thanks for all your wonderful posts miss g, berry bliss, jen and swami. i'm not sure why i was trying to do 100%. i am going to stay at about 70% for now and see if i feel i want be more raw later or basically eat what i want which is usually raw. some days i can do 100% easily so i'll just go with the flow.

hi pinktulip. just wanted to say hi. i know i look at your journal but i don't know how to join in because i find it hard to get in on the conversation. sometimes i look at posts and want to post but don't. it's probably best not to read into it. i think when people are on at different times of the day ect sometimes posts wont come. i think it's great that you are so honest and i think that there is a good community on here. all the best.

you're dog is so cute. you're doing so well on your challenge too. congratulations.

 that laksa with bok choy looks so nice. can you tell me the recipe?

sorry more thoughts popped up. i wanted to add the fact that maybe i was underprepared for a 30 day challenge maybe? i've thought maybe if i am going to do a 30 day challenge i need time off so my mind can be at peace. i know that paavo airola says when his patients were fasting it was best to be away from stress from work ect.

it can be hard when i'm on the run and i haven't thought out my day and i don't have food with me. i need to work on that i guess. i was talking with my friend at work who has competed in the olympics and we were talking about opening a juice bar like boost only better with raw snacks and using a living juicer and only serving raw juices and smoothies. we'd have an edge on boost. i always think when i'm at work it'd be great if all the juice bars made living juice. i know some use them on their wheatgrass don't they? maybe i should just ask if they can make my juice with it and i'll be happy to pay extra even. has anyone ever done this?

it's been a while. well here's the update. i've been back on cooked food. i don't know how i even feel about it. i don't want to feel guilty so i'm not really and yet i really want to be raw again because sometimes i really like it. i did about 10 days raw.

i was at work on saturday and i don't exactly know how or when but i started noticing i was thinking about food way too much. every thought in my head was consumed with thoughts like "grains have opiates in them which is really bad" and all the information that i read about. it was just overwhelming. i was so sick of thinking about all this stuff i thought the only way i could be free was by eating cooked food so i had a cooked fruit bar out the back at work and thought screw feeling guilty. mentally it was so releiving. some might say it was cravings for cooked food and due to addiction but i really feel mentally i was suffering. i was talking with a girl at work who was obsessed with diet for 15 years, doing atkins and all sorts of diet. not until she meditated for a week at a vispanna centre and made the connection that it was making her suffer. i sort of came to think maybe i was being too full on about it. before changing to a higher raw diet i was still eating alot better than most australians still having raw fruit and veg with cooked. i was happy as i was but my bad skin had always bothered me. when i think about food too much i lose interest in my degree that i'm doing, the music i listen to and things that are really a part of me. i think this is actually quite unhealthy in alot of ways. i have bought so many books on raw food lately it's a bit ridiculous. sometimes i think i should quit uni and not go to japan because i can't be raw there and that japan's too developed and why would a raw vegan want to live there for a year or more to teach english and i and become a raw guru or something because my life i have doesn't mix with being a 100 percent raw vegan and that makes me depressed.

i can do 60-70 percent raw food easily and i enjoy it. it doesn't even affect my life i find but while trying do 100 percent food became everything. sometimes i start to feel withdrawn and like it's too much of a change. i don't know why but i feel like i start to lose parts of myself. i stop looking forward to going to japan when i finish uni because it will be harder to be 100 percent raw and it might be easier to make friends when i can go and eat out at restaurants. i found also at uni this semester that my grades have suffered because i was reading too many raw books and always wanted to be outside and not studying. i have never, not, got a distinction for japanese and i got a credit for one subject which might not seem so bad but for me it is.

when i went back to some cooked food (i still have a large fruit meal each day and a salad each day) i found that having some grains seemed to be good for my digestion to bulk it up i think. does the body need to adjust to less bulky foods? it seems like sometimes after my body uses the nutrition from i think maybe that's why my digestion feels funny when i eat raw. i didn't feel that bad on cooked food. when i eat cooked i don't have sugar addictions.
before i started eating more raw food i still never had coke, sugar, white flour, meat, egg, heavily fried foods, large amounts of alcohol, foods with preservatives ect. if i have cooked food it's usually organic, vegan and less processed so i don't feel too with some cooked food and i don't know how raw to be. thoughts will pop into my head like "how raw do you have to be to not get cancer and be sick" or i'll start thinking of examples of people i've heard who've been on a "healthy" cooked vegan diet and still get breast cancer but sarma melngailis still has some cooked food, and these thoughts could just go on and on. all these thoughts are too much and i don't want to be scared into thinking unless i eat 100 percent raw food i'll die of cancer or have serious disease.

it is easier to eat some cooked food in some ways. i have friends i really don't want to cut out of my life and it seems much easier to socialise with by eating some cooked food.

in the past few days i've these non raw things: organic granola, organic rice milk, bread, cooked pumpkin soup, organic tofu, a restaurant vege pizza, non raw juice. dont know why just thought i'd share that.

anyway still at the end of my ranting and raving before i even wrote this post i started thinking maybe i just need a way for my brain to forget i'm even trying to be raw. just think about everything the same pretend i'm still cooked. it's just all in my head. which it is. it's funny how things seem so insignificant in the end. i think maybe i could have been eating too much even. i really don't know if its detox when my stomach feels bloated and i get gas, sometimes i think it's too much water yet i've had hardly any some days. 

anyway tomorrow its back on the raw bandwagon for now. i need to get some glow back before the weekend. oh just some things to add.

does anyway find it quite expensive being raw? (maybe it is, i guess that's why they feed grain to cows instead of greass because it's cheap) i think i really need to start buying less organic. i am a student and i'm spending 200 dollars or more just on my groceries lately.

 if i have buckwheat everyday i'm raw for now to help me feel full should this help my digestion get used to less bulky foods like bread ect.


finally. i apologise. i believe my posts are long and difficult to read and probably never get to a point and confuse everyone and possibly  make them dumber for having read them. i tried to space them out after reading rudolf's post about how to write. thanks for that one rudolf.

over the last two days i haven't been feeling good. just wondering how long it takes most people doing 100 percent raw to start feeling really good and not tired. i feel like i could sleep a whole day and it wouldn't be enough at the moment.

i've thought the same thing too kelly. it'd be great but i don't think that they wouldn't fit in very well. not just because of the diet but all the people who go on that show are young loud people airheads with no real thoughts of their own, well most of them from what i've seen. i think it'd be hard being raw and being cooped up in a house all day long, i'd need to get outside not just out in their backyard. they should have a raw reality tv show where they get a bunch of people on sad to change to raw. that'd be interesting. i doubt any major tv network would do it but maybe the abc or sbs.

thanks swami. very true. i've been pretty good on the fats. i had a salad with mixed greens, mango and orange today, ii think i'm going to do salads like this more often. it makes greens easier to eat for me. just like a green smoothie only crunchy. tomorrow i am going to try and make a green smoothie day. it's been easier yesterday and today not having work. i had a short shift yesterday so i got to go to the beach and go for a run and then a long walk after getting lost in burleigh headlands. there was some dandelion greens on the track. i wasn't sure if i should pick them or not. they seemed really furry and spiky. the dandelion greens i've bought at the markets were smoothe and not spikey.
 

happy birthday jen! i have told wb to bugger off and i've got the 24th off. looking forward to it. see you then.
travis

that makes sense i think. i started having craving for some meat dishes lately and i was really surprised. i never did when i was vegetarian (about a year and a half ago). i think it's also a craving for something heavy and fatty.

you know you're a raw foodist when you're starving and you'd rather eat grass than cooked food.

congratulations on your challenge swami. thanks. i definitely see what you mean about looking back on 30 days and having a sense of accomplishment. it's been easy today. i had banana blueberry and mango at work today. it was so good. i've been wanting that combination for ages. i also made my own recipe today. it's banana dipped in a chocalate sauce made from macadamia butter, cacao powder and a splash of agave. mmm it's so nice. it'd be a good topping for a raw cake too. i made another good truffle the other day from goji berries, raisins, cacao, macadamia and a little bit of coconut oil. it was more like a fudge i ate in a bowl. i am fearing that i am eating way too much fat at the moment. tomorrow i think i might do just green smoothies and give fat a rest.

its so great all these young raw foodists. sergei went to a raw teen camp in the us. wouldn't it be great if there was something like that in aus.

i've been meaning to start this thread for a long time. i have a friend who is going to thailand in two days. she had to be immunised and had six injections. some she volunteered for but some she had to get. what would you do if you were travelling overseas? immunisation is bad from what i've heard, lots of nasties in them. what's everyone's opinion?

thanks garfield22.

just thought i'd post my progress. on thursday i strayed and had cooked food for dinner and lunch on an outing for a friends birthday, so the 30 days is not 100 percent but i will try to be from now on especially after sergei's talk last night which was great! i really feel that is the sort of person i want to be. i feel more resolve about being 100 percent raw and i think i am just going to say no to friends and explain to them what i'm trying to do, so i am not going to make any plans that will involve food with anyone from now on. i really want to do 30 days at 100 percent and try and change my lifestyle and always be doing things outside. after learning more about greens, i think i have learnt more about what i need. sergei said how on green smoothies the body will naturally crave better food. also when he said about eating greens and feeling bloated after due to a lack of hcl to digest properly, something cliked immediately. i think that's what i've felt sometimes after salads so i am going to have green smoothies everyday and hopefully my digestion will improve and alot of other things. today at work as i often do, it came to lunch and i didn't have time to prepare anything before work. i get very wierd about buying fruit or raw food from coles at surfers. i just find the produce really bad quality and unripe. all the organic stuff is refrigerated so i need to wait before i can eat it but today i thought i have to stay raw. so i bought non organic produce for a change because i realised if it keeps me raw i should do it. i got organic macadamias, and a punnet of non organic rasberries and blueberries and a bunch bananas. what an expensive lunch it was at about 32 dollars but i don't care i think you always get what you pay for. it was so nice, i'd never really had rasberries before. my boss was amazed at how much fruit i eat. she thinks you should only have 2 pieces a day or else the sugar will convert to fat. i think i'd be pretty fat then if that was the case. (sorry it must be hard reading my posts, i have not concept of writing, i just chop and change things out of nowhere, i am now remembering something about this morning i wanted to add) i had a green smoothie this morning with lettuce, red oak lettuce and mizuna with a banana, goji berries and apple and it was quite big, two big cups full. after i had it i felt really good. like i was high or something, (i don't do drugs but i think i can imagine) my head felt great. i remember harley saying along the lines of how people do drugs because it gives an alkaline hit to the brain and if they ate raw they wouldn't need to. is this what happend to me? i don't know but it felt good. i've never had that sort of a good reaction with food before.