My 1st week as a Raw Foodist

Raw foodist

Finally, I took the plunge.. YippIe! So far I have been enjoying fresh raw sprouts mostly with other cooked dishes like brown rice & mashed potatoes (in order to beef up my calories). All the while I was eerily aware of the enzyme-less-ness of the cooked carbos. Now, sprouts are the richest sources of all nutrients EXCEPT carbohydrates. Do I call myself raw foodist?

This may be the manna from heaven for weight-loss enthusiasts but for weight-gain wanna-bes like me – I must confess, I felt a bit stuck with cooked foods STILL un-avoidable on my plate. This was largely because I had no time to learn about how to methodically transition to a complete raw living foods diet. But then destiny intervened & recently I happened to come across this bare comment by a newbie raw foodist (in some forum) expressing surprise that he never thought potatoes can be eaten RAW!

And that ‘revelation’ kept ringing in the back of my head on & off for a few days until I gathered enough courage to give it a shot myself. What motivated me further was the fact that I felt so sleepy after almost every lunch; & caffeine is more of a problem than a solution we all know. So one fateful afternoon, too lazy to cook or to go out for eating, & too wary of falling asleep again after a cooked meal, I finally cajoled myself to make the move. After more than an hour of dilly-dallying I finally brought myself before the kitchen counter all set to “bite the bullet”… errr… a mere potato in this case… But yeah, Virgin RAW.

After a thorough wash I peeled off the skin, cut a slice & ….. goddamn shove it under my palate.

Not that bad!‘ I was bemused after my 1st bite. But then of course couldn’t take the next bite on its own. Luckily had a few ripe bananas nearby & they helped me to show the rest of it down. Burp!

Yikes! I FINISHED IT?!

And then another one…

Woop! Woop!! That was my 1st complete carbo-rich raw meal ever.

I felt quite light after the meal – no drowsiness at all. Hurray!

With all that new enthusiasm I successfully tackled a raw yam the next day – again with ripe bananas for company. But then I almost puked after the second time I had that.

Not to be discouraged, I tactically switched over to sweet potatoes. It was more palatable – but then I soon realized that after most of those meals I would invariably feel like throwing-out as if I have over-eaten.

Then it dawned on me that unlike a cooked food diet we don’t get the usual signal of feeling ‘fill’ which tells us to stop eating. Which meant, I would usually continue eating based on my (mis)judgement – I used to go for the same amount as my erstwhile cooked meal intake. Gradually I reduced my intake, but only when it came down significantly that my post-meal transient nausea went away. So I was indeed ‘over-eating’.

But that was not the end of it – a couple of times, as I approached the kitchen to prepare my 100% raw-carbo meal – just the thought of it was enough to make me feel nauseated again. “My body is resisting” I surmised & went for the old-fashioned ‘paganic’ cooked meal on those occasions.

When I did revert back to a completely raw meal – I found myself feeling hungry again within 2 hours of the intake. I ignored my hunger as I wasn’t used to eating so frequently – & guess what? At all of 61 kgs, I still tragically lost 1 FULL kg by end of the week; because of the overall reduction in the quantum of my diet.

Worse than that – my stool formation wasn’t enough (given my low intake & the high absorption rate of raw foods through the small intestine) – & that made me somewhat constipated. I also experienced lot of gassiness (aggravated by constipation). I reasoned it might be because of the sudden surge of insoluble fibers in my large intestine thanks to an entirely raw diet. Remember cooking breaks down most of the insoluble fibers – & that is bad for digestion. My intestinal flora had a party-time feasting on the big influx of insoluble fibers causing an unending “supply” of ozone-depleting methane & pungent H2S (besides the innocuous carbon-dioxide etc). Luckily, since I was by myself all the time so there was no “collateral damage”.

The experience

But then methane is flammable, so I was careful not to go near naked fire. Anyways I had no use of the stove anymore, so it’s perfectly safe for a raw-foodist to ‘gass-out’, I reckoned.

On those days when I (took pity on myself &) rescinded to a cooked food diet, my daily motions regularized & flatulence disappeared into thin air (pun intended). Thank God, I felt safe again (to go back to civilization).

So at this stage I really don’t know how this (mis-)adventure is gonna shape up like; looks like my body needs time to adjust – a gradual approach will perhaps be best; the “middle path” as propounded by The Great Buddha. Funny, isn’t this the equivalent of a “withdrawal symptom”? Even going back to nature isn’t that natural. <sigh…>

The Raw Secrets – The Raw Food Diet in the Real World by Frederic Patenaude

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Until my next update wanna doozie-up with my past posts :
The weight-loss conundrum
A heart patient’s prescription (& your’s too…)
The BIGGEST deterrent to Strokes (& many other chronic maladies)
Is this how YOUR blood looks like?
Sprouts for body-building?