Tom’s Raw Foods Blog

I’ve been back on the low fat raw food diet for just over a week now. I’ve been at the office a lot over the past week and today was really the first opportunity we had to get out and do some shopping. I waited in the food court while my son played on the playground and my wife shopped.

I wasn’t very well prepared for the trip. I had only eaten a slice of watermelon before we left and took 4 bananas with me, so I got hungry while I was there. After I ate the bananas, I was no longer hungry — but I had an appetite for the chicken strips and fries that I had purchased for my daughter.

And that helped me realize something important: The difference between being hungry and having an appetite for something.

This is how the 80/10/10 raw food diet helps you lose weight. For the most part, you eat when you are hungry. Sure, you also eat for taste — there’s nothing like fresh fruit, and if you are like most people, you will have an appetite for it — but that is much different from an appetite for cooked foods. You could eat an entire quart / liter of strawberries and only have a couple hundred calories of the food we were meant to eat — food that would digest quickly and begin to be used by your body.

However, to be successful with this diet, you shut off that part of yourself (the appetite) that tells you to pick up a slice of pizza or a hamburger at the food court when you visit the local mall. They are no longer choices that you are willing to accept. You don’t want several hundred ill-mixed calories that your body will labor to digest, that will take a few days to pass through your digestive system, and that will, in many people, end up being deposited as more fat — making the rest of your body work harder to maintain, wearing out those systems even faster.

But this is not what you want, is it?

Taking this further, I don’t think that many people know the difference between being hungry and having an appetite for something. I’d guess (based on the way I used to eat and still would if I allowed myself to do so) that most people eat because they have an appetite for something — and not because they are hungry.

So try this little experiment: Commit to a 100% low fat raw food diet for just a week. Seven days. 168 hours. That’s not very long; you can do it! Eat nothing but fresh fruit and fresh vegetables during that time (a handful of raw nuts or seeds daily is also OK). After a couple of days, go to the food court at your local mall. Think about what you would like to buy (but you are not going to do it because you’ve committed to this for a week). Then think about your raw food. One is appetite. One is hunger. See the difference?

Now answer this question: Do you want to eat some raw food? If not, then you are not hungry; you simply want to feed your appetite. And that’s what I want you to learn. There is a difference between hunger and appetite.

Hunger will keep you alive.

Appetite can kill you.

Please learn the difference (my little experiment will help) and let you hunger serve you while you ignore your appetite.

P.S. — Do you see what committing to a low fat, raw food diet long-term could do for your health?

Today was great. Sunny, almost hot, nice breeze… And some of our fruit is starting to get ripe.

My wife picked a bunch of raspberries off the bushes just outside our house today (there’s still a few upstairs, so this will be a short post… ). There’s a house for sale near where we live that has a cherry tree in the yard, so I also had a few fresh cherries today.

I’ve never had cherries fresh off the tree before. They were simply wonderful. That house has been empty for some time now, but last year I waited too long to get to the cherries (somebody else beat me to it — the house sits right next to the playground, and if you are tall like I am, you can reach across the fence and reach a couple of the branches).

We also went to the grocery store, where I bought WAY too much fresh produce. If I’m as hungry over the next couple of days as I was today, there won’t be any problem with spoilage (even if it won’t all fit in our tiny refrigerator).

I’m also starting to get a little more active. It’s a bit forced at this point, but I know that I’ll want to get more active as time goes on, so I’m starting now. I took a few walks today. Yesterday I did a few exercises (and could even do a few push-ups; my right wrist had been giving me problems for a long time but tolerated a few push-ups yesterday). I’ll be talking more about that as I go on.

There’s a bit of a dark side, too. I read an article by somebody who owns a restaurant and feels threatened by raw food (at least that’s my take). Many of his statements were, in my opinion, extremely inaccurate and could be downright false truths.

It kind of reminded me of the remarks that people sometimes make about people with very deep spiritual lives. To be honest, at first I wanted to leave a one word comment on the blog (something along the lines of “Neanderthal”!), but then I realized that, just as it is with somebody seeking to become more spiritual, I can’t really begin to communicate with somebody about raw food until they are ready to listen. Call it ignorance, call it outright hatred, call it what you want — if you are not ready to stop and listen to what I have to say about the 80/10/10 raw diet, then there’s really nothing I can do about that.

As a result, I’ve decided that, as a general rule, I won’t approve comments that want to argue the merits of the low fat raw food lifestyle. I’m here to help you grow, and while “proselytizing” would be a good thing, it’s not my main goal. I’ll be happy to disciss things with people who stumble across this blog and wonder what the heck I’m talking about, but no arguments.

Sorry, one last thing: I’ve purchased a new domain for this blog and it will soon be moving. Or perhaps “starting over” would be a better word. While the outcome is still uncertain, there’s a KNOWING deep down inside me that says that this lifestyle is the right one, at least for me, and although the road to 100% low fat raw may still be rocky, I’m going to get there. So I’ll be closing out this “transition to raw foods” blog and moving to a new domain.

Besides, if you saw what I hauled home from the grocery store today, you’d realize that it will take me several years to eat it all (at least it seems that way!), so I guess I’m stuck now…

It’s been just a bit more than 48 hours now since I last ate cooked food. I’m back on the raw food wagon again and plan on staying there this time.

Why did I do it? Do “what”? Well, I can tell you all kinds of reasons why I went back to cooked food, but that’s not the point. I went back to raw foods simply because I remember the way I felt last summer (when my weight was much less than it is now). I remember the energy I had, the walks I took, the way I could run and play with my son and daughter on the playground. I remember the demands I could place on my body when I needed to (like not getting enough sleep while traveling).

Quite simply, I liked what I had and have decided that I will find a way to overcome the obstacles I encountered that led me to more or less abandon the 80/10/10 raw food diet.

So I’m back on the raw food diet, and my goal this time is to do it for one year. According to Roger Haeske, that should be enough time to truly break any cooked food addiction (and it is a physical addiction). Time will tell.

I’m also going to be exercising a lot more this time, plus I’m working on expanding my knowledge of preparing raw foods. The exercise will encourage me to eat right, and the recipes and etc. will help give me more variety, which should also help me stay on this diet.

I’ll be making a few blog posts soon that talk about the resources I’ve found that are going to help me stay on track this time.

Gotta go; time for a green smoothie…