Hi there. I have been doing raw for about 2 or 3 months. I lost about 20 lbs VERY quickly and several inches, it was amazing! I had never seen anything like it in my life, in all my YEARS of dieting!!!!!! I have Fibromyalgia, among several other things, and I have been feeling better and better. Of course, I still have bad Fibro, but it's better. It's amazing. HOWEVER. I've been stalled for a couple months and I know what it is...I just need advice though. FIRST...I don't exercise. It is SOOOO hard to get started!!!! I KNOW, full and well w/ all my head and heart, that once I get started, in a couple weeks, I'll be going good and feeling much better. But it's just so hard. SECOND...I eat a LOT of nut butter. For my breakfast and my evening snack...I have quite a LOT of diff nut butters mixed w/ coconut oil, honey, cacao nibs, and maybe some maca powder and eat it w/ a banana. It is HEAVENLY!!!!!!!! I am SOOOOOO addicted to it!!!!!!!!! And I know anything u are addicted to is something u need to give up. But I'm wondering...how would I get my fat? How much fat do I need? I also have a BIG green smoothie in the morning/afternoon. I have a big pitcher and I fill it evenly w/ fresh apple and carrot juices. So I take about 3 cups of that, a frozen banana, a big handful of frozen blueberries and mixed fruit, wheatgrass powder, hemp seeds, bee pollen, a scoop of this really good whole food vanilla protein powder that's loaded w/ good vitamins and good stuff, and a little sweetener (agave or raw honey)....I think that's all I put in it, does that sound amazingly healthy & yummy though?!?!?!? Seriously!!!!! And then I may eat some grapes. And then a salad w/ mixed baby lettuces w/ spinach and some bagged brocolli slaw mix, maybe some shredded cabbage slaw (the dry bagged mix u can buy) and then I make & dehydrate this "walnut burger" stuff and then this "brocolli w/ chedda" recipes I put on my salad and I make this YUMMY caesar salad dressing I have in a book which is made w/ pumpkin seeds. YUMMY SALAD. Pretty big salad. So what do u think???? I think I'm doing AMAZINGLY except for the two items above. I think that if I wld get going w/ exercise good, that I cld even keep the PB. But then I saw the youtube video where Matt and Paul were duking it out over cacao and Matt saing it was a good intermediary food...but I think I want to get past intermediary. I've also had some spaghetti w/ healthy noodles and this sun-dried tomato pesto sauce a few x's, including all this past week for lunch instead of the salad...but then I noticed the flem and the bloated and so I am DONE w/ that cheat here & there. So....wow...pretty long-winded here. But I really truly hope I can get some good advice. THANKS!!!!! Kris xoxoxoxo

Find something fun to do that gets you moving. Maybe try meetup.com and peruse the groups that welcome beginners (hiking? kayaking? adventure type groups that have people of all activity levels?)... Or yoga! There are so many different styles.

You may want to try cutting back on the nuts, nut butters, oils, and protein powder and replace some of that stuff with more fresh, unprocessed fruits and vegetables.

You are on the right path, just keep going!

I agree that you're on the right path, but I would eat more simply gradually and stop all of the mixtures, all of the excess protein and fat, and just eat lots of plain fruit by itself and also lots of greens without all of those dressings.

Have you considered experimenting with eating simpler to achieve your goals ?

avongrandma,

Long-winded or no, you do sound very exhilarated, so that's good!
Two long-winded things from me:

Walk: You can do it because it's something you must do anyhow. Buy a cheap pedometer and make a point of taking the long way around the parking lot, mall, back yard, whatever. Then, start setting aside some time a few days a week to walk briefly in a park, someplace with a lovely setting. Do that at a comfortable pace for as long as you can, looking at nature and breathing the air. Gradually work your way up to an hour or more, at a faster pace, a few times a week. By then, you will enjoy it so much, you will make excuses to GET it done, instead of to NOT get it done : )

Simplify: All those gourmet dishes sound wonderful, but your metabolism may be signaling you to cut back. The bulk of your daily calories is coming from fat, and fat does not make you want to run a marathon--it makes you want to rest under a shady tree. Consider eating more carbs(and calories by volume) in the form of fruit, and limiting your fats to simple ones, like a spoonful of nut butter instead of a nut butter recipe, and only towards evening. The amount of greens sounds great--it's the fat that's the problem. Your brain and liver need carbs for fuel. A small amount of fat in the form of a few nuts and seeds here and there is all your body should need, and remember, leafy greens especially have essential fats. You are not a bear, which needs to load up on fat for hibernation. No one in this country dies of fat deficiency. You won't either!

Transitioning from a lot of nuts and oils (100% raw) to a diet consisting of almost exclusively fruits and vegetables, no oils, and hardly any nuts was like going raw all over: For several days, up to weeks, I felt weak or almost sick occasionally, until my body got used to it. Just the other day, while driving, I ate about 3 ounces of nuts (on an empty stomach), and I felt like I couldn't eat any more of them and that I had already eaten too much. Before the transition, I would often eat half a pound of nuts in a sitting and repeat that several times a day.

No matter how much weight you loose, you need to exercise your heart and lungs. A lot of very thin people are in TERRIBLE shape because they do not get any exercise. Just try walking or hiking or whatever you like to do. Maybe join and exercise class for beginners someplace. Once you do get moving you will very quickly feel even better.

Oh I also forgot to tell ya'll that I put two heaping handfuls of fresh spinach in my green smoothie!!!!

Greens w/o dressing? Ick. I don't think I can do that. I tried the whole "just lemon" thing and it was disguisting!

I definitely appreciate all the responses tho! Question, does this site not email u when u recv a reply to ur posts? I didn't get an email. I'm glad I decided to just check anyway.

THX EVERYONE!

Kris

Thank you SO much for the great replies, it means soooooo much to me!!!!

I think I forgot to mention in my original post TOO that I hate avocados and olives. Olives are ok IN something. I have TRIED so hard to like avos and I just can't!!!! So wld I be ok w/o them eating just fruits and veggies?

Kris

Congratulations on losing 20 pounds!

(I'm a gramma too)

I think you don't have to have avocados or olives if you don't like them.

Seems you already know the answers to a couple of your questions.

You do need exercise, if for no other reason, to digest your food adequately. People have suggested walking. YES! Once you're out there walking, your whole world will change. Just clear your head of thoughts like "It's hard". It's not hard, unless you make it hard. My husband and I were talking yesterday about how fortunate we are that we can walk all over the place without thinking about it. We have friends and relatives who have to struggle to even walk around in their own homes. People practice one thing or another and become what they practice. Better to practice walking than not walking! If you're able to walk, it's not too late to do it!

Yes, you could do better than eating lots of nut butters. Think "whole foods". I personally think whole nuts/seeds are a lot more nutritious and satisfying. You're getting the whole nutrition. Eventually, you may not need many nuts/seeds to satisfy you. You could try going for a few handfuls/day at first, then whittle it down to two/day or less on days when that feels comfortable, and eat whole fruits and vegetables the rest of the day.

If you feel you need an oil dressing on your salad and can't handle avocados, try cold-pressed olive oil and lemon juice, and then mince a garlic clove to toss in. Avos would be better than olive oil, because they're a whole, unprocessed food. You might see if you like them better when mashed or chopped and mixed with a salad. Or blend an avo with cucumber and lemon juice for a creamy salad dressing. Just something to try.

Stuff you really don't need - but of course it's up to you if you want them - are protein powders, powdered anything, cacao, and sweeteners. Honey and bee pollen aren't vegan. You can add more bananas to sweeten. Or even dates (but go easy on any dried fruii).

Consider thinking in terms of fresh, raw, whole foods: fruits, greens, nuts/seeds, and working toward that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2009 11:14PM by suncloud.

Uhm, nut butters are just nuts ground up. Nothing is removed or added, necessarily, unless you get one with oil or salt or sugar added.

I think for you, if you aren't going to be eating avocados or olives, nuts and seeds are better than oils. Maybe 1 oz. per day max. Otherwise your calories should come from fruit and greens and other healthy things, NOT dressings and powders.

Greens are disgusting without dressing? Well, most of us here don't seem to think the same, so your taste buds may have been conditoined that way due to poor diet/adding fat and salt and sugar to everything, so give it time and you may like yoru spinach by itself.

Utopian Life,

If a tablespoon of almond butter is planted, I don't think it will grow a tree! Something has been removed, or destroyed, or whatever.

That's probably the most important difference between a nut butter and a nut, and that alone is enough of a difference for me. But there are other differences as well. For one thing, nut butters purchased at the store - even the ones labeled "raw" - are not required to be heat-monitored during the grinding process. Grinding temperatures are often enough to change the molecular structure. Some companies do monitor the heat during grinding, like "Rejuvenative Foods", but certainly not all companies.

Rejuvenated Foods also refrigerates the finished product to help keep it from going rancid. Most commercial raw butters though are stored on the shelf.

Every time the jar is opened, the contents are exposed to oxidation, leading to further destruction/changes. Manitoba Harvest hemp seed butter is "flushed with an inert gas" to help prevent oxidation.

Sesame butter is processed without the brown hulls. It is ground up white sesame seeds. The hulls are the most nutrient-rich portion of the sesame seed.

Some "raw" nut butters might not even come from raw nuts - like "raw" almond butter, "raw" cashew butter, and "raw" brazil nut butter.

And then there's the saliva factor. Saliva is part of the digestive system. Nuts that are already ground up are not chewed as thoroughly, and so they are not exposed to as much saliva. Unground-up nuts, and especially seeds, require quite a bit of chewing, and that might be very helpful in digesting them.

I do agree that a superior product like a Rejuvenated Foods nut butter would probably be a better choice than a cold-pressed olive oil for making a salad dressing, as long as it comes from a truly raw nut/seed. It would definitely be closer to a whole food. Glad you brought that up. In my opinion, the best RF butters might be their raw organic sunflower seed butter and raw organic pumpkin seed butter (those are also their cheapest). The others are either questionably raw, not organic, or not from a whole seed.

Adding avocado to a salad with a little lemon juice would be a preferable "dressing" - to me - because avocados are in their original form. Some people don't want a dressing at all, and that's fine too!

(Sorry, I seem to be in an argumentative mood today!)



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2009 12:58AM by suncloud.

I don't really care to argue. I dont eat nuts or nut butters. If someone wants to argue with you, they can.

OK, UL! Really, I don't want to argue either! I really just meant - and this is what I should have said - that I hope I didn't cause any hard feelings by disagreeing about the value of nuts over nutbutters. Some people don't like it if another person disagrees, and I hope that's not the case between you and me.

Darn, my last response sounded kind of weird too. Internet is a hard media. Anyway, the point is, I hope I haven't made any trouble.

I love to eat Romaine lettuce all by itself with no dressing but only the green leafy part,I just cut off the bottoms and only eat the green part but its actually really good to me. I stopped using dressings when I realized this, lol!

If eating nuts keeps you from eating other foods then go for it. I've killed many a cheese craving with a spoon of peanut butter.

Hi Suncloud, I'm really glad u posted ur 2nd/3rd reply, and I totally feel better, b/c I was all like dddaaaang. I can totally respect all of ur facts about the raw probably not being raw. But I have been getting the grind-yourself kinds from Whole Foods, and there's nothing else in the ingredients list but nuts. But the whole first part, about u can't plant a spoonful of nut butter and watch it grow, u can't do that w/ a spoon full of anything, unless it's seeds. lol Anyway, thank you EVERYONE for all the WONDERFUL replies, I appreciate ALL of it!!!! But also, I hate avocados, at least all x's I have TRIED to like them. And I hate plain greens and hate lemon dressed greens too. So I'm really wondering how in the world to eat salad w/o my yummy recipe salad dressing!!!!

(

I think the "hate" is in your mind, not your tongue/taste buds.

avongrandma,

A good dressing is to take sweet berries and some lemon juice and sea salt and whizz them in a blender until homogenized. Depending on the ratios, you'll end up with something like classic French dressing. I personally like lemon juice, sea salt, sweet organic grape tomatoes, and some hemp seeds soaked in a bit of water to soften them. When homogenized, this has a creamy consistency, and you can add fresh herbs to it to make it more complex tasting.