Why? Because the universe hates me.

Okay, not really.

It’s because I hurt my back Sunday night. I was working on a puzzle—yes, I know I’m a dweeb—when I bent over the table and, uh oh!

It felt like my lower back was tearing in two!

You may remember that I had some lower back trouble earlier this year, but this was different. This was much more painful. So much so that I couldn’t stand up at all!

Luckily, the pain subsided and I was able to get up and walk again thirty minutes later. This was a huge relief, but then I thought, why now? Why when everything else that day had been going my way?

The weather had cooled down to a comfortably warm 90 degrees with a slight breeze. I had just played tennis after almost two weeks off, feeling and playing better than ever. My weight training sessions had been going phenomenally well, with gains made almost every workout for the past 9 weeks.

And of course, I was all psyched and ready to learn new things, meet new people, and fill up on tasty fresh produce at the fruit festival. All of this with no back pain to speak of!

Then I realized something.

All this whining wasn’t helping me one bit. No amount of tears or curse words were going to make my pain go away and they sure as heck weren’t going to help me figure out what caused the injury in the first place.

What would make the pain go away? Rest and lots of it. That means no tennis, no lifting weights, and no flying to fruit festivals.

So that’s what I’ve been doing these past few days.

Okay, so I have cheated a bit. I did go out for a couple of hours Tuesday night. And guess what? I paid the price. My back ached all through the night and was even worse the next morning.

So it’s back to rest, rest, and more rest. And it’s paying off. The pain is significantly better than it was two days ago. I can actually bend forward a few inches without any pain!

But enough about me…

What about you?

We all know that disappointment is just a part of life. Things can’t go our way all the time and we have to be able to roll with the punches.

What disappointments have you experienced lately that have affected your health and fitness goals? What have you done to get back on track, make your situation better, or even just improve your mental outlook?

Leave your comments below!

Go raw and be fit,
Swayze

P.S. Wondering what caused my lower back injury? I’m pretty sure I have the answer to that and it’s actually pretty simple. In fact, it’s a nasty habit that almost every one of us engages in multiple times a day.

More on that in a future article…

P.P.S. Having trouble getting back on track with your raw food diet for lack of healthy raw food recipes that actually taste good? Be sure to check out my raw recipe e-book…

www.fitonraw.com/low-fat-raw-vegan-favorites

To learn more about the book and order your copy, click below:

==> www.fitonraw.com/low-fat-raw-vegan-favorites

So you decided to give the low fat, high fruit diet a try you’re convinced. Fruit is totally awesome.

Maybe you’re so convinced that fruit is the way to go that you’ve considered giving up other produce all together. Who needs lettuce and celery when you’ve got delicious and nutritious fruit?

You do, my friend.

While fruit is great, it is quite lacking in certain key minerals, like calcium and iron. Greens, on the other hand, are full of these.

Bottom line is, you gotta get in your greens. They are absolutely vital to your success and health on a raw food diet.

Now one way you can get in your greens is to eat a salad for dinner.

And I don’t mean a paltry dinner salad of a couple ounces of iceberg and two tiny tomatoes. I also don’t mean one loaded with fat and salt, like what you normally see eaten by both cooked AND raw foodists alike.

I mean a LARGE dinner salad that’s just BRIMMING with lettuce, lettuce, and more lettuce!

To give you some idea, here’s the exact salad I had last night, February 22, 2011:

• 10 ounces green leaf lettuce
• 2 English cucumbers
• 2 large stalks of celery
• 5 sun-dried tomato halves, soaked
• 1/2 Hass avocado

Yep, you read that right. This is just ONE salad! I chop up all the lettuce, spiralize most of the cucumber, and blend the rest of the cuke up with the celery, tomato, and avocado for a savory dressing.

I eat this entire dish all by myself for my dinner (after my last fruit meal for the day) and I absolutely LOVE it.

Okay, so I know that’s pretty intimidating. If you are at all new to getting in your greens, it can be next to impossible to eat that much “bland” lettuce without some flavor-enhancing (but health destroying) condiments like salt and vinegar and heaps of fat.

Not to fear! My buddy Roger Haeske has just the thing to rescue you from your sorry salad slump.

Drum roll please…

Savory Veggie Stews

Idiot-Proof Recipe System

Click Here!

These stews are absolutely packed with flavor and take only minutes to prepare. More importantly, these stews are absolutely packed with GREENS, as well as other mineral-rich foods like cucumber and tomatoes!

But don’t let the name fool you.  These “stews” are 100% raw.  Not only that, but they are low in fat, salt-free, garlic-free, onion-free, and are super easy to modify.

Oh, and did I mention that they’re delicious? The Pizza Stew is my favorite and I always make a double batch.

Check out the entire program – including the basic stew recipe, bonus dinner, appetizer, and dessert recipes, 15 minute personal phone and email consultation with Roger, free lifetime updates, and more – at the link below:

Savory Veggie Stews

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. One more thing…Savory Veggie Stews are very easy to make and take no time at all!

Savory Veggie Stews

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of this tell-all book for months now and I just recently got my hands on a copy. I read the whole 400+ pages in a couple days, I just couldn’t put it down!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Check out my full video review below:

Swayze

P.S. If you want a copy of Raw Food Controversies for yourself, click on the link below:

Raw Food Controversies

I was once in the same boat! I used to think my cravings were caused by some personal character flaw. I yo-yoed back and forth between raw and cooked and I felt so defeated by it all.

I finally succumbed to the idea that I was a raw food failure, destined to give in to cooked food forever.

Luckily, I don’t give up easily and I eventually learned the simple solution to my cravings conundrum. And it has nothing to do with will-power, psychology, or emotional eating.

It has everything to do with what and how much you are eating, as I explain in detail in my cravings crushing program:

“How to Conquer Your Cooked Food Cravings Once and for All”

A Guide for Destroying Cravings on a Raw Food Diet

www.CookedFoodCravings.com

The rest of my family all eat cooked food and yet it doesn’t bother me at all. My Mom has always been an excellent cook and yet I don’t miss her cooking at all (still love ya, Mom!).

I can be around the most fragrant of foods without the slightest thought of taking a taste. I’m just completely ambivalent (in some cases, like cooked meat, butter, and chocolate, actually repulsed) to them.

The best part about getting rid of cravings is that it doesn’t take weeks and weeks or months and months of “clean” eating like many raw gurus say it does.

It literally takes just minutes, seconds in some cases.

And no, the answer is not writing in a journal or going for a walk or “clearing your mind” or ridding yourself of “negative energy” by uttering positive phrases to yourself while tapping on your face and hands.

Trust me, these tactics don’t work. They may distract you, but they certainly won’t eliminate your cravings.

“How to Conquer Your Cooked Food Cravings Once and for All” teaches you how to go raw successfully and eliminate your cravings. No matter how new you are to raw foods or long you’ve been struggling with the diet, I’ll show you how to go raw, get rid of your cravings, and get healthy.

So what are you waiting for? Click on the link, already!

www.CookedFoodCravings.com

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. The answer to killing your cravings isn’t “eat whatever you want!” either. I know some of you were hoping for that. Sorry to burst your bubble, friend.

The answer really is simple though. Pinky promise. Oh, and it’s even enjoyable too!

www.CookedFoodCravings.com

Eating this way gave my blood sugar more consistency than ever. I couldn’t spike my blood sugar on this diet if I tried. Eating eating 19 bananas in one day made no difference.

That’s what Steve Pavlina, author of Personal Development for Smart People, had to say about his experience on a low fat raw vegan diet.

If you don’t know, Steve is known for doing 30-day experiments and documenting his experience on his blog. He’s done numerous trials over the years, everything from giving up TV to polyphasic sleeping.

Well, in 2008, Steve decided to give a low fat, high fruit raw vegan diet a go. So for 30 days, Steve ate nothing but raw fruits, greens, nuts and seeds, keeping his fat intake below 10%.

His results were awesome. Steve lost weight,

During the 30-day trial, I lost 8.0 pounds, about 1.9 pounds per week. I started at 186.0 and ended at 178.0. My body fat also dropped 1.8 percentage points.

lowered his blood pressure,

My average blood pressure reading for the first 5 days of the trial was 131/76. For the last 5 days of the trial, it was 117/73. So the net drop in blood pressure was 14/3. My lowest reading of the trial was 110/65, which occurred on day 30.

and improved his fitness.

The biggest improvement was in my muscular endurance. On day 3 I was able to do 27 pushups. On day 7 I was up to 31, and on day 24 I did 36 pushups, setting a new lifetime personal best. Those were the only times I did pushups during the trial, and I didn’t do many chest workouts during this time. This is definitely a very unusual improvement for me.

And as I already mentioned, Steve had no problems with blood sugar glucose at all. The highest blood sugar reading he had over the 30 days was 94 milligrams per deciliter.

That’s well within the American Diabetes Association’s recommendations for fasting blood glucose: 90-130 mg/dL.

And Steve isn’t the only one who gets these kinds of results. There are plenty of people who have been able to easily and effectively manage their blood glucose on a low fat raw vegan diet, myself included.

I took my blood glucose reading 3 times a day for 7 days and had completely normal blood glucose readings. My average fasting blood glucose level was 90 mg/dL.

And that’s while eating over 8 pounds of fruit each day!

So then why do sooooooo many people say that a low fat, high fruit raw vegan diet will spike your blood sugar? When so many people are experiencing phenomenal results eating a diet predominated by fresh fruit, why are so many others bashing it?

I think I know one answer: Cooked food cravings.

For many people, eating raw food recipes that are meant to replicate their old cooked food favorites is a way for them to squelch their cravings for cooked foods.

I mean, who needs real Fettucinni Alfredo when the raw recipe is just as flavorful?

But what happens when you give up those flavorful and fatty dishes in exchange for a truly healthy raw food diet?

Well, you have to rely on truly fresh ingredients. Fresh fruits and vegetables and a little bit of nuts and seeds.

And that’s a problem. No matter how much you try, you can’t replicate cooked food dishes using only fresh, low fat ingredients.

Sure, you can make super tasty and satisfying recipes using low fat and fresh ingredients, like the ones in Low Fat, Fruit Filled, High Fun Raw Recipes.

But they won’t taste anything like a cooked food dish. You need lots of salt, spices, fat, and an expensive dehydrator to do that.

This means you have to compromise the quality and healthfulness of your dish simply for taste, which also means you have to compromise your results.

You won’t get the raw food results you desire (“the glow”, as many like to call it) if you’re living on nuts, avocados, salt, low-calorie greens, superfoods, and supplements.

Now back to the core problem: Cravings.

You want to adopt a healthy, sustainable, and truly FRESH raw vegan diet, but what about the cravings? How will you be able to give up all your cooked food-like raw food standbys that have come to replace your old cooked food favorites?

It’s simple, and I explain it all in my book:

“How to Conquer Your Cooked Food Cravings Once and for All”

A Guide for Destroying Cravings on a Raw Food Diet

www.CookedFoodCravings.com

How to Conquer Your Cooked Food Cravings Once and for All is a 95-page cravings crusher that will teach you:

• Why emotional eating is total BS (page 10)
• The 3 ingredient combination – SFS for short –  found in ANY craveable cooked or raw dish that keeps you coming back for more, more, more! (page 20)
• The ONLY way to eliminate the SFS issue and finally end your cravings for good (page 27)
• The basics of a healthy raw food diet that allow you to go raw right now! (page 40)
• How to destroy dinner and night time cravings (page 80)
• How to completely overcome cravings for dense, filling foods (page 86)
• And, of course, much more!

And the book, along with all of the bonuses, is digital. Nothing will be shipped to you, which means no shipping costs and you’ll gain access to everything just seconds after ordering.

So if you’re ready to destroy your cravings so you can get healthy, lose weight, easily manage your blood sugar, have loads of energy, and just feel fantastic, please click on the link below:

www.CookedFoodCravings.com

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. Be sure to check out all the bonuses that come along with the e-book.

I just recently added a new one, a 36-page bonus report called “Surviving Sticky Social Situations on a Raw Food Diet: How to Stay Raw While Dining Out, Attending Social Events, Traveling, or Even Cooking for Your Family!”

Click on the link below and scroll about three-fourths of the way down the page to read more about it and the rest of the bonuses:

www.CookedFoodCravings.com