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Hello everyone,

I have been a member for a while (year and a half?) and interested in raw vegan lifestyles for a much longer time, I won't get into why I got into it and how etc. because I want to focus on the "screwing up" part that most of get to deal with when we first enter this lifestyle, we might enter with the best of intentions and really feel like we got it and after two days on the lifestyle we say "I am never eating anything cooked/high fat again!", but two weeks later we have a bad day where we didn't eat enough and end up HUNGRY at a party or any similar scenario, and then we cave to the less optimal food. 

Now I know that there are people that come into this cold turkey and have NEVER looked back, but I think that I can say with confidence that most people usher into it, like any lifestyle it is something that must grow on people. 

Why I am writing this post is because I have come to a revelation (a revelation to me, anyway ;)) that the longer I am living with the AWARENESS of what 80/10/10 essentially is, the less I am interested in damaging foods. Getting into this lifestyle can be faced with many challanges, I've had a few of my own and I am sure a lot of people that will be reading this (I'd like to imagine lots of people read my post haha :P) have had their own struggles and trials to overcome. I think that screwing up, falling of the bandwagon, caving, however you want to name it, is part of growing. The longer I live with the knowledge of 80/10/10 in the back of my mind, the more it becomes part of me. I still do a lot of additional research on my own (I think this is important) and watch lots of youtube videos by some great people that follow this lifestyle through which I also keep on learning. The more I learn, ánd the more fruit I eat, the more I realise that these other foods that may seem tempting at times - especially when you haven't eaten enough that day or over a succession of days - but that really they are not even really to be considered as a food. 

I have noticed this over the past couple of months... It is something that slowly creeps in, before I would budge and for example eat something like potato chips/crisps (that are indeed a high source of energy, which is what we go for when we are hungry), but now I look at potato chips and go "wait, this isn't even food..." and I just go look for something else. I mean a bag of dates will satiate you the same way, it is sweeter, juicier, it doesn't give you salt-mouth and it doesn't give you pimples, doesn't bloat you, in other words, you feel great the next day as opposed to eating a bag of potato chips, I don't know about you, but if I'd eat one now I wouldn't recognize my own face the next morning because of all the bloat!

At some point you just get to a point where you go "yeah, chips they are salty and crunchy... they fill you up easy, but hey, it's not worth it... now lets go look for something that can actually be qualified as a food". I still eat some cooked foods (like I may cook some corn pasta with a low fat vegan salt free sauce) or on occassion some rice in vegan sushi for when I am out with people and I don't feel like salad, but I don't consider those incredibly detrimental to my health. Yes they are not optimal, but they are not deepfried potato chips or brain killing chocolate, etc. 

In fact, I am certain that I will get to a point where I will no longer consider rice or corn pasta a food either, and that is exactly what I try to point out with this post. 

But even within the high carb cooked vegan choices I have improved over the past months. For example I think the only use salt has is to do a salt water gargle with - or clean something, and the only use I see for oil now is to put on my body as a lotion or in my hair as conditioner. It is things you pick up along the way... I used to not see the big deal with oil until I started learning more about it. That's what this lifestyle should be, a learning process, and I mean really, you never stop learning! Well, that is the point anyway, I feel.

We go through phases and we must grow into a lifestyle. Nobody is perfect, you have been conditioned and you must unlearn yourself of all the weird silly stuff that was taught to us from since we were little. We must realise food is not to reward or punish but that it is a NECESSITY and that we must choose the best for every part of our being. 

The worst I think that can happen to people that feel like failures because they ended up eating some chocolate or something else considered "bad", is that feeling like a failure might send you right back the wrong way.

There is no need to feel like a failure, this is your life, you have found raw veganism/ the 80/10/10 lifestyle for a reason and you can start right back up RIGHT NOW. Every moment you can make the choice to have the best life in the world. We live in such an interesting time: both the best of the best foods as well as the absolutely worst of the worst foods are available to us! We are lucky, we get to choose. It may feel like a struggle, but when you usher yourself into it and this lifestyle  becomes SO so normal to you, you realise, it suddenly no longer is a struggle!

I had a party at my house and some people brought potato chips and some other non LFRV stuff (all vegan though, i don't allow animal crap in my house, but thats more because of ethics than that it is about "bad food", though it obviously is that too) and everybody left and I am sitting amidst lots of junk foodie vegan stuff, and I just don't care... I am sitting here relaxing with a HUGE bowl of the freshest bounciest juiciest figs and dates and I stare over at the left over chips in the bowl and I go... well... lets compare the two... one bowl is full of life and the juicy sweetness squirts out the moment you put your teeth in it, and the other bowl is dead, covered in salt and preservatives and flavorings (otherwise/.. who'd eat it?!) and was kept in a plastic bag in a store for a long time... well, gee! WHAT would I choose?

It becomes easy with time.

But please allow yourself time.

Thanks for reading! If nobody finds this useful, I can say that it felt good writing it all down, it really is a little revelation to me :)

I used to connect junkie foods like soy ice cream or potato chips with some sort of party or reward food, but now I see it for what it is and realise that every day is a party and the only party food is the food that loves you back :D