I have had tons of questions lately about how to get started with a raw food diet. I had one more recipe to share with you this week, but I'll save that for next week. This post is too important to delay!!
What do I eat?
Where do I begin?
What kinds of things do I buy at the grocery store? Click
here for a list I compiled, although you don't need to go crazy when you're first getting started.
How do you stay disciplined?
What if I eat something I'm not supposed too?
So, here's a fairly shortened version of my answers for you!
First of all, let me just say that starting on a raw food diet can be pretty overwhelming at first. It's a huge lifestyle change, and it's very different than what the general population eats. Ask yourself a few questions about why you want to get started.
Increased energy, better overall health, disease prevention, healing of some chronic ailment, clearer skin, weight loss, anti-aging, decreasing the intake of harmful chemicals found in conventional foods, or maybe you just want to be good to your body for a change etc.
There are so many reasons why people decide to go raw. Not only will you get the benefit of achieving your primary goal, but you'll have the added benefits of all of the other things I listed above and then some! It's a win win situation and that's exciting! I can also tell you from personal experience that you will feel better.
If you are genuinely serious about improving your health and well being, you have to make that commitment to yourself and do the best you can. If you mess up, don't beat yourself up. Figure out why it is that you messed up, and learn from it. If you trip and fall, you aren't likely going to just lay there. Supposing you didn't break anything, you get up and move whatever it was you tripped on. I can tell you that when you're eating a high raw diet, you don't have so many cravings. That seems to be such a huge problem among women in particular. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense as to why the cravings are so diminished. If you feed your body good fuel and it gets the vitamins and minerals it needs, it doesn't make you crave the bad stuff in an attempt to get the good stuff. Many cravings are also driven by chemicals that are found in conventional and processed foods. Whenever possible, try very hard to eat organic. Organic produce is grown in a richer nutrient soil, so your food will be higher in those good nutrients. Throw away ALL plastic containers and switch to glass too. The chemicals in the plastic, that leech onto your food, can mimic hormones!
Self control. How do you control yourself? Here's a scenario: Say you see a fabulous pair of boots, priced at $1500. You make an impulsive buy with money that you don't have. What happens next? Despite the fact that the boots might look and feel really great at first, you might start feeling guilty or even resentful. You may even realize that they aren't that fabulous at the cost of how they make you feel inside. You suddenly realize that now you have to work 10 times harder, picking up extra hours to pay for them, totally stressing you out, or cut out other things that you had planned to do with that money. Our bodies work in a similar way. If we make an impulse decision to eat something bad for us, despite the fact that it looks really good, our body has to pay for it. Our body is an incredible creation and goes to work immediately to repair the damage you just did. It may even have to sacrifice in other areas, like our immune system, to make up for that damage. And many times, we realize that what we ate wasn't really that great or worth it.
I find that self control for me comes from a desire to take care of my body. After all, I only have one, although having a couple extras sure would be nice at times:) I consciously think about what that "thing" is that I'm about to eat and how it will affect my body. Most likely, I will not feel good after I eat it, my skin may break out, I could get a headache, my immune system weakens, or maybe it will leech much needed minerals from my body. (Like meat, but that's a whole separate blog post people, and one that personally took me a LONG time to comprehend, d/t my loves of building muscle. Check it out
here.) Most people probably don't think like this though, so just remember those $1500 boots!
You can make getting started really easy on yourself. First, start out by drinking lots of water. Raw food guru, David Wolfe, suggests starting your day with 1 liter of water (before anything else) to help get your colon moving. I know, I know, no one likes to talk about poop, (I'm an ER nurse so unfortunately, I have to worry about other people's poop) but it's really important. If you have stool sitting in your colon, it's likely releasing toxins back into your body that are making you sick! It's more disgusting thinking that people have sludge in their colon as opposed to people who have more frequent bowel movements and have a cleaner, healthier colon. Just sayin!! Second, don't forget to remind yourself that raw food is not and does not have to be complicated! Carrots and celery, a piece of fruit, a salad, or even some homemade trail mix is all raw. You do not have to go overboard in trying to add raw foods to your diet. When getting started, just add a leafy green salad with/for lunch and dinner. That's not that complicated! Pick a raw snack, like an apple, or better yet, some veggies. You can work up to the more complicated (only because they require a
dehydrator to be raw) stuff like
Kale chips, which I'm shoving into my mouth as I type and dropping them all over my computer, which my husband loathes! Not the kale chips, but the dropping of food particles on my computer. I use it in the kitchen all of the time! Third, you can also add other things throughout the day, like a smoothie, and don't forget to throw in some spinach or something else green. So, pick one or two things to start with and go from there. The more raw you add, the better you will feel and the more your body will thank you. No kidding!
Here's another fabulous way to add in something small to get you started, and it tastes like normal food.
I forgot to add in one question above. What if I don't like the taste of healthy foods? This is PART of my husbands problem. And I emphasize part because most of the time if he, or I rather,(wink, wink) forces himself to try something, he actually likes it. I did read some interesting information in one of David Wolfe's books, "Eating for Beauty" that dealt with this issue. "Eating raw foods increases one's taste sensations and the sensitivity of the taste buds. Many people cannot taste properly for two reasons. The first reason is that their taste buds have been dulled by eating cooked foods. The second reason is that they have a zinc deficiency. Eating zinc-rich raw foods over time (such as poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, and pecans) gradually returns one's taste buds back to normal, allowing for more heightened taste pleasure." He also wrote, "When you eat raw plant-foods and choose to move away from animal food for a considerable period of time, you become more alkaline and eventually reacquire your true sense of taste and smell." Wolfe, D. (2009). Eating for Beauty. Berkely: North Atlantic Books. (BTW, I'll go into the whole "more alkaline" issue in another post. It's lengthy, but fascinating!)
If you are up for adding one new appliance to your kitchen, I strongly recommend getting yourself a juicer. Click
here to read why.
Two other great motivators, that really
got me started were the documentaries, "Food Matters" and "Food Inc." Fabulous! Must watch!! I sometimes go back and watch them again and again to remind myself of why it is that I do what I do!
Alrighty then! This is a lot of information to take in, but I hope that it helps you feel motivated. You can do anything that you set your mind too, just come up with a plan and start slowly. I'm happy to share any knowledge I've learned along the way, and hope you can enjoy the process as much as I have!
"KNOWLEDGE IS THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOMEONE WHO SUCCEEDS ON A RAW PLANT-FOOD APPROACH AND ONE WHO DOES NOT. THIS IS BOTH SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNED KNOWLEDGE. CONTINUE THE LEARNING PROCESS IN EVERY FACET OF YOUR LIFE." DAVID WOLFE.
