Basic
Guidelines on
Fatigue,
Sleepiness and Lethargy
When
Starting RVAF Diets
A
RVAF diet seems to promote healing and cleansing throughout
the body, and often-times promotes far more rapid cleansing than does
even
a raw vegan diet. It appears that the animal proteins and
animal
fats serve to rather strongly accelerate some healing processes and
especially
many cleansing processes. Although even raw vegan diets are sometimes
known
for rather violent cleansing reactions in the early stages, many RVAF
diets
are notorious for cleansing reactions which may be extremely violent
and
uncomfortable at times. However, the most common symptoms early in the
diet are simply fatigue, sleepiness, lethargy and "heaviness".
I would not worry much
about a lack of taste for raw red
meat -- I would recommend following your own taste and
instincts.
However, I would recommend caution when
eating
raw pork unless you are absolutely SURE that it is fully organic, and
that
the pig was not fed junk (trash and waste) or rendered animal products.
Fatigue, tiredness,
lethargy, and need for frequent naps
are very common in starting raw diets, especially RVAF diets (those
containing
raw animal foods) and seem to be a reflection of the body's need to
perform
deep healing and cleansing activities due to the influx of wonderful,
much-needed
food (and the absence of harmful "nutrients"). The intensity
and
length of duration of these fatigue-cluster symptoms will depend
largely
upon the following factors: - your
age (generally, the older we are, the
greater the damage
we have accrued)
- how
toxic your body is; in other
words, how much cleansing
needs to be done
- how
much damaged tissue is in
need of repair; in other words,
how much healing activity needs to take place
- how
much raw animal food you eat
daily, where larger amounts
will accelerate healing and cleansing rates
- how
much raw fresh green juice
you drink daily, where larger
amounts will accelerate healing and cleansing rates
- how
much raw dairy products you
consume daily; higher rates
of consumption will yield much faster (and often uncomfortable) and
much
more intense healing and cleansing
- how
much cooked or processed
foods you eat daily, where larger
amounts will decrease rate of healing and cleansing, or even
arrest it totally, and zero amount will allow fastest
cleansing and healing
- finally,
a final factor which is
a bit metaphysical;
simply your background and experience in allowing physical and
mind-body
symptoms to clear and resolve quickly from a level of spirit and heart
(see my Heart
Release website
for more details on some systems which may help with this.)
How
long before your energy
levels rebound? It can range
from 2 months to 2 years, with the average range being perhaps 6 months
to 2 years depending upon levels of toxins and tissue damage.
I am
fifty years old (as I write this), and I started the diet in May 2000,
and was fully on
it
by June 2000. I experienced 9 months of intense fatigue-type
symptoms,
and an additional three months of modest fatigue, plus several periods
of intense and NASTY cleansing reactions (so-called "cleansing
crisis"),
one of which was so painful and debilitating (pain, swelling, fever,
gut
pain) that I was largely incapacitated for 2 months. It was
really
only at 11 months into the diet that I started feeling really
energetic.
However, even those first 9 fatigue-ridden months were interspersed
with
periods of feeling really healthy and robust, and even from the start
(first
5 weeks), there was a deep underlying sense of stamina, robustness,
sturdiness
and health which I had never experienced before. Further, my
incidence
of colds and flus went from near-constant (perhaps 23 colds and 3 flus
per year when on the previous low-fat vegetarian, Dean Ornish type
diet)
to ZERO! Further, my chronic fatigue syndrome and CFS largely
disappeared
within the first month. Indeed, when I would get up from my
frequent
naps in the first 9 months on this diet, I would feel extremely healthy
and robust. I chose not to work in the external "work" world
from
the beginning of my fourth month onward on the RVAF diet, and this
allowed
me to sleep and nap at will, and also allowed me the luxury of having
really
nasty healing and cleansing crises. I
had previously (over the past
15 years) trained in and
practiced several natural and energy-based natural healing systems
which
also induce powerful cleansing and healing reactions in the body, along
with increased fatigue, and so I was not unduly alarmed at the gory
cleansing
or healing reactions, nor by the increased lethargy and increased need
for sleep. One of my friends who has been on a RVAF diet for
four
years has mentioned to me that her first 2+ years on the RVAF diet were
riddled with fatigue and lethargy. Aajonus took far
longer,
due to the level of damage and toxicity in his body; the same is true
for
Owanza, who is mentioned in his book We Want to Live.
If you have not yet
seen it, you may wish to also read
the accompanying
article on this site
on cleansing and detoxification reactions, also known as "cleansing
crises".
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