Susan (name changed for privacy and happy to share), 31, had been trying to go all-raw for five years. She managed this in fits and starts, sometime managing three or four months at a time without any exceptions but frequently migrated back to cooked food in between “successes” at which point the all-raw times of any real note were sporadic. It usually took six months or more to get back to being raw for more than a month at a time. While she didn’t feel this was the end of the world she wasn’t happy about it either. She knew that cooked food just didn’t work for her any longer on any level and was getting increasingly frustrated by not being able to stay raw and fully commit to it. When she finally felt enough was enough she came to me asking the big question: WHY? And after answering the questions you’ve just answered it soon became clear.

Read on to see how Susan’s answers held the key to her raw success moving forward:

1) When I think of cooked food I think...
Comfort, Happy times, Families, Easy, Fast, Rice, Pasta, Potatoes, Warming, Satisfying, Cake, Love, Get-togethers, Eating Out, Tradition, Boyfriends, Socialising.

2) When I think of raw food I think...
Boring, Time-Consuming, Fresh, Clean, Lively, Enzymes, Colourful, Isolating, Life-Food, Lovely People, Juices, Salads, Vegetables, Fruit, Nuts, Seeds, Health Food Shops, Feel Good.

3) If I lived exclusively on cooked food I think I...
Would feel sluggish and miss raw food like crazy
Would gain weight and look pretty bleugh!
Would be depressed
Would wish I was raw
Would ultimately feel like life was not worth living

4) If I lived exclusively on raw food I think I...
Would look and feel amazing
Wouldn’t know what to do with all my energy!
Would feel a bit odd, and very odd compared to most people
Would wish I knew more people who ate like me
Would be much happier and content that I finally made the break
Would be much clearer about who I am and what I want
Would want a personal chef!

5) People who eat raw food are...
Generally lovely
Some are a bit odd
Full of energy
Usually very healthy
The exception rather than the rule
On the cutting-edge
Not all like me
Extremists (sometimes)

6) When I eat raw food I...
Feel great
Feel so much happier
Lose weight (that I need to lose)
Wonder if I can make it last
Am scared in case I never get to eat cooked food again
Wish everybody ate this way
Wonder why more people don’t know about it
Wonder if I will ever meet a man who doesn’t think I’m odd for doing it
Feel a bit left out at parties (but can handle it mostly)
Wish people didn’t keep asking me questions about it
Wake up earlier and brighter than when I don’t
Have much more passion for life
Wish I lived in a raw food world so there weren’t any temptations!

7) When I eat cooked food I...
Susan said:
Feel a bit fat and bloated – and quite quickly too, yuck
Like the taste but don’t like the way it makes me feel
Like the variety but still feel crap on it
Feel more of the crowd
Am more accepted by my friends and family (mostly)
Wonder why I ate it!
Say it will be the last time (but it rarely is and I yo-yo for months at a time)
Wish there were more variety available of raw food

If I had to choose between eating exclusively cooked food or raw food I would choose RAW because...
I know it’s the only way to go for me
I know if I ate only cooked I would feel terrible
I have come too far to go back
I do love raw food, I just get bored sometimes
I look and feel my best on raw
It makes so much sense in every way
I feel good that I’m not hurting any animals
I feel way more alive
I am overall much more kind and in touch with myself
I think it makes me a nicer person
The cooked food life is just pants in comparison!
I LOVE RAW!

9) I believe that cooked food...
Is damaging to health, albeit slowly
Is an inferior product no matter which way you dress it up
Is addictive and take us away from who we really are
Is more of a problem than 99.9% of the population realise
Tastes good but feels rotten
Has not a lot going for it when I think about it!
10) I believe that raw food...
Is, in my heart and soul the way I want to eat
Is the best fuel for my body
Is the food of the future
Is something to be embraced
Is living food personified

11) This is my single biggest fear about going and staying all-raw...
I would feel alone, a little unloved and a bit of a weirdo (even though I know I’m not!)

12) This would be my very worst food nightmare if I had to eat all cooked food and no raw food at all...
That I would be force-fed offal, fried egg, corned beef and lard sandwiches made out of fried bread. Eugh! And then fed a whole birthday cake with double-cream poured over the top and the first course all over again!

13) This is my most beautiful vision of myself if I went all-raw...
I would have the body and life of my dreams because I would feel clean, beautiful, healthy and unstoppable.

14) This is my most depressing vision of myself if I reverted to all-cooked...
I would pile on weight, feel depressed, lose motivation for life and basically pine for what I had with raw. Even though it sounds over dramatic, from what I have experience, I don’t think I feel that my life would be worth living I ate all cooked food. I would just feel bleugh permanently.

15) This is the worst experience I have ever had around cooked food...
I was 22 and for a dare I ate six large bars of dairy milk chocolate and a litre of cider inside 30 minutes. I was as sick as a dog for a whole day afterwards and it took me about three more to recover fully. I couldn’t eat chocolate again for over a year.

16) This is the worst experience I have ever had around raw food...
It was a family party and I was new to raw and very excited by it. I took along my best raw food recipe (lasagne) and although I could tell that everyone close to me was trying to be interested and supportive, I overheard my mother saying to her best friend that she thought I had an eating disorder. That really upset me. After that I only ever ate salad around my mum and usually with something cooked.

17) This is the best experience I have ever had around cooked food...
My twenty-fifth birthday party. My fiancé (of the time) took me to a posh London restaurant where we were treated like royalty. The food was divine, the surroundings breathtaking and so much attention had been paid to every plate that passed before us. The whole experience was unforgettable.

1 This is the best experience I have ever had around raw food...
There have been a few so it’s hard to say, but the two that vie for this award are my one and only trip to Pure Food and Wine in New York and attending a raw food retreat. Both experiences were life changing and the first proved to me how good raw food could taste while the other proved how good it could make me feel.

19) If we could turn all the negatives you have around raw food to positives would it make all the difference?
Very possibly.

20) Of all the negatives you listed around raw food which ones if they were to turn to their opposite (positive) would make the biggest difference?
Boring, Time-Consuming, Isolating.

21) Of all the positives you listed for cooked food, which ones if you could say they were also true for raw food would make a big difference?
Comfort, Happy times, Families, Easy, Fast, Warming, Satisfying, Love, Get-togethers, Eating Out, Tradition, Boyfriends, Socialising.

22) If you had to give three words to sum yourself up if you went fully raw and your most beautiful vision came true, what would they be?
Vibrant, sexy, strong.

By having Susan complete these exercises it became very clear to us both that there were but a few key issues she had with embracing raw food fully and ongoingly. Clearly she was passionate about raw foods but the issues of variety, time/ speed, ease, comfort/ love and social isolation were her main detractors. Over the course of our next call we addressed each issue in turn and worked out a game plan moving forward so that she could genuinely feel that raw food could be everything she wanted it to be.

In the next issue you can read the transcript of our call and learn how Susan went successfully raw once she had all of her “intellectual ducks” sitting in a row.

In the meantime, now that you have completed the same exercises perhaps some obvious “red flags” have now appeared for you – hopefully enough to know more fully what you are dealing with and what the root causes are for you personally? If you’re really keen to go raw and stay raw fully and completely (and it has to be this way otherwise nothing will change) then looking at each of these will absolutely help shape things up in your mind so that you can make the changes you really want to. Very likely the next issue will inform you even more how to self-coach if you’re not able to work out quite how at this time, or if you can’t wait until then for personal coaching assistance with a professional you can access to find a coach I have trained who could also be of great help to you or sign up to my next 30 Days To Raw Group Coaching Program.http://urlcut.com/rawfoodcoaches

To your radiant raw success!

© 2008 Karen Knowler

Karen Knowler, The Raw Food Coach publishes "Successfully Raw" - a free weekly eZine for raw food lovers everywhere. If you're ready to look good, feel great and create a raw life you love get your FREE tips, tools and recipes now at http://urlcut.com/rawfoodcoaches