6 billion ways to transition

Comments

• joannabanana Raw Newbie

  hey flora. for me, i've found that keeping a food diary has basically changed my life. do you have one? i just use a notebook and write about everything i ate that day, why i ate it, and how much i exercised. i used to binge-eat a lot and then exercise for hours on end, so it's helped me to write stuff down. i usually have a smoothie in the morning, a random amount of fruit for lunch (i usually do apples, grapes, bananas, and oranges-5 or 6 pieces), and then a big salad for dinner and a baked potato. i usually have a smoothie after that to get my sweet fix in. there's no wrong or right way to transition. i think it's about balance and really thinking about what you're eating.
• kellyanne Raw Newbie

  hi flora! it's important to set attainable goals for yourself so that you aren't continually setting yourself up to fail otherwise it creates a vicious cycle where you cave in and then really beat yourself up. it's important to have fun with it and give yourself all the extra love and attention you need. if raw vegan is what you're going for then it may help to focus on one step at a time like eating raw during the day but eating a cooked vegan meal at night until you feel you've mastered that. i think it would help with the binging if you let yourself have simple cooked meals while you're transitioning. i think the binging comes when we try to restrict ourselves too much too fast. while you're transitioning, you may have emotions that surface that you had been stuffing down with food. it's important to address these otherwise you won't be able to move forward with your diet. you can have all the knowledge in the world about diet but not succeed unless you also take care of the emotional side. i find journaling really helps me to understand my emotions and address them properly. take it as a learning experience whenever you cave in and eat cooked food. figure out why you ate it, address it and move forward. don't beat yourself up for it or you will never move forward.

  diet wise, i feel the best on low-fat fruits and greens/and or veggies. try different things out and pay attention to how you feel. i used to eat high fat and got sick and my body lead me to a simpler fruit and green diet and i feel amazing now. it's really important to eat enough calories though and to feel satiated from your meals. i find it's a lot easier if i eat around 2500 calories a day. If I under-eat I get cravings for calorie dense cooked food.

  while transitioning, it may help to eat things like steamed veggies, potatoes and squashes when you get bad cravings. i didn't feel as good when i ate these things as when i eat raw fruits and greens, but i felt much better eating these things than when i ate complicated cooked meals with salt.

  hope this helps :)
• freewitheft Raw Newbie

  There are lots of folks here who don't like nuts, but they helped me tremendously until my body adjusted to eating less dense food. Basically, I would eat my ton of fruits or veggies, salad or smoothie or whatever, then have a handful of nuts afterwards if I just wasn't feeling full. Sometimes I would feel full and not need any, but then be completely on empty again an hour later. So.....I'm eating far less nuts now that I'm further along the transition, but they definitely helped when I needed them. And I figured it was far better to have those than the heavy grains/carbs that I was wanting to top myself off.
• flora

  Wow Kellyanne, that's practically thirty pieces of fruit in one single day, not including the celery, dates, or spinach.

  I'm going to try that sometime. I think I would have to force myself into eating thirty, I'll try fifteen for a start. I remember this raw runner girl once telling me she would eat twelve bananas a day, and at the time I thought she was crazy. I was really into the David Wolfe pyramid food group plan at the time, and thought holy cow twelve bananas is way too much sugar. She also told me she didn't eat any oil, and I thought that was outright stupid, especially as a runner. It's weird how your perspective changes over time. Have you ever read the book the Fruit Hunters, I've been looking around for a copy?

  Well thanks for your day in the life.
• the59sound Raw Newbie

  12? we low fat raw vegans can eat 30 or more depending on our activity level :)
• RawKidChef Raw Newbie

  bananas are too hybridized and sweet for me. I eat 20 mac apples a day! Plus about 4 white sapotes, some fresh dates, a bunch of raw apple cider, a bit of kombucha, and I'd eat a lot more varieties if I could get my hands on real, tree ripe, fresh picked high quality fruit. I used to go through blips where i'd eat like 10-20 kiwis a day.
• flora

  Hello all

  thanks for the posts, I don't think I ever did that before.

  I did start journaling and realized when I say things in writing to myself about what I ate and how I felt, it is easier to deal with guilt over things. And easier to focus on what I'm doing that's healthy. I like the idea from joannabanana of eating all fruit for lunch, and I like the idea from kellyanne about having simple baked or steamed foods rather than eating big complex meals. freewitheft is right about nuts, I find if I don't add nuts then there's no end to what I can eat.

  The weird thing is that I'm not transitioning from a SAD diet necessarily, I've just always been very polar over foods. Binge eating became normal for me in puberty because I was so thin everyone thought they could critisize on how anorexic or skinny I was and I would constantly stuff my face just to show them I ate and was normal. So, that became a habit and now that I'm in my late twenties I still crave junk food. Last year I made my new years resolution to quit potato chips and people laughed and said, you can still have chips just don't have them all the time, but if I have one, I'm heading out the door for that second big bag of another flavor before you know it. So, for me if it's healthy its all or nothing, one day it might be all healthy and the next day nothing. Part of binge eating on Raw is that I never feel full eating raw foods, I could eat all day. Why is that, I eat a lot of avocado and nutty things too and nothing. And then I'm hungry in an hour. It becomes a sort of obsessive compulsion. Maybe I'm just not eating enough, six peices of fruit for lunch seems like a lot, but maybe just because it's all fruit it seems a lot. I'm at the stage now where I eat raw all day and have a cooked diner and a raw desert if possible.

  So, if any of you could just give me a day in the life or an example of a raw day hunger free then that would be excellent. Just so I could compare what I do with what others do.
• kellyanne Raw Newbie

  an average day for me usually consists of 3-5 meals.

  -juice of 12 oranges

  -1 pomegranate

  -10 dates and celery

  -8 bananas blended with a cup of spinach

  -8 kiwis

  i eat enough to feel satiated for hours. when i first started eating this way i had to learn to ignore my mind and listen to my body to know when i ate enough. my mind would tell me a few pieces of fruit was plenty for a meal but my body was obviously hungry for more. i also had to get used to a different full feeling. when i'm done eating a meal of fruit i feel good, not tired like i do after a higher fat raw or cooked meal. also, it seems that discomfort in the stomach is often associated with hunger pangs when it is actually previous food still being digested.
• flora

  Wow I really underestimated how many fruit a person can eat. I bought four bananas two tangerines, six oranges, an apple, a papaya and an avocado today with the intention of eating all of it. So far, I've only eaten six. I think the trick is to eat before you are hungry, because that's when I make all of the bad decisions. Twenty apples, holy cow. I'm amazed.

  Don't you guys get sick of apples after the first three? Is a Sapote a Cherimoya or apple custard?
• RawKidChef Raw Newbie

  a sapote is similar to a cherimoya but not quite the same thing. it's round and green on the outside, yellow when ripe, with smooth skin, and creamy white flesh. size of an apple. they're high in protein for a fruit (5 grams each)and are really, really good. I get organic fresh white sapotesfrom http://www.rain.org/~sals/cus1a.html they have cherimoyas too.

  and I love mac apples so much that it's hard to get sick of them, lol, but after 15 in the first half of the day I am sick of them, then in the evening I want more....lol. you're idea of eating before you are hungry is a good one. That it's less tempting to eat something bad.
• kellyanne Raw Newbie

  i actually don't care for apples at all for some reason but i love sapote. i just got a bunch of white sapote today. make sure it's really soft and sweet smelling before you eat it. cherimoyas are delicious too.

  it may take a little while to get used to eating that much fruit but when you do eat that much it makes it much easier to stay raw. i find if i don't eat enough by the early evening i get strong cravings for calorie dense cooked food. also, to prevent bloating and getting full too fast it really helps to properly combine or mono-meal and to chew thoroughly. if you make smoothies it helps to drink it slowly and chew it.
• flora

  I started to eat the fruit, but then it was like the grocery stores didn't want me anymore. Is anything ripe today? I guess I'm asking a lot since it's minus ten degrees out but does anyone have a mango, a meesly little yellow mango so I can put away those hard pears and enjoy some ripe fruit for a change. But, I did find some really cheap grapefruit so, I'm content with that for now. Feeling good and since I'm not making everything I eat, just peeling a banana here or assembling a salad there, I guess it's a little less overwhelming just to find something to eat. As for 80/10/10 I can imagine the merits, but it's way beyond my scope for now. Twelve fruits is a goal in itself. Also, up here in Montreal I have limitations on what I can order, allthough I have never tried, but from what I understand the shipping fees plus brokerage fees would be pretty steep. I will enjoy what I can find around here, not organic, but variety is important too. I can see how the fruit way works to stay raw. I am finding that if I just focus on eating as many fruits as I can in a day then the raw part just seems to happen. I really like having all of this fruit in front of me and picking out what I like and eating it with some dates and a smoothie.
• LilEarthMuffin Raw Newbie

  hi flora =)

  i have found a food diary does really help me. I usually do a fruit veggie smoothie for breakfast, fruit or a salad for lunch and for dinner i will have a raw soup and a salad. my snacks are always fresh fruit and veggies, and i may have hummus or a dressing with it.