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How to get a Body Transplant !

I’ve been making a real effort to keep off foods that appear to knock my health or energy levels back. As well as eating mainly low fat raw vegan foods, I’m trying to avoid or dramatically cut down on foods such as; fat, spices, onions, nuts, seeds, condiments and anything strongly flavoured. I’ve stopped having rocket. I’ll only have cabbage, kale or broccoli if they are blended thoroughly or cooked, otherwise they are hard to digest. The odd simple bit of cooked food seems OK (typically not more than once every week). I sometimes (maybe every other week) have non vegan food, but I do keep off dairy and meat. I try to avoid grain. I do still experiment, my latest is to occassionally take a B12 and a zinc supplement. I live in hope that my grey hair might return to it’s orininal colour – healthy skin and hair need zinc. I estimate that 95% of my diet is fruit and salads made with mainly salad leaves. My energy levels have been consistently high as a result of doing all this. I’ve had a constant desire to exercise.

I’ve been making a real effort to get fit with running and occasional upper body conditioning. When running, I normally just jog slowly, but I’ve been trying out some quite long slow runs and also some real intense lung bursting, leg jellyifying runs. A combination of doing these together with my diet has made a real difference to how I feel. I noticed it before, when I had times of intense upper body conditioning, but this time it feels like I’ve got a new pair of legs as well!

Imagine a crumpled bed sheet. Someone comes along, washes and irons it, then makes the bed again and pulls it all fresh and neat. It’s a bit like that with health and fitness. If you can find the right balance of super healthy food without adding lots of unnecessary ‘food’, and do some steady exercise and eventually some intense exercise, then it feels like your whole body is pulled into shape. By intense, I mean as hard as you can, or as fast as you can go over a given distance. Shorten the distance or the number of exercise rep’s if necessary. I’ve found that when you push yourself really hard it makes a real difference. You must build up to this gradually though, you don’t want to give yourself a hernia like I did 18 months ago!

I’m not any super human guy. I’m not even very good at running (although I am getting much better). I’m just a guy that went through a phase of being a couch potato. I had some horrible fatigue that totally de-motivated me and left me with no energy. It was often an effort just to get out of a chair or to stand up. Plus I had quite bad digestive issues – search my blog for more details.

I’m glad that I pressed on. I pulled the bones out of my diet and lifestyle and made what some have said are ‘extreme’ or ‘obsessive’ changes. The only changes that I have made are to try and mirror what I might find in nature. I am so glad that I have made those changes, I feel so much better.

I feel like my head has been cut off, my old body has been thrown away and I’ve been given a new one! Wow, now that’s something – a whole body transplant!!!

Can you build muscle on a raw food diet?

I’m not a body builder or an athlete, I’m a bit of a couch potato who has these phases of trying to shake myself out of it and get fit, usually overdoing it in the process! Before a high raw diet, I struggled building muscle or loosing body fat, but earlier this year, on a 100% raw diet, I was in the best shape I’ve been in my life. It’s the raw diet AND exercise that did it.

Before I’d eat anything (2002)

After - Not any more! 50 pounds lighter (23 Mar 2009)

You can definitely build muscle on a raw food diet. In fact it is probably the best way of doing it! When raw, your body becomes ‘wise’ and you can trust it in regard to hunger, body fat levels, muscle size, strength and so on. Let me explain.

If you train more then you get hungrier, and so you eat more. This gives you the calories to fuel the training. This hunger is natural, you don’t have to count calories or force yourself to eat. When I was training and doing lots of strenuous DIY building work at home earlier this year I probably ate twice as much as I do now. My body needed the food for fuel and to build muscle.

If you follow a very high raw diet (ideally 100% raw) then your body will gradually change to be whatever it needs to be as a result of your physical lifestyle. When you engage in strength or endurance based exercise then your body will use that food to slowly build any appropriate muscle needed. Similarly, your body will consume or rid itself of what is not needed. So, if you are raw and don’t do much exercise, then almost certainly you will become a slim build person. If you are raw and do plenty of strenuous exercise though, then your body will gradually build the appropriate muscle needed to help with your higher activity level.