Raw Food Journal Entries 12, 13, & 14: Stomach Problems Surface

May 4, 2011

I ate oranges and apples this morning (about ten fruits in all) as a good food combination. But my mouth was acidic afterwards…it felt strange and “sticky” if that’s the right word for it…

I craved sweets by 2:30pm and caved into my dark chocolate, and then two sugary granola bars. But I only had about 150 calories worth of those–the sweetness was overpowering. I did have a lot of dark chocolate beforehand though. I think that is a “healthier” choice over the granola bars.

CONFERENCE

Photo Credit: Mary Reyna-Guy

Dinner was not good—more indulging involved. I started out with just a bowl of pineapple, thinking I wasn’t going to eat much, and then had two big salads. Afterward I craved sweets and grabbed two small bowls of yogurt with granola and banana to satisfy myself without going too far. I should’ve eaten just the banana. I felt worried about food combining and I felt like I was just messing it all up, so I went for whatever sweets sounded good.

May 5, 2011

I tried eating another mono meal for breakfast this morning with just bananas, but they were all brown and it’s difficult to eat those—they are too sweet or something. I don’t like them this way but I learned it’s the best ripeness for your body to digest. After trying to eat six of them I grabbed a pear and apple to switch things up.

I’m trying to eat in the order of what digests the fastest to slowest. So first fruit, then greens, then other vegetables, then starches, then proteins and fats. This is difficult though because I usually still crave a little fruit at the end of the meal for dessert.

Lately I’ve had to deal with lots of gas especially after dinner, and I just don’t feel like it’s normal. I heard cruciferous vegetables are harder to digest, and need some cooking to help our bodies digest it better…this sort of makes sense to me, but I don’t know if I agree or not.

Lunch: one pear and then three big plates of mushrooms, red peppers, snap peas, and summer squash. I tried to limit the number of ingredients. Unfortunately I was still hungry and craved fruit, so I had three more pears afterwards. That didn’t agree with me. For the rest of the day I was extremely bloated and gassy, even up until supper!

Dinner: three bananas to start the meal (I learned my lesson), then three big salads (mostly lettuce). I ended with two plates of cooked broccoli and tomato sauce. Later unfortunately I started craving desserts again too and had a little toaster stroodle thing. Darnit! My stomach was gassy/bloated again all night. Not fun at all. I hate this.

May 6, 2011

I woke up feeling much better. The rest of the day I ate fruit, continued to feel bloated and went to the bathroom a lot (number “three”?), and felt nervous with the situation since it was the day of our conference track meet. Luckily I felt fine for the races and did fairly well. My speed is not up to par but I won the 5k in 18:11. My 800m and 1500m races were difficult—I feel like I have no power or kick. I don’t think that has to do with food but more with speed in general—I haven’t done many speed workouts this year. I’m a distance girl at heart I guess.

I ate more fruit following the meet (mostly bananas). I had many Larabars but I should have waited to eat those after eating all the fruit. I thought I’d just want to eat one or two bananas and then just one bar, but after one bar I was still hungry and ended up eating lots of fruit afterwards, which wasn’t great food combining. I know I shouldn’t eat so much so late at night, too.

Order your copy of Running in Silence: My Drive for Perfection and the Eating Disorder That Fed It here.

9 replies
    • rachael
      rachael says:

      I did, actually! If you continue to follow my blog you will see I dabble in that for a while, but as for the final result you shall have to see. :) Thanks for your question!

  1. Shannon
    Shannon says:

    You’ve seen that lots of fruit tends to not mix so well with other foods. It might be better if you stick to meals of just fruit and then meals of other things, like starches and vegetables (BTW, it took me awhile to learn that some starchy veggies, like broccoli, cause really bad gas). I recommend a big fruit meal in the morning (I usually have nine or ten ripe bananas, blended into a smoothie so that they’re easier to all get down fairly quickly), and then maybe transition to the other foods.
    Oh, and apples are really hard to use in monomeals, since they’re so filling. I see them as more of a snack food.
    Also, I just wanted to let you know that you are now my XC hero. Just saying. (: I just started competing (/joined a team) last year, and my PR is only 21:14, and I don’t do track. I was just super happy when I discovered that they had a sport for what I love to do regularly.

    • rachael
      rachael says:

      Thank you for the comment! Yes, I eventually figured out the food-combining principles and put them into practice. It was difficult for me to follow the “rules” at first, as I always seemed to still want to end the meal with fruit since I wasn’t used to raw food in general. Eventually I learned to begin with a big fruit meal in the morning, but that all happens later (if you see the time I wrote this journal entry, it was in May 2011). Thank you for your insight though!
      Congrats on joining a cross country team! Good luck with training/racing, and thanks again for your comment!

        • rachael
          rachael says:

          No problem, a lot of other people have been confused about that as well haha. I tried to bold and make the font bigger for the date but people still seem to not notice it. If you think of anything that would be a bigger clue let me know ;)

          • Shannon
            Shannon says:

            It just hadn’t registered for me, because I was so focused on reading the body. I completely passed over it, although I know that I saw “2011.” Making it bold and bigger is all that you can do, I suppose.

  2. Chloe
    Chloe says:

    I used to be a sprint and relay runner in high school (9 years ago!), but since then I’ve lost a lot of energy due to poor diet and lack of exercise. I’ve recently been trying to eat better, but sometimes it’s difficult living with others who cook and don’t follow food combining, etc. And I notice I experience bloating a lot..Personally, what do YOU recommend I do to get the energy to run, and what do you think of probiotic supplements? Thank you so much in advance :)

    • rachael
      rachael says:

      Hi Chloe, thanks for your question!
      What does your diet look like today? Are you eating only/mostly raw food and now you want to food-combine properly? I guess I ask that because at this point I no longer eat only raw food and so I’m not concerned about food-combining; I just make sure to include a healthy protein, fat, and carb in each meal. For some reason the food-combining principles were especially important when I was just trying raw food, because it seemed to affect my stomach more. But with cooked food I don’t feel any of the ill effects of bad food combining.
      An example of a “normal” meal for me today may look like this: 3oz chicken breast, cup of raw vegetables, half an avocado, apple and potato. I eat meals like this throughout the day and it keeps my energy levels up well. Even when I WAS doing raw food, especially high in fruit, I never felt my energy levels go down. The only time I felt low energy was when I was restricting the most, which happened to be the case in my last semester of high school. I wanted to sleep constantly (I even slept in class on some occasions) and just walking through the hallways and up the stairs was a daily struggle, or just seemed like too much effort in general.
      I haven’t used probiotic supplements and I’m not sure exactly whether to recommend them or not. I feel fine without them but who knows if taking them would improve something in my body. Jordan Rubin highly recommends his probiotic supplements but of course he’s trying to make money off of them too, so I don’t know…haha
      If you have any other questions please feel free to ask!

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