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How to lose weight

Hi, I had started on the raw diet however I realise that my appetite had increased and resulted in weight gain.

How can I lose weight? is there any food that I should avoid?

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  • JoescJoesc Raw Master

    I agree with Zoe. The one thing that helps my cravings to eat is my green leafy veggies minus lettuce.

  • i severely cut back on my dried fruit and nut intake per some other gone rawbies recommendations and that has really helped me to feel more balanced. i think zoe’s advice is right on, too.

  • try to eat lots of raw veggies, and I would include green juice as well, if possible. Without a lot of protein and starch, you lose weight quickly. Also minimize dehydrated foods, etc. I agree with Zoe, balance is the key. Try to go with what your body says that it wants/needs. Good luck!

  • Zoe gave some great advice. Watching your consumption of nuts, grains and fruits is important. Do you drink a fortifying protein smoothie for breakfast? That is known to help with curbing the appetite. Since you just started eating raw it may be that your mind and system are adjusting eating real food and not feeding it chemicals. It’s a process and the key is taming the mind.

  • Thanks everybody. I had ate lots of fruits but not veggies, I will try to include more veggies in my diet and observe what will happen. Does veggies help with craving? I usually have craving to munch at night.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    Eunice, make some tasty snack munchies food, from the over 350 recipes on here, so you can munch away and satisfy your needs. For example I have been munching on onion bread and no bean hummus, which is sooo satisfying.

    If you are eating mostly fruits, then at a guess I’d say that you need some plant fat. So avocados, flax crackers, no bean hummus, almond milk and milkshakes, cakes and puddings may satisfy your craving. It is OK to eat plant fat, if it is raw, it won’t make you unhealthy. This is good fat, natural fat, which your body does need, and will crave if you don’t have it. It is hard to get our heads around this, especially after years of believing that anything sweet and fatty is bad and will make us fat, but it is true…Raw plant fats are good for us.They help and heal the body, when eaten in balance with non sweet fruit, sweet fruit, and leafy greens.

  • Thanks so much Zoe, but i thought we are suppose to limit our dehydrate food intake. Doesn’t the onion bread be on the “limit” list too?

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    I don’t limit myself anything, I eat intuitively whatever my body desires. Sometimes that means I want onion bread, so I eat it, sometimes it means I just have green smoothies for a few days, so I do that.

    I eat 100% raw. I do not think I have to control my desires in any way because everything I eat is raw.

    My body is healthy, I am a healthy weight, I feel amazing. I have been 100% for over a year and I usually eat just simple things as my body just asks for simple fruit and salad normally. It just happens that we are experimenting with recipes for some upcoming raw food classes that we are giving and we made some onion bread, I fancied it and I have been eating it, and enjoying it. I don’t suffer in any way when I eat dehydrated food, I just don’t eat as much of it as I did when I was transitioning – this is a natural shift not one I enforced on myself. Raw food is NOT unheathy. Just go raw, 100%, and don’t worry about what you eat as long as it is raw. Dehydrated food is extremely valuable for transitioning and staying 100% raw. It is a bridge from SAD to very simple raw food eating. This is a journey, a process. Take it easy on yourself and just go raw and see what happens.

  • Wouldn’t it depend on your body type though? I have PCOS with insulin resistance (though I was able to reverse the insulin resistance through a “healthier” diet over the past two years) and was told that even on a raw diet to limit GI fruits like bananas, dates (barhi are my weakness!) honey and so on.

    I’m not so sure about nuts and fats because I have a hard time eating more than 5 raw almonds at a time. How much nuts can a person eat in one sitting? I thought you had to eat fat to lose fat. Weight loss can be inhibited on a low-fat diet (one of the reasons so many Americans are obese)

  • spiritedmamaspiritedmama Raw Newbie

    I can eat quite a few nuts in one sitting, especially almonds, provided they have been soaked properly to remove toxins, etc., and then sprouted. I don’t do it often, but sometimes my body says it wants almonds and nothing else. If you have a problem eating raw almonds, it could be because you haven’t soaked them, so your body is saying “no” because it knows it is not good for you; or , it could be that it just doesn’t need them.

  • Hi all, This is my first posting since I joined and I am in the process of becoming raw. I can relate to these questions since my biggest lifelong dietary problem has been sugar/chocolate cravings. That is what really keeps me from being 100% raw and keeps me from losing weight. Green smoothies help after I have done them for at least 2 weeks.

    I have a related question…anyone have any ideas for simple dinners? Evening is when I tend to grab anything because I’m tired and hungry. I don’t always want a salad because if I’m tired I’m usually cold too. Ugh…I know I’m healing which is great but I’ve reached a bump in my raw food road. Thanks.

  • LucyLucy Raw Newbie

    Hi Linda,go to www.aniphyo.com, she has 10 great ideas in video that I love to watch, and I did almost all of them. Hope you like it.

  • that site is really fun! thanks for that lucy!

  • I found that how I start my mornings really influences my cravings at night time. I am a HUGE evening eater, something I inherited from my father, and I’ve been trying to stop at 7:30 at night. I haven’t always been successful (I have a pretty active nightlife) however I find that if I stick to fruits with some leafy greens until noontime, my cravings for the whole day decrease significantly!! It’s so great, the first day I made a green smoothie (romaine hearts, 2 apples, 1/2 cucumber) my body was def. thanking me. It kept me satsified and full too.

    I find also that by mid-day I can take a HEAP of leafy greens and a 1/2 avocado (save the other half for tomorrow) and that helps my cravings greatly.

  • Lucy, Thanks for that website suggestion. I’ve watched almost all of those little videos and I think I’m going to make the fuzzy navel first!

    Shambavi, I have also found that if I start my day with a green smoothie that it is easier to stay away from the chocolate in the evening. I, too, have been a big evening snacker for years. I will also try to add more fats with avocado and maybe have some naturally sweet things (like fuzzy navel mentioned above) to get me off of the processed sugars. I think if I can do that step, decreasing my natural sugars will be much easier.

    Speaking of weight loss… I’m hiking the Tripyramid mountains with my sister tomorrow and I’m bringing along those yummy lemon cookies that everyone has been talking about (recipe on home page). They’re so lemony they make my mouth water!!

  • I love the website, BTW – she’s so cute haha! I’ve gained weight on this diet too, but I wasn’t underweight when I started. I’m not overweight now either, but egad it’s within view! I’ve had many days where I just CAN’T stop eating, sometimes I overeat on a ton of raw food, but this past week I’ve caved on some pretty bad cooked food. But even before that, when I was doing really well with being close to 100% raw, I seemed to be gaining weight…I don’t know….

    I’m thinking on cutting out my nuts. It just seems like I go crazy with them and eat too many. I get enough fat, realistically, with 1/2-1 avocado a day. One thing that I think might be causing my cravings (besides utter boredom) is the fact that I wasn’t vegan before this.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    You’ll probably go up and down in weight quite a bit until you level out after a year or so 100% raw. I know it can be distressing to see yourself get bigger whilst eating raw, because it just doesn’t seem like something that should be happening.

    I think that eating green soup, green drinks, anything green is a good balancer and helps get rid of cravings, and calms down eating binges. Mind you I ate a huge amount when I first went raw, maybe it is just part of the process, I don’t eat nearly as much now, about a quarter of what I used to – and I am satisfied with that and don’t want or needs any more than that.

    Also my husband has experienced weight gain and loss whilst on 100% raw. He has noticed that his weight gain is always linked to his thinking, and not particularily what he is eating. If he starts to think ” I’ve been eating alot today, or these pants feel tight, I have had too many smoothies today” then hey presto! he puts on weight. His weight has gone up when he has been eating less, and down when he has been eating more, mine too.

    We are what we think; as well as what we eat.

  • I had a week long mini-crisis last week, I kept craving raw chocolate, dried fruit, nuts and nutbutters, like all day long. Oh yeah, and I gained 4 pounds. I decided for the time being to add some low cal cooked veggies, sprouted grains and soy products back into my life for awhile. Before I went raw I had (I thought) successfully kicked a sugar habit, having just one piece of fruit a day. But since increasing my raw intake (95% or so raw) and eating a lot of fruit slowly but surely, that consumption of sugar set the bar for sweets higher. I need to re-group for awhile, figure out a way to do raw on not so many fruits.

  • spiritedmamaspiritedmama Raw Newbie

    Sorry to hear you are struggling om… It sounds like you have a plan though, and that is always the first step. The only thing I would recommend is NOT having any soy. Soy is VERY unhealthy for you and destroys your thyroid, as well as contributes to many, many other diseases including cancer. I had to find all this out the hard way when I started doing research on how to cure my hypothyroid naturally. I was very disturbed at what I found, and angry. If you are interested in reading more, let me know and I can pass along the website I put together with close to a hundred different studies dating back to the 60s about how bad soy is for you. (thought I would save everbody the 2+ years of research I had to do on my own)

  • Spiritedmama, Yes!!! Thank you. pass it on. I should clarify, I’m only including organic non-gmo tofu. With my hypothyroidism I don’t need ANYmore challenges there. Cheers to our health!

  • Something to note is water. Water water water, drink lots of it. Especially if you are drinking green smoothies or veggie juices. Most of us don’t get enough water. I was told many times we confuse thirst with food cravings. Advice is to drink a full 12oz glass of lemon water (or fresh lemon juice and hot water) first when I have my chocolate/dried fruit cravings and it does work! Now i crave lemon water! Also try tea, I have a new respect for licorice tea, (and I do NOT like licorice, or fennel for that matter!). The Egyptian Licorice tea by Yogi Tea has a sweet flavor, not “licoricey”. Satisfies my sweet cravings.

    Stress and daily life cause me to eat without thinking, all day long. I work from home so the kitchen is just steps away. Something I have to pay attention to is am I eating for my nerves or eating because I truly need it.

    And remember everything in moderation. Even too much licorice tea can be adverse.

  • If you eat the correct foods, which are the ones that were set on earth for humans to consume weight issues just do not exist. The problem is that people modify the foods that were created for us to consume and the natural gas gauge that exists in our body also known as the size of our stomach fails to do what is was intended to do. If you eat fresh juicy fruits and vegetables you will know when you are full and your stomach will tell you. This amount of food will never allow you to become overweight. When you start messing with foods like cooking them, dehydrating them, eating the wrong ones like nuts, seeds, meat, dairy, and dried food, the natural guage which still exists will tell you when you are full but that will be way beyond the number of calories that you should have consumed. Mother nature is not wrong and doesn’t make any mistakes, only people make mistakes. Trust mother nature and enjoy all the fresh fruit and vegetables you want, never needing to worry about weight, vitamins, minerals, or any other nutrient. Get exercise too of course to keep everything in balance.

  • I also gained weight when I was trying to be 100% raw (about 5 pounds) although my clothes didn’t seem to fit any tighter. I still didn’t like the thoughts of gaining weight and started eating 1 cooked food (usually vegan organic soup) for supper and the weight came off within a few days. I know I should be more patient like Zoe suggested, but I feel so much happier now! Not so obsessed with food now.

  • spiritedmamaspiritedmama Raw Newbie

    om… the website is www.taoistlife.com

    If you click on the soy sections there is a summary of the studies as well as the actual studies. Also, there are links to some products that I no longer sell (they weren’t as natural as I was led to believe), so you can ignore those. Hope the studies help. Let me know if you have more questions. I have a ton more resources that I haven’t had a chance to put on the website yet. It is a work in progress as I have little to no web development experience, and a friend was helping me. Long story short, they were putting ads on my site that I did not approve so I am no longer using them, however, don’t know enough to get the ads off the site. O.k. way more info. than anybody needed to know…LOL!

  • http://freedomyou.com/

    Here is a wonderful and informative site on juice fasting. I do believe juice fasting/ detoxification has incredible benefits long term.

  • I agree that soy and all of it’s derivatives are toxic. Why do so many raw food dieters eat nama shoyu? It is probably more toxic than most of the other soy products.

  • spiritedmamaspiritedmama Raw Newbie

    I know for me, before I went raw, and during “transition”, I never used nama shoyu, but would use a soy sauce that I knew was traditionally brewed long enough that the toxins were no longer there. After I decided to take the more questionable stuff out of my raw diet, I no longer used it. The stuff I used was the only soy sauce product that didn’t give me a reaction. However, with that said, after I removed it, I noticed a major difference in the way that I felt. Truth enough for me that it was a good thing I was no longer consuming it. I just use a pinch of salt instead if I think a recipe needs it, or even some dehydrated and ground up celery which has a salty taste too. I know salt is supposed to be bad, but I still crave it at times.

  • MarichiesaMarichiesa Raw Newbie

    The whole weight gain/loss thing is so interesting.I have gained a few pounds too altho’ I was probably underweight to start having gone on a major effort to lose weight one year ago. With regard to weight gain but with clothes still fitting it may have something to do with healthy cells and adequate water retention? Nuts are definately problematic for women in particular. Women for the most part (especially 40 and over) do not metabolize nuts as well as men. Avocado fat does not present as much of a problem for me personally. And its really helpful to eat lots of greens to balance out fruit sugars in your diet. Greens will reduce cravings significantly!

  • Hi, I wanted to mention the carb issue. It seems like you would lose weight because you are limiting your carbs. To get an idea, macadamia, almond, and sunflower seeds have appx 5 grams of carbs per 1\4 cup. Flour has 22 grams of carbs per 1\4 cup! Cashews have a few more carbs than other nuts. I have always wondered how it works that if you eat a high protein- high fat \low carb diet you can lose weight. When you look at birds they are light and eat a lot of protein and fat too. When you look at larger animals they are grass eaters. I asked my boyfriend what happens and he said your fat cells shrink- you don’t actually lose fat. So what really happens? Does eating fat and protein make the fat cells expell water and eliminate it? It would be funny if they took a closer look and found carbs inside of fat cells instead of fat! Because it still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me even though I know it works. I have noticed I am a lot thirstier since going as raw as I can right now. I have been drinking a lot more water and feel smaller though I haven’t gotten into the weighing thing yet. My main focus is to learn some recipes that I like, get a system down of having enough raw food around so that I don’t reach for anything else, and find crossover recipes that my boyfriend and parents will eat so we can all enjoy some meals together.

  • I encourage everyone to read “Rethinking Thin” by Gina Kolata. It discusses how we are genetically programmed for a set weight range. When we try to go below that our body’s metabolism slows and our body sabotages our “diet” by employing fattening cravings. Unfortunately, the people who are genetically thin are the ones we see on the media. The author used the terminology “fashionably thin.” So, thin is not necessarily health linked, but a trend. This book has added a layer of understanding in my weight loss journey. Here’s a link if you want to read more; http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st…

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