More hubby help, please!

[fruitandveggies]

Hi everyone! All of your great wisdom helped my hubby last year with his candida problems and now he is pretty balanced in that area!

However, yesterday something happened that really concerned me. We have been doing about 95% raw for the past week. I got a bunch of nice veggies and fruits and nuts and things for us and we just planned to keep it chill and eat simple (no big gourmet meals). This is great for me!

Here's the rub: while eating this way is great for me and my eating habits, he is quite thin and muscular and is used to just eating a little bit here and there of high calorie, low water density foods. So, while he would used to have a small bowl of eggs and a piece of toast with butter, he now would have a banana and a few strawberries for breakfast. To him, it looks like the same amount of food and since the raw food has so much good stuff in it (and is more water dense), he gets full quickly on it and doesn't get enough calories to sustain him. He just told me yesterday that he has been very faint and cold for the past week. Last night he was practically about to pass out---he was acting like his blood sugar was super-low (my dad is diabetic, so I've seen some scary stuff)!

Now, I know most of you aren't very concerned about calories, but I did the math and he is getting around 450 calories a day. That is not good at all by any standard (except in a fast, perhaps). He's a full grown man--I would expect maybe somewhere around 1800 to 2200 calories a day would be good?

So, does anyone have any advise on what foods are more calorie dense? I want him to be able to thrive on raw and not eat just nuts and avocados all day--nor have to have him be chewing on huge amounts of vegetation to get his calories up.

Any men out there have any tips for me to share with him?

Thank you so much for your help---I'm very very concerned about him!

[klomasius]

450 calories a day? :eek:

I am not one to worry about calories, but I understand some need to.

My suggestion would be smoothies including nuts, avocados, coconut oil, high calorie fruits like durian and bananas and nut butters. And green smoothies with avocado.

If he can, try to get him to eat more as well. He can eat more low calorie foods, or the same amount of high calorie foods, I'd suggest a combination of both for the best results.

He's definitely not eating enough calories at the moment, that definitely needs to change!

Hope he feels better!

[mattshor]

I'd like to second klomasius. If he feels like he's not getting enough food, well, he's not getting enough food. At ~100% I still need a good amount of food to feel like I have enough energy to keep going. That's great that you all are keeping it simple, but you may want to think about simple ways to incorporate more nuts and fatty fruit into his diet. Nut pâtés don't take much time, you can vary them immensely and I find them to be super filling, tasty and dense. Tahini is a great substitute for peanut butter (and way cheaper than almond butter) and you can mix it up with a little honey for something sweet, or with parsley and lemon as a more savory dip. I posted a recipe here for greet tahini (popular in Lebanon and Israel on just about everything) that takes less than 5 minutes to make.

You can also add a handful of nuts to smoothies, they end up being just a bit more filling and have a load more calories and fat in them, but they taste about the same.

Experiment :-)

[fruitandveggies]

Thank you so much for your replies! We have the crappiest blender on planet earth, but I am still determined to make some smoothies--I am sure you're right that putting some higher calorie food in there will make it easier for him to get enough.

Matt---what do you usually find yourself eating in a typical day? Any ideas for a good breakfast? I feel like if he gets off to a good start, it won't be such a struggle for him during the day.
I will definately try the tahini! I never have actually tasted it--for some reason I just imagined it to be salty, is it?

[RAWmen-Noodles]

Even though I am not a man, I have a very high metabolism that is like a wood burning stove. I will get hypoglycemic quick if I do not eat at least every hour. Even if it is just a handful of nuts. I had to make some crackers in the dehydrator and spread almond butter on them to keep me sustained a little longer. I stuffed as much as I could into a smoothie. The first ingredient is always an avacado. Dried apples also seem to keep me fuller and more steady.