How many calories can I consume in a day on this diet? etc.

[currmom]

Hi I am new to this site. I have some questions......Do I have to follow a specific diet as far as calories goes? I would seem that the foods that you talk about have oddles of calories and I tend to gain easily. Where can I access the exact diet? Thanks for your time..

[RowanC]

Don't count calories.. just eat organic raw fruits, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, grains and eat until you are full.
It's the only diet I know of where I can eat an entire cheesecake for breakfast and still lose weight and feel great!

[IamLoved]

Hi

Welcome to the boards!

My suggestion to you would be to get a good raw food book that has good advice and recipes. Alissa's book is great! I have read a lot, but only own hers. She has lots of good info and tons of great recipes.

I don't count calories. There seems to be a lot of mixed opinions on this. When I first started raw (actually throughout all of my raw eating), I would eat an avocado every day. Sometimes two. I had one woman tell me that I would never lose weight eating avocadoes every day. This was after I had lost 45 pounds doing just that! hahaha!
Ultimately you have to decide what works best for you but in the beginning don't stress over calories, just eat raw. Eventually you taste buds will crave more simple foods and less fatty type foods. But if having a bowl of cashews or an avocado is going to keep you from eating SAD then don't feel guilty about it! Eat it.

I too have difficulty losing weight. I can just think about eating food and gain weight. But this has worked for me, and it can work for you too.

Good luck!

[eatyourbroccoli]

274,377.8

but boy, that sure is a lot to get into your belly. just do your best :p

ps
(dont worry bout calories..just eat it raw and youll be good to go! the calories on raw wont make you gain weight bc the foods in the state nature intended..stressin out about calories might, though! welcome aboard!! :) )

[Amberly]

274,377.8

but boy, that sure is a lot to get into your belly. just do your best :p

ps
(dont worry bout calories..just eat it raw and youll be good to go! the calories on raw wont make you gain weight bc the foods in the state nature intended..stressin out about calories might, though! welcome aboard!! :) )


We say this, then when we are confronted by something like the Victoria Boutenko issue we give reasons for not losing weight eating all we want. You do not necessarily always lose weight eating just anything as long as it's raw. It is a good place to start---"just keep it raw"---but at some point alterations may have to be made. Maybe not. In any case, you will see a great great great many benefits. I am so very grateful to have stumbled upon it. Raw food rocks! Welcome to the board.

[Veganforlife]

Yeah - what they all said !

*looking upward toward the thread* :rolleyes:

Don't worry about calories. Calorie counting goes along with SAD eating. I don't concern myself with that. That's silly. Why would you want to? I eat 'til I'm full. I don't OVER indulge, but I'm satisfied.

[Ariannah]

Hi

Welcome to the boards!

My suggestion to you would be to get a good raw food book that has good advice and recipes. Alissa's book is great! I have read a lot, but only own hers. She has lots of good info and tons of great recipes.

I don't count calories. There seems to be a lot of mixed opinions on this. When I first started raw (actually throughout all of my raw eating), I would eat an avocado every day. Sometimes two. I had one woman tell me that I would never lose weight eating avocadoes every day. This was after I had lost 45 pounds doing just that! hahaha!
Ultimately you have to decide what works best for you but in the beginning don't stress over calories, just eat raw. Eventually you taste buds will crave more simple foods and less fatty type foods. But if having a bowl of cashews or an avocado is going to keep you from eating SAD then don't feel guilty about it! Eat it.

I too have difficulty losing weight. I can just think about eating food and gain weight. But this has worked for me, and it can work for you too.

Good luck!

What Missionarymamato5 said resonates with me very well. This is the EASIEST diet in the world. Just eat raw! I have a very slow metabolism, yet I ate avocadoes and nuts when first going raw and very dense foods and lost weight. Eventually, also, the body heals and is able to set its own threshold, and I've found now that I eat quite a bit less.

[Raw Jewelrylady]

You know what~ for me~when I would eat SAD-I could devour a whole plate of ____________fill-in the blank .Now..I put my food on salad plates & I am satisfied.

You see, this is not a *diet*-we are eating REAL foods...full of the nutrition-so our bodies are not screaming...FEED ME !!!

I know I was one overfed chick who was *under nourished.* Not any more...

have fun-stop worrying..& dittos to all the othere comments... :rolleyes:


Lana

[tinystrawberry]

You see, this is not a *diet*-we are eating REAL foods...full of the nutrition-so our bodies are not screaming...FEED ME !!!

I know I was one overfed chick who was *under nourished.* Not any more...


i LOVE the way you said that, Raw Jewelrylady!

[Raw Jewelrylady]

i LOVE the way you said that, Raw Jewelrylady!

Thanks Tinystrawberry..It just came out & I was laughing as I typed it..LOL
Gotta have fun.. ;)

RJL

[vgloveforlife]

I eat tons of fat and calories and I still lose weight on raw. It is amazing, really...I should be 200 lbs right now!

[Blixy_33]

:confused: Hi guys... I've been (or was) high raw for 3 weeks. The first week I lost 9 lbs and after that it seemed impossible to lose anything. I've read in several threads that the cause could be that I'm not eating enough... eventhough I eat lots... plenty of fruits during the morning...two plates of salad (more than one type at a time) and a fruit or two during the afternoon and then salad again at night. I may eat nuts once or twice a week... but that's my diet... I decided to check my calorie count and realized that I was consuming 500 and sometimes even less. I know ya'll said that calories don't really matter or that it's not necessary to keep count but now I'm confused.... does anybody know if there is a "healthy" calorie count?... I mean... I wasn't feeling sluggish eating the way I was nor was I starving but it seems logical that your body needs a certain amount of calories to function...right?...cuz there must be a reason why people who go raw also use a calorie counter (so I've read in several journals and some posts). I'm 33 and 5'3.... is 500 calories a healthy amount of calories? help

[GoingtoRAW]

CURRMOM, I need to lose a lot of weight but the one thing I have not had to worry about at all on the raw food lifestyle is counting calories. I eat whatever I want until I feel satisfied and then I am able to stop without a problem. Not like on SAD where I would eat whatever I want and had no control at all and would just pile on the food and the pounds. I would say as long as it's raw don't worry about the calories and more importantly - stay off the scale and just watch how your clothes fit. :p

[PeachyMama]

Blixy, 500 calories is most definitely not enough!!!!

I have naturally gravitated to lighter fare after 6 weeks raw, but I still eat either an avocado or 1/4 cup of nuts every day. With that, I still have to work on my fruit intake to consume over 1,000 calories.

Try adding a few more bananas to your food ... have you tried smoothies? You could make them, and even put some hemp oil or coconut oil in one to up your calories and get some essential fats.

I didn't see any fats listed on what you were eating. You need to eat some, even if you're watching.

[Blixy_33]

Thanks PeachyMama!!! I've been eating cooked this past week cuz I just didn't know how to up the calories on raw and was scared about not eating enough. But I just can't handle eating cooked and this morning made myself a green smoothie. Thank you sooooo much for the great idea about adding a bit of oil to the smoothie!!!! never would have thought of that!!! I'm so glad to be back on track. I was on cooked for a week but it was a very unpleasant week. I'm just hooked on raw and now that I have a better idea of how to be a balanced raw... I just can't wait!... on my way to the farmers fair... gonna by bananas and avocados and going to buy some coconut oil... for now I hope olive oil will do cuz that's what I've got around the house... Thank you soooo much peachymama.... I could just give you a great BIG thank you hug!!..hehehehe

[Nimmanu]

CURRMOM, I need to lose a lot of weight but the one thing I have not had to worry about at all on the raw food lifestyle is counting calories. I eat whatever I want until I feel satisfied and then I am able to stop without a problem. Not like on SAD where I would eat whatever I want and had no control at all and would just pile on the food and the pounds. I would say as long as it's raw don't worry about the calories and more importantly - stay off the scale and just watch how your clothes fit. :p
I'm probably in the minority here. I am a female body builder, I know all about calories, macros, etc.

First off, you really want to be eating a lot more nuts (or at least flax seeds). You're almost certainly not getting enough fat in your diet. Fats are an excellent source of calories, but they also have several other benefits:

1. If your body is getting enough fat from your food, it's less likely to store it.

2. When you are getting enough fats, it "lubes up" everything, for lack of a better way to say it. If vitamins are the building blocks, and minerals are the carriers, fats are the supervisors. With not enough supervisors, the mechanism falters.

3. Healthy fats also aid you in putting on lean tissue and dropping fatty tissue, because muscle actually contains some tiny amounts of fats. You want those fats in particular to be healthy ones.

As for a minimal amount of calories, unless you're a teeny tiny, itty bitty, super little person, you almost certainly need over 1,800 calories MINIMUM (that's FAR too low if you're overweight!!) in order to keep your metabolism from crashing.

When your metabolic rate crashes, it doesn't matter what you do, you won't lose weight. You will simply become more and more exhausted, fatigued, sluggish, slow thinking, irritable, confused, and various and sundry other problems that come along with starving yourself.

For the majority of very thin women, 1800 calories will be a weight loss amount with minor amounts of exercise in the diet.

If you are very thin and absolutely sedentary, you're still not likely to be able to safely go below 1500 calories without endangering your metabolism (and thus turning into an overweight person).

FAR FAR too common in the USA at least are people who undereat, get fatter and fatter, and wonder why...

[Blixy_33]

Wow! had no idea your metabolism could crash that way but sure does make sense. ya'll have been tons of help. I'm going to try the 1800 calorie a day count with exercise during the week and include more healthy fats in my diet... I'm going to see how that works.. and then I'll let ya'll know:). thank you, thank you, thank you.:)

[Nimmanu]

Wow! had no idea your metabolism could crash that way but sure does make sense. ya'll have been tons of help. I'm going to try the 1800 calorie a day count with exercise during the week and include more healthy fats in my diet... I'm going to see how that works.. and then I'll let ya'll know:). thank you, thank you, thank you.:)
Give it 30 days before you decide "I've gained 5 pounds, this doesn't work!"

Your body isn't stupid, it's not going to believe you won't starve it after only a week or two! Most of us have been starving ourselves for years, then we expect our bodies to believe us when we say, "I promise I'll feed you right, I did yesterday, didn't I??" :confused:

:p



Oh, and I quoted the wrong post in my first post, LOL. I meant to quote the one that said "I only eat a handful of nuts a couple times a week". Sorry!

[Ariannah]

Give it 30 days before you decide "I've gained 5 pounds, this doesn't work!"


And I can't stress enough how important it is to be entirely raw through that 30 day period. Cooked food of any description muddies the "experiment".

[christiahall]

I love this post! I just want to say that when I got started, I wanted to find out for myself once and for all if I was getting enough calories and nutrition, especially fats, since I use my brain a lot and need lots of fat. (haha)

Anyways, I found this free site http://nutriondata.com that I absolutly adore. (Can you tell?) For those curious about their diets and wanted to make sure they are getting enough of something, you can go through the database of millions of foods, save your favorites to your pantry (and you can choose between cooked or raw), and then you can add things that you ate to a calculator. It then tells you how many calories you consumed, what types of fats, carbs, minerals, vitamins, etc. It can also give you a customized recommendation of what nutrients that you specifically need according to your weight, lifestyle, height, age and gender. I love it! I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was getting over 100% of proteins, calcium and over 400% of my vitamins while doing raw foods.

Also, towards the end of your day, if you find that you are lacking in something, all you have to do is a nutrient search, and customize the types of results you want to be shown. It was then that I started adding Dandilion greens to my diet for vitamin E.

I don't suggest you do this all the time, but once in awhile, plug in a "sample" diet, or a random day's worth of food just to see if you are listening to your body. It should be used as a tool to help you understand your cravings.

I hope this helps! It has answered all my concerns and I know without a shadow of a doubt, on scientific level, that this is a great diet for me.

[Ginger]

I use sparkpeople.com & it has totally changed my life! I saw the reason why I wasn't losing on raw & actually gained weight last time I was raw was because my fat was over 60% of my calories & I was eating way more calories then my body needed too! Plus it gives you an excercise program you can do at home with no equiptment & you check it off as you do it! I freakin love that site! I wish Alissa would have a site like that where it would be all raw recipes with calorie counts & nutrients etc! Then people would see how easy it is to get your needs met on a raw diet!

[dreamrawalwz]

Thanks PeachyMama!!! I've been eating cooked this past week cuz I just didn't know how to up the calories on raw and was scared about not eating enough. But I just can't handle eating cooked and this morning made myself a green smoothie. Thank you sooooo much for the great idea about adding a bit of oil to the smoothie!!!! never would have thought of that!!! I'm so glad to be back on track. I was on cooked for a week but it was a very unpleasant week. I'm just hooked on raw and now that I have a better idea of how to be a balanced raw... I just can't wait!... on my way to the farmers fair... gonna by bananas and avocados and going to buy some coconut oil... for now I hope olive oil will do cuz that's what I've got around the house... Thank you soooo much peachymama.... I could just give you a great BIG thank you hug!!..hehehehe

Hmm, Just my suggestion, but I think you should train your stomach to hold more food. Slowly start stretching it out. Most people have to do the opposite lol. What size are your salads? Can you juice to get more nutrition/calories in?

[Veganforlife]

When I first went raw and was explaining this way of eating to my Aunt about not having to count calories and all, she almost screamed at me, "BUT YOU MUST COUNT CALORIES!"
We are so geared to worry about that. I don't. I am healthier then I have been in years. I've dropped weight. My migraines are gone (I've had them my entire life), and my thyroid is functioning. It was diagnosed dead six years ago and in a little over 7 months it is functioning again.
I think there are so many "experts" out there with the latest diet that have to worry about calories for their diet to work.
This way of eating living foods - a variety of fruits, nuts, veggies, seeds, and sprouts is all you should, or rather I should concern myself with. I don't have time to read about calories and such. I'd rather read about a great raw recipe. ;)
I feel find your niche with this. If you feel you must count calories, then do so. If you feel you have a variety of the above mentioned LIVING, raw, organic foods, then that's what is good for you.

[mindlikewater]

Not to be instigating, but as an ED recoveree, i can vouch first-hand for the calories...no they are not mean and scary like we have been programed to believe, they are nothing more than a measurement of the energy you are taking in...so, if you are taking in 500 call them "units" of energy but expending four to five times as much, then something has to suffer...

you can feel fine, you might even feel great, but do it for a number of years and something's gotta crash...for example, i was recovered for a while then started restriction again and went into a "starvation mode" eating only 1200 cals plus exercise, actually gained weight and had symptoms of "IBS"...i worked and went to college and mananged my life like that for over two years and probably would have continued that way if i hadn't dealt with the 'calorie' thing...

but i'm not here to discredit anything veganforlife or others who hate calorie counting are saying, and i'm not saying you have to be religious about counting calories, i'm just saying calories are food, food is good, and in order to thrive we need 1) raw food and 2)enough intake of raw food (to sum it up:) )

by all means we should listen to our bodies, but if you think that sluggish feeling is from detox, yet u r eating half as much is recomended for you, then maybe you need a few more bananas...i really think dreamrawalwz is right about the need to train our stomachs to hold more food on raw (slowly, of course)...grazing thoughout the day also helps and is good for insulin levels, too!

calories do not belong to "diets" they are part of a lifestyle, just as raw food is, and they do not need to be a source of "stress" they do, however need to be something to be aware of...

happy eating!!!
mlw

[Ariannah]

My take on the calorie issue is this (and others may differ): If the diet we are eating is so unnatural that we need to count calories in order to tell us when we've had enough, we're probably eating the wrong diet.

Decades of un-natural factory food eating have messed up our natural senses, so of course when we're on SAD diets we need an outside guideline to artificially tell us when we've "had enough".

Yes it's important not to eat too much. Often in the honeymoon stage of raw eating, people WILL overeat. So what? Eventually it settles down and volume and desire to eat too much decreases.

Alissa Cohen doesn't encourage counting calories, and therefore I don't. One of the things I like about this diet is it is so low maintenance and requires NO babysitting. Just pick and eat. Works for me.

[trinity082482]

1800 cals? I don't even eat that many!!! And I'm gaining.

[Blixy_33]

Hi guys, I looked into sparkpeople.com (recommended by one of the posts) and truth is it's very informative and helpful. There I found out that just so your body can existe (bodily functions and all) you need to consume a minimum of 1,200 calories a day JUST TO SURVIVE! Then you need to take into consideration the calories or, better yet, the energy you use to lead a sedentary lifestyle (walking to the bathroom, showering, chewing, etc) AND then, if you're physically active you need to consider how much energy you use to run, jump, etc. I've only been following my calories for a few days and realized that sometimes when I would think I pigged out I was actually inside the range of energy that my body needed to function properly. And yes! I have gained weight this past week and it's stressing BUT I've been struggling with weight most of my life and I realized that my real weight gain started in my teens when I began "dieting"... Sometimes I would eat one meal a day or take diet pills or laxatives or diet shakes... you name it and I probably did it. Over the past 14 years I've lost 50 pounds, most of which was lost the first two years and the rest of the time I spent struggling to keep it off.
I'm not saying that calorie counting is THE way of losing weight, but I do believe that the reason we have so many food issues is cuz we're misinformed. We're taught to believe that eating less and exercising more makes you thin and thin is beauty, when in all actuality what we should be taught is simple reason... and that is that our bodies run on energy and to function properly there is a level of energy needed for our heart to pump, our lungs to breath and process oxygen, etc... I mean, think about every single function your body does in a 24 hour span... don't you think those functions need a certain amount of energy?..and what if you decide to go for a 30 minute jog? Don't you think your energy demand'll rise? I'm not saying eat-eat-eat I'm saying weigh the facts. Raw makes sense to us for a reason, but to be raw isn't a magic cure. I believe you have to be an informed and realistic raw... our bodies are so loving cuz after all the crap we've put them through they keep holding on and trying to make our mistakes seem harmless. Only problem is that after a few years even our bodies get tired of making up for our mistakes.
I don't plan on counting calories all my life, I just plan on counting enough to understand how much energy and food my body needs to be healthy and at it's best. To some people this may come to as second nature, but I'm not one of them. I need to learn from my mistakes. I've spent years exercising and dieting and I would always lose weight till I got to a certain number on the scale and then no matter what I did my body just wouldn't lose anymore. So then I would freak-out and bindge or I would just get sick of feeling hungry and gorge on everything I saw. But now that I think about it and reason I realize that I would exercise more and eat less, so my body probably went into "starvation mode" and just like hibernating bears, it would stock up after feeling deprived just incase food became scarce again..heheheh. Yeah, makes sense to me. So then all your body can do it work towards survival and say... "gotta stock up for those winter months when food isn't easy to find"...anyhow...raw allows me to not feel deprived and I love that.. now all I need to do is find the right balance between energy spent and energy eaten..:)

And Trinity... I've seen you post a lot so I figure you've been eating raw for a while... maybe you could try balancing your energy (calories) with your meals for a 30 day period... you'd still be raw and may discover something your body was needing :).

[dreamrawalwz]

I was thinking of this lately. We know a lot of what the media/government/schools/ etc. are false such as milk and meat are necessary. So...what they're telling us about how many calories we need, how true is this? They don't really take into account metabolism, bone structure, etc. I think less calories are needed on a raw diet. You can get more nutrients with less calories on raw. I think the reason the "RDA calorie" count is what it is, is because you wouldn't be able to possibly get the nutrients a body needs. I say "possibly" b/c some eat all those calories in empty nutrient foods. I hope I'm making some sense here. Does anyone know what I'm trying to say or have any thoughts? We don't know it's true just b/c it's in a text book. Maybe I'm just becoming sceptical. I know the RDA is 2,000 for women. While growing up I was taught by my mom that 1,200 should be the MAX for a woman, even a growing girl. I turned out fine though. I grew up, gained muscle, etc. So who says we need 2,000? The gov. so we buy more food? lol...ok, i'm going on a tangent. I'll stop now :D

[Ariannah]

I hear exactly what you are saying dreamrawalwz.

There's a lot of empty-nutrient food out there, and our bodies are satisfied when the nutrient density of our food (either high calorie or low calorie) meets our bodies' needs.

People say, yeah, you'd have to eat a truckload of broccoli to get your requirement of calcium. Oh yeah? How about a person who is healthy and isn't leaching their bones out with coffee and soda and refined sugar and excess protein? So yeah, they're going to say "we need more calories" when it's just a bunch of bunk, IMO.

Everyone's food energy requirements (I prefer to say "food energy") differs from day to day. Some days I don't feel like eating much at all. Other days I have a bigger appetite. It seems North American requirements differ from that of other continents too. It's easy to forget that we're not the only continent on the planet and many cultures get by just fine on less food.

[mershwista]

I can tell you from experience that counting calories is a bad way to go. One thing I used to struggle with in my calorie counting days was overeating knowingly, thinking that at the next meal or the next day or whatever I'd just intentionally undereat. This subconsciously got it into my brain that overeating was not going to hurt me, and this was hard to get out of my head later on.

Counting calories also hinders your developing ability to naturally feel when your body is hungry and ought to eat.