3 days and not going great...

[veganol]

Hi all, it's nice to be here

 

 

I've been a lurker here for about 5 months, but never posted or even registered until fairly recently.

 

 

Here's a small bit of background info on myself...

 

I'm 18 years old. I was obese from the age of 11. I turned vegetarian at age 16, and I've been vegan for about 4 months now. I've flirted with the idea of raw foodism for a short period of time. Having lost virtually all of the excess weight from childhood, I'm just trying to lose between 7 and 14 pounds currently.

 

That brings us up to now. I've been raw for 3 days now, and I'm struggling horribly. I've eaten barely anything in this time, and my bodies crashing. I just took a trip to Asda (I'm English), and bought some Goji berries, almonds, and cashews. Salad is getting boring and tasteless. I couldn't find any agave nectar, coconut butter, coconut milk, almond butter, almond milk, or cacao powder anywhere.

 

Does anyone have any tips to make easy, tasty raw food? Infomation on where to get some of the aformentioned ingredients would also be a great bonus.

 

Thanks for reading, I hope to become a regular here

[RawVgn]

Eat fruit! Alot of us raw vegans eat mountains of fruit; veggies have very low caloric density and don't cut it as a raw vegan (you'd have to eat 40 heads of lettuce to get a days worth of calories.) When your raw, you GOTTA think fruit: bananas, melons, apples, grapes, oranges, grapefruit...and you gotta eat them in bulk. My 4 person vegan household goes through more than 200 lbs of fruit a week! Fruit is mostly water, so you have to eat A LOT of it to make your calories for the day.

 

I don't know how big you are, or active, so I can't tell you specifically how many calories you need to eat. However, as a general rule, a person must eat 10 times their weight in pounds for base metabolism ( if you weigh 175 that's 1750 calories) plus about another 50% for moderate daily activity. So figure about 2500 cals a day if your 175 and mostly fit. That's the equivalent of nearly 35 bananas a day, and you'll probably still loose a lot of weight as your body adapts to healthier raw food.

 

I strongly suggest keeping the fats down, particularly since you want to get cut. Many of us limit fats to no more than 10% of calories a day. That's eating 1 tablespoon of nutbutter (not peanut butter, it's roasted) or 1 ounce of raw nuts a day; fruits average about 5% fat so you can only add another 5% of fats overtly to reach 10%.

 

Finally, get Dr Douglas Graham's book "The 80/10/10 Diet." Going raw is a big step and to be successful it requires a good plan: your heart is in the right place, but you need to be more sophisticated in your head.

[Zack]

Why raw?

[Richard]

Hey, welcome to the forum. Whereabouts are you in the UK?

 

I found I wasn't very good with raw food, since I don't really like fruit and don't like enough raw vegetables. I definitely recommend eating a lot of fruit if you like the taste. I got sucked into just eatin dried fruit and nuts... but I don't think that's a healthy way to do it, it kind of defeats the object. What else are you eating right now?

 

Is there a specific reason that you wanted to be on the raw diet? Some people got for a percentage in their diet, try to each as much raw food as they can, but maybe it won't be 100% of their diet - some eat 80 or 90%. Perhaps you'd find that easier, to start with at least?

[Balazs]

I agree with RawVgn.

Eat fruit.

I eat fruit all the day. For breakfast I only eat some salad and tomato, or some not to sweet fruits.

In the morning it is better to let your digestive system to wake up. SO. In the morning try to eat some light ting, only if you are hungry. Then in the afternoon it is easier to eat more.

I am 100% raw (very low fat, fruit based, actually no nuts at all) for 2 months now, and it is not a big deal.

Find your favourite fruits and eat them Try not to mix them, or follow the basic principles of combining.

I am also back in body-building, and its not a big problem for me, to eat 3000-3500cal a day, and I am not skinny at all.

So dont worry, just eat when you are hungry Fruits are great, but reduce the fats!

Do not eat seasonings, salt, garlic, stuff...

Forget the superfoods, its all about money, you dont need them at all. Algaes, or magic green powders.... For me they are not raw...

agave nectar, coconut butter, coconut milk, almond butter, almond milk, or cacao powder--- I would not eat them...

 

It is just an advice I hope I could help!

 

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/index.html --read this, you can learn the basics here go to articles

enjoy

[xjohanx]

first of all, welcome to the forum and congrats on your weight loss.

I'm not raw allthough I eat a lot of raw stuff. Agave nectar isn't raw, just FYI.

When it comes to raw products ,like the ones you mentioned, I think that it's pretty hard to find em around europe unless you're in a major city. If you find almond milk it's not certain at all that it will be raw because it is often sweetned with proccessed sugars and so on. If you want almond milk you should make it yourself, it's alot cheaper and tastier IMO.

And please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think coconutmilk (the canned type) is raw.

Anyways good luck.

(personally I don't think raw foodism is a very good idea. whole foods is though (which is a part of raw foodism)

peace

[liftandcode]

Try making a green smoothie with kale and spinach and fruit as well. Mix in some raw coconut oil or hempseeds and you'll be well on your way to nutritional dominance.

 

That being said, I myself am not raw, however I do eat quite a bit of raw food.

[ChaserHUN]

I don't think that mixing fruits and seeds it a good idea

[veganol]

Thank you all so very much. I appreciate all your help and the advice that's been given has been insightful (including those that are not raw). Looks like it's fruit all the way for me!

 

See you all around

[Tasha]

How can salads be tasteless and boring?

 

You can add anything you want to. Right now I'll tell you what I got prep up in the fridge.

I added, a head of red leaf lettuce. 4 bags of wild greens, roma tomatoes, herloum tomatoes, celery, cucumber, dulse, I also usually add avocados, sprouts, grated carrots, beets, and lemon. You can even make your own salad dressing.

The vega oil is amazing on salads. That and a raw lemon tahini dressing. 2 lemons, tahini, water, vinigar and cuimun spice. You don't know what you're missing, OMG it's so good. Ask Lean and Green about how I like my salads so much? He'll tell ya hah

There's a lot of gourmet raw foods also. You can even make raw ice cream out of a juicer.

I do eat gourmet on special occasions. Like if Lean and Green where here

 

In future you should purchase a good cook book, a blender, a cutting board, a sharp cutting knife, a juicer, a food processor, a spirlizer, and some people like the idea of a dehydrator, but to me it's too much work lol

 

PS I do eat a lot of fruit. But I eat a lot more greens. To me, lots of greens is the key to raw health.

I usually add chorella, spirilina, or vitamineral greens to my salads, juices, or smoothies.

Have fun experimenting.

[RawVgn]

Hope you get Dr Graham's book too; being raw is easy, but there are definately some things you want to know-adding greens to the diet for bulk and minerals, details you want to understand in the long run. Hope you have a lot of fun with it; ain't nothin to it once ya get the hang of it, and raw low-fat will give you really superior health. I can talk for hours about the benefits of raw, but anyone who's really interested should just read Graham's book and study material on rawfoodexplained.com.

 

So did you eat fruit today? Pack it in so you start getting a feel for how much to eat; it's a lot different mind set than eating cooked, caloricly dense food that's usually had most of its water removed by heating/cooking. Most of us eat so much raw fruit and greens that we don't drink ANY fluids; it's all provided in our food, just like chimps in the wild. If you manage to keep the fats down, you should feel a big surge in energy and strength as the sugar energy begins moving very efficiently into your cells. And don't worry if you get some detox symptoms; most people who go straight from the SAD to raw low-fat do. Just be patient and they'll eventually subside. Any small nagging health problems you might have-poor skin, a bad joint, and so on-often begin to clear up within a few days of dropping cooked food too. Raw is an awesome journey!

 

Ask if you have any questions; it don't take but a few minutes to churn out an answer.

[Tasha]

You can check out Frank's website. I just started chatting with him.

and I'll be meeting him in Hawaii for the raw games. His food looks amazing

 

http://rawfoodfrank.wordpress.com/