I subscribe to Zen Habits, and sometimes I don’t have enough time to read every blog that I subscribe to. On the 30th of January, I was just about to delete your article unread…but something made me stop and read it. Honestly, I had never heard of a Raw Food diet before, and so I was stepping off into new territory with every word.

I followed all of your links, read all of Steve Pavlina’s blog regarding his raw diet, the followup, and the juice feast. I was suitably impressed with all of the before and after pics on We Like it Raw, and within a few hours, I called my daughter, had her read everything, and we decided to try going raw for 30 days starting the next day.

We have been raw for 26 days as of today, and the results are astonishing. My daughter has lost about 16 pounds so far, and I have lost 9.5. But more compelling are my blood sugar and blood pressure readings for this month. I am a diabetic with high blood pressure. Even on glucophage, my blood sugar readings were in the 200-300 range, and my worst ever was 468. BTW, these are all documented numbers from my numerous hospitalizations and doctors visits.

My blood pressure, medicated, was 165/95. Unmedicated, it was a nightmare, ranging from 186/110 to 227/125. With a family history of people dying young from heart disease, at 49 years old I was starting to believe that I wouldn’t see 50. I was suffering from severe chest pains, and I had just had an abnormal EKG on Monday the 26th of Jan. Simply put, I was scared, and I didn’t know what else to do. I had been doing a modified Atkins, which I had done before to lose about 75 pounds, (I kept most of that off, but still had about 50 to go) but for some reason, it wasn’t working this time, and I was getting worse.

After reading all of the information, I now know why. I was slowly killing myself with my diet! Thankfully, I changed it, and the results have been utterly amazing so far.

As of this morning, my (unmedicated) fasting blood sugar was 108. My blood pressure was down to 142/90, and every few days each of these numbers goes down a little bit more. That is, to me, all the proof that I need that this way of eating is the best way for me to heal my body, and restore my health.

This girl’s 30 day trial will continue into perpetuity, I have no desire to eat lifeless, fatty, nasty foods ever again. Please consider this a thank you note from me, I just wanted you to know that your words reached me when I needed them most, and they fell on fertile ground and bloomed!

Thank you for shining your light on the path I needed. Bright Blessings!

As far as having more energy or losing weight, consider that when you’re eating cooked food, I would venture to guess that the majority of people who do so are having it prepared by someone else — fast food, restaurants, etc. While we may have images of restaurants being just as healthy as anything we could manage, they focus on lots of fats, butter, salt, etc. to flavor their food. It tastes great, and certainly has nutritional value, but definitely is going to hit your waistline and cholesterol level where it hurts.

Excessive amounts of fat and grease, etc., can certainly result in lesser amounts of energy. And while I LOVE cooking for myself (and have in the past lost a lot of weight doing so), and find it to be a relaxing activity, it is by no means a restful one. More things to do in the day = less energy, for the most part. And the funny thing is, the mere psychological expectation of having more energy when you engage in a new diet can certainly lead to results. Think happy, be happy. It holds true across the board.

Note also that all of those before-and-after photos in the linked article include that the individuals engaged in exercise routines at the same time as they changed their diets. It skews the results. No diet is a miracle cure without physical activity, plain and simple.

I’m not trying to bash this concept of eating raw foods. It certainly has the merits of freeing up your time, being intrinsically less “fatty” than haphazardly eating any cooked food that comes your way. More power to anyone who is trying to positively change themselves with this diet. I’d just like to throw in my two cents to say that you can have plenty of energy and still enjoy a great home-cooked meal.