Weight loss exercises - Do I need to exercise even though I'm eating raw food

Weight loss exercises - do I need these to lose weight even if I'm already eating raw vegan food?
The word "exercise" is loaded with a lot of meaning or emotional charge for a lot of people who don't exercise. Many negative associations come up, and mostly these are the reasons why they don't exercise - not enough time, it hasn't worked before, I'm too tired to exercise, I don't know where to begin, I get sick when I exercise, etc.
For people who don't exercise regularly, the reasons cited above make sense. They have perfectly valid reasons why they don't exercise. Truth is, no one has to exercise. The moment you "have to" do something, it stops being fun. You don't have to exercise, but you could, if you want to get results faster.
Instead of waiting for several months to see results, you might start noticing that your pants are getting loose in a matter of days or weeks. You start seeing your jawline and cheek bones after a week or two. You begin to feel a little more energetic, and you find that you feel more refreshed upon waking up. These are the results that could actually motivate you to exercise some more.
But for most people, the real challenge is starting to exercise. How do you push yourself to do something that you don't even feel like doing in the first place? 


1. Ask yourself what form of exercise you might enjoy.


2. Look around and see where you might do this exercise.


3. Look at your closet and see if you have something to wear.


4. Ask your friends to see if they would want to join you.


Ask yourself what form of exercise you might enjoy.
Some people think that exercise is boring, specially when they see people staying on treadmills for an hour or more. You do not need to spend hours on treadmill. Would you rather swim instead? Do you enjoy playing tennis or badminton? Do you enjoy riding a bike? Have you ever thought of learning karate or capoeira? Initially, what matters is just to pick one, any one, that you think you will enjoy. It has to be enjoyable for you.


Look around and see where you might do this exercise
The gym is not the only place to work out at. For people who don't have the time, money, or inclination to sign up for a gym membership, see if you can start right at home. Maybe you can start by getting an inexpensive rebounder and just jump up and down for 10 minutes. Or maybe you can jog around the block when you wake up. There is no need to spend a single cent to begin exercising right now. 


Look at your closet and see if you have something to wear
I find it to be a bit humorous that some people hesitate to start exercising because they have nothing to wear. Really, this is just an excuse. You can lie down on the floor wearing your pajamas and start doing crunches long before everyone else wakes up. Or if you really must have a complete outfit, there's a sale happening somewhere almost every week, and this would be a great time to shop for clothes. 


Ask your friends to see if they would want to join you
For some people, it's easier to start if they have someone to kick their butt. Find out if your spouse or some other family member would be interested to run with you, or maybe swim a few laps with you, or maybe even just go up and down the stairs a couple of times with you.


Weight loss exercises need not be complicated. They need not be expensive. There is no need to invest in a home gym or buy an expensive piece of do-it-all equipment that you see on home TV shopping.

The important thing is, to borrow Nike's tagline, is to "just do it".


When you start eating raw food, your body will begin to detoxify. All the live enzymes you've been introducing into your system will start doing their job of cleaning out the junk from your body. When you exercise, you naturally start to sweat. This helps your body to get rid of the toxins that are flowing out of your fat cells. 


Being on a raw food diet is the perfect complement to doing a couple of weight loss exercises.

Raw Food Diet - Will I lose a lot of weight on a raw food diet?

Raw food diet is fast becoming a new buzz word everywhere. Some are embracing this new lifestyle because they have no choice. They're sick and they've heard that it can heal their bodies. Others try it because a lot of famous celebrities are openly admitting that raw foodism is much better than plastic surgery when it comes to making them look a lot younger. And of course, more and more people are seeing that eating raw food is one of the best ways to lose weight.

Why is it that adopting a raw food diet will cause you to lose a lot of weight very quickly? 

1. A raw food diet is naturally healthy and nourishing.

2. Raw foods do not contain man-made toxins

3. Raw foods help to make your body more alkaline.

Let's look at each one of these in detail:

A raw food diet is naturally healthy and nourishing.

Uncooked fruits and vegetables are naturally low in calories, high in fiber, and low in bad cholesterol. Time and time again, you've heard that that's the kind of diet that's ideal. When you eat a pineapple for example, you know that there's a lot of fiber in there, it doesn't have animal fat, and considering that there are no added sugars, you know that it's naturally low in calories. And since raw foods are not heat-treated, they retain their enzymes.

When we eat foods that have no living enzymes in them, our body has to use up some of its own enzymes to digest our food. Now this is not good at all. Our bodies need those enzymes for other functions. This means while we are trying to digest our enzyme deficient food, our bodies would have to stop doing other critical functions like detoxing and healing simply because the enzymes are preoccupied with digestion. This is the reason why some people feel sleepy after eating a heavy meal. Your body needs to stop its other activities just to attend to the task of digesting all of the enzyme-deficient food that you just ate.

Raw foods do not contain man-made toxins

Think of french fries and donuts. When carbohydrates are heated at really high temperatures (such as when you fry them), acrylamides are formed. This is a toxin as far as the body is concerned. And here's the bad news - this is not your typical garden-variety toxin. New research shows that acrylamides are carcinogenic! When we take in acrylamides in huge doses, we are actually putting ourselves at risk of getting cancer. And when we eat too much, the enzymes whose job is to detox our bodies can't do their job precisely because we've stuffed so much food into our system. 

With a raw food diet, we don't have to worry about ingesting things like acrylamides and other substances that our bodies were never designed to live on such as high fructose corn syrup and aspartame.

When we eat raw food, we give our bodies the rest that it needs to recover from all the work that it had to do to clean up our bodies.

Raw foods help to make your body more alkaline

Just a simple chemistry lesson: our bodies are either acidic or alkaline. When we eat a lot of sugar and meat, our bodies become acidic. This is the perfect environment for all sorts of diseases to develop in our bodies. When we eat uncooked fruits and vegetables, our bodies become alkaline. When our bodies are alkaline, we start getting healed, we start losing fat, and we start to slow down the rate by which our bodies break down and grow old. Acidic - not good. Alkaline - good. That's a simple rule to remember.

When you start eating more uncooked fruits and vegetables, and eat less meat, processed food, canned food, fast food, and manufactured food, something magical happens to your body - you start losing weight! And this is the kind of weight loss that doesn't make you look like you haven't eaten or slept in days. This is the kind of weight loss that gives you a lot of energy and makes your more youthful.

Some people are hesitant to make the jump to eating 100% raw because they think they'll miss all the good food that they love so much. But whoever said that you have to be 100% raw right this moment? Introducing a fruit into your diet today is a great first step. Eating a fresh leafy green salad instead of mashed potatoes with your steak is another great step. Take small steps. Taking small steps is much better than not taking any step at all.

In the next few days, we'll talk about more baby steps that you can take to successfully transition to a raw food diet.