It was all about food

Well.  Class was much better today – no monumental dizziness, still tilty in a few postures, but much much improved.  And though this is good (definitely good) – that there’s an easy solution to all this – I’m a little disappointed.  I was enjoying my mostly raw food diet.  But apparently I’m one of those people who just can’t pull it off.  The honest truth is, I wasn’t feeling very well at all the past few days.  I was tired, I was drained. 

I revisited my materials on Ayurveda, and I seem to be much more Vata than I previously thought.  Vatas and raw food are not a great combination – they need a higher proportion of cooked grains and vegetables (even cooked fruits, especially when very very out of balance), and – of course! – lots of healthy oils.  That was the kicker for me.  Oils.  So, here I go, altering my diet for the umpteenth time in the past year.  Tell you what, though, I feel much better today than I did yesterday at this time – and it was all about food.

Here’s the thing.  I’m not down on Raw Foods at all.  I actually love eating this way.  The problem is, it doesn’t seem to like me beyond a certain point.  I started going heavier on raw over the winter because I felt malnourished.  I had lost weight quickly (mostly stress) last year, stayed thin, and despite what I felt was a good diet (vegetarian, lots of whole grains), I looked & felt bad.  My skin was awful (dry, red, breaking out), my face was hollowed, my menstrual cycle was whacked, my digestion was terrible.  Classic malabsorbtion – I wasn’t absorbing enough nutrients from my food to support my health.  I added more raw foods to my diet, and experienced improvement. 

Over the months, I’ve increased the amount of raw foods in my diet from maybe 50% to nearly 100%.  My digestion got much better, then suddenly worse.  My skin got much better, then suddenly worse.  These are the two most obvious (and frequent) signs of distress for my body.  A lightbulb went on yesterday when I took a closer look at my skin (dry, irritated, dehydrated appearance, little pimples around my mouth) – my body is protecting itself the way it usually does, by conserving nutrients for more important organs like my heart, lungs, and brain.  The skin is on its own.  This means I’m once again not absorbing enough nutrients to support my health.  Having been through this before, I could recognize the signs a bit more quickly this time. 

Just to fully disclose, I had followed my food cravings to a high fruit diet.  Fruit has always been my friend, very digestible.  I was grazing a lot on watermelon, grapes, berries, mangoes, bananas.  I would also have a HUGE green salad (plus sprouts, cucumber, olive or hemp oil, vinegar, etc.) for lunch or dinner.  During the course of a day, I’d have a lot of fruit, a huge salad, a couple of avocadoes, maybe some zucchini or broccoli with guacamole.  Or celery with cashew butter .  And I was full.  I didn’t feel hungry.  In fact, I couldn’t have eaten more food if I’d tried.

The conclusion I’ve drawn, based on my experience only, is that a Raw Foods Diet is a very healing diet over the short term.  But not necessarily a good long-term lifestyle choice for everyone.  Much as I love my raw foods, I can’t live on them 100% – I’m not absorbing everything I need to live healthfully from raw fruits and raw veggies only.  All these raw foods are so good for me, but somehow they can’t maintain me in good health without assistance from cooked grains or warm chai or – heaven forbid – scrambled eggs.  For some of us, it’s more about digestibility than strict nutrient content.  Can’t use the nutrients if I can’t digest the food.

See, that’s been the problem for me.  Raw seemed like the way to go, mainly because my diet’s been getting more and more limited.  I’ve turned out to be one of those annoying ’sensitive’ types – dairy, soy, corn, most legumes, most nuts.  Not allergic, just ’sensitive’ and can’t digest them.  So I cut back further and further almost to where it seemed like the only foods left were raw fruits and veggies.  And cashews.  Mmmm.  Cashews.

I won’t abandon raw foods entirely, as they feel really good and health-supporting, within proper proportions.  But I will have to scale back & fight the temptation to live on raw fruit and greens almost exclusively.  No fruit fasts.  No juice feasts.  Maybe just a nice, stable 75% raw diet.

Upon further consideration …

I’ve decided to make an assumption that this is related to blood sugar & insufficient calories.  Reflecting on my diet over the past 5 days, compared to the previous two weeks, compared to whatever fat/protein stores I probably already had in my body when I started back to yoga … it’s very likely that I really need to eat more, and ‘heavier’ than I have been.  I’ve been mostly raw for the past few months (80 – 90% raw vegan), and I’ve leaned more towards primarily fruits and veggies, as opposed to more blatent sources of protein and fat.  The first two weeks back at yoga, I was eating a bit ’heavier’ than I have been over the past few days.  I really felt like I was detoxing nicely, and wanted to keep my diet really clean to support that.  Lots of fruit, greens, veggies, smoothies, etc.

I think what I need is more protein and fat.  Which feels weird with summer finally hitting us hard (current temperature is 109, and the smoke from the hundreds of California wildfires has made the air thick and acrid for weeks).  What I want is sweet, hydrating fruit – watermelons, nectarines, plums, grapes! – but what I might need could well be olive oil, avocadoes (yum), cashews, coconut, even eggs (free-range, vegetarian-fed, of course).  Yes, I need the hydration, but apparently what I might need even more are calories. 

So I’m going with a simple remedy for now: eat heavier.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  If I perk up measurably in class tomorrow, I’ll know it was about food.