Recap of 30-Day Raw Food Trial

In March I completed a 30-day raw food trial to find out what it’s all about and as a challenge to see if I could do it. I was inspired by Steve Pavlina’s raw food trial last year, and after watching Food Matters several months ago I knew it was something that I’d have to try at least once. The main reasons I wanted to do the diet was to experience the extra energy and metal clarity that people talk about after going on the diet, not for the weight loss or long-term health benefits (although the health benefits are a nice side effect).

I ended up quitting on the 28th day because I felt I’d experienced the full effect of the diet and didn’t see any point keeping it up for 2 days (over the weekend, which I found to be the hardest days) just for the sake of getting to 30. Here are a few ‘highlights’ of the trial.

Detox

The detox was one of the main things that I was dreading before I started the trial. I have a pretty good diet normally but just eating normal cooked and non-organic foods introduces a lot of toxins that are often stored in the body as it tries to cope with eliminate as many toxins as it can. None of the detox systems were bad enough that I needed to take any sick days, or felt like my productivity was affected in any way, but there were a few that I didn’t expect.

From about day 5 until 12 I had a pretty bad sore throat like what I expect tonsillitis to feel like. I’ve never had tonsillitis before so it wasn’t just a coincidence. I read comments from raw foodists on forums and apparently it’s a pretty common symptom early on in the trial. Also from about day 20 until a few of days after I finished I had a weird dry cough. I didn't have any other symptoms of the flu so I don't know what that was about.

One of the main symptoms I experienced during the trial (mostly in the first half) was that I often felt depressed for no good reason. Most of the time I was able to shake it off by thinking about it logically, but it still affected me a fair bit.

But the worst (and most embarrassing) of the detox symptoms was the complete drop off in sex drive. Basically after the first couple of days on raw I had no interest in having sex or masturbating at all. I wouldn't even wake up in the morning with an erection (sorry for the over share, but that’s a pretty good indicator) which is pretty unusual for almost 4 weeks. I don't know what caused this, or if it was just a chemical imbalance or something, but I'm glad to say that after a week on cooked food again, it's back :)

Weight Loss

I’m pretty tall at 190cm and I’ve always been fairly skinny at around 76Kg (168Lbs). Before the trial I didn’t expect to lose much weight but in the first week I lost about 2Kg (4.4Lbs) and over the month I lost a total of about 6 Kg (13Lbs).

This was scary for me because I didn’t restrict myself from eating anything that wasn’t cooked (heated over 48°C). I ate a lot of fruit, raw nuts, raw honey, avocados, and used a lot of oil (extra-virgin olive and coconut) as dressings so I was getting a lot of fats and sugars.

Extra Energy

I didn’t notice much of a boost in energy while on the diet, but that may have been because I was expecting a massive increase. I expected it so much that straight away I started going to bed later and getting up earlier. I guess because I was able to survive on less sleep (maybe 30 mins to an hour a night) than I usually need, this was a success.

I also noticed that my energy was level throughout the day and didn't have the highs and lows like it usually does. This was because I wasn't eating energy loaded bread and sugars which give a short boost of energy, and also because I was eating a lot more throughout the day rather than in 3 big meals.

Mental Clarity

This is a hard one for me to judge. Many people I’ve talked to have said that going from being a meat eater to vegetarian gave them a massive boost in clarity but I didn’t find the same thing when I went vegetarian for about 3 months in 2007. Steve has said that the difference is even bigger going from vegetarian to vegan, and bigger still going from vegan to raw. The one thing I did notice was that I was able to concentrate for much longer periods of time. Normally I’ll get fidgety and get up to get a glass of water or go to the bathroom as a distraction, but while on raw food I found I wasn’t doing this at all.

Food Preparation and Variation

To me, this was always going to be the hardest part of the trial. I don’t like preparing food and I hate cleaning up afterwards. Because of this, I arranged for a local Brisbane catering company (that just happens to be where my girlfriend works) to prepare lunches and juices for me during the week. This helped enormously and I wouldn’t have lasted a week if it wasn’t for this. It was also good because my girlfriend was doing the diet with me so she had a vested interest in trying different recipes and adding variation to the food she was preparing. Staple food were salads, smoothies (banana + baby spinach or banana + frozen mixed berries), vege juices, and mushrooms with a guacamole style topping, but we also had “pasta” and chocolate tarts.

The variation in food was OK for me. I think of food as fuel so I’m happy to eat the same thing every day as long as it’s healthy, quick, and easy. The part I loved about the diet were the smoothies and juices (if I could get everything I needed through a straw, I would). The parts I hated about the diet were Friday and Saturday nights, trying to think of what to eat and knowing that we couldn’t go out and pick something up.

The Social Life

Because of the shops and markets we were going to, we met quite a few other people who were all interested in raw food. This is a huge help and they were able to give us a few tips that we don’t get from the books. On the other side though, we basically didn’t see any of our normal friends for the month because many of our social outings revolve around food in some way and there are no places in Brisbane that cater to raw foodists.

Was It Worth It?

Absolutely! I’m glad I did it and I think I’ll do it again sometime in the future. At this stage I’m not ready to go 100% raw permanently, but I’ll definitely try to keep pushing up the ratio of raw foods that I eat until I get to 80 or 90%.

I’m not convinced that the rawness of the food is what makes this diet so healthy. There is truth that heat destroys a lot of nutrients in foods, but I think the main reason is that because you can’t eat anything heated, it rules out all processed foods.

Tips for getting through the 30 days

If you want to give the 30 day trial a go yourself, here are some recommendations to make it a bit easier to get through it.

• Read all of Steve’s posts on raw food. He documented everything from what he ate to the detox symptoms he felt every day for his 30 day trial.
• Get yourself a copy of The Lazy Raw Foodist’s Guide. It has some good recipes plus a lot of information about what to expect and what to watch out for.
• Get a good blender, juicer, and food processor (all three if possible, but if you can’t then get them in that order).
• Go to your local organic markets and organic health food shops and talk to the people there. You will often find other people who are interested in / already on the raw food diet.
• Try to convince your partner and some family or close friends to do the trial with you to share the responsibility of preparing food (like sprouting chickpeas to make hummus which takes about 4 days) and also to have the support.