Taste buds need lots of exposure to what’s real and whole before they start craving unrefined food. Old mental tracks need to see zero traffic for a while before they become unviable. 

So much opens up when you decide to go your own way and become happily unrefined. 

For myself, I had to give it over to God at first. I just felt there was no way I was going to get through the initial upheaval without dedicating and putting the whole thing in some extremely greater-than-mine hands. 

Because...how shall we break this...when you make a commitment to do something this healing and good for your body and life…ease does not immediately rush into play.

New neural pathways need to form in the brain first. Taste buds need lots of exposure to what’s real and whole before they start craving unrefined food. Old mental tracks need to see zero traffic for a while before they become unviable.

So, before new habits get formed, you may be white-knuckling it for a while and getting by on prayer and grit. You may be over-riding years of deeply established action sequences and cues from a brain that has been wired (by nature, nurture and the prevailing food environment) to resist weight loss.

You may start feeling more energetic right away, but probably not. When the body initially starts hitting those fat reserves to supply energy, you can feel exhausted at first. 

All this, plus no one is yet saying "wow, great job!" to your efforts because it starts as a purely invisible, internal shift of mindset.

When we’re working this hard at anything, we naturally tend to expect some proportional payoff upfront. But as the author James Clear says, “…habits don’t really work this way. Rather than having some linear relationship with achievement, habits tend to have more of a compound growth curve. The greatest returns are delayed.”

So while you're in the trenches, doing your hardest work to get started, it’s perceptible only to you. But if you push forward, soon enough, the tangible results will start fueling your motivation. Somewhere in that time frame you may also start experiencing a phenomenon of grace…the blissful brain takeover called automaticity. It's a switching of activity to the portion of the brain that regulates habit. Then, you’re coasting.