My typical day consists of about 7 bananas for breakfast, or half a cantaloupe and 3 or 4 bananas, then midday it's usually a banana/strawberry/date smoothie, before dinner I make a dipping sauce by blending a banana, 4 or 5 dates, and a little bit of water and I cut up apples to dip in the sauce. Then dinner usually consists of some fresh fruit followed by a head of romaine lettuce and a few leaves of either spinach or green leaf lettuce. I feel wonderful when I follow this regimen. However, I didn't realize how much emotional attachment I have to cooked/processed foods. I literally craved them as an alcoholic craves alcohol or a smoker craves cigarettes. When my cravings overcame my willpower, I quickly regretted my "fall off the wagon". I became moodier, tired, almost listless. When I was attempting to have a conversation with my son, at one point he looked at me and asked why I was staring at him. I honestly could not think of anything to say. I could actually feel the chemicals in the food affecting my brain function. I was actually surprised at how easy it was for me to physically feel this. That's how much the chemicals in the food affected my brain function and nervous system. My mental capacity was so negatively affected that I couldn't even think. Now, for someone who thinks and overanalyzes on a pretty much constant basis this may sound like a wonderful reprieve, but I assure you it was anything but. When you mix in the depressive mood and tiredness, it's not something one wishes to experience again.

After my experiences, I certainly can understand the rapid, alarming increase in childhood ADHD, autism, as well as violent behavior such as kids shooting kids. It doesn't come as any surprise to see this when you've experienced the effects of chemicals and toxins on your physical and mental processes. We keep feeding our children junk, but expect them to behave and make smart choices. Never before has the health of our children been in such a destructive and life-destroying state. We complain about the health care industry and the high cost of health care, while at the same time feeding our bodies life-destroying "foods". If we would concentrate our efforts in becoming more responsible for our health by eating life-sustaining foods instead of lobbying against the health care system, we would create greater change in a shorter amount of time. We could literally clear out the hospitals and health clinics in a matter of weeks. Imagine all the health care professionals with too much time on their hands because they have only a handful of patients. I can almost guarantee a drastic reduction in health care costs as the demand for their services drastically declines. This is more than possible.

In Dr. Douglas Graham's book, he mentions the many people he has worked with in turning around their health. All of the diabetics he worked with, without exception, were able to stablize their blood sugar level within a matter of a few weeks. Almost every one of them was able to go off their medications entirely within a few short weeks! Imagine that! People who have been type 2 diabetics for decades were no longer diabetic after a few weeks. People who have had candida problems were able to naturally reduce their candida to a healthy state. What people don't realize is that in their rush to kill all candida, they are also destroying themselves. Our bodies naturally create a healthy amount of candida to help regular blood sugar. It acts as a backup should the adrenals and pancreas ever fail. Candida's food is sugar. There is an excess of candida because there is an excess of sugar. There is an excess of sugar because there is excess of fat which clogs up the blood so the sugar can't move through to get to the cells to fuel them. Instead of killing the candida and killing ourselves in the process, all we have to do is cut out the fat from our diet. Now the blood clears, the sugar can move through and get to the cells, and the candida naturally die off and reduce to a healthy state because there isn't an overabundance of sugar. Couldn't be much simpler, yet we think we need to have a doctor tell us what is wrong and how to fix it. We have been brainwashed to think we are not capable of knowing what our bodies need and want, that we have to go to an "expert" who doesn't know anything about us tell us what is going on and how to "fix" it. We need to become more responsible for ourselves and in doing so, we become more self-aware and self-reliant..and healthier!

I think I can honestly say I know how the Supersize guy felt after eating only McDonald's food for a month. At least I didn't have to eat McDonald's food for a month to experience the health issues that he did. But then again, if it only took one meal for me to experience dire health issues, imagine what we are doing to our bodies by eating this way every day, in some cases every meal. It certainly was a wakeup call for me. People don't realize how processed foods affect them because they eat them everyday. The chemicals really are addictive and the companies who make them know this. Our bodies produce a lot of mucous to protect itself from these toxins, like a barrier so to speak, which really numbs us to the signals our bodies produce. Once we clean our bodies of these chemicals and toxins, our senses start to heal. We can start tasting food as it really tastes, and we become more self-aware of our body's sigals as to what foods are ok to eat. I experienced this firsthand twice when I ate some spicy raw salsa and put a drop of pure peppermint oil on my tongue. Both times I was so mucousy afterward, and I didn't realize at first that it was because my body was in shock at what I had ingested and it was protecting itself by creating the mucous. Our bodies are pretty amazing creations. They know exactly what to do in order to sustain life, but there comes a time when our bodies simply cannot take anymore abuse and simply stop functioning or create disease or illnesses as a last resort to try to wake us up to what we are doing. I can't say that I will never eat processed food again, but I know I will make better choices as to what foods I will eat to minimize the effects.

My son started cleansing last week after I began incorporating more raw fruit and greens in his diet. Last week he had a very high fever for about 4 days, to the point of hallucinating. He didn't have a sore throat so I knew it wasn't strep. The fruits and greens and the removal of most grains and dairy from his diet were allowing his body the opportunity to cleanse. He has a lot of congestion from grains and dairy so he has a lot to cleanse. His fever went away, only to return on Wednesday, and even higher! I let his body do its thing and sure enough, it finally went away. I had him on water and fresh watermelon during this time. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep the past 2 weeks! But when nature takes it course, we just have to step out of the way, because it's impossible to win a war with nature :) Just a tip: for anyone who knows someone who has been labeled as autism, I've been doing some reading on grains in our diet and many studies have reported that removing grains (and dairy) have a profound effect on those with autism. Something to consider. There's a wonderful book about grains and why they are not a natural (nor healthful, in fact detrimental) food source for humans. It's called Grain Damage: Rethinking the High-Starch Diet by Douglas Graham. Awesome book!

This next part I include for women, or if there are any men out there interested in learning about the woman's body and monthly cycle or who have women in their life considering transitioning to a raw food diet. I had recently read that women raw fooders had very light to no periods, yet still were able to become pregnant. He he he, any women out there who have experienced PMS and problematic periods would probably agree with me that that in itself is worth going raw!!! After reading that, I received a new spurt of energy and motivation to keep going! What I didn't read (yet) was that those light to no periods didn't come the first month, or second, or third after transitioning to raw, and what I also didn't read was that your body was probably going to experience some cleansing with each cycle before getting to that point. My first month after I started my transition, I experienced the heaviest menses ever, but thankfully not much in the way of cramping.

Thursday evening began my second month of menses after beginning my transition. It started out pretty good, very light and really no cramping. I had no desire for food that evening so I stuck to drinking water exclusively. Little did I know it was my body's indication (or maybe warning in this case) of what was yet to come. Friday started out the same as Thursday evening, very light with very little cramping. "Wow, this is great", I thought. I think this was what we like to call "the calm before the storm"! Not much time had passed when the cramps began to increase in intensity and the lower back pain began. Oh, and the flow became much heavier. Dang, I thought I had overcome this after last month's cleansing. I couldn't even sit up to play a boardgame with my son, I only wanted to lay in bed in the fetal position. Eventually, after about an hour, they subsided, and I was able to get up and continue on with my day. I think this was just my body giving me a reprieve from what was yet to come. I still had the back pain; however, it had now moved up to my middle back. No problem, I can handle this, it wasn't too bad. I decided to work for about 30 minutes, which consisted of sitting at the computer and typing medical claims (in my supposedly ergonomical chair)! Shortly after I finished working and got up to start doing chores, my back pain had increased to the point where no position was comfortable. It was just a matter of finding a position that was "less painful", which if any of you have experienced excrutiating back pain, ANY decrease in pain is welcome, but really doesn't affect the intensity of the pain. If someone had come along and shot me in the foot, I would have added him/her to my will, for it would have taken my mind off my back pain and been less painful! I hadn't realized how much we use our back muscles because no matter how I stood, sat, layed on the ground, it was painful. I had never experienced pain like this before. The past few days, a fellow raw fooder had been posting to the Yahoo group I belong to about his back pain and how he couldn't move. I scanned the emails but since it didn't apply to me and my "strong, healthy" back, I didn't read all of them. Well, after my experience, I can honestly say I can commiserate with this fellow raw fooder. I felt like his blood brother now, like anyone who has gone through such an experience has been initiated into some club. Reminds me of when we were younger when in order to become blood brothers or sisters with our friends, we pricked our finger until a drop of blood was evident and we joined fingers so our blood could mingle. The pricking was kind of like a rite of passage, as was the back pain experience.

If I could find a position where I wasn't using my back for support, it was bearable. This went on for about an hour as I was slowly beginning to be able to move it certain ways without the excruciating pain. I tried to sit and get some more work done, but I wasn't able to sit for more than 10 minutes. There was no way I was going to be able to get the rest of my hours (5) in for the day. So I had to email my supervisor to tell her I probably wasn't going to be able to finish work. At this point, I didn't care if I was fired. The pain gradually decreased over the next few hours, but I still had pain if I moved my back a certain way or sat in my ergo chair. Food was farthest from my mind so I drank water the entire day, until about 5:00 pm when I had some fruit.

It's Saturday morning and I never thought I'd be so grateful to be able to sit in my chair and work!! Pain is almost gone, no cramping or any other "symptoms". Even though I've only mentioned the physical cleansing, we are all aware of the adage, "as above so below" and "as within so without", so yes I have been dealing with emotional cleansing as well. Since most of us on the SAD eat to numb out our feelings (ever hear of "comfort foods"), I had to deal with my emotions as I couldn't numb out anymore in the cooked, processed foods I was used to. All the wonderful things I have felt guilty about or judged gushed forth yesterday as well. Makes sense since the physical affects the emotional and vice versa, not to mention the mental and spiritual. They are all connected. As I peel away layers of the physical, the emotional, mental and spiritual are also being cleansed. Which I perceive as a wonderful thing.

Through this experience I learned that this transition is not going to be quick and always easy. After years of being on the SAD diet, a perfectly healthy body isn't going to happen in a day, or month or maybe even a year. It's a journey that one embarks upon that hopefully will take them to greater heights and experiences of health than they ever could have imagined, one that teaches how to build a solid foundation that will last. And as we notice changes, no matter how subtle, to our overall health, we are provided with the movitation to continue on. Oh, and the last thing I learned was the manufacturer of my "ergo" chair probably had embellished that part a little bit!

Saturday evening update: I just had to include this postscript to this entry. It's Saturday evening and lo and behold, my menses has completely stopped!! Only 2 - 2 1/2 days!! YES!! There IS a God! My daughter is so going to thank me for this in a year or 2 (or 3) when she begins her monthly cycle (as long as she sticks to a mostly raw food diet) LOL. I think she has been really fearing the whole process even though we have discussed it. But after I inform her of this latest development, I envision her new rally cry being, "BRING IT ON"!!!