Before being enlightened about the raw food movement, I was a horrible eater. I'd eat frozen pizza nearly 4 times per week, cold cut deli meat sandwiches daily, and more of the same processed and DEAD foods that everyone seems to eat in America (cupcakes, chips, etc.). I did incorporate occasional fruit and vegetables as a daily part of my diet, but not nearly enough to make a difference.
After I watched the documentary Food Matters, the next day I forced myself to eat only RAW foods. To me there was no other option. I went nearly 3 days before learning to listen to my body. I was under-eating my daily need of calories, not that I pay too much attention to calorie detail anymore, but at first I thought it'd be logical to keep track. I literally was eating only 900-1500 calories daily, and these were days that I was exercising (via skateboarding) for a couple of hours. Normally, I believe my body requires somewhere between 2200-3000 calories on days that I don't do much exercise, so you could see the possible problem.
Nevertheless, I did one thing right during this 3 day "trial" - I drank plenty of water. Under-eating at this stage wasn't really a horrible thing either, as I was actually in the early stages of learning my body, as well as getting used to eating pounds upon pounds of fruit and vegetables. I did experience night sweats and hallucinations during my second night of sleep; I believe as a result of the "cleansing" my body was doing. I immediately started having more frequent and more comfortable bowel movements on day 2 and immediately found myself urinating about once every hour or two. My skin stunk, and I could actually feel all the bad things in my body being pushed out every which way my body could find.
When the morning of day 3 rolled around, I had lost about 6 lbs of total body weight, and after skating for an excessive 4 or 5 hours that day, I felt horrible and decided to "treat" my body to a slice of pizza. It initially satisfied my cravings and hunger, but about 10 minutes after finishing it, while driving in the car, I got dizzy and lightheaded, almost feeling like I was under the influence of some drug I had never experienced. In the 3 short days I experimented with RAW foods, my body had done some real work excreting the toxins from my body, and I was letting some more back in. My body did not approve. This slice of pizza did three very important things for me that I consider essential to where I am today with my current eating habbits. First most, it satisfied the initial calorie requirement for my body, allowing me to feel satisfied and more so providing my body with the much needed fuel I had been denying it for 3 days. Secondly, it allowed me to realize that I needed to listen to my body and prioritize getting the correct amount of calories, whether RAW or not. Lastly, although it wasn't the right food to eat, it allowed me to realize the potential of my body. In only 3 days, my body had done so much positive work cleansing many of the toxins I had lingering in my body, something I originally thought would take weeks.
After this initial 3 day trial, I decided that incorporating more fruits and vegetables into my diet was essential. I attempted my best to eat as much live foods as possible, but as much as that first slice of pizza in 3 days helped me, it also hindered my progress ever so slightly. It got me in a rythm of using cooked foods as a crutch whenever I felt my calorie need wasn't being met. I still was eating well over 50% RAW, most of the time above 66% RAW, which was an amazing improvement from my previous eating lifestyle. My calorie intake was now getting a little closer to where it needed to be with the help of the cooked foods, but still wasn't quite high enough: something I would learn with time. My bowels immediately got more infrequent, although I was still making sure the water intake was high, so there was still lots of bathroom visits. Also good to note here is I was sticking to strickly vegan foods. However, as I said, this crutch soon caused more harm than help. I occasionally started treating myself to meat and dairies, after which I'd really cruitinzie myself and swear that I'd stick purely to a vegan cooked diet, high in fruits and veggies. This, again, did both benefit me and hurt me in my progress, but ultimately the good outweighed the bad, as I learned to balance my body's needs well and truly start to listen to what it needed.
After a few months of this vegan cooked diet, very high in fruits and vegetables (still always at least 50% RAW daily, occasionally all the way up to 100%), I really think I overdid it the days surrounding Thanksgiving. I allowed myself to eat a bit more cooked food than I had gotten used to, probably failing below my 50% mark of RAW foods for the day. This caused me some real discomfort which I hadn't felt in quite some time. I was excessively tired and exhausted, as well as dehydrated, a feeling I'd sometimes observe after eating an abundance of cooked foods, even before I learned about the concepts of the RAW food diet.
After initially discovering the potentials of the lifestyle, I always wanted to commit to the full 30 days, but just never got around to it. I've decided that now is the time. I feel that through the obstacles I've faced, I've definitely learned more than I could have through simply hours and hours of research. I'll admit, I've probably done over a hundred hours of online research, watching videos, reading through blogs, forums and comments, as well as sifting through thousands of pages of products on various different online retailers. I definitely know that this few months of transition has been extremely important in my overall journey into the RAW lifestlye, and whether or not I succeed in a complete transition, it will have ultimately contributed to my new successes, whatever they may be.
Although a daunting task, which has already proved to be difficult and trying, I feel there is no better time to start teaching yourself about the health benefits of better eating than right now. Eventually, through hard word, no matter where you are in your journey to that one specific end point, you can always look back at the origins and really analyze and appreciate every little detail which has contributed to where you've arrived. And that is truly something. Only through writing my experiences now have I truly realized how essential each step has been to my successes thus far, and can only hope that I continue on this journey to end up at a point where I am content with who I have become.
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