Raw Food Weight Loss – Is It For You?

Is raw food weight loss something that will work for you? It depends on whether or not this type of diet fits you and your needs.

Here are 4 criteria that will give you a clue as to whether or not the diet is for you.

Time to prepare raw foods

The foods on a raw food weight loss plan are full of vitamins, minerals and enzymes in their raw state. This means you’ll get more of them into your body – with the exception of beta-carotene, which needs to be cooked to make it available to the body. Cooking easily destroys B vitamins (and especially with long cooking times) so you’ll get higher levels of them. The higher levels of B vitamins are important for mental stability; alleviate anxiety, depression, and fatigue; as well as help stabilize moods.

However, it will take you at least a few hours a day to prepare raw foods. Expect a lot of cleaning vegetables and cutting them. If you’re fast at this type of task and like being in the kitchen, then a raw food weight loss program may work for you. Otherwise, give it a second thought.

No existing serious disease

Many people on a raw food weight loss diet don’t understand that it’s a rough diet for those who have several serious diseases right now. For example, having liver disease and kidney disease or even cancer makes it quite difficult to handle a raw food weight loss diet. In these conditions, it’s better to have at least 50% cooked food.

The way around this is to use juicing of fresh vegetables and some fruits as a healing agent. Doing a juice fast with these conditions may be the best way to start feeling better, but if you have any of these conditions, you really do need professional advice on how to make it work for you.

Junk Food junkies should expect drastic change

If you’re a person who lives on coffee, donuts, and pre-packaged foods, all those food choices will have to be replaced with new ones. You’ll go through an adaptation period where you’ll miss that coffeecake or macaroni and cheese, possibly cheat and then feel guilty about it. You may even cut down yourself for low willpower although what’s really happening is that you’re adjusting to the change of diets.

Changing to a raw food weight loss diet is clearly a change for the better. There are a lot more benefits such as more fiber to make the colon work better, more carotenoids that act on vision and really every other function in your body, more energy, less preservatives and chemicals that are cancer-causing, and reversal of aging.

You’ll be eating fewer calories and as a result, lose weight. There’s also a notable improvement in your body’s ability to utilize insulin, and as you lose weight your insulin resistance improves. This translates to better blood sugar levels and better Hemoglobin A1c levels.

Lower Glycemic Index diet

A raw food weight loss diet is a diet lower in carbohydrates and lower on the Glycemic Index and Glycemic load. This helps you better control your blood sugar and cravings during the day. With better blood sugar levels, you may be able to eventually eliminate medication for Type 2 diabetes.

One of the big questions people ask when they’re on a raw food weight loss diet is what’s for breakfast. The answer can still be cereal – but it’s not boxed cereal. Here’s how to make great-tasting cereal to start your day off right.

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