At A Loss for Weight Loss

[cherrypie]

What does your typical day of food look like? I would have a tendency to agree with Emma-Liza about the fat and I even seem to remember someone sometime back (I think it was Zaphirah) saying she wasn't loosing and someone recommended she eat an avocado each day and she began loosing again. Our SAD brain often will want to do the opposite of what we should actually do such as cut out fat to loose weight. And when I don't feel I'm loosing fast enough I remind myself that my body may be healing something I didn't even know was there.

Blessings,
Heather

a typical day would be
Bkf
giant green smoothie : 1 young coconut (meat&water), 1 bunch parsley, big big handful spinch, 2 cups frozen mango (nothing added), 1 apple

Lunch: big, big green salad with everything (carrots, tomatoes, radishes, onions, red peppers)/ dressing 2tbsp olive oil raw red vine vinegar

Dinner: guacomole made of 2 avocados with tons of cruditee

[MiahTay]

If it was me (and this is MY opinion) I would UP my fruit consumption (ESPECIALLY juicy fruit) and I would run the amount of food you typically eat through a calorie counter (just for reference, not as practice) because you may not be eating enough. But I would definitely UP my consumption of juicy fruit and see if that helps - I was always taught that fruit is the cleanser and vegetables are the builders. And of course EXERCISE ... we all know this and when we don't do it, we ask questions like "why do I have a hard time loosing weight" ;). Give it time and shift things around a bit, go back to Alissa's book and reread the section where she talks about tweaking your diet after you've been raw for a little while (I don't know that she uses those exact words but you get the idea).

Blessings,
Heather

[Mango]

I have always had a very hard time losing weight while raw. I cannot do the high fat and salt and lose weight. The only way it comes off for me is to count my calories on fitday.com. I stay between 1000-1200 per day and keep the fat below 20%. You would be amazed at how quickly the calories and fat add up and don't allow you to lose the weight. Exercise is also very important. I am exercising every day.

[ArcturusXIV]

I'm going to recommend the same thing I do to everyone: colon hydrotherapy. You have no idea how much weight you might be carrying around in your intestine until it's cleaned out, and it will also help with absorption once your bowels are refined.

[miabella]

HI there! I found that incorporating the principles of a Ph balance diet with raw is proovin really successful in achieving my fast weight loss and health.

It is suggeseted by Dr Robert O' Young that things that create an acidic condition in the body such as certain foods, stress, negative thinking, toxins to name but a few lead to the body going into preservation mode by storing the acid in body fat leading to sustaining or increasing weight or buffering the acid by neutralising it with alkaline minerals found in the body such as calcium in the bones leading to osteoperosis.

Also suggested is to drink 1 Liter of water for every 40 pound of body weight and 30 pounds if your exercising.

I am acheiving awsome weight loss and heath by eating 100% raw, pretty much 100% alkaline diet (except for ACV on my vegetable salads) and great majority of Green Veg and 5 Liters of water per day. Once I have achieved my weight loss and health goals I think I will probably maintain the suggested 80% alkalinity to 20% acid without thinking about it too much.

There are alot of books written on the Ph balance for diet but one of my favourites authors is Dr Robert O'Young and his book Sick and Tired? Reclaim your inner terrain and The Ph Miracle for weight loss.

I was just supprised when I first got into this to discover what foods were alkaline and what were acid procucing. I ate alot of fruit and dates and nuts and when I stopped indulging in them and went for veggies and almonds, lemons, limes and grapefruit the weight just started falling off.

Wishing you every success!! I'ts just about enjoying the path and finding what is good for you and your body.

[rawstrength]

Hey, it sounds to me, based on your typical daily intake, that you simply aren't eating enough! It takes fat to lose fat (believe it or not!)

[Mango]

I plugged your typical day into fitday.com and you consumed 2500 calories with 69% fat. You should consume a lot less calories and fat if you want to lose weight. One coconut has 1400 calories alone! A typical rule of thumb for how many calories to consume to lose weight is if you want to weigh 130lbs you should consume 1300 calories, 120lbs-1200calories, etc.

[MiahTay]

I plugged your typical day into fitday.com and you consumed 2500 calories with 69% fat. You should consume a lot less calories and fat if you want to lose weight. One coconut has 1400 calories alone! A typical rule of thumb for how many calories to consume to lose weight is if you want to weigh 130lbs you should consume 1300 calories, 120lbs-1200calories, etc.

I could be wrong, but it was my understanding that young coconut were not as calorie dense as mature coconut.

I found it ... Here's a link they say that a young coconut has 140 calories - a HUGE difference when you are looking at calorie content. I thought I had seen a post awhile ago by raweater talking about this.

Blessings,
Heather

[oai]

holy mac! 1 coconut has 1400 calories?!!! NO WAY! whether it's 1400 or 140, there ya go, if anyone needs fat, just go for the coconut. delicious, delicious... just delicious!

for losing weight, i really lean towards cleansing. it's like getting an oil/filter change for your car. sure. you can add in more oil(good oil) to increase the fluid levels to max, it's less work, faster & easier, but it's not like letting all that old oil drain out and replacing it with new oil. your car will last longer, if you keep doing the maintenance it needs.

it's the same way with your body. clean the junk out. i truly do believe that the good living foods you eat and healthy exercise you do will reflect more on your body once it's gone through some major cleanses, if you've had a history of bad eating, severe stress, etc....

personally, with every cleanse i do, i just don't budge a certain weight each time. at 140, i can eat like a pig, & i wouldn't budge that weight. at 135, same story. now i'm at 130, & every time i look at the scale, i can't help but chuckle, b/c it's just not budging beyond 130. i only eat fruits & veggies. mostly fruits. i don't eat nuts, avocados, seeds (wait! i eat coconut! & I'm not sure what it classifies as ) or sprouts. i don't like the taste of most, & i just haven't sprouted before.

it seems everyone has different experiences with what works for them. you've received tons of helpful strategies that everyone has personally experienced. try one different thing at a time. maybe adding more fat? try that and see if you get improvements. restricting calories? you can try that, too. maybe try a different strategy every month. you'll get there! :)

[smsaler]

Great suggestions! I've tried some of these- I did a round of colonics before I went raw. I've done food combining. Food combining did nothing. The colonics didn't help me lose weight- but I felt awesome afterwards and much more connected to how what I eat impacts my body. When I first went 100%I was eating much more fat- nuts, raw chocolate bars, avocados etc... Perhaps its true-those of you who commented on the "eat more, lose more" philosophy. or maybe its just eat more often?

For ex, yesterday I ate

Green smoothie- tons of kale, grapes, apple, gogi berries, hemp powder, lemon

2 clementines

a broccoli patty on pizza bread with sprouts and ginger/tahini dressing

salad of mung beans, cabbage, snap peas, pepper, ginger/tahini dressing

1 slice of chocolate/almond butter pie

water, water, water

[oai]

hehe. gal. let us know what works for ya after a while. :) i haven't reached my GW yet either, although i don't even know what my GW is. i'm just hoping to feel it, when i get there.

anyway, *high five!* girl. keep trucking! :)

[annavon]

smsaler:

I too have experienced s l o w weight loss. What's worse, I was on a business trip and ate some cooked food for a week and I gained five pounds. I lost a couple since then. Before that my loss was an average of 1.25 pounds a week. It was very slow the first month and then it started coming off. I started excercising more and also started juice fasting one - two days a week. The fasting seems to really help. I don't find that limiting avocados has any effect on my weight loss. In fact, it seems to help. Avos are high in fiber and nutirients. I didn't consciously cut down on nuts, but I have found that I don't want too many. I use mostly sunflower seeds and a small amount of almond butter. I also have some success when adding spices to my food like cayanne pepper and ginger. They are supposed to raise the metabolism. I am pretty sure I have an extremely low metabolism as I am cold all the time. (I live in Arizona and keep my house at 80-82 degrees during the hot season and I am comfortable). I am currently tying to build some muscle to raise my metabolism, which partly accounts for some of my weight gain.

[Vegan sista]

Eating Raw does amazing things for your health...but to lose weight it is calories in and calories out period..you admitted that your exercise has slacked...you have to step it up...your metabolism is slowing down you have to move more than you imagine to see a significant change...I also have alot of weight to lose..I exercise 6days a week I get my heartrate up between 70-90% and I'm seeing amazing results with inches and weightloss..I don't eat alot of nuts but I do eat half an avocado everyday...the bottom line is that you have to move,sweat and push your body to see a significant change...being 50+ pounds overweight we dont have the luxury of just doing yoga or strolling around the neighborhood....just my two cents

[greenday]

Yep, totally understand where you are coming from! I am a SLOW loser, too. But this year I did manage to lose 30 lbs (and am still amazed by it, really). How? Different from any expectations I had - that's for sure. I always lived with the assumption that I had to be some kind of work out Nazi at the gym sweating and running around until I dropped....and that I had to watch everything I put in my mouth (raw or not). Truth is, it wasn't that dramatic. I had it all built up in my mind and it was a personal roadblock for sure.

So, what I did was the following - focused on a broader picture:

1. Made changes in my life to get enough sleep every night (7-8 hrs) - underrated but important!

2. Made changes in my life and mindset to reduce stress or find ways to more effectively deal with the stresses I couldn't eliminate. This consisted of physical changes in my environment/work schedule and tapping into positive thinking people, books, websites to help my journey. This was not so much a major focus as 'support' for the following two things.

3. I stopped obsessing over what I ate and just ate mostly raw what I felt like and when. The times I wasn't absolutely 'raw' I made very conscious choices to eat whole, unprocessed foods that were mostly vegan. Was I hungry on occasion? Sure. For me having a tummy growl once in awhile was a new experience and I learned to live with it. I ate regularly though - at least 3 meals a day...just smaller and healthier than in the past.

4. THE BIG ONE - this is the single most important factor in my weight loss and I'm 100% sure of it. Walking. That's it.....so simple it still amazes me. I walked every day, or at minimum 6 times a week and I walked anywhere from 3-7 miles a day. Not always all at once either! Sometime 3-4 mi in the morning and 3 miles in the evening. If you think that's far....it's really not as bad as it sounds. At a moderate to brisk pace (and of course this will vary by person, but for me it worked out this way) - walk 30 minutes in any direction from your house then turn around. Voile 1 hour = 3 miles. I checked this out with my car and lo and behold it was spot on accurate!

And, I did some basic weight training with hand weights and an exercise ball to tone up, too.

Here's the rub.......when I first started I didn't lose ANY weight. In fact in the 2nd week I actually gained 5 lbs!!! I wanted to cry and couldn't figure out what happened. I just stayed the course. Another week went by and nothing. Then in the middle of the 3rd week.....bam I dropped the 5 lbs. And so it went from there in cycles of about 3 weeks. Nothing, then a 3-5 lb loss and I had this zigzag pattern going. I guess everyone is different.

Where I'm at now - I fell off the wagon with my walking discipline for a few months (#2 changed a lot for me and I'm still figuring this out) and you know what happened to my weight? Flatline. No gain no loss. 3 months of flatline. So the good news here is that I can maintain the loss! But....I still have a ways to go to get to my goal.

So, I'm back doing exercise again and refocusing on raw. I'm in the middle of week 2 and guess what? Yep, I gained 5 lbs. Jeezzz..... like a bad rerun. But I'm keeping steady with the faith that around week 3 I'll get my drop again and off we go!

I hope that helps. I know it's very different for us all in how things work, but the point I wanted to make is - DON'T GIVE UP! And, also that consistency of exercise is way more important than the 'showiness' of it. Simple walking and weight training is great when you're starting out!

Have an excellent day! :)

[annavon]

Wow Greenday, that sounds like me. I always gain a couple of pounds before my weight drops. One thing I forgot to say is that it is important to not obsess over what the scale says, pay attention to the way your clothes fit and measurement etc. The scale can be misleading. Some people even put it away. I admit that I weigh nearly every day, but it is kind of a ritual like brushing my teeth. I mostly just like to see if there is a trend, one direction or the other. (if it is too much in the wrong direction, then I re-think what I am doing).