The following is from my free ebook, which can be found here
Raw Food Success Secret #3:
Eating so much fruit that you can’t imagine eating any
more food will keep cravings at bay.
The third mistake most newcomers to the raw food game make is they don't eat enough calories, and as a result, they end up getting so hungry that they start craving cooked food.
And once a cooked food craving comes on, good luck getting rid of it. Those things can stay in you like a parasite. So best to just stay full of fruit at all times to avoid them coming on.
How much should you eat?
Eat enough.
How much is enough?
Well, if you can close your eyes, and you can visualize
yourself peeling a banana and eating it and enjoying it, get up and go eat that banana! You should be so full you aren’t even thinking about food.
One reason I think noobies might under eat on raw food is because, when you’re new at least, your stomach capacity just isn’t big enough to fit in all that volume which is required for getting in enough calories.
The stomach doesn't need to expand too much when eating cooked food. But raw food is different.
Yesterday I was sitting down with my friend after the gym, and we were eating purple dragon fruits. I knocked back five dragon fruits and I was pretty darn full after that.
My fingers and half my face were covered in purple too.
My friend, however, who is even more muscular and taller than me, could only have two dragon fruits before he announced that he was stuffed!
And it’s not because he had had plenty of calories from 2 dragon fruits, it was because his stomach could not accommodate anymore high volume food. He was physically full.
The only reason my stomach could fit in 5 dragonfruit is because I’ve stretched it over the years! I’ve adapted. He hadn’t.
Now this dragonfruit story might sound cute and romantic, but I’ve had this same scenario play out dozens of times with various cooked fooders around the world who sit down for a meal with the old fruitarian.
Like one time I made a huge lunch for my new neighbors.
They came over for raw sushi.
And like I said I made a huge lunch, because I was expecting us to eat a lot.
So we made our first roll together. I knocked mine back pretty quickly as I normally do with food, and they chewed theirs like giraffes, slow and steady.
Politely, I waited before making my next roll with them.
After the second roll had gone down the hatch, my appetite was kicking in. I was ready for 10
more rolls.
But after their second roll, they said they were too full for a 3rd one. Too full? I was just getting
warmed up!
Now I didn’t want to be rude and eat another 10 rolls in front of them, but I definitely ate at least 3 more in that sitting before they excused themselves from the table and went home to leave me in peace to finish my meal alone.
But your stomach can stretch, you can adapt.
Just like a ballerina who’s extremely flexible from stretching her muscles year in and year out,
you too can stretch of your stomach to accommodate wondrous amounts of fruit. Some tips to succeed early on, even with a small stomach:
Eating denser foods when you’re starting out on your transition to a fully raw food diet is a good idea. Foods like dates, bananas and avocados should be a staple for newcomers, or anyone who’s been craving cooked foods.
You can also blend up a lot of dried fruit to fill up if you want. Dried bananas, dried apricots, and dried raisins blend well too when rehydrated.
As time goes on, and I mean months and months, you can slowly incorporate more and more juicy fruit into your diet, but start with the denser foods, the ones that more closely mimic cooked foods with regards to calories per bite.
What about fat?
Some people might fear eating too much fat. But I don't fear the fat in the slightest if it’s
coming from fruit.
Have a lot of avocados. Heck, I eat up to 6 a day when I feel like it.
It doesn't matter if you're eating a lot of fat on raw if it’s coming from fruit. Just be sure to never eat too much, and never mix it with sugar.
Too much fat is when you feel sick. Don’t do that. Just eat enough fats so that you feel good, you feel solid, and you feel ready to take on the day.
This is a huge tip for preventing cravings. Go buy yourself some avocados.
The reason for not wanting to mixing fat with sugar is because it can lead to high blood sugar
issues.
Sugar likes to go into the blood and effortlessly exit our bloodstream to get absorbed by our cells.
But if our cells and sugar uptake sites in our blood are covered in oil, which is the case for many hours when we eat fat, then the sugar cannot easily exit the blood vessels to do it’s job of fueling the cells.
The sugar has to then float around the blood stream waiting hours for the fat to break down.
This waiting around in the bloodstream as sugar continues to pule up results in what we call high blood sugar.
In the long run, high blood sugar can lead to all sorts of issues, with diabetes being arguably the worst of them.
What about no fat?
If you don't want any fat that's totally fine as well, I understand if you have your reasons, but if
you get hungry just eating juicy fruit, try some denser fruits like dates, bananas.
If you’re looking for a great source of Omega 3 fatty acids, eat a bunch of mangoes. They a great source if you want to be low fat, while still getting in your healthy fats.