* What’s New?: Customer Testimonials

* Feature Article: Eat Today for Energy Tomorrow

Customer Testimonials

Just wanted to share these testimonials sent in to me by a couple of satisfied customers

Catherine says:

Dear Swayze,

Your help has been priceless on this low-fat raw vegan journey. It can be very tricky to find the right information out there in a clear and concise way. I am finally understanding much better what to do and what not to do, thanks to your mini-courses and e-books. I am finally finding recipes that I like and finding my groove in the diet.

I do not really have cravings, but I find it very hard to not eat the food at potlucks and family dinners. I did cheat twice and felt awful. I had a migraine the next day and was a monster to my partner and children. I have finally found the solution to my health problems. I am so grateful for your help and I am convinced that I am on the right path for healing and feeling great!

Thank you so much!

Catherine Forest
Canton-de-Hatley, Quebec, Canada
http://catherine-et-les-fees.blogspot.com/

Laura says,

Hi Swayze,

I have really enjoyed the recipes. I am still at the start of my journey to convert to low fat raw vegan. The information in the Bonus Lessons has been helpful and I am making changes in the right direction. I have enjoyed many of the recipes. I really enjoyed the plantain pudding (never knew you could eat plantains un-fried). But I think that my favorite recipe is the caramel dip. I eat it with celery while I am cooking my non-raw family dinner their food. So, I am eating my first course then and eat a salad during their dinner.

I can tell that this is going to be a long process, and I have only a 1 or 2 truly raw days, but I know that I am doing better things for my body every day. One of my main struggles is eating out (my family eats out a lot). My family feels self-conscious when I bring my food into a restaurant and as you mentioned in your “cravings” book, I really cannot get volumes of good fruit in a restaurant. I have about decided that Golden Corral may be the best place to go when eating this way. Assuming that I can stay away from the cooked food section, they tend to have a lot of fruit and a salad bar. Funny, on any other diet, I would never think of going there. Unfortunately, my family is not really into the Golden Corral scene.

Anyway, thank you for your encouragement. The eBooks have really helped, especially at this stage of my transformation. Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

Laura Wallace
Fort Worth, TX

Thanks so much, guys!  Remember Laura, there’s no need to go 100% raw right away.  Depending upon your reasons for going raw, a slower progression may be a better option for you.

If you’re really having trouble at restaurants or other social events, a great option is to eat your fruit ahead of time.  If you’re still worried, bring a bunch of dates along with you.  They’re the easiest of all fruits to transport and have loads of calories!

Plus, it’s a lot easier to carry a bag dates than it is a bunch of bananas.  People won’t look at you so funny.

Swayze

P.S. To purchase the low fat raw recipe book and cravings program mentioned above, follow the links below:

Low Fat, Fruit Filled, High Fun Raw Recipes

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

21 Days to Conquer Your Cooked Food Cravings

www.cookedfoodcravings.com

Eat Today for Energy Tomorrow

Let’s say you have a very busy, activity-filled day tomorrow.  You’ve got your morning workout at 8, hang gliding at noon, mountain climbing at 2pm, and some white river kayaking at 5pm.  Oh, and don’t forget your east coast swing dancing lesson at 8pm.

Now that’s my kind of day!

So what do you do to prepare yourself?

Besides making sure you have enough food for the day, you probably hopefully reserve time to get lots of restful sleep so you can have energy for the day ahead.

While this is a GREAT idea, it’s not the only step you should take to ensure you don’t stall out in the middle of your day.

Calories, Calories, Calories

Whenever we talk about getting enough calories, we usually refer to the day in which we are eating.  If there is a particularly active day coming up, we tend to only think about upping our food intake *for that day*.

But look at it this way.  We don’t sleep well tonight to feel well-rested today, do we?  Of course not.  We sleep well tonight to have enough energy tomorrow.

And when we don’t, we feel it the next day.

It’s the same with food.

Take a Tip From the Trainers

I’m sure you’ve heard of what endurance athletes call “carbo-loading.”

Carbohydrate loading is when an athlete eats a diet high in carbohydrates for a few days (sometimes preceded by a period of intense exercise and carbohydrate restriction) before a big event.  This helps to maximize the amount of glucose the muscles take in and, therefore, helps the athlete’s endurance and overall performance.

You see, our bodies use glycogen stored in our muscles and liver.  When we are not well-fueled, these stores deplete much quicker, leaving us tapped out and fatigued.

It’s a lot like a car.  Just as you need to fill up your car with gasoline for it to run, you need to fill yourself up with glucose for YOU to run!

The more glucose we have in our system, the longer we can continue to perform (whether that be performance in an actual sport, or just everyday life activities).  And the only way to take in more glucose is to EAT!

A Daily Lesson

Getting enough fuel today for energy tomorrow is ESPECIALLY good advice if you are active early in the morning like I am.  I usually like to take my dog for a walk and then follow it up with my workout, all before 10am.  I don’t have breakfast until right afterward, so it’s important for me to make sure that I ate well the day before.

And I can always tell when I don’t because I so do NOT want to workout!  When I do get enough fuel the day before, I have MORE than enough energy for my workouts.

Practicing eating today for energy tomorrow is a good preventative measure for cravings as well.  It is much, much easier to resist tempting cooked food favorites when you’re well-carbed from the day before and on into the current day.  In fact, it’s even MORE likely that you won’t have cravings in the first place!

And What’s the Best Fuel?

Sweet fruit, of course!  As I already mentioned, our body uses glycogen.  What’s glycogen?  It’s nothing more than long chains of glucose, the simple sugar found in sweet fruit!

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. Here are some raw recipes to help you make sure you’re getting plenty of the sweet stuff.  I’ve even included a 7-day meal plan to help you get started.

Follow the link below to learn more and purchase the e-book:

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

Here is a comment that was recently left on a former post about mono-fruit meals.

I am lazy and started doing fruit meals from the beginning! I have never been into cooking recipes. So I got into raw foods and eating mostly fruit instinctively. ~ Annalise

I can certainly relate to this.  When I ate a cooked vegan diet, I always HATED spending hours in the kitchen preparing meals.  Or making a second trip to the supermarket because I forgot some essential ingredient for a dish the first time around.  Or having to plan my “healthy” meals days in advance.  Or…the list goes on and on.

That’s why I was so excited about the raw food diet. “Eating foods in their raw states,” I thought. “What could be more simple than that?”

Little did I know that the world of “gourmet raw” wasn’t any better than cooked vegan!  I still spent hours in the kitchen, only now I was just chopping vegetables.  I still had to make numerous trips to various health food stores in the hopes of finding “necessary” special ingredients.  And I still had to plan everything well in advance, so as not to waste anything or end up without enough food.

And at least my cooked meals actually tasted good!  Raw meatloaf and “sun” burgers…no thanks.

A Diet for the Lazy Man

Luckily, I quickly came across a raw food diet that truly satisfies the couch potato inside of me.  And as crazy as it sounds, this is the absolute *healthiest* and most *nutritious* diet you can find!

And which diet is this?  Why, the low fat raw vegan diet, of course!  That means all the sweet fruit you can eat, moderate greens and non-sweet fruits, and limited fats.  That’s it!

When I found out that I could literally grab a bunch of bananas and chow down, I couldn’t believe it.  And what if I wanted something a little more fancy?  No problem!  A simple yet satisfying fruit salad, green smoothie, savory salsa or raw pasta could be prepared in just minutes!

This meant no more extra time in the kitchen and no more desperate searches at the supermarket!  While I still plan my meals, and recommend that you do the same, it’s extremely simple.  Since I know how much food I need in a given day and the ripening times of the various foods that I eat, all that is required is to make sure that I buy enough when I go shopping.  That’s all there is to it!

And best of all?  I have more energy on this super simple lazy man’s raw diet than on any other program I’ve ever tried!  And because I’m not slaving away in front of a hot stove (or tepid dehydrator, for that matter), I can use that new-found energy for things that I truly enjoy.

What’s That, You Say?

A raw diet of mostly fruit is just *too* simple, right?  There is just *no way* a person can survive long term on such a diet, huh?

WRONG!  Not only are people surviving on a high fruit, low fat raw vegan diet, they are thriving (myself included)!  If you don’t believe me, take a gander at 30 Bananas a Day.  It’s a forum specifically for low fat raw vegans and boasts over 1000 members!

If you are *still* skeptical, try it out for yourself!  You have nothing to lose from giving a healthy raw vegan diet a go.  Cooked foods will still be there if you wish to return to them.

So what’s stopping you?  Grab some bananas and give the low fat fruity raw way a try!

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

* What’s New: Enough about me.  What about you?

* Feature Article: How I Cured My Coffee Addiction

As I stated in last week’s issue, I’ve been receiving a bunch of great emails from all of you.  Many people are really enjoying transitioning to a high fruit raw diet and are seeing great results.

If you have a great raw story to share, relevant question to ask, or just want to say hi, feel free to post it on this blog.  This will give everyone the chance to throw in their 2 cents and will allow more people to benefit from the conversion.

Thanks guys,

Swayze

How I Cured My Coffee Addiction

I have to admit something.  I used to LOVE coffee.  I had a cup every single morning after my exercise with a “splash” of half and half and a couple tablespoons of sugar.  I could not even imagine starting my day without my little cup of energy.

That was about two years ago.  Now, I can’t stand the stuff.  The smell alone makes me want to hurl.  The fragrance is so strong and bitter.  Yuck.  I’ll just stick to water, thank you.

So what changed?  How was I able to kick my coffee habit over two years ago?  Why is just the smell of coffee so aggravating to me now?

Coffee Addiction

When I was much younger,  I hated everything about coffee.  The aroma, the look of it, the few sips I had tasted.  I felt the same way about coffee as a child that I do today.

As I got older, I started having a cup in the morning.  I still hated it at first, but it just seemed like something people did.  Every adult I knew got up in the morning and fixed themselves a cup of coffee.  My Mom drank coffee all throughout the day!

Before I knew it, I was hooked on the stuff.  And it only took a few weeks to go from something I despised to something I relied on everyday.  If I did not have my coffee, it was very hard for me to stay awake during my first few classes at school.  I would usually experience a slight twinge in my forehead as well.

At the time, I thought that this was a sign that coffee was necessary in my diet.  When I drank coffee, I felt good.  When I stopped drinking it, I felt bad.

The Effects of Coffee

You see, coffee has two effects: a short term effect and a long term effect.  The caffeine in coffee is a stimulant and consuming it causes your body to work overtime trying to neutralize it.  Your body’s sudden state of frenzy causes you to feel energized and awake for a short period of time.  This is the short term effect.

Once these effects have worn off, the body returns (or “comes down”) to its original condition.  You now feel sluggish and tired again.  This is the long term effect of drinking coffee.

Many people only notice the short term effect.  While virtually everyone experiences the “drop off” later in the day (I know I did), they do not associate this with the coffee.  In fact, I’m sure many of you attempt to solve the problem by having more coffee!

How to Cure Your Coffee Addiction

The best way to stop drinking coffee is to STOP DRINKING COFFEE!  If you continue to drink the stuff, you will continue to be dependent upon it.

Personally, I went completely cold turkey from my one cup a day.  I had a couple of slight headaches for a few days, but that was the extent of my detox.  After a couple of weeks, I felt much better and no longer longed for coffee.  After two short months, I could not imagine drinking coffee at all.

If you drink numerous cups of coffee each day, it might be best to gradually reduce how much you drink.  An easy way to do this is to replace each cup with caffeine-free tea.  If you choose, you can keep going by replacing the tea with just warm or cold lemon water.

Either way you choose, your goal should be to completely eliminate coffee from your diet.  It provides no nutritional value and has no place in a healthy lifestyle.

My hope is that one day coffee drinking will be a thing of the past and people will rely on good ole exercise and nutrition to energize themselves for the day.

A girl can dream, right?

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

I’m here to tell you that you can significantly increase your energy by doing just one simple thing.  But first, let me dispel a few myths…

Do Certain Foods REALLY Increase Your Energy?

Have you seen those Emerald nuts commercials?  You know, the ones where the people fall asleep during important tasks because they haven’t got enough energy.  Then a friend gives them some nuts and woo hoo, they have energy galore!

I want to let you in on a little secret: there is *nothing* you can eat that will increase your energy…not fruit, not vegetables, and certainly not nuts!

Digestion is a process in your body and it *requires* energy.  That’s why everyone retires to the couch after a large Holiday meal…your body is working overtime to process all of the food, leaving you too worn out to do anything else!

Which brings me to my next point: there are certain foods that require *less* effort from your body to digest.  Raw fruit, for instance, only takes *minutes* to go through the digestive process.

But again, even raw foods do not give you energy.  It just uses up less, providing you with optimal fuel and letting you retain more of your own energy than if you had eaten, say, a bologna sandwich.

What About Exercise?

If simply eating an apple requires energy, you know what exercise does, right?  Yep.  Exercise saps your energy!

Think about it: you decide to go for a jog.  You spend a good 30 minutes on the track.  How do you feel afterwards?  You feel a little worn out, right?  And probably a little hungry.

With that said, making exercise a regular part of your life will *improve* your energy expenditure in the long run.  Because your body is now engaging in more intense periods of movement, average daily tasks will become even easier to perform.  They will require less energy from you than they did before an exercise routine was implemented.

Exercising also makes the *true* energy booster even more efficient.

So what does give us energy?

Good question!

The *only* thing that we can do that actually restores our energy is…

*SLEEP*

That’s right.  Good ole’ sleep.  It’s easy to do, you can do it in the comfort of your own home, and it’s free!  What’s better than waking up naturally after a good night’s rest?

When you sleep, your body goes into hibernation mode.  Because you are not moving, eating, thinking, etc., you are creating less of a demand for your body.  All of your organs, muscles, etc. are given the chance to rest and recover.

How much sleep do you need?  It’s an easy answer, but you might not like it…enough.

You need enough sleep.

You want some numbers?  The general guideline is 8-10 hours every night.  However, this changes from person to person.  Someone who is training for a marathon will need much more sleep than someone who only goes for long walks on the weekends.

Tips for getting quality sleep

As evidenced by the vast number of sleeping pills and potions used by the general public, people have a hard time getting quality sleep.

Here are some easy tips to help you *finally* get some sound sleep:

• Go raw!  As stated earlier, eating healthy raw foods require less energy, allowing you to sleep much more soundly.
• Don’t eat too late.  Try to finish your last meal a few hours before bedtime so that your body is not digesting food while you are asleep.
• Be a yogi!  Just a few minutes of yoga, or any kind of light stretching, is a great way to calm your body and mind before sleepy time.
• Start an exercise routine.  You will be amazed at how wonderfully exhausted you feel when bedtime rolls around.
• Turn off the computer or put down the laptop at least an hour before you go to sleep.  I’m really bad about this sometimes, but it truly makes a difference.

As far as getting *enough* sleep, you simply have to get into the habit of doing so.  The easiest way to do this is to gradually add on time to your nights.  For instance, start by going to bed just 20 minutes earlier than you usually do.  Add 20 more minutes the following week, and so on.

You can also try just adding a few restful moments throughout your day.  That means no TV, no computer, and no phone!  While this isn’t as restorative as sleeping, it does provide your body with a little bit of recovery time.

I have one last little point to make.  If you wake up in the morning exhausted, that’s because you are!  The absolute best thing you can do is go back to bed.  Even if it means skipping exercise, go back to bed.

Yes, it’s that important.

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

These are some of the top 10 benefits of the raw food diet that most every raw foodist has experienced.  If this doesn’t convince you to go raw, I just don’t know what will!

#1: Improved digestion

If I had to give you my top raw food benefit, improved digestion would be it.  It is the one result that almost every single person who attempts a healthy raw diet experiences.

Not only that, but it usually occurs very quickly.  Almost every digestive issue can be solved in just a few short days, if not less.  Whether you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome or just the occasional upset tummy, you will see major improvements after going raw.

However, if you continue to abuse the #1 food combining rule, than your results will not be as great.  No amount of raw food can undo the effects of the sugar-fat combo.

#2: Permanent Weight Loss

Hmmmm…maybe permanent weight loss should be the top benefit?

I don’t think it’s going too far to say that close to 99.9999999% of people struggle with their weight at some point in their lives.  Many of us go on diet after diet after diet hoping that we will see *some* kind of change in our weight.

Unfortunately, the only change that most of us witness is a higher number on the scale.  And if we do happen to lose weight, it’s usually at the expense of our health (i.e. calorie restriction, dangerous diet pills, frozen food programs, etc.) and typically comes back to haunt us sooner or later.

On the other hand, eating a healthy raw food diet allows you to lose weight *permanently* while improving your health substantially.  Plus, you get to eat *pounds* of food on a daily basis, without any guilt!

#3: More Energy

Unlike what you read/hear from many well-known raw foodists, raw foods do *not* give you energy.  Nothing you eat does, whether it’s a burger or a banana.  Eating food of any kind *requires* energy, just as everything else that you do during the day requires energy.

What makes following a healthy raw vegan diet truly special is that it requires less energy to process inside your body.  2 pounds of grapes literally takes *minutes* to be fully digested by the body.  This is opposed to cooked foods, or even a complicated fatty raw dish, which take hours to be digested.

The one *true* energy provider is sleep, which brings me to benefit #4…

#4: Better Sleep

Since I’ve been raw, I rarely ever feel tired when I get into bed.  Even after being raw for so long, I still get ready for bed sometimes and think, “Gee, I’m not going to be able to fall asleep right now.  Maybe I should just stay up for a little longer.”

However, I convince myself to get into bed and the moment my head hits the pillow, I feel so relaxed.  Within minutes, I’m out.

The best part?  When I wake up, I feel completely awake and ready to begin my day.  No more groggy mornings for me!

This is a far cry from my bedtime routine from two years ago.  My routine was this: feel absolutely exhausted by 4pm.  Try not to fall asleep at the wheel on the way to a client’s house.  Feel a little better after a 30-minute nap.  Feel exhausted again by 7pm.  Get into bed still exhausted by 10pm.  Remain awake for an hour.  Wake up at 7am groggy and grouchy.  Repeat.

Yikes, that makes me tired just writing it!

#5: Mental Clarity

I’m sure that many non-raw foodists will disagree with this one.  Raw foodists are supposed to be tree-hugging, hippie nut jobs, right?

On a raw food diet, because you are no longer weighing your body down with hard-to-digest cooked foods, you have more energy to use your brain!

Of course, this has a lot to do with sleep as discussed previously.  Because we spend less energy digesting our foods, we sleep more soundly.  This means that we have more energy during the day, meaning our thoughts are generally much clearer and our focus greatly improved.  We are more mentally, and even emotionally stable.

It’s really a cycle, isn’t it?  The more raw foods you eat, the better you sleep.  The better you sleep, the more energy you have.  The more energy you have, the more mentally stable you are.  The more mentally stable, the easier it is to stay raw.  The longer you stay raw…

#6: Soft, Smooth, & Clear Skin

To be honest, I’ve always had pretty good skin.  I’ve had maybe three blemishes in my entire life.  In fact, the worst my skin has ever been was for the first few months *after* I gave up salt!  But that’s for another article…

I’m not trying to brag.  I just want to be honest.  I’m not here to make up crazy transition stories about how going raw made me grow 5 inches taller and gave me the power of flight.  Although I have gone down almost 2 full shoes…

Anyway, I’m sure that many of you struggle with skin problems, whether it’s a blotchy skin tone, dry skin, oily skin, visible pores, blemishes, etc.

You *do not* need an expensive, chemical-laden skin treatment routine that only serves to further irritate your already abused skin.  All you need is a good heapin’ helping of water-rich raw fruits and veggies.

And some sunshine couldn’t hurt either.

#7: Thick, Healthy, & Shiny Hair

I’ve always had really thick hair, but it was very dry and hard to manage before I went raw.  The worst part was that I would shed like crazy!  My Mom was always pulling handfuls of my long locks out of the rollers of the vacuum.  Yuck!

Now that I eat plenty of nourishing, water-rich foods, my hair is silky and soft.  And I’m no longer a shedding machine!

#8: Healthy Teeth & Gums

But aren’t your teeth supposed to rot out of your head when you go raw?

NO!  The fact that so many long-term raw foodists have suffered tooth decay is simply a testament to the fact that the mainstream raw food diet *does not work*.

On a healthy raw food diet full of sweet fruit, moderate vegetables and little fat, you will not experience teeth problems.  In fact, the condition of your teeth and gums is likely to improve!

The real key is to have a solid dental care system in place and not to make dehydrated foods the base of your diet.

#9: No More Aches, Pains, or Minor Illnesses

How many of you have struggled with “everyday” illnesses and pains such as headaches, migraines, colds, flus, tummy aches, joint pains, muscle cramps, allergies, etc.?  We all have at some point!

I used to struggle with

• anemia
• restless leg syndrome
• muscle and joint pains in my legs and feet
• seasonal colds about 3-4 times a year (pretty much whenever the weather changed)
• the flu every couple of years
• headaches
• heavy menstrual flows and horrible cramps in my abdomen and lower back that left me in tears

And of course there were the seemingly random and unexplained aches and pains that would crop up every once in a while.

Every one of these has been *completely eradicated* since I went raw.  No more headaches.  No more colds.  Perhaps best of all, no more heavy periods and gut-wrenching cramps!  Sorry, guys, but that really is a big one for us ladies.

#10: Save Some Green

When you decide to take your health into your own hands and go raw, you can expect to save *heaps* of money in the process.

No more money wasted on unnecessary drugs, supplements or “superfoods.”  No more expensive doctor’s fees.  No more high insurance rates.

You can finally focus on *you* and spend that extra time and money on the things that actually make you more…well, you!

Still Waiting to Go Raw?

What are you waiting for?  Each day that you remain a slave to your aching back, your extra fat, or even your trip to the local pharmacy, is a day that you could be living raw and loving it!

Go raw and love it,

Swayze