The Raw Food Diet Calorie Game: Tips for Success
If you want to succeed with the raw food diet and avoid falling off, then it is important that you understand the important role calories play with this diet.
One issue many raw foodists have is going back and forth between raw and cooked foods. It becomes easy to go a few days 100% raw then fall off and eat unhealthy cooked foods.
What is it that makes someone trying to follow this healthful diet fall off so easily?
The answer: Not consuming enough calories from fruit and vegetables.
If you want to thrive on the raw food diet, you must meet your total daily caloric needs. The problem many new raw foodists have is getting too little calories for the day, sometimes WAY too few.
To illustrate, fruit and vegetables have the lowest calories per bite than most other foods on the planet. For example, a salad made of one head of romaine lettuce with two large tomatoes, 1 cucumber, and 1 bell pepper, provides only about 225 calories, and that’s a lot of food!
The “average” female requires about 2,000 calories a day and the “average” male about 2,200. These are rough estimates and of course activity level plays a huge role in determining your daily caloric needs. In addition, depending on your goals (weight loss or weight gain), these numbers can vary greatly. For the purpose of this article, let’s use the averages.
If you were looking to get 2,000 calories for the day, you would have to eat about 10 heads of lettuce, 20 tomatoes, 10 cucumbers….and, well you get the idea.
Would you want to handle that much food in one day?
Didn’t think so.
So how can you meet your total calorie needs on the raw vegan diet without having to eat so much food?
Simply focus on consuming most of your calories from fruit.
Fruit’s Role In Meeting Your Calorie Needs
Compared to fruit, vegetables don’t even come close to the amount of calories provided.
For example, 1 large banana provides about 110 calories. You could easily make a meal out of 5 bananas, which will give you about 550 calories. Here is just a short list of how many vegetables you would need to eat to get the same number of calories:
Lettuce: 5 whole heads
Broccoli: 18 cups
Cucumbers: 22
By focusing on fruit based raw vegan meals it easier to meet your calorie needs for the day.
Do you need to eat only fruit? No, and in fact, it is not recommended. While most of your calories should come from fruit, you should include green leafy vegetables, nuts, and seeds for a balanced raw food diet.
Suitable Fruits and Vegetables Can Nourish the Blood for Us
In our daily life, we usually nourish the blood by eating pork and pork liver. In fact, except meat, fruits and vegetables can also nourish the blood for us. These fruits and vegetables include pumpkin, red jujube, cane and grape.
Pumpkin contains abundant protein, carotene, vitamins, amino acid, calcium, iron, zinc and so on. The adequate intake of pumpkin can supplement balanced nutrients for the human body. These nutrients can help us prevent asthma, alleviate the inflammation, stop the pain and kill the bacteria. According to the latest research, the cobalt contained in pumpkin is the important component of red cells in the blood, and zinc can directly affect the functions of red cells. In addition, iron is the basic element to produce hemoglobin. Therefore, the intake of pumpkin in our daily life can effectively nourish the blood for us.
Red jujube contains abundant vitamins, fructose and amino acid. The contents of vitamin C and vitamin P are also rather high. Vitamin C and vitamin P can help us prevent cancer, high blood pressure and high blood fat. The medical research has proved that the nutrients contained in red jujube can adjust the metabolism, accelerate the reproduction of new cells and strengthen the hematopoietic function inside the human body so as to increase the content of red cells and nourish the blood. At the same time, these nutrients can beautify our skin and enhance the elasticity.
Cane contains rich iron, calcium, zinc, sugar, vitamins, organic acid, and protein. The content of iron contained in cane is extremely high. Therefore, cane is regarded as the best fruit for the human body to supplement the blood. In addition, other nutrients like protein and vitamins can improve the metabolism for us.
Grape contains a large amount of glucose to nourish the cardiac muscles for the human body. What’s more, the abundant iron, calcium and amino acid can effectively improve the anemia for the patients. The mineral substances like calcium and potassium and vitamins like vitamin B1 and vitamin B2 can alleviate the neurasthenia and fatigue for us. At the same time, the abundant tartaric acid contained in glucose can improve the digestion for the human body.
Therefore, some fruits and vegetables like grape and pumpkin can help us improve the anemia and nourish the blood. We should increase the intake of such foods in our daily life so as to prevent the anemia effectively.
How to Stop Chocolate Cravings When You’re Tired and Cranky: 3 Simple Tips
Did you know that chocolate is the most craved food substance in the world? There’s something about its smooth, rich, buttery, sweet melt-in-your-mouth experience that has even the most disciplined person go weak at the knees. Chocolate is so universally loved in just about every country and culture that it could probably help pacify even the most ferocious disagreement.
Chocolate is a classic ‘bad food/good food’ – on one hand it’s high in saturated fat and sugar which puts it in the ‘bad food’ category, but it can also be sometimes propelled into the ‘good’ category due to its antioxidants. Even the most avid chocolate addict would reluctantly admit, though, that chocolate is far better eaten in small portions as a treat rather than as a meal replacement or a daily necessity.
But how do you deal with those chocolate cravings that have you reaching for your favourite chocolate bar when you’re tired, exhausted, cranky or just ‘over it’?
I love chocolate myself and I eat it fairly regularly, but gone are the days when I reach for a bar of Cadbury rather than eat a healthy snack.
These are three tips that have helped me conquer the chocolate cravings once and for all.
Tip #1: Drink more water
Did you know that sugar cravings can often be confused with dehydration? And did you know that over 70% of people in the US are thought to be dehydrated, which probably means Australians are not that far behind (we could actually be in front due to our warmer climate)? That means that you could well be sitting reading this in a dehydrated state without even knowing it.
If you get regular cravings for chocolate and/or sugar, get into the habit of always having a bottle of water with you at all times and take a big slug instead of taking a choccy chunk. Wait for 10 minutes and see if the craving passes. You’ll be amazed how often it does.
Tip #2: Eat more protein
One of the best things I’ve done over the years is add more protein into my diet. Miraculously (not so miraculous really, as it’s a proven scientific fact), the more protein I eat the less sugar cravings I have. When once I would grab a big chunk of chocolate cake rather than a tuna sandwich, I know prefer the sandwich.
Good protein snacks are a small handful of mixed nuts (brazil, almonds, cashews); a hard-boiled egg or some mixed seeds and a piece of fruit. You need to get into the habit of having such snacks readily available.
That’s a bonus tip on how to stop chocolate cravings – always have healthy snacks with you at all times.
Tip #3: Listen to your body…and rest
If you keep grabbing for the chocolate in all its delicious forms, ponder for a moment how busy you are. Are you taking time out for yourself? Are you getting enough rest? Or are you too far down your own list of priorities to look after yourself?
The final tip is to simply give into the need to unwind, recharge and revitalise. You could well be caught on the treadmill of life and have forgotten how to get off. Listen to your body and get some early nights and take some time out for yourself.