I found this post via a
raw food community I'm part of . I've been experimenting with raw for the last 8 months or so. I totally agree that the energy boost a raw food diet gives you is very noticeable and a real boost.
However, I was nearly 100% raw at the end of last year and I actually lost nearly a stone in weight (and I'm a skinny person too!). At first, I thought this was great but I was clearly not listening to my body. It culminated in a couple of episodes of fainting. This has never happened to me in my life and was quite worrying.
My doctor confirmed there was nothing wrong with my blood pressure, heart rate etc and advised me to think carefully about my diet and calorie intake.
Since Feb I've been supplementing my diet with some cooked foods and small amounts of fish and meat to boost my calories and to make sure I get enough B12.
Vitamin B12 deficiency is one of the most serious problems that raw foodist and vegans in general can experience. There's no real plant substitute that provide bio-available B12 and if you are totally meat/ dairy free you need to be really careful and consider taking a supplement.
Anyway I don't want to dis a raw food diet, but I recommend that anyone interested should do plenty of research and ease themselves into it gradually.