Saturday, February 27, 2010

10 Steps to going Raw


Eating more Raw Foods will Change your life - You will change and your experience will change. It is inevitable. Well being and happiness is our true nature - Eating raw will help this wellbeing, clear energy to flow through you, unobstructed. It is the obstructions in our body and energy which causes dis-ease.

I came across this article on Going Raw a long time ago and it has just resurfaced. It has some really good ideas to help Go Raw.  Everyones path and process is different, so take from this what works for you. Add raw slowly or dive in completely.. & enjoy!

"the secret to success is having a plan."


I
t's not enough just to say to yourself, "I'm going raw." That will work for a while - a few days, perhaps a few weeks - but unless you have tons of willpower, very shortly you'll find yourself going back to your old habit patterns and comfort foods.

That's why a plan is important. Let's consider a plan for going raw:

 



10 Steps to Going and Staying Raw  
 
1. Assemble the tools you need. A blender - any blender - an expensive dehydrator, some jars for sprouting, and a variety of raw recipes are the minimum requirements.

2. 
Assemble your list of suppliers. Where are you going to buy your food? Are you going be mostly organic? You'll also need to find a supply of sprouting seeds - at least some alfalfa, clover, sunflower and wheatgrass (hard red winter wheat). The wider the variety the better.


3
Read your instructions. Do you know how to sprout, and how to run a dehydrator?


4. 
Plan what you're going to do. If you decide you'd like to make angel-hair pasta from zucchini, for example, you might find having a spiral slicing machine handy. This might put you back to step 1.


5. 
Set a starting date and create your support mechanism. Having a support group is the greatest. Check meetup.com for raw groups in your area. If you don't know any rawbies in your area, find a raw chat group or two for support. A professional Raw Coach is idea, if available.

Share with them what you plan to do, and the date you're going to start. You'll find yourself more successful this way, than if you "go raw secretly." 
Secret quitting doesn't work.

While I'm constantly reminding people that we don't have to justify our lifestyle choices to anyone, sometimes we can't avoid it. This video I made about
 Dispelling the Raw Food Myths will help you deal with the standard objections you're going to hear:http://www.chidiet.com/blog/free-stuff/dispelling-raw-food-myths.htm


6. Don't forget that you're going to need to 
stay inspired as you go raw. Build a collection of books, videos, and CDs before you start so that you'll have lots of material when you go raw. This will help maintain your momentum. Otherwise you might find yourself running out of steam before you get to the top of the hill.
 
I find that videos motivate me the most. Instead of watching the news or a movie at night, I'll pop in a video on raw foods and watch it, instead. chiVideos.com is a good source for these, and if you have high-speed internet you can watch raw videos online at websites like YouTube.com/chidiet.

7. Research shows that it takes 
21 days for a new behavior to become a habit; if we move to a new house and now have to turn right instead of left when we leave work, it'll be 21 days before it seems natural to turn right when head for home.

In dealing with addictions the transitional period is longer. Yes, 
cooked foods are an addiction. Thus, we need to deal with them as such.

Victoria Boutenko has a good book on this subject - 12 Steps to Raw Foods. Her website is RawFamily.com and the book is on 
Amazon.com, too. Her book covers the subject in detail, but here are her 12 Steps to Raw Food:


Step 1  - I admit that I have lost control of my addiction to cooked
              food and my eating is becoming unmanageable.

Step 2  - I believe that live vegan food is the most natural diet for a
               human being.

Step 3  - I shall gain necessary skills, learn basic raw recipes and
               obtain equipment to prepare live food.

Step 4  - I shall live in harmony with people who eat cooked food.

Step 5  - I shall stay away from temptations.

Step 6  - I shall create a support group.

Step 7  - I shall find alternative activities or hobbies.

Step 8  - I shall let my higher self lead my life.

Step 9  - I shall make a searching and fearless inventory of the real
               reasons for seeking comfort and pleasure from cooked
               foods.

Step 10 - I shall let my intuition help me.

Step 11 - Through clarity I will gain happiness.

Step 12 - I shall provide support to other raw fooders.
 


8. Part of changing your diet and lifestyle is 
detoxifying the body. Not as a one-time detox, but instead, we should be constantly detoxing. That's where Dr. Ann Wigmore's program comes in. She taught much more than a diet. In her books and videos she lays out the procedures for a continuous healthy detox, including the foods we eat, how we combine them, the usage of colonics or enemas, the uses of wheatgrass juice, and more.

The basics are laid out in her book, 
Why Suffer? How I Overcame Illness and Pain Naturally, which you can download for free at http://chidiet.com/books/whysuffer.pdf. If the book won't open for you, you might need a free copy of Acrobat Reader from adobe.com.

Other great books of Dr. Ann's are 
Be Your Own Doctor and Rebuild Your Health, both available at Amazon.com. They're also available as audio books on CD athttp://chidietvideos.com/index.php/cds.html


9. 
Be aware, not discouraged. You're going to backslide at times, and it's normal. Don't feel like you've "failed" if you happen to go out for pizza or a hamburger. Instead, think about how well you've been doing, how much better you're eating than you used to, and how much better you're feeling since you started going raw.

10. 
Experiment, experiment, experiment.  Knowing that I have addictions to comfort foods, I found new comfort foods. For me that's fresh blueberries, raspberries, and raw vegan pizza, made with flax crust in the dehydrator. It's a recipe I've included in my book. Victoria's Step 9, above, has helped me a lot, too.


Overwhelmed? I would be, too, if it weren't for the teachings of Dr. Ann.

Sometimes I get off the raw path when traveling the country, visiting family and friends. But when I get home I head to the market, stock up on good raw, organic fruits and veggies, then pull out my Dr. Ann Wigmore Raw Living Foods Home Study Program and get back to it.

I'm feeling better, more energetic, happier and de-stressed than I did in my old cooked-food life. MUCH better. 
My warning is when I felt the arthritis coming back in my knees - that's my personal sign that I'm not eating right.

Article by Jim Carey, excerpted from
annwigmore.com

http://jcarey.net (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.)

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