Van said you like to hear changeover stories, and I do have few questions, so I thought I would write.
(I seem to be on an information overload at the moment, having just read the
http://www.fast-5.com/ and
http://www.warriordiet.com/ websites. Anyway, the upshot is that today I am waiting until 5pm to eat.)
Just to give a bit of background, I have been seven years cooked vegan in the distant past, then a wide variety of "doing what I liked", long extended fasts, and half-hearted attempts at raw vegan and fruitarian.
Basically I found the long fasts really cleaned me out and rejuvenated me (I'm 45 but look very young, vibrant and healthy - strangers always refer to me in the 3rd person as 'that young man'), but whenever I tried to follow it up with a long-term plan of eating 100% RV/fruitarian, it quickly came to nothing, and I started joining in normal food again whenever socially possible.
I got into a cycle of eating pretty much RV and mini-fasts in the week, and then any old crud (plus drinking) at the weekends. I knew it was unhealthy, but the raw veg/fruit was just too idealistic, and more than the anti-social side of it, it just left me unsatisfied.
I stopped drinking (I haven't missed it - part of why I wanted to stop was hating the taste) and found a paleo book a few weeks back and went on to cooked paleo - meat, veg and fruit. This tasted great and was very satisfying - I cut out all the junk, even socially, bar the odd micro-slip.
(I had been pretty much 'veggie' and had always believed the old Natural Hygiene arguments about us sharing so many bodily characteristics with chimps and orangutans, that we must be fruitarians. Suddenly a new part of my brain lit up. What makes us
different from chimps and orangutans? Think of our graceful, athletic, high speed bodies, our throwing abilities, our ability to work in groups hunting and fighting, how wonderfully people can craft tools, can throw javelins, stones, and think of that shadow thrill of ganging up on something and defeating it, even exulting in cruelty/victory, that we all feel (even as horror of it), but civilisation hates to acknowledge, and suddenly I knew, of course, our
difference is that we are tool-using, predator apes - meat eaters.)
But I started to notice I would get the sweats after meals. I remembered a raw food term: leukocytosis - the body's white cell reaction to cooked food. It suddenly struck me that I couldn't square cooked paleo with what I knew. I looked up raw paleo - and that's why I'm here.
Anyway, that bit of background already makes this post too long. But I have some questions about what's happening to me in my changeover:
Last night I ate some raw venison steaks from a supermarket (they tasted fantastic - no worries there), with a tomato and some lettuce and a couple of mushrooms, all raw. Then I ate some (defrosted) frozen wild, dark red mixed berries. Pretty quickly I got a bit of indigestion, had a few bowel movements and felt queasy and still feel queasy today (unusual for me). I also felt that fatty taste of meat in my mouth, and couldn't really sleep well (also unusual). My nose became blocked, and still is pretty stuffy. (But of course, no sweats.)
In the morning I had many more bowel movements and a pinkish hue to my urine. I don't feel like I want to eat meat tonight.
I'm not sure I'm ready for the 100% meat option some on here seem to use - I still like my fruits/berries, nuts, and I sort of crave veg (but only when it's cooked).
How do you go about combining raw meat with other foods? On different days? Or what does everyone think of another book about timing food ("The Evolution Diet") which suggests paleo man grazed on nuts, berries and leaves whilst hunting, then had one big protein feast/blow-out at the end of the day?
It's early days for me - I'm not active enough yet either - just walking an hour or two every day - and that has to change too (strenuous activity didn't chime too well with fruit and fasting). Undoubtedly this is just normal disequilibria/detox, but any comments, questions or feedback would be most welcome.
