5 Months of Raw Vegan Experiment
05 Aug 2013home > categories > challenges
25th August 2012 - Some seemingly very unimportant event happened in my life. I couldn’t tie my shoelaces while sitting in a chair. I was huffing & puffing when I am done. Yeah. I had a big belly. I could not believe the condition of my physique. I started thinking. Just like the butterfly effect in Chaos Theory, this event triggered a series of events in my life, which led me to change my lifestyle drastically. I started doing one little thing at a time.
The change - going raw vegan was drastic and very effective. I was a voracious meat eater. Switching immediately to the opposite side of the spectrum would be very tough. So, I did stop eating meat from Jan 1, 2013. After a month, I started eating raw vegan food for breakfast for two weeks, then two weeks for the dinner and eventually for all three meals in the day. From 1st March 2013, I was on 100% raw vegan diet. After being on this diet for 5 months, you can see the results in the above picture.
How does that feel?. Good or Bad?
Physique: The first noticeable change was my physique. I lost almost all of the extra fat from my body and I did lose a few pounds of lean muscle as well. It felt amazing when I lost a few inches off my waist. My body felt very light, I could walk fast, climb up stairs with ease. Before this diet, while on streets, I use to tuck in my stomach or hold my breath to make my chest look bigger - when I see a beautiful girl on the other side or a man bigger than me. That became my nature that I do it unconsciously. After being a raw vegan, I don’t have any issues with my body and don’t do any of those acts in public. I lost 20 Kg in 5 months.
Health: I was never sick in the past 15 years, even when I was overweight. I was not sick during the last five months as well. So, I am not sure, if raw vegan diet helped improve my health or not. With the kind of information available on the internet and the research books that I read, it is definitely healthy. If you are not healthy, it will improve. By health - I meant the state of all the internal organs, which is not obvious to us until something goes wrong.
Cognizance: I am not sure how to explain this in words. While on the vegan diet, I don’t have the fogginess in my thinking. I was able to think more clearly and able to communicate that with friends more precisely. I never stumbled for words. They flow freely. I started writing more and reading more. I started spending more time with myself - to improve myself. I invested in a lot of audio books and made it a habit to listen to them daily. Started exploring the other side of my life (giving back to society). Basically, I would say that I am a much different person now. I can spend time alone and be happy & content. I don’t have any specific proof to say that Raw Vegan Diet did this, but my instinct says it did.
Food Carving: When I completed the 5 months trial, I thought I would be carving for cooked food. But that was not the case. The cooked food did taste better than a raw vegan diet, especially my wife’s cooking. I liked eating cooked food, but I don’t crave for cooked food. Once when my wife was not around, by default - without thinking, I reached out for raw vegan breakfast. I don’t know if this is some sort of contentment/detachment with food, but definitely better. During my college days (when going out with friends - mostly parting), I will come home around 1 AM in the midnight and my mom uses to prepare fresh food at that time and feed me. Otherwise, I will not eat. Thinking about that with now.
Social Pressure: This is the toughest part of the raw vegan diet. We do have a lot of friends and relatives in India. Once or twice in a month, we have to attend some functions (marriage, baby shower, birthday celebrations, etc.) and you will have to eat in all the functions. Not eating in those functions is disrespecting the host. I have to come up with excuses or take the host in private and explain to them about my diet. Trust me, nobody understands. All of them told me this, “Eat this one time, you continue from tomorrow. Today is special”. Saying NO to the love of your loved ones is the toughest part of this diet. Another part of the story is that - when relatives visit home and they see me slim, there will be hundreds of questions to Sangavi. All of them were elders and respectable persons in the family and society. Those were the tough times for her as well. She persisted those times with a smile for me.
This is a problem specific to India and surrounding countries with related culture. So, does not apply to all.
Self-Confidence: Especially when you know that you can do something which 99% of the people around you cannot do, your self-confidence soars to the high sky. Overcoming social pressure is the next plateau for your self-confidence. You will know you can do things even if the whole world is against your idea. This raw vegan diet brought me self-control, reduced procrastination, improved my self-confidence greatly. Following Raw Vegan Diet equals reading hundreds of self-development books. Trust me.
Was the experiment successful?
I do have a lot of obese/overweight friends who complain about the impossibility of losing weight. The whole idea behind this experiment is to find a reliable and healthy mean to lose weight and when I lose weight, my friends will get inspired. I did lose weight. Very funny thing is that my friends still complain about being overweight and ignored me and my diet plan as Outcasts. I am no longer an ordinary human being with an ordinary appetite. I laughed at myself. Nevertheless, I was blogging the efforts along the way. If it inspires one person in the world, I would consider my experiment a successful one.
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