Quick, come meet me, I'm awesome! cough

Hey fellow fruity people!

I'm very new to this place, so this is going to be a bit of an introduction/question combo!

Firstly, hi! I'm Renae (or at least, that's my middle name, and the name I go by.. The joys of having a whacky foreign first name, aye?) My first name is actually Tehillah (pronounced much the same as tequila, just swap the Q sound with a H and you're there), but you can all call me Renae :)
I'm super excited to be here, in a place where I know I'll have the support I need and a constant source of motivation to keep moving in the right direction.

I'm 20 years old, it took me 6 months to learn to ride a bike, I used to hate peas but since I became vegetarian in 2006 I've loved them, I still laugh like a 4 year old, I love purple (hence the hair), I'm probably the clumsiest person you'll ever have the misfortune of meeting :D which I believe has something to do with an incident that happened when I was 2 years old (but that's another story for another time), I'm completely obsessed with parrots.. And of course I like kittens and long walks on the beach… but who doesn't!

Now, I'm done with all the things you probably didn't really want to know about me, so let's move on...

I've struggled most of my life (or at least what I can remember of my life) with diet, bad health, and as hard as it was to admit to myself, and as much as I don't want to admit it to anyone else much less in a public forum, I'm still working on overcoming an alcohol addiction, severe depression and bulimia. I'm tired of having to hide behind makeup just so I don't look half dead, I so badly want to be done with trying to make the mirror happy.. It's my turn to be happy!
I just read another member's post about how she overcame a severe case of bulimia by committing 100% to a lfrv diet, and it really hit home with me. I just hope I can be as successful as all of you.

Okay, Enough with the serious talk… It's question time:

I've only just begun switching to a raw diet recently, and I have to say, I'm already feeling more energetic, seeing a glow about my skin and all that good stuff I'm sure you've all experienced for yourselves.. However, I feel like I may have made the change a little too suddenly, as I've been having a lot of belly and lower back pain.

To put it bluntly, a lot more is going in than is coming out haha.. In fact, just about nothing is coming out at the moment, and it's not much fun at all. I'm sure my digestive system is still very sluggish, after abusing it on the SAD all my life, and that probably accounts for the pain and slow digestion I'm experiencing now. It feels like my belly doesn't quite know what to do with this sudden boost of fibre and nutrient dense food, so it's not handling it the way it should..

Aside from that, I haven't run into any of the other common detox symptoms yet, I can't wait for that magic to happen… *cough*

So my questions! They're very simple: Is this something many of you have gone through, and if so, what can I do to get past it as quickly as possible? Even really simple things like touching your toes is made painful when you feel like there's a brick in your intestines :(

Oh also, I was gonna ask… Do any of you rawsome fruity people live somewhere around Newcastle (NSW, Australia)? I just recently moved from a bad living situation on the Gold Coast, where apparently there are a lot of you! I feel jipped..
I'm yet to hear of anyone near my new location, and it's getting a bit lonely.

Thanks guys

Feel free to message me any time, either with suggestions & tips, to get to know me better, or even just to say hey. I'm always up for making new friends :)

Smiles for miles x

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Permalink Reply by Renae Poole on October 10, 2011 at 10:57am

Thanks! Love the suggestions :)

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Permalink Reply by Josh Fossgreen on October 7, 2011 at 12:45pm

Hey Renae! Awesome intro post. I like your writing style.

Anyway, I second Jess in saying Read 80/10/10! That always helps.

Re:bloating, there are a lot of things you can try:

1) Simplify food combinations; eat mostly monomeals (one fruit at a time til full), don't combine sweet fruit with fatty food (nuts, seeds, avocado), drink water before meals instead of after.

2) Try to finish eating earlier in the day (never at the expense of eating enough though...), gives you more off-time between dinner and breakfast.

3) For short term relief, you can give yourself a tummy/colon massage. At the very worst, it will feel good and be a nice chance for you to give yourself some lovin'. Hard to OD on that.

So maybe one of those things will help, but also with time I'm confident the issue will go away anyway. It does take time for our bodies to recover from a lifetime of sub-optimal care, but they do! Have fun.

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Permalink Reply by Renae Poole on October 14, 2011 at 12:06pm

:O Shiony? This sounds like a compliment to me.. I feel loved :D c'mere n give me a hug!
x

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Permalink Reply by Diane L on October 7, 2011 at 1:02pm

Hi! Here are a couple suggestions to get things flowing, ha, ha.

Make sure you are drinking enough water. At least 3 liters a day.

Make sure you aren't eating unripe fruit, especially bananas. Make sure bananas you eat have lots of brown speckles.

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Permalink Reply by Rock on October 7, 2011 at 1:47pm

Fresh cherries empty me out--often too quickly, violently, thoroughly,for an hour longer than I wished for. I start my water only fasts with fresh cherry juice.

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Permalink Reply by Reese on October 7, 2011 at 2:24pm

Welcome Renae! Although, I think your First name Tehillah is beautiful too. I'm pretty new to this lifestyle too, somewhere like three or four weeks, although, I've been experimenting in raw food for a long while. I had the same problem when I first started lfrv full time and it last about a week. I got really nasty cramps in my lower intestines and then finally it seemed like my body just took a day to get it all out... So I think it's got to be at least a little bit normal. Just wait it out, and try and stick to lfvr as much as you can.

Another thing I experienced, and still seem to be experiencing, is extreme tiredness. I'm usually a late night person, but lately I've been experiencing periods of drop dead tiredness. I think this is also a detox symptom and it's my body telling me I need to sleep so it can heal more efficiently.

Just keep coming to 30Bad and you will have support. I have found this group to be so positive and helpful to one another and I know a lot of people here are successful on this diet despite other factors in their lives that might make it hard to stick here. I know it's helped me a lot to know 30Bad is here.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah on October 7, 2011 at 2:59pm

Welcome, sorry in NZ so not very close.

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Permalink Reply by Renae Poole on October 10, 2011 at 10:58am

Ahh! I love this place haha

Thanks everyone for such a warm welcome.. And so quickly too! I've joined many forums in the past (mostly on different subjects), and I have never joined a single one where I felt like I immediately fit in.. It means a lot.

Also, thanks for all your suggestions.. after giving them all a lot of through, I've come to the conclusion that I've been doing just about everything wrong.. Isn't that always the way?

It seems I've been eating semi-ripe fruit this entire time.. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever eaten a piece of fully ripened fruit! I was always under the (silly) impression that fruit were pretty well ripe as soon as I bought them from the store. Unless they were small, hard and green of course.. Bananas for example, I've never waited for the black spots to appear, I've always thought that they were ripe once they were predominately yellow, boy was that stupid haha

So that's easy enough to change. I also had my first mono-meal this morning, and I'm feeling great!

Ohh and could someone possibly link me to somewhere I could buy this 80/10/10 book everyone's raving about? :D I'm feeling a bit sponge-like at the moment.. And by that, I mean I want to absorb as much information about my new diet as I can, as quickly as I can, before I make any more easily-avoidable mistakes..

The one thing I have been doing right: Water! I'm pretty much known as the crazy water girl around here (Though I'm hoping to make a new nickname for myself soon, EG: Crazy Banana Girl, or Crazy Fruit Kid... The crazy part can stick, cos I mean, let's face it...) .. Anyway lol I'm never without a bottle of water, and I always make sure I'm drinking plenty.

"3) For short term relief, you can give yourself a tummy/colon massage. At the very worst, it will feel good and be a nice chance for you to give yourself some lovin'. Hard to OD on that." -- Haha This would probably be preferable over what I have been doing.. Lot's of irritated poking and prodding probably isn't the way to get my tummy to behave itself.. I think I'll try your way instead

"Another thing I experienced, and still seem to be experiencing, is extreme tiredness. I'm usually a late night person, but lately I've been experiencing periods of drop dead tiredness." -- I haven't hit that wall yet, but I'm generally a night owl too, so I suppose it's bound to happen.. Hopefully not during a job interview though!

Anyway, thanks again everyone, you're all awesome! I can't wait to get to know you all better

Smiles for miles x