Detoxification is a process of removing the harmful toxins from the body through a healthy diet. Usually, detoxification diets involve eating raw vegetables, fruits, water, and juices to get rid of toxins. Therefore, eating raw foods is not only about losing weight but also cleansing the body.
Step 1 – Compute your dietary requirements. Each of you has distinctive dietary requirements and health indicators.
The first thing you must do is to know if this diet is suitable for your weight loss and health requirements. It is important to know if your body can survive eating raw foods consistently. The diet must meet the minimum nutrient and calorie requirements for your gender, activity level, and height. If you skip this step, your body may fail to withstand the food restrictions of the diet.
1. Consult your dietitian.
On a raw food diet, you are only allowed to eat uncooked, plant-based foods. Since you can’t consume animal-based products and cooked grains, many people may feel that they are physically deprived. It may not be sufficient to meet calorie needs. The raw food diet is not applicable to those who are suffering from serious health conditions. It is not a good idea to start any weight-loss diet without consulting your dietitian. By visiting a health professional, you can adjust the food restrictions of the diet to ensure that your body can withstand the diet. The dietitian can also give you some tips on maximizing your weight loss.
2. Set your target weight.
If you have a target weight, then you will be more determined to continue the diet and lose weight.
3. Compute your caloric requirements.
People who work daily need more calories in their raw food diet. Usually, those who are active and have a lot of things to do must have higher calorie consumption. Other factors that may affect one’s calorie requirements are height, body fat, and age. This diet requires you to eat fewer calories than you burn each day.
Step 2 – Make your raw food meal plan.
1. Eat regularly. Although you are on a weight-loss diet, you must not starve yourself.
Since raw foods have fewer calories, you can still eat as many foods as you want. Ideally, you must eat food every 4 hours. This is to regulate your blood sugar level and to ensure that your metabolism is at a normal rate.
2. Construct your meal plan.
Set a specified menu for your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You must also incorporate some snack time between heavy meals. Your target calorie for each meal is about 300 calories. You can still adjust this depending on your body’s calorie needs.
3. Choose fruits, grains, and vegetables that have fewer calories.
Even if this diet does not allow you to heat foods to the extent of cooking them, you can still perform gentle warming, soaking, pureeing and dehydrating. There are a lot of raw food dishes you can make, provided that you have a copy of their recipes. Do not prepare dishes containing additional fats and oils. Ensure that you acquire enough protein from raw food sources like beans and nuts.
4. Only buy raw foods at the grocery.
Once you have created a meal plan, go to the nearest grocery store and buy the essential ingredients and items. You must strictly follow the raw food diet to attain your target weight loss.
Step 3 – Consume raw foods rich in protein and contain less fat.
Experts claim that eating foods rich in protein and contain less fat can maximize your weight loss.
1. Consume seeds, legumes, raw fish, quinoa, wild rice, buckwheat, and nuts.
These foods are good sources of protein. Although quinoa and wild rice are plant-based grains, they can be added in this diet for they are rich in protein.
Fat must not be included in the diet.
You are not allowed to use vegetable oil, flaxseed oil, and olive oil in preparing, flavoring, and misting raw food dishes. You can only use small amounts of these ingredients if they are part of the recipe’s essential components.