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You may be wondering about this radical-sounding way of eating and thinking that it is more like a lifestyle and less like a diet. In fact, my experience is that this is the case. Being into healthy eating, raw electrical foods, feeling good all the time and being highly energized is definitely a lifestyle. Each indulgence to eat cooked comfort foods comes with a crash from the buzz of being on a high-raw intake of foods, much like a druggie will crash whenever he gets sober. In this sense, when done right, eating lots of raw foods should not feel like you are on a diet.
I’ve tried diets before, withholding from eating foods, and so forth, and I know how not fun they are. I struggled with my weight from a young age and into early adulthood, gaining and losing as much as forty pounds and cycling back and forth, so I understand the unsustainable nature of dieting.
What is the ultimate point of eating healthy and raw and how long should you keep it up? The point is to get yourself healthy and well and solve your health problems. In terms of how long you keep it up — ultimately, that is up to each individual. This topic is covered in greater depth within the segment: ‘What is the End Game? Do You Have to Eat Healthy Forever?’
My personal goal is to supply somebody with the informational tools so they can transport themselves out of the current health problems they are having to a better place where they no longer are experiencing them. If they can do that, I will feel very much accomplished. What that person chooses to do after that and if he or she chooses to go back to eating more regular cooked foods or stay up with the raw and healthy foods is totally up to him or her.
But what does it feel like along the way throughout that journey? Does it feel very tedious like being on a diet?
At first, when making dietary changes, for me, it felt a little strange. However, I want to emphasize that I transitioned very slowly (this is covered in the segment entitled: ‘How to Transition’). Changing what I was putting into my belly made me feel some strange sensations and more hungry for a couple hours of the day, because I wasn’t giving my body the typical ‘meat & starch’ it was used to.
However, it was not like dieting really — at least for me specifically — because I never really held back too much. While in the beginning when I was incorporating more raw foods and fruit, I was still eating my regular indulgence foods, including grains, meats, chips, alcohol and even in some cases I was still eating fast food. In the early days, I was still eating almost as much regular foods as I would normally, while just adding in some fruits throughout the day.
Later, I got to the point where I just wasn’t eating quite as much of my favorite cooked foods because I would try to swap out a meal for more raw foods. For example, I would try my best to have a big bowl of fruit for breakfast. Or, if I did have an omelet or breakfast tacos with eggs for breakfast, for lunch I would try and have a big bowl of guacamole and chips and salsa, or nuts, or maybe a big snack in the afternoon of more fruit. In other words, rather than having ‘three square All-American meals per day’ I would just have two, and I would swap out the third meal for something raw, or at least mostly raw.
The beautiful thing about eating raw also is that it does not implore you to limit the amount of calories you are taking in. Unlike a diet, which specifically limits your calories and sets restrictions on macro nutrients, you can eat however much fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds that you want. I certainly did as well in the beginning.
This may not be suitable for an individual who is trying to lose weight, because fruits do contain a lot of carbs, although they are healthy carbs with simple sugars that the body can burn much faster than complex carbs and complex sugars (from breads, refined sugars, alcohol, dairy, etc.). If it were me, and I was trying to lose weight while transitioning to raw foods, I still wouldn’t worry about portion control when it comes to fruits or other raw foods too much. I would simply stop eating at 7pm, and also try and get a little bit of exercise or the heart rate up first thing in the day before breakfast.
Ultimately, after having transitioned to eating more raw foods, it still didn’t feel like a diet at that point really either — in fact, it never really did. The fact is I wanted to eat more raw and slowly transitioned into doing so. Whenever I craved salty, savory foods, including meats and grains and other cooked foods, I would still eat them on the side with no remorse. I still felt I was overall headed in the right direction.
It took me almost 3 years to transition from just starting to get into raw foods, to an almost-100% raw-food intake. I started in 2015 and by 2018 I was eating almost all raw. By that time, I was feeling amazing and couldn’t help myself but to press the foot on the gas more and really lean into it even more. I didn’t consider myself fully recovered from my health issues until early 2019.
From then until now I have continued eating lots of raw foods and it still has not felt at all like a diet. I’ve been eating the way I have wanted to and have been excited about the foods I’ve been eating. I simply have had a different outlook on cooked foods and acid-forming foods. They are no longer as appealing to me even taste-wise. You could say that my taste buds have changed.
So, I have been extremely blessed because by pursuing this way of healthy living, my desire has been removed to put harmful foods into my body. By taking this leap of faith, I have been rewarded because moving towards the direction of ultimate health and well-being has been an easy, natural flow.
With all that said, I want to be clear that I am still human and still made of flesh, blood and bones. I still have similar desires and inclinations as anybody and still indulge sometimes. After all, milkshakes and double bacon cheeseburgers will always have a certain deliciousness to them. Also we are hardwired it seems biologically to desire salts, sugars, and fats — and the food industry works hard to pack these things into food products to titillate the consumer.
My taste buds have changed though. Now rather than craving a cheeseburger and ice cream, I might get a craving for something else plant-based but still with that savory flavor and perhaps a crunch to it. In essence, what would be considered a regular person’s healthy food has become my new ‘junk food’. A banana smoothie as an example would overall still be better, and what makes me feel the best and perform at my best. I try to eat for results because my day-to-day schedule is very demanding and I like to get a lot done in a day. Most times, I stick with the banana smoothie for this reason and eat the other indulgent foods on more special occasions or when there’s time to relax. This is getting extremely high level and there’s no point worrying about these details early on until you’re really advanced.
Sufficed to say, you can see that I no longer really am tempted by truly unhealthy foods, but I still get cravings to stray off the path I am on. So it does take some degree of willpower still, to choose to eat a certain way. I can still be known to give into my desires, and eat something that I would consider junk food, and then I will feel a loss of energy over the following 24 hours, and wonder why I did it. Or I might go out to a restaurant with friends and enjoy a delicious cooked meal, and then feel the acidity getting processed by the body and feel my energy levels drop. I am only human, and I don’t seek perfection here on Planet Earth. There are levels to it — sometimes I give in when I wish I hadn’t, and other times I indulge and it’s totally worth it.
In that sense, it does still take willpower and discipline to some degree to really get specific results, but ultimately my message to you is that it’s been easy for me overall, both in transitioning and maintaining this way of keeping myself very healthy and well and continuing to go to the next level of wellness.
I hope it will be mostly an organic and natural flow for you to follow as well— I know you can do it!