No Nonsense Tips to Avoid Falling Off the Raw Food Wagon
A reader asked: "How can I go 100 percent raw? I keep falling back. A guru mantra from you will definitely help.”
I don’t know of a sacred verbal formula that will keep all bad food at bay. But I do know some simple steps that will definitely help.
Experience tells me this … at those times when we reach for that piece of forbidden food, it’s usually because we have let ourselves completely—if briefly—forget the reasons why we wanted to eliminate unhealthy foods in the first place.
What leads us to forget our well-thought out plans? Often it's powerfully influential memories, whether memories of the foods themselves like mom's meatloaf, or associated memories like a grandchild's smile which bring back feelings of satisfaction, safety, comfort.
Why Am I Eating?
The family photos on your refrigerator only add to this hypnotic state. Your refrigerator is not the place to feel all warm and cozy and get emotional. It's a place where you need to be all logic and common sense and post yourself a question (perhaps literally): Why am I eating?
Visual Reminders
Give yourself some visual reminders of what bad food does. A few pics of clogged arteries, fat tummies, a distorted colon—you’ll find a zillion on the internet—can serve as telling reminders, stuck on your fridge or cupboard door. Get graphic, if you have to.
100 Days to 100% Raw
A Step By Step Guide
But give yourself some positive reminders, too. A picture from a magazine resembling how you, yourself want to look, a cover of a book that inspired you to go raw in the first place.
Clear Your Kitchen
Another piece of advice: Empty your fridge and pantry of what shouldn’t be there anymore but may have lingered. Get rid of all your cooking paraphernalia! Lose the coffee maker … all but a single saucepan … the toaster-oven … the crock-pot … if it plugs in or gets hot, you probably don’t need it. Disconnect your stove and start using it for storage, so it will be really inconvenient if you get the urge to bake something in a moment of weakness.
Most of us are hopelessly addicted to food—a sad fact indeed. We eat for comfort. We eat from boredom. Or we eat because we’re sad. Or angry. We eat because it’s “time to eat.” We eat because someone else says, “Yeah, I could eat.”
Be in Love
The best way to forget food: Be in love. If romantic love isn’t on the immediate horizon, find something you love to do. Passion will take you away from unnecessary eating. It can be a passion for anything. Exercise, like yoga, Pilates, Zumba, racquetball, running, walking, weightlifting. Or perhaps a gentle outdoor pursuit, like birdwatching or geocaching. Volunteer work, whether it be helping at the church rummage sale or serving at a soup kitchen. A new pursuit, perhaps, or an old one brought to new life. Start loving someone or something well … and you’ll soon stop eating badly.
Quantum Eating
The Ultimate Elixir of Youth!
For more tips for kicking the cooked food addiction, check out this Blog article. For more advanced practice, take a look at my book Quantum Eating.