Raw Food Diet - Day 16 (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

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

Raw Food Diet - Day 16

[Sindre]

Hi Steve! Good to hear you're getting past the yo-yo part (hopefully)!
I'm also one of those who started to eat more fruit after you began your raw diet Thanks for the inspiration!

[anderssonj]

I'd really like to try okra. I have no idea what it tastes like, and I had to look it up on Wikipedia to learn what it's called in Swedish (it's "okra" in Swedish too. ) I have never ever seen it in a store. If you happen to know where it can be found in Sweden, please let me know.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by anderssonj

I'd really like to try okra. I have no idea what it tastes like, and I had to look it up on Wikipedia to learn what it's called in Swedish (it's "okra" in Swedish too. ) I have never ever seen it in a store. If you happen to know where it can be found in Sweden, please let me know.

I've never been to Sweden, so I don't rightly know. It's commonly available in mainstream grocery stores here, at least the bigger ones.

[Inquisitive Raven]

On the dried/cracked hands issue, are you washing many of those fruits and veggies? FTM, how much hand washing are you doing to remove fruit juice from your hands after eating? Too much hot soapy water willl do that to you; it has nothing to do with the diet per se. Part of the issue is that soap is drying (and detergent strips oils from your skin). The hot water just aggravates it. Warm water works better. Most of the cleaning action is from friction anyway. I haven't noticed you eating a lot fruits with a rep for meat digesting enzymes like papayas, so I doubt that's it.

I suggest that you try using a moisturizer every time you wash your hands. Apply it while your hands are stilll damp. Moisturizers basically work in two ways. One is to seal in water in that's already on your skin, hence my recommendation. The other is to attract moisture from the air. The latter works best in a humid environment... which I wouldn't expect in Las Vegas and is when you least need moisturizer anyway.

[wbuch]

Steve, you said:

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

One suggestion is that if you start eating more fruit, it’s best to do so on a low-fat diet. Too much fat in your diet can impede the proper digestion of fruit and cause blood sugar problems. “Low-fat” means around 10% of calories from fat or less.

Do you think it's still true that it would cause blood-sugar problems if you don't have a low-fat diet but you eat all your fruit in a single meal separate from your other food? Or would eating it in a single meal prevent the blood sugar problems even if you eat more than 10% fat overall?

[Joeschmoe]

Originally Posted by anderssonj

I'd really like to try okra. I have no idea what it tastes like, and I had to look it up on Wikipedia to learn what it's called in Swedish (it's "okra" in Swedish too. ) I have never ever seen it in a store. If you happen to know where it can be found in Sweden, please let me know.

I've been to Sweden and i never saw any okra at any of the regular food stores like Co op or IPA(? It's been a while I don't remember if i have the correct intials here). I wasn't in Stockholm or any other big cities, but I'd imagine you'd find more variety at a health food store or a produce store. I don't think Okra is widely grown in Europe. It grows well in the American south where i live. There isn't comparable climate in Europe. But I would say go somewhere that has people who know about vegetables.

[stellabeam]

Go Steve!!!

3 positive consecutive days...so exciting ....

Stellabeam

[munish]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I've never been to Sweden, so I don't rightly know. It's commonly available in mainstream grocery stores here, at least the bigger ones.

I think okra is lady finger or bhindi as we call it in punjabi.

Lady finger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Fortune]

The okra we get here (in Holland) says on the label: "Suriname Okra" so I guess it's imported from Suriname. FWIW, the only supermarket I've seen that carries it here is Jumbo.

[MasterD]

Fortune: I interpreted "Okra" as "spruitjes". Or is that something else?

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by wbuch

Do you think it's still true that it would cause blood-sugar problems if you don't have a low-fat diet but you eat all your fruit in a single meal separate from your other food? Or would eating it in a single meal prevent the blood sugar problems even if you eat more than 10% fat overall?

According to a few sources I've read, fat can take more than a day to metabolize even if you're eating all raw (and significantly longer if you're eating cooked food and/or animal products). So separating the fruit won't necessarily help much, since the fat from yesterday's meals will still be in your bloodstream. The problem there is that fat in your blood interferes with the uptake of sugar from the blood to your cells.

Even as I reduced my fat intake from around 12-15% of calories to less than 10%, I've noticed improvement in my mood and energy levels. Others have reported similar results when dropping the fat below 10%.

[Anuradha]

Hey Steve,

Looks like I am joining you on this interesting diet regimen from tomorrow... was travelling a bit so could not make it until now. But now it is high time that I sail on your will! I am going to try 40 days.

Thanks
Anuradha

[Joeschmoe]

Originally Posted by MasterD

Fortune: I interpreted "Okra" as "spruitjes". Or is that something else?

No spruitjes are what we call brussell sprouts

Okra is a non sweet fruit and looks like this

[mintyway]

Regarding the cracks in your hands, I believe this is caused by handling many fruits everyday. My gf used to work a few hours a day in a smoothies shop. Her hands quickly ressembled those of an old mineworker : black from the açai, cracked to the core from the acidity of the fruits.

So, like Inquisitive Raven has said : use a moisturizer

[MasterD]

Originally Posted by wbuch

Do you think it's still true that it would cause blood-sugar problems if you don't have a low-fat diet but you eat all your fruit in a single meal separate from your other food? Or would eating it in a single meal prevent the blood sugar problems even if you eat more than 10% fat overall?

I have been doing this trial too and have not been so strict with the 10% fat rule, but that was pretty unconscious. I added one avocado to my salad and snacked on a few pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Turned out that my caloric fat ratio was 30%. I felt miserable for the last 10 days. Really. I still do. But yesterday I calculated the caloric ratios and this was a big eye opener to me, so I am going for a few fat free days and see what kind of difference it will make. I will keep you posted since this may be pretty interesting.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by MasterD

I have been doing this trial too and have not been so strict with the 10% fat rule, but that was pretty unconscious. I added one avocado to my salad and snacked on a few pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Turned out that my caloric fat ratio was 30%. I felt miserable for the last 10 days. Really. I still do. But yesterday I calculated the caloric ratios and this was a big eye opener to me, so I am going for a few fat free days and see what kind of difference it will make. I will keep you posted since this may be pretty interesting.

I'd love to hear how it goes for you.

It's so easy to overeat fat on this diet. If you eat nothing but fresh fruit and some veggies, you'll get about 5% of calories from fat automatically. So that only gives you another 5% from overt sources if you want to stay below 10%. On a 2,000 calorie diet, that's roughly an extra 11 grams of fat, which is like 1/3 of an avocado (or 1/2 of a small one). It's also less than an ounce of nuts.

So if you snack on nuts here and there, eat an avocado, or even use a little oil now and then, you can easily get 30% of your calories from fat without realizing it.

The average American, by the way, gets about 42% of their calories from fat, 42% from carbs, and 16% from protein.

[beel]

i'm going to try decreasing my fat to around 10% for a week as well and see how it effects me. i don't eat a lot of fat as it is now, but i generally eat at least a half of an avocado, if not a whole avocado daily. i don't eat as many calories as you because i'm a woman (usually about 1300-1500) but i'm realizing that avocado puts me over the edge everyday. it will have to make a huge difference for me to give up my daily avocado, but i'm willing to test it out for 7 days.

[babssoft]

reading about all the fruits and veggies has made me crave them, which has lead to an interesting new personal diet theory-- instead of "cutting back" on carbs like grains, etc., I have simply added more fruits and veggies (thereby reducing my cravings for unhealthier carbs). Thanks for stirring up the cravings, Steve! Maybe this is the start of the "Abundance Diet". Actually, maybe leave off the "Diet".

[Fortune]

I've been off 100% raw for the past few days. Don't know why it happened, but it just did. Must have been the weather.

I found it really easy to eat raw during the summer but ever since it became cold outside keeping the diet up has been tough. (A common thing, it seems.)

Also I kept gaining weight since Jan 1st, which apparently isn't so strange but it's slightly frustrating nonetheless.

Then again, I wasn't doing a 30-day trial. I did that a few times last year (and made it through) but I always went back to eating (vegetarian) junk food.

I notice the excesses are getting smaller, though, and the periods I manage to stay raw are getting longer. So I'm slowly getting there. It took some of the raw food gurus 5 to 10 years to become fully raw, so it's unreasonable to expect you can do it in 30 days.

It's good to see so many people are giving this a try. Very motivating! For me, even the improved digestion alone makes the whole thing worth it.

And yes, Okra is not spruitjes.

[SamBeaven]

Originally Posted by Inquisitive Raven

On the dried/cracked hands issue, are you washing many of those fruits and veggies? FTM, how much hand washing are you doing to remove fruit juice from your hands after eating? Too much hot soapy water willl do that to you; it has nothing to do with the diet per se. Part of the issue is that soap is drying (and detergent strips oils from your skin). The hot water just aggravates it. Warm water works better. Most of the cleaning action is from friction anyway. I haven't noticed you eating a lot fruits with a rep for meat digesting enzymes like papayas, so I doubt that's it.

I suggest that you try using a moisturizer every time you wash your hands. Apply it while your hands are stilll damp. Moisturizers basically work in two ways. One is to seal in water in that's already on your skin, hence my recommendation. The other is to attract moisture from the air. The latter works best in a humid environment... which I wouldn't expect in Las Vegas and is when you least need moisturizer anyway.

I can attest to this - I've been getting the same symptoms for about the same time working in a coffee shop, and I'm not following along on the raw food diet, so most likely the soap.

Odd synchronicity though - I've been working there since August last year and I've only just started to get the cracked knuckles now.

[MasterD]

I felt a little bit better today. I posted my daily intake on Raw Food Trial . Are there any experienced raw foodists who can skim through the foods I ate today and make any recommendations for improvement? I would really appreciate that, since I do not want to make any other unnecessary mistakes.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by MasterD

I felt a little bit better today. I posted my daily intake on Raw Food Trial . Are there any experienced raw foodists who can skim through the foods I ate today and make any recommendations for improvement? I would really appreciate that, since I do not want to make any other unnecessary mistakes.

Although I've never had a problem with it, some people apparently get stomach aches if they eat too much acid fruit (like the clementines). So if your stomach feels upset, try eating fewer acid fruits and more bananas, mangos, berries, grapes, etc.