Thanks for the reply, really interesting thoughts you have there.

When I was doing my heavy Olympic training, we closely monitored the vitamins & minerals in the blood on an almost weekly basis. I could see a drop in B12 and iron (no others, only those), starting about 3-4 weeks into the diet every year and did get the feel of iron deficiency symptoms until I started with the supplements.

At the moment I am in medical school, finishing up for MD in a bit over a year and it is quite interesting to read all the research that is being done on foods & eating - and how much people disagree ! I think what you are doing is quite close to ideal - my personal view anyways. I will keep visiting your blog, keep up the good work.

Regards.

Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate your comments. It’s great to hear that you had good experiences eating this way, and it’s definitely helping me. I’ve been working out as much as ever, but lately I’ve been finding that eating this way just drives me outdoors. I crave sunlight and exercise.

I don’t take any supplements, as I’d like to think that everything we need can be attained from a diet of whole, ripe, fresh, raw, organic plant-based food, as Dr. Graham advocates. I eat a lot of greens romaine lettuce and celery mainly, in order to insure an adequate supply of vitamins and minerals. Sometimes I eat as much as three romaine lettuce hearts and 2 entire bunches of celery in a single day (in addition to all the fruit.) I also love eating tomatoes.

I’ve never felt better and I don’t tend to crave certain foods (which to me would indicate a possible deficiency), so at the moment, I’d say my diet is probably not seriously deficient in anything. Our body does tend to have sizable reserves though, and I’ve only been trying to follow the 80/10/10 diet for a year, so for more reassurance, I would ask this question of folks who have been following a raw food diet without supplementation for a lot longer. I know Dr. Graham has been doing it for over 20 years or more, and I never saw him take anything that look even remotely like a supplement.

If you don’t mind me asking, how did you know you needed to supplement your diet? Were there symptoms of a deficiency?

I hope you do well in all your upcoming events. Cheers!

- Van

I am a two time Olympic runner (5k) that came across your blog by coincidence when googling for marathon and diet.

In my own running career I did quite a bit of experimenting with different diets related to performance (incl the 40/30/30 Zone, a full ketogenic diet etc) but ended up on a diet quite close to yours for parts of the year when I was in full competition & diet is crucial (4 months in the summertime). Interestingly, the Kenyan runners do the same type of eating, having spent several months of altitude training up there.

One questions though ; do you take any type of supplements, to ensure proper intake of iron / B12 ? Found this to be a real challenge and could not do without supplements myself while on the diet.

Good luck with your future challenges !

Regards from Norway.

Thanks! I love getting comments on my blog. You might have missed this post because I kind of messed up the publishing step in WordPress, and maybe the post didn’t make it into the RSS feed properly (if you are using that). I’ll be more careful with the publishing step next time.

I notice there are two Sarah’s commenting here:

• Sarah of the Living Fruity Blog
• Sarah of the Going Bananas Blog

I’m going to edit the comments above to place something with your names that will differentiate between you. I love reading both of your blogs, but haven’t left comments there. I hereby resolve to leave comments on your blogs more often!

Thank you both for your blogs and your encouragement. The mutual support we get through blogs definitely helps us keep going, especially when all around us are folks following the old ways.

Hugs!

- Van

First, WOW you look amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us! That is awesome that you have stayed raw and I cannot wait to hear about marathon running on fruit.

A new goal? That is an excellent question, thanks for keeping me on my toes. You’re absolutely right, we’ve got to keep on moving and looking for the next thing to work on in life.

I can tell I still have many little things in life and a healthy lifestyle to master. Diet was the one where a change could make the biggest impact, and when that’s under control, it looks like the 2nd biggest area for me is sleep.

I could improve my health and the way I feel more now with a better sleep schedule than anything else, I think. So while I try to maintain the eating during the year, I’m going to slowly improve my sleep habits and see where that takes me.

Good luck with your journey and keep up the great work!

Cheers!

- Van

Congrats!!!
Sarah

So yeah - I certainly enjoyed that post and eagerly awaiting your next one!

And thanks for the photos = when I think of people gathering in Costa Rica and juicing and eating wonderfully - I just find it inspiring, I kinda imagine making my mind my own costa rica : D hah!