I didn't know it was possible to feel this good.
I woke up not long ago thinking, "This is the craziest thing: I'm well past 50 and I feel sensational." I knew it was what the eccentric health advocate, Arnold Ehret, 100 years ago called "Paradise Health." I had it: physically and emotionally.
I've been on a pretty good path for a long time. Although I spent the first 30 years of my life bingeing and dieting -- always gaining or losing weight, and conversely losing and gaining my flimsy self-esteem -- I finally got so tired of that un-merry merry-go-round that I gave up the fight and was open to recovery from the inside out. I chronicle that experience, and how others can do it, too, in my book "The Love-Powered Diet: Eating for Freedom, Health, and Joy."
Once I wasn't eating for a fix anymore, I was able to move toward a plant-based diet, ending up at profound, committed veganism. Even though I did it, as Gandhi once said, "for the health of the chickens," it was a pretty decent diet for my health, too. It was easy to stay thin and avoid the heart disease and diabetes that plague both sides of my family of origin.
But about four years ago, I felt the nudge to go raw. Not 100 percent. Not slavishly or fanatically (as a compulsive overeater with a daily reprieve, I don't do well with fads and tangents). But my soul or my cells or something deep inside me pressed me to take this turn. I experimented with it for several months and enjoyed it. A cold snap that first spring sent me back to the comfort of hot soup and soy chai lattes. But later, the urge to return to raw came again. I woke up one morning and didn't want cooked food. I didn't want it the next day either. And it's gone on like that for quite some time.
I'm still not 100 percent and I'm not signing any pledges. I like being able to go with my daughter to her favorite Chinese and place have steamed veggies and brown rice, black bean sauce on the side. There will be hot soup in my life this winter. And since I do my best writing in an ever-accommodating Starbucks, I'm not even swearing off those soy chai teas; I'm just having them a lot less often. For days at a time I'm all raw, and on the days that I have something cooked, it's usually just that: something, one thing---a baked potato, garbanzos in a salad. This isn't a marriage or a religion; it's an experiment in incredible vitality.
The first thing I noticed after making the switch was how happy I felt. My default for contentment had gone up a few notches. People used to say, "How are you?" and I'd say, "Okay." That was accurate. I was perfectly okay. Now I'm more apt to say "Fabulous!" and mean that. The fog has lifted. Happiness came even before energy and strength and clarity, but those have come, too.
I drink juices and eat fruits and salads and smoothies. I have some treats: dried fruit, raw desserts, "bread" and crackers and kale chips made in a dehydrator, but mostly lots and lots (and lots) of greens: green juices, green salads, green smoothies, marinated greens. I use nuts and seeds in recipes and occasionally for eating; I have avocado a couple of times a week; and I often use salad dressing that has some flax or hemp oil in it. I know I'm not overdoing, because I feel balanced and nourished and never have that stuffed, too-much-fat feeling. Besides, after going raw, five pounds left me that I never intended to lose. If some of it comes back, that's okay.
I also don't worry about sugar. I eat fresh fruit, put bananas in smoothies and make desserts with dates and a touch here and there of maple syrup. I know I'm not getting too much of that either. Only one time, when I made grape-and-celery juice but the ratio was too much grape to too little celery, did I get the telltale sugar headache. Now I know. It's all good.
Someone told me when I was first recovering from binge-eating: "You can't do this with fear." I feel the same way about raw. It needs to be a joy and an adventure.
Strangers comment on my skin, my "glow." Although I know we're talking vegetables, not miracles, I do look quite a bit younger than I am (and younger than I did four years ago). I realize that I'm a mature woman and one of these days, incredible diet or not, I'll be a little old lady. But that state is being delayed. I don't know for how long, but today it's a whole lot of fun when I (occasionally) share my chronological age and see the person do a double-take. Ditto for watching gym people try to figure me out: I'm not young, I eat no animal protein, and yet I'm building muscle. It's a hoot to defy a worldview.
Although I'm not one to live my life counting on the New Ager's favorite, "Law of Attraction," I'm certainly "attracting" fascinating men and women of all ages who want what I have. They're showing up all over the place, as clients in my holistic life and health coaching practice, as business contacts and as friends. I have no vested interest in converting anybody, but when people want information, I'm thrilled to share it. I mean, why keep anybody out of paradise?
If they're interested, I take them shopping. And to raw restaurants (we're lucky in New York to have a delicious handful of them). And into my kitchen to whip up delicacies that surprise the heck out of a novice. And I pass along the advice that helped me:
• Don't lose too much weight. I realize this can sound like a luxury problem, but on a high-raw diet, you have to eat enough.
• Learn to love those nutrient-packed greens. Eat embarrassingly large salads. Make green lemonade -- romaine, kale, apple, lemon-- in your juicer. Whiz up green smoothies; put your fruity ingredients in the blender and then fill it with mild greens -- romaine, leaf lettuce, spinach, kale -- they'll change the color but not the taste of your shake, and if you put in enough blueberries, your "green smoothie" will be temptingly purple.
• Get a user-friendly raw recipe book that doesn't intimidate you with exotic ingredients and unfamiliar appliances. I use Jennifer Cornbleet's "Raw Food Made Easy" for one or two People more than any other cook(less) book.
• Take vitamin B12 regularly. All vegans need to do this. Taking B12 is the price of getting to be vegan, the way wearing a helmet is the price of getting to ride a motorcycle and giving up alcohol for nine months is the price of getting to have a baby. It's so easy to take a sublingual (under-the-tongue) tablet three or four times a week; you don't even have to swallow a pill.
• Consider taking vitamin D, especially if you avoid the sun (your doctor can check your levels), and perhaps an algae-based Omega 3 supplement (I use one called V-Pure; it doesn't have an oceanic aftertaste).
• Eat pumpkins seeds for zinc, Brazil nuts for selennium, seaweed for iodine.
• Read Becoming Raw, by experienced dieticians Brenda Davis, RD, and Vesanto Melina, MS, RD, to learn the solid science extant to date on being a vibrantly healthy high-raw vegan.
• Brush your teeth after eating, especially if you've been enjoying sweet or acidic fruits.
• Be nice to everybody. Some people will think you've taken leave of your senses. Others will think your "rabbit food" diet makes for a great joke. Love them anyway.
Follow Victoria Moran on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Victoria_Moran
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The reason for eating them is to keep your pores closed disallowing your body heat to escape cooling your organs leading to hypothermia and freezing. Any fresh vegetation not withstanding a frost or haven't been frostbitten is designed to open the pores to prevent heat stroke form overheating organs. I almost froze from eating oranges in winter 1982-3 because of my dress, clothes keeps the heat from thermally evaporating but my dress allows it.
I'm not saying this is the case, but if you already have low thyroid issues you may want to look for a vegan nutritionist to discuss this with and see if they can recommend some work around foods There's plenty of raw foods that do not contain goitogens.
Btw, cooking inactivates these anti-nutrients.
jv
Interesting that my daughter and my sisters all have various eating habits, all eat meat and two with terrible eating habits and I'm the healthiest of the 4 and I'm the health nut and the oldest besides and I was the last one to be diagnosed. Doctors are always amazed about the shape I'm in for my age.
Thanks for your information which I can never have too much of.
There's no connection between the consumption of animal protein and any chronic disease, including heart disease and diabetes.
No one has ever established a connection between veganism and a longer lifespan. In fact, there's no evidence that vegan diet is any healthier than a diet that contains animal protein.
If you're going write an article that is essentially a feature-length advertisement for your books, then you should be bound by the rules that other advertisers are supposed to follow: No false claims.
So her statement that the diet made it easier to stay thin which then helped avoid disease is true.
But I share your annoyance with blog posts that appear to just be advertisements. Seems to be a few of them here on HP.
"The China Study" by Dr. Campbell relates the role of animal protein causing cancer
Also, it has been documented over and over of people curing their type 2 diabetes with a high raw-vegan diet....watch "30 Days Raw" for one example
Dr. Dean Ornish has a complete program for reversing heart disease via a whole foods, plant based diet
If you follow the research, the studies are out there showing the proof that plant based diets are far healthier
Also, a comparison of the Atkins diet to the Ornish diet found that overweight, premenopausal women who followed Atkins lost more weight and had better stats where blood pressure, lipid profile and glucose levels were concerned than those who followed Ornish or two other diets.
http://jama.ama.assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/9/969
You just need a balanced diet to survive and live a long and happy life - I appreciate some people react badly to certain food types and some people have eating disorders - but the human body is fairly remarkable.
I'd rather be slightly overweight with greasy skin and be able to indulge in eating the odd steak, a bowl of noodles and a pizza than super healthy and be relying on dried kale as a treat!
But each to their own and I respect your choice....
http://winningtheobesitybattle.wordpress.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/growingyourgreens
We've been juicing apples from our tree adding just a touch of ginger; go raw one day at a time :-)
Take that word MILD seriously !
I tried green smoothies with some not so mild greens and yuk, what a waste of my mangos, banannas and other fruit.
Even the mild greens will change the taste a little, but at least it won't be unbearable.
You just told the world how to remit their cancer and blood pressure. In one of the poems on my site (Google Elijah the NatureBoy), The Tree of Life, I've penned the words
"The tree of life and fountain of youth are man's dream
and are metaphors of raw vegetation, or so it seem."
In 34 years wandering, mainly by foot, and living so close to nature I'm called NatureBoy, there were times when eating raw was the only thing available to me. At 65 so many people tells me I look, bodily, in my forties. I'm a long way from being totally raw although it's my preferred diet.
The times when I was eating about 90% raw, my thinking cleared, energy soured, sweat became sweet and very little rest was needed while walking up to 50 miles a day, and sometimes more. Your experiences is a confirmation of mine so there is little I can add, but I do want encourage you to stick close to it, it is a medical insurance eliminator.
Since living this life, just by paying attention to the pains I've had a hairline fracture healed in less than 3 weeks, a snake bite eliminated from my body in about an hour and poison passed through me without making me sick. Therefore, there is a lots more to eating natural than just looks and weight loss.
It was done by just observing what was happening in my body, staying relaxed and allowing it to work its way through my body while not getting excited or worried. That is the "spiritual way" to self healing, being attentive to what is happening in the body without being concern for possible consequences.