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rawpretzela
Raw Newbie
For the last couple of weeks I've been gaining weight and I honestly don't know why!!! I don't eat a lot of fats, I eat once a day a small amount of nuts or coconut and I eat all day fruit fruit and more fruit, I neither eat a big amount of calories, around 1700-2000 cal per day. I also have a very active routine, I make20 min walking, after that 40 min pilates and then around 100 min of zumba, I'm not sure what is going on, but my pants are really tight and I even have a small belly I shouldn't be having... Any ideas?? I'm even a little bit mad because I mean I would understand it if I were eating lots of nuts but I'm not, and my exercise routine is from monday to friday PLEASE HELP ME, IM STARTING NO TO LIKE MY BODY AT ALL!!
Comments
Are you pretty much eating only fruit (and a small amount of nuts)? If so, try some greens and other veggies.
That is very strange! Maybe something you're eating is disagreeing with you? I really don't know, maybe try more salads and greens like sisterbecky said.
I hate the misconseption that if you eat fat you will be fat. Raw paleo dieters eat up to 80% fat and they lose weight! You want fat in your diet. If your gaining weight its due to excess sugar. Eat some nuts, avacado, coconut what ever you need to, just do it. But make sure not to start eating extra calories as fat is higher in calories. How much fruit do you eat in a day exactly?
I agree with you DR, but Dr. Atkins died from falling on slick ice in a parking lot, and hitting his head on pavement... Not from being obese or having a heart attack.
Thanks for all the replies, but and yes, I do agree the best at least for me is the 80/10/10. I still don't know why I'm gaining weight, I hope I figure it out soon, answering to sisterbecky I eat about 85% of all my daily meals from fruit carbs, for example, for breakfast I might have 4 medium apples and 6 oranges, for lunch a big salad with about 4 tomatoes, 1 zucchini, 2-5 cups spinach, half a small jicama, 2-3 big carrots, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, maybe a small jalape
rawpretzela, have you weighed yourself or are you going by how your clothes fit? Just wondering, because I'm having an issue with my clothes as well. My jeans don't fit AT ALL, but it's because I was doing body sculpting in addition to my Tae Bo and, um, I grew my butt too big. lol!
You may be bloated. I went thru the same thing when I started 80/10/10. Eventually your body WILL stablilize itself but right now your body is adjusting to all of the high water content foods you are eating. I am a petite woman and initially I gained about 6 lbs but have since lost all of that and more. Dont worry, fruit won't make you fat :)
I'm sure you've already thought of this, and it's none of my business, but is there any chance that you are pregnant? :)
Could be stress-related. Stress can make you gain weight, even if you're eating the same amount of calories as before.
Or maybe a hormonal change?
Durianrider do you honestly want to use the china study as an example of low fat diets being healthy? The china study is flawed as f**k and if you read it or understand it than you would know its complete bull. Aajonus is not a raw paleo, he is a primal dieter and there is a big difference besides the fact that he doesn't exercise. The reason your not fat is cause your a freakin athlete...Most raw vegans lose weight because they don't eat nearly enough calories, pretty obvious. As for the 80/10/10 thing...didn't more than one 80/10/10 gurus start to admit that they started eating raw animal products because 80/10/10 didn't work for them. 80/10/10 causes problems for lots of people.
Also why do you always seem to have some room mate or best friend that gets some disease or dies when you need an example to prove someone wrong?
rawpretzela: I don't think you can get fat of what you eat. It's pretty good food. I think you can get real fat of normal SAD food. Good pure raw-foods you won't get fat of.
I think the body use FAT as a "save" storage for toxins. You don't eat toxins so there is no need to get FAT.
You must eat a lot to gain 1 KG of fat maybe 6000+ calories add that with your daily necessary amount of calories and you have a amount that is almost impossible to eat on raw-vegan (maybe with the exception of some smoothy's from durian-rider).
I'm finding it a bit strange that rawpretzela is posting because she is concerned about her weight gain and everyone has either said it's impossible for her to be gaining weight based upon what she's eating (even though she is). With the exception of her body "adjusting" no one has given her any tangible advice.
Am I to understand that when one switches to a primarily 811 diet they must experiance months of swelling and bloating and clothes not fitting even though they are extreamly active? Seems a bit odd to me.
I would say months of bloating is a bit exaggerated, and its not odd at all actually. Think of switching from a typical sad diet where every food you eat is water depleted and your dehydrated to all of the sudden consuming pounds of water rich, juicy fruits, you're body is bound to relax a bit and its beginning to eliminate built up toxins and as it does that, you can retain water. So Pretzela I also would highly recommend enemas to help the elimination. Even tho the number on the scale may be higher, its most likely fluid, not fat.
You seem to be very active and eat very well, so I don't think this is the case, but is it possible that your exercise is getting too easy and are not burning as many calories as before? When I keep doing the same exercise, the calories I can burn decrease each week. I'm 5'2" and 118 lbs and burn a little more than 1700 calories per day. I do very intense exercise 6 days per week but I have a desk job so the rest of the day is sedentary. If I eat 1800 - 2000 calories per day, I will eventually gain weight.
If you can afford to buy a bodybugg, you can find out exactly how many calories you burn and consume each day. I wear it everyday and has helped me so much.
Thanks everyone!! I think Kitty might be right, maybe my body is getting use to all this water amount coming from fruits, because I don't seem to find any other reason, I'm not pregnant so that's not a reason, and also lulushka is right, I should wait a few weeks more and see how it works, but thanks a lot and actually maxerbear you're so right!! Sometimes i feel like my body just don't get as tired as before after making exercise
I'm a little late to the game, but have things stabilized yet pretzela? One suggestion I thought of was getting a scale that measures your body fat AND water content. This way you could be assured you're NOT gaining fat and it was just bloating. : ) You'd have to get a good one though because some tend to be very inaccurate. If you go to the gym they usually have one. Just a thought. You could also switch to consuming more lower-glycemic fruits and less high ones (like the mangoes). Let us know how it's working out for ya!
Perhaps you are eating too many calories: Apples and oranges have about 80 calories each. You eat 10 apples and 10 oranges, 20 times 80 is 1600. Plus your salad, mango icecream, cookie...
Dear rawpretzela,
Are you still gaining weight? Do you take any hormonal contraceptives?
Hi DeborahB! Well since I put this post I've been putting a lot of attention in my food intake and everything I do because it doesn't make any sense to me at all, I mean I eat very very low amounts of fat and mostly veggies and fruit, I don't eat a lot and make a lot of exercise so what's wrong? Not sure YET, but I made a 3 day juice feast which I know is not much but I actually lost 1.5 kilos which was just perfect because I didn't want to lose much weight, and since then I've been trying to eat less fruit because guess what? I think is fruit what is making me gain weight!! I do eat fruit but not as much as before, I guess each body reacts different and apparently fruit was the main cause of me gaining those extra pounds, anyway.. I'm still in this period of taking much more attention to my eating and hope to get some answers soon!
Hey pretz! Just wanted to commend you for making the effort to understand what works with your body! :) you'll figure it out soon I'm sure!
Rawpretzela,
Hmmm...I may get pounded (verbally of course:-) for being honest- but oh well. Here goes. Fruits good (ino). Lots of vitamins and such. I did the high fruit/low fat for a while. I felt good, but felt hungry how ever much fruit I ate (and it was a ton!) For me, I couldn't seem to lose weight (I only have about 20 lbs I want to drop- so not alot ) I did NOT gain weight, but could not seem to lose it getting most of my calories from fruit. I did end going back to high raw (instead of 100%). The hunger seemed to stabilize. Finally, I started adding higher fat and protein back into my diet (still with some fruit- just not getting most of my calories from it). And of course, BIG salads each day still.
I'm finally starting to drop some weight. I'll adjust if my body needs it. For now, that does seem to work for me. And I'm not feeling sluggish. I don't know if it's making a different, but I am not relying heavily on nuts this time. Some nuts, but not a bunch.
You need to do what works for your body. Even if it's not popular. This isn't a bashing of the high fruit/low fat diet. If it works for you great. If not, try something different.
Good luck.
I'm so glad you've made progress :)
I asked about the hormonal contraceptives as I had a hormonal coil fitted for quite some time. It caused my body to become insulin resistant which meant instead of my body converting sugar to a storage molecule, it would be stored as fat. This meant the more sugar I ate the more weight I put on.
I got my hormonal coil removed and started on 80/10/10 and within a month I had lost 10lbs of the stone in weight I had gained.
If your body has any degree of insulin resistance then of course, eating more fruits will lead to weight gain. The way to fix insulin resistance is to allow your body's hormones to work naturally and to eat less fat as fat is the thing that interferes with correct function of insulin!
I have found the only way my body feels super great is by eating just fruit...80-10-10 is great, but I did find even the 10% fat was too much. After about two months following 80-10-10, I found all I wanted was fruit. I've been eating fruit solid now for three months, and although I get bloated when I menstruate, sticking to the fruit only keeps the bloating to a minimum. could it be that you were menstruating?
tabbycats are you saying you have been fruitarian for 3 months? Have you had any blood tests? I heard that if you don't do it properly than fruitarianism can be somewhat dangerous.
Fruitarian long term can be very dangerous. Please reconcider doing that long term.
What can happen if your long term fruitarian. Im eatining mainly fruit, some sprouts every once and a while. And not many veggies, sometimes romaine and cauliflower.
Sweet,
Long term fruitarianism can lead to digestive issues, mineral deficienies and just plain "failure to thrive." If you are truly interested in it, I would recommend this personal critic of it by one of the contributors of "Beyond Vegetarianism" site. You may find you don't agree with everything he says, but it is worth reading. Please read his "For those considering fruitarism" first off.
http://www.beyondveg.com/cat/fruit-dreams/index.shtml
Yep sister is correct. The issue is that generally fruit has pretty low mineral content and eating only fruit can lead to mineral deficiency and is simply dangerous.
Suggesting someone look at not just the pros, but also criticisms of fruitarianism is not meant as anti-vegan. And not spreading fear of fruit. If someone chooses to eat only fruit, or mostly fruit, that is their business. But Sweet did ask for our opinions on fruitarianism. Though Beyond Vegetarianism does have articles questioning veganism, and is controversial around some raw, vegetarian and vegans it doesn't hurt to read articles by people who respectfully question different eating choices. It is true, I don't know the author personally, but I also do not know any people making health claims personally (including any on this site). For all I know, Mr. Billings may have "done" the raw vegan or fruitarian thing incorrectly. Or, he may not have. Unfortunately, the claim that someone did not follow the plan correctly is commonly used when someone asks for help when a certain way of eating isn't working for them as touted. That can be dangerous, telling someone to continue doing something that is giving them signs it's not working.
Unfortunately, it seems that the raw, vegan and vegetarian community has a tendency to either attract (or hopefully not, help create) people with eating disorders. I would hate to see Sweet become another statistic because no one will speak up and suggest she reads the criticisms of fruitarianism.