Diet changes don't happen over night... my diet struggles have been ongoing since my twenties (although there was a brief 15 year period of veganism that seemed magical and it is that experience that leads my current journey) ...and food addiction is still my number one issue. I've spent so many years limiting my food intake, forbidding foods, doing maniacally disgusting "tricks" to not hurt (like chewing the Oreo and spitting it out) because the bottom line for me and always has been... pain.
When I eat too much... regardless of the what... bread, dairy, meat, veggies, sweets... my guts hurt.
I hurt less when I'm vegan.
I really hurt less when I fast.
And now, on a mostly raw diet, it seems like I've figure out a way to eat as much as I want, grazing all day, and not having any pain. The hardest lesson I'm learning is that a few weeks/months of raw is not going to "cure me" as evidenced by the pain flair I'm still in the midst of days later because of some chicken and spaghetti Sunday night. So, if I could stay raw every day for the rest of my life, would I never have gut pain again? And is raw every day forever even a possibility? Even the major raw food experts don't agree on that.
I'm going to let my body decide.
Yesterday I was raw all day...I'm on a raw path today, so far just orange juice and watermelon...
I've decided to not count the number of days raw to try to get to ten, or twenty, or a hundred and twenty... or even five. It seems numbers set me up for failure.
What I need is simple, easy to follow meal plans without a lot of prep time...no days of dehydrating... because that sets me up for failure too.
I've heard a lot of raw foodist experts claim that all the gourmet recipes and rituals are necessary for newbies because it makes them feel like they're cooking...and I felt that way for about a minute last week... and I stirred and mixed and dehydrated and tried to create meals that "seemed" like a real meal...and all that happened was I REALLY WANTED A REAL MEAL...and caved...and ate chicken and spaghetti.
That isn't the answer...at least not for me.
I need that super easy. When I went vegan it was easy... I answered one question: Did /this/ have a heart beat? If the answer was yes...I didn't eat it.
There has to be a similar question for raw...and just asking: "Was this cooked?" isn't enough. I need "unprocessed" as well to avoid all of the additives that are making my food-life a nightmare. I've heard: "If it has more than five ingredients, don't eat it." That may or may not work.
I keep going back to Dan the Man... most of what he says really resonates and he doesn't have a recipe for everything. And no, you cannot start with a mango and end up with mayonnaise as another youtube raw food personality suggests. And don't get me started on turning nuts into everything from aioli to cheese. With Dan McDonald, there's a cut right to the bottom line. Eat simple foods. Yes, there's a bunch of smoothies thrown in, and a lot of dvd's he's promoting, but when I listen to what he's saying in between... it makes sense. Like this video of Juicing. It's now suddenly more simple:
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