5 Warning Signs Your Diet Isn't Working 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. My suggestion would be to join us for our next Body Enlightenment System.
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!
About the author
"Frederic Patenaude, is the author of the book "The Raw Secrets". Sign up for his weekly "Raw Vegan Tips," and as a bonus, get your free "raw recipe of the week". Visit
http://www.rawvegan.com while this bonus is still offered."
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