Raw Food Diet - Day 14 (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

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

Raw Food Diet - Day 14

[seeker5]

What kind of tool do you use to measure things like spinach? I see you ate 34grams of spinach yesterday. I tried to measure my spinach this morning on my analog scale and I couldn't see it budge much past 0 even though I put a lot of spinach (50 leaves or so as I ended counting the leaves when I couldn't register a weight). Do you use a digital measurer?

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by seeker5

Do you use a digital measurer?

Yes. It will detect weights as small as 2g.

[Jaben]

Your rating for today's well being is consistent with my greens theory posted on Day 13, 250g = good (7 out of 10). If you want to feel euphoric though look at your green intake for day 11, 394g and you felt euphoric most of the day. I wonder what would happen if you got 455g? I remember watching the Lawnmower Man on second thought maybe you should keep it around 200g.

[Steve Pavlina]

I'll try eating more greens today to see what effect that has. I feel pretty good right now, so this could be another positive day, although I haven't eaten anything yet.

[wisped]

That's funny...I was having apple carrot celery juice yesterday and was thinking that you must be getting a little tired of thick smoothies and you should have some juice. On days when you eat less greens, you can juice some. I don't much like celery, but I love it in juice.

Glad you had a good day yesterday.

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

Green smoothies are great. Victoria Boutenko's book "Green for life" got me started and I've found the days I have plenty of greens are good ones. It's subtle isn't it? I've been largely raw vegan for the last 10 days now - nowhere near as strict as Steve though. But I've found I've had cravings on the days when I haven't had a green smoothy. Mine are more green leaves, less fruit than Steve's, but same idea.

[Rose of Cairo]

I decided to eat more vegetables too, but it's difficult. I'm hardly eating anything these days. Steve, you wrote a few days ago that you're not interested in eating, like "where's the point?". Well same here now. I'm hungry and feel weak, but I really do not feel like eating anything.

Just went to the physician today, the blood results say my urea levels are way too high. I don't understand that, since I'm really not eating much protein, and before the raw trial I didn't eat a high-protein diet either. But I don't know if it's related to the diet in the first place, maybe there's another reason. I also don't know if it's the case since going raw or if it was the case before that too.

Any experienced raw-foodist here? Did you have any problems with too high urea levels?

Glad you're feeling good, Steve I was very surprised at your difficulties during the first week cause I was feeling wonderful. I'm sorry about that. It's the contrary now...

[Steve Pavlina]

@Rose: I feel for you. The pattern of this trial has been much different than any of my other raw trials. I really can't predict how it will turn out.

I'm not sure about the high urea, but since it's a waste product, is it possible your cells are releasing more of it into your bloodstream because you're detoxing? I've read that when you first go raw, your blood actually becomes more polluted for a while, since your cells finally have a chance to catch up on waste management.

I happen to be feeling great today, so that's a couple good days in a row.

[beel]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

@Rose: I feel for you. The pattern of this trial has been much different than any of my other raw trials. I really can't predict how it will turn out.

Steve, why do you think this trial is different from your other trials? The only thing I can assume is that you are being more strict throughout the transition period? What do you think?

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by beel

Steve, why do you think this trial is different from your other trials? The only thing I can assume is that you are being more strict throughout the transition period? What do you think?

I'm eating different foods. Before I was eating a lot of dehydrated foods, including lots of nuts, flax crackers, avocados, and other high-fat foods. This low-fat version of the diet is a totally different experience.

[NotesMaeve]

Steve, I was not really impressed with the produce in Vegas when I was there, but your stuff looks pretty good!

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I'm not sure about the high urea, but since it's a waste product, is it possible your cells are releasing more of it into your bloodstream because you're detoxing?

Of course! That's a very good explanation, why didn't I think of that. If this detox thing is correct, then that's probably the reason. That's what happened to gettingskinny too. Looks like I've got much more waste to process than you do, which is not surprising. Thanks for the explanation

And thanks for feeling for me I'm so glad that you're doing fine. Keep going!

[Steve Pavlina]

The main waste removal organs are your kidneys and liver. On a cooked food diet, they're constantly overtaxed, and adrenaline is released to make them work even harder. But once you stop eating cooked food for a while, they finally have a chance to catch up and reduce the stored toxic load. Even your own cells produce toxins as natural waste products, so it's not just what you eat. I suspect what may be happening is that it's taking a while to reach a new level of homeostasis after you dropped your toxic intake so dramatically.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

The main waste removal organs are your kidneys and liver.

This is stuff they should be teaching in middle and high school class - not why there are different clouds in the atmosphere. I never once had a class on human biology.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

The main waste removal organs are your kidneys and liver.

Together with your lungs, your intestins and your skin. That's why you get pimples

seeker5, where the hell did you go to school??

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by seeker5

This is stuff they should be teaching in middle and high school class - not why there are different clouds in the atmosphere. I never once had a class on human biology.

Well, many doctors have never had a single class on nutrition. Supposedly most medical schools still don't even have one mandatory nutrition class.

I recently read about a contest where M.D.'s were pitted against a group of patients, quizzed on basic nutrition facts. The patients won.

So there's a good chance you already know more about nutrition than the average U.S. doctor does.

[Rose of Cairo]

My doc told me to eat meat in order to lower the urea levels.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

My doc told me to eat meat in order to lower the urea levels.

So now doctors are prescribing dead flesh as medicine? Oy vey. Are we back to using leeches again?

Animal flesh itself is high in urea -- the very toxin your body is trying to eliminate. Urea is also used in fertilizers, and it's added to cigarettes too. Why on earth would you want to consume more of it as the solution?

If your doctor is anywhere close to the U.S. average of doctors, it's a safe bet s/he knows far less about human nutrition than you do.

It sounds like your doctor is doing the classic medical cop-out. If you mention you made a dietary change and you're having problems, docs often make the no-brainer diagnosis that the dietary change was the culprit and that you should go back to doing what everyone else does. That isn't sound medicine though. It's laziness with a bill.

Your liver produces urea as a way to deal with excess ammonia in your body. Ammonia is toxic to your cells. Your kidneys eventually remove the urea, so you can excrete it in your urine. I definitely wouldn't recommend adding to the problem by consuming animal flesh, which is only going to produce more ammonia and likely make the problem worse.

Obviously I'm not an M.D., but a common sense solution would be to drink more water (especially with a little fresh lemon juice) to give your body a chance to dilute and eliminate more of these toxins. If you're dehydrated that could explain why your urea levels are rising. Assuming your kidneys are functioning normally, you need water to urinate these toxins out, and one of the best ways to ensure more urination is to drink more water.

[Rose of Cairo]

Thanks Steve

Yes, drinking more water is also what I decided to do, and that's all. If it's detox, it's natural and will eventually go away. Urea raises when eating meat, so his advice doesn't make any sense whatsoever and I won't follow it.

I didn't tell him that I made a dietary change. I knew he would be biased if I told him. But he knows me and always tells me to eat meat, no matter what my problem is I don't believe in doctors anymore anyway, so don't worry

I'm thinking about stopping the trial though, but for completely different reasons. I had a very interesting conversation today and realized that my reasons for doing it don't feel very good. But I haven't made up my mind yet.

[Steve Pavlina]

I encourage you to finish the trial if you think you can make it. When doing any 30-day trial, we work through a lot of resistance which can manifest in different forms. I've often had the urge to stop along the way, thinking, "OK, I know I'm not going to like this long term," but I've always been glad when I finished the 30 days anyway. If after 30 days, I still want to quit, I know it's not for me, but there have been times where I wanted to quit after 2 weeks and then decided to keep it up beyond day 30.

[wulph]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

The main waste removal organs are your kidneys and liver. On a cooked food diet, they're constantly overtaxed, and adrenaline is released to make them work even harder....

A distinction really needs to be made between "cooked food" and standard American diet.

I am firmly convinced that eating, say, braised escarole with your fruit salad is vastly different from eating a triple whopper, king sized fries and diet coke.

Even the standard vegan diet, as others have discussed, has many detrimental chemicals and processes. But I haven't seen a shred of credible evidence against steamed vegetables, etc.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by wulph

But I haven't seen a shred of credible evidence against steamed vegetables, etc.

I have. Among other sources there's a decent explanation of the sordid details of the damage cooking does to food in the book The 80-10-10 Diet.

In a nutshell, cooking changes the chemical structure of food in a way that is toxic to the body, and it actually triggers your immune system to deal with it.

Your white blood cell count will increase by about a factor of 5 after eating cooked food so your body can deal with the toxic overload. This doesn't happen, however, when eating a meal of raw fruits and veggies. Whether or not you believe cooked food is toxic, your immune system apparently does.

Cooking has many other detrimental effects too, including destroying thousands of positive substances in food while creating new toxins. Occasionally cooking will increase the bioavailability of a chemical or two, such as lycopene in tomatoes, but it simultaneously damages many, many more, so the net effect is always negative.