My One Year Fruitarian Anniversary: What I’ve Learned
Hello everyone,
It is coming up on my one year anniversary of “fruitarianism” or endeavoring to be a “high carb low fat vegan” if not a “high carb low fat RAW vegan.”
This has meant countless raw food ebooks purchased, hundreds of hilariously ridiculous fruitarian youtube videos watched, endless instragram pics of fruit scrolled through… haha you get the picture.
It has been a hard journey in a few ways. Having such a radically different diet from those around you and from what our culture tells us to eat can get tough at times.
Like you can’t go to restaurants basically. People don’t like that it turns out.
The other tough thing is that you only have the rantings and ravings of fruitarian youtubers who are often living for months on only bananas or oranges, and yelling at you to “GO FRUIT YOURSELF” while wearing a purple and leopard print pimp’s outfit (cough cough durianrider) to guide you.
When something goes wrong, or your tooth starts hurting because you haven’t yet learned how to thoroughly brush your teeth, which you need to do when you start eating so much fruit, it can be very scary even having your health in the hands of random youtubers sitting in their bathrooms.
There were times I felt very isolated. Like what have I done? Why have I fought so hard for my right not to meet my friends at a restaurant?
There were also times I wondered if I was I only doing this as some sort of bizarre eating disorder where you binge on 1,000 calorie smoothies in order to lose weight. And whether I should just turn back.
But for some reason I couldn’t. And now I”m here. About one year later. And it all seemed to work out.
Basically, I have settled into a raw till 4 lifestyle with a high emphasis on fruits but eating potatoes and starches for dinner.
This has mentally been sooooooo much easier than being fully raw. You still have your satisfying comfort foods.
One person who has inspired and helped me more than any other finding good foods is Will of Potato Strong. His comfort food recipes that have no oil in them are SO GOOD and make you feel totally satisfied and full. If you didn’t see my Facebook post about the interview I did with him through youtube, watch this video where he answered my questions about his plant based diet and his dramatic weight loss.
Will inspired me to watch the documentary Forks Over Knives on netflix and now I’m reading the book Whole, the sequel to The China Study.
What I got from Forks Over Knives is there is yet another conspiracy at play in our society.
It mysteriously takes the form of the innocuous food pyramid on the back of cereal boxes everywhere.
That food pyramid always seemed suspicious to me. Turns out it is!!
The movie kind of implied that the government wants us to be sick so the drug companies and the insurance companies and the meat and dairy industry can thrive. If we simply ate a very low fat diet of whole plant foods so many of the diseases that cost us billions could be easily reversed. But that wouldn’t be a good thing for those depending on the billions. Even though it might allow our friends and family to be free of many of the most tragic and supposedly incurable diseases out there, like cancer and heart disease.
No one wants to tell you that your health could be being horribly damaged by the standard american diet that is recommended in the food pyramid.
Fruitarianism or eating solely fresh fruits and vegetables, and giving up starches, will take your health to the next level even.
This year I’ve done a few periods where I was fully raw. It is tricky to eat enough, but wow I felt amazing.
I experienced (just to recap):
1. my beauty skyrocketed. Like my face looked bizarrely more beautiful, like a renaissance painting.
2. my skin began to glow from within and completely cleared up. That was amazing.
3. weight literally melted off and my pants started falling down like a rapper’s.
4. when i ate enough, i was running everywhere. It was like I had a tank of gas that was filled up for the first time in my life and I could press pedal to the medal, and for the first time I had lift off.
5. Running became effortless. Like, no strain on the muscles. It was like I was flying.
6. You wake up with a buzz. Like your body is buzzing and ready to leap out of bed.
I encourage anyone who can to try fully raw. It’s awesome, but challenging.
Anyway, I agree that fruits and vegetables are the KEY to health.
I like to think of them as vitamins in pill form. The more you eat, the more you gain….in health.
That is why I am keeping on with my fruitarian diet…or aspiring to be as fruitarian as possible. While maintaing a first and foremost vegan, and second most, low fat no oil diet.
I love it now. I enjoy my smoothies now that I know the tricks (make sure this bananas are ripe (spotted like a leopard) and I love seeing the new fruit come into season. I love seeing my skin change the more fruit I eat.
I”m really glad I stumbled upon this.
I will try to share more of what I have learned because I am a convert now.
Isn’t it interesting how the story of The Garden of Eden makes so much sense. Animals and humans lived in harmony. They ate fruit. They lived in a tropical paradise. They were healthy and glowing. But then we were kicked out.
I feel like veganism is the key to get us back there.
In the bible, Jesus was born in a manger with the animals all around.
For the animals, for our health, vegan is the way, don’t you think?
glad to hear its going so well! for me too. This week, I felt that energy surge you were talking about. I’m in some hefty aerial rehearsals and I’m keeping up with and surpassing the other girls who are at least 10 years younger then me. My body is healing quickly (very important when I’m ripping and tearing and bruising every day) and I feel energy I’ve NEVER felt before. I’m raw till 4 most days and still drinking wine. The girls think my “diet” is crazy but I’m flying high! raw fruit and veg all day and then mostly sweet potatoes or rice with veg and nutritional yeast, pureed tomatoes, black pepper. Sometimes tofu at night but not often. The one thing I’m noticing is my skin is completely broken out like a teenager, but I’m guessing that’s just transition. I went off birth control two months ago and have only been eating this way for 2 months as well. Seems normal for my skin and hormones to adjust. Keep it up!!!!
Thanks Coco! That is amazing news that you are recovering so well. I have heard many people go through detox symptoms like that. Do you know Ellen Fisher? http://www.realrawkitchen.com/2014/01/interview-ellen-fisher-on-801010-diet.html
In this interview with her (i follow her on instagram she has an amazing account) she says that acne is a very common detox symptom. She says (from that article):
“Detox is very common and to be expected for almost everyone who has had past years/decades of unhealthy eating when embarking on the 80/10/10 diet, especially for someone like myself who had a deep rooted acne issue. My skin got worse than I had ever experienced for about 4 months straight. At that time I was still eating a cooked whole foods high carbohydrate meal a few times a month. I began to consult with Dr. Graham and he encouraged me to stop eating all cooked foods and to go to Banana Island, where I ate only bananas and tender greens for 7 days. My skin got a little bit better so I kept at this and every once in a while I went to banana or mango island for a week at a time. After the fourth time on a mono fruit island my skin stopped breaking out and finally began to heal.
Keep me posted on your progress!
you’re great, love your article
Thank you!!!
The key to ‘healthy” (not losing your teeth !) fruitarian is to eat whole fruit (all the fruit) including skin – but of course only Organic fruits
Wow, I’ve never heard that before. That is interesting. Does the skin contain some minerals or something we need? Please elaborate!!!
I really want to become a fruitarian! I’m just worried that my family and friends will abandon me. I have struggled with eating disorders and I don’t people to think of this as an eating disorder but more so a lifestyle change.
Hi Nicci, you are right to be worried, but if your family and friends love you they won’t abandon you but will perhaps give you a lot of attitude at first but eventually they will accept your decision, especially if you show them that this is not a calorie restrictive diet at all. in fact, it is the opposite. You can show them your food log on cronometer which will show them you are eating around 2000-3000 calories a day, which is way more than diets recommend. You can also show them easily with cronometer that you are fulfilling all your nutritional needs. Cronometer is a very essential thing to use I think when starting out as a fruitarian for other reasons as well….like making sure you can stick to it by eating enough calories so that you don’t get so hungry you don’t care about eating fruit anymore and just eat whatever is in site. Also I think once your family sees how much good it is doing you they will eventually accept it. That’s what happened to me. I forced my family to plainly admit that it was obvious how much I had changed for the better since starting this lifestyle–and they eventually agreed. I used to always be trying to diet and feeling guilty about food and now I rarely if ever have any of those thoughts–it is like a huge chunk of my brain that was taken up worrying about food has been cleared. I think it is a very healthy lifestyle because you can lose weight and never have to restrict your calories. You can feel full and gain a lot of health benefits and lose weight all at once. I recently read a quote that went “when people say no to you, it’s not because they are going to stop you. They just don’t want to be the ones who gave you permission.” If you want to do it, you should just do it, and they will eventually come around. Also make sure you read 80/10/10 by Doug Graham and educate yourself about it so you can answer their concerns. That will help too. And start a youtube channel so you can connect with others. And keep me updated!