One of the oddest changes that takes place when I eat predominantly raw fruits and vegetables is that I feel a healthy tiredness at the end of the day, and I go to bed early. And I wake up early. I’ve been a night person my whole life, but when I eat raw, I’m up with the sun. I woke up around sixty-thirty this morning.
Another surprise was that I woke up on my stomach. I rarely sleep on my stomach because of the pressure it puts on my lower back causing pain. I suffer from chronic low back pain that I’ve had massaged, deep tissued, Rolfed, Alexandered, and chiropractored to no avail. The only relief I’ve ever had was when I fasted and drank only water. This pain is the main reason I am conducting this experiment now, because I believe it is diet-related.
The pain is from my sacrum to mid-back and up into the ribcage. My back is usually very sore in the morning and the pain dissipates as I get up and move about. But there’s still always stiffness and soreness, especially when I arch my back, lie on my stomach or twist my torso. I thought a thousand-dollar bed would cure the problem, but that didn’t work.
My lower back felt pretty good this morning, but my ribcage was sore through the day. I woke with a slight headache which quickly disappeared upon arising.
Day Three’s Consumption
06:40 2 cups of tea
07:10 bowel movement (I thought I’d start documenting these as well)
08:05 bowel movement
08:30 I felt like being social so I went to the Robbie’s coffee shop and had a couple cups of coffee (this is my first coffee of the week)
10:23 1 cantalope
11:37 bowel movement
11:40 4 plums
13:15 mixed baby greens and romaine with 2 shredded carrots, pine nuts, 1 T flax seed oil and lemon juice
13:30 7 small carrots with homemade raw hummus dip
16:20 1 yellow peach
20:10 large salad with romaine and red leaf, 1 green onion, 1 avocado, 1/2 cucumber, lemon juice and cilantro leaves
20:50 1 cup forbidden black rice (cooked)
11:45 to bed
Here’s the fruit at the beginning of day three. The bananas were ripe and wouldn’t last much longer, so I froze them yesterday in plastic wrap to make smoothies or “ice cream” later. Same with a couple of the peaches.
Begin Incorporating More Raw Food in Your Diet
The American diet consists predominently processed foods–boxed, bagged and canned convenience. These foods have all suffered loss of nutrient in their processing, and then are further destroyed through cooking. Since their vitality has been processed away, they must be fortified with synthetic vitamins and minerals (they can’t sell nothing) and flavored with sugars and fats. So many processed foods are flavored with high fructose corn syrup because it’s extremely cheap. And all that corn is genetically modified Round-Up Ready and fertilized with fossil fuels. It’s bad for you and bad for the planet.
So try to incorporate some raw food into your diet, preferably organic. Perhaps have a piece of fruit for a mid-morning snack instead of a bagel or muffin. Eat a salad with your sandwich with a low-fat dressing instead of french fries. Set a goal that a certain percentage of your diet will be raw. Start with ten percent and add to it over time. You’ll find that small changes won’t make you feel deprived, and you’ll begin to appreciate the quality of the raw food.
Why eat raw food? Your body requires proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and water for proper functioning. The proteins, carbohydrates, and fats are in their perfect and natural form for easy digestion and assimilation. Vitamins and minerals are intact in the proper proportions and recognizable to your body. Scientists have identified over one thousand factors in an apple alone! You can’t reproduce that in a vitamin. Raw food also has enzymes that aid in digestion that are destroyed at certain temperatures. And raw foods are full of water, water that has been filtered for you by the plant.
So begin with baby steps and soon you’ll be making giant leaps of joy!
