Expert Advice on Losing Weight by Using Raw Food

Hi!

I have got to tell you how good I am feeling on this raw food program. I just finished a salad made of Romaine lettuce, one small tomato, half an avocado, two cloves of garlic chopped small, a handful of walnuts, a pinch of sea salt, a sprinkle of Italian herbs, curry powder, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Absolutely nothing unusual. I am completely amazed at how a large salad (about three to four cups) simply fills me completely up -- and I feel good. The full feeling is different from the one I get with cooked foods. (I still eat some cooked foods.) It is a different kind of full feeling. I would describe the difference by saying that the cooked food makes me feel bloated, and the raw food make me feel satisfied -- both of which are "full" feelings. I am really liking the raw food kind of "full" feeling because I somehow feel more healthy and light, and most importantly to me, satisfied!

I believe a little dairy, eggs, and fish, or even chicken, is perfectly acceptable on my program, and how another person sets up their program depends entirely on their own tastes and personal goals. The thing that I am most amazed with is the experience of the raw food program itself. And by the way, I only eat eggs once or twice a week, tuna once a week, chicken a couple of times a month and the rest is raw vegetables, nuts, and seeds with a little fruit like apples and grapefruit -- and I am perfectly happy. I am now also trying to reduce the amount of Ezekial bread I eat, because I think that the two or three sandwiches a day that I was consuming until a few days ago, may have been the factor that was keeping me from losing more weight, at this point in time. I forge ahead.

I remember the "deer in the head lights" look I gave my doctor when she first suggested that I try the raw food program. She told me about a lady (a patient of hers) who was giving seminars about how she lost a ton of weight in one years time by eating raw food. I don't recall the exact amount of weight she lost, but it was in the neighborhood of 100 pounds I would guess.

What flashed through my mind was the time a few years ago when I had become a vegan by following the McDougal program, which is actually a "starch based" program. On that program I was eating a lot of starches like cooked potatoes, cooked grains, whole grain bread and I initially lost about 60 to 70 pounds, I think. But I soon reached a plateau where no more weight came off of me for a very long time, and I was also having swollen ankles every day which is associated with high blood sugars. I was unaware of what was causing the problem of the swelling feet at the time. It was all those starchy cooked foods I was eating.

Eating raw foods is not like the McDougal program, even though both of them could be done one hundred percent vegan and the McDougal program insists upon it. Vegan meaning that no animal products of any kind are consumed. No dairy, no eggs, no chicken, no fish, no red meat, or anything at all that is made from animal flesh. The difference, in my mind, between the two is the cooking factor. If you are not cooking your food, because you want to consume all the available nutrition that God put into the food He made, without turning it into something "man made", then, you begin to choose different foods to eat. A person might eat a cooked potato, but is not very likely to eat one raw, although some do, and if I find a good raw recipe, I might try it.  I am not advocating veganism, though, I am simply stating what the difference between the two programs is.

The point I am making is that when my doctor suggested the raw food program, what flashed through my  mind was my experience on the McDougal program and how I found out, by doing it, that it was not good for my body. It was completely wrong for me. I simply refused to even look into what she was suggesting. I was basing my response on my own bad experience. But what she was talking about is an entirely different thing. Now that I have tried it, I understand the difference, and am glad the Lord brought me around to it.

I am also thinking about how a person who is eating the standard American diet (SAD) might look at the idea of eating a raw food diet. I'm sure that it sounds like lunacy. And even if you were in a state of desperation regarding weight loss, or health issues, like diabetes, the whole idea of "going raw" seems like an insurmountable obstacle. It definitely is hard to imagine changing the proportions of foods on the plate, and starting to consume what we think of as a "side dish" as the "main dish." Raw foods also only means "salad" to the SAD mindset. In the same way that being vegetarian brings up a picture of eating green beans and corn without the meat, potatoes, and gravy. These pictures come from a mind set of "what you have to give up." They are based on the limitations of the standard American diet.

What is missing in the picture is all the amazing foods you will be adding in to your diet. And by diet, I don't mean a reduction in food, I simply mean a change in the array of things that you consume. There is no need to force yourself to eat things you don't want to eat in order to lose weight. The only willpower that is involved is the one that makes you begin to find out what is available to eat on a raw food program -- and which ones you like. You see, you only have to eat what you like to eat. There is no suffering involved.

As I have been watching videos on YouTube and searching the raw food websites that I can find I stumbled across a free video that I think bears watching if you are at all interested in trying the raw food approach to weight loss. Ani Phyo is a guest on "The Rawfoodfamily TV-Show" (I would give the host's name, but I could not quite catch it -- he has a strong Swedish accent and speaks English well, but I could not understand the name he gave). Ani shares how she helps people adjust to raw food gradually and helps them to lose weight by beginning to add more raw food to the diet. She takes nothing away, so you still eat the foods you like, but what she adds is a large raw green smoothie, or a large raw salad as the first entree. What she says happens is that the smoothie or the salad takes up most of the room in the stomach. The result is that you eat less of the "bad" foods, because you really are full. Here is the link in case you would like to see the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a-ixC6V_k4&feature=related

Based on what Ani suggests, I will begin to always have a smoothie or a large salad before the sandwich and see if that is the difference I need. I am sharing the adventure that I am on and the information I have found. As I begin to lose more weight I will share the statistics -- or the failure -- if it does not actually continue to happen.

Be back soon

--Marcia