I've been aware of the raw food diet for a couple of months now, but I'm not ready to commit 100% or even to high raw yet. I still need to find out more information. So I was just wandering how long you took between founding out about the raw food diet and actually going on the raw food diet (either 100% or high), but not necessarily including transistion period?

I tried going raw for a week in January. I was on vacation and my hotel was across the street from a living foods vegan restaurant so all I had to do was eat there 3 meals a day. I felt SO HEALTHY.

I have been vegetarian for almost a year and vegan for 2 weeks now. So - baby steps. Raw sounds good to me but first I think I'd have to get a dehydrator and find a few healthy recipes I like. That's step 1. Can't think about going totally raw until I do that.

I've been aware of the raw food diet for a couple of months now, but I'm not ready to commit 100% or even to high raw yet. I still need to find out more information. So I was just wandering how long you took between founding out about the raw food diet and actually going on the raw food diet (either 100% or high), but not necessarily including transistion period?

It took several years for me for the seed to take root, it was planted early and watered here and there through literature, testimonies, articles, etc.

I had heard about raw but didn't really want to try it until I saw a bunch of before and after transformations and especially after reading the shazzie.com 2000 journal. That was when I was ready to try it, because I saw amazing changes happening in another individual, an ordinary person like myself.

Before that I was similar to you - had heard about how good for you it was but it didn't really click, and had very little interest or desire to go for it. I had read a lot about how most of your diet should include fresh fruits and vegetables in Paul Bragg's Miracle of Fasting, that was when the seed got planted, so to speak, with me.

I remember feeling offended and annoyed when a girl posted on a fasting forum that "cooked food is poison"...I still don't like that saying, but now I understand what happens when cooked food enters a body, and the addictive effects I experience from it, it just makes sense to me now. I've been to several lectures and read tons of info and have even seen videos from a workshop showing how white blood cells increase so rapdily after consuming cooked food but not so much with raw food. I now see it more as detrimental than a poison.

Before I thought that the raw fooders were pretty far out and nutty but being on both sides of the fence myself raw food seems totally normal to me and altering food with heat seems a little 'out there' now, maybe just as eating meat seems extreme to a vegetarian.

I found out that I should be eating more raw food and I started by aiming at 50% though it was usually lower than that. I read that I should eat something raw before every meal, so I made sure to have fruit or veggies or a salad with every meal. Then I talked to Harvey Diamond on the phone one day several months later and he was talking to me about raw foods and I was so pumped up about it that I went about 75% raw overnight. I had a huge increase in my energy and I was constantly dancing around the house and I was running up and down the stairs just to get the energy out because I didn't know what to do with all of it. I felt so good and I lost eight pounds very quickly. That year in December, my mom got this book called Raw Power for my dad for Christmas. It's about body building on raw foods and the author eats all raw. I had never heard of this before and was amazed that it was possible. But I was definitely not ready yet for this step and I put it out of my mind. Then I decided in May of that year to read Nature's First Law: The Raw Food Diet. The radical veiws of the authors and their no nonsense approach made me decide to go all raw, which I did in June. I did that for a year and a half, then decided that the all raw diet was too restrictive for me and I started eating some cooked food. Now I'd say I'm 90% raw. I don't feel any major difference in the way I feel. I am much happier with some cooked food. I''d advise you to start off my aiming at eating half raw and half cooked. Then once you are comfortable with that, try to gradually increase raw until you get to 80%. You don't have to rush, but make sure you keep challenging youself. You want to be out of your comfort zone , but not in your shock zone. Eventually you will find it very comfortable to eat all or almost all raw.

Thanks guys. I've been a bit hesitant to go high raw partly because my hubby is just starting to get into veg*nism (except still eat meat at resturants and other people's homes at this point) and I want to keep him motivated by cooking really good vegan food for him (which he really likes), but it's hard enough to get him to eat a small salad, so I don't think raw is for him. But maybe someday I'll be able to just cook for him and not crave the food I'm making.

I went 100% raw the day I heard of it! It was like a light went on in my head & it just made so much sence to me! I was 5 months pregnant too! The results I got even within the first few days were enough to convince me for the rest of my life that raw is the way! I think if you give it 100% for 30 days & see how you feel, heck for a week even, you will be surprised at how wonderful you feel! Yes with every bite of raw food you take you will get benifits, but you will REALLY notice the effects if you commit & do it all the way. It's very eye opening to say the least!