A colleague has been asking for nutritional advice, I am so flattered. What she wants is to "lose weight the vegetable way".
After giving it some thought, I'd rather really answer her questions and help her to get this to WORK than bombard her with raw food theories.

I think small successes may help better to see that the more live food you eat, the better you feel. I try to have all faith in her will to do this, even if it is holiday time

For those of you ho have been striving for weightloss, what are your secrets, even if they're not 100% raw?
I think first off, I want to recommend her smoothies for breakfast and snack until lunch...I got my husband to do this and he thinks he feels a very big difference even though the rest of his diet has not changed.

I don't know her exact eating habits, I only know they are not the best. To top things off she has been through a lot healthwise (cancer, chemo...) but never thought about nutrition to help the ailments.

Any ideas?

I would say that goal setting and personal MOTIVATION are paramount. The person should definitely:

1) Determine what their long-term/short-term goals are......and see if eating healthy is a NECESSITY for that. If it is not...no amount of intellectual 'rightness' is going to push it through.

2) Determine what % of raw (roughly) that they are eating and VERY COMFORTABLE with right now.

3) Set a long-term goal (at least 6-12 months) for reaching THEIR raw food goal.

4) Make a practical plan to increase intake by 1-2% per week...until they reach their goal.

-The person should brainstorm and make realistic changes that they are prepared and motivated to do. Stretching...but not tearing away from what is the fabric of their life right now.

-I would recommend getting the person to try eating 1 all-raw breakfast of fruit per week....for starters. This should not be over-difficult.

-Some good basic advice is to pack a bag full of assorted fruit, nuts and/or salads in a bag....and stash in a desk drawer at work. Make a COMMITMENT to only eat from the bag while at work. This means that for the majority of the day...the person is eating healthy.

-Finding 'healthier' transitional foods....to snack on....or indulge in....is a key...I think. Those snack should be low-calorie, lower fat, high-fiber, nutrient-dense foods....as much as possible. It was hot-air popped popcorn for me! LOL. HUGE bags of it for about 6 months. The weight just slipped away....while continuing to jog/walk/run 3 or 4 times per week.

-I hope some of these tips are practical/helpful.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

I would suggest that she read the book "Fit For Life" by the Diamonds and "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins. The books are good vegan guides, and "Fit For Life" introduces some light fasting.

Maybe also suggest an exercise program if she doesn't already have one - whatever she chooses.

Thanks very much for your posts this far!!! I will take everything into serious considerartion as advice from this board is very important to me.

Something to add: I love the long term concept this far and I want to tell her to improve her diet step by step..small steps. They worked on me, they worked on my husband so I am quite confident about this.
However, this lady lives much more in the here and now than I do, and I want to avoid any miscommunications. I know she relies on an immediate success from "going vegetable".

Thinking about your suggestions, my plan so far:

Sensitively talking about a long term improvement through "small" habitual changes (live breakfast, decrease of bad snacking, walking routine after work)

A book to read - it's the season so I just give her a book about the topic. Fit for Life is great because it is not "too radical" or a complete newbie.

Give some immediate advice, but nothing that is too much of a strain.
Like I said, I want to keep all faith I can in this person, but I do not want to end up as a flavor of the week in terms of dieting. Just a few days ago she told me that she would put up a "big fat turkey on the grill" for Thanksgiving just to annoy me and tell me "what is good for me". I was surprised that she asked me today. I o understand that she may know that the big far turkey is not doing her good but at the same time, understanding raw is like giving a whole living concept.
But what the heck, we all did it, right?

Those sound like great ideas Lemoned. Obviously, the important thing is that THE PERSON identify the inherently higher quality of fresh, raw plant food.....and have goals / dreams / intentions / desires that include wanting to be kind to one's self (which not everyone has a conscious agenda to do)......and recognize eating healthy as a way to do it. Helping convince some one else is mostly done through gracious example.....success....happiness.....TIME and OSMOSIS! Ha! ha!

-Just my opinions.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Lemoned,

David's suggestions are wonderful.

I'd like to elaborate a bit on a couple of things. Losing weight is a fine goal to start out with, as we are taught that by our society that equates looking good and "normal" weight with good health. From my own experience and others I know who have started from the weight loss goal, the picture of what good health is expands over time, new goals emerge and weight loss just becomes a secondary by-product of healthful living. For instance, IMO, de-toxifying the body and improving the digestion keeps disease from manifesting.

It takes time to adjust to new food regimes and a lot of times people go along just fine for a period of time eating less calories from foods that are less calorie dense. Then they suddenly find themselves craving and binging on old foods, usually high fat, oily, salty, spicy or perhaps highly processed junk food which spins them into feelings of failure and self judgment. This is where it helps to have experienced supportive people in your life, reminding you that you've taken two steps forward and one step back which still equals forward motion and success.

This happened to me because I was not used eating a higher volume of less calorie dense food and wasn't getting my calorie needs met. Slowly over time I have been able to increase the amount I eat of fruit to get my calorie needs met. I'm still working on this after 2 years of being all raw and find that some days I really want to eat higher fat. This higher volume scenario was humorously illustrated when I would sit down to eat watermelon with a friend of mine who's weight barely was in triple digits, but who had much more experience with raw foods. She could eat so much watermelon without serious ill effects that it appeared that she was pregnant.

Thank you for your post. I hope you'll let us know how it goes.

I agree that Fit for Life would be a great book to start with. The 1987 edition that I read goes into how breakfast is so important to detoxing and loosing weight. It's very inspiring.

You could give the book to her and say to work on changing one meal over to raw at a time and breakfast is the most important and will give the best results. Once she is in the habit of starting the day off raw, it's so easy to just start extending the length of time that you are raw everyday.

Coconut oil is great for loosing weight, it helps to speed up the metabolism, it gives you that full feeling and stops you from craving other fatty foods.

Hello everyone,
thanks for your advice again! I'm off to the bookstore today to do some christmas shopping and I hope to pick it up there for her.
Very correct, that last thing I want is make someone yo-yo between healthy foods, "slipping up" and "guilt", a totally unnecessary behaviour pattern when trying to shape up. I'll keep y'all posted !