"I came to understand something about my own patterns with cravings while on this journey that really helped me to stop compulsive eating. I came to accept that pretty much whatever I looked at, I wanted to eat (aside from things I didn’t like, such as seafood). If it was within my view, I wanted to eat it, regardless of whether I was hungry or not. I just wanted to eat anything I laid my eyes on – it was like an endless craving to just fill, fill, fill myself. At that time, as a rampant binge-eating toxic food consumer, the impact I was having on my health every time I acted on that urge to eat was far more damaging than as a raw food eater. However, the compulsion doesn’t simply vanish just from going raw. After I went raw, it was still there. It didn’t matter which raw foods I was looking at or what time of day it was, I wanted to eat. Even as a 100% raw food eater, the spectrum of things I was attracted to had shifted completely, yet the wild compulsion to eat all that I could was still there. After a while I came to understand this pattern and how destructive and all-pervasive it was for me. I came to see that it was basically inevitable for me that if I looked at food, I wanted to eat it. When I saw that clearly, it really helped me relax and even laugh at the absurdity of it.

With time I learned to examine the many emotional/spiritual tangles underlying that pattern and to stop acting out on every impulse. I accepted the pattern thus far for what it was and learnt to breathe deep into each incident and let go, rather than acting out. I found too that the longer I was on a raw path, the more cleansing my body experienced and hence the less food it asked for. The ‘demands’ for food just naturally declined and the patterns have changed now. I may still look at things and think ‘wow, that looks yummy’, yet it doesn’t mean I want to eat it right then. Mindless instant gratification like that just doesn’t feel like a healthy or happy choice to me anymore. I want to make choices that better support my health and well-being in the long-run, rather than compulsively munching."