Raw Diet: My Decision and First Reactions to it

Sometimes I feel like a scratched record because I tend to repeat what I say. With that being said if you read my blog you know that health is my main motivation for getting fit. Of course, I am human and I have superficial motives as well but my main focus is my health. If you read my blog regularly you know that I focus more on exercise than I do nutrition. Most of my posts about nutrition is mainly about my efforts to include more fruits and veggies into my diet or my efforts to increase my water intake. Before my decision to eat raw, I hadn't made any drastic changes to my diet. Side note: Depending on what website you read the definition of what a raw diet is varies. To me it means eating foods that can be properly digested by the body in its natural state. Of course it is food that does not go through a cooking process. 

Honestly, I don't know what sparked my decision, I guess my week of bad eating 2 weeks ago had affected me so much so that I felt like I needed a drastic change. So, on Sunday I spoke with Sir and I told him that I was going to do a week of eating only raw foods (fruits, nuts, seeds and veggies) and Monday he reminded me of it. 

Monday morning I got up I had fruit for breakfast, and then I had salad for lunch and after that I was ready to give up. My stomach was content I was not hungry at all, but I just missed what I couldn't have. I talked to Sir again and he was really encouraging and he told me to just go through with day 1 and then if I still feel like I want to give up then I could. That day I had also eaten a heap load of nuts. Which I now know was a bad idea. The rest of the week went fairly well and I did not get as tempted to give up as I did in the beginning. 

Noted Differences/ Side Effects:

Negatives:

Constipation: Self explanatory. I drank cleansing tea one time to help with this. 

Bad tempered: I was easily irritated, especially on Thursday and Friday

Itchy Skin: My skin is itching. My blood has the tendency to get acidic sometimes especially when I eat too much fruits and nuts. Right now it is still bearable but I have a few hives/mosquito like bumps on my back and I think its from eating too much nuts and fruits last week. 

Lack of Sleep: The first three nights I did not sleep well at all. However, I have that from time to time so I can't with certainty blame it on my diet change. 

Mucous Buildup: I don't know if this is in my mind but I feel like my throat is more slippery feeling that usual. 

Positives: 

Less cravings: I have not craved sweets at all this week. I haven't craved ice cream either. But the true test will be when TOM is knocking on my door so this is too soon to judge. 

Fuller feeling for longer periods of time: I have been less hungry this week. Blame it on the fibre.

Feeling of accomplishment: Normally I give in to impulses but being able to avoid temptation and feeling good about it is cool to me. I usually regret not eating something that I really want. 

I lost about 5lbs last week: I have never lost 5lbs in a week before. I find it incredible that I was able to lose weight while I was constipated. Although I am happy about it I am not getting my hopes up because it is probably water weight. I am not only doing this solely to lose weight. In fact there are some people that gain weight eating raw. I guess though I am not one of those persons that gain weight eating raw but its only been a week. 

So far* I am still early in this type of eating and I know from experience that restricting my diet isn't always a good idea. In fact it is usually a bad idea. But I believe that I have grown enough to be able to resist temptation or at least I am believing that I have grown enough to be able to stop myself from overindulging in times when I slip up. Doing this is preparing me for how I intend to eat for the rest of my life. I am not going to ever be 100% raw. I believe that there should be a balance between eating cooked foods and eating raw foods. I believe that us humans eat way too much cooked foods and not enough raw foods. I hope to be 75% of a raw eater and 25% cooked. I think variety is what is best. To read more about this you can search google, for a more general idea you can click HERE.  That website does a good job of explaining what raw eating it and the health risks associated with it. If you have any questions feel free to ask. One more thing: I said that I eat meat and cook foods on the weekend, last weekend I ate chicken with my salad for lunch and the other two meals were completely raw. 

Finally my disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist, I am not telling you to try this. You SHOULD NOT try this without talking to your doctor especially if you have diabetes or are hypoglycemic. These are my personal experiences. Everyone reacts differently to things.