Starting, gaining weight, falling on and off wagon

[M3F]

I started about a month ago but had 2 weekends of camping in a row and ate heaps of terribly naughty food. in fact, in the last month even despite being mostly raw ive put on 5kg. i thought the forum may help figure out why i keep bailing off and where i am going wrong and gaining even when i am 100%. im 5'4" and 165lbs (was 154lb when i started raw and was 147lb 6 months ago) all my bloods are fine except iron which has been low my whole life, and i want to get down to 120lb which is my best weight for running. please help me get it sorted once and for all.

[Revvell]

Not enough information. Age makes a difference; eating "heaps of terribly naughty food" makes a difference; exercise makes a difference.... we have no clue what you're calling raw and/or whatever else you are doing. Are you keeping a food journal? Often helps!

[M3F]

age 27. the weekends i referred to heaps of terrible food meant i ate a fair bit of baking, some chips, nachos etc... raw for me is fresh fruit and veggies, nuts, seeds, though sometimes dried fruit sneaks in which i dont really class as raw, or at least not to be eating as often as i do. i write everything down on myfitnesspal. i am a runner, though not at the moment but i normally run 20-40km a week, i also dance one night a week and walk heaps doing day to day stuff. im not a terrible eater in every day life. i eat a lot of fruit and veggies but before raw it was often cooked, and there was some meat, and i have a wee addiction to cheese on toast which is bad news, and it is quite common for me to have a choc bar every couple of days. i certainly dont eat fast food or pies or anything like that though and have never really eating over 2000 calories a day unless on a wee bit of a bender

[MysticTree]

age 27. the weekends i referred to heaps of terrible food meant i ate a fair bit of baking, some chips, nachos etc... raw for me is fresh fruit and veggies, nuts, seeds, though sometimes dried fruit sneaks in which i dont really class as raw, or at least not to be eating as often as i do. i write everything down on myfitnesspal. i am a runner, though not at the moment but i normally run 20-40km a week, i also dance one night a week and walk heaps doing day to day stuff. im not a terrible eater in every day life. i eat a lot of fruit and veggies but before raw it was often cooked, and there was some meat, and i have a wee addiction to cheese on toast which is bad news, and it is quite common for me to have a choc bar every couple of days. i certainly dont eat fast food or pies or anything like that though and have never really eating over 2000 calories a day unless on a wee bit of a bender

cut out the non-vegan and non-raw foods and don't worry about the dried fruit as long as it's raw and you'll be fine.

[speltrong]

Yep, I agree with Georgina. I also wanted to point out that sometimes we see things as "wee addictions", but they're not really wee at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure the words wee and addiction probably don't belong together in the same sentence. :-) Point being, you could be eating more of the naughty foods than you are estimating.

[M3F]

when i am on track and actually eating raw i dont eat any non raw or non vegan food thats why i thought the dried fruit may be to blame for my weight gain. im so frustrated at the mo. my cheese on toast 'addiction' as i call it means that i can eat really well but that is the one thing that always trips me up. every 2 - 3 nights ill have one sometimes two slices (talking bout my old eating here not when on raw) i write everything down on myfitnesspal so i dont see how i could be underestimating. im just so frustrated over the whole thing. the fruits and veggies we can get here are very limited and there isnt many of us at all. im so close to going back on a healthy cooked diet since i lost weight on it

[MysticTree]

i write everything down on myfitnesspal so i dont see how i could be underestimating.

if you are writing everything down then there is ample opportunity for you to see what it is that you are about to eat and you must be weighing it all before eating it in order not to be underestimating. This is not my experience of "naughty food eating". Mostly it's something people are not honest about with themselves.

If your main objective is to lose weight rather than to be eating a heathful diet then do whatever works best for you but ... if you follow raw 100% then you will lose weight and you will lose weight significantly. So try cutting out the dried fruit. Unless you are getting it from a truly raw source then it's likely to be covered in waxes and oils and have sulphates added to preserve colour.

Check the rawness of the foods that you are eating on the raw plan. Are they actually raw? If you can't get nuts that haven't had heat treatment in their production then cut them out. Sunflower and pumpkin seeds are easy to get in a raw state and you can check this by seeing if they sprout.

You can even use the ones that come with the hulls removed for sprouting - just remove the broken and damaged pieces first - if they sprout then they are raw, especially if they are organic. The only thing you need to watch out for is chemically pasteurised foods. Organic products don't use this method; if organic foods are pasteurised then it will have been done with heat.

Before you decide raw isn't for you, you need to have actually done it properly. Eating cheese on toast every couple of days isn't doing it properly.

[M3F]

So try cutting out the dried fruit. Unless you are getting it from a truly raw source then it's likely to be covered in waxes and oils and have sulphates added to preserve colour.

this is very much what i assumed about dried fruit here which is why i want to stay away from it but its good to have it confirmed. i dont really eat nuts and seeds becuase they dont tend to agree with me but the ones i do eat say raw, but that doesnt mean a lot around here.

i dont have to weigh things i eat badly since 2 slices of cheese is 30g every time plus a peice of bread, or a pixie caramel is the same calories all the time. its very much a mind over matter thing. if i decide i want to eat something then i will move heaven and hell to eat it. i think i need to be locked up in order to stop eating. lol. ive done 7 days raw before - fruit and veg only and gained 5 pounds but next time ill try stay at it longer and see if i just have to go up to go down. ill give it another shot though cos i do feel better when i eat raw. i just have so many food issues i struggle to stay on and then get upset when i dont manage. i am also a hugely social person which makes it so hard

[MysticTree]

i dont have to weigh things i eat badly since 2 slices of cheese is 30g every time plus a peice of bread

I forget that people use processed or pre-sliced things. I never did that even on the most non-raw foods!

[Saria]

have you tried fasting at all? Fasting on nothing but water is the only thing that helped me overcome addictions to junk foods. I was very addicted and eating way, way too much of them.

[devil's angel]

how many nuts do u eat per day ? the more nuts and seeds the more weight u will gain on a raw food diet . the little addictions will not benifit ur weight either . u should probably cut down ur nuts to (measure it ) a cup a day . this should help . i think that a high fruit diet is one of the quickest and easiest to follow b/c u just need one huge salad (huge b/c im currently pregnant) or at least one liter of green smoothie a day , tons of fruit throughout the rest of the day . nuts should be eaten very lightly . this might be ur problem . good luck and hope that u are able to find what u want in a raw food diet .

[EmpowerEnergetics]

I'm inclined to agree with "devil's angel" on this one. You might look into The 80/10/10 Diet by Dr. Douglas Graham, which talks explicitly about why it is important to get that 10%--and 10% only--of your daily calories from fat. Granted, this is on a raw food diet, or at the very least a whole-foods, unprocessed vegan one...In my experience, that tends to be the #1 "mistake" people make when shifting to a raw food diet: too many nuts especially!

I'm not quite sure what your first foray into raw foods involved, but I was wondering if you've ever tried a cleanse of any sort. A water fast, as "Hollycfx" suggested, might be a good idea, or a juice fast or something similar. Also, if it's in your budget, herbal tinctures for the detoxifying of various systems (endocrine, adrenal, etc) can be HUGELY helpful in cleansing yourself and moving past those pesky cravings. Cravings can be attributed to all sorts of factors, but one major possibility is a parasite or candida--most people today have one or more of this issues going on inside them. You can also get tinctures with things like black walnut hull or grapefruit seed in them which will help with killing off anything fungal or parasitic. The most efficient way to cleanse, of course, is to eat lots and lots of fresh fruits, with vegetables and a few nuts/seeds.

If you're looking for a way to track your calories and nutrients along the 80/10/10 route, there's a tool called the cronometer, which you can set to the 80/10/10 proportions of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. I use it and love it.

[Saria]

I'm always wanting to eat a lot of nuts i really like them. I'm very new to raw, so i don't know how they affect my weight yet. So a cup a day is ok/normal?

[devil's angel]

for most people yes ... if u notice ur starting to gain weight make it a little less . a cup is a starting point to find out how much each person can handle , some people need more some need less . i know there are several people out there that only have one cups worth of nuts per wk ... do a food journal and put down how much , how many calories , and ur weight along with everything else u eat . write down a daily note of how what u ate made u feel . some recipes stuff up my sinuses , some clear them out , some things make my feet warm and others make me really thirsty . there are a ton of different ways to do raw , but u need to find the one that suits u !! good luck , and dont be discouraged , if eating nothing but raw nuts with lots of greens and furit is ur thing then feel good and be raw !!! be careful of ur nuts not all of them are actually raw . ur system will digust them much better if u soak them 2 hrs to overnight before eating them . this makes there live enzymes better and starts the slow process of sprouting (gernerally this takes about 3 to 7 days for actaul sprounting to accur . ) im not an expert on sprouting , so check out the sprouting section on this forum for more complete info .