What is Missing in your Raw Food Diet Lifestyle?

I tend to focus a lot of my attention on the raw food diet and nutrition. Both are key elements to health and wellness but there is so much more to overall health than simply what I put into my body. However, it’s easy to still have missing elements of health even with an immaculately healthy diet. I can eat the purest, 100% raw food diet every day for years and still get sick and struggle with nutritional deficiencies if I don’t take a well-rounded, total health approach to my lifestyle.

There is a lot more to health than just a healthy raw food diet.

Sunlight

Sunlight should not be avoided. It’s our best source of vitamin D. Before I went raw, I never gave sunlight much thought. I’d always stay in the shade and slather myself with sunblock before going outside. Little did I know that both of these things prevented my skins ability to “soak up sunlight” and convert it to vitamin D. Add that to the long, drawn out winter and I was setting myself up for a serious vitamin D deficiency.

I get about 15-30 minutes of direct sun exposure every day. When I don’t, I start to crave sunlight. It’s something I hunger for now and I never did before.

Exercise

Exercise is extremely important. You can’t change your life and your body through diet alone. Before I ate more raw foods, I rarely exercised. Now I lift weights and go running in the morning.

Raw foods give me energy, motivation and inspiration to move my body. I actually look forward to my workouts now, and I feel it when I skip them.

Fitness

Fitness isn’t just for athletes. Fitness should be the norm for everybody. It’s easier to have good muscle tone, greater energy, strength and stamina on a raw food diet.

I recommend setting fitness goals for yourself. This will help develop your physical body and also inspire and motivate you to exercise. Right now, a couple of my fitness goals is to get 6-pack abs and run a 5K. I started running about three weeks ago and every week, I run a little more distance, slowly working toward my goal. Once I achieve both of these fitness goals, I’ll make new ones so that I am always challenging myself to improve.

Personal Development

Speaking of setting goals for yourself, another key to physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual health is through active personal development. The way I think about personal development, or self growth, is by expanding my consciousness, opening myself up to new experiences and actively working toward new goals on a consistent basis. This might mean conquering a fear I have, or strengthening my marriage or even making changes in my habits that reduce negative impact on other people, animals and the environment.

As you develop and grow as a person, so does your health and well being. I truly feel that raw foods and personal development go hand in hand.

Doing What You Love

This is such an overlooked element of health, but it is vitally important. It’s right up there with diet and exercise because if you are not doing work that is fulfilling and “feeds your soul”, you won’t be healthy. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that you can’t be truly healthy if you are not in love with how you spend the majority of your day, every day. Instead, you’ll be stressed, suppressed and distressed.

Shortly after I began eating a raw food diet, my life took a dramatic shift toward doing the work I love. I think that when you eat raw, unprocessed foods that you are physiologically designed to eat, you become more conscious. You become more aware of your choices, actions and your true desires. Without the mental fog of artificial, processed food and a reestablished connection with the Earth, you are then able to clearly define what you want to do with your life.

This all sounds heavy, I know, but it’s true. Eventually, however, you’ll be faced with having to make some changes to your life so that your life is in alignment with the healthier you.

Sleep

You know how important it is to get adequate sleep. If a healthy diet is a priority, then sleep should also be on your list of important things to do for your well being. Everybody is different in their sleep needs, but typically, most people need about 8 hours each day.

More Elements of Total Health

This is not an exhaustive list by any means. I can think of many other areas of life that all contribute to health in one degree or another. Healthy relationships, frequent laughter, social interaction, creativity, spirituality, rest and relaxation, playfulness – the list can go on and on.

As you work toward achieving greater levels of health, keep an eye out for more than just food and nutrients. Be conscious of every aspect of your life and how it affects your health.

Tags: diet, do what you love, exercise, fitness, health, lifestyle, Raw Food Diet, relaxation, sleep, stress, sunshine, well being