How do you avoid losing too much weight on a raw plant-based diet?
You shouldn't try to avoid it. Just as demolition must come before genuine renovation and improvement, any body that is toxic due to wrong living needs to break down (catabolism) before it can build up (anabolism). Most of us do not have the determination or guts to do this, as our civilized habits are not designed to sacrifice before we get rewarded. Of course, if a person is too weak, fragile and unhealthy to begin with, then they may want to establish basics like proper rest, eating at the proper times, and getting enough fresh air, sunshine and activity until their systems are ready for a major renovation.
The transition process of eliminating toxicity from your system is quite automatic with the proper raw diet together with a wholesome active fresh-air-filled lifestyle. The self-healing process of your body begins with elimination. Your lungs, skin, bowels,bladder and mucus membranes are the main avenues that we can see, feel and experience elimination from. These "symptoms" can go unnoticed or they can cause alarm and discomfort depending on the level of toxicity in the body as a whole and specifically on a cellular level. Most people think that going to the bathroom means that they have gone full circle. Digestion has taken place and the food has contributed nutrients, they mistakenly think. Nope. Not yet: Assimilation into the blood stream and into the cells is yet another process. That is why you can eat five times more calories and still not have any "energy" (that is another article), or fast on water and still have three bowel movements per day if your body and system are storing excess "garbage" that is slowing you down and preventing you from feeling well. Weight loss has to ensue during this process.
Ultimate health can be felt each step of the way as you complete one "layer" or "depth" of elimination and your body recuperates again, regenerating or healing itself to the next level of well being. Those who eat the Standard American Diet or SAD, never experience more than a ping-ponging from one level of "sick" to "well" their entire lives. They are constantly in a state of demolition and a tiny bit of "sweeping up", but never experience the dozen or more grades of increasing health that allow the body to return to something close to what it was designed to experience "off the original assembly line".
Remaining in the "first grade" of health, most people regard headaches, stomach aches, congestion, sore throat, pimples, rashes, impacted colons, restless nights, tired mornings, achy joints and muscles, etc, to be a normal experience. Well-being is supposed to be a college level experience! There should never be any suffering from ANY of the afore-mentioned synptoms. But you will suffer if you wait too long to "renovate". Suffering at any time during elimination and renovation is not normal- it simply indicates a large amount of toxic waste matter ( caused by neglect and indulgence) that has never been allowed to clean itself out. The person just kept piling the garbage back in!. It was just added to, packed deeper and deeper into the organs, tissues, cells and blood over time. Civilized man suppresses these overt bodily reactions and calls himself "sick' while taking stimulating substances he calls medicines or "nutraceuticals" in an attempt to arrest the inevitable lowering and lowering of his health. Instead he just gets weaker, fatter and sicker. His body tries to lose weight but civilized habits prevent him from allowing it to happen. He does not want to renovate- he prefers to keep adding layers and layers of bad paint over an already crumbling structure, which he is probably unaware of anyway. Until it is too late.
Unless it is from a sudden heart-attack, most typical people tend to lose a lot of weight a few weeks before they die as their body tries one last ditch attempt to eliminate so it can survive longer. Imagine a hot air balloon trying to stay aloft by dropping excess baggage. Water weight, for example is usually held in excess due to the "dilution is the temporary fix to pollution" tact that the body uses to stay alive. Notice a person who eats a diet high in salt, sugar,r animal and refined products or medications. Their bodies will hold on to a lot of water in order to dilute the poison. As soon as they stop ingesting the poisons they lose the excess water weight and accompanying bloat.
Your intensity and amount of elimination / discomfort will be in proportion to how much you abused your diet, sleep, and to a lesser extent, physical fitness. Proper rest, proper food and food habits, plus progressively more vigorous exercise are the three most important and efficient "demolition and renovation" methods in the world that can restore you back to the state that nature intended.
Weight loss is inevitable. Imagine a tub of water after a playful junkyard dog was bathed. Drain it down 90% and add fresh water back to the top level. Would you bathe in it? No, until all the water is drained out and the tub is rinsed and scrubbed will you want to take a bath yourself. You must eliminate all "dirty" toxic material first. There is no avoiding it. First you must eliminate and cleanse, and then you can restore and build. You can not trick mother nature. Civilized men and women try, but they are kidding themselves. Nature always wins. And they could have saved so much time and frustration.
–Chris Califano © THE BEST WEIGH 2009
chrisc@thefirstsupper.com