raw veganism

Does Raw Food Cure Depression? Can you Choose to be Happy?: My All Time Top Tips For Overcoming Depression

 

Hi guys,

So…there are a lot of videos being made in the 80/10/10 community about Robin Williams and whether depression is caused by being undercarbed.

DurianRider (freelee the banana girl’s boyfriend) made a video yesterday that enraged people saying Robin Williams was a failure in life because he couldn’t make himself happy with all the money and fame in the world. He said he was alcoholic because he was undercarbed and alcohol is carbs, so if you are on a low carb diet, you will get addicted to alcohol because it becomes your source of carbs, or sugar, which your brain desperately needs. He says he used to be really depressed but he made a choice to “harden the fuck up” and choose to be happy.

I hate when people say “choose to be happy” because in the moment you can’t choose to be happy and completely ignore all your emotions. It is impossible. Like if your family member died, you could not choose to be happy. :(

However, what you can do is choose to try to improve your life, and work towards being happy, like by finding out what makes you happy and going after it.

It’s so incredibly true money and fame don’t make you happy. It’s being able to do what you want to do. But if you have a million dollars in the bank and don’t or can’t do what you want to do, then you won’t be happy. What will you spend the money on? Fancy clothes? Where will you wear them? Fancy vacations? What if you don’t have anyone to enjoy them with…

Trust me on this one. Money doesn’t buy happiness.

The funniest guy in the world, some call him, wasn’t happy.

Think of Marilyn Monroe…the most beautiful full of life girl who ever lived, some say…also was extremely unhappy.

How to be happy? How to not be depressed?

This is a question I am always asking myself.

For a lot of my life I have been one of those depressed unhappy people. Why? I thought I was weird, fat, that no one liked me, I was very shy, inhibited, self conscious, had social anxiety…I thought I’d never have the love I wanted, I had a hard time opening up, connecting to people, felt different, was a loner. I had a lot of heartbreak from relationships.

But on the plus side, I was always very motivated to find out the answers and to find a way to not be sad and be happy instead.  Like in college, when I was very depressed over a guy I was desperately in love with, I was sent to a psychiatrist by the school therapist and she asked me to take antidepressants. Everyone wanted me to. But I refused. I wanted to cure myself. I knew my depression was because of problems in my life and I wanted to find the answers to those problems. Everyone disagreed with me and told me it was a chemical imbalance in the brain and I needed to take drugs, but I knew I was unhappy because I had issues that I could learn to overcome.

After trying a lot of stuff, (like hundreds of self help books, mega doses of vitamins, exercising intensely training for a half marathon, mega doses of fish oil–none of those things worked like people said they did) I did cure myself of depression. Though I am still a sensitive soul who takes things hard I learned a lot of better life skills and now I don’t fall into a deep dark hole for years as I once did. I want to share some tips in case it helps someone. These are good tips!

1. If you are currently depressed, read the book Feeling Good by David Burns. This book is the book that lifted the spell of my depression. As it does for almost everyone who reads it. Check out the five star amazon reviews. I am an uber fan of this book, even posing as a therapist to go to a therapist conference to meet the author. Next read all his books multiple times as I have. I owe so much to this author. All his books continue to inspire me daily.

These books gave me the rules of life. It made me realize life will work out if you have the right attitude. It explains how to think rationally about your depressing thoughts. It really really works. This is my number one tip, even above fruitarianism.

2. Go fully raw 80/10/10 fruitarian or raw till 4.

 

Doing this will do a couple of things for you.

Improve your looks. Make you look younger. Noticeably improve your skin. Make you lose weight. How can that not make you feel good, when you see those changes happening.

Give you a new passion. You will start getting into the whole vegan scene. Reading 80/10/10 by doug graham. Getting into natural health. Watching a ton of youtube videos. Making new recipes. Trying out new tools, like a spiralizer. Connecting you to other vegans in the community.

Completely destroy the guilty panicked feelings you feel around your weight, over eating or eating junk food. You will never again feel bad about eating. Like, I ate wayyy too much. Or I shouldn’t have eaten that. Or I’m on a new diet starting tomorrow. Or I NEED to lose weight. No…you will toss all the stress and drama around eating and weightloss in the trash. Instead you will always be able to eat till your completely full. And still know over time you will lose weight.

Possibly give you a lot more energy in life and spasms of ecstasy and wellbeing. Especially if you go fully raw, you will experience bizarre super human like levels of fitness, energy, and amazing feeling of well being. Ok, this can only improve your life and feelings about life in general.

I recommend reading 80/10/10 by Doug Graham to begin with, and then maybe checking out some vegan youtubers like freelee the banana girl, foodnsport testimonials, or happy healthy vegan.

3. Every week make a very short list of 1-3 goals that you are going to accomplish that week, write it in your phone, and read it over every morning.

This one can be tricky cause you can feel bad if you don’t do your goals, but it will keep moving you forward in life and when you do achieve your goals, just because you wrote them down and kept them in the forefront of your mind, you will feel so good about yourself. Every week, on Sunday, make your goals for monday. You will be amazed at how much you’ve been putting off you can achieve just by looking at your main goals daily.

4. Write a desire list.

I got this from a really amazing book Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts that is one of my all time top favorite self help books. A desire list is a list of everything you want, from big to small. Anything from a piece of vegan pizza to your dream house to that outfit you saw in the store to world peace. Just make sure they are all things YOU And only you really truly want. The desire list is your way to get more happy. Those desires are the keys. Do what you desire and you’ll feel great. It sounds so simple, but only by pinpointing the things you truly desire in your life can you get what you want. Otherwise, you’ll never admit to yourself what you want and you’ll never get what you want, and you’ll wonder why your life sucks. That is so me. I hate to acknowledge and accept what I truly desire. But that’s how to be happy, people! It’s different for everyone. But first you have to figure out what it is YOU want.

Of course, this is harder than it seems. That’s why starting with the little things you want like …a massage… can bring out the bigger deeper things you want in life. Also it can be hard to accept sometimes what it is you want. Sometimes your desires can seem shameful, wrong even, weird, or like everyone will judge you and hate you if you go after what you want. Just remember, everyone is created differently, for different careers in life, and endowed with certain skills unique to them. What is right for you is 100% wrong for someone else.

Remember: your desires are an expression of who you are. You need to honor them, as hard as it may seem. This is something I struggle with a lot, but whenever I have just blindly trusted my desires, listened to my gut, listened to that little whisper telling me DO IT, then I have done it and wondered all the while why the hell is this soo much fun, why do I feel better than i ever have before, at peace, happy…

HAPPY. Maybe you’re not happy because you’re not acknowledging what you really want.

Trust yourself. Trust your desires. Trust that whisper. Trust the crazy voices in your head.

Practice accepting them until you can be proud about who you are and what you want.

So those are my best tips about happiness so far. I would seriously love to know in the comments if you stumble upon this post….what are your best…no..top tips…for happiness. Like what have you learned from your depressions in life about being happy? What worked? This is gold! Let me know, please. I”ll respond. 

xoxox Love to all the unhappy people out there…and the recovered unhappy people out there. I get you. You will be happy again. If you follow my advice ;)))

 

 

Fruit Makes Your Brain Go Tropical and random musings about what happened when i went vegan

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It is just amazing to me how much being vegan has changed my life.

You know how I have been going on about how I have this desire to be in a tropical paradise?

The other day in this raw food Facebook group Reach4Raw (I recommend joining if you are interested in raw food diets), someone posted this question that was like, “does anyone else long for tropical environments like I do?”. She was like ever since I started eating more fruit, I long for tropical weather, a connection to nature, etc.

So many people chimed in and were like YES ME TOO. And I chimed in.

I think the fruit causes you to think those thoughts. The fruit is like a little voice inside your head that says be healthy. Get sunlight. Swim in the water naked. Relax. Enjoy summer. Enjoy being alive.

Kind of creepy maybe, haha.

Have any of you had those thoughts?

When you go vegan, the fog lifts. You see another way of life.

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It is an odd feeling.

Yesterday I was at a bar. The bar had huge framed photos of cows with ridiculous hats on them for the decor.

It struck me how messed up that was.

Pointing and laughing like kids at a zoo. Putting hats on the cows and making them look ridiculous.

I didn’t like that.

Cows should be respected.

But then I started thinking, have I been brainwashed by veganism? I mean, this is too much, getting offended that these cows are not getting the proper respect they deserve and are being treated like objects. Maybe I’m the one who has gone too far.

But then I was like…no. I’m not crazy.

Those cows deserve to be in a wild herd, raising their own children. No one should be used. We all deserve our freedom. Etc.

That’s not weird. It’s just an idea whose time hasn’t come yet.

Women weren’t free for a long time. That kind of thing.

Sometimes I feel like all I talk about is fruit and arguments for not eating meat.

I feel like I am a missionary trying to convert people.

I tried for a while to lead by example, and not talk people’s ear off about veganism. But no one came to me, seeking my advice, as people said they would. So I’m back to harassing people.

I think to myself, maybe they’ll think about what I said, and they’ll be more likely to watch a documentary on veganism….and then it will all come together for them. One day.

It doesn’t seem like I am doing enough to help the animals.

I’m thinking maybe I should show my body more so that people would follow me to gaze on my physique and then be eventually converted to veganism.

Hah.

Anyway, it’s summertime and I’m lovin it.

Horrors! A mcdonalds phrase came to mind.

Well this was a rambling post. Hope you are all having a great summertime!