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Feeling so discouraged

Hey guys

I’m on my third day of being raw and I’ve made like smoothies, porridges, crackers etc and of course snacked on plain fruits and veggies. But I tried making burgers pizzas all that jazz and they nearly made me barf. I feel really discouraged because I don’t want to live off of smoothies and sweets. Also i’ve gained like 3 pounds! what is that?

Taysha

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Comments

  • RawKidChefRawKidChef Raw Newbie

    Hey Taysha – I feel your pain. You may not be digesting those nuts and seeds in the breads and crackers the way many people don’t (including me), and they’re fatty too. Try to cut down the nuts, I hear they are “going out of style” lately. I hear that you didn’t like their taste as well. You should make more simple meals, not so complex pizzas and breads, burgers. I’m not sure why you don’t like them, but there are a few recipes on here that have a million comments and everybody liked them – my point? To try these recipes and see if you like them. The two I can think of are Kandace’s Onion Bread and her Lemon Cookies

    Your meals don’t have to be sweet to taste good. Try eating salads, to start with. Also, let me ask you, what was in the breads/pizzas/crackers that you didn’t like? That’s interesting.

  • well there are a lot.. i tried making the burgers with celery.. didn’t like it, the pates make me sick, the crackers I can do… I also cannot stand like raw mushrooms and zuchini all of that like it doesn’t hurt my stomach it just makes me nausious because of the taste you know? I just want to make sure I’m getting all the proper nutrients. It makes me think that maybe the diet isnt right for me

  • the main reasons I thought I would try it is because i have really bad acid reflux almost every day and Im only 18…also I have some acne problems and i’ve been dealing with an eating disorder so I figured maybe this would be a solution

  • Hi Misscute, just to let you know, i have been dealing with eating disorders for like 15 years, and also have gerd/acid reflux due to it. When I first started raw, I couldn’t stomach EVOO (still can’t in large amounts), zuchinni, squash, or sprouted grains/legumes. I tried a tabouleh (Sp?) recipe from Sarma Melngalis and my hubby, (bless him) and I ate it, I almost threw up, had such bad stomach cramps and thought, this sucks. I was so off set and disappointed in everything raw. Ok, so here’s the thing. I started raw to heal myself, and wanted to stick with it, I transitioned slowly. It has taken me a year, and I started with one raw meal a day. Find one you really want to try that has RAVE reviews, I’m talkin 10 stars and a billion positive comments, and read the comments before you try it. FYI, veggies taste better marinated and softened in some warm salted water with a bit of oil and some seasonings, keep your nuts to a minimum but always sprout them first, get a smoothie recipe you adore, one fruit and one green, read everything you can, plan ahead and go SLOWLY, you can’t expect to switch from SAD which you have been your whole life to RAW in one moment.

  • WinonaWinona Raw Newbie

    Misscutecute – I had a lot of trouble making some of the raw foods. My first few burgers and crackers came out terribly – i couldn’t STAND the smell. I think it has to do with a couple of things. Learning to uncook can be tricky, and it’s hard to find recipes that you will like cause it’s all new. also, don’t worry – you will start to get the hang of preparing raw foods. sometimes i couldn’t understand what went wrong, as i followed the recipe exactly. but i think that preparing complex raw food is a matter of experience, so it’s best to start very very simply.

  • rachel_akikorachel_akiko Raw Newbie

    Don’t feel discouraged, making raw food recipes is kind of like learning how to cook all over again, and you HAVE to make mistakes, unless you’re perfect or something. :P I used to get upset when I’d make something and it turned out disgusting, or it’d be good the first time and then suck every other time I made it.

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    Once you get into a routine it will be easier. i only make complex recipes once in awhile, so I don’t cheat! i like to have crackers around and some sort of bar/sweet thing. other than that it is green smoothies, salads, and simple wraps for me. I have used mushrooms and zucchinis in some fun recipes, but not on their own. ick. i think if you are having some crackers that you like fill in the rest with salads and some avocado here and there. eat what you like and feel good on. learn to listen to your body and what it needs. it’s hard if you are used to being mad at your body or out of control of it. but be patient with yourself.

  • I felt the same way my first month raw. All of the raw pasta and pizza I made, made me want to barf too. I stuck to huge salads with Brianna’s Vinigarette dressing (prob. not raw, but vegan) and fruits and veggies. I also found Lydia’s raw italian and green crackers on the natural zing website and those tasted so great they became a staple.

    I am currently on my 3rd month raw and now find the raw pastas and pizza to be better than the cooked version. Maybe your taste buds change as you continue with the diet and detox, but I felt the exact same way you did when I started raw. I just dicovered a recipe book by Ani Phyo and everything I have made so far has been AMAZING!

  • I made raw corn chowder and mexican rice so far. I really did not care for either one, but my son liked the chowder because he saw it as a chance to have his hot pepper sauce which he loves! So far we’ve just been doing fruits, salads, larabars, and green smoothies.

  • MeditatingMeditating Raw Newbie

    MISSCUTECUTE, I don’t know if you jumped from SAD directly to all raw but I think most people do better making a gradual transition. I jumped from macrofoods to all raw for almost 3 weeks. I had terrible gas pains and became dissillusioned with the amount of time I had to dedicate to fixing food. Boom, I fell off the wagon. I started back up strict again, but the same thing happened. I did have more energy each time I went raw, but my body wasn’t quite used to it and I hadn’t figured out the best way for me to live the lifestyle, prepare my foods, etc. I threw much of what I initially prepared away. It was just all too much too soon.

    You may want to consider a transition for yourself. Not being able to transition cold turkey certainly isn’t a sign of failure. If you have given yourself time to transition, may you need to give yourself some more time and space. If you have negative feelings and experiences for an extended period of time, that may not make it easier for you to stay with an all raw program. Give yourself some space if you think it will benefit you. If you were meant to get there, you will get there on your own timeframe.

  • thanks guys. Meditating, yes you are right. I just think it would be hard for me to stay athletic and eat all raw…and just having smoothies salads and larabars sounds sooo boring. But nevertheless I am moving down to berkeley next month right by a cafe gratitude so that could encourage me a bit more.

  • thecavsmanthecavsman Raw Newbie

    Also pay attention to food combination. I have noticed that on here a lot of people don’t follow it, but it is important. Google it – but try to find a raw food combination list.

    http://www.dherbs.com/detox/food-combining-char…

    I know I gave a link of his in another post of mine – but again this is pretty comprehensive. Too many charts that you find online have meat, milk, ect. Back before I was combining right, I would eat a LOT more food in the course of a day. You get full faster when you combine the foods correctly.

    I generally start the day off with water, and fruit (only fruit). Then for lunch I may have a salad or a dehydrated cracker with salsa (pepper, tomato, onions, etc) and olives between maybe 11-12. Then in the afternoon I may choose either nuts or some sort of fruit or vegetable (basically, anything I want) to snack on. I am a guy who was only 5’4 145 (so i didn’t want to lose weight), and I lost 25 pounds in 3 weeks eating like this, though I think i have gained some of it back because I discovered dehydrated food and avacado (before it was only salads, etc for lunch).

    I must mention that while I lost most of my weight while I was doing dherbs’ full body detox. www.dherbs.com. People are going to think I work for this man or that I am dherbs himself – I don’t even know him – I just know what the detox did for me. It is a bit pricey though at 120 bux for the 3 week program.

    But yeah, I’d recommend following good food combination. Just my 2 cents.

  • Thanks for sharing the food combining chart link. I love that it includes the time to digest. And the whole melons thing – alone or leave alone – I did not know that.

    I know that you found the results of the detox to be great. I’m curious about how it was to do. Were you starving? Were there nasty detox side-effects?

  • thecavsmanthecavsman Raw Newbie

    Yeah the mellon thing was surprising to me, too. I realized why I always got gas when I had huge fruit salads that were 1/3 watermelon. Eaten alone they give me no problems.

    I must say that I went all raw around the same time that I detoxed so technically I don’t know what was from raw food and what was from the herbs. But the detox does require that you take 30 pills per day – as herbs are food and not dangerous. I think taking so many herb pills actually made me less hungry – not only because of the physical size of 6 servings of 5 pills, but it forced me to drink enough water (distilled, so purifying) to shallow them. That is when I lost the most weight. Other than that, some times I had a runny nose since its busts the mucous in your system. Not to be graphic – but it gives you some weird stools (sometimes green, sometimes very dark, sometimes lose), which always feels good because you know that weird stuff was INSIDE of you. My girlfriend got detox acne while on it.

  • germin8germin8 Raw Master

    Interesting food combining chart… thanks! Yeah, I like it because it doesn’t have milk, cheese, egg, meat foods.

    The only problem I see (well, I didn’t read the website thoroughly) is that nuts may not be acidic (or as acidic) after you germinate since you are removing the enzyme inhibitors such as tannin and phytic acid.

  • thecavsmanthecavsman Raw Newbie

    Yeah – that isn’t mentioned – at least not from what I’ve seen as I haven’t seen it all either. I need to learn more about germinated nuts and such – I just eat them plain and simple. All of the food combo charts I have seen make no mention of this and its resulting acidity. It would be nice to have more acidic nuts! Does that mean I should soak my sunflower seeds before eating them to get more benefits? I do it with almonds just because they taste better soaked.

  • chriscarltonchriscarlton Raw Newbie

    3 days! GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!!! Learning to prepare food, any food takes time. Back when I was cooked it took me more than a year before I got the hang of making a good omelette. Raw Food is no easier, it’s harder normally because most people don’t have an experienced raw food ‘cook’ to learn from. No wonder your food made you want to barf. Thinking back over the years I can think of many attempts I made while learning to make cooked food that would have sent anyone to the toilet for a chuck.

    It takes time to learn how to make Raw Food. Many people have never made their own food before as a cooked person or have never done more than fry burgers or make toast. Learning to watch a pate in a food processor and knowing what it should look like, takes time. Be prepared to throw stuff away that does not work out, don’t ever make yourself eat something that you don’t really like or you will soon find yourself back at Pizza Hut as a regular.

    Also before you spend a lot of time trying to learn food combining you may wan to first learn not to combine raw food and cooked food. Nothing is worse than a soaked nut that was cooked or a raw food recipe made with frozen veggies. Most nuts and all frozen veggies are cooked even though they don’t say they have been. If you make a raw recipe with some cooked ingredients, it won’t come out well.

    Personally I have never had any issues with food combining, but I do everything I can to make sure that all my ingredients are raw. I always wonder if those who have trouble with this are really experiencing the disaster of mixing raw and cooked in the same recipe. It really tastes bad.

    It’s easy to find Raw pine nuts, sunflower seeds, walnuts and hazelnuts. All the rest are normally cooked at some point during shelling and processing. With just these I have never found a recipe I couldn’t make, and make well. For more on this check out… The Dead Food List on our website.

    Also… Throw away your scale! It’s the Devil! If you were meant to know how you weigh there would be an LED weight readout on your forearm and an alarm that goes off if you get to heavy or light.

  • pianissimapianissima Raw Newbie

    agreed about scales. the only useful measurement is how you feel in your body.

    i don’t think food combining is all that important either, namely because it’s hard enough to transition to raw in the first place, without diverting all your energy to combinations. sure, eat melons alone. stick to trying to learn some good recipes.

    ok, as for the burgers… the typical raw recipe was way too dense for me. now, i made patties, crackers and flatbreads by mixing ground flax with veggie pulp and spices. i made a flavor “base” of onion and parsley, finely chopped in the food processor… then i add in the pulp, spices, and some water and/or lemon juice to get it going. sometimes i add tomato, or zucchini, but you don’t have to.

    this takes time… don’t fret. =)

  • thecavsmanthecavsman Raw Newbie

    pianisimma I agree. I didn’t star to care about food combination until I was 100% raw. It’s not the first order of business and transitioning to raw is hard enough alone. But if you aren’t feeling well or are overeating, food combination is something to look into as you move forward. I agree though about raw being more important than the combination at first.

  • OK, I accept this is mainly a recipes site, its quite interesting. I like to browse and find interesting combinations, new tastes. But for many of us cooking was always a drag, going raw hasnt changed a thing. There is no need for Misscutecute to learn to uncook, all she has to do to get started is relax, grab any piece of fruit she fancies and eat it. Thats all i did, its quick, cheap and easy, and requires no special equipment or skills, even now i only use a cheap blender to make smoothies.

  • just smoothies fruits and veggies on their own sounds really boring and so not worth it and how is that adequate nutrition I had no energy to go to he gym hang out with friends and I got so sick

  • RawKidChefRawKidChef Raw Newbie

    If you drink a glass of brewer’s yeast mixed with water you will have the adequate nutrition. That is the lifestyle I live on and I am only 12, a fruitarian with some greens lifestyle. You will get used to it, trust me. Also, try making the Cinnamon Rolls recipe on this site I’m sure you’ll love those. Nut milks are also great. They fill me up so good.

  • also I eat really healthy right now I am began but I don’t think I could give up baked yam and tofu and steamed veggies for smoothies and nuts

  • RawKidChefRawKidChef Raw Newbie

    Of all those things you can’t give up you need to give up the tofu. Soy produces massive amounts of mucous in the body. Vegetables aren’t that bad though.

  • germin8germin8 Raw Master

    thecavsman – Here’s a website that says sprouted nuts, grains, seeds are alkaline (with some exceptions).

    Yes, it means you should soak sunflower seeds before eating… and all nuts & seeds. They are more nutrient dense and are easier to digest (without the enzyme inhibitors).

    123 gave me the nice link after posting on this post

  • well thanks for trying to help guys..maybe this is just not right for me.

  • RawKidChefRawKidChef Raw Newbie

    Maybe it isn’t right for you, but what are the raw food recipes that you like? Some are really yucky, and some are worth their weight in gold. If you make really filling smoothies, it’s not boring, trust me. Make raw candy. Go to http://www.rawdorable.blogspot.com for really cool recipes by Shannonmarie.

  • well i loooove green smoothies for sure and i can make really good cookies and granolas and sweets but i also like to have non sweet food too you know that isn’t rich or heavy in nut sauces and stuff.. so not too sure. like salads too but they can get boring.

  • misscutecute, i agree with previous posters that if it’s only been three or four days, you should probably be more patient with your body and its reactions to raw foods. Give yourself a set number of days, say a week or two, to stick to raw foods—even if you continue to be bored, sick, grossed out or whatever—and see if you feel any better by the end of the test period. If you don’t feel better, I’d re-emphasize what other posters have written about the importance of transitioning. (But do try your best to give up that tofu asap.) It might take you a month, a year, a few years—who knows—but you’ll eventually come to love the taste of raw foods and how it makes your body feel.

    Also, if you haven’t yet, you should check out Sarma’s Raw Food Real World. Her book makes raw food so glam, so beautiful, and so scrumptious (even if the food combinations are bad)—it really helped me make the transition since it gave me a taste of the gustatory pleasure that raw foods can offer.

  • I have found (now both times) when I go raw that it takes a while for my taste buds to develop(... or detox?) In the beginning everything tastes….well… un-cooked and it just takes time to get used to. I’ve found using a tongue scraper speeds up my ability to actually crave RAW foods. Have you tried “massaging” your veggies with a little sea salt it makes a LOT of stuff softer and more palatable. Also pickling and fermenting can add some familiarity to some raw foods. Personally, GRAWnola bars and spiced nuts (made in the dehydrator or bought from a reliable company, I think Lydias is OK) have made the transition possible for me.

    Also if you are gaining weight you might need more water to um…get your system moving.

    I’ve also heard a juice feast can increase your appreciation for raw (solid) foods.

    Goodluck!

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