Raw Food Diet And Weight Loss – Does It Work?
The benefits of eating raw foods to improve your levels of nutrition are widely accepted, but there are also benefits if you want to combine a raw food diet and weight loss. Read on and I will tell you what they are and why it works.
What causes weight gain?
Let’s start by looking at some of the contributors to weight-gain. One of the main contributors is eating foods that are nutritionally poor quality. In fact you may be overweight but your body could still be starving for nutrients. Instead of being full of vitamins, minerals and enzymes your diet is likely to be packed with carbohydrates, sugars and salts plus over processed foods.
What are the impacts of poor nutrition?
A poor quality diet has all sorts of negative impacts. Take the analogy of your motor car. Running your engine on good quality oil and gas will help make it last longer, put poor quality oil and gas into the engine and it will splutter, spit and wear out more quickly. Put adulterated gas in your engine and it will simply break down. Well the same is true for your body, it needs good quality foods. Sadly much of what you eat probably does not meet that description.
How is poor nutrition linked to weight gain?
One of the results of a poor quality diet is weight-gain. There are several reasons for this. Your metabolism gets sluggish and you get sluggish which is a vicious circle as the more sluggish you and your metabolism are the less energy you burn off. So by just eating the same amount you are going to gain weight. You may also feel hungry all the time because your body is crying out for the nutrients it needs. You will store more of what you eat as fat because your body can’t use the junk food you are eating for anything else.
How does cooking affect nutrients?
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Cooking often destroys the goodness in food so on the whole cooked food is less nutritious. Cooking can even change food so that it becomes harmful. For example this is true of fat and oil that has been heated to a high temperatures, such as when frying, which has been linked to one of the causes of cancer. Cooking may release free-radicals and even poisons that are not beneficial to our health in any way. At the very least you lose nutrients into the cooking water.
Which foods are best to eat?
Recent research into nutrition in food suggests that the most nutritious food is brightly coloured fruits and vegetable and the best way to eat them is raw. Of course raw foods also need to be eaten fresh and organic is better that non organic, due to the level of pesticides on non organic crops. The evidence that eating raw is good for you is very strong.
How does raw nutrition help with weight loss?
If you eat more raw foods than cooked foods you will find that the pounds start to drop off effortlessly. This is because your body starts to get the nutrients it needs so it stops storing fat. Your metabolism should improve so you burn off more energy and your food cravings for junk food decrease so you eat less ‘bad foods’.
How should I get stared in eating more raw food?
I recommend that you start off by doing a three day raw diet eating only raw fruit and vegetables. This will help to detoxify your system and get you in the right frame of mind to change your diet. Eat as much as you like, eat all day if you want to but stick only to raw fruit and vegetables.
From there go on to a diet that is at least half raw fruits and vegetables and only snack on raw things.
You will be amazed how much difference adding a lot of raw fruit and vegetables will make to how much energy you have and how much easier it is to lose weight.
Interestingly the foods that are high in nutrients are often lower in calories. Even when they contain more calories such as fruits like avocados and bananas and nuts and seeds the fat they contain is much healthier than that found in dairy and fatty meat products.
Here are seven rules to help you lose weight:
Eat four meals a day with at least half of each meal made up of raw fruit and vegetables
Eat mainly low calorie, high nutrient non raw foods
Snack only on raw fruits and vegetables
Never eat less than 3 hours before you go to bed.
Cut out all artificially sweetened drinks, cola type drinks
Drink only moderate amounts of alcohol and not every day
Drink plenty of water half an hour before and after each meal.
I hope I have persuaded you of the benefits of combining a raw food diet and weight loss.
If you want to find out more about which are the most nutritious foods follow this link
healthyweightlossways.com/what-is-a-healthy-diet-for-nutritarians
If you want help with planning a nutritious, healthy diet follow this link healthyweightlossways.com/strip-that-fat-review