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I think it’s hard to give an average. A lot depends on how much you need to lose to be at optimal weight, how much exercise you get, and how balanced your Raw Diet is for your particular needs.
The 1st time I went raw I lost about a pound a day for a month. Contrary to popular wisdom, it was mostly fat loss (I checked) and I had tremendous energy. A comprehensive physical showed all good results. I was working out 3-4 hours each day. It was also a more restrictive Raw Diet—very low on sugars, including fruits, but heavy on greens, savory fruits like tomatoes and squash, and good fats.
This time I have a more balanced diet in terms of fruits:fats:greens. In about 3 weeks on raw, I’ve lost around 12 pounds. I’m still working out, but only about an hour or an hour and a half or so. I would guess I can afford to lose another 20 lbs to reach my optimum weight range.
Oh, also, I’m not completely Raw this time, closer to 90-95%.
Yes, I agree, it can vary by person. Exercise is one of the keys to accelerating the weight loss. For peole with a lot to lose, they lose more pounds, on average, than say someone who wants to lose 10 pounds. Water is a lot of the weight that is lost. AND, it really depends on how restrictive you are with food. If you stick to a lower fat Raw vegan diet, the weight tends to come off quicker in my experience.
I didn’t have a lot to lose when I started, so I lost about 2 pounds a week. I have clients however, who have lost 3-6 pounds a week and that was eating a normal Raw Vegan diet (not low fat), but they had a lot to lose. Some of my clients, who had about 15 pounds to lose, started off losing about 3-5 pounds a the first week, then it tapered off to 2-3 pounds the next couple of weeks. It really does depend.
If you want to accelerate the weight loss, I recommend exercise (jump rope is great!). Cheers! Kristen Suzanne
You cannot say that a raw diet will cause a certain amount of weight loss. It depends on what you eat and how many calories you expend. I have a ton of weight to lose, but on a raw diet I have learned to appreciate good nutrition over a high rate of weight loss. The weight loss will come as long as i am eating healthfully. I have a nutritionist who is not upset if I lose up to 3 lbs a week eating this way, as long as she can tell from measuring me that I am not losing lean tissue (that I’m losing fat instead).
Does anyone ever keep track of their caloric intake? I’m really trying hard to shed a little extra weight.. about 10-15 pounds. I’ve been raw since April 1st [with an exception of a few weeks during vacation in late August], and i exercise regularly. I don’t weigh myself, but the mirror hasn’t really shown any signs of change.
Does anyone have any advice or input? Thanks in advance!
keep it up, be patient, mango woman. true weight loss takes time. try putting yourself on a schedule? if you know your eating a well balanced diet, then you really dont need to make any adjustments, except for patience and time. maybe put yourself on a schedule? oh and water HELPS.
Hi Mango woman! If you could give an example of an average day that would help. I am thinking that it would be easier for you to lose weight if you took a b complex vitamin because b is necessary for this function. Basically when your body feels like it is in a famon situation it keeps you from losing weight. There may be a trigger to this like lack of certain vitamins or carbs. Eating more often a day is supposed to trigger your body into thinking there is plenty of food so it doesn’t need to store as much and eating dinner relatively early can help.
Hi Mango Woman, I’ve found that keeping a food diary is the best way for me to keep track of calories. I write everything down and I measure serving sizes until I get a feel for what a food’s serving size is and therefore the calories. Just the act of measuring or counting makes you much more cognizant of what you are taking in and because I am a stress eater, this was very helpful in getting me to be more aware of what and how much I ate. There are many places to get the calories of foods but i use caloriecount.com right now. I actually go to the trouble of weighing sometimes to get an idea of how much prduce i eat at a meal(I,however, have a tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behavior) .Writing everything down has been the most helpful thing for me over many years of trying to lose wt.
Deborahann, Great advice! You know once you become a calorie counter, you can do a lot of computations in your head. You know how many calories are in an apple, handful of nuts, etc. It just takes getting over the learning curve. Mango woman, I am in the same place right now…just 10-15 pounds more:) I usually shoot for 1400 calories a day. Then one day a week I calorie boost to about 2000 calories. My nutritionist suggested I do the calorie boosting day so that my body doesn’t think its starving the other days. Your body is really good at getting used to routine and wants to achieve stasis. If you’re loosing weight, this is the dreaded plateau people speak of , so you have to sneak up on it and surprise it so that it doesn’t try to hold on to the weight. Another good tactic is interval training. I’m just getting into this, so I don’t have a lot of experience with the success of IT. So, diet and exercise covered! There are a whole lot of other reasons why the body is resistant to weight loss…thyroid, pyschological, toxicity overload, hormone imbalance. etc.
Thanks everyone for the replies!
Well, alright. so first things first: someone here should create a raw food vegan fitday! What other calorie tracking websites do you [who count calories] use? I can never seem to find the foods i need on fitday. I get so frustrated.
For the most part, i don’t [think I] overeat on nuts or heavy fats or anything.. and i eat lots of veggies etc etc etc. I’m actually pretty good at getting a varied intake per day.
I almost always run for about 20-30 minutes per day. It’s not sprinting, but i definitely get my heart rate WAY up. I also do some pleasant yoga in the mornings [anywhere from 25 mins to 1 hr] and i use this thing called an exertube that is like lifting weights. I use that daily.
Anyway.. I’m a little hesitant on counting the actual calories for my consumption. I’ve been keeping an intake log for a long long time.. for example, right now I just use the ‘journal’ part of fitday.
I will continue to be patient, and continue to exercise.. and i’m currently on a silly organic total body cleanse from renewlife.. so maybe that will help get some of the toxins out from the cooked food i had during my roadtrip.
Any other ideas or advice greatly appreciated!!! thanks again!
What I like about this forum is that people are open to new ideas. Other raw forums are almost militant about not counting calories or calculating fat grams, etc. I get very frustrated at raw food restaurants because no one wants to reveal how much fat or whatever is in their recipes. I find that until I retrain my mind and body I need to go through the calorie and nutrient counting.
As I stated earlier, I see a nutritionist, which also helps me to see what I am doing to myself with my high-raw, vegan diet. I eat between 1400 and 1600 calories a day, try to get no less than 60 grms of protein a day, and between 125 and 225 carbs, among other nutrients. My diet is still evolving so I have plenty of leeway in some areas right now (hence the wide carb range. However, everyone is different in terms of current health, goals, lifestyle, activity level, stress level, likes and dislikes- so we have different needs. I make my food decisions based on my personal experience (how my body responds to my diet over time) and the advice of my nutritionist. But it took a lot of experimenting (and ups and downs) to get to where I am now. I’ve lost almost 30 lbs since early June. Slow and steady works best for me. I wish you luck- I know that if you are patient and find what works for YOU (no one else!) you will find success and good health.