hey all!
i've been reading the forums and i've seen some great advice..
hoping you can help me out, too!
i recently turned 100% raw vegan, was vegetarian for almost 7 years with heavy vegan tendencies within the last, and lately i just haven't been eating a lot. i am pretty small, about 5'1 and ~100 lbs, which might be a cause?? regardless, i want to be able to get enough nutrients, fiber etc but i fill up very quickly. i don't know if it makes a difference but i don't have any equipment besides a blender.
any advice? thank you, friends!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2006 03:56AM by lilpaws.

Eat small meals every 2-3 hours. What most people interpret as a hungry feeling is actually your body calling for more water, so make sure you drink plenty too. When I eat raw I don't always get the "full" feeling, but I do feel satisfied, and my hunger is abated for a lot longer than it ever was eating cooked foods.

Speaking of nutrients, I just signed up at this organic foods co-op near my workplace, so now I can stop by there on the way home and use their wheatgrass juicer to take a shot of that. One pound of wheatgrass juice is the nutritional equivalent of 23 pounds of raw veggies!

You need a juicer to eat enough calories. Without
vegetable juice, it is very difficult to eat
enough vegetables every day.

My favorite is the Samson juicer:

[store.therawdiet.com]

That's not true. A raw foods vegetarian actually takes in MORE calories than are necessary, and also the enzymes and nutrients to manage those extra calories(storing them in the body or removing them).

There's nothing wrong with taking in too many calories on a raw foods diet. If you're overweight you'll still lose weight, if you're underweight, you'll gain weight.

if ya want to eat half as much and still get plenty of nutrition, it's posible, (the article i put a link to under the gardening forum on nutrient dense food gives some idea what's going on with food)

lilpaws - love U'r name!
just go by what U'r body tells U & don't worry about getting enough nutrients, if U won't it will let U know, eat only when hungry, don't eat between meals, sip water between meals, that's all,
we're all soooooo different
there's no one recipe / rule
& not true what Onrsis says, at least not for bodies like mine, after nearly 3.5 years of being raw vegan my body totally disappreared, just vanished, my flesh is nearly non-existant! sooo
i started now to supplement with nutritional yeast powder, bee pollen, & raw egg yolks, we'll see how it'll go...obviously i was not getting enough nutrients...

& re.juices, that we need them...well, my mouth loves them, while my bowels don't, & so my next ....."symphony"(ha ha) comes later then usually & of a lot worse/unsatisfactory quality!!!!....WHILE, WHEN I PROCESS MY FOOD WITH MY MOUTH ONLY, THE BOWELS WORK/ELIMINATE IN A PERFECT/BEAUTIFUL WAY...!!! how about that...
(yes, some of U might be bored with what i just said, U probably have heard it few times before from me in other posts on this board, buuuuut...i need to share with U that juices & smoothies DO NOT WORK FOR SOME OF US..unfortunately, even though we sometimes wish they did)
lilpaws - just listen to U'r body & eat what U wish from the raw/healthy dept. & U'll be fine...U'll figure it out....
LOVE, Namaste, Basia

Basia,

Unless you're doing muscle testing your "body" is the worst indicator of what you should be eating. The signal you get that tells you you're hungry is actually an indicator that you need to drink.

If I listened to my body I'd be eating sugary fruits all day and throwing my Ph balance way over to the acid side.

If your body isn't already in a pristine state, you have no idea what your body is telling you because you're too imbalanced to interpret its signals anyway. If your body is more acid, you crave acid producing foods. If your body is more alkaline, you crave alkalizing foods. That's why wheatgrass tastes bitter and nasty if you're too acid, but it tastes sweet when your Ph is alkaline.

Hi Oneris,
could you point me to some references? I'd like to read more about that.

For me, my 'body' is spot on 99.999% of the time. I notice that when i don't listen to it things go wrong, but if I listen to it then I'm always happy and healthy.

Maybe it's varries from person to person and your body that is a bad indicator of what you need to eat. You also might have a sugar addiction problem with overriding the signals you should be listening to and telling to eat more sugar.

Also, I would love to know more about 'muscle testng', can anybody give me somne pointers?

Thanks,
Ian.

Applied Kinesiology is what you're looking for. Stu Mittleman mentions it briefly in his book, and I forget the name of the who started it, but there's a course on it here in San Diego through the Learning Annex.

I'll give you a basic example of how it works:

I give someone a closed container with broccoli inside, but I don't tell them what it is. They hold the container with one arm, and hold their other arm straight out in front of them. You have them say something like, "What's in this container is good for me." and tell them to resist(with their arm). You push down on their arm(with 99% of people resistance is strong). Then you have them say the opposite, "What's in this container is bad for me" and have them resist again and the resistance is much weaker.

You can have them do the same thing with something bad for them. There's very few people where the results will come out backwards, so you can start with having them say their name and resisting then, then say a false name and try that.

At one point in my raw trials, I was eating a LOT but filling up and not feeling satisfied. I was eating tons of raw veggie soups and salads which I came to realize have almost NO calories. Now I focus more on eating lots of sweet fruit (for breakfast & lunch, with a veggie/fat dinner). Sweet fruit has lots of calories packed into less volume, is easy to digest, takes no prep time, is super yummy, and loaded with nutrients.

Love,
Uma

Uma, I agree with your approach and your statements about fruit. I share an eating habit like you do. I find it very difficult to sustain myself simply on veg alone. I am a strong supporter of fruit eating, especially in the morning and afternoon.

Onersis, you stated "If I listened to my body I'd be eating sugary fruits all day and throwing my Ph balance way over to the acid side." I've been under the impression that fruit, including sweet fruit is full of fiber and for the most part are all primarily alkaline forming (emphasis on "the most part". I don't believe it is accurate to say that sweet fruit will "throw" your Ph "way" over to the acid side. Am I mis-informed? I've been consuming a majority of sweet fruit in my diet along with veggies and have not had any problems maintaining a good Ph. In fact, with my fruit intake, I feel virtually immune to many diseases, but am able to sustain an excellent energy level versus veggies alone. Veggies alone simply produces calorie cravings for me and makes me irritable and often pessimistic. Fruit greatly assists me and helps fulfill my cravings and provides a steady, slow digesting source of food energy. Fruit is incredibly cleansing and has very powerful restorative and healing qualities.

I personally believe that we evolved as primarily fruit eaters. Our brains have developed to associate the sweet in fruit with calorie rich, which in a completely natural environment (living in the wild), was incredibly valuable for survival Archeological evidence points towards our early ancestors being primarily fruit eaters.

I have also read that fruit is alkalizing?

lilpaws Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> lately i just haven't been
> eating a lot. i am pretty small, about 5'1 and
> ~100 lbs, which might be a cause?? regardless, i
> want to be able to get enough nutrients, fiber etc
> but i fill up very quickly.
> any advice? thank you, friends!

You mentioned you aren't eating as much as before, but you didn't describe the quality of just what you are eating. It could very well be that your body doesn't need a high volume of food because it's receiving and assimilating what it needs to sustain your metabolism which is obviously different from that of someone else's.

Wishing you vibrant health

Pistachio, I love your moving salad picture, How did you do that? Jan

I gather from the garden diet E books that fruit is alkalizing if you are 100% raw, but can be acid if mixed with cooked foods.
Anna

Hi Jan:

It's from animationfactory.com in the animations/food category. If you are not sure how to insert a picture in your message or signature go to formating your posts which is the second sticky on the main forum of this board.

Wishing you vibrant health

Pistachio Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> lilpaws Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > lately i just haven't been
> > eating a lot. i am pretty small, about 5'1 and
> > ~100 lbs, which might be a cause?? regardless,
> i
> > want to be able to get enough nutrients, fiber
> etc
> > but i fill up very quickly.
> > any advice? thank you, friends!
>
> You mentioned you aren't eating as much as before,
> but you didn't describe the quality of just what
> you are eating. It could very well be that your
> body doesn't need a high volume of food because
> it's receiving and assimilating what it needs to
> sustain your metabolism which is obviously
> different from that of someone else's.


i usually start the morning with a bowl of muesli or a banana
in a couple of hours i'll snack on some kind of fruit, raw food bar or nuts/seeds
later in the day i'll have some more fruit
dinner i'll have a green salad with seeds, goji berries, tomatoes



..thanks so much for all replies!! i think a juicer would definitely help me out.

Hi Lilpaws,
Here's a link to a Body Mass Index calculator: [nhlbisupport.com]
According to the calculator, your BMI is 18.9, which is within the normal range of 18.5-24.9. You may be just fine the way you are.
My experience is that I became underweight (BMI 0f 18.2) on a high fruit diet, eating seven or eight meals a day, but ganed weight (BMI of 20.2) on a high leafy green and some seeds diet, also eating much less food than before.
Chickory

Fruits aren't inherently acid, but the sugar breaks down into acid in the system. Our bodies are designed to hold 60 times more calories as fat energy than sugar energy, so excess sugar is attempted to be removed, ferments, breaks down into acid. Yeah, my tongue may love the taste of fruit, doesn't mean it's good for my body.

chickory, so should i just not worry too much about how much food i'm eating )and therefore how many nutrients/vitamins i'm taking in) until i can get a juicer or something that will help me be able to get more??

Dear Lilpaws,

I agree with Chicory that you may be just fine the way you are. Unless you have suddenly started losing more weight than you want to, and you don't feel well, you probably shouldn't worry that you're not eating enough.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to whether or not you're getting enough of the right nutrients. From the way you described your diet, it sounds pretty well balanced to me, but I would suggest you check the mineral content of what you are eating, especially for calcium and iron. If you're not sure, you can have your doctor test for deficiencies.

Nutritiondata.com gives a pretty good analysis of lots of differents kinds of foods, although I don't think they have much information on the "superfoods".

If you do start losing more weight than you want to, and you don't have an appetite for food, you may have some other problem that is not diet-related. For example, you might have an amoeba. Get yourself checked.

The body mass index BMI mentioned above is totally worthless. If a 3 dimensional object's size is increased exactly in true proportion, the weight will increase in proportion to the cube of the increase of height ( H x H x H). The BMI formula, though, only has the square of the height in it ( H x H). According to BMI short people should be squat and heavy, and tall people should be thin and lean. I collected the height and weight of many of the best athletes (men and women) in gymnastics, tennis, basketball, climbing, and other sports and found BMI did not apply. The best athletes' weight varied by the cube rule. I found that for the best athletes the following formula worked well:

weight = .00043 x (H x H x H) (weight in pounds; H (height) in inches)

They all (men and women) were around the weight given by the above formula. And the formula gives what I consider my ideal weight.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2006 05:37AM by brome.

Not getting enough nutrients is a concern for me, too. So, I supplement with multi-vitamins/minerals suitable for vegans. That way, no matter what I eat or don't eat, I will be balanced nutritionally. This also allows me the freedom to eat what my craves without worrying about the nutritional lack on my system's equilibrium.

Good luck.
Therese