Not enough calories?

[piccolittle]

Does anyone else feel like they're not getting enough calories? I keep reading about people being astounded by how much they can eat, but I find it almost impossible to eat enough! On average every day I barely break 400, and I'm eating way more than I ever thought I could!

Any tips? I want to get most of my calories from greens/citrus fruits as I find I feel and look so much better on an alkalizing diet... But it seems I can't get enough salad and green smoothies in. Really want to stay away from nuts and avocado as it's kind of a slippery slope with me and I can't have just one... :rolleyes:

Today I had:

Half a grapefruit
Two clementines

(In smoothie)
Cup of (frozen) spinach
Two bananas
Green powder
One lemon

(In another smoothie)
Half head of romaine
Cup of (frozen) spinach
Green powder

When I calculated all this on fitday, it gave me just about 500 calories... Maybe I need to start snacking on veggies instead of fruit?

Would love to hear any input or advice. Thanks!

[raw runner]

i agree with you on this one,i feel the same too.When i count my calories,i am at about 700 which is too low.
So i developped deficiencies and now to counteract it i just cook some brown rice to increase my caloric intake.
For example,today i ate

3 organic bananas
three cups of coffee
250 grams of dandelions with olive oil and a pinch of salt
1 orange 1 apple
30 grams of organic raw cacao nibs
250 grams of white rice mixed with beans

i think it is about 1500 calories to 1700 calories,i am 5 foot 8 inches weighing about 180 pounds.
I still manage to lose weight and i don't exercise no more.So to bump up the caloric intake you should add a bit of grains to your diet,legumes but not so often.

[T-Bird]

If you're only consuming 400 cals a day, pile up the avocados for goodness sake!

Even if you ate 5 (and I think even I'd get sick on that, lol) You'd still be ok.

Maybe a guaco-smoothie? I put in 1 cup cilantro, 1/2 lime juiced, pinch of salt, large tomato and avocado, blend. Yum.

You will want to rinse and repeat! LOL! So maybe in a smoothie you won't go over pig on the avos?

[gs4life]

eat more fruit. you can't possibly get enough calories while trying to have mostly leafy greens--as you know, they are very low in calories.

if you want to be 100% raw then there is no need for cooked carbs...your body is looking for raw carbs...the body runs on sugar: eat more fruit!

[Dimond]

The first year or two, you should be eating much more. No need to count calories, just add more food per meal and eat more often 5-6 times or more. Add the fats to meals like soups (savory smoothies) or other meals.

[juliew]

same thing happened to me and i dropped to 88 lbs! i started adding raw tahini to banana smoothies (sooooo yummy) and eating raw cookies made with nuts and i gained back like 5 lbs. you can eat avocados all day and won't gain weight i discovered. i was eating like 4 a day and lost weight. just add in some nuts and you'll be ok on calories. or get a higher calorie green powder like LivingFuel...?
good luck :)

[piccolittle]

Hmmm... thanks for the advice guys! I've just tried upping my breakfast to a whole grapefruit, and for lunch I had a zucchini, three stalks of celery, and some little carrots in guacamole. Now I'm stuffed!! It's around 5 PM now here, and I can't even imagine thinking about dinner, but I know that I probably have gotten in around 400 calories at the most.

So, basically what I now want to know is: do you guys eat when you're not hungry? I find I'm almost never hungry except late at night, but I wait until the morning. When I am hungry, an orange or something completely fills me up for the next two hours or so! Maybe I just have a super slow metabolism?

[sport]

You do not seem to be getting enough Essential Fatty Acids either.
I can not imagine living on as little as you. My smoothie today was made of
6 oranges
2 kiwis
I papaya
i Banana
A good amount of hemp seeds.
Green powder
Lots of spinach and lambs lettuce.

This was breakfast proper. Half an hour prior to that I had half a watermelon just to keep me going till breakfast.

I have since had a large bowl of icecream made of walnuts, (and 3 brazil nuts for selenium) 4 bananas, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.

I am making guac for dinner with flax crackers.

I will have a snack about 9PM of maybe an apple or half a honeydew.

I am a little person but I feel that I need that much food.

[T-Bird]

Piccolittle,

You have got to start eating more! Your body is shutting down with not giving you hunger signals - it thinks there is a famine and none to be found.

Forget the grapefruit for breakfast - do a green smoothie with the grapefruit, a banana, and a handful of greens. Keep sipping till it's gone. Try to increase this as you go on until you have 2 cups of greens, and 2 bananas or even more fruit.

You are at a point where your body may start eating muscle tissue - including the heart muscle.

How much do you weigh now? What did you eat prior to raw?

I am seriously worried about you!

[Veronica01]

When you're eating so little your stomach and digestive system is shrinking making you feel full at one piece of fruit. You must eat more fruit, a zuchini has like 10 calories and celery barely counts as well. Your body will turn to eating muscle after all your fat is gone and it is starving. You base metabolic rate has got to be atleast 2-3 times you daily average of 400 calories, so if you do not eat food your body is going to turn on itself. You have to train your stomach to expand and practice eating fruit more frequently if you get full fast, smoothies will help get more nutrition into you.

[rawstrength]

You need to EAT! Alissa talks about this in her book.
Don't be afraid of "acid" foods. Just being on a raw vegan diet automatically makes your body more alkaline. And you can always balance out any excess acid foods that you eat with a nice been green drink.

[piccolittle]

I love you guys! Thanks so much for the concern. I have to admit to being slightly flattered that some of you think I might not have fat to spare :p

Hmm... I guess my stomach has shrunk from being in the habit of snacking and not eating big meals. I guess I was kind of semi-anorexic a few years ago so the idea of eating more than one piece of fruit in a sitting or having anything other than greens and balsamic vinegar in a salad is a little hard to accept. Also I suppose being at the library all day because of exams makes it hard to sneak out every 10 minutes to eat- which is what I think I'm going to have to do!

Choking down a blender-ful of green smoothie and a big spinach salad for dinner. Was considering having grapes as a snack later but I don't think I can manage it! Yeah this sounds pretty sad... :rolleyes: but don't flunk me out of raw just yet! lol

[Springtime]

I'm concerned.

If you have a history of ED, and if the idea of having other stuff than greens in a salad is hard to accept for you, i don't think you should continue being raw for now.

Don't get me wrong, i have no intention of "kicking you out" or anything, it's just that i think you need to work on how you look at food and eating before going raw. Being raw means eating loads more than you would on a SAD diet. A lunch salad on a raw diet is like an entire bowl instead of the small plate we used to have on SAD.

Adding grapes, zucchis, celery and greens, i mean it's great, but they're all super super low in calories. You need to start adding avocados, nuts, seeds, bananas, raw oil dressings et.c. instead, because your body needs loads more.

and don't worry about you're weight or whatever. raw heals, and that's all that matters.

[Irish_Vegan_Girl]

How about some bananas and oh grapes - really good for cals!

[Veronica01]

Yeah when you are on raw your total views on food change and you are supposed to be surprised at how much fresh fruits and greens you should be and CAN eat. But if you are still under the impression that one piece of fruit is a meal or a small salad is half your dinner then you do have a long way to go to visually and mentally accepting how much food your body needs before it gets used to it and tells you on it's own. The mind is very powerful and it looks like you've distorted your views on food with it.

Most thin people have an alarmingly high fat percentage as well as a lot under eat, eat the wrong types of foods and don't exercise as much as people trying to build muscle or lose weight. I'm not worried that you wouldn't have any fat to lose, but that is not the point. The first point is to get your head around knowing how many calories you visually need to eat in a day to survive, getting yourself in the habit of frequent small meals until you can have at least 3 somewhat larger meals than you're eating now, and then once you have your calorie consumption under control you can start worrying about building muscle and decreasing body fat. it is impossible to be healthy and not have muscle tone and atleast a moderate amount of strength. Embrace eating to live and turn it into a positive thing, don't let your mind tell you "that's too much" or "that's all i need/deserve" etc or going raw for health will be futile and extremely dangerous. You need support from other people as well and you won't get positive results if they view small amounts of fruit and salad as "all you need to eat" as well. Surround yourself with people you can learn from and start eating to live.