Wed, May-06-20, 13:15
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Senior Member
Posts: 14,599
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Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150
BF:
Progress: 136%
Location: USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GRB5111
Funny, but maybe not so much. I had an acquaintance in the 80s who was a strict fruitarian; although, he didn't use that term. Very fit and an excellent martial arts instructor. His diet was "healthy" fruit washed down with large amounts of orange juice. Yeah, he was "healthy" until he was rushed to the hospital due to severe hypoglycemia. He was lucky, but I'm not sure he continued his fruitarian ways after that.
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Steve Jobs did, and look what happened...
I once read an The Fruitarian Experience: 1970-1980 account of a recovering fruitarian which was fascinating and scary.
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By the end of 1971, I was a practicing fruitarian; my diet was 75+% raw fruit. I lived in Florida at the time, and had year-round access to a wide variety of locally grown fruit (most unsprayed, some organic), including a wide variety of citrus, mangos, avocados, as well as "minor" fruits: papayas, bananas, carambolas, lychees, longans, coconuts, tamarind, and other exotics. I learned about wild foods, using the excellent book Wild Plants for Survival in South Florida, by Julia F. Morton, and included wild foods in my diet. For some of this period I had an organic garden, and grew most of the small quantity of vegetables that I ate, as well as watermelons, cantaloupes, and cucumbers. Also, during this period I regularly exercised outdoors in the sunshine, and enjoyed swimming at the beach.
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My initial experience (1972 through early 1973) with 100% raw fruitarianism, after I got past the first major cleansing stages, was very positive indeed: my physical health improved, the need for sleep decreased, I had lots of energy (some of the time), and I had a pleasant "light" or "euphoric" mental feeling that I thought was a spiritual feeling at the time. Things went well for a while, and my spirituality seemed to grow as well. However, there were trouble signs, even in 1972--emaciation, constant hunger, frequent weakness, and intermittent fatigue.
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He tried a 4 day fast which was disastrous, and recovered with lentil sprouts urged on him by a fellow raw fooder. Still, he slowly reduced these as his recovery solidified, because he wanted to be a "full" fruitarian.
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After fully recovering from the crash, I experienced a period of about 2 years when the diet seemed to work well for me, at least most of the time. During this period, cravings were not a problem (in retrospect, I was probably overeating both sweet fruit and avocados in the period). I refer to this period as a "honeymoon" on the diet. Not only did the diet work, but I achieved the "holy grail" of fruitarianism: I was on 100% raw fruit for around 2 years. This is a goal that many fruitarians talk about, but very few achieve. Note that despite my "perfect" 100% fruit diet, I was frequently weak--followed by periods of hyperactivity--during this period. This is the classic pattern of excess sugar consumption: sugar highs, followed by sugar blues--which is why I say that I was probably consuming excess sweet fruit during this period. Although these symptoms were a bother, they were trivial compared to my crash. [Some fruitarians become habituated to the symptoms of excess sugar consumption and regard them as normal!]
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But the honeymoon, such as it was, came to an end.
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Additional problems during the post-honeymoon period included: severe muscle cramps--usually leg muscles, which may have been due to a calcium deficiency (most fruit is low in calcium); dental problems consisting of severe erosion of tooth enamel from acidic fruit consumption (enamel hypoplasia) and gum disease that required surgery (my consumption of excess sugar in the form of fruit may have been a factor in that); acid reflux (from eating too many dates); as well as the usual symptoms of excess sugar consumption (fatigue, sugar highs/blues, excess urination, constant thirst, etc.). As a "model fruitarian," my giving in to cravings was done in secret, as it seemed shameful to go off the "perfect, ideal" fruit diet. The only times I ate candy was on my foreign trips (and then only occasionally). In other words, I was engaging in the classic eating disorder behavior of binges and eating in secret. (I should mention that the amount and frequency of binge-eating was rather low.)
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But he had achieved his goal: physical purity!
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Having achieved and experienced very high levels of physical "purity" with the associated "light" mental feeling, I can assure you that the real experience of physical purity is not as positive as others advertise it to be. When you are very "pure," you become very physically sensitive. On the fruitarian diet, your sense of smell is sharpened considerably. The disadvantage of this is that it makes normal life very difficult, as follows.
Sitting in a room with a smoker (even if he/she is not smoking) may be painful--you cannot stand the smell.
The smell of garlic cooking can be nearly as painful as tear gas.
When you step on a bus or train, you gag because of the smell of the people on board.
You meet an attractive person who also seems attracted to you, but you cannot get near them because of the smell.
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Well, well. That is a social handicap After ten years of decreasing health, he eventually moved to lacto-vegetarian.
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