Greetings! I am becoming familiar with Raw Foods and am very intrigued by what I am learning...I am a 39 year old vegetarian/almost vegan...mother of 4 1/2 year old twin boys and an 11 month old boy...husband is very supportive of making healthier eating choices. Both of us could lose about 10 pounds, but not much more than that...how do you maintain weight on Raw? It seems like a lot of folk lose a lot of weight....and we want our focus to primarily be on the health benefits, not mostly losing weight....Thanks for your input! Deb

Opinion:

-Many folks lose EXCESS weight when eating fresh fruit and vegetables. You can regulate your own weight loss. Eating heavier raw foods....eating less often....bigger meals.....eating late at night.....and lifting weights promotes weight gain.

-Eating smaller and more frequent meals.......eating early morning........eating simpler with less combining....and more vegetables.....promotes weight loss.

-An aerobic exercise program should help a person regulate their weight...and lose any extra weight in the long run.

-I hope these suggestions are helpful to you.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

That is helpful info. Thank you David! Deb

Adding to what David said, a lot of people typically undereat when they go raw. They cut out almost all of the foods from their current diet, and don't add enough back in!!! Try new foods, even foods you may not have liked before (I hated olives, now I love them, same goes for almost everything I eat now) and make sure you eat enough so you are not hungry

Salads are great, you can put anything in the world in it and some fruit to sweeten it up and just fill up on that without one ounce of guilt. One of my favorite combinations would be (lettuce/greens obviously) oranges and their juice mixed with avocado, apples, pecans/walnuts, and some raisins with some olive oil on top. And if you like onions (red), and other vegetables.

TO date, just wanna add that after 27 days @100 percent raw my hubby is down 25 lbs! I am sooo proud of him. (He is 6'9 and was pushing 300)

My youngest, who is 8 and has been about 75 percent raw (he was nearly 25 lbs overweight, poor thing), is down 6 lbs for the month.

Me, I have no idea. I refuse to go on the scale til I hit the 1 month mark. I think I lost @10 lbs early on and now my can wear a pair of size 6 cargo capris I've not been able to wear in 2 yrs. I am not losing as fast, but am feeling loads better--which is the main thing for me.

I think maintaining would not be so difficult if you ate heavier meals. However, I've noticed that my fat intake has been tapering off significantly and my desire for heavy foods is fast diminishing too.

All the best,

Mia

Mia

Thank you Mia and all who have responded...what a wonderful community you have here! I have ordered Alisa Cohens book and should get it this week. I won a Champion Juicer with Grain Mill attachment on EBAY and we made fresh bread...delicious {not raw of course!}, and am exploring options for dehydrators etc. Have also been sprouting and love those fenugreek sprouts! I am also nursing my 11 3/4 month old.....thinking about what I need to take into account with going raw.....don't mean to ramble on so, but I am excited about this journey...and thrilled that my hubby is supportive too! Have a wonderful day everyone! Deb

oh deb, my family's been on it nearly a month and it is THE BEST THING WE'VE EVER DONE.

My youngest is taking to it the best. He asks now ONLY FOR fruit for breakfast and snack.

Mia

Deb-
my husband and i have done raw foods, juice fasts, all fruits/all veggies and so on and so forth for three years now. we're not 100% raw 100% of the time, and the husband is less consistent, but we haven't found severe weight loss to be an issue. we were both relatively healthy (oh my, after a few fun detoxes) when we started incorporating these ways of eating, and so weight loss wasn't something our bodies totally needed to do.
i was pregnant and had a baby in there and still we maintained a mostly raw diet and felt great. i do sprout/soak grains/legumes/nuts for pancakes for the little guy and the husband, and we do use raw dairy, which is not really supported here, but i found is really helpful for dense nutrients. lots of cold-pressed oils, coconuts, avocados, seeds (pumpkin and flax) and things like that in our salads probably also help.
we're getting a share this year from the local organic farm which will force us to eat more veggies that we would probably avoid, which is also a great way to get new and interesting foods. we'll be forced to eat a lot and it will be organic veggies, since we hate to waste anything!

peace-

...More wonderful info.inspiration and ideas!!! Thank you! I think I need to start a new thread about ideas for family {how do you make pancakes with sprouts?} and Raw family info.! Looking forward to more sharing! Deb

Considering the fact that I am 29 weeks pregnant and just starting my raw food diet less than a week ago, I don't want to lose too much weight. However, I do want to get to the point that the weight will fall off very quickly after birth.

Just started my rawfood journey and blogging daily about it here: [journeyforhealth.blogspot.com]

woah... i just wanted to say that i have noticed a LARGE twin mother population here LOL.. my boys will be 6 in july.... i have been 80 raw for ever.. but am trying to push the limits now...

ANytime i try to push to 100 i immediatly loose about 10 pounds and then the rest comes off slowly 1-2 a week.... i almost always plateau at about 145 too.... argh.... but if i were to persist, i know it would push through...

jut do what your body is communicating to you.... and there is NO way you can go wrong by adding more unprossessed fruits and veggies.....

love and light
tiffntwins