withdrawal symptoms

[Kon]

Ok, so I've been eating only fruit for the past 2 months now, and for past few days now i've been having a lot of withdrawal symptoms making me feel like eating cooked foods.

Any advice on this?..

[andgbr]

it's probably the body detoxing, it's like a ''revolution'' in our bodies, and it's ok to happen, the body is just adjusting and repairing itself, it's really incovenient, but it goes away after a while..

i don't think you should go back to cooked foods for that a reason.. just be patient, that after a few days things will be back to normal.. just make sure you're eating enough... and the right things..

[Kon]

yeah..

I creatively interpreted what is going on as perhaps my body asking me whether I really want to stop eating these foods, and then the body proceeds to list all the foods I've had, while at the same time making me remember how they taste.

So I get presented with this question from my body, and I have to answer through my actions or inactions. It is like I am communicating directly with my body and by not eating the cooked foods, the body will then know that it can adjust appropriately.

 

Another way to see it is that the body is thinking, hey this is an interesting change from the norm, I'll go with it for a while. But then it continues, and the body is like, hey.. wait, what about the food you were eating before? I can't continue in my current ways of being if what you are eating now is different, you gotta show me this is for a long time by resisting the urges for the previous food. only then will I know that I can change my current setup to accomodate the new one accordingly.

 

 

Heh.. somehow as I think about this more, I am starting to believe my body IS talking to me. I'm not crazy though, even if I sound a bit. If you know me, you'd realize I have pretty creative views on everything.

 

Communication is done through interpretations. When we hear others speak, all it is are actions which impact us in a certain way, in this case soundwaves shaking things in our ears. All we do is interpret what it is we percieve.

What I described above is the same thing I think.

Maybe the body has some sort of memory, or atleast the digestive system. It could be remembering the old foods but this purpose would be to ask me directly whether I will choose to go back and eat them or not, and in doing so, the body recieves its answers it needs because I can't tell the digestive system how to work, I only need to provide what it requires.

 

food for thought

[belleadonna]

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o293/belleadonna/rawisbestlogo_small.jpg

[Kon]

I think I'm going to continue for 2-4 months and then reevaluate things to see how things went and if it did any good.

[jonathan]

Your goals Kon were to gain weight and strength through weight lifting. This is going to be very very VERY hard eating only fruit. You're not an orangutan, you're a human. Use technology, like cooking aparatus. If you feel like boycotting technology, this forum is probably taboo......

[Hero]

Your goals Kon were to gain weight and strength through weight lifting. This is going to be very very VERY hard eating only fruit. You're not an orangutan, you're a human. Use technology, like cooking aparatus. If you feel like boycotting technology, this forum is probably taboo......

 

i want to do the same as kon. and find a diet that i feel great on. and i love what raw/fruitarianism has to offer (my health, the environment, etc). but its very expensive and hard to gain muscle/mass on because i can not get a large enough quantity of fruit nor the variety i need to maintain my health let alone build mass on but i still feel its one of the best diets/lifestyles for the environment and for ones health in the long run.

Edited June 21, 2007 by Hero

[Odidnetne]

Your goals Kon were to gain weight and strength through weight lifting. This is going to be very very VERY hard eating only fruit. You're not an orangutan, you're a human. Use technology, like cooking aparatus. If you feel like boycotting technology, this forum is probably taboo......

 

i want to do the same as kon. and find a diet that i feel great on. and i love what raw/fruitarianism has to offer (my health, the environment, etc). but its very expensive and hard to gain muscle/mass on because i can not get a large enough quantity of fruit nor the variety i need to maintain my health let alone build mass on.

 

I could die a happy person if, at some point in our life, raw fruits & veggies (organic preferably) became affordable for everyone through re-prioritized subsidies.

[andgbr]

Your goals Kon were to gain weight and strength through weight lifting. This is going to be very very VERY hard eating only fruit. You're not an orangutan, you're a human. Use technology, like cooking aparatus. If you feel like boycotting technology, this forum is probably taboo......

 

i want to do the same as kon. and find a diet that i feel great on. and i love what raw/fruitarianism has to offer (my health, the environment, etc). but its very expensive and hard to gain muscle/mass on because i can not get a large enough quantity of fruit nor the variety i need to maintain my health let alone build mass on.

 

I could die a happy person if, at some point in our life, raw fruits & veggies (organic preferably) became affordable for everyone through re-prioritized subsidies.

 

AMEN!

[Kon]

you bring up a good point jonathan, in that my goals were to gain muscle mass. I think I have strayed a bit from that.

I have huge urges to eat cooked foods at this point, and I'm trying to wrap my mind around this.

I was seeing great changes with eating cooked/unprocessed foods, and now that I've been eating fruit for 2 months, the changes don't look that good, and are actually getting worse. At first, I thought it might be the fruit which was helping me because there was a stage where I was eating fruit with cooked foods, but a part of me says that It probably was the eating all the unprocessed foods in the previous months..

So I don't know what to think.

It wouldn't be a big deal to switch back, it would actually be very easy. but fruit simply has that mystique about it. Maybe it's the exotic fruit which can be exciting in a subconscious way.

Perhaps what I need is to eat both fruit and unprocessed/cooked food. Maybe they compliment each other in some way.

 

The thing these days, is that you can find answers to anything, and you can choose to believe anything and use information to back up those choices. It's very hard to know sometimes if what you are doing is right. Or if it even matters. This is part of the reason why I chose to eat just fruit, so that I would see for myself what effect it would have upon me. and now I know some of it, but I certainly don't know all of it. Would continueing a couple more months clear any uncertainty? maybe, and maybe I will do that simply out of curiosity, but I must weigh the choices I suppose. anytime in the future, I could do all this again, but right now, my body says to eat other things. Following the instruction of my body would be no loss, only a postponement for truth the exploration could have potentialy provided if I ate fruit longer. But now the question would be, do I want to save that for another day when I could know it sooner? Perhaps it would be better not to actualize whatever truth it would produce, but I am not one to shy away from such mysteries, though on the other hand I am one who is very fleeting by my creative tendencies and so an unstable path is a destiny well predicted through history. At some point I will eat cooked food again. So what is better. To eat one type of thing for a long duration and then eat another thing for a long duration, or is it better to eat both things in short durations and even other things. This is life after all, not a competition(although some im sure would see it as one). Life is about experiencing, but would I lose out on an experience by choosing to cut short my fruit curiosity? Unknowns again.. The fear of doing something wrong. Are there any wrongs in this situation? Probably not, unless I percieve my action to be so. The perceptions producing conficts based upon how each see what they want to see. When you state what you do see, there are no issues, only realities. Begin to suggest how the other perception sees, and you produce more unknowns and perceptions which are split. Take it for what it is, welcome whatever more, and understand whatever you get. A hard thing to do with a conscious and creative mind which is dynamic and flowing.

You usually allways learn from your mistakes, and those which purposely make sure they don't, tend to repeat them. If it is knowledge I seek, then there is no fear, because if there were actually a wrong choice, I would learn still anyways and be better for it. If I persivere, would I simply get the same, how would I learn with that? I would have to do as I am doing now and question continuously what I am doing. And if I did, eventually I would choose not to continue for whatever reason.

On the other hand, maybe I would choose to keep going, but maybe it doesn't matter where you are going as long as you are going somewhere.

 

I dont know.

[jonathan]

Wow, that is quite a post Kon!

 

Look, I do believe that raw foodism is very healthy if done correctly and diligently. I do not believe that fruitarianism is ever healthy unless you have constant access to a huge supply of organic fruit. As no one in their right mind would want to spend $50 a day on food, this isn't going to happen.

 

What I object to is all this talk of 'cooked food addiction', 'body detoxing' and the generally dogmatic way in which many raw foodist represent themselves.

 

Cooked food addiction - I think this is false. People have addictions to various conponents of food, like fat, sugar, salt etc, but to say that people only eat cooked food because they are addicted is ridiculous. It also implies that people are too weak to give it up. This is insulting.

 

Consider this, I am 272lb, and bulking. I compete in strongman competitions now, and need to get to 300lb. I have to eat about 5300cal a day to gain weight. That is alot of food, and there is simply no way that I could eat that much, day in, day out, on a raw diet. Not a snowballs chance in hell. So when prescribing a raw diet as the perfect wonder diet for all, don't forget that there are those to which it is completely unsuitable.

 

Body detox - this is a funny one, because people going raw seem to group all sorts of terrible health problems under this umbrella. Daywalker went raw some years ago, for 6 months. Now as a doctor, he knew what to eat, and fully researched it before hand. He lost 20kg, basic tasks like walking up stairs became hard, and he had problems with his teeth for the first time in his life. Back onto cooked food (and he eats very healthily) and the weight jumped back on and once again he was strong and in contest winning shape.

 

My point is that every new raw foodist seems to have a reaction to raw food in the first few months. Pay close attention to what that reaction is, don't just fob it off as 'detox'. It could be more serious.

 

There are many more points to make, but I shall save them for another day.

 

Jonathan

[Zack]

Johnathon...finally someone with some insight...

 

 

I'm about 90% fruits right now and maintaning my weight, but I also eat a cooked meal sometimes, and also use protein powder. It is working for me. I'm only being so strict right now, and probably forever because I have a liver disease that I was born with. Raw foods do have their place, as i've learned...a high raw diet has helped me a lot with the situation i'm in now.

[belleadonna]

We each have to do what is best for us and our bodies and not allow others to dictate to us what is best. I was doing the all raw thing for 8 days but I have switched back to eating one cooked item a day. I feel best on that and doing all raw forever was unrealistic for me.

 

So, I am 90% raw all day and then I have perhaps a sweet potato or rice or something like that for dinner. But I don't need as much as I used to. I am also juicing more. Of course, I am a female and I am not competing or anything but I do lift weights and I am doing great with this regimen so I am sticking with this.

[offense74]

@jonathan

I agree with you! Addiction is, according to me, not coming from cooking itself but from (known) sustances such as sugar, opiates in cheese, fat, salt and others.

I for one work out at the gym just for maintainance. I don't want to get bigger since I don't think it's healthy and I simply don't see the point (I'm 196cm weighing 100kg). I'm currently working on a calorie restricted diet that I can have for a long time since CR seems to be one of the best things one can do for health together with a whole foods vegan (or near vegan) diet and moderate excersize. Much more so than raw food.

There are surprisingly few answeres that we have from research when it comes down to health. We do know that fruits and veggies are good for us but we do not know exactly why (there are unproven theories though) and we do know that for all species tested with CR (except for one) life is extended, diseases are more rare and aging seems to be slowed down (again we don't know exactly why). This is what makes nutrition the guessing game that it is. The body is too complex.

Whenever I see someone says "A must be true since you can't prove (not A)" I consider it scientific rubbish nomatter how rational the argument seems to be. It can still be interesting raeding though and I can still get input from it.

[Bigbwii]

Ain't it funny how when the going gets tough on innitial stages of the raw diet people think that it's not good for you, but when they get sick on cooked food they just accept it without batting an eyelid.

 

Yeah.... sure we got our own opinions on the validity of the raw lifestyle but the fact remains that it's not the raw lifestyle that causes people to give up...it's trying to quit and reverse the effects of cooked food that causes ALL the turmoil....I know for a fact that if you didn't have to deal with all that detox stuff there would be so much more people sticking to and singing the praises of the raw diet, but it is what it is, there's years of emotional conditioning and bad eating habits to get rid of and it's hard as hell to do it and I always say you cannot do it by being regular...you got to be exceptional!!!!!!

 

Of cause your going to feel better eating a bit of cooked food with the raw food because your briefly stopping the cleansing process, plus the comfort/gratification of cooked food always makes us feel good, like an emotional security blanket.

 

Too many people go raw and quit after 2 weeks, 2 weeks is not the raw lifestyle, the raw lifestyle comes after your detox/cleansing period, the process of going raw takes years of work.

 

Juss my 2 cents

Edited June 21, 2007 by Bigbwii

[belleadonna]

Not sure who you were directing your response to but I did not stop 100% raw because of detox. I did it because I wanted to. I used to eat this way, (90% raw) for years and I felt great and was satisfied. That's me. I am not an exceptional person. Just a person. I know myself better than anyone and know that I would not have stuck with 100% raw forever.

[Bigbwii]

Not sure who you were directing your response to but I did not stop 100% raw because of detox. I did it because I wanted to. I used to eat this way, (90% raw) for years and I felt great and was satisfied. That's me. I am not an exceptional person. Just a person. I know myself better than anyone and know that I would not have stuck with 100% raw forever.

 

Who cares, you are your own person and you make your own choices.

[Zack]

Bigbwii aren't you the one that spent a good amount of time in 2005 eating cooked food to bulk up? Here's some old quotes of yours I found, your stance has changed quite a bit....

 

Hi Sensless, I've no idea how many calories I take in, I don't count because I make my food from wholefoods and try to stay away from man made stuff, plus I don't really care about that stuff, to me as long as your eating cooked food and drinking plenty of fluids (I drink a gallon a day) your gonna grow/get big! I just make sure I'm eating "good" stuff when I want it! When I was a Fruitarian (which is when that first photo was taken I wieghed 140lbs) I would say my calorie intake was very low I found that it took a long time for me to be able to train for strength because of a lack of energy due to the cleansing effects of the fruits I was eating, so for a long time I trained very light if at all! and before I was a fruitarian I was a vegetarian and wieghed about 175lbs now I've just reached 190lbs and I expect that to get higher now I've started squatting! my legs and butt are already growing for no good reason, I'm looking to get to around 230lbs then just get as strong as I can!

 

I think going raw is great for endurance but terrible for building mass!

 

I've made that adjustment I find that I'm gaining around 2-4lbs a week and a lot of that is muscle because I work very hard for what I get. I personaly don't agree with you, I don't think that you can gain too quickly if your doing things right, I've found from past experience that it's so much easier to overeat and gain fatty wieght on junk foods but I'm learning now that when you eat whole foods such as brown rice, veggies and potatoes then then your gains are of a better quality and it's harder to overeat at one time!

 

I also noticed now that you posted you "lost too much size" by doing bodyweight, you don't feel that diet has anything to do with that?

 

Just curious 'cause your stance has obviously changed some since then.....

[Bigbwii]

Bigbwii aren't you the one that spent a good amount of time in 2005 eating cooked food to bulk up? Here's some old quotes of yours I found, your stance has changed quite a bit....

 

Hi Sensless, I've no idea how many calories I take in, I don't count because I make my food from wholefoods and try to stay away from man made stuff, plus I don't really care about that stuff, to me as long as your eating cooked food and drinking plenty of fluids (I drink a gallon a day) your gonna grow/get big! I just make sure I'm eating "good" stuff when I want it! When I was a Fruitarian (which is when that first photo was taken I wieghed 140lbs) I would say my calorie intake was very low I found that it took a long time for me to be able to train for strength because of a lack of energy due to the cleansing effects of the fruits I was eating, so for a long time I trained very light if at all! and before I was a fruitarian I was a vegetarian and wieghed about 175lbs now I've just reached 190lbs and I expect that to get higher now I've started squatting! my legs and butt are already growing for no good reason, I'm looking to get to around 230lbs then just get as strong as I can!

 

I think going raw is great for endurance but terrible for building mass!

 

I've made that adjustment I find that I'm gaining around 2-4lbs a week and a lot of that is muscle because I work very hard for what I get. I personaly don't agree with you, I don't think that you can gain too quickly if your doing things right, I've found from past experience that it's so much easier to overeat and gain fatty wieght on junk foods but I'm learning now that when you eat whole foods such as brown rice, veggies and potatoes then then your gains are of a better quality and it's harder to overeat at one time!

 

I also noticed now that you posted you "lost too much size" by doing bodyweight, you don't feel that diet has anything to do with that?

 

Just curious 'cause your stance has obviously changed some since then.....

 

Yes sir,

 

But you also failed to post the quotes where I eventually got sick from going back to cooked food and where my health deteriorated, hence getting my final wake up call to go back to Fruitarianism, back in those days my focus was on getting as big as can be and in a time of emotional weakness I used Fruitarianism and other peoples comments as an excuse to take the easier road, like I say when I was on cooked food I felt better because I had stopped my cleaning process and I used this to justify why I quit but then within weeks I get blocked up and dirty/toxic all over again, my skin aged rapidly and all my old aches and pains came back, my motivation to train vanished and I stopped working out, I've "quit" many times for many different reasons and I've got back on the horse to finally get through it, this is why I try to encourage people to stay on track and it's also why I always tell people how hard this is, because I know how hard it was for me to stay focused and on track, now I wouldn't have it any other way because It is clear that I feel healthier as a Fruitarian, that is why I can come back and share my personal experience.

 

Eating cooked food/bulking up is a great way to gain weight/mass but is so destructive to your health, as I learnt for myself.

 

Since then my attitude has changed a great deal, now I would rather be leaner and feeling good than big and feeling like crap like I used to.

 

And no the bodyweight stuff was the reason why I lost mass strength because I'm makings gains again now I'm back on the weights, if it wasn't for the diet I wouldn't even be working out now!!!!

 

Trust me, as I get older on the Fruitarian diet I'm feeling younger and more motivated to get active!!!!

 

But I still stand by everything I said , going raw is terrible for building muscle mass compared to eating cooked food but it can be done, just not as fast as we expect or in the same way as you would on cooked food, there is a long cleansing process to go through even before you can think of making gains and if you have not been through it you will not make gains!!!

 

But I've always said this.....

[Gorilla]

Yes indeed - you can feel when your body is clearing out all the junk - I only really felt it when I cut out dried fruit and nuts - lost a bit of size but it's worth it in the long run for the health of your digestive system and for achieving clarity of mind, body and soul - I certainly feel greater strength and a great sense of harmony on raw fruit

[jonathan]

Why exactly is eating cooked food bad for you? If you are eating a clean, vegan, cooked diet with a large variety of different foods and limitted junk, how am I going to damage my health?

 

I sorry, but I simply don't buy it. I agree that most people could do with incorporating more raw food into their diet, but to go entirely raw is for most people highly impractical, and if they are not really quite careful, damaging to their health.

 

Also, a point that has not been touched upon is the land use issues of a fully raw/fruitarian diet. It is often claimed that raw foodism is better for the environment, but has anyone considered the implications of trying to feed the worlds 6+ billion people on a raw diet? Or the transport issues in transporting all that water-heavy fruit and veg?

 

Look at it this way - if you have a van with a 1000kg carrying capacity and it is to deliver food to people in need of it, in say a developing country. Do you fill it with 1000kg of oranges, bananas, veg and give them about 500,000cal or do you give them a van full of wheat, rice, soya beans and lentils and give them 3,500,000cal? You could feed 7 times as many people with cooked food.....

 

Hey, also - how do you suggest that people in colder climates consume a raw vegan diet without resorting to importing food from warmer countries?

 

Bigbwii, I resent that you refer to cooked food as a form of addiction, a bad habit to be eradicated. I think you are wrong, and find your language and attitude abbrasive. I accept that you are fruitarian/raw even though I disagree with it. I think you should stop bad mouthing cooked food veganism, and put your efforts into getting Joe Public onto a vegan diet. Vegans already seem like nutcases to the general public without us telling them to just eat fruit.

 

Jonathan

[Zack]

Johnathon brings up some good points.

 

As for me, A raw diet right now is fairly necessary. I figured out that I was born with a liver disease last year, and already at 19 i've got cirrhosis of the liver. During most of those years, my diet was starchy foods, and meat/dairy. Surely that type of diet, and a virus attacking your liver is a cause for problems, so i've been eating very high raw, because I could not survive medical treatment right now if I went on it, so raw food and excercise is my only defense. Neither my spleen, nor my liver work well, but still with a high raw diet i've seen healing in myself, medical proof of it too. Raw foods have their place in healing, as i'm learning, and hopefully will have a good testimony to the raw diet, but i'm not at all against cooked food. Cooked food isn't the poison it's made out to be. Some cooking is worse than others, but boiling/steaming is not that bad.

[Bigbwii]

Why exactly is eating cooked food bad for you? If you are eating a clean, vegan, cooked diet with a large variety of different foods and limitted junk, how am I going to damage my health?

 

I sorry, but I simply don't buy it. I agree that most people could do with incorporating more raw food into their diet, but to go entirely raw is for most people highly impractical, and if they are not really quite careful, damaging to their health.

 

Also, a point that has not been touched upon is the land use issues of a fully raw/fruitarian diet. It is often claimed that raw foodism is better for the environment, but has anyone considered the implications of trying to feed the worlds 6+ billion people on a raw diet? Or the transport issues in transporting all that water-heavy fruit and veg?

 

Look at it this way - if you have a van with a 1000kg carrying capacity and it is to deliver food to people in need of it, in say a developing country. Do you fill it with 1000kg of oranges, bananas, veg and give them about 500,000cal or do you give them a van full of wheat, rice, soya beans and lentils and give them 3,500,000cal? You could feed 7 times as many people with cooked food.....

 

Hey, also - how do you suggest that people in colder climates consume a raw vegan diet without resorting to importing food from warmer countries?

 

Bigbwii, I resent that you refer to cooked food as a form of addiction, a bad habit to be eradicated. I think you are wrong, and find your language and attitude abbrasive. I accept that you are fruitarian/raw even though I disagree with it. I think you should stop bad mouthing cooked food veganism, and put your efforts into getting Joe Public onto a vegan diet. Vegans already seem like nutcases to the general public without us telling them to just eat fruit.

 

Jonathan

 

Read my many old posts, also if you don't agree with the raw food lifestyle don't read posts in the raw food section as you will be forever defending your position....and cooked food, I really don't care what you eat, but if you say you want to go raw/fruitarian then i'm going to help you all I can and I'm gonna tell it like it is, just like I do here.

 

You can take it how you wish, if you want to resent my opinions/experience or what I post then that's your choice, therefore there's no point in me trying to help you understand my experience or where I'm coming from because your atitude is already set, plus I can already see this is just gonna be one of those stupid debates that doesn't go anywhere.

 

And again, when have I ever told anyone to just eat fruit????

 

If you wanna eat cooked food, knock yourself out!!!!!

Edited June 21, 2007 by Bigbwii

[Odidnetne]

Why exactly is eating cooked food bad for you? If you are eating a clean, vegan, cooked diet with a large variety of different foods and limitted junk, how am I going to damage my health?

 

I sorry, but I simply don't buy it. I agree that most people could do with incorporating more raw food into their diet, but to go entirely raw is for most people highly impractical, and if they are not really quite careful, damaging to their health.

 

Also, a point that has not been touched upon is the land use issues of a fully raw/fruitarian diet. It is often claimed that raw foodism is better for the environment, but has anyone considered the implications of trying to feed the worlds 6+ billion people on a raw diet? Or the transport issues in transporting all that water-heavy fruit and veg?

 

Look at it this way - if you have a van with a 1000kg carrying capacity and it is to deliver food to people in need of it, in say a developing country. Do you fill it with 1000kg of oranges, bananas, veg and give them about 500,000cal or do you give them a van full of wheat, rice, soya beans and lentils and give them 3,500,000cal? You could feed 7 times as many people with cooked food.....

 

Hey, also - how do you suggest that people in colder climates consume a raw vegan diet without resorting to importing food from warmer countries?

 

Bigbwii, I resent that you refer to cooked food as a form of addiction, a bad habit to be eradicated. I think you are wrong, and find your language and attitude abbrasive. I accept that you are fruitarian/raw even though I disagree with it. I think you should stop bad mouthing cooked food veganism, and put your efforts into getting Joe Public onto a vegan diet. Vegans already seem like nutcases to the general public without us telling them to just eat fruit.

 

Jonathan

 

Read my many old posts, also if you don't agree with the raw food lifestyle don't read posts in the raw food section as you will be forever defending your position....and cooked food, I really don't care what you eat, but if you say you want to go raw/fruitarian then i'm going to help you all I can and I'm gonna tell it like it is.

 

You can take it how you wish, if you want to resent my opinions/experience or what I post then that's your choice, therefore there's no point in me trying to help you understand my experience or where I'm coming from because your atitude is already set, plus I can already see this is just gonna be one of those stupid debates that doesn't go anywhere.

 

 

I'm going to make sure it's not a stupid debate that doesn't go anywhere.

[Bigbwii]

Well I think that people that don't agree with the raw lifestyle should be more sensitive to the efforts of the people that do, especially since a raw challenge is starting soon,and there's doesn't need to be any negativity floating around...raw foodists need a place where they can come to be with people of like mind and not doubted/judged or have to defend their own lifestyle in their own section.

 

If you don't agree with the lifestyle or what's posted here then don't read the posts, there's a lot of methods that guys here use to get big that I don't agree with but I don't post in that section....