What to expect in first 3 days of raw diet

[elainevdw]

Hey all,

Thanks to the recommendation of somebody on these forums (I don't remember who!) of the book Raw Food Made Easy, I ordered it and want to start integrating more raw foods in my diet -- possibly eating raw 4 days a week.

However, I don't know what to expect over the first three days of eating raw foods. Specifically, do you experience intense hunger or cravings? And also, as I'm watching my diet right now and I know how high calorie nuts and dried fruit are, will eating raw food with a lot of raw nuts involved (almond milk, salad dressings made with nuts, etc.) or a lot of dried fruit keep me from achieving weight loss?

Thanks for your input.

[elainevdw]

Holy cow! I just tried that book's cream of tomato soup recipe. Now, I grew up on Campbell's cream of tomato soup. I lived on that stuff. And it was difficult switching to soy milk instead of regular milk. If I had ever tried this lady's raw version... heck, screw soy milk! This stuff is great.

Anyway, I just had to share that. I had no idea a raw version of a classic recipe would be so damn tasty.

[samsixty]

If you don't get any answers, it would be cool if you post here and let people know what your experiences of the raw food diet are.

I for one would be interested to know how you feel daily while on the diet.
blog it maybe?
I dunno, I would read it though.

[elainevdw]

Oh, well, I guess I'll have to keep that in mind! I'm not sure if I'm going to start out 100% raw, because I didn't know how time-intensive all that chopping and blending and stuff would be. But if I can manage it, I'll give it a try.

Otherwise, I guess I'll have to let you all know how a partial raw diet feels.

By the way, the tomato soup made me feel kind of sick. I'm not sure if it's just psychosomatic -- I mean, honestly, it's cold and it looks like vomit -- or if maybe I used more olive oil in it than my body felt like last night. But it was still tasty as all get-out.

[openeyes]

When eating raw, taking in too many calories is unlikely to be an issue. Fatty foods such as avocado will be your friend. When I tried a raw diet without them years ago, though I felt energetic, I lost quite a bit of weight, with much of it likely being muscle mass since I was only about 8% fat to begin with.

It'd be a good idea for you to pick up a book that goes into detail about adapting to a raw diet if that's something you wish to do. You'd do well in getting one of Victoria Boutenko's (author of Green for Life) books, such as 12 Steps to Raw. Doing it just a few days at a time, it's not so critical.

After just three days, you may simply feel better than usual. If you read about adapting to a new level of health, such as when switching to raw foods, you're apt to hear a bit about the "healing crisis" as described below:

"The Road To Better Health may begin with a Healing Crisis

As you move toward better health with natural healing programs and better nutrition, healing begins to occur. As part of the healing process the body will begin to discard toxic residues which have built up in your body over the years. The healing process usually does not occur without repercussions. During the initial phase of healing, as your body begins to clean house, (detoxify) and your vital energy begins to repair and rebuild internal organs, you may experience headache, uneasiness, flu like symptoms and fatigue. It is important that you adequately rest during this time. These symptoms will pass as your body begins to normalize to a new level of health. As you continue to improve, you may begin a process called retracing. You may feel worse before you feel better. For example, if you used to get skin rashes, the rashes may reappear or get worse for a period of time as your body eliminates toxins through the skin. You may also experience an initial increase in urination, or you may feel more nervous. In actuality, you are not getting worse, you are actually getting better. Eventually you will reach a plateau of better health. During the healing crisis, it is important to not suppress these temporary symptoms with drugs or the healing process may become interrupted."

Basic Healing Principles of Natural Cure

It's good to know about such possibilities beforehand, so it won't be so worrisome if/when it happens. Good luck with whatever you do. Also, rather than having to do a lot of chopping with every meal, you may simply have a few apples or bananas, or maybe half an avocado (love 'em, can you tell?) or a bit of coconut. Making smoothies as in Green for Life will greatly improve things, even if you continue having cooked foods most of the time.

[elainevdw]

Thanks for the tips and recommendations, openeyes.

I've heard about healing crises -- but in relationship to Reiki, not healthy eating! It's an interesting idea, and in Reiki, I tend to think it's mostly psychosomatic. I'll watch out for it with eating raw, but hopefully I won't have too much going on. For the last three weeks I've been doing yoga and running regularly, and drinking a lot of water. My diet has been about 95% vegetarian, and maybe another 50% of that is vegan.

Now, I think I'm going to go make myself a smoothie. My little blender does pretty good, but oh, how I pine for a VitaMix...

[elainevdw]

I got kind of a late start yesterday with my raw diet, so I didn't even have breakfast until noon. Normally, such a late start in the day makes me hungry all day long, but I was surprised at the end of the day to realize that not only was I not craving every edible item in my apartment, but that I was more awake and alert than normal.

I was also surprised at how filling a blended "soup" of veggies and fruit could be. However, in the future, I think I'll reserve some chunks of fruits and veggies to mix in with the blended portion, because I like having more texture in my "soup."

The kitchen item that saved the day was a salad spinner -- a $25 piece of equipment that I've wanted for years but never bothered getting! I had two mock ceasar salads yesterday, the dressing made basically out of raw, soaked cashews with lemon juice and garlic.

One weird thing I found was that on one level I wasn't hungry, but on another level I was. I wonder if the not-hungry feeling was a physical feeling, and the hungry feeling was an emotional feeling.

At the end of the day, I kind of fell off the wagon. I wanted something warm and toasty so bad that I had two pieces of toast spread with PB, wheat germ, and honey, and two more pieces of bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic. (Normally, just one of any of those items would do me over.) I also drank more hot tea; a lot of the time, I eat hot food to warm myself up, but that's not really an option now.

PS, Is hot tea considered "raw"? It's not like I'm eating the leaves!

This morning, I weighed exactly the same as I did the morning before -- which is interesting, because normally I'd show a slight weight gain from eating all that bread right before bedtime!

I slept really well. I've been having these wild dreams with detailed plotlines since I started eating raw, but I wonder if that's because it's the weekend and I can sleep in?

Oh, and I really like the concept of soaking nuts. I like raw nuts much better when they're soaked.

Today, I'm going to try this raw almond vanilla ice cream. It's great being able to make my own "milk," because I'm lactose intolerant. Right now, I'm buying juice because I don't have a juicer, but the smoothies make up for buying tons of juice.

Another interesting thing I've noticed, compared to when I've gone vegan, is that my stomach hasn't been cramping up, nor has my body gotten gassey... if that's TMI, I'm sorry, but that was a personal side effect of going vegan that I wasn't prepared for! And in the raw diet, it's not an issue at all.

Oh, another great thing about the raw diet -- everything was so easy to make! No dish took longer than 10 minutes, and there was no way for me to screw it up. You should have seen my vegan cooking experiments. They turned out, well, pretty bad. I even put all the wrong herbs in the salad dressing, and it was still edilbe!

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by elainevdw

One weird thing I found was that on one level I wasn't hungry, but on another level I was. I wonder if the not-hungry feeling was a physical feeling, and the hungry feeling was an emotional feeling.

PS, Is hot tea considered "raw"? It's not like I'm eating the leaves!

Right now, I'm buying juice because I don't have a juicer, but the smoothies make up for buying tons of juice.

It sounds like you're doing fine so far. Just to make sure you know, store bought juices are pasteurized and therefore not raw (little to no enzymes left). Small amounts are fine, but you're apt to feel even better with fresh juice when you have access to it (just something to look forward to).

As for having some sort of emotional instead of physical hunger, I know what you mean. When I was really into fasting, I remember going a couple days without food or water (not recommended) and feeling fine, but sort of missing taking things into my body. Emotional hunger can be interesting, because eating doesn't always make it go away.

Also, when I'm used to eating meat, the thought of going without it can make me feel hungry, though whenever I've been at a spiritual retreat with all vegetarian food, I felt completely satisfied because of the holistic atmosphere. It takes more than physical food to nourish us.

Is hot tea raw? Not really, but it's not necessary to go to extremes to experience ample benefit from an improved diet. Tea has its own positive traits.

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

I recommend the raw food recipes also in here Australias Largest Raw Food Diet Community and Superstore - Home. I took their 10 day challenge and felt brilliant. Fell off the wagion though after the 10 days, and I'm getting back on now that I have the Green for Life book. I suppose the message is get the green smoothies into you!! It seems that we should eat about 30-40% green leafy vegies each day and the easiest way is via a green smoothy. I have found it much easier to stick to the raw vegan diet (about 90% the last few days) with green smoothies. A piece or 2 of fruit and a large handful of green leafy vegies (variety is the key) and enough water to allow the blender to turn freely.

I also have the "not hungry but not full" feeling. I'm getting used to it. You feel satisfied but not stuffed. It's easy here being summer, but I wonder how I'd go in winter...

Joy to you
Hazel

[Erki]

Hey, since when does it snow in Summer?

[elainevdw]

Thanks for the tips and links! Yeah, it's winter here, and it's been pretty darn cold. To warm up, I either drink hot tea, bundle up in blankets, do the dishes or fold hot laundry, go work out, or take a shower. (I get cold a lot, so those are my good old standbys.)

And I was surprised to find out how much spinach I could put in a banana-and-berry smoothie without even tasting it! I was almost disappointed, because I really like spinach. It's probably the first time I've eaten an entire bag of the stuff before it went bad. Smoothies really are a good way to eat your veggies.

Day 2 went pretty much like Day 1, except that I ate a whole thing of homemade almond vanilla ice cream instead of a healthier veggie "soup." But, I was pretty full the whole day, and finished off the rest of the salad I mixed over the weekend. Again, I'm digging the salad spinner. The salad I bagged a few days ago was still super fresh, and not soggy at all. I only ate one piece of toast this time, and this morning my weight was, again, the same.

My workout went fabulously yesterday. I did yoga in the morning, and for once, I felt really connected to my core, and was able to engage my abs in more poses. Then, in the afternoon, I started Week 4 of the Cool Running Couch to 5K Plan (which I've been following for four weeks). I was expecting this week's workouts to be really tough. It's basically a walk-jog program, where the walking intervals get shorter while the jogging intervals get longer until you're jogging a straight 30 minutes, then a straight 5K. Week 3 probably has 14 minutes of walking combined with 9 minutes of running. Week 4 doubles the amount of time running. But my workout felt absolutely great!

I was also less exhausted on my way to work this morning despite getting a little less sleep than I normally need. Though that could also be because I got a lot of rest this weekend. I'll have to see if I maintain this energy for the rest of the week.

Today is going to be more of a challenge because I'm at the office, and didn't really pack a lot of my own food. So I guess I'll have to go to the grocery store and pick up some dippable veggies, since I did bring some raw dressing with me. I also threw together the afore-mentioned banana-berry-spinach smoothie before hitting the road, so I got a little bit in before my day started.

Again, I'm basically finding raw food a really quick and easy way to boost your energy and alertness while curbing food cravings. I haven't actually felt a physical craving for this or that food -- it's mostly just the emotional craving I was talking about earlier. I think the emotional craving is easier to meet with a small amount of food, too, since your blood sugar doesn't factor into it.

[Jaben]

I've been eating exclusively raw since September of last year. I'm feeling great and my New Year's resolution is to run outside every day this year averaging at least 2 miles per day.

One weird thing I found was that on one level I wasn't hungry, but on another level I was. I wonder if the not-hungry feeling was a physical feeling, and the hungry feeling was an emotional feeling.

I was very suprised when I first transitioned that I felt great with eating much less. Digestion requires much less energy on a raw diet and is faster. The body doesn't need to spend additional energy detoxifying and eliminating unecessary elements. On cooked food your stomach and intestines can be full but the cells of your body may not be satiated with the nutrients they need.

On a raw food diet it seems to be the opposite, your body is satiated but your stomach isn't full. The nutrition in raw food seems to be all in tact, making this diet more efficient than cooked food. I also require less water to quench my thirst.

PS, Is hot tea considered "raw"? It's not like I'm eating the leaves!

According to Living and Raw Foods: The Living and Raw Foods F.A.Q., tea made from boiling water is not raw. They suggest sun tea as an alternative. That website has many interesting articles, recipes and a discussion board.

Oh, another great thing about the raw diet -- everything was so easy to make! No dish took longer than 10 minutes, and there was no way for me to screw it up

Yeah, I would always eat out before I went raw. Now I make everything myself and do not feel like it takes me any more time and energy than eating out. Making raw food can be very quick and easy and fun.

[elainevdw]

Day 3 was mixed. I started off with a berry-spinach smoothie. Partway to noon, I really needed food, and all I had at the office was a canned potato leek soup, which had cream in it. I tried a spoonful, but it was nasty as anything, so I decided to go to the grocery store and pick up something else to eat instead.

It turned out rather good -- I got mixed salad (I brought my own dressing), and I had half an avo with a dash of salt. I snacked on raw walnuts and dried papaya for the rest of the afternoon.

I felt a little bit mentally tired from my work yesterday, but I had enough energy to go to a yoga class and hang out with a friend until late last night. A lot of the time, I get so super sleepy in the evening that I can't enjoy much of anything.

Except I diverged from raw eating late last night when my buddy and I went out for a mojito and lettuce wraps at PF Chang's. Somewhat predictably, I didn't sleep particularly well last night (doesn't alcohol mess with REM?), and today shows my only weight gain -- a pound of what's probably water retention from eating out.

So that's what you can expect in your first three days of eating (mostly) raw! I doubt I'm going to go 100% raw, but I can definitely see myself eating raw foods the majority of the time.

I'll let you know how it goes in the longer run.