited about becoming raw but I have some questions. First, I suppose I should introduce myself. I am an eighteen year old female and will be a sophomore college student at The Ohio State University. I currently weigh around 200lbs and am 5'7". I am primarily interested in becoming raw to lose all of this extra weight. My goal is to drop seventy pounds. I first heard about this lifestyle from my dad. When he was in his twenties he was suffering from tiredness and bloating. He went 100% raw and he describes it as the best time of his life. Unfortunately, he went off the diet and is currently a rather unhealthy person. Hopefully, I can inspire him to resume the raw lifestyle if I am successful. My goal this summer was to become raw but I stumbled and failed. I was able to keep it up for about a week and a half with my dad but the rest of the family was very unsupportive about it. I have a large family and so there was no room in our refrigerator to store stuff. And my mom who also is overweight and could use this diet started to cook more as if she didn't want me us to remain on the raw food diet. I love chicken which was the catalyst of my downfall. I caved and it is my fault even though I am going on about all of these excuses. I do take responsiblity for my choice to quit. The couple positive results are that I have given up pop which I used to drink around four to five cans a day my first year of college when I hated water. Now I absolutely love it. Also, I have been more concious of just eating healthier foods and watching calories. I hope I have given enough background information so that someone here can give me advice.
1.) How hard might it be to continue eating raw food in college? Personally, I am very excited for going back to school so I can have complete control of what I use my dining plan for and my mom won't be cooking.
2.) Is "SAD" used to describe food here on this forum an acronym or just an adjective?
3.) Am I suppose to transition into raw food or just stop?
4.) I've never been much of an exerciser because of my weight issues so other than walking and riding a bike, I'm at loss for what to do. I have not come across anyone who mentions raw food and exercise together. You do have to exercise, right?
5.) How necessary is it to blend/juice? When I am at school, this may be a problem because of room in the mini-fridge (I'll be living in a dorm) and acquring enough fruits/vegetables. Can I just drink water and eat solid raw food and still be successful with this diet?
6.) Can I really just eat whatever raw food I want and not have to worry about how many calories are in a cup of carrots?

Well, I think that is all and thank you so much for your help! School starts September 16 and I'm looking forward to it. In the meantime, I'm going to start to eat as much raw food as I can and stay away from cooked food.

[JennaBoBenna]

1) If you have the willpower! Raw food is easy if you put your mind to it :)
2) SAD stands for Standard American Diet, use it however you want to
3) It depends on what is easiest for you. I personally had to overcome many food addictions before attempting 100% raw. Try jumping in cold turkey and see how you feel. If it's a little hard, try easing into raw. Just cut out certain foods and add in more raw.
4) Exercise is good, but I personally didn't have to exercise to lose weight on raw. I exercise now, because I have a free gym membership, it makes me feel good, and I want to tone my body. But it's not totally necessary to lose weight
5) You definitely can! Make sure to eat plenty of greens. Many of us make green smoothies/juice because otherwise we can't get enough greens otherwise.
6) Eat whatever you want and don't count calories! That is the beauty of raw! I eat brownies, chocolate shakes, and pies for breakfast!! And I'm losing weight every day!

I hope I answered your questions alright! If you have any more, don't hesitate! We're all happy to help :)

[Mosaic]

Thanks a bunch for your input! I'm really enthusiastic about this and can't wait until I can take myself away from the temptation. The college I go to has a good amount of options for raw food I think so I am very thankful for that. If I had known about this last year, I would have totally done it. Even without my knowledge of the raw food diet, I still increased my raw food intake. I love just about all fruits and vegetables raw so I'm thinking this could be perfect for me and something I might just very well be able to continue for the rest of my life.

Does anyone know a good recipe for raw salad dressing or vegetable dip? When I first tried this my dad said something about olive oil and vinegar I think? I can't remember, but I wasn't fond of it. I just want something really simple that I can make/buy to take with me to school. I live in a rural area of Ohio, so a lot of these ingredients that I read about you can't buy anywhere around here.

I think I might go and eat some watermelon now...

[Conscious Midwife]

Olive oil, clove or garlic and a little honey makes a good dressing for me. Add a little tummeric for color and enjoy it like a zesty honey mustard.

[Oxygen]

when you go to college, pick a meal plan that allows variety and pick a plan with food points if possible. That way you can get fresh fruits and vegetables, and seeds at all meals by being able to eat a variety of places. Maybe also pack raw nuts and seeds and raw food bars to take with you to college to get started. And to snack on during exams and such when you don't have time to leave your dorm.

[littlemarie]

cool! my cousin just graduated from osu.

[Vann167]

Hey Mosaic!

I'm a college student too.. I go to the University of Wisconsin.

1.) Well, it's a lot easier for me because I have an apartment. I did eat vegan in the dining hall last year though. We have a pretty good salad bar and fruit. What will be hard is that everyone says when you start out it's easier to prepare dehydrated recipes as sort of an easier transition food, which you can't do in a dorm unless ur really ambitious. My dorm had a kitchen where you could check out a key to... maybe you could look into this for when ur preparing salad dressings or whatever you are trying out. If you need to, shoot your dining services an e-mail asking for more fresh fruits/veggies/seeds/nuts they are usually really understanding. You might want to do this for getting raw seeds/nuts in a salad bar because most of the time they are salted or roasted.

3.) Am I suppose to transition into raw food or just stop?
It's really a personal thing. I went from being vegan for 7 years to first trying to transition by doing like 70% raw or whatever but it never worked because if I had alittle processed or cooked food, I would always crave more. What really worked for me was doing a juice fast or the master cleanse (google it) before going 100% raw because it killed my cravings. It really takes a lot of will power to do this though so I don't want someone to try this, fail, and give up on raw foods. Do what's easiest for you!

4.) Exercise will help a lot. You can always start out walking.

5.) Yes you can still be successful. If you keep a blender in ur dorm though, it wouldnt be hard to grab some greens and bananas/apples or whatever from ur dining hall and just throw em in a blender.

6.) Don't count calories. Just stay raw. If you have faith in this, it will work. Just remember though how many years of eating bad food your body has to clean out. Don't expect it to do it overnight.

:) Let me know if you have any questions of want to chat on AIM... Vann167... It's so much easier having a support network. I couldn't have done it myself without this board.

[Vann167]

Forgot to share my favorite dressing recipe...
I'm kind of guessing about the measurements...

2 tablespoons raw tahini
1/4 cup apple cidar vinegar
a handful of fresh parsley
a few cloves of garlic
pinch of sea salt

throw this all in a food processor and add more tahini if it needs to be creamier, if the vinegar is too strong for you (I like it strong) substitute some of it for water. olive oil could also be added to this.

Sometimes i make it with cilantro or dill instead of parsley.

[Judy]

About transitioning or diving head in, it's really personal.
You have to find out what works best for you.
For me, transitioning works best. I did the diving head in thing, but ended up binging on cooked foods (and mind you, not the healthiest choices) after all raw periods, so for me, transitioning and keeping a balanced way of eating worked better.
If you chose to transition, you can slowly upgrade your diet by just starting to eat more fresh fruits and (green) salads and work from there. Every step is an improvement!

[ChaiLife]

Looks like you have gotten some wonderful advice! Isn't this board wonderful?

I would also like to recommend getting as many raw books as possible especially Alissa's book Living on Live Food. I have bought several books and hers is my favorite. Not just saying that because this is her board.;)
Raw is VERY simple or complicated depending on how much time you want to devote. I tend to swing both ways in that regard. You can either just grab some veggies and fruit on the run or make beautiful gourmet meals.

The tools that I use the most are my food processor and blender. You might find them very useful when you go to college.

[iamacranberry]

Hi Mosaic, I used to live in Ohio. I graduated college in Cleveland not long ago.

Best of luck with the raw thing, and keep posting in places like this...since you probably won't find too many raw foodists in Columbus (assuming it's anything like Cleveland) I find that my opportunities to interact with people on this board is a huge part of my inspiration to stay raw.