Raw Tip No. 2

You know, if you aren't doing it for the right reasons, raw food can seem like constant deprivation. After all, when you're raw there are people all around you snacking on the things you used to or still love - potato chips, French fries, samosas, etc. This is a good time to re-evaluate what you're doing raw foods for.

Ideally, it shouldn't be something that you'll reach an end goal for, such as weight loss or running a marathon. That's one event. That's one point in time. (Okay, well, for weight loss... maybe one point in time.) It shouldn't be part of a punishment, or part of self-hatred (whee, weight loss again!). And it definitely shouldn't be something impossible.

See, there's a difference between not reaching an end goal and impossible. Not dying is impossible, but you won't reach an end goal if your goal is to reach newer heights with your training program (such as running), or to better your health. There's some amount of ambiguousness you must have when you plot your reason for why you want to be raw. However, you can't just say, "I want to feel better", that's too ambiguous and it won't motivate you for long. There's a balance, as in all things.

You won't have that balance if you feel deprived, though. It can be pretty easy to be deprived when you're feeling jealous, too. The trick to not feeling deprived, I've found, is to re-affirm your reasons for doing raw for yourself. That is, don't make it into a sacrifice; don't make yourself into a martyr for your health. It doesn't work, it just makes you and everyone around you miserale.

No, what you want to do is remind yourself why you are doing this. Why you are choosing to better yourself, be it your mental, physical or emotional health or your running time or to be able to live long enough to see your grandchildren go to college. That's the trick, see? If you feel deprived, you feel jealous, you start designating "bad" foods... and you wind up binging in the back of your car or otherwise breaking raw.

So, Raw Tip No. 2: Rawism isn't a sacrifice, and you ain't no martyr. Don't make things into something they aren't. If you do, it just leads to you giving up on what may be one of the most important physical/emotional improvements of your life.

So remember... raw food is healthy, colourful, fun, and above all - tasty!