Brian
http://brianonhealth.com

I know what you mean, Ashley, when you talk about weight loss, weakness, lightheadedness. I had that for the first 5 months or so. My weight, normally 56 kg and skinny, was dropping and I said that if it reached 50 I would go on high raw. Then, with a bit of help from Dr Douglas Grayams book 80 10 10, (which alothough I think he takes the food quantities to extreme I highly recommend that you get a copy of) I turned things around and am back to my usual weight and even have a small amount of fat to grab on my stomach. I work 12 hour industrial cleaning shifts in coal mining.

Here are a few facts that may help you. 1 medium-large bananna=1slice of whole wheat bread, the best part of 1 cup of pasta, or 1 cup of rolled outs porridge. 1 apple or pear is about 70 calories – more than one weetbix (56 Cal). Energy is not hard to get on raw food it you know where it is and what quantities to eat. To find out how many calories you need go to http://www.nutritionadata.com. Do not listen to people who say there is a lot of energy in dark greens. Dark greens have hardly any calories. They are an excellent sorce of protein and iron and you should have plenty of them in your diet. They make you feel energetic but the energy is not actually coming from them.

After a few months on raw my appetite was getting less and less, and I thought “well my body knows whats best” and followed it. After a while of loosing weight and feeling bad, I said to my body “Ok, you have had your turn, now you listen to me” I aimed for first 2000, then 2500 cal per day. I felt better immediately and my weight went up back to what it was before.

Typically I eat a veggie meal in the morning including 50g nuts and 100g sprouted lentils. often I have raw potato salad (incredibly better than it sounds) and a cob of sweet corn. 5 hours later I eat 1 litre of green smothie containing about 6 bananas and half an avocado a 150gm bag of spinach and some pineapple or other fruit, four hours later I might have six oranges or a pineapple or a couple of rock,honeydw melons, and for tea another 4 or more bananas an avocado and some other fruit like half a large pineapple or pawpaw. I am a studying naturopath and just learned from medical sorces that the typical stomach can hold about 1.5 Litres of food before any pressure changes occur. I find that 1 litre is not a problem, you have to build up to this over a few weeks though if your not used to it. If your worried about the glycaemic indications of such a large amount of fruit, fruit fibre tends to hold back the sugar and prevent it from spiking your blood sugar. This is not true of fruit juices so avoid large quantities of them.

I have just been working on my protein needs and found that I was consistently eating below RDI. http://www.nutritiondata has helped me sort that one out. What I found is that some nuts are very poor protein and others are good protein. Cashews, pepitas, sunflowerseeds and linseed all provide complete or close to complete protein. with many of the other nuts you can close to halve the protein they contain as the amino acid balance is not there. Some are even less than this. Dark greens contain about 3g/100gm good quality protein, and broccoli and many other veggies about 2 grams per 100. Do not listen to any claims that sprouts or dark greens contain more protein than meat. That is absolute rubbish as they are 80 or more percent water and cannot possibly contain more than 20% protein.

I try and vary my diet as widely as possible. If you want some of my raw food recipies or to read more of my experience please feel free to find me on facebook as Amos Thiel. In my notes you will find some of my experiences and recipies which I have started posting. Wait about a week and I will put quite a few more up.

Good luck and remember that its not a sin to eat cooked food, but eating lots and lots of raw will always be brilliant for health. As a note on high raw though, my Chronic fatigue did not yeild to 70% raw, but has gone on 100%

Regards, Amos

What a blessing to finally find others who have been there, done that, and come full circle. I’ve been fruitlessly googling the words “gained weight on raw” for months. Now how do I come back?

We must know when to walk away from an ‘ideal’ before it makes us really ill and unable to reverse the damage that can and so often does,occur eating raw vegan.Thank god i did,and you did Andrew before we suffered anymore than we needed to!

My stomach was even less happy with raw and vegan than it was with just plain vegan.

Ironically, on my current, animal based diet, no gas, no allergies, no eczema, no acne…