I've promised to share my experience with the Raw Foods Diet, so here it goes.
I was really stressed and depressed my freshman year of college. I had gained the "freshman 15" and got rather fed up with my body and life in general. I wanted to do something kind of drastic and in my face to wake myself up and get back on track. I started trying all sorts of detox techniques, but I settled in on the Raw Foods Diet that time around.
My main resource was www.thegardendiet.com. It's a lovely website run by a Raw Food family with 5 kids that are all on the diet. Some people really do stick to the diet as their main diet. I did it for about a month.
At first, I loaded up at the local health food store on lots of organic veggies and other ingredients such as tamari and nori seaweed sheets. There are lots of recipes that are quite tasty, so you don't really feel like you're doing anything that extreme at first. I even made desserts that were ok. After a day, I started to get some serious symptoms of detox. I had terrible headaches mostly and then later developed a serious cough. The cough didn't go away for a couple weeks. I was really tired too and the coughing kept me awake. I looked up loads of information online that encouraged me to push through the symptoms since it was just my body's response to clearing out the junk.
I did and I was really pleased. After the first two weeks, I suddenly had loads of energy and felt really...healthy. I kept it up for as long as I could until Spring Break when I went on a trip with a church group. Rather than explain why I only ate raw foods, I just decided to end my detox. I tried to ease back into cooked and more processed foods, but I still had another slew of symptoms. The main thing was the rash on my face. I let people think I had acne because that was easier. I was loading my system with toxins again and my body was trying to expel them as best as possible. I got headaches again, but not as bad as when I was detoxing. After a couple weeks, the rash went away and I felt ok again. I felt much better than I had before the detox. I had lost some weight and gained a little back, but more importantly, I feel like I had recharged my mind and my spirit.
It was a really powerful experience. It was a challenge and difficult to maintain. I've tried to do it again since then a couple of times and failed. It's hard never eating anything cooked or processed. My one recommendation if someone does try it is that you only do it for a week at first. I believe I shocked my body too much by doing it for a month the first time. Take it easy and build up to longer if you so desire. I do recommend it as a great way to detox and recharge.
Sounds like a great diet! I think the ideal diet would be something like that, although not quite as restrictive... such as allowing foods to be cooked. However, cutting processed foods out of our diets is a very good health decision. Too bad it's so difficult these days!