One of The Biggest Secrets to The Success on a Raw Vegan Diet
In this new video I share one of the most important secrets to the success on a low-fat raw vegan diet. And I also give you the cool weight loss tip that you can start implementing immediately. So make sure you watched the video up to the end! 
Video Summary
- Eating sufficient quantities of greens is extremely important on a high-fruit diet, because greens provide us with minerals like calcium, iron and magnesium which fruit lacks.
- Greens will also keep you balanced on a high-fruit diet, and will help you to maintain healthy potassium to sodium ratio.
- My definition of greens include leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, etc) and green vegetables (celery, cucumber, zucchini, cabbage, green peas, etc).
- The recommended daily intake of greens on a low-fat raw vegan diet is a pound a day for an average-sized woman (about one head of romaine lettuce a day).
- If you’re not used to eating lots of greens start slowly and try to incorporate some type of leafy green/green vegetable at every meal.
- It is most beneficial to eat greens as close to the state they come from nature as possible, which means with no added oil, salt, spices, condiments, etc. This ensures a proper digestion, absorption and assimilation of nutrients in the body.
- If you consume enough calories from sweet fruit during the day, and still experience cravings and desire to eat fatty, heavy, calorie-dense foods, you’re most likely nutritionally deficient in vital minerals, and you need to increase your intake of greens.
- Weight loss tip: You can release extra weight and lose some fat on a high fruit diet by increasing the amount of vegetable matter and decreasing the amount of fruit matter in the diet. This means eating few pieces of fruit less and make up for it with a few extra cucumbers or celery stalks. This approach works, because vegetables provide us with fewer calories per bite than fruits on average. But they also have the highest amount of nutrients per calorie, and are especially high in bulk and volume (two factors that contribute to satiety). So, what I’m talking here is a slight reduction of daily calories consumed by a few hundred calories (one, two or three hundred). 100 calories a day is such a small amount, for most people it’s not a noticeable change (it’s called a “mindless margin”). So, the difference between weight loss and weight gain is going to be simply a matter of a couple of hundred calories, but spread out daily over a longer period of time. It’s about direction, not speed.
Here’s to Your Ever-Improving Health,
Vlada
5 Responses to “One of The Biggest Secrets to The Success on a Raw Vegan Diet”
Eve on May 16, 2012
This video confirms what I intuitively thought. That is, that unless you are very athletic and burning a lot of calories, high calorie fruit will put on weight. I also find that greens satisfy my cravings for savoury cooked food.
I prefer to eat greens in the form of salads, twice a day, with fruit between meals to provide an energy boost.
Thanks for the very informative video.
Fiona on June 2, 2012
You’re picking great topics for your videos Vlada! I love the summaries you provide below your videos as well which highlight the main aspects.
How important do you consider rotation of greens Vlada? Is it sufficient to incorporate only celery, lettuce and cucumbers for example with some herbs? Additionally, would non green vegetables count – purple cabbage, red spinach for example or does everything literally have to be green?
Thanks!
Vlada Divine on June 3, 2012
Glad you liked the video, Fiona! I consider rotation of greens to be important to a certain degree. It is always best to eat in season — what’s fresh & seasonal right now — because it ensures variety throughout the year and provides natural “rotation”. If you only have access to lettuce, celery and herbs, that’s good enough too, as long as you consume them regularly. Purple cabbage and red spinach are excellent, nutritionally dense foods, and they certainly count because they have higher mineral content than fruits. Not all the vegetables you eat have to be green, and as long as you include some green ones too, it will be fine. All in all, enjoy ALL bright-colored vegetables you can get your hands on!
andrea on September 25, 2012
May I ask how many calories you intake on average? It seems the usual recommendation for women is a minimum 2000 calories/day. However that seems high for someone like myself who is 5’2′ and on the heavier side. I’ve already gained 15lbs eating 2000 calories/day and while I love the way I feel, but not the way I look.
Vlada Divine on September 26, 2012
I feel you, Andrea, and I know very well (from personal experience) that it is quite possible to gain weight while eating large amounts of fruit on a daily basis.
I consume from 1800 to 2000 calories a day depending on how active I am (my height is 5’4″). I feel very satisfied with this amount of calories, and I certainly don’t feel the need to eat 2500 calories a day like some 811RV diet educators advocate. I however, don’t recommend 2000 ccal/day for everybody, even though it’s a general recommendation for an average female. You may need to consume more or less depending on many factors which include your age and a level of physical activity. Calorie requirements are pretty individual and can vary from person to person.
On the other hand, I don’t recommend severe calorie restriction for the purpose of weight loss either — it can result in some undesirable side effects like binge eating and your body holding onto fat, just to name a few. It is very important that you don’t starve yourself and always feel satiated, even when working on releasing some extra weight/fat.
The other thing I wanted to mention is this: your body might be running a so-called ‘fat program’ — in that case you’ll gain weight no matter what foods you eat, especially if you have a calorie surplus.