Steve Pavlina raw food advocate?
Yes, that’s right, read about how Steve got started with raw food, what foods he recommends, and why this was one of his toughest ever 30-day trials.
The Steve Pavlina raw food diet is one proof that Steve is the all-around self-help guru. Since diet affects people’s well-being greatly, food plays a major role in personal development.
What to Eat in A Raw Food Diet
During Steve’s experiment in raw food diet, his menu consisted largely of fresh fruit.
His objective was to get 80 to 90 percent of his daily calories from sweet fruit, which contains several beneficial vitamins and nutrients that the body needs. Sweet fruit is considered as the top source of energy for the body because they are easy to digest and can be used by the body even with minimal energy expenditure. So instead of the body spending energy just to digest food, when you eat lots of sweet fruits, you can use your energy for other things. This is why people on a raw food diet tend to feel more energetic.
Considering all these – sweet fruit’s efficient digestion, low residual waste, and high nutritional value, it is pretty obvious that they are the best type of food to eat.
Aside from fruits, the raw food diet should also consist of raw vegetables such as romaine lettuce and celery and non-sweet fruits such as tomatoes. Other possible raw food options include nuts, avocados, coconut, and various seeds; these, however, are also a bit fatty, so they are not as easy for the body to digest as sweet fruits.
There are some vegetables that cannot be eaten raw, such as broccoli and cauliflower. Since they are vegetables, a lot of raw food advocates still eat them. But according to Steve, these vegetables should be avoided or minimized. Although they won’t hinder you from enjoying the benefits of a raw food diet, they don’t provide any great benefit at all as it is difficult to extract their nutrients due to their fibrous nature.
The Highs and Lows of Raw Food Diet
The Steve Pavlina Raw Food Detox
People have many reasons for trying the raw food diet.
One of the best effects of this kind of eating is the way it cleanses the body. At some point, those who start on a raw food diet will start to experience some detox symptoms, which may be uncomfortable and a bit of a challenge to deal with.
This detox period lasted about two weeks, in Steve’s case.
The symptoms he experienced included chills, headache, bad breath, mental fogginess, drowsiness during the day, and difficulty concentrating. After the detox, however, you will start feeling the great benefits of a raw food diet.
Self-discipline
The detox is a natural part of changing dietary routines; it is the body’s way of adapting to the change.
But aside from the physical adaptation, the raw food diet will also require your mind to adapt to the change as well. Although Steve liked the raw food, one of the hardest parts in his experiment with this unique diet was figuring out how much to eat each day. Once he got the hang of it, the hard part was to consistently stick with it.
For this, he needed much self-discipline.
Variety
On the other hand, what he initially thought would be a problem turned out not to cause any trouble at all.
Prior to his experiment, Steve expressed concern about getting a variety of raw foods in the winter, but he soon found that he didn’t have a difficult time finding different stuff to eat. Over time, he felt his cravings for other types of food, especially salty food, eventually wane as he became accustomed to raw food.
Low fat
In a raw food diet, it was also important to keep fat levels low.
This restriction, according to Steve, was the most difficult part of his experiment. In some days, he would include fatty fruits in his diet to satiate his cravings, but he found that eating too much of them made him feel unwell. Eventually, he was able to drop his fat consumption to less than 10% of his calories, although it took time before he was able to achieve this.
Concluding the Raw Food Trial
After the trial, Steve admitted that it was the hardest 30-day trial he has ever done.
He attributed part of the difficulty he experienced to the fact that he began the diet quite abruptly. He suggests to other people who are interested in trying out the raw food diet to gradually ease themselves into it over a period of months or even years.
After reading about the Steve Pavlina raw food philosophy, why not read more about other aspects of his life and teachings, click here.