by Frederic Patenaude
Let me ask you a simple question: do
you feel you're getting the best results
from your current food program? After
all, we all want the same things: increased
energy, a fit and sexy body, to live
longer and healthier, avoid and heal
health challenges, and a sound nutritional
approach.
Sometimes it happens that you may be
doing well for a while with your diet,
but imperceptibly you move away from
the results you're looking for, and
sooner or later you realize, “this
diet isn't working for me anymore!”
To prevent that from happening, here
are some warning signs to watch out
for and what to do about them.
1. Cravings
It's perfectly normal to experience
cravings for cooked and processed foods
when you transition to a mostly raw
or all raw diet. The problem occurs
when these cravings persist and don't
go away.
In my experience, there are two causes
for cravings: nutritional and emotional.
I will review nutritional causes now,
as emotional causes are complex and
beyond the scope of this article.
Nutritional causes are fairly simple:
if you're not eating enough calories
from fruits and vegetables, you *are*
going to crave cooked and processed
foods.
The trick is to be able to consume
enough fruits to get your calories,
without consuming more fat than you
need to (and at the same time consuming
enough greens for minerals).
Eating too much fat will also cause
cravings, while a nutritionally-sound
low-fat approach is the best remedy
against cravings.
Keeping in mind that the average active
woman needs 1800 to 2500 calories per
day, and the average active man 2500
to 3000, a short visit to www.fitday.com
should let you know if you're consuming
enough calories from fruits and vegetables.
2. No Energy to Exercise
If you have no energy to exercise,
or are not making progress in your fitness
program, it's probably because you're
not consuming enough calories and/or
you are consuming too much fat. It's
often a sign that your diet is not working.
An energy deficit will be obvious when
you follow a fitness program. If you're
barely consuming enough fruits and vegetables
to meet your dietary needs, you can't
expect to have extra energy to exercise.
Also, an excess of fat in the diet
can cause a “run-down” feeling
which may prevent you from experiencing
the energy to exercise.
We often tend to “under-estimate”
the amount of fruits and vegetables
we should eat, and “over-estimate”
the amount of fat that it's okay to
eat.
By checking out that your daily consumption
of fruits and vegetables is adequate
to meet your energy needs (at www.fitday.com,
for example), you can also verify that
your fat consumption by calories is
less than 10-15%.
3. Waking up in the morning tired
Waking up in the morning still tired
is also a sign that your diet may not
be balanced. This is often caused by
eating excessive quantities of fat,
especially coming from nuts and seeds,
and/or eating late at night. My suggestion
would be to try eating only fruits and
vegetables, without fat of any kind,
for about 3-4 days, and avoid eating
later than 7 p.m., and see how you feel.
Chances are that you'll start waking
up in the morning much more refreshed
and energetic!
When that happens, just make sure that
when you reintroduce fats into your
diet it's in small amounts (I've provided
guidelines in my book "The
Raw Secrets").
4. Inability to maintain weight
Two things can happen here. Either
you haven't been able to *release* the
weight you were carrying around in excess,
or you're getting thinner than you'd
like to be.
In the first case, if you're still
struggling to reach your ideal weight,
even though you've transitioned to a
raw food diet, you may simply have the
wrong nutritional and lifestyle approach.
If you're getting thinner than you'd
like to, you should also review the
articles on weight (click here). Know
that the best thing you can do is to
combine strength training (basically
lifting weights or high-resistance bodyweight
exercises) and *eat big*!
If you wish to gain significant muscle
mass, you can, even on a raw food diet.
But you'll need a good training program
and to consume sufficient calories from
fruits and vegetables. For a woman,
that means at least 2500 calories per
day on average, and for a man at least
3000.
5. You're confused
Another sign that you may be heading
towards a diet “disaster”
is having the feeling of confusion and
doubt. Eventually, that feeling may
intensify and lead you to either give
up entirely or try other programs that
won't work.
The solution to this is to gain sufficient
knowledge to avoid this confusion, go
to the root of emotional issues behind
food, and join a group for coaching
and community that can provide you with
constant support and inspiration to
continue on the path of radiant health.
Your next step? To take what you've
just learned and put it to the test
right away!
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