6 Reasons ‘The Raw Food Diet’ Is Not A Diet At All

The term "raw food diet" is ever more popular. You’ll often hear of a person who eats raw food being talked about as someone who’s on a "raw food diet".

I understand this is a popular phrase and helps people to get a handle on what this whole thing is.

But really, calling this lifestyle a diet, I think, does it some injustice, as it’s not a diet at all - at least certainly not in the traditional sense of the word.

Here’s my top 6 reasons I believe raw food is a lifestyle, not just a diet.

1. The lifestyle

I just mentioned that I believe raw food is a lifestyle, not just a diet.  What do I mean by that?

Well, I’m going to expand a lot more in the next few points, but in short, once someone experiences what’s on offer they actually want to do it.

I mean if you want to lose weight on a diet and you happen to come across as a way to lose weight, you would be pretty amazed at the foods you can eat.

I would imagine it would be quite exciting to be learning all about these foods and realising there’s actually no deprivation; it’s all about enjoying our food, and enjoying life.

I can remember getting into raw foods and just being enamoured with the process, getting excited about the foods and the results.  I can also remember this whole world opening up to me where I realise there was a bunch of really friendly, positive people out there around which a whole lifestyle was being based.

Which brings me on to…

2. The People

I’ve found so many people who eat this food are positive, focussed and just enjoy so many elements of life.

I’ve found them to be into lots of really interesting subjects from growing their own food to personal development and running their own businesses.

There’s a real overall propensity of people to help others and make their own part of the world a better place.  Maybe that’s like a bit of a hippy ideal to you, maybe not.  I know I used to think this was all a very hippy (and slightly crazy) thing to be doing, but when I met these people I saw something very different.

Let’s be clear; there are many different diverse and interesting people getting into the raw food diet, not to lose weight, as the name would suggest, but to make the best of themselves, for whatever reason.

I enjoy all the amazing new friends I’ve met directly because of eating like this, and I’m excited about the people I’ll be meeting in the future.

3. No yo-yoing

Traditional dieting has been proven to lead to yo-yo eating; a situation where someone will binge on ‘naughty’ foods as they slip off their diet, only to start again afresh on Monday.  Everyone changes his or her life again on a Monday, have you noticed that?

The thing about the modern raw food diet is that it’s OK to eat a bit of cooked food if you want to. You’re an adult and you’re ‘allowed’ to eat what you want!

By practicing self-acceptance, which is very common for someone eating a raw food diet, that person is more likely to be successful (by their own definition).

Because the lifestyle isn’t a temporary thing (see point 5 below) there’s no pressure to do everything immediately.  It’s OK to learn as you go because most people, after they experience the energy and vitality, will integrate it into their life for the rest of their life.

The raw food diet is experiential and once you know this stuff you can’t unlearn it.

4. Eat more food!

This point is a double-edged coin.  The reason being that you will find you can actually eat a higher quantity of food, even if you want to lose weight.

But the paradox is that it’s very difficult to overeat on a raw food diet as your body will be so fully nourished with nutrients that it will stop asking for more food.  Leaving you feeling satisfied by a smaller volume of food.

It’s for this reason that people that are overweight are really suffering from malnutrition.  It’s a case of quality over quantity – if you don’t eat high-quality foods that are full of great nutrition your body is going to keep asking for that nutrition, leading you to think you’re still hungry.

So this point was all about being able to eat MORE food, not less – and that’s absolutely the case.  Someone just transitioning over to a raw food diet may be used to eating so much food that they will still need that amount of food at the beginning, just because it’s a habit.

Which brings me to the main point: that person can eat the same volume of food (or an even higher amount) if they feel they really need it, and they can STILL lose weight because the body can assimilate and deal with foods eaten raw much easier.  As an example there’s much more fibre in a raw food diet, keeping things moving along.  Also the fats in a raw food diet are in their natural form, and therefore usable by the body.  Heated treated fats are unrecognisable to the body and are very difficult to process, let alone get any goodness from.

5. There’s no going back now…

I mentioned that the raw food diet is more of a lifestyle than a diet and that therefore someone getting into it is more likely to stay on the path for life.

This has been absolutely true in my experience.  Any struggle that I see people having seems to come from learning how to actually make the food, which can be picked up over time, as slow as they want.  There’s not much struggle with people actually WANTING to be on the lifestyle, which makes it much more enjoyable, and even exciting, therefore making it a lifelong thing.

With the excitement of the lifestyle, the food and the people is so attractive that anyone who experiences feels like they’ve come home and want to stay a while.

6. It’s fun!

Yep. I said it.  Eating only uncooked fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds is actually FUN.  I think I’ve given my reasons for why I think that is in the last 5 points.

But I will say this: if you’re interested in sampling this raw food diet thing, give yourself a break, practise some self acceptance (ie. none of us are perfect and we’re trying to change any aspect of out lives there’s a massive gravitational pull of habits formed to overcome) and give yourself some time to learn how to make some really fantastic foods (which is where I can help you, by the way).

If you follow these guidelines you’ll have so much fun on this you won’t even want to call it a diet either!