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frustrated new raw girl

hello all. I have spent the last couple days reading through the forums here. It is very informative. So, I have signed up in the hopes of getting some questions answered. theres a few things Im struggling with.

1. coffeeeeeeeee. I am an addict. I have stopped drinking it in the afternoons, but I drink A LOT in the mornings. I wake up at 4am everyday, so i feel i cant function without it. 2. GUM. at work, I seem to constantly chew gum. I dont know why I feel this need. its a crazy habit i formed when i tried to quit smoking (and failed). and the gum gives me bad bloat! yet I still chew it.

so any suggestions on how to ween myself off of coffee and gum would be so appreciated.

the other thing is, nuts. I seem to crave nuts more since going raw, and I think they are hindering weightloss and possibly causing weight gain…which I am very much not okay with. Of course, I have chosen to attempt the RAW diet for other reasons besides weight loss, but that helped in the end decision to try RAW. I ate pretty healthy prior, but I still feel like I should be seeing or at least feeling lighter….and Im simply not.

I have been 90-95% RAW for about a month. mostly the non raw stuff is the coffee and gum and the nuts sometimes arent raw.

I also feel bloated alot. even without the gum chewing.

and I always feel hungry

example As for what I eat/drink is…

green smoothies. although I havent the last week cause im getting a vitamix saturday..i blew the motor on my bullet blender. whoops. a lot of fresh juiced veggies. cucumber/tomato/parsley/mint/onlion salad with ACV/lemon juice. whole tomatoes as snacks. an apple here and there maybe once or twice a week. I do really bad with sweet fruits so I dont eat sweet fruit often. i will have the occasional gourmet raw dessert or meal.

i workout usually 5 days a week. 4 of which are with a trainer. I do 1 hour of cardio on days without a trainer. usually 40 mins of cardio and 30 mins of weights on days with trainer…plus sprints and such with trainer one of the days.

any advice would be appreciated. thanks so much!

D

Comments

  • amysueamysue Raw Newbie

    ddreams76 – I was a coffee drinker too, only a cup a day, but I loved it. I’ve been raw for a year and had cut it back to one or two cups a week as a treat. Now since going 100% raw I’ve given it up. I don’t know if you’ve ever quit but I had brain crushing headaches for at least a full day and night so I would recommend easing off of it, considering you’re drinking quite a bit. Also – on the days I drank coffee on raw I was starving too. It must have messed up my blood sugar because I don’t have that problem now that I’m off of it.

    As far as your appetite goes, most raw foodists recommend eating till you’re full and not depriving yourself while you’re transitioning, which for most people means lots of nuts, crackers, breads, heavier foods. Transition can take a long time. Keep in mind you’re burning a lot of calories. I’m not QUITE as active but I would just listen to your body, keep reading.

    Don’t know what to tell you about the gum, sorry!

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    Onions, garlic, radishes, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. contain sulfur & can cause gas/bloating if eaten without some type of fat to help them digest. A lot of times, I get bloated if my body is trying to cleanse. Lots of water & greens seem to help me. It does take time to adjust, though. As for the weight issue, really raw nuts don’t seem to affect weight negatively like a lot of the ones that say they’re raw but really aren’t, and if you’re weight training, you may be gaining weight by putting on muscle. I don’t know you enough to know if any of these things are really applicable to you, but I do know that each person can find his/her own way to health if determined to do so. Caffeine withdrawal was a week or more of horrible headaches & sleepiness for me, and I was only drinking Mountain Dew (about a gallon a day) – not coffee. It was way before raw. Going off easy might be easier on you.

  • thanks so much for your responses. I went to the health store last night to do some produce shopping and found a coffee replacement made of soy…thought I’d get that and mix it with my real coffee to start weening off. Sort of like a 1/2 caff without the bad chemicals.

    angie: I have been working out consistently for s acouple years so Im sure the weight gain isnt from more muscle. but, I am trying to keep in my head, that im on a road to a healthier me so I will do what i have to do for now in order to transition properly. I will purchase some real raw nuts as well and see if that helps.

    SIDE NOTE OF FUN: I went to one of our local raw restaurants last night and had such an amazing experience. i just wanted a green smoothie to go, but ended up sitting at the drink counter for nearly 2 hours talkign to the amazing woman behind the counter. the energy in that place was awesome…especially coming from this girl…nicknamed “sun.” She fed me all sorts of samples. I didnt want fruits or sweets in my drink, so we created a crazy green drink that wasnt on the menu but tasted amazing and was full of all sorts of goodness and superfoods. the guy sitting next to me joined in our fun and shared the drink with me…he was so impressed he wrote down the ingredients to make sure he gets the same thing again when he returns. The drink gave me intense boost of natural energy…it was a blast of fun! And when I walked out the door of that place I realized…the energy that girl and the guy next to me has…the real smiles and love for life…is what i am searching for and wanting back in my life. And It made me realize it is a goal that is attainable and worth the bumps in the road to get to. I think Im on the right path…I hope.

    anyway, it was such a lovely experience…I wanted to share it.

    thanks again for your responses…I will keep trudging forward on this path as best I can. after I feel comfortable with raw…and feeding myself what my body needs…I will again try to quit smoking….the biggest challenge on my list of things to conquer!

    D

    P>S> I have one more question…any experiences/thoughts with E3live?

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    you know, if you just keep going eating and drinking as much raw food and greens as you can your addictions will fall away in time. Your body will wake up and start to crave the raw foods and the addictions won’t seem as appetizing and it will be easier to quit. I was all raw except for coffee for about a year, quitting coffee was easy when I finally did it because everything else I was taking in was raw.

    E3 live is supposed to be good, but it is so expensive. It is just algae which is wild and fresh, but spirulina is the same algae it is just farmed, if you buy organic spirulina which is high quality, then OK it is dried and not fresh, and farmed and not wild, but you can have more of it coz it is way cheaper! I love spirulina!

    I have been posting about nuts, here is one I made earlier, you might find it interesting, :

    “Try our Dead Food List We have got most of the suspect items on there. The thing with nuts is that Brazils, Pecans, Macadamias, all are definately boiled or steamed when they are shelled. Almonds if they are from USA are definately pasteurised unless you bought them illegally from a farmer, or maybe it is still legal to do that, I’m not sure. The rest of them: the pine nuts, walnuta and hazelnuts although they are not usually boiled or steamed during shelling, they are dehydrated/dried and for all we know this could be at a high temperature. So if you are going to eat nuts those are the most raw ones to eat. If you want to be full on with your rawness, or if you have been 100% for a while with ‘the most likely to be raw’ nuts and feel like something isn’t right then just leave the nuts out and like me, you may feel amazingly better. I now only use sprouted sunflower seeds, and coconut butter/oil I know they are both raw. But I have been all raw for 3 1/2 years, it is only recently that I felt the urge to quit nuts.”

    So it may be a good idea to veer towards the coconut butter, raw oil, avocado, bananas to use to make things creamy and heavy. Like I said, some of these nuts may well be raw, but if you are having problems with them then maybe they aren’t. You said you ate a pretty healthy diet before, maybe you need to try raw nut free? There are alternatives which don’t mean you have to compromise on taste and decadence levels. :)

  • amysueamysue Raw Newbie

    Love the story! How lucky you are to have a raw restaurant nearby. Mine’s in my kitchen. I hope you have lots more magical moments like that!

  • thanks amysue. yeah I am lucky. I actually have 2 raw restuarants near me within a mile or two of each other…which is within a mile or two from where I live and work. Im very blessed that way. one is very casual (the one in the story) and the other is a bit more of a sit down type place. both are yummmmyyyyyyy though.

    I feel great this morning. really energized which is odd cause i didnt sleep at all last night (havent had a solid nights sleep in over 8 months). but I feel fabulous.

  • water water water. whatever you’re drinking now, add a couple glasses to push out the bloat. i find i don’t think about coffee at all if i go to bed at a consistent, slightly earlier time. hope that helps.

  • thecavsmanthecavsman Raw Newbie

    I agree w/ venti about the water. If I myself drank as much water as I should, I would save a little on food. Some days I overeat – I think a lot of people do. It’s no coincidence that the days where I never overeat are where I drink the 60 oz that I should be drinking (divide ur weight in pounds in half and that is the amount of oz).

    Just eat whenever you are hungry. If you are always hungry, always eat. It’s not as bad as you think: meaning you may go 2 hungry hours where all you would have needed was 2 more bananas in order to not be hungry all that time. Just because you are hungry for a long time doesn’t mean that you needed all that much food. Transitioning, I just ate to my heart’s content.

    As for coffee – read about how bad it is for you. Sometimes you need some brainwashing to be able to change. I also have a very busy life in terms of trying to find sleep – especially with raw food prep and more importantly, cleaning the kitchen. But as a raw vegan I can function find on 6 hours of sleep per night for an extended period of time – I can do days of 5 hours at a time – and even a couple nights of 3 hours per night and still feel exactly the same all day. Now these aren’t optimum amounts of sleep, and I don’t always lack sleep – but it just shows how much a healthy diet gives you the energy to wake up fresh no matter when. I’ve even played pick up basketball after an all night project. Pretty soon you won’t need the coffee. In the mean time, here is a healthy pick-me-up that I use when its time to really focus:

    http://www.dherbs.com/store/brain-tuner-tea-p-2…

    If you don’t feel like buying it from the guy whose link I sent you, make your own safe, herbal pick me up tea using similar ingredients, or maybe ingredients that you find researching. I tried brewing just Gotu Kola so I couldn’t have to pay for shipping again, but it really isn’t the same as one of these combination teas. There may be other sources.

  • I recently quit smoking, so I figure I’ll explain how I went about it. I hope the ideas help you. :)

    I identified what it is about the habit that was most addictive. For me, it was that it was associative—I smoked after/before certain things I did throughout the day, and other than those times, I never actively desired a cigarette. As much as was reasonable, I tried to change some of those stimuli (smoking in the car was a tough one, but I started playing my music quieter so I’d want to keep the windows closed, and that helped).

    Then I started substituting some of my smoke breaks with short walks, often involving a lollipop if I was feeling oral-stimmy. I figure it’s reasonable to enjoy 10-minute breaks throughout the day, to just stand outside and breathe, and I think that’s a big part of smoking’s appeal.

    Then I actively decided to stop being gradual and easy on myself, and work on cutting back—it was a lot easier by this point. I started not-smoking every alternate time I wanted to; it was reassuring to tell myself “Good job. You can have one later” when my friends had a cigarette and I didn’t. Then I could tell myself that more frequently, always saying “Well, not now, but next time I can.” It’s like procrastinating, so it felt quite natural to me, only it had a good effect. :) After that, I started smoking only half at a time now and then, and then increased the frequency of doing so. This weaned me off of the chemical part gradually.

    This is the part that helped me the most, I think—I put a solid date in my head to be done. I used my birthday. Nice and far (over a month away at the time), and also a day that already had a feeling of “change” attached to it. Instead of going “This is my last pack” and not having the rest of the circumstances in my head, I chose to pick a day, make specific plans for that day, and daydream about them in detail while thinking “I’m not going to smoke at all that day, or ever again.” (I suggest not making the Chosen Day the last day you smoke and then quitting afterward, because that just places importance on smoking. Make it the first day of calling yourself a nonsmoker, so that that idea is reinforced in your mind.) Then I’d visualize the days following that, as best I could, involving new, healthy habits instead.

    As my birthday approached, I’d tell myself “Okay, you can have one cigarette between now and (blah day)”. I did fail on that a few times, and smoke more here and there than I meant to (generally when I was with friends who smoke), but I tried never to beat myself up over it. Praising yourself when you do something good is way more effective than being upset with yourself when you do something bad. I eased into the transition, going longer and longer between cigarettes, and telling myself “If you can go one day without it, you can go another day without it. If you can go one week without it, you can go another week without it.”

    Additionally, I did a light fast the week before the week of my birthday. It wasn’t a huge major detox, but I believe the detox effect it did have directly helped my cigarette cravings. Also, during the cutting-back period, try to do things that will help you notice what an effect just cutting back can have on your body. I’m a singer, and a lot of my vocal range that I used to have started coming back—and my stamina and breath control for things like running and playing ultimate frisbee really increased. It felt very rewarding.

    I had a cigarette the night before my birthday, and haven’t had one since. I feel a lot better, and I don’t crave them anymore. Once in a while I miss the feeling, but it’s foreign enough to me by now that it smells different (which keeps it from associating with the same exact memories). My smoker friends also help to keep me accountable.

    No method will truly be equally effective for all people, but I hope you can get some ideas from this that may help you! :)

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