EatMoreRaw

1 month, 100% raw, with no added fat foods ....almost!

2009-09-14T14:54:00.004+01:00

Over the past month, so that I didn't offend a friend, I ate a couple of mouthfulls of jackfruit loaf which she kindly brought back from India as a present. I would have devoured it normally, but the jackfruit loaf was cooked and full of fat and sugar! There was a similar situation at home where I had a taste of some home made greengage creamy moose. I managed to restrain myself so that I had only 1 spoonfull. It was totally delicious, so I had to exercise some will power!

Other than the 3 mouthfuls that I descibed above, today I've just completed 1 month, 100% raw, with NO fat foods. i.e. no nuts, seeds, oil, avocados, durian, etc. Well... I'm still here to tell the tale, so it can't be that bad for you!

When I was on holiday just over a month ago, I tried to go with the flow and let go of my diet for the odd meal, but my acne came back, my skin felt very greasy and I felt tired and grumpy. I got so sick of it that I told my wife half way through the holiday that I couldn't cope, and I had to get back onto my raw diet. I went for a drive and eventually found somewhere that sold fruit and vegetables. These rare places are not easy to find in the Lake District!

My spots cleared up within a couple of weeks and my skin feels so much better now. It's more pliable, fresher and cleaner, in fact it's never been better. I need less sleep. I've had more energy (apart from when i ate too many runner beans) and more joy. I'm wondering if we ever need to eat any fat foods at all? My body certainly doesn't seem to miss them, I don't even crave them anymore. I've had some comments from friends on how well that I've been looking too.

I've been eating quite a lot less than I normally do becasue I've had to stop most excercise since I had my hernia operation 2.5 weeks ago. However, I still feel energetic and continually get the urge to go running! Short walks will have to do for now. As long as I don't overdo things, the pain from the hernia operation is pretty much gone. No strenuous lifting for another 6 weeks!

It's interesting that the body seems to know when to stop eating when on a raw diet. I'm exercising less and desire food less. When I was very active before my operation, I desired food so much more. Our natural appetite is controlled by what our body actually needs, and this works as long as we only eat foods that are naturally available to us without having to use tools, machinery and heat to prepare them.

If anyone is struggling to make this diet and lifestyle work, then try a zero fat month. i.e. Eat lots of fruit, plenty of greens, green smoothies and some salads. Try and eat mono meals as far as possible. A mono meal is a meal consisting of one type of food (eg just watermelon, or just bananas, but not both).

Hernia operation recovery - 1 week update

2009-09-04T19:10:00.000+01:00

Today it's 1 week since my operation and for some reason things have suddenly improved and I've been so much more comfortable and mobile. I've had my dressing changed 3 times now, and the nurses were very impressed at both the neatness of the scar (to the surgeons credit) and how quickly I appear to be healing. I am really pleased that I chose to ignore two pieces of their advice though.

The first piece of advice was to use several types of painkillers that I was given (3 bumper packs). I managed to get by and use absolutely none of them. I applied what I'd learned with water - drinking more water eases pain. I've heard that this is a reason why headache tablets appear to work, they are consumed with water! The second piece of advice I was given was to eat plenty of 'protein' foods (meat, fish, eggs, etc). In avoiding these very foods, I really do feel great! To get my protein, I've been eating plenty of fruit and green smoothies. I've had no problems building muscle using just fruit, salads and greens before my operation and I see no reason why I should change now. Last night I had so much energy that I couldn't sleep. I wanted to go for a run! I guess eating cooked food may help to subdue me and slow me down, I also guess it may also slow down the healing process.

Now I can get around for most of the day without discomfort. When it does get uncomfortable I just go and have a lie down to rest. Earlier in the week I spent most time resting with the occasional 5 or 10 minutes up and about. I am pleasantly surprised at how pain free it has been, although it was excruciating attempting to sit on the loo! It was so painful that I didn't actually have a poo until Monday - that's 3 whole days. For someone eating a 100% raw vegan diet that's a long time! After managing to do my business, I had to lie down and recover for an hour! Since then things have steadily become easier. I can't even feel any pain at all from the very neat scar. Any pain or discomfort is internal, it feels like a ripping and burning sensation. I guess it comes from the mesh that was implanted inside of me. My tissues will eventually grow into it and the whole thing should become stabilised and pain free. I'm certainly on the mend.

I was however reminded that I'm not fully mended yet. I was in the garage looking for something and I moved my daughter's bike. My insides were becoming very uncomfortable, hence I'm now resting and writing this blog!

Highlight of the day.

Malcolm, a good friend and neighbour was in hospital at the same time as me, only he had a kidney out - a rather more severe condition than mine! I was just finishing off eating my water melon and was planning to pay him a visit, but who should knock at my door?, Malcolm - my dear old friend! We compared scars. Mine was a few inches, his looked like he'd been cut in half with a chain saw! Malcolm was like a spring chicken, full of energy and bounce! I thought I was doing well until I saw how well he was doing in his circumstances! Thank you for visiting Malcolm - you are such a blessing. :-)

Drinking water aids post operation recovery

2009-08-29T17:00:00.000+01:00

I couldn't sleep much last night after my operation yesterday. I think it must have been all the toxins coming out and making me a little hyperactive. Also for the first time in a couple of years I've had Flem in my throat coming up from my lungs (this had a very unpleasant taste). My guess is that it was my lung's reaction to the general anaesthetics and they were doing a clean up exercise. It's gone now. In the night, every time I swallowed I developed slightly worse and then very bad indigestion. In the end I got up at 3am as I was feeling quite nauseous and I watched a kids film with all the extras, 'The Fantastic Four' - it's a fun action film for kids!. I sipped my way through another 1.5 litres of water and the indigestion went away after a couple of hours. Amazingly I'm not tired, in fact I have lots of energy and feel good, but I am forcing myself to chill out and rest.

After anaesthetics, I think drinking water slowly and sipping steadily is the key (for me anyway). High water content foods like oranges and melons help as well.

I had my half hour obligatory snooze after they woke me up the first time from the operation. Afterwards I had the very beginnings of a migraine, ie very slight shimmering vision. I was thirsty yet I didn't want to drink. Then I remembered that migraines can be caused by dehydration and it was nearly 12 hours since I'd had a drink the night before. It was then that I started to sip the water and the oncoming migraine quickly vanished. I felt pretty good and chilled out anyway, but I guess I was rather drugged up!

I've still not needed any pain killers. It isn't even painful unless I get up and move around. I'd rather keep off painkillers and tablets if I can, as I don't want them to mess up my digestion. I really do think that water is a key to managing pain and it helps to manage toxin overload symptoms.

Now all that water is making me want the loo, that's when it hurts a little!

General anaesthetics, hernia operation & raw food

2009-08-28T22:00:00.004+01:00

I changed my diet to mainly low fat raw vegan foods. Earlier this year I had so much energy that I didn't know what to do with it! I started training and going mad on doing upper body conditioning, press-ups, sit-ups, scissors, crunches, etc. I really did feel great and nothing I did seemed to wear me out... or so I thought!

I developed a lump above my groan area, it didn't hurt at all. I was advised that I needed a hernia operation! A word of warning to anyone else who has such a dramatic change in energy levels, go gently at first! If you need to burn off some energy and feed that enthusiasm then do something like cycling, walking or slow jogging.

There were a few delays, cancellations and re-appointments because I thought that I may be able to get away without an operation (and I had too much work on at home to take time out to recover). I finally had my hernia operation this morning and I'm currently laying on my bed at home recovering as I type!

After hearing Dr Doug Graham 9 months ago, I cut out fat from my already raw diet and overcame major digestive issues, chronic fatigue and occasional depression (as well as some other niggling things). For 10 days, prior to my hernia operation this morning, I ate NO fat foods at all (no nuts, seeds, oil, durian, avocado etc). I was very strict on eating low fat raw foods with plenty of fruit and tender greens. Incredibly I feel fantastic! You're not supposed to feel this good after general anaesthetics! On waking, over a 1 hour period, I drank 1.5 litres of distilled water, ate 1 grapefruit, 2 bananas & 4 large oranges.

I was expecting to feel awful for a week, but on the contrary, even on day one I think the raw diet has helped me cope with the general anaesthetic. I was given three bumper packs of different pain killers, but I haven't needed any so far. Tomorrow is supposed to be worse than today but I'll hopefully not need them. From many things I've read, one of the biggest causes of pain is lack of hydration. Keep hydrated to keep pain at bay!

I remember being woken up from a very peaceful sleep in the room next to the operating theatre. I'm interested in knowing how the body responds to my diet, and the very first words I said were, "what were my heart rate and blood pressure like?"! They were both normal. Previously I explained my diet to the anaesthetist, this was to avoid any complications from possibly being too sensitive to the anaesthetics. The anaesthetist came to see me afterwards and explained that I needed a normal amount (i.e. my body responded normally to the anaesthetics).

My blood pressure was 105/70 before the operation. The nurse commented that I must be fit. My blood pressure was very slightly lower after the operation and still within the fit range.

A nice gentleman in a bed next to me was struggling, he was very pale and the nurses were concerned that he had very high pain levels and he'd already reached the limit on what could be given to help him. Food was mentioned, I overheard part of a conversation. It went like this: (nurse) "would you like some toast and a cup of tea?". (gentleman) "would you perhaps have a banana?". (nurse) "no I'm sorry we can only get toast and tea". (me) "I have a couple of bananas that you may have! They are quite ripe though, with brown bits on them". The nurse repeated my banana offer to him. (gentleman) Yes please that's very kind.

I gave him a couple of my spotty brown ripe bananas which he devoured along with a cup of hospital water. He seemed to very quickly recover and we had a good old chat about life the universe and everything, including the answer to my prayers - raw food!

I have a few other observations and comments on my experience:

I asked prior to my admittance to hospital if they had any fruit and salad on offer. Unfortunately they don't but they said that I could bring my own. Toast, although very tasty, is usually laden with fat to make it palatable. It is a very dead, nutrient deficient and dehydrating food. On the contrary, fruit is alive. It's packed with nutrients, it's hydrating and very tasty without having to add anything. Surely fruit should be on offer in hospitals round the clock. I think it would even save money by helping people to recover more quickly.

Tea does have some beneficial properties, however it is very dehydrating. For every cup of tea that you drink it will make your body attempt to urinate two cups of fluid. Tea is also a stimulant, which is not good if you want to see if your body is recovering properly. Another chap next to me drank tea on waking. He was discharged before me because he had a wee before me! In actual fact I was very thirsty on waking (I normally have a litre of water for breakfast), so I drank my own distilled water. My body hung onto the water as I needed it! If I had drunk tea then not only would I have had a wee much sooner but I would have had the shakes from caffeine stimulation! I was given a plastic cupful of hospital water, which was a nice consolation. I opted to drink my own distilled water instead. I drank over 1.5 litres, more than 10 times what was brought to me!

The nurses and doctors and everyone I met today were lovely. I had an excellent (albeit short) stay!

The biggest challenge for me over the next 8 weeks is avoiding the temptation to lift anything, and no mad intensive training either!

EatMoreRaw leafy greens!

2009-03-29T04:00:00.000+01:00

I'm doing a bit of an experiment, I've increased the amount of leafy greens in my diet. I want to see the effect of eating 1 Kg of leafy greens a day. So far I've been feeling fantastic! This is my day three evening meal... I wonder why I feel stuffed?!

For comparison, on the left is a full size dinner plate

On this giant serving dish (my plate!) is the following:
400g strawberries,
2 red peppers,
100g sliced sweet potato,
10 radish,
Approx. 1 Kg of leafy greens;
(550g celery, 300g spinach, 75g rocket, 200g purple sprouting broccoli)

I also had:
500g grapes,
2 bananas and
2 tomatoes.

Stop Eating Cooked Or Fatty Food!

2009-03-04T04:00:00.000Z

I've still been feeling great for most of the time. The exceptions occur when I cheat on my diet and have too much cooked food or too much fatty food. I've noticed also that if I don't drink enough water then that knocks the edge off me too.

Last week I struggled for the whole week with some fatigue and a little depression, this was after breaking my diet for 3 days in a row. Normally if I deviate from my diet it's only for an odd meal, but this time we had guests round for meals over those days, I was trying to be relaxed about what I do. It may have helped me to appear 'normal', but I suffered as a result. Also I have a cooked food family where hearty slices of homemade banana cake were on offer!

A short fast and a pro-biotic enema got me back on track again. Within a few hours of eating again I was feeling AWESOME!

Is low fat raw vegan food the optimum diet for me? ... and you?!!!

2008-12-20T04:00:00.000Z

As I am writing this I´m bursting with joy and have an incredible sense of energy. I have been holding off as long as possible to tell anyone about it just to make sure that this is not another temporary upward blip. However it´s been 9 weeks now of feeling fantastic most days!

Due to a number of health complaints, I´ve been experimenting with my diet for two years now and since August 2007 I´ve been eating mainly raw vegan food. Going raw helped tremendously, especially at first. However I really struggled whenever I ate lots of fruit over a couple of weeks. Chronic fatigue and explosive diarrhoea many times a day would result. I had to modify my diet to include lots of sprouted beans and seeds, nuts, healthy oils, seaweed, super foods, leafy greens, supplements and so on. I would have to keep off the fruit, yet I craved it. If I was very strict with my diet I felt really good and my symptoms were greatly reduced.

One of my typical high fat meals

I found the diet hard work though and I often felt like I was missing something. Quite often I would lapse onto cooked food, or give into eating more than just a few pieces of fruit a day. Consuming more than small amounts of either would leave me feeling totally fatigued, tired and very often depressed, not to mention the diarrhoea many times a day.

Over the summer I was away a lot and for a couple of weeks I resorted to the standard UK diet together with an occasional food indulgence. I thought that I´d be ok but I ended up again with chronic fatigue and digestive issues which, even with raw food, I couldn´t get rid of. I really hit a low point three months ago. I scored incredibly highly on the candida yeast-overgrowth questionnaires found online. So I started with some expensive probiotics and (yet again) tried to follow the anti-candida methodology. I cannot express how low and fatigued I felt, but I can say that it really does bring tears to my eyes to express how much better I´ve been feeling over the past 9 weeks compared to just 10 weeks ago.

On the night of Thursday 9th October 2008 I was vomiting and retching during the night. I could sense the same problems coming again the following week (I was feeling very sick again) and so I decide to fast, I couldn´t eat anyway.

Around that time there were lots of discussions about the 80-10-10 diet on the RawFoodUK forum (a yahoo group). I´d always dismissed these discussions and 'The 80-10-10 diet' book because my body could never handle the fruit. However after reading and listening to a few forum links I felt that I should try and do things a little differently this time.

After checking out the www.nutridiary.com website I was shocked. Even though I had already reduced my consumption of fat, I was startled at how much fat remained in my diet as a percentage calories. I never realised that even fruit and leafy greens have reasonable proportions of fat in them. When you add in a few seeds, nuts, an avocado (or 2 or 3!) and some oils, then daily fat consumption was in my case at least 45% of calories and some days it was much higher. There was then a post on the RawFoodUK forum of a link to a video of Doug Graham. It proved exceptionally helpful. I immediately ordered the book 'The 80/10/10 diet'.

After 30 hours of fasting, on the Friday evening (17th October) I did an enema. I took 2 litres of distilled water and added probiotics to it. I drank 0.5 litre and the remaining 1.5 litres went in the other end, and yes I was surprised! I also did this on the Saturday morning. Then I started to eat again. We had some guests round on the Saturday evening and I must confess I ate some cooked food. Amazingly I was fine.

Doug explained how too much fat gives you poor digestion and how it slows everything down. It reduces the effectiveness of insulin, causing a slow processing of sugar. Sugar builds up in the bloodstream and cells cannot get enough energy. The excess sugar also feeds the candida which creates more toxins to drag you down. It's a triple whammy.

I realised that it can take a day or so to get all the excess fat through your system. I was just coming out of my fast and thought that I should be relatively 'clean' of fat so I'll give it a go. The worst that could happen is that I'd get fatigue & diarrhoea again and I'd be back to square one. I really wasn't expecting this to work. I apprehensively pretty much ate nothing but fruit and some big salads from then on. I made a real effort to keep off anything with a high fat content as a proportion of calories such as; nuts, seeds, oils and avocados.

I was totally stunned and I still am! I had the most incredible surge in energy as soon as I started consuming lots of fruit. I've had energy almost every day since. Not only that. The diarrhoea stopped overnight and has not come back. I now exit the bathroom rejoicing! My body is digesting food properly. Even the occasional cooked food doesn't effect me like it used to. I can eat foods that I was previously intolerant to, like tomatoes.

I'm off the fats, off the supplements, have no need for super food AND I can eat lots and lots of fruit! Most days I have boundless energy. Severe candida symptoms disappeared almost overnight. Recurring fatigue and depression is a thing of the past. I have been having the most incredible sense of joy that I've not experienced in a long long time. I've had the most amazing desire to exercise again and I've been doing lots of upper body conditioning. I feel much stronger and have much more stamina. I can sprint up stairs without thinking about it, whereas previously it was often an effort to get out of my chair and then haul myself up.

My diet now consists of mainly whole fruits, some massive salads and a very occasional sprinkling of seeds (maybe a tablespoon full every other day). Plus I still occasionally have a cooked meal, typically once a week. I'm working towards eliminating cooked food altogether as my friends and relatives come to accept me and this new lifestyle. Regardless of what I eat I really try to keep off anything fatty.

I hardly have to prepare food anymore. A typical day for me might consist of: A bunch of celery, a honeydew melon and a lemon all blended into a smoothie for breakfast; For lunch I might have the breakfast leftovers plus 10 bananas and a few oranges; Dinner might be a massive salad plus another plate full of whatever fruit I fancy, maybe mangoes, tomatoes etc. It's awesome, it's easy, it's scrumptious but it costs me about £80 a week! Although quite expensive, considering the huge improvements in my health, it is an excellent investment.

Kind regards,
Stuart Porter
stuart@eatmoreraw.net

http://www.eatmoreraw.net