I remember when I was going raw (I’m still going haha) that I would hear some of the more prominent raw fooders or even just people on forums talk about this thing called ‘the shift’. That’s what I’m calling it, they would come up with lots of different ways of explaining and describing it but essentially this is what it’s always been for me.
So what is the shift?
The shift is the difference between forcing yourself to eat a certain way and wanting to without any effort or stress. The shift is what happens when your physical body takes over from your mental body when it comes to the choices you make around food. The shift is not something that you can predict in terms of when it will happen for you, it’s rarely an overnight process and there’s not one thing specifically you can do to make it happen.
I remember a few years ago I was listening to an interview with Karen Knowler where she talked about how after years of her eating raw food her body just naturally started to shift to making healthy raw choices without the effort that had ensued for her before. I remember her advice was to be patient and that it would happen when it happened. At first I was quite dubious about this idea but hoped that it would happen for me soon! Whilst I loved raw food and how it made me feel, there were still plenty of times when I got out of my flow for one reason or another and ended up feeling disappointed in myself or just felt physically unwell. I wanted to BE RAW without any difficulties or challenges – how naive… 🙂
After 4 years of eating raw food and cooked food, healthy food and very unhealthy food I can honestly say that my body is shifting. Not fully, not 100% shifted to always making great choices but there is a slight and subtle change to what happens to me when I decide what to eat, even from this time last year! It seems to be an ongoing process. The choice in the main doesn’t feel like a mental one it feels like a physical one. It comes from a much deeper place within me and feels very clear about what my body wants and why it wants it. I KNOW the difference between making the choice with my head and making the choice with my body and they feel very different to me. I KNOW which one feels better and which has the best results!
It’s almost certainly a more intuitive way of eating that comes from years of my body fine-tuning itself to the nutrition I’ve been feeding it. I truly believe that when you ply your body with intense nutrition it learns very quickly the difference between the good and not so good. It’s about me teaching and honouring my body after years of nutritional neglect.
As I said, this doesn’t happen overnight but I totally believe that it DOES happen and if you’re struggling right now I want you to have faith in the process because the shift is happening right now even though you don’t know it or can’t even feel it…
Bringing about the shift
Like I said, it’s not really something you can make happen but these are the things I believe have made a difference for me – this blog is all about my experience baby, I’m still learning like you…
- Eat lots of RAW food nutrition – eat cooked too if you want but stuff plenty of RAW goodness in too
- Superfoods – get your body used to supreme nutrition e.g. hemp, algae, bee pollen, spirulina etc.
- Super nutrition – experiment with sea vegetables and WILD foods etc.
- GREEEEEENS – eat and juice and smoothie
- Go easy on yourself – if you know you’re going to get there eventually you don’t need to worry do you?
- Tune in to your body, listen to when it’s full and stop eating. Aim to leave your stomach 20% empty – we’re so used to eating past the point of fullness. Switch off the TV when you’re eating, be a conscious eater!
- Love the journey
- Love your food, enjoy whatever you’re eating! Never ever ever feel bad about what you eat – that’s just STUPID 🙂
I talk about this process and how to transition to a raw food lifestyle in my gorgeous little e-book So You Want To Be A Raw Foodist? out now 😉
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