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High calorie raw

Greetings!

I’m pretty new to being raw, and I recently decided to increase my daily calorie intake greatly, to at least 4,000 per day. I realize the challenge implied here, but the absolute last thing I need is to lose weight…in fact, I really need to gain it.

If anybody has any particular food ideas, recipes, or tips, I’d be infinitely grateful!

Comments

  • Heh, I just saw a thread similar to this one. I apologize, should have looked a little first, just figured this wasn’t a common issue in the raw world! ; )

  • Welcome to the board. My suggestion is to use a site like nutridiary.com or fitday.com It is free to join them as a regular member and you can input your daily foods and see how many calories you get as well as the % carbs, % protein and % fat. In order to eat that much calories you will need to do some strength building exercises. It is not a good idea to go over 15% fat on a regular basis (others on this board disagree but science and many doctors both from the raw world and the vegan world agree). This means that you will need to consume huge amounts of food. It could get expensive as raw foods are not as calorie dense as cooked food. Hope I helped you some.

  • Thanks for your reply, it’s much appreciated.

    Yes, I signed at fitday after reading JKD’s thread (coincidentally I also practice Jeet Kune Do, twice a week). It’s less practical than I hoped, as I ate out today and don’t know the quantities. Also challenging is entering values for things like mixed fruit…

    My JKD teacher doubles as a nutritional guide among many other things…he suggested that I need to gain some weight through eating before starting weight lifting, and that I could even lose mass if I’m not eating enough, by digesting my own muscle. Although at this point I may be ready for it, I will be asking him tomorrow. He says I may also have a hyperactive thyroid, I’ve always been a bit underweight. I’ve also been eating some raw cheeses, which he says can help this. I’m still really experimenting with the diet, as you can tell, certainly not 100% raw at this point, but I’d really love to be if I could nail a good diet down.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    Some good recipes would be the walnut blackberry cake I posted on here, avocado puddings – avo+berries+dates in processor=heavenly smooth sweet pudding.

    Avocado salad – 1 or 2 avocado + 4 TBSP olive oil + 1 teasp cayenne pepper + 1/2 tesp salt + 3 tomato + 1/2 bag or head of kale = massage everything together until it is all gooey and delicious.

    There’s a recipe for banana and strawberry crepes on here that would be useful for your calories too.

    Almond cheese and almond milk would also be a good idea.

  • OK. Hi Caapi.

    Most the people that responded to my last post were little help. I became jaded and didnt read anything after that guy told me not to count calories. So to anyone who replied afterwards this isnt meant to you.

    I am skinny. Always have been. When I was vegan, I worked out twice a day, maintained 5000 calories a day diet, and would fluxuate between 198-204lbs.

    When people told me to stop counting calories when your raw (like the last guy) I didnt understand why I would want too. I want to gain strength, weight, and muscle and be healthy at the same time.

    So I havent posted on here since. I counted my calories and found I was 2000 calories less than what I was eating when I was vegan. So I took some steps to relieve that. I am at about 4000 calories right now. I was up at about 5000 when I realized that the coconut milk I was getting from coconuts, was not milk, but in fact water, which lowered my calorie intake significantly.

    I just found this out today.

    But I have only lost 2 lbs this month instead of 8 like last month. So I am hoping it is evening out. The hard thing is that you dont want to eat a lot of nuts. I eat only about a half a cup a day, any more than that I get sick. Supposedly your body maxes out at 1 oz of nuts a day until you get sick.

    I dont know how I am going to replace the 1000 calories I thought I have been intaking. The only thing I can think of thats cheap, is start adding more bananas (i eat them like crazy anyways) and maybe a few more fruits in my workout shakes in the morning and at night. I also wonder how advacados would taste in a shake, if it would make it sweet or bitter.

    Keep at it man. I am 6 foot 8 and weight 190, I dont think I lost any muscle mass, just a lot of fat. But I want to gain that weight back in muscle. I just have to find really high in calorie raw foods, which seems impossible.

  • spiritedmamaspiritedmama Raw Newbie

    You may want to try going to the gardendiet.com if you haven’t already. Storm has ‘body builder’ body that he maintains with a raw diet. He is currently trying to gain more muscle mass while maintaining/gaining weight (not fat). I can’t explain it as well as he does. But, he has a nice exercise program he follows and talks about the raw foods he has specifically chosen for the muscle building. It may help you.

  • Thanks! I will go check that out.

  • LucyLucy Raw Newbie

    Hi Caapi. You can make sunflower milk and that will help you gain weigh for sure. sunflower,water,honey or agave in the blender.

  • i really dont know wich way to go about the calorie argument. some people eat less than 1000 a day and feel great and arent too skinny. others say they eat 4000+ a day but that seems like a ridiculouswly large amount of food. ive been worried about losing weight (ive gone from 146 to 124 in 4 months) but i am very comfortable with how much i eat. i feel wrong forcing food into my body when im reallynot hungry. especially fruit and nuts. i agree with spiritedmama to check out storm. he is in incredible shape – great physique – and says that orange juice has been the main food in his diet recently. it is a pure lie that you have to eat high calories to gain muscle. look at a cow or an elk. they have big, bulky muscles and eat mostly grass. thats not to say that humans are exactly like cows, but we arent too different either.

    i try to just follow the guidance of my stomach and my taste buds. anytime i get a stomach ache or gas i know ive mixed something i shouldnt have or that i should let up on the fruit or nuts. greens i could eat all day. especially organic romaine, red leaf, green leaf lettuce.

  • fuzzyfacefuzzyface Raw Newbie

    start lifting now as your appetite will increase thereby making eating more an easier task.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    making salad dressings with lots of raw olive oil, and almond cheese with lots of raw olive oil will make you gain weight. Oil is v.v.dense and fatty. Young coconut milk + the flesh + 4 dates whizzed up on a blender is gorgeous and has a lot of fat in it.

  • I read Storms website and actually bought an e-book on his weightlifting. Although I though I was going to get a book on what exercises he does, what exact food he eats, how many calories, etc etc like other weightlifting books, instead I got his story, most things I already new about being raw, and a cookbook.

    YET! I am not completely disapointed. He has inspired me that it can be done, and most of his recipes are heavy, dense, and high in calories foods. He also turned me on to oils. I usually just used flax seed and olive oil to make my raw mushrooms taste better.

    After reading his e-book I looked at the back of each oil and found them amazingly heavy in calories for such a small amount. A tablespoon of olive oil is 120 cals, while flax seed is 210! They are both now large parts of my shakes in the morning and night.

    Although I have lost a lot of weight, I still think I look good. A lot of the weight was fat and without it I looked skinnier, but I feel healthier.

    Storm has inspired me.

  • Hi,

    Good luck with what you are trying to do. I want my boyfriend to see that guys can do this and have positive results. I also ate a lot of nuts a couple of years ago and lost a lot of weight so I agree with you that nuts aren’t the solution. One thing that is really good is jicama if you haven’t tried it. It is a root vegetable and can been eaten like an apple when it is peeled. It looks like a rutabega. You can eat it plain or with dip. I think it is particularily good paired with yellow peppers. It is really high in carbs but tastes really refreshing and could be added to a shake. Let me know if you can find one. Also you could increase your consumption of chickpeas and other beans. Get them and soak them in water for a day and barely sprout them. You can eat them on the go or in salads if you haven’t tried that. They are high in carbs. The thing is totally high protein diets can be hard on your kidneys so beans are great because they give you protein and carbs not just protein like seeds. The chickpeas make a great dip with lime juice and cilantro and a little green onion. Good luck! Liz

    ps control your consumption of broccoli and soy milk because they can increase estrogen in your body and make it harder to get muscle mass.

  • spiritedmamaspiritedmama Raw Newbie

    I am so glad that you checked out Storm’s info. He is very inspiring to me, and I am a woman! I think that he and his family are a testament to keeping it ‘simply raw’, meaning not worrying about all the details of various types of raw diets. If it is raw, he eats it, plain and simple. JinJee, his wife, is a huge inspiration to me too.

  • hey

    try here www.vegsource.com/talk/raw/index.html

    you won’t need to register to post and the board is frequented by raw foodists who follow higher calorie, low fat plans

    check harley’s posts for ultra-endurance athlete inspiration….....

  • As I posted on another thread, Charlie’s gym is another awesome place to check out how to be raw and in great shape (low fat).

    http://www.charliesgym.info/

    Eating oils will only replace the old cooked fat with new raw fat and not help build muscle. To build muscle you need to work at it and not eat it.

  • great site socaL…have been there before but lost the link

    he and dr.graham advocate similar ‘systems’...his caloronutrient ratio is almost spot on at 80/10/10

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