The Top 3 Reasons People Fail On The Raw Food Diet

Despite the simplicity and ease of a raw food diet, and the many health benefits it provides, many people do fail on it. They either abandon it altogether or they constantly swing back and forth between extremes of eating healthy and indulging in junk food.

Everybody’s got a theory about why some people thrive on raw foods while others struggle. In some cases, there’s an underlying health condition or genetic issue that prevents people from following a typical raw food diet protocol. But in most cases, there are three major reasons the diet fails.

Reason #1: Nutrient Deficiency & Imbalance

This is probably the number one reason people ultimately fail on the raw food diet. No amount of willpower or dedication to eating healthy will overcome a nutrient deficiency or imbalance that’s built up over time due to following an improper dietary protocol.

Truth is, there is a LOT of conflicting, inaccurate and unscientific information online about the raw food diet. Recommendations are all over the place. I routinely see dietary recommendations that are guaranteed to set people up for failure, and the sad thing is that these guidelines are pretty mainstream in the movement!

Coupled with inadequate meal plan recommendations is a generally limited knowledge about modern nutritional science.

The raw food diet isn’t as simple as some gurus would have you believe. You’ve got to know where you are getting your nutrients and you’ve got to be prepared to be mindful about what you eat and in what amounts. This might include tracking your food intake.

The top three nutrition mistakes made by raw foodists are:

1. Insufficient calories which result in insufficient nutrients. I can’t stress enough how important is it to get enough calories on a raw food diet. Most raw foods are going to be less calorie dense than your average meal on a Standard American Diet (SAD).

   A lack of calories on a raw food diet will lead to failure. In some cases, protein intake is too low (especially the amino acids methionine and lysine). In many cases, insufficient calories on a raw food diet may result in a deficiency in zinc, selenium, iron (women are most at-risk), sodium (if salt is avoided), some B-vitamins, vitamin D (if not supplemented) and vitamin B12 (if not supplemented).

2. Improper macro-nutrient ratios. To remain healthy in the short term on a raw food diet, you must make a choice between the high-fat version which includes lots of nuts, seeds, avocados and coconuts or the low-fat version which emphasizes sweet fruit. You can’t base your diet on leafy greens and vegetables or you’ll be making the first mistake that raw foodists typically make.

   In the long term, the high-fat, raw gourmet diet can cause problems due to the fact that up to 80% of calories being consumed are from fat. I recommend a low-fat, fruit and carbohydrate-based raw or high-raw diet for long term health. I typically follow an 80/10/10 or 70/15/15 ratio of carbohydrates/fat/protein.

3. Lack of Nutrition Knowledge You might know everything there is to know about human nutrition, but it doesn’t mean a thing if you aren’t consistently ensuring that you are getting adequate nutrients in your diet by tracking your food intake in a software and having blood tests to ensure your body is responding properly.

Reason #2: Lack Of Social Support

Lack of social support can be very hard for anyone. It is particularly difficult for people who are not in a larger city or vegan/vegetarian/raw-friendly places. When you become a strict 100% raw foodist, you suddenly have a hard time in social settings (and even at work). This is because food is a large part of our culture. When most people get together with friends, they eat either at a restaurant or they have snacks.

When Davy and I became raw foodists, we didn’t have any raw food friends. We’re fortunate enough to live in Chicago where there is a large raw food community so we were able to make new friends, but what about the old friends? You are not necessarily going to abandon all your current friends because they still cook their broccoli. But you might not be able to eat the same things they eat anymore.

As someone who has been there, I can vouch for the fact that it can be very difficult to have cooked friends and be a strict raw foodist. You don’t have to abandon the raw food diet altogether. Eating a mostly-raw diet provides a healthy compromise and balance. You’ll get the same (if not better) results than being 100% raw and you’ll be able to have a social life without standing out too much. Davy and I are mostly raw, which we find much more doable and just as healthy. We’ll typically eat about 80-90% raw in an average day. We are strict vegans though.

It’s a good idea to meet other health-conscious people and become involved with raw potlucks, health events and activities that give you motivation to exercise.

Following a mostly raw diet lets us enjoy the benefits of healthy, raw, organic foods without having to feel guilty about not seeing friends or getting mad at ourselves for “cheating” and eating cooked foods. Make sure that the cooked foods you eat are healthy, whole foods or you’ll limit the health benefits you get from the raw food diet.

Adding some cooked, whole foods into your diet may help boost calories (without the fat) and provide nutrients that might be harder to get on a 100% raw diet.

Reason #3: Imbalanced Lifestyle

As you cleanse your body with raw food, you’ll also “cleanse” your mind. You won’t be trapped under the cloud of foggy thinking and sluggishness anymore.

This is both good and bad. You’ll feel amazing on the inside, but when your mood has been lifted and you have more mental energy, you’ll start to notice other problems in your life. As your body is brought into alignment with a better you, you’ll find it necessary to bring the rest of your life into alignment. This could mean finding new friends, changing careers, changes in your relationships or even a relocation.

These feelings can be uncomfortable and provoke feelings of fear and anxiety. The instinct a lot of people face is to stuff these feelings with unhealthy food. Or they might feel intimidated by the amount of change they want to make in their life and become cynical, depressed or frustrated.

This sounds very strange, but it happened to both Davy and I and we’ve had other raw food friends that have gone through this as well.

After Davy and I had been eating raw foods for several months we noticed we weren’t completely happy with our lives the way they were. I was working a full time job and Davy was trying to grow a freelance videography business. We were successful at it, but it just didn’t fit into the picture of how we envisioned our life should be.

It wasn’t long before we created Incredible Smoothies. I eventually left my job and Davy retired from freelance videography. Now we both work full time sharing information about health, nutrition and fitness with thousands of people every day through our websites. We are helping others change their health and their lives like we did. We recently took this a step further and created a personal development website called Stop Dreading Mondays.

You might not necessarily want to run out and create a blog or website, but be mindful of your thoughts and feelings after you have been eating a raw food diet for a few months. The raw food diet just might change your life!

Tags: deficiencies, failure, family, friends, healthy eating, healthy living, lifestyle, Raw Food Diet, social, unhealthy