Raw Food Diet - Day 6 (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Raw Food Diet - Day 6

[NotesMaeve]

Congrats on being horny again!

You've inspired my own week long attempt at a raw diet to detox after two weeks of eating crap. The low libido note didn't thrill my boy, so hearing you got it back so quick is a relief.

[mikeschu]

Steve, you may also want to check out Trader Joe's if it's convenient for you to shop there. Their produce is usually spot-on, albeit a bit limited at times.

[Jake Birkett]

My stool frequency has been averaging about 5-8 times a day.

OMG! o.O I'd read that 2-3 times per day was normal if you were eating a good healthy diet but clearly if you put pounds and pounds in, it's got to come out sometime!

I draw the line at posting a photo of this, posterity notwithstanding.

ROFL! Man that one got me going especially after your "vivid" description haha.

Anyway thanks for the info.

[Rose of Cairo]

Hey cool! Happy to read that you're better now. Keep going

[Fullcrum]

Giant breakfast...nice.

It's funny how you get less hungry as the trial goes on...you're not hungry until later in the morning, and then not that hungry for dinner or anything. I've read this is expected and normal. In the book I read, the woman didn't eat much until after noon! Like very little fruit. And green smoothies were her staple. So good job there.

Do you yourself look any different going through this trial?

[bwd]

Are you at all concerned about getting too much potassium? I'm not sure what the normal threshold is, but I do know that it can be bad for your heart to get too much.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by mikeschu

Steve, you may also want to check out Trader Joe's if it's convenient for you to shop there. Their produce is usually spot-on, albeit a bit limited at times.

Good idea. There's one 10 minutes from my house. Their produce selection is pretty small though.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

Do you yourself look any different going through this trial?

No, I can't say I look any different at this point.

[Andrew Brunelle]

That is terrible about the almonds, Steve. I wonder if it is just California almonds or all almonds in the country that follow this rule. If that is the case, the only way you will be able to get raw almonds is to plant them yourself. I don't know if you've been on An award-winning feature documentary film and podcast about the raw food lifestyle. News about the movie and raw food community., but I went over there a couple of days ago and they have some ideas in the form of video podcasting. I encourage all of you to take a look at it to see some of the ideas. Good luck.

[Roger Haeske]

Originally Posted by bwd

Are you at all concerned about getting too much potassium? I'm not sure what the normal threshold is, but I do know that it can be bad for your heart to get too much.

No need to concern about getting too much potassium. It's just nature's way or nature's ratio. Even if you have a 40 to 1 ratio, you're still doing just fine. And for health reasons the only sodium that should be consumed is organic or from plant sources. Any kind of table salt, even sea salt or Real Salt or Himalayan sea salt is a toxic poison to the human body.

What people don't realize is in most raw foods there's much more potassium than sodium and that many raw foods and even vegetables have a higher level of potassium per calorie than even bananas do.

Per calorie spinach has 6 times more potassium than bananas do. But here's the kicker, per calorie spinach has at least 87 times more sodium than bananas do. Here's a link to a chart I've created of the major alkaline minerals contained in 11 different raw foods per a 25 calorie basis. You have to scroll down the page a bit to see the chart.

Raw Health and Happiness Society - Meeting Notes

Yesterday I ate a ton of vegetables and especially spinach which resulted in me consuming a total of:

Sodium: 1631.4 mg
Potassium: 23537 mg

For the day.

Or about a 14 to 1 potassium to sodium ratio. This ratio was much lower for me yesterday because I ate so many vegetables and fruit that were high in sodium. But I also ate 20 large sized bananas.

Total calories for the day of 3,072. As for people thinking a fruit diet will make a person fat. I'm at around 5% bodyfat while eating as much as I want to eat. I've been eating 100% raw for over 6.5 years now and my weight has stayed stable during that time.

Essentially I lost at least 10 to 15 pounds of fat and water weight from my cooked food days. All while eating as much food as I desired to eat. Since I was never trying to lose weight.

I don't count calories. I just entered my food intake into FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal to get a readout since I was eating such a high level of vegetables yesterday.

I had 3 large bags spinach (30 ounces total). I also had three heads of romaine. These are not full heads but the kind that comes packaged in a bag. I also had two cucumbers, and about 6 medium stalks of celery.

I've never eaten so much greens in a day. And even with this incredible greens consumption, I still barely achieved 500 calories in the day from vegetables. (Cucumber isn't technically a vegetable but it it's considered a vegetable from a nutritional and or culinary viewpoint.)

So by stuffing myself full of vegetables I was still only capable of getting 16% of my calories from vegetables.

I think you'll find this interesting as well. On a raw food diet with no fatty foods added at all yesterday (no nuts, seeds, avocados, coconuts or oil of any kind.) 13% of my calories came from protein.

Another interesting fact is that spinach is 64% protein if you measure per calorie. Or 64% protein, 18% carbs and 18% fat.

I had 93 grams of protein yesterday. Also I had an astoundingly high level of fiber or 134 grams. Though I didn't notice myself going to the bathroom more than usual. But I always go at least 3 times per day. Regularity and a total lack of constipation is another benefit of eating raw.

I hope this information has been useful to you, Roger

[Rose of Cairo]

I have some dried wakame seaweed. Is that raw??

I'd like to eat some, I'm having salt cravings

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Roger Haeske

I had 3 large bags spinach (30 ounces total). I also had three heads of romaine. These are not full heads but the kind that comes packaged in a bag. I also had two cucumbers, and about 6 medium stalks of celery.

That is a lot of spinach! You put Popeye to shame. Not to mention the lettuce, cucumbers, and celery.

I bought 16oz of spinach yesterday, and I'm thinking that's enough to last a week.

[seeker5]

I love how you can eat so many bananas. I wonder how it would be for me. I had conspitation 6-7 months ago from the SAD and the doctor told me not to eat banana as that increases constipation. If I go from something close to the SAD directly to raw and ate a bunch of bananas, I wonder how much problems I'd have during my transition and what I could do to mitigate it.

[Fortune]

Not only do I always get the "where do you get the protein" question, but also the: "don't you know bananas constipate you" remark.

I wonder what other people do with their bananas (shove them up the wrong end maybe?) but I eat tons of ripe bananas and my digestion has never worked better!

[Wildside]

Alright, finally we are talking about constipation! I thought I must be the only person on a raw food diet that is constipated...and it looks like I could be right! I mentioned it in the original 30 days raw thread that I have been raw for 6 days now and am totally backed up. My diet has been pretty similair to Steve's, high in fruit (probably 8-10 bananas per day as well as lots of other fruit), and lots of veggies (salads and smothies and also some juicing) the only difference I can see is I also include two tablespoons of flaxseed oil and I do have some nuts, not many, usually a few walnuts in my salads and also yesterday started having some sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds in my salads.
Anyway, I am totally constipated and it sucks! I think because of the constipation I haven't really seen any energy increase or felt better than before I went on this diet.
Anyone have any Ideas? Roger? Anyone?

Thanks
Steve

[MasterD]

Are raisins healthy on this diet?

[Holistic Star]

Wildside - some suggestions for you

a) for instant relief a home enema will sort you out, or go for a colonic - honesly not as scary or awful as it sounds!

b) make sure you are drinking enough water

c) also have a big green smoothie everyday (approx 50% fruit 50% fresh organic greens)

d) go for a long walk or run as that helps get things moving round the system

e) there are various supplements that you can take, e.g. this one called Natural Balance from the UK I find to be very effective but gentle. Ancient Herbal Remedies Ltd

f) the other thing you might want to think about is what do you need to 'let go' of from your life. This could be a person, situation, memory emotion that you are holding onto but is toxic for you.
btw - just hang on in there, 6 days isn't long and our digestion does funny things while it adjusts and if it is any help you are not the only raw fooder this happens to!

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by MasterD

Are raisins healthy on this diet?

I'm not doing any dried fruits for this trial, but a lot of raw foodists do eat raisins. The main downside is that the sugar is more concentrated, so you may want to brush your teeth more often.

[Rosie]

Steve are you still doing polyphasic sleep?

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Rosie

Steve are you still doing polyphasic sleep?

No he's not: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...to-monophasic/

[Wildside]

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

Wildside - some suggestions for you

a) for instant relief a home enema will sort you out, or go for a colonic - honesly not as scary or awful as it sounds!

b) make sure you are drinking enough water

c) also have a big green smoothie everyday (approx 50% fruit 50% fresh organic greens)

d) go for a long walk or run as that helps get things moving round the system

e) there are various supplements that you can take, e.g. this one called Natural Balance from the UK I find to be very effective but gentle. Ancient Herbal Remedies Ltd

f) the other thing you might want to think about is what do you need to 'let go' of from your life. This could be a person, situation, memory emotion that you are holding onto but is toxic for you.
btw - just hang on in there, 6 days isn't long and our digestion does funny things while it adjusts and if it is any help you are not the only raw fooder this happens to!

Thanks for the tips Holistic Star. Believe it or not I have actually tried a home enema a couple of times in the past (I have been bunged up before I tried eating 100% raw also, so maybe I am predisposed to constipation or something, I guess I just figured going raw would immediately fix me all up) I found it worked for the short term but then afterwards I found it messed me up a bit as it took a long time to get regular afterwards...if that makes any sense. I do all the other ones you mention except E and F...F really intrigues me as I kind of know I might be kind of "holding onto" a few things (situations, people) that might be toxic to me.
Thanks again for the great advice!

[MasterD]

Thanks Steve for the clarification.

Talking about brushing teeths. I am doing the raw fruit diet for a couple of days too right now; but one thing I begin to notice is that my gums are beginning to hurt. Is this normal? What can I do about this? Brushing teeth a couple of times a day extra will be sufficient?

[Dan.Linehan]

The almond board contact form seems to be broken. When I click submit there is no confirmation message and all the fields are still filled out. I suppose I'll do a physical mail, free stamps at the office are on of my perks.

Here is the message I am sending.

I'm highly disappointed to hear about your new requirements for the mandatory pasteurization of almonds.

Salmonella does not come from nuts, but from contamination from animal byproducts.

It is especially misleading to label pasteurized almonds raw. You are setting yourself for a class action lawsuit. There are several religions that eat only raw food diets, such as the Essenes. Cooked foods go against their basic religious beliefs. The same is true for basically any raw foodist. In fact, there are entire restaurant chains dedicated to raw food who you are misleading. Labeling something raw when it has been steamed, or fumigated in a carcinogen shows zero regard for consumer rights or public health.

You seem to be ruining your whole food supply in an attempt to fix a problem that doesn't exist. I have to watch people eat raw almonds at my workplace. They think they are eating something healthy, but the ones our company buys aren't organic, meaning they have been fumigated in Propylene oxide, a carcinogen. All for our safety, right? Thanks, but no thanks.

Why would you do such a thing? Is it some sort of power play to make things too expensive for small growers to stay in the market? Do you have a couple of large growers who are worried they can't keep the feces from other parts of their farms in tow and away from the almonds anymore?

I'll be contacting local chains to make sure they start to carry imported raw almonds. Almonds that are actually raw. I'll also be letting everyone at work know how and why to buy imported almonds from now on. Nuts Online will also be contacted, maybe we can even start a campaign to send you peanuts. The nightly news channels will love that one.

Please stop poisoning our food supply.

Best, Dan Linehan

[shiggityjoe]

Hey steve this is a very interesting experiment you are working on. I've always enjoyed your detailed documentation.

Anyway, my question about your current raw food diet is:
Is that really enough protein?

Maybe its just my background in football in high school, and my ongoing attempt at making my lifestyle more bodybuilding-like. But I've been under the impression for some time that if you want to promote muscle gain you are going to have to eat atleast a gram of a protein per pound of body weight.

Actually, even when I started doing the bodybuilder lifestyle (somewhat, I'm working on getting more committed, it's a very discplined lifestyle that has proven to take time for me to adjust to) and lost 55 pounds last year by eating good and exercising I was scared that 1 gram of protein per pound was maintenance level to try my best to not lose muscle.

So in summary, my question (if you havent already been asked this, that is). Is:

Are you sure that the 30g of protein you are getting today isn't going to cause severe muscle loss?

Aren't resistance training exercises at the gym a waste of time if you don't give your body enough protein to undergo the process of rebuilding the broken down muscles and repair'ing them?

Thx if you get to my msg Steve, I'm a long time fan and doing my best to live consciously - despite being in college.
Check out my site, fairly new, Lose Weight In College

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by shiggityjoe

Anyway, my question about your current raw food diet is:
Is that really enough protein?

Here is Steve's view on protein. The Great Protein Myth

[shiggityjoe]

Originally Posted by seeker5

Here is Steve's view on protein. The Great Protein Myth

I appreciate the link, but I never said vegetables and fruits are devoid of protein. Just that in total, it seems like all the protein he is getting amounts to 30 grams/180 pounds body weight. Which is a 1:6 ratio, whereas I try to keep atleast a 1:1 ratio to maintain current amount of muscle and minimize muscle loss. If you can dig up some info on this kind of information, about the daily amount of protein - as opposed to the source of the protein, then I'd love to read it.

*correction, my mistake, reread it in whole and it did discuss

[Bender.PUA]

"It’s been mostly green (like the color of grass) unless I’ve eaten some dark fruits like blueberries or blackberries in which case it comes out almost black. My urine is either clear or pale green."

I wold faint and pass out if I'w seen green come out of me.

[Fullcrum]

Message to all:

Welcome to Charlie's Gym

This dude eats raw foods. And has big muscles.

Average about 3700 calories a day.

The guy was 49 years old at the images. See the vids of him working out on the "High Intensity Page"

No supplements, milk, meat, or giant piles of nuts. Just lots of bananas . Haha, and other stuff too of course.

There is your proof that RAW WORKS FOR MUSCLE GAIN!

[Steve Pavlina]

Personally I think the 2g protein per kg of body weight notion is marketing, not truth... which is one reason I'm testing the opposite approach myself.

I think the reason we don't see many more raw foodist bodybuilders is that there simply aren't that many raw foodists as a percentage of the general population. I read a while back that vegans were around 1 in 500. I can only imagine that raw foodists are way less common than 1 in 1000.