Hi! This is the second blog on how to start eating raw vegan, the question people ask me the most. [Check out How to Eat Raw Vegan, Part 1: The Basics, for tips on the fundamentals of what to eat and how to get into the right mindset. LIVE link]

Now I want to talk about how to make the raw vegan diet, or lifestyle, more of a real and sustainable part of your life, like I have. Here are tips on how to continue eating raw vegan, once you're ready to make it more than a "could-I-should-I" experiment.

How to Eat Raw Vegan, Part 2: Commitment and Community

1. Educate Yourself
2. Go FullyRaw For Seven Days
3. Get Plenty of Rest
4. Join a Community
5. Be Gentle With Yourself

1.Educate Yourself

Start by knowing your own state of health. To ensure your success, find out about the lifestyle you want before jumping into changes that will require focus, planning, and consistency.

First things first: Educate yourself about yourself: My recommendation is to see your doctor and get blood work done to evaluate your overall state of health and see what nutrients your body may be lacking, if any, before you start a new diet. Notify your doctor that you plan to embark on a healthy eating plan and seek advice.

After you find out from your doctor what nutrients you need, look into the nutritional contents of the fruits and vegetables you like, and when you make your meal selections concentrate on produce that is rich in nutrients you’re after—instead of taking supplements.

Feeding yourself is about more than just food. Once you’re ready to change, educating yourself can not only inspire you, but also motivate you as you adapt what you eat and how you relate to the world. Knowledge makes us strong!

Research and make sure you not only are comfortable with what you choose to dedicate yourself to, but also that you know how to prepare and succeed.

Learn about the benefits of eating a raw, plant-based vegan diet that eliminates animal products, and includes more fruits and vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Educate yourself about animal cruelty and environmental neglect.

Understanding the principles that underscore the choices you make is the foundation of living a mindful, integrated life. Your health is a journey, and learning about your body (your feelings, wisdom, growth, and changes) is part of the adventure.

Educate yourself as much as you can about eating fully raw. If you like, check out my website FAQs, my book with information, recipes, and tips on my fullyraw journey, and my app for even more recipes.

2. Go FullyRaw For Seven Days [Needs to be edited down. To be discussed.]

If you’re ready to go all in with the raw vegan diet (oh yeah!), with advance prep, you can be "in the zone" every day and can stay focused on your goal.

Need to focus on preparing: have enough in the refrigerator, plan in a journal the night before.

Pick 3 meals, buy enough to make the same meal seven times. Do that every day until you get into a flow.
Eat the same breakfast, the same lunch, the same dinner so they can get the hang of the routine, so you don’t have to worry about what to buy, how to prepare it, how much tume you need.

For All Seven Days: Make Your First Meal of the Day/Breakfast a Large Juice or Smoothie.
Make Your Second Meal/Lunch A Huge Platter of Fruit or a Large Smoothie.
Make Your Third Meal/Dinner, Start with A Small Plate of Fruit Then Have A Large Salad.

If you really want to make a change to live a healthier life, follow the above steps for each meal of your seven-day challenge. Before starting you’ll need to think through your meal plans, even write them down, and then shop and prep in advance. It takes work up front, but for each meal the follow-through work should be quick and easy.

First Meal/Breakfast: When I first wake up, I typically drink two large glasses of freshly squeezed lemon water. Approximately, half an hour later, I follow this with a large juice or smoothie. And when I say large, I mean large! It is not unusual when going Fully Raw to consume 32 to 64 ounces (1 to 2 quarts) of juice or smoothie in the morning. The meal jump-starts your energy for the day. After a night of rest and fasting, your body is fully charged with energy, but it needs an influx of fuel to turn that energy into activity, both mental and physical. By pureeing or juicing whole fresh fruits and vegetables, you streamline digestion and make all of their nutrients readily available to your body.

Second Meal/Lunch: Eat until you are completely satiated. Gravitate towards sweet fruits, because these tend to have higher calorie content than vegetables for the same volume. This means you will feel more satisfied after eating a meal of fruit than you would eating a meal of greens or vegetables. Don’t freak out; calories are not your enemy. Our society has taught us to eat less when “dieting,” but eating Fully Raw is all about eating sufficiently and abundantly. If you want to be able to thrive in your day, and stick to your diet, then you must eat enough.

Third Meal/Dinner: For dinner, I always start with a small plate of fruit to help satisfy my calorie needs. Even though I will be eating mostly low-calorie vegetables, I still want to consume at least 600 calories in the meal. The second part of my dinner is almost always a colorful rainbow salad. I try to eat approximately 2 heads or bunches of leafy greens in my salad, and I love to top it with chopped bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, chives, avocado, beets, purple cabbage, or more fruit. The colorful pigments in fruits and vegetables are indication of the powerful nutrition inside.

3. Get Plenty of Rest

Resting and sleeping is underrated! It's such an important part of a healthy lifestyle, and especially important when you're making a big lifestyle change.

When you first start eating raw vegan, because your body isn't used to it, you may have some detox reactions. Some people may have low energy, others get flu-like symptoms. On the other hand, some people experience skyrocketing energy! It's different for each person, so be open to changes and allow yourself to rest when you need to so you don't give up.

Try to make this diet change, this lifestyle change when you don't have a lot of time commitments and late nights planned. This is ultimately a restorative diet, a rejuvenating diet. Get as much rest and sleep as your body needs.

4. Join a Community

Taking on what could be a life-changing path requires support. You may get it from your family or friends, but if not, your vegan“ people” are out there. Find a community to share this transition/journey with.

Do it with one or two other friends, find a vegan potluck group, participate in an online community, join my FullyRaw community, or do whatever works for you so that you feel supported. At those moments when you feel you're going to fail, you can reach out to have someone boost you up or just listen to your struggles or concerns.

When you’re in the midst of building a new lifestyle, it’s important to surround yourself with people who have similar interests and values. If you have support, then all of the information, work, and know-how aren’t just on your shoulders. You build off the knowledge and experiences of the like-minded people around you, as opposed to continuously being surrounded by non-supportive energy. Everyone’s journey is different, and your individual needs might be different than some of your family members, friends, or colleagues, but you do not have to face the journey alone.

Search social media and online for raw vegan or vegan forums. Search for raw food videos on YouTube. Communicate with the other users and connect. Join a co-op or find a potluck near you via websites like meetup.com. If you hang out at your local farmers’ market long enough, you will meet someone who is connected with a healthy, vegan, or raw community.

5. Be Gentle With Yourself

This is a journey. Be kind to yourself. This is about making positive changes to your diet and lifestyle so you can be healthy and live your best life. It may not be easy at first, but it gets better—much better as you learn and give yourself some love and self-care during the process.

There is no one destination when you start a raw vegan diet. The goal is to get to a sustainable routine and lifestyle that you love. You might falter, you might feel you "fail," but try to see it more as growth as you continue on a path. Learn about yourself as you go. Acknowledge what didn't work the way you wanted it to and think about how to improve on your diet choices for next time.

If eating raw vegan for an energized, healthy life is what you really want, you can do it.
If you're new to it, be gentle with yourself. Don't get discouraged, try not to get overwhelmed.

When you are feel you are on the right track eating raw vegan, feel the beneficial changes to your body, you will feel so much better about everything you do! Be gentle and don't give up. I'm here for you! [End]