Listen To Your Body

It is my contention that one of the most valuable skills you can learn as somebody who is aspiring to eat more raw and living foods is the ability to listen closely to your body. The skill has really been lost in our culture of eating any type of cooked sugary food that they desire. Lost is the skill of really looking deep and trying to figure out if you really are hungry when the food cravings come along or if perhaps you are only thirsty. The ability to really tune in to your body and figuring out where your cravings come from either from a psychological, emotional or physiological level is extremely valuable. That is when we get back in touch with how we are supposed to be living.

As a raw foodist this takes time and years to develop. By eating a standard American diet the closest we come to listening to our bodies is subjecting ourselves to the cravings for sugar that come from the parasites that live within us. You see, most of us is not us, most of us are organisms that live inside us. We as the host are being shared by more organisms then cells within us. So it really is hard to not only lose the cravings (and the parasites that drive them) but then get on the path of listening to our bodies many cries for water, minerals, vitamins and nutrients.

Have a headache? Maybe your body is craving pure water? Have bloating or gas? Maybe your body is craving celery juice or a green smoothie to help create hydrochloric acid? But how would we know if all we did was pop some Advil if we have headache or ate only what we always felt like? This is all a part of being connected to the earth and to God. Animals will travel hundreds of miles in the wild just to be able to get at certain salts in the desert as well as magnesium.

As a creature of habit and pre-raw I used to eat the same foods EVERY single day. It really didn't matter because I was being dominated and controlled by my taste buds and the parasites and worms within me. For breakfast I used to eat a few bowls of cereal with toast, for lunch some sort of turkey sandwich with cookies or chips, and for dinner I'd have a hamburger or pizza or pasta with chicken. Our bodies really are meant to do things in rotation. If you eat kale every day your body over time isn't able to fully utilize all the nutrients. It's the same idea with lifting weights. You have to switch it up very often or your muscles "get used" to the workouts and you stop seeing the same type of dramatic results.

As I switched to raw I would stick to the same types of foods every day and at the same times. Green smoothie for breakfast with all the same ingredients, salads and chocolate super food smoothies around dinner etc. Now I try to listen to what my body really wants and try my hardest to eat different foods each day or at least switch the timing of them. I might have raw ice cream for breakfast and then an hour later have a green juice. Then a salad and a raw burger or raw sandwich or some soup. It's really easy to get into a rut. It takes time to start listening to what your body wants and not getting bogged down with the same 3-4 foods each day.

So what I do when I go to the grocery store is to buy at least 1 new vegetable, fruit, super food, nut or anything else that I have never tried before. This forces me to keep trying new foods. There are literally hundreds of types of avocados as well as edible greens but our supermarkets and stores only carry about 10-15 greens and maybe 2-3 types of avocados. It's crazy!

So I would challenge you to do your best to get rid of your sugar addictions and cravings so you can clean yourself out a little bit. You can even do some cleanses to help you in this way. Then try to switch your routine up a little bit and buy 1 new vegetable at the grocery store next time you go. Remember we don't need to have all the super foods every single day. It's better if you go on for a little while and then go off and then back on again.