Fell off Wagon Big Time.....Made great discovery!!!

[gabriele]

Well, i was very bad today. I have a very bad chocolate addiction, and finally broke down and got some Lindt chocolate. I avoided 2 similar temptations lately, but today, for some reason, i couldn't hold out any more. And i feel like crap because of it.

BUT........i made a great discovery!! As i was eating my chocolate at work, it didn't taste good any more!! Really!! It is my favorite brand, but today, it was gooey, creamy, and sickeningly sweet, way too sweet, too heavy, i threw most of it away. I couldn't even eat it. And even weirder, i was craving salad.

In a happy twist, i don't see how i'm going to have this craving again. A craving that has caused me to be overweight my whole life. This is the very first time that chocolate didn't taste good to me, didn't make me feel good eating it. What a gift!! Never happened before, ever. I'll be even more happy once this nausea goes away.

I feel like i really conquered something today.

[Soose]

So happy for you, Gabriele! That is a real sign of your body detoxing, don't you think?

p.s. I wonder if drinking some charcoal would help with the nausea? It would certainly absorb some of the toxins.

[gabriele]

Do you think it's a detox thing?

i didn't think of that. I can't explain it at all, it's very weird to not enjoy something i've enjoyed for 50 years. To suddenly find no pleasure in it at all. My punishment is that i'm waiting for tomorrow to eat my salad, i can't wait (and this from a person who has always hated vegetables).

[Soose]

I meant the nausea is a detox thing -- the body is rejecting what you fed it and needs to get that toxin out. Doesn't that make sense? Just the way I see it, I guess. (So I thought taking the charcoal would help absorb any of it left in the digestive tract. Drink lots of water?) Another way of seeing it is, when I say, "My body just doesn't handle that type food anymore!"

Celebrate the milestone! Eat that salad and ENJOY IT! :) Or make a light smoothie with some good greens. Listen to your own body, of course.

Years and years ago, when I cleaned up my eating the first level (but I'd not even heard of raw yet), I was amazed when my body started changing. It started saying, "I'm full." Then, some time later, it said, "That's too rich! Yuck!"

I'd always heard friends saying the foods I cooked were rich but I had no clue what they were talking about. They meant they could taste the fats, which coated the tongue and weighed them down; that they didn't like it! I'd been raised with "the fatter and sweeter, the better."

But the body is amazing. If we stop feeding it bad stuff, it'll start craving good stuff. The day came when I was craving vegetables. What an eye opener. Of course I've fallen off the wagon through the years, but here I am, about 20 years later, Vegan and trying hard for full raw. Never would I have imagined!

[LilacLavender]

Isn't that great when cooked food stops tasting good? That is the best feeling.

[gabriele]

Hi Soose,

yes, it makes perfect sense what you are saying about the nausea and the detox. I felt so bad yesterday. Just miserable.

This morning, a nice watemelon smoothie with 2 dates, it feels very cleansing. Here at work i'm just surrounded by junk food and chocolate, there's more chocolate just outside my door, yuck. I just have to remember that yesterday, for the first time in my life, it just didn't taste very good. That should get me through the day!!

[Soose]

Hi, Gaby,
With the stuff around you at work, when you see and smell it, maybe if you could make a conscious effort to immediately replace the sweet smell in your mind with the feeling you had yesterday, the nausea. And I've heard several people here recommend we take lots of replacement raw snacks with us when we're starting.

I have to take my 13yo to his job this morning and there are snacks. We put in a fruit cooler there, but I think I will take my own advice and pack something else for safety.
Soose

[gabriele]

You are right. I have larabars here, raw nuts, dried fruit, you would think a very thin, healthy-looking person sits at my desk!! And i am doing what you said, i'm recalling the yucky feeling i had yesterday, how sick i felt, and how it wasn't even enjoyable.

eating a big big salad right now.....

[Soose]

I think that some of these addictive food smells are wired directly into our brains! And that bypasses the memory of how sick it made us last time we "experimented" with it. But with time abstaining from it, that neural pathway will go dormant.

I asked my son and we agreed we'd best make a big salad before we go work around those snacks. Just finished enjoying it. :) Thanks for making me aware of the danger before we went today.

[gabriele]

good for you!!! and i am still avoiding those Lindt chocolate balls that are 6 feet away on the paper shredder..........

[EZ rider]

BUT........i made a great discovery!! As i was eating my chocolate at work, it didn't taste good any more!!

Yep, you just left that addiction behind you. Its not going to bother you again. Congratulations.

I have had some similar experiences as my tastes and desires have changed on the raw lifestyle. Even now at almost 2 years all raw I am still getting pleasant surprises like the one you had. My most recent surprise concerned eating greens. The other day I was about to make a salad and I happened to eat one of the green baby spinach leafs and it tasted really good. I continued eating it just as is and didn't make the salad I just kept eating the baby spinach. I am snacking on greens by themselves right now. This from a former meat & potatoes guy that didn't like salads. For me to enjoy eating fresh greens by themselves is more then amazing -- its a miracle.

[gabriele]

Wow, really EZ Rider? i can't imagine eating greens without drowning them with something. Even a mixed salad? It's not bitter? That would be great. well, at least i am using a lot less dressing, maybe i'll get there one day too.

[Soose]

That's the way we eat greens and salads now, too. No dressings, no sauces. Amazing. We do make a fresh salsa for our salads more often than not but don't demand it. Never in the world thought I'd be here. Not that we're perfect. Olives are a hard one to give up now, for instance. I really, really want some olives!

We made it through the job - we stopped at the store and while there bought some dried fruits. Also had fresh fruits and our salads before we left.

[gabriele]

what is the recipe for the salsa that you use? it sounds delicious on a salad....

[katacykls]

Hi Gabriele not only is it detox it is also your body behaving more wisely and saying I know what good food taste like and Lindt Chocolate is just not cutting it for me anymore.