Finished Weston a. Price challenge

So a little late (again) – sry

I completed my Weston Price/traditional diet challenge on the 30^th of October, scoring a low 16 (this is good) on the previously mentioned health questionnaire by Mark Hyman, which is half of what I had when I began the challenge, in general my numbers where preety good – I will list them at the end of this post.

It was definetely way easier and more interesting to stick to than doing the raw food challenge, and I scored better on the health questionnaire, I din't loose as much fat though, proably because I ate more food this time.

Generally I think the diet experiment went well, I really like the food, compared to both a raw food and a paleo diet, even a vegan diet, I think it is less restrictive, and I have had some fairly good results.

This diet may be able to be improved by adding some of the additional things that traditional/native/indigenous people also made use of like fermented foods and beverages, bone broths and organ meats which I'm looking into at the moment, with help from Nourishing Traditions (by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig). I will also be adding some raw food dishes, like salads and green juices. In the future I will look into using the meal timing rules of the leptin diet and the low carb rules of the primal diet, and see whether this can improve the diet.

Weight - 64, 4 kg – 2,7 kg decrease

Estimated Muscle perecentage 47,8 – 0.9% points increase

Water percentage 67,6 – 1,8% points increase

Fat percentage 7,5 – 2,3 % points decrease

Average resting pulse 46,5

Lowest reading 45

Highest reading 59

Average resting blood pressure 97,35/52,55

The blood pressure seems unrealistically low – I wil have to compare my blood pressure reader to another one, next time I get a chance.

Total score on Mark Hyman's health questionairre from the ultra simple diet– 16 – a 50% decrease

Finished raw challenge

So I finished my almost vegan, raw food challenge! It was meant to be a 30 day challenge, but I added in another day, in order to compensate for a night of drinking (important social event ;)).

Unfortunately I didn't have my body fat measured this time, so I only have my weight in that regard. I went from 68 kg at the beginning of this challenge, to 63,6 kg this morning (32 days later). Thats 4,4 kg lost, about a kilogram a week, which I think is a fine rate. I didn't really have problems with excessive hunger at any time, in fact my hunger seemed to decline as the challenge progressed, which was probably connected with my loss of interest in the food I ate, and my increased craving for whatever I hot meat containing food I made for my girlfriend. Now don't get me wrong, raw food isn't boring, and I could have made it more interesting, or I should say varied, than I did - however making tasty, interesting dehydrated meals successful, takes a lot of work, and experience - in my opinion anyway. I really like a lot of the food I made, but just as if I were to only eat any other kind of food, say only cooked food, or even worse - only animal foods - it just limits your palate too some degree, even if you are very creative. That said it can certainly be done - but it takes a lot of creativity, time and effort to live off of purely raw (and dehydrated) foods.

According to my questionnaire - I did really well - I scored only 20 points this time, the best so far (lower is better). I didn't feel awesome though - I didn't feel 'light', 'high', 'grounded', or even especially energized, as a lot of raw foodies describe.

I guess my conclusion is that it definitely works for weight loss, and it may be a healthy diet for some time, but I have to admit that it is hard to follow, and from a theoretical stand point, I have a hard time seeing how a vegan (or close to) diet can sustain us without heavy supplementation as a life long way of eating. As for the raw part of it, I think people need to be less fanatic about it, and see it less black and white - some ways of processing may, in some situations be a better option than eating/drinking it raw. Teas - infusions and decoctions, is obvisously a good example of this, fermentation another. Besides these one can argue, that even though you do loose some nutritional value by heating your food, it may very well in some situations also improve digestibility, as well as make it easier to consume larger amounts of vegetables.

On top of this I also have a hard time seeing the scientific basis for the 'enzyme theory of digestion and health' - if I am correct (if you have studies showing otherwise - please link), and this does not hold up to scientific scrutiny, the idea of setting the border between raw and cooked foods at 42 degrees Celsius must be dropped. This will hopefully be replaced by a discussion of food processing as sliding scale, as well as a goal and situation based approach. A discussion of the 'living foods' concept, in opposition to the more simplistic term 'raw food', may also be appropriate.

Thats it for now - I plan to start my next diet experiment on the 1st of October - a traditional style, Western A. Price inspired diet.

Ohh one more thing - I'm going to see Daniel Vitalis on the 2nd and 3rd of October, In Christiania, Copenhagen :D

Btw. this is posted one day later than intended -so if you count dates - this is why it didn't match :)

status thus far

As the title implies I'm going to brief you on my experience so far - the food is generally good, but I have been eating (or drinking) the same stuff A LOT, because a couple of weeks back I spilled buckwheat into my dehydrator, which meant that I couldn't use it for fear of them burning - yesterday I finally got it screwed apart, and cleaned out - so I'm looking forward to making interesting creations starting tomorrow (I have to work  today), and I will report back on how that goes.

Bodily I have been having some acne, but as my digestion seems great (judging on my stools), I am guessing that it is related to too much sugar (fruits and honey) - so, as I get dehydrating, I hope to replace some of the fruit and honey with dehydrated foods such as seed and nut crackers, bars, and cereal, as well as more interesting dips, and nut/seed milks.

So - I'm doing fine right now, but am missing more variety in my foods, and something crunchy. I will keep you updated :)

started raw food challenge

I started my high raw 'beegan' (vegan + bee products) 30 day challenge last Friday (the 13^th of august), and have been doing fine so far – to my slight surprise I haven't had problems with hunger, or cravings for forbidden foods. I have mainly been eating fresh and frozen fruit, fresh salad leaves, honey, oils and seeds.

During my vacation (and break between diet challenges) I put on some unwanted weight (fat), so that I weighted 68 kg at the beginning of this challenge, so I hoping this will help :).

I may have to skip a couple of meals (meaning not following the plan) this time around, because of some important social events, however I will compensate for this by adding an extra day to the challenge for each occasion.

So thats it for now, I'm going to keep posting about how it goes.