loving the site,

thanks guys,

Rochelle

sunwarrior.com
natureboy (youtube
wade mcnutt
http://www.freakygrowth.com/blog/

I feel that if only diet is not recommended in losing weight then it should not be recommended in gaining weight too.

I am very sure that a non-vegan or non-vegetarian diet without excercise will make the person only fatter which is not healthy.
i feel in weight gaining any “gain” in weight should be muscle and maybe an increase in Bone density.

Since you asked for other things that we have seen work.
A friend of mine was too underweight to join the army and he was a vegan(religious belief). I do not know where he got the idea but he started eating 4 meals a day and an early morning snack.
The morning snack was raw Bengal Gram which was soaked overnight(soaked since evening and then water changed again before going to sleep)
The other 4 meals included assorted vegetables like carrot, beetroot, cabbage, radish, spinach, and many others which he would soak in hot water for 20 minutes or till the water cooled down. And then he would consume it raw.
And then he did calisthenics only. That is around 100 pushups(in sets) pull ups, situps and crunch ups. Just basic excercise. No warmups and no cardio.
He gained weight in 6 months. I cannot give you statistics but he really beefed up and you could make out the difference. I was a kid a then this was around 18year ago.
He was quite famous for putting on weight on a raw diet(technically not raw as he soaked the veggies in hot water).
During those day there was no raw food movement like today. And none of us knew about the benefits of raw food. I don’t know from where he got this advice too.
But he put on real good weight.
I still remember he would get his vegetables out in his yard and eat and it was a huge amount. it took him around an hour to eat it all.
Another way people put on weight is by soaking bengalgram in water and eating raw on an empty stomach.
Lot of wrestlers and bodybuilders in India do this to put on weight with some excellent results.
Ofcourse they consume a lot of dairy products but they are vegetarians.
But most of the time fast results are achieved with raw bengal gram, but all the advice and results are purely anecdotal.
But I feel if you really want to do research or a study then Raw bengal gram soaked overnight is a good thing to start on.

Funny you mention Exotic Superfoods- as I was just there this past weekend for the durian party. I am glad you brought to my attention that Plantains are non-hybridized- I didnt know that was the case when I saw them there. I did purchase the baby bananas that Exotic sells and they are delicious!

Thanks for the suggestions!

Sara

I opt for Plantains over bananas as the former is not hybridized (they have seeds!). If you live in NYC, Exotic Superfoods in Queens often carries organic Plantains for sale. For the record, I have no affiliation with Exotic Superfoods other than being a happy customer

I too stuggle to keep weight on. I am now 145 lbs and 6 feet tall. I eat avocados pretty much daily, and consume hemp in many forms (seeds, protein powder, and oil). I do exercise, and run about 3 miles every other day so I am burning calories which needs to be replaced. I can only eat so many nuts and seeds as they are difficult to digest.

Scott

So I am one of a few raw foodists that have tried and tried to put on weight while eating raw and I have yet to gain a pound. Interesting your observation about the many that eat a primarily green smoothie/juice diet on the raw have a harder time gaining weight and that fruit seemed to be the way to go. Up until recently I had been avoiding most fruit because of my battle with candida and faulty digestion- not to mention the fact that much of the fruit is far to hybridized that is available here in nyc. I know quite a few people in the raw community- that advocate the 80/10/10 and/or fruitarian diet. I personally think everything in balance (greens, fruits, and fats rather than overdosing on any one). But regardless, I have yet to find eating more fruit or a mix of raw to put on weight. Also, I like the idea of the smoothie suggestion- but proper food combining would not allow for a banana to mix with the hemp seed- what is a better alternative as additionally I avoid the hybrodized fruits (ie bananas, dates, seedless fruits, etc). ?

Thanks for your research… here are a few more…

From 2000:

http://www.jci.org/articles/view/10583

“Increased plasma free fatty acid concentrations are typically associated with many insulin-resistant states, including obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (24–27). In a cross-sectional study of young, normal-weight offspring of type 2 diabetic patients, we found an inverse relationship between fasting plasma fatty acid concentrations and insulin sensitivity, consistent with the hypothesis that altered fatty acid metabolism contributes to insulin resistance in patients with type 2 diabetes (28). Furthermore, recent studies measuring intramuscular triglyceride content by muscle biopsy (29) or intramyocellular triglyceride content by 1H NMR (30–32) have shown an even stronger relationship between accumulation of intramyocellular triglyceride and insulin resistance. In a classic series of studies, Randle et al. demonstrated that fatty acids compete with glucose for substrate oxidation in isolated rat heart muscle and rat diaphragm muscle. They speculated that increased fat oxidation causes the insulin resistance associated with obesity (33–35). The mechanism they proposed to explain the insulin resistance was that an increase in fatty acids caused an increase in the intramitochondrial acetyl CoA/CoA and NADH/NAD+ ratios, with subsequent inactivation of pyruvate dehydrogenase (Figure 2, top). This in turn would cause intracellular citrate concentrations to increase, leading to inhibition of phosphofructokinase, a key rate-controlling enzyme in glycolysis. Subsequent accumulation of glucose-6-phosphate would inhibit hexokinase II activity, resulting in an increase in intracellular glucose concentrations and decreased glucose uptake.”

From 2007:

http://tinyurl.com/4kznwf

And this is similar to the one referenced above:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/64692.php

This one above focuses on breaking down the fat by uncoupling proteins to increase metabolism and improve insulin resistance.

So high fat = insulin resistane = impaired glucose metabolism… BUT…

I’ve heard MANY people say that the “fat wraps itself around the cell” which I think is erroneous.

From what I’ve read and from some of these studies above, it seems to be an issue of system overload of the liver and other processes that cause the insulin resistance, not a physical wrapping of the cell or anything anecdotal like that.

Hope this helps!
Kev

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10856515

This seems to indicate that saturated fat in the long term causes diabetes but its not conclusive.

If there is a more current reference that you know of, please let me know.

Thank you again!
Alicia

I have an email going out to you but I wanted to post again here. After thinking on it some, I want to ask my previous questions in another way. I do want my questions above answered as well but this has been on my mind since you posted this video…

I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised, since the nutrition map is not complete but in making the transition to raw/vegan, I really didn’t imagine that in the raw food world there would be almost as many contradictions and controversies over nutrition as there are in the “cooked” food world.

Before transitioning to vegan/raw, I ate predominately veggies and animal protein. I ate sugars including fruits, grains and fats in small quantities. When I did eat fruit, I would eat it with a few nuts to offset the glycemic load. Although most fruits have a pretty low glycemic load anyway and the fiber makes them low on the insulin index as well, but just for an added measure, I ate them with nuts.

I understand the science behind insulin and blood glucose. I’m assuming this is why in your video you caution about the sugar in bananas. Is that correct?

So then you have raw foodists such as Frederic Patanaude, who’s philosophy is that you don’t have to worry about eating fruit at all and that instead its the over consumption of fat that leads to insulin resistance. Obviously we don’t want to over consume fat in the form of nuts or otherwise but I haven’t seen any scientific data that shows a direct link in nutritional fat to insulin resistance. In my years of research, did I miss the boat?

I do agree, from my own research that grains are very difficult to digest but I wouldn’t agree you should avoid them all together, as he recommends.

That said, I’m mostly following his raw food protocol because 1) I like fruit more than I like veggies and 2) he’s right about the calorie aspect. Since I’m eating very small amounts of nuts, seeds and grains, then I need the fruit in order to have enough calories in my day. I will be monitoring my blood glucose levels closely. Since diabetes runs in my family, I cannot afford to get this wrong. The whole reason for eating “healthy” is to avoid the genetic disposition to diabetes.

So I guess my question to you is… Are you saying that what works best for you, personally, is eating mostly veggies, hemp and grains with a few nuts and seeds and hardly any fruit at all? Which is basically what I was doing when I wasn’t vegan, minus the animal protein, of course.

I thought that going vegan would make things much simpler but I’m now wondering if, because of my specific concerns, it maybe a bit more tricky?

I would greatly appreciate any advice, books or resources you can provide!

Thank you!
Alicia