HOW STRICT ARE WE (on average) ?! --- monthly survey

[Cairidh]

I think it was lack of protein. I lost a huge amount of muscle, my hair was falling out, so it went from very very thick to very very thin, cuts and wounds wouldn't heal, my skin became so fragile that just wearing shoes would wear holes in my feet, which were permeanantly bleeding. I felt so light I thought a feather could knock me over, I felt dizzy and lightheaded all the time, and in the end I was so weak I could barely walk.

However to begin with it was great! It was only after 6 months that it became impossible to function normally.

Unfortunately I had never heard of raw food diets or of cooked food being bad for you. So I started eating "cooked food" again, and whoosh, really really ill. But at least I could walk properly again and my feet stopped bleeding/other cuts healed.

[slea]

Cairidh,

So, you were eating only fruit? No fats? If you were eating all that fruit with no fats, it was probally a blood sugar problem. Wai and RRM said you get sufficient proteins just from eating fruits alone. The whole idea is to use the nuts and avocadoes to balance the blood sugar from the fruits and the animal food, yolks and sashimi to provide clean cholesterol. I'ts all about balance. It sounds like you have great will power to eat nothing but fruit. I could have never done that! I'm glad you are doing better now. Btw, I'm not assuming you don't already know what I'm talking about, just making some comments!

[huntress]

Cairidh

Were you eating only fruits and nothing but fruits back then? If so, how much fruits were you eating? Could it be possible that you were undereating which led to the symptoms you were experiencing?

I REALLY admire your compassion for living beings Cairidh! It is even more impressive that you did it at a very young age. It really amazed me!

[Cairidh]

Cairidh,

So, you were eating only fruit? No fats? If you were eating all that fruit with no fats, it was probally a blood sugar problem. Wai and RRM said you get sufficient proteins just from eating fruits alone. The whole idea is to use the nuts and avocadoes to balance the blood sugar from the fruits and the animal food, yolks and sashimi to provide clean cholesterol. I'ts all about balance. It sounds like you have great will power to eat nothing but fruit. I could have never done that! I'm glad you are doing better now. Btw, I'm not assuming you don't already know what I'm talking about, just making some comments!

Thankyou for your comments! I really appreciate them. It's lovely to hear other people talking about weird fruit diets (and a relief!)

I was eating just fruit but that included fatty fruits like avocadoes and olive oil. I ate olive oil every day and avocados every week but not every day....you're probably right, the olive oil I was consuming each day probably was not enough to balance all the sugar.

Actually there were a couple of weeks when I ate an awful lot of avocados and I put on a lot of weight (fat not muscle) very quickly, which was good, I looked much better, and I felt much much better. I didn't feel poisoned or toxic any more. I hadn't yet read about fat absorbing toxins, but I guessed myself that's what had happened: the toxins that had been running round my bloodstream were now safely stored in the fat.

I ate the other non sweet fruits - tomatoes, peppers, courgette, butternut squash, every day. My lunch and dinner were always non sweet fruit but I did tend to oversnack on dates and oranges, so yes my blood sugar levels were probably up the chute.

Sometimes I'd be very naughty and eat a whole bag of dried dates. I didn't mean to, but I'd buy them at the health shop and eat them as I walked home, and they'd be gone in no time.

My diet was probably very unhealthy and unbalanced. You see I wasn't doing it because I thought it was healthy - I didn't think it was - I just couldn't bring myself to eat other foods because it upset me too much. I didn't need willpower not to eat them, I needed willpower *to* eat them, and I was hopelessly lacking in that. I did want to follow a healthy diet, but I didn't have a clue how to make a 100% fruit diet healthy. Now I have a slightly better idea and I'd definately eat avocado every day. (and try restrict the dates!)

[Cairidh]

Cairidh

Were you eating only fruits and nothing but fruits back then? If so, how much fruits were you eating? Could it be possible that you were undereating which led to the symptoms you were experiencing?

I REALLY admire your compassion for living beings Cairidh! It is even more impressive that you did it at a very young age. It really amazed me!

Thankyou for the compliment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It makes me feel a lot better because everyone I knew thought I was mad, or annorexic, or both and I actually felt very guilty about it, like I'd committed a huge crime.

It's so wonderful that people on this forum don't think that, it's such a lovely place.

Yes I was eating only fruits and nothing but fruits, but that did include the non sweet fruits. I probably was undereating, I couldn't afford to eat more fruit than I did. Then again I don't think I could have managed to eat more. When I first started I had good intentions to make my diet as healthy as possible, so I'd have:
banana, apple, pear, dried apricots, figs, dates for breakfast,
butternut squash, tomatoes, peppers, courgette, and olive oil for lunch
and same again for dinner.
And snack on sweet fruits or berries.
And I had a typed list of these things in the kitchen and I'd tick each thing off on the list each day, to make sure I was eating enough.

But in the end I got lazy, and foolish, and just ate what I felt like eating, which was usually not very much, so I'd have
a banana for breakfast
butternut squash, olive oil for lunch OR a few bananas OR an avocado and a pepper
two punnets strawberries or a box of grapes for dinner

I can see now that wasn't healthy but I was so weak and dizzy and lightheaded at the time I didn't know what I was doing!

It's probably my own fault my symptoms became so bad in the end, but even on the strict diet I started with, my hair fell out, and I lost a lot of muscle and wounds wouldn't heal, so I don't think I was getting enough protein. Wai says you can get enough protein from fruit but you'd have to be eating enough of the right sorts, and I mustn't have been doing that.

[huntress]

You are very welcome Cairidh!

I didn't have a clue how to make a 100% fruit diet healthy

Well, at least you have us now to guide you through your diet.

Oh and the reason why I stopped eating dates (and other dried fruits) is because my skin reacted badly from eating them. But I LOVE Organic Medjool dates with a passion! I agree with you that the non-organic medjools doesn't taste good. I think it is because they added some additives to make it stay moist for long.

[Oscar]

It might have been a combination of things, not sure. Lack of cholesterol, protein, and fats. Plus an unbalanced energy intake. For instance when your body needs energy, and there is none available in the blood or the glycogen depots, it will use your muscle mass and convert it into glucose (gluconeogenesis).

[Cairidh]

I entered my fruit diet (the strict one I started off with) into a nutritional analysis tool at http://nat.crgq.com/

Apparantly I was deficient in a lot of things!

I was getting:

1600 cals
20g Protein
30% the RDA of fat
80% the RDA of fibre
588mg Calcium which is 50% the RDA but I know that's enough to live on
13mg Iron - 88% the RDA
40% the RDA of phosporous

More than enough Vitamin A, C and Thiamin!! yay
1096% RDA Vitamin A
823& RDA Vitamin C
185% RDA Thiamin

94% RDA Riboflavin
93% RDA Niacin

0% Cholesterol!!!!

0% Omega 3

The RDA is the amount you need to prevent deficiency-caused-diseases, you need more than that to be healthy so...ooops! silly me.

I don't dare enter the fruit diet I was eating in the end!!!

[Cairidh]

I looked up 100% fruit diets on wikipedia and it said fruitarians often crave large amount of dates (high sugar) and avocados (high fat) -
well that was me.

[Cairidh]

I think the best diet for no-killing would be fruit, unsprouted nuts, cooked beans, and seaweed (its already dead).

However that wouldn't be the healthiest
And it wouldn't be raw

[Oscar]

Interesting! I submitted my current diet to it:

Nutrient---Total----- Rec.-----%Rec
Calories-3111.17-- 2900--- 107.28%
Pro (g)--- 45.02------ 63 ---- 71.46%
Fat (g)----- 218---- 96.67--- 225.51%
Carb (g)- 266.58--- --
Na (mg)-- 152.77--- 2400 --- 6.37%
vitA (IU)- 4409.56-- 5000--- 88.19%
vitC (mg)- 570.56----- 90--- 633.96%
satF (g)---- 34.87-- 32.22-- 108.22%
Chol (mg)- 928.98--- 300--- 309.66%
_____________________________

I wonder why the RDA for Na is so high...maybe because they think we need salt?

[Cairidh]

yes that is peculiar

you're diet is almost perfect!
but not enough vitamin A - very naughty.

start eating pumpkin!!
pumpkin juice ala Harry Potter (but contrary to the book it actually tastes disgusting)

[CurlyGirl]

I'm posting this because I thought it might be helpful to some folks out there to see the process of analysing and 'tweaking' one's diet.

My current diet (spread out over the day and always balanced with fat) looks like this:

630ml OJ (freshly squeezed myself, by hand)
4 egg yolks
1 apple
2 bananas
35g raisins
2 dried figs
4 dried apricots
1 avocado
70ml olive oil
1 kiwi fruit
42g fresh raw salmon (never frozen)

According to Wai/RRM's nutrient calculator (http://www.youngerthanyourage.com/3/calculator.html), it gives me 1860kcal, 32g protein, 106g fat, 221g carb, 23g fibre, 314mg calcium; not enough iron (56% RDA), zinc (35% RDA), or niacin (43% RDA); but more than enough vitamin C, B-vitamins (except niacin), vitamin E, D, K, and potassium; and adequate magnesium, and selenium (and various other trace minerals).

According to www.fitday.com , my current diet gives me 1954kcal, 33g protein, 111g fat, 227g carb, 26g fibre, 309mg calcium, 7x more vit C than the RDA, more than enough B-vitamins (except niacin, which is 80% of RDA), 2x the RDA of vit E, more than enough vit K and potassium, and adequate magnesium, but not enough iron (60% RDA), vit D (50% RDA), zinc (35% RDA), selenium (95% RDA - well, I'm not worried then!), and vit A (95% RDA - again, not troubling).

So, looking at both calculators' versions of my diet, it seems I need to find better sources of iron, zinc, vit D, and niacin. I checked the list of recommended nutrient sources on the homepage for Wai's diet, and the best ones are as follows:

Iron - Fish, egg yolk, dried fruits, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, coconut, rambutan, olives, granadilla and carissa
Zinc - brazil nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts (all of which make me break out!), egg yolks (already eating 4 per day), currants, figs, salmon, coconut and granadilla
Vit D - fish, egg yolk (and sunlight, of course)
Niacin (vit B3) - granadilla, tuna, salmon, mackerel and dried apricots, dates, and prunes

So it seems I must increase my intake of egg yolks and fish, have a few more figs daily, and try to find a source of granadillas in the UK! I see them every now and then but the supply is inconsistent and extremely expensive. Well, I will keep adjusting my diet until I get it right! My body doesn't seem to be complaining so far, though...

[nick]

CurlyGirl,

I would definitely increase your intake of yolks! I noticed a subtle but noticeably improvement in my mood, probably because of the cholesterol, plus it is a great source of iron and zinc. Perhaps you could alternate it with the fish. Have the fish for two-three days, depending on how much you buy, then go for some yolks for three days.

[huntress]

Cairidh

I still do crave for dates...

I looked up on Wikipedia for fruitarianism and found that Banana is technically a herb?

Oh I would LOVE to be in Barcelona right now!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... Market.jpg