I am so new to this. I am a 53 year old with newly diagnosised diabetes. I have decided to try the raw food diet. I have read alot of information concerning what to eat, how I'll feel at first, etc. I am wondering about portion sizes. What I have been doing is eating small meals every 3 hours (usally a carb and protein together) and I found my blood sugars are pretty level.
Can I do this eating every 3 hours or is it just 3 meals a day?
Thanks in advance for any advice

As you have probably noticed, raw foods have a lot more volume and far fewer calories than cooked foods. Initially, a person who is new to raw foods can't hold that much raw food in their stomachs, so more meals are necessary.

When I first started eating raw foods, I ate 5 to 6 meals a day (sometimes more). But over time, my stomach was able to accommodate more food, and now I only need 2 meals a day.

The other thing to watch out for is too much fat in your meals. A person with diabetes or insulin resistance problems needs to be eating a low fat diet. You can use the nutritional calculator like fitday, nutritiondata, nutridiary, or Cron-o-Meter to see what your fat intake is. Under 20% is good, under 10% is great.

Thanks for your input.

I'm not a doctor, but I think you should be able to eat small raw meals every 3 hours.

Healthy vegan diets have been shown to successfully lower blood sugar. I'm assuming that a raw vegan diet would be even more effective.

Maybe you already know this, but if you're on any kind of medication also to lower your blood sugar, it's extremely important that you work closely with your doctor to monitor and adjust your medication as your blood sugar levels go down. Otherwise, your blood sugar could go too low, and you could have hypoglycemic episodes.

Dr. Neal Barnard has some excellent advice for diabetics in his books and DVD. Dr. Barnard is a vegan - not a raw vegan - but he's conducted numerous studies with diabetics on a vegan diet.

If you haven't yet read Dr. Neal Barnard's books or watched the DVD on his program for treating diabetes, you might find those to be very informative. His book includes tips on preventing hypoglycemia.

Dr. Barnard's book:

[www.amazon.com]

Dr. Barnard's DVD: [www.amazon.com]

I would add this. Although research has shown significant improvement for diabetics following a vegan diet, there is little research to date on a raw food vegan diet for diabetics. It seems very possible to me that a raw food diet would not require a regimen as severely restrictive of fats as a cooked food vegan diet. That's just my personal opinion. Others might disagree. I'm basing my opinion on my personal experience of over 2 decades as a raw foodist, but also on research establishing highly concentrated essential nutrient values - especially for mineral content - in the higher fat raw vegan foods such as nuts and seeds.

Although grains can be sprouted and eaten raw, a raw vegan diet will usually include much fewer grains in the diet. Perhaps because of this, I've found that a moderate amount of nuts and seeds are a crucial element for successful and healthful maintenance on a raw food diet. If you read Dr. Barnard's book, you'll notice that although Dr. Barnard's program adheres to a strict low-fat (cooked) vegan diet, Dr. Barnard does note studies showing that nuts and seeds help lower cholesterol, "but we don't know why".

Wishing you well. Please keep us posted!

I just read Bryan's post, and I pretty much agree. I'd aim for around 20% fat or less (but not so much less that you're hungry all the time). Most of your dietary fat should probably come from whole food sources such as nuts and seeds. Organic is best, especially for nuts and seeds, IMO.

If you eat a little more than 20% - especially at first - that should be OK. Hard to say though, since we just don't have the diabetic studies on raw fooders.

So please let us know how you're doing! Thanks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2010 12:27AM by suncloud.

A skill that I think is helpful for a raw food eater to cultivate is listening to your body signals. At first you will have to purposefully tune in because most SAD (Standard American Diet) eaters don't pay much attention to what their bodies are signaling to them but with practice listening to your inner coach will become easy and natural. Start by listening for early slight hunger signals to respond to. After doing this for awhile you will find that you are receiving signals that were to weak for you to notice at first. Its a good idea to not let yourself get overly hungry because if you get to the strong hunger signals you can easily over eat and also there is a possibility of yielding to cravings for junk foods. I have found that cravings vanish with time as the old habits fade away. The next signal to be watching for is the satiated signal providing you with a comfortable point in time to finish your meal where you no longer feel hungry but don't feel stuffed either. The body is sending you many messages each day that can be put to good use if you choose to take advantage of them. Good luck.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2010 01:23AM by EZ rider.

Thank you, I'll check these out. I am a nurse so that helps. I am taking Metformin and with this drug, normally will not become hypoglycemic. I just want to be in good health and not have to take the medication so want to try this. I know I'll experience headaches, grogginess,etc and will have to be extra careful monitoring my sugars. The worse thing that could happen is that I will get discouraged, so I'm hoping this site will be helpful.
I'll keep you posted.
Thanks again