The Number Two Secret to Success on the Raw Vegan Diet

I recently posted what I believe to be the No. 1 Secret to Success on the Raw Vegan Diet.

I'm about to reveal what I believe to be the 2nd most important factor to success when pursuing this lifestyle. Are you ready for this?

**Drumroll please**

Secret #2: Facing your emotional issues.
Some of you are nodding yes right now, and also possibly banging your head repeatedly on your screen...you understand completely what I mean just by the short, 4-word heading. Some of you are confused and have no idea what your skeletons in the closet have to do with the raw diet.
There is a reason processed food is addictive: it's mind numbing.
Face it folks...cooked and processed food IS emotionally addictive. If it wasn't, none of us would have any trouble transitioning easily to a raw diet. After all, it's just food, right?

I mentioned in my previous post about fasting that digestion takes up an enormous chunk of your body's available energy. Think back to the last time you had a huge cooked meal - maybe Christmas, or Thanksgiving with your family. Did it make you feel like jumping right up and doing your first triathlon afterwards? :) My guess is, you wanted to just fall into a nice soft bed and sleep for a hundred years.

My other guess is, you probably also felt like a (happy) zombie after your huge cooked meal. Sure, you were tired, but at least you were stuffed and not really inclined to think about anything unpleasant...or anything much at all. Oh, and the TV remote was your best friend, right?

When you eat food that is extremely difficult for your body to digest, your body has to work SO hard, that there is not much energy left over to help you process any emotions or feelings. And then ironically that becomes an escape. This is why many of us get caught up in the vicious cycle of using processed food to numb our feelings when we are upset, stressed or depressed.

There are a few lucky people out there who do not struggle with this, but most of us have battled emotional eating at some point or other. I used to be the Queen of Ee - and yeah I just made up a new word. I do that often. Cool, huh?

Kevin always knew just what to do if I had a bad day, or worse, a very bad, no good, awful day. Chocolate, baby, and lots of it is all it took to conjure up a few rainbows and unicorns in my life. Either that, or a vat of pasta was enough to send me into a deliriously gleeful stupor, too.

Fruit is fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how your day is going, haha) not addictive.
The way you feel when you are eating a fruit diet can be addictive, but fruits and veggies in themselves are not addictive in nature. They digest quickly and easily, not requiring as much energy to process.

So you do all this research and accumulate all the head knowledge you need. You think to yourself, today is D-day, and decide to take the plunge and eat only fruit. What you didn't plan on was suddenly having your most often used emotional coping strategy harshly ripped out of your life.

You feel everything, intensely. Your highs are incredibly high and your lows plummet about 20 feet below the ground. You feel totally naked and your heart starts migrating from the middle of your chest toward your arm and then before you know it, it's making an uninvited appearance on your sleeve.

And then, as if that wasn't insult enough already, your entire hideous past shows up and starts knocking on your door wanting to talk to you today, please.

At this point many of us (including myself!) throw our hands up in the air and cry, no, scream, "UUUUUUUUUUUUNCLE!" and run to the store for a box of cookies or a bag of chips, something, anything, to make all this go away.

Is there an answer? Please tell me there's an answer.
Yes, I believe there is an answer. But it is not an easy one. It is, however, a most rewarding one if you choose to pursue it.

The answer? Begin embarking on a journey to sort out your emotions and deal with past struggles head-on, and start acquiring some new tools that help you cope with your emotions when they do come up.

There are lots of different ways to approach this. Personally, I used two routes. The first was counseling. This was something I did in 2006 after some not good stuff happened to me, and as I reflect back, sorting myself out through counseling was really a huge factor in my being able to handle the "final" transition to 811 that I did in 2007. (See, now you have official proof that I really live up to my blog name and am as much of a nut case as you thought I was.)

The second thing I did was to remain very quiet (in real life) for over a year. This may not appeal to everybody or work for everybody, but it really helped me. There was so much noise going on in my life, so many people to juggle that I couldn't make sane decisions anymore.

So I laid low for awhile and kinda just did my own thing, and read a ton and thought through a lot of things. I took time to listen to God, listen to myself and yes, I did back off from a lot of friends and social things during that time. But this quiet time was life-saving for me and I just told Kevin yesterday that I am finding myself finally starting to emerge from this little cocoon I was hibernating in. It feels like it's time.

Did all this get me back to perfectly normal? Haha, sorry, but normal is no longer in my vocabulary. I accept that I will never be normal. I still struggle, but with my tools within reach at all times, I feel increasingly confident and capable to work at dealing with my emotional issues without using food of any kind. Plus, I see REAL RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS NOW, not just the mirages of them that I used to think was the real thing when I ate cooked food. :)

Those are just two examples of many things you can do to start healthfully chipping away at your emotional barriers. For those of us with no deep seated issues (I know you do not exist, but just in case...) perhaps even regular talks with a sympathetic friend would be enough.

For those of us who are spiritually inclined, a lot of meditation and prayer are in order. And lets not forget the growing number of self discovery methods out there to look into. I'd love to hear more ideas from those of you who have successfully transitioned, or are in the process of it.

Now you can soar.
Once you start learning how to face, accept and deal with your emotional struggles, you will likely start flying high in the face of the raw vegan/fruitarian lifestyle. If at that point there is still some struggle, then perhaps you will need to tune in for my No. 3 Secret to Success on the Raw Vegan Diet, coming soon to a blog post near you. :)

Happy Monday, friends!