Greetings and Salutations!

[Amris]

New person reporting in!

I intend to do a sort of modified version of Vanderplanitz' primal diet. I don't accept the idea that we should eliminate vegetables and such to the degree he wishes. Our digestive systems and suchlike indicate herbivore. However, we are human beings, and thus we have adapted to be able to eat meat in ways that bears and racoons couldn't. It seems clear that omnivore, with herbivore prominence, is preferable for us. Single stomach, shorter intestinal tract than pure herbivores, etc. give credence to the need for meat (in my personal, non-medical opinion) and our opposable thumbs and ability to use tools also supports this idea.

Or perhaps that's just my excuse. :p

I tried a raw vegan diet for a really long time. I was listless, tired, sick, dizzy, and otherwise generally unwell. I listened to all of the "you're not doing it right" and "that's just detox" stuff and kept trying... but at some point, you have to accept that it's not working for your body (again, in my non-medical opinion).

Then I just gave up, and began to gain weight. So I went to a mostly raw veggies diet with some cooked meat. I was better, but still continuing to gain weight.

I believe that almost entirely raw (I will eat some homemade wheat bread, as per his suggestion), is the best way for me. I ate some raw meat (VERY big deal for me--I don't even like 'rare' meat and wouldn't even eat sushi), and I felt quite good. I had also started drinking raw dairy (which I am aware a lot of you frown upon) and it literally had phenomenal impact upon my general mood and decreased my pain.

So yesterday, I started out with his diet, except that I'm eating more veggies and such than he recommends, and probably less meat. In part due to financial issues, also.

I will keep my Excel logs and alter my eating as I go along. If I find the veggies aren't working out, I'll stop them. I think every Body is different, so I am preparing to launch into a primarily raw diet with only a bit of cooked bread that I make myself. Including raw meat (gulp!) and continuing the raw cream and milk I've been consuming.

My biggest fear, however (yes, dreadful, I get it) is that I'll gain more weight. Please tell me it's possible to actually lose weight on this diet. I did on the raw vegan diet (until I looked literally skeletal and shook all the time--not THAT MUCH, please!).

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and good luck in your personal lifestyle journeys, also!!

[CitrusHigh]

Hi Amris,

It will be fun for you to look back to this post as you continue your journey and learn which particular foods are optimal for your body. It's a learning experience and we're all pioneers in to raw animal foods, there's no right or wrong way, just pay attention to the effects your foods have on you and alter accordingly. Down the road, after you have learned to guide your health, you can look back and marvel at the change in the way you saw things today, and how that has changed as you progress.

The fact that you recognize that it is a journey is huge! A lot of people think that there is one right way to eat, or there is a very rigid set of possible ways to eat but time will bear out that its just a matter of what foods are best for your genes and what level of health you want to maintain.

The raw meat gross out factor and germ phobia will take time to unlearn, it is scary at first considering the mainstream view of these little helpers, but give it time and you can get to the point where germs = good, chemicals/toxins = bad period. Same thing with parasites. A lot of people who have been eating this way for a long time are still frightened of raw pork and won't touch it with a ten foot pole, but raw, pastured pork heart is one of my favorite dishes for its health benefits and not least, it's complex flavor!

You can lose weight on this diet, but I also know people who start out gaining weight. Just remember that fat doesn't make you fat, carbs do and eat accordingly. That might mean sticking to cream instead of whole milk. Or cutting out carb veggies or whatever you need to do to get the weight you want. But weight has nothing to do with exercise (though exercise is certainly a healthy thing to do), if you are eating right for your body, your weight will balance out eventually to a healthy number for your height.

Welcome, and good luck to you too! You're the only one who can master your health.

PS it will also be fun for me to look back at this post and note the changes in my own viewpoints since then!

[Amris]

Thanks, CH!

I can't lie and say that I'm looking forward to eating raw meat... but I CAN say I'm looking forward to feeling healthier. So I'll knuckle down and do it--probably making a face while I do. 

Yes, I'm sure some day I'll probably laugh to think I find the idea frightening and repulsive. Not today, though. 

I definitely know it's a journey. And I also believe that, as a woman, my eating needs will evolve all of my life as the cycles of life come and go and move into the next phase. So I doubt I will ever find my "perfect place" and be able to stop learning about the needs of my body. It's very different now from when I was 5, or 19, or even 30.

That's the way life is.

[TylerDurden]

Most raw foods are mostly not weight-gaining - that is, you really have to stuff yourself with lots and lots of raw fat  and do no exercise. The only exception is raw dairy as many people find raw dairy to be a weight-gaining food, though you may be one of those who don't get that effect. You'll just have to experiment.

[Amris]

I'm going to be doing kettlebells. I had stopped to do the hcg diet. But I do not handle, psychologically, starving myself. Most people, it seems, do not feel hungry on the hcg diet, but I was starving all the time. I decided to entirely give it up, although I was losing weight, because in my terror and frustration at starving (I was literally starved by foster parents as a child, so it's a primal fear for me), I found myself screaming at my child for taking a piece of my once-daily allowed apple (the second time was a piece of my meat).

My relationship to my child is a thousand and one times more important than my weight loss will EVER be. If I must be fat and have a good relationship with her, so be it. But I just can't starve myself anymore. I've been doing it since she quit nursing, and I just can't keep it up.

I have read your views on raw dairy, and I do intend to experiment a bit further down the line with eliminating it for a while. Because of where I'm coming from, and my experience with improvements once I started getting it, I'm not willing to do that experiment just yet. I think I really wouldn't know what to do without it, since there's no way I can eat 3 pounds of raw meat a day and not have a knock-down, drag-out fight with my husband over the cost.

So, for now, I'll start where I am and see how it goes.

Thank you. <3

[eveheart]

I'm a grandmother-ish woman who is losing weight eating RPD. My main goal was to eliminate arthritis pain, but I also find that my former food-cravings are completely gone and fat is melting off my body.

I don't consider food allowed or not allowed. Instead, I think, "What would I eat if I were a caveperson?" I answer this by saying I'd definitely eat freshly-killed meat, ripe fruits, berries, nuts. I'd chew on tasty plants. Here in urban California, I can get good raw honey, eggs, beef and lamb plus cultivated fruits and veggies. I eat to polite satisfaction and do not ever feel starving.

My take on AV is that he doesn't say that cooked starch is basically necessary, although he does admit that he said that in earlier editions of his book. He does say to spread things on bread if desired. Since I'm living in 40,000 BCE, I don't have to worry about bread because wheat is not cultivated yet. Wheat used to be a food I craved, so it's good riddance to bread, anyway.

[Amris]

I have the 1997 version.

Is he still anti-salt?

Oh, and I couldn't get myself to eat more than a few bites of the raw meat today.

[eveheart]

Oh, and I couldn't get myself to eat more than a few bites of the raw meat today.

I read your other post about the chicken. I have never eaten raw chicken. Let's just say that I have raw chicken issues

Raw grassfed ground beef (not lowfat) was where I started. I had to learn to chew unground raw red meat. In my opinion, it's a different way of chewing. I love the taste of soft beef and lamb fat, also beef marrow is a delicacy. I can eat raw lamb kidney and liver, and I like it better than cooked.

I avoid letting anyone be my guru. When I feel like salt, I use it. Cavepeople didn't have gurus! LOL

[Amris]

Well, we certainly have different approaches. I don't necessarily see myself as trying to eat like a caveman so much as getting the right nutrition and such for myself where and when I am right now. And I also don't mind utilizing someone else's learning and teachings until I feel more strong and confident within my own experience with it.

The nice thing about it is that we don't have to try to make each other's methods wrong so that we can be right.

I appreciate your helpful comments, thank you.

[Ioanna]

Yes, I'm sure some day I'll probably laugh to think I find the idea frightening and repulsive. Not today, though. 

but it's sooner than you think!

[goodsamaritan]

I don't see how one can be obese on raw paleo diet.

Welcome!