weight loss

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Permalink Reply by watermelon on February 8, 2009 at 10:20am

I'm actually just a stay at home mom of two that is recently studying pretty diligently about the raw food lifestyle. I'm planning on going to school in the fall to be an ND. don't laugh.

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Permalink Reply by rawpomona on February 8, 2009 at 9:14am

Hi Watermelon:
Up through my mid-twenties I had no problem being naturally thin (around 120-25 at 5'7"). If I ever needed to lose a few pounds, it took a week or two of effort and it'd be off. Then came the late twenties through early thirties when I used a lot of diet pills to keep my weight down to close to what it was in my early twenties. By my mid thirties I went up to a high of 160 lbs. I'm now 42 and 140 lbs. I feel like I look pretty good (having lost about 8-10 lbs in around a month of eating mostly raw). Had I been in my twenties and known I would ever thought I would feel good about myself at 140 I'd have thought you were crazy and told you I'd never allow myself to ever get that "fat". Some of it is hindsight and perspective I guess: being down 20 lbs from my height is great, but a lot of it is also getting to a point where you accept yourself where you are, wherever you are, and making dietary choice (like raw) that are about overall wellness, wholeness, and health rather than about weight loss.

One of the reasons I'm giving you all this history (down to putting down actual numbers that I'm not fond of!) is that I worry that you still have your "weight-gaining years" ahead of you. Your metabolism more than likely will change as you get older and if you're not prepared to accept yourself at various weights, you could be setting yourself up for relapse. When I started raw and the pounds started dropping a bit, sure, I was happy about it, but I was happier knowing that I was making choices (finally) that were about making myself a healthy person in all ways. Try to keep your focus on that part of being raw: you're getting healthier and your ideal weight (at various ages, not for looks but for health) may be different.

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Permalink Reply by watermelon on February 8, 2009 at 10:14am

thank you so much sweetheart.

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Permalink Reply by Jessica on February 9, 2009 at 3:05am

Great insight Rawpowmona, thank you. It's so important to stress the true meaning of eating this way, for health, the internal, external, and longevity it provides, as well as the purpose in which we are all here; providing support each other in this lifestyle. It's so nice to see you took the time to give a grounding look at reality, reminding us how skewed things can get (physically) as well as your own story.

Being happy and healthy in your own skin should be first and foremost the most important thing, and you've definately got it figured out.

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Permalink Reply by Jessica on February 9, 2009 at 2:35am

I just wanted to say, 7 pounds in a month is allot, and it really sounds like your doing fantastic!!

However, to answer your question, given what I've learned from study and my own body....when your first just transitioning it's best to keep the steamed veggies in your diet for now and always make sure you start with a big raw salad beforehand. Where I’ve always heard allot of people go wrong is within their nut intake, even if the nuts are raw it’s not the healthiest of foods when working on a cleansing diet, ie. It’s so much better to eat more of a salad and veggies over the density nuts can have on your system, I personally don’t loose as much weight when I eat nuts or any types of grains. I also hear women don’t do as well as men with processing grains while on a raw diet as well. For the most part I juice all day sometimes 3-4 (mainly mixes of carrot, greens, beets, apple etc. ) then may have fruit in the afternoon if I am hungry and huge salad for dinner. I am 5 9 and weigh 115-120 depending on how much I am exercising, lol. By the way, you should definitely invest in the rebounder, it is such a great core, cardio and resistance workout ( fun)!

Anyways, it really sounds like your doing great,.... enjoy how far youve come, hey, it's a lifestyle not a race! Goodluck. ; )

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Permalink Reply by watermelon on February 9, 2009 at 9:11am

thank you, I think that last sentence is perfectly put. thanks so much.

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Permalink Reply by aja8505 on February 16, 2009 at 2:09pm

Does anyone know when my body will start to release some of this extra whight i have on my bod. I have been raw for 1.5 months and really only lost like 10 pounds and am VERY frustrated!! I have been eating i would say 98% raw and thought i would have lost more weight than this by now. I am not fat by any means but do have a winter/depression layer covering my body that needs to go and am frustrated because every day the scale does not budge!!!!

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Permalink Reply by k2klever on March 4, 2009 at 1:21pm

Hey Lindsey, (aja8505)
I would take in consideration how much fat you are consuming and I mean natural raw fat. Do you consume oil, avocados, nuts, seeds? How much do you consume daily? All of these foods are extremly high in fat. Oil is 100% fat avocados, nuts/seeds are approx 70% fat. No matter what kind of fat you are consuming too much is not good for you. I would consume no more then 10% of your daily calories from fat and same with protien. So that leaves about 80% of your calories to come from carbs (simple carbs that is.. fruit, veg. ect). About a month ago i started to use this free online food diary. The website is called Nutridiary.com and it is an amazing free program. You can enter in the percentage of how you want to breakout your food daily for carbs, fat, and protien. You can then log daily your meals, exercise, water intake, weight etc. This program has been extremly helpful since i am trying to eat raw and healthy and lose weight. Many raw foodiest think they are eating healthy because they are eating entirely raw but many are not healthy because they are still consuming extremly high amounts of fat (close to what a normal standard american diet consumes). Lots of raw sweets/treats are really yummy but they are also full of fat. I have been trying to consume between 1200-1500 calories a day since I still have a few pounds to lose. My diet consume of all raw fruits and veggies and a little fat. To put it in perspective to you how much fat I consume for 10% of my caloric daily intake is about 1-1.5oz nuts or 1/4-1/2 avocado ( I dont use oil since its not "natural" and you could not pick it from a tree or the ground like you would a piece of fruit). So as you can see it is very easy to consume 10% or less of your calories from fat. Just some food for your thought. But i would definitly take a look at how much fat you are consuming daily. Let me know if you have any questions. Or I can suggest a book or 2 for you.

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Permalink Reply by k2klever on March 4, 2009 at 1:26pm

Hey Lindsey,
Just wanted to add one more thing you said you have allready lost 10 lbs in about a month in a half. That is awsome by the way. That is right at the normal "healthy" weight loss schedule which is 1-2 lbs a wk. If you lost more then that it would just be water weight and not fat. So i wouldnt worry about losing more then 1-2 per wk. Good job!! But still take in consideration my comments above on fat consumption.

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Permalink Reply by Martbook on March 4, 2009 at 7:23pm

k2klever, you wrote:"That is right at the normal "healthy" weight loss schedule which is 1-2 lbs a wk. If you lost more then that it would just be water weight and not fat."

With all due respect. how do you know that? Can't the body, if properly fed heal itself in seemingly miraculous ways? Everyone is different. And yes we do lose a lot of water weight at first if we are retaining water.

Clent Manich in Oregon has lost over 220 lbs in just over a year on a green smoothe lifestyle.Thats over 4 lbs a week. I would assume that he didn't lose 110-160 lbs of water.

I once lost 27 lbs in 4 weeks by exercising hard. Once again I doubt of even 5 lbs of that was water.

I agree that watermelons weight loss of 10 lbs is awesome. Perhaps that is just right for her. But neither you or I are in a position to know that for sure, or how much of that is water, or how much more she could lose in a healthy manner.

There is a little too much "information" being thrown around on this board as "fact".

The longer I live the more I am prepared to accept that there is more I will never know or need to know. Life is a mystery. I prefer to live life as an 'art' rather than a science.

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Permalink Reply by AwesomeUniverse!!! on March 4, 2009 at 7:40pm

I haven't read this whole thread but it seems to me that protein is a major factor in real weightloss. More protein will help you transform fat into muscle but muscle is heavier than fat so it would appear that you hadn't lost as much but you would look more toned.

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Permalink Reply by Natalia Clarke on November 3, 2009 at 9:52am

are you feeling better on these diets though? If you do, don't stress, it will happen. I heard lots of people not losing weight on raw for a while and then suddenly it all started to come off.

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