Don't Know Where to Start (re: nutrition)?

How do you know where to begin on your journey to eating better? What's the best thing to introduce first, and the best choices to eliminate right away? Are you confused by all the information you've heard and have no idea where to go from here?

Start right HERE. In the present moment with your common sense and your bodies innate knowing of what's best for YOU. I believe that we all need to figure things out for ourselves, by experimenting with foods and exploring new ways of living. You may want to sort and sift through a variety of health-oriented books (email me if you'd like some recommendations) and 'expert' opinions, but I'd steer clear from latching on and becoming rigid in your ways. We need to remain flexible and allow ourselves and our eating habits the option to change, evolve and grow (which inevitably happens especially when you 'go raw'). I just read an awesome article on the RFRN! blog about guru hopping and finding a style that works for you. If you continue to follow what someone else says and disregard the underlying ability of your own body, then it's likely you won't stick with the raw food journey for the long haul.

Start with a REASON. Why are you choosing to make different choices in regard to the way you eat? For me, the shift began over 8 years ago after feeling so out of control for someone else's health, that I felt I had absolutely no choice but to do something for my own. It's been a slow, gradual process, although some things did happen overnight and much quicker than I anticipated. I didn't follow any one 'expert' opinion of what I should do, I just heard one of them say, DO WHAT MAKES SENSE TO YOU. I heard this again in the 2008 Rawkathon and typed that note into my phone so that I would read it often. I say this to as many people as humanly possible when they ask me 'Where do I even begin?'

TRIAL and SUCCESS. No one ever told me about how toxic calcium supplements were, I just somehow knew that I shouldn't take them. It didn't make sense to me. What did make sense to me was making a medicinal loose leaf tea several times per week of nettles, alfalfa, horsetail, oatstraw, noni and red clover blossoms (even though I had never done this before & just heard about it). Come to find out through David Wolfe (his philosophy makes absolute sense to me), these herbs are exceptionally high in silica which changes to calcium in the body, and therefore helps to build bone - just for starters. I gravitated toward making medicinal teas and the superfood green powders, innately knowing that plants must be exceptionally high in the calcium, iron, magnesium, and other critical minerals (they are thriving & surviving in our world w/ out any supplements!). No pills are necessary to meet my daily needs. I get it all from Superfoods and Superherbs.

Do the changes you're making resonate so deeply with you that no one else's opinion matters? That's how I know I've made the right choice for me. When I feel so strong and confident in something I'm doing or eating, and it's irrelevant what he/she is doing, then I know I'm on the 'right' path. Personally, I don't believe there is a wrong path - just trials (which are not considered failures) that really are your greatest lessons. I could list off dozens of foods that are superior to others and foods that you should definitely be eating to experience a level of health that is unknown by too many, but it's not necessarily the same for everyone and this is YOUR ride.

My answer to the question of this blog post is to just start somewhere. Think Super Nutrition: Superfoods, Superherbs, Raw and Living Foods, Fresh Vegetable Juice (meaning not bottled), Homemade Smoothies, Enzymes-rich (uncooked) and Nutrient-dense (unrefined and unprocessed) FOOD. Add this all in... and the rest will fall into place. Keep asking yourself, Does this make sense to me?