Eating for Energy Blog

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Posts Tagged ‘benefits’

Top 5 Reasons to Follow a Raw Foods Diet

April 26th, 2010

Near more reasons to follow a raw foods diet? Well, here we go…

There are lots of reasons to change the way you eat, and consume less dead and cooked food items. It sounds wonderful, but sometimes, it can be difficult to put into words why exactly you would want to change your diet and eat more raw foods – particularly when speaking with someone who does not agree with your new-found ideas.

While a diet change is not about converting those around you to a system that works for you, here are a few points you can present when asked “why on earth would you want to limit yourself only to raw foods?”

1. Raw foods can help you to lose weight.

When you start to eat for energy with a raw food diet, you are going to notice that the volume of food that you eat is not going to differ drastically. You won’t be asked to skimp and starve yourself; but while you will be eating plenty, you will likely see a loss in overall body weight. Because raw foods tend to have a high concentration of fibre, you will feel more full, and because they contain no artificial sugars, you will be consuming fewer calories, on average.

2. Eating raw foods will give you more energy.

Hey, that’s why they call it eating for energy. Raw foods contain living enzymes. These enzymes are fairly delicate, and when cooked, tend to be destroyed. When you ingest raw, living enzymes, you provide your body with help. Extra calories that, in the past, would go towards digestion can now be harnessed by your muscles, giving you a boost in energy.

3. Eating raw will also reduce your energy consumption in your home.

Many of us have very high energy bills every month, and a large contributor to that are our appliances. Microwave ovens, stoves and conventional ovens take a huge amount of energy to run in order to provide us with cooked foods. When you switch to a raw food diet, you won’t need your oven or microwave any more – the biggest appliances in your kitchen will be your fridge and a food dehydrator. Those savings on your monthly energy bill will really add up.

4. With a raw food diet, you get more vitamins.

Sure, many of us get all the vitamins we need, because we take daily supplements and pills to ensure that we are meeting the minimum requirements. But if you up your intake of fruits and vegetables, you are going to get more than the minimum daily requirements – without having to choke down a fistful of pills every morning.

5. With a raw food diet, you will likely find that you are going to get sick less often.

This high energy diet helps to keep your body in great shape, inside and out, and a healthy body helps foster a healthy immune system. Your body will be able to fight back more effectively against the average flu bug or seasonal cold, and you will be able to bounce back quicker when you do get the sniffles.

=> Got any other reasons to eat more raw foods? Please share.

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Why it’s Good to Eat More Raw Foods

February 24th, 2010

If you’ve been on the fence wondering whether eating more raw foods is a good thing or not, then let me help you over – to the good side. Obviously I have a very biased opinion about eating raw foods, after all I’ve written a book on the subject (ie. Eating for Energy).

But you just can’t refute the numerous benefits of eating raw. One of the reasons I started eating more raw foods several years ago was that I wanted more energy. I was sick and tired of needing lots of sleep (ie. 8-10 hours) to feel rested and somewhat energetic.

After all, most sleep experts have told us that our bodies need a “specific” amount of sleep for our body to regenerate and feel rested. I used to believe that…now I’m not so sure. What I’ve found is that when most of my food intake comes from raw foods, I don’t need as much sleep. In fact, when I’m about 80% raw, I can thrive on just 5-6 hours of sleep.

Part of the reason this happens is the body is getting “life energy” from the foods you’re feeding it. When we eat dead, cooked foods, there is little to no energy (other than calories) that we are providing our body.

Think of eating raw foods like recharging a battery. The more raw foods you eat, the more you are recharging your battery – which, in this case, is your body. Conversely, when the majority of your diet is comprised of dead foods, you inherently drain more of your battery’s energy.

This occurs because dead foods require more energy to be digested and metabolized. For instance, eating meat (that is cooked) draws more water from your body to be digested since most, if not all, the water in the meat has been evaporated by the cooking process.

Not only does eating cooked meat help to dehydrate your body but it also taxes your body’s digestive enzymes. Because the food is dead it no longer contains it’s natural food enzymes. As a result, your body must now spend more of its own energy to produce and secrete more of its limited digestive enzymes.

These are just a few reasons why cooked foods drain your energy but there are many more. Now, I’m not saying that you have to totally forego cooked foods from here on out (I certainly haven’t) but it’s important to understand that you should offset some of the “stress” imposed by cooked foods with an abundance of raw foods.

And it doesn’t have to be complicated. Simply eating more fruits and vegetables, in their raw state, is really all you need to do. When people ask me how to start eating raw, I usually just tell them that the easiest way to do so is by adding a few more fruits and vegetables into their daily diet.

Once you experience the benefits of doing so, you’ll find it easier to transition away from those foods that have held you hostage for so many years.

Go for it – you can do it!