Trouble Losing Weight On Raw? Stick It To This Sneaky Substance!

* What’s New?: Raw Food Meeting in Memphis

* Feature Article: How to Indulge in High Fat Raw Recipes

Raw Food Meeting in Memphis

As I mentioned last week, last night I hosted a little low fat raw vegan meeting in my home.  There was a lot of good discussion and I got to meet some really nice raw foodists in the Memphis area.

I also made a few different dishes for the get together, including my Salty Salt-Free Salsa which I recorded so look out for that on YouTube really soon!

Swayze

Trouble Losing Weight On Raw?  Stick It To This Sneaky Substance!

I figured I’d stick to the salty theme of last week and share my own little sickly salt story.  Enjoy!

When I receive emails from frustrated and often desperate readers asking why, oh why they can’t lose weight even though they are following a healthy raw food diet, the very first thing I often ask is:

*Are you still consuming salt?*

This sneaky substance so popular within the raw food movement is a common reason why many raw foodists hold onto excess weight.

Here’s the simple explanation:

When you consume rock salt of any kind – sea salt, table salt, kosher salt, fleur de sel, etc. – the salt draws the precious water from your cells out into your bloodstream and skin (even killing the cells in the process).

This process of osmosis, although necessary to balance the level of salinity in the body, is what leads to water retention (i.e. puffy skin!).

Don’t believe me? Then let me regale you with a little salty story of my own…

Salty Dinner Salad and Super Inflated Swayze

Late last year, I began adding salt to my nightly salads. I’m not really sure how it happened…

I just noticed the sea salt on the counter while preparing my dinner one evening and decided to add a dash to the dish. I knew it wasn’t healthy to eat rock salt, but it tasted pretty good and I figured it couldn’t harm me that much, right?

I kept up these salty charades for a couple of weeks until I noticed my clothes fitting a bit tighter. I was having a hard time fitting into some of my shirts. I didn’t notice the connection between the weight gain and salt yet and so I was a bit perplexed.

Then I saw myself in the raw pie video I posted Thanksgiving morning of ’09…I looked all puffy! I went to weigh myself and couldn’t believe it: I was 5 POUNDS HEAVIER than my usual weight!

I knew immediately what the culprit was: SALT!

No More Salty Salads!

The salt – even just a dash of it – was clearly making me retain water. I decided to eliminate the dash of salt from my diet that day and had a completely salt-free salad that evening.

And you know what? I was completely surprised that my salad tasted just as good! Better, in fact, because I could actually taste all the different nuances of the ingredients in the dish instead of just salt, salt, and more SALT.

Even more surprising? I weighed myself the next day to test my theory and had already lost 3 WHOLE POUNDS. I had known that salt lead to water retention, but 3 pounds in one day?! That really surprised me.

In addition, I had been waking up each morning slightly nauseated for the past couple of weeks, which was sometimes accompanied by a slight headache. This would last for about an hour or so and then gradually disappear.

Again, I didn’t see salt as the culprit.

But the morning after my salt-free salad…no nausea OR headache AT ALL!

So not only did that little bit of rock salt in the evening make me gain an entire melon’s worth of water, but it also made me nauseated and headache-y!

And it didn’t even enhance the flavor of my food…it just made it salty.

Oh, one other side effect of eating salt…it made my sweat super stinky!

Moral of My Salty Story

Salt is really, really, REALLY addictive.

This is not the first time I have introduced salt back into my diet and each occurrence has the same results:

I try the salt, I love it immediately (even though I haven’t eaten it in many, many months), I continue to use it to enhance my food for a few weeks, I gain weight and/or my joints start to hurt, I give it up and wonder why, oh why I ever introduced it to my diet in the first place!

But this time was a bit different.

The nausea and headaches were definitely new and I usually only gain a pound or two, not FIVE!

Plus, I usually really struggle with giving salt up again because plain savory raw dishes just don’t taste as good anymore. As mentioned above, the salad tasted just fine without it and I forgot all about salt pretty much immediately, which was great.

How to Stick it to Salt

While I usually recommend a gradual transition away from unhealthy foods, salt is sometimes an exception to the rule.

If you are still struggling with weight loss and can’t stop sneaking in and soaking up the salt, the best thing to do is to simply get rid of it completely. You will be surprised how quickly your cravings for this sneaky substance subside.

It really only takes a few days to a couple weeks at most and then you won’t even think about salt anymore. After only about a week of no salt, the thought of adding any to my food honestly made be feel nauseated…and it still does!

Hopefully my stubborn self has *finally* learned its lesson and I won’t go searching for salt again.

*sigh* We shall see.

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. If you are finding it exceedingly difficult to give up salt, I suggest checking out Roger Haeske’s idiot-proof recipe system, Savory Veggie Stews. These delicious and completely salt-free dishes will be sure to put the kibosh on all your salty and savory dinner time cravings:

http://tinyurl.com/ygwwahs