Skinny, Not Scrawny

By Monica D. Siembor

Many raw foodists are skinnier than a popsicle stick sideways. A scrawny physique is not attractive. Remember, you want to be skinny, not scrawny. On a low-fat raw vegan diet you will be skinny and you will lose your excess fat, but as long as you eat enough calories and engage in at least moderate exercise, you’ll remain enviably slim with sexy defined muscles.

You need adequate calories to thrive on this diet, and trying to survive on salads alone isn’t going to cut it. Those who try this end up emaciated and scrawny. Leafy greens and non-sweet fruits, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers, while essential in a raw food diet, do not provide many calories. Don’t be afraid of calories. As long as they come from raw sweet fruit, a low-fat source of abundant calories, you will maintain a healthy physique, not to mention look diva hot in a slinky strapless dress.

Let’s examine how to determine the amount of calories you need per day to maintain that sexy, well-defined body. Multiply your ideal weight by ten. For example, if your ideal weight is 120lbs., 1,200 calories per day is the minimum you should eat. You also have to account for the calories you burn while engaging in your daily activities and exercise, so you may be eating closer to 1,500 – 2,000 calories per day.

Without an emphasis on sweet fruits, you’d have to eat a garden full of lettuce and non-sweet fruits to reach this amount of calories. Imagine chewing all of that. Or you’d have to eat lots of fatty nuts, seeds, and avocados which would bring your fat intake to well beyond the 10% limit. This is precisely why our diet should consist of at least 80% of calories from fruit. You will not healthfully meet your caloric needs any other way but than to eat abundant sweet fruit. To track your calories, go to www.nutridiary.com, a free nutritional analysis source.

I weigh 100 lbs. and I eat approximately 1,200 – 1,500 calories per day depending on my activities and exercise for the day. Read my article, “Weekly Meal Plan: Low-Fat Raw Vegan,” to see what I eat in a typical day. Note the abundant amount of fruit that constitutes my diet. Yummy stuff—lucky me!

Keep in mind, however, that when you first begin a low-fat raw vegan diet, your body detoxifies, eliminating wastes, fat, toxins, etc. During detox, you will, more than likely, lose weight at an astonishing rate and become quite skinny very fast. After detox, your body regenerates, creating new, healthy cells. Your energy for exercise returns, so you can begin toning your muscles. With this healthy, efficient new body, you also begin to assimilate the nutrients from your food properly, and your weight stabilizes.

You will, most likely, be naturally thin on this diet, but you’ll still be shapely and knock-out gorgeous if you eat enough calories from low-fat raw sweet fruits and engage in at least moderate exercise.