Going Raw and Food Cravings- Its All In The Mind

Giving up any addiction follows a similar pattern.  Essentially it is a process that follows certain steps and barriers that are all set by our mind.  I have heard it said that it can take up to 30 days to learn or break a new habit but to me this is just step 1.

At first you have a new found enthusiasm for your new habit.  Be it daily meditation or yoga, brushing your teeth every morning, going to bed early every night or eliminating something toxic from your diet or lifestyle you have likely made a decision to start doing something new following some form of personal epiphany and this new habit is something that could take your life to the next level.  The first few days can often be fairly easy due to this new found enthusiasm giving you the energy to push through the initial cravings to go back to usual habits.  And then around day 3 your mind will start bringing up new excuses and reasons to break the habit and go back to old ways.

So maybe you go back to old ways but you remember how good those 3 days were, eventually you make a resolve to start again and the next time you get to 7 days or a little longer before you stop again.  What I have found is that as you go a little longer each time the  excuses and barriers that are being created by the mind become more subtle, more complex and more convincing.  It is at that point you must continue to look to why you are making the change and keep feeding yourself with inspiration and support on your path.  Eventually you will get to the stage where the mind no longer makes excuses to go back to the old habits, and instead makes excuses to stick to the new healthy habits but it takes a while, and with a fruitarian raw food diet maybe at least 6 months to 1 year, or perhaps longer.

For myself, being just over 1 year raw now I no longer try to create any excuse or reason to eat cooked food.  I know it is not good for my body and no matter how long I went raw and how "clean" the cooked food was, every time my body would react like "this isn't right"..not that it was terrible or the worst thing ever, just that it was not right and not the best I could be doing.  I looked at day old cooked potatoes left over the pot and imagined that taking a few days to move through my system...I was carrying that around with me, instead of mushy bananas and mangoes.

For me now it not a case of THIS is a healthy diet and THAT is an unhealthy diet..simply the fruitarian way is the CORRECT diet, the most rational and logical path for peace, simplicity and happiness.  Other diets may vary in nutrient content and other factors but they are simply not our true diet by design.

Here are a list of excuses that will come up if you decide to try a fruitarian 801010 style diet:

1. This is too expensive
2. This is time consuming
3. There have never been any fruitarian tribes or communities
4. All this tropical fruit, this can't be good for the environment
5. Fruit is hybridized/gmo/full of pesticides...I'm better off eating XYZ
6. My ancestors come from a climate that didn't have much fruit...therefore I must be starchivore?
7. Cooked starches are good too right?
8. I'm beating myself up over being 100% raw...its better to have some cooked food and not put that stress on myself
9. Fruit here doesn't taste good
10. A scientific study suggests that the longest living communities ate cooked foods
11. Analysing the lifestyle with cronometer I'm deficient in XYZ mineral or nutrient I need to include more XYZ in my diet
12. Its cold so my body wants something warm
13. Its too extreme, I want to be able to hang out with friends and go to restaurants..

On and on it goes and it is truly a testament to the wonderful creativity or our brilliant mind that it can come up with so many varied and convincing arguments.  You will find those who have stopped being on a raw food diet or have went back to including more cooked foods will give you a number of these various reasons but in reality that is all it is.  It is an empty excuse created by the mind to buffer their way psychologically back to eating something that they know there body is not completely happy with.  They will generally testify to it being better than what they were doing before and they are 100% happy with their decision, they also feel saner and healthier and those strict 100% raw people are all crazy anyway.

Food addictions are strong as they carry with them emotionally charged memories of meals and happy times together with others and the illusion is that this was somehow to do with the food you were eating so you will never experience that again.  In reality it is always the people that make these times special and not the food and I have met so many beautiful, loving and inspiring people on this raw path that have made the tough times all worthwhile.

Go raw and enjoy the battle, kick the excuses away and stay set on your goal, meet as many successful longterm fruitarians as you can and continue to learn and improve towards living a healthier and more sustainable life.

www.meetup.com/Glasgow-Fruitluck
instagram: fruityronster
youtube: Fruity Ronster

Who am I?

My name is Ronnie Smith and I was born, brought up and still live in Glasgow, Scotland. I started to transition towards a Fruitarian diet in late 2011 after having come across the concept of raw veganism on Youtube.  I attended the Woodstock Fruit Festival in Upstate New York in August 2012 and have remained on a fully raw fruitarian diet since then.

For me, fruitarianism and its philosophy answered a lot of questions I could not understand.  Why could we not live harmoniously in nature like other animals?  Why did we have to cook and process our food? Why do we experience such a rapid decline in health while we age? I wondered if we had lost our true instincts and if living domesticated lives had taken away our killer instinct.  Somehow that did not seem right to me.

At the time prior to transition I had already made significant dietary changes away from the standard UK or Scottish diet on which I had raised.  After years of trying I had given up refined sugar and experienced a huge change from that alone.  Not long after I realised I had switched sugar addiction for caffeine addiction and took tea, coffee and other caffeinated beverages out of my diet as a result.  Both times I had noticed positive changes and enjoyed the sense of having conquered a craving.

Giving up meat later on was easy in comparison and this was my first experience of how a change to diet can also have an impact on your ethics and worldview.  Eventually I made an ethical choice to go vegan and while researching this I came across inspiring videos made my raw vegan athletes such as Tim Van Orden and Harley Johnstone (Durianrider) and I knew I had to try this out.

I will write more about my transition and whatever comes to mind soon.  For more of my story so far I have a youtube channel "Fruity Ronster" and also host a fruitluck in Glasgow for others interested in a high fruit diet, whether fully raw or not: www.meetup.com/glasgow-fruitluck.

Til then, plant trees, eat fruit and take care of yourself

Ronster