The goal of calorie counting here is not to restrict your intake of food altogether, but to eat ENOUGH calories of the healthy stuff (whole raw plant foods, but also whole cooked plant foods for those not eating 100% raw) and only limit your intake of processed foods, animal products and fat rich foods.

The greater percentage of your total calories that come from healthy carbohydrate rich plant foods like fruits and vegetables, the fewer calories will come from the less healthy stuff that makes you not look or feel your best.

Don't eat like this if you want to live a long life folks

Low fat plant based diets have been shown to have an exceptional number of health benefits ranging from long term weight loss, improved insulin sensitivity (good for diabetics), decreased risk for stroke and heart attack, decreased incidence of arthritis, osteoporosis, various cancers and increased longevity.

The only way to know for sure how much fat is in your diet when starting out is to use a calorie counter. Just using a program like FitDay a few times a week then would be of enormous benefit to most people’s health and living a longer disease-free life.

To make this easier for everyone, including the less computer-savvy, I’ve written a free step-by-step introductory guide to using FitDay for counting your calories and objectively monitoring your fat intake. It can be downloaded from the Recommended Resources page. Feel free to distribute it to anyone you think it may be of help.

Eating healthier is easier when you know how many calories you eat!

Hope you’re having a great summer!

Would my blood test confirm that I too was an anemic protein deficient veg-head that we so often hear about??

Well after 16 months of just raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and no animal products my blood panel, lipid panel, kidney & liver function, protein, ferratin [iron storage in body], fasting glucose, Vitamin D are all within the normal range!

Everything looks good, my B12 was actually off the charts (was taking B12 sublinguals for a while but haven’t had any in a few weeks). My doc said she rarely sees cholesterol at as healthy a level as mine. Potassium notably is within the normal range in spite of all the bananas I eat (sometimes 40 or more in a day). Protein, well see for yourself. My vitamin D is at the bottom of the normal range so I’ll keep working on my tan. The only thing below normal was sodium just by a notch, no big deal. Not bad overall if I do say so myself.

My Lunch -- No Hyperkalemia for me

So thanks to the results my doc now says she has no concerns about whether I’m getting everything I need from my diet. It would have been nice had I gotten my blood tested about a year ago for the sake of comparison but I’ll do it again in a year to keep an eye on things. Been feeling great lately, so far so good.

Check out the results here (click thumbnails to enlarge). Post any questions in the comment section via the link above.

p1 (liver function/blood count)

p2 ( blood cont'd/kidneys/iron/glucose/cholesterol)

p3 (potassium/protein/sodium/thyroid/B12/D)

p4 (kidney function)

More people need to know -- fruit puts a smile on your face!

Like the original course it will be an introduction to a low fat, high raw plant based diet aimed at those new to lfrv and coming primarily from an SAD background. It will span the topics of lfrv nutrition, food combining, cooked food toxins, weight loss, etc. It will consist of 6-8 hrs of Mp3 audio, course notes, sample recipes and Q&A. No release date is scheduled but I’ll be focusing on this project for the next month or so.

I will continue to do talks and day classes in person. I’m still receiving postive feedback regarding the classes I’ve already taught and have been asked to do more, which gives me all the more reason to keep spreading the word!

I’m also writing a recipe book. Disclaimer to fellow 30BaDders and 811ers — it’s gonna contain vegetable juices! I know I know, I can’t help it, my good friend Lynne (whom I’ve been coaching on lfrv) most generously donated me her Champion juicer and now I’m hooked on the stuff! So I guess we can blame her, haha just kidding. Fruit juices don’t do it for me but vegetable juices certainly are fun and I’ve come up with some great tasting recipes so far. I will inflict those and other fruity lfrv recipes upon the world before too long, you have been warned! Bwahahahaha.

Veggie juice? Has Bryne gone too far this time?

So them’s the news. Hope y’all have a great weekend!

At times it can be a lot easier to just eat what everyone else is eating. But of course we don’t feel our best if our diet doesn’t consist mostly of raw fruits and veggies. Am I right or am I right? ☺

So we try to stay raw but it doesn’t always work. Why is that?

As Yoda says: Do or do not. There is no try.

You’ve heard it before: will power doesn’t work in the long term. It’s no joke! Will power is a mechanism that allows us to act contrary to our instincts during emergencies in order to keep us alive. No matter how hard we try, we can’t be successful at something we don’t want to be doing.

We have to want to eat this way. We have to love eating this way.

Wherever we happen to live, if we want to eat a raw diet we have to make sure we’re getting the absolute best tasting fruit that we can. And lots of it!!

If we’re eating enough fruit staying raw isn’t actually so tough.

The biggest reason we under-eat fruit and then fall off the wagon is not having enough delicious, ripe fruit around. This is probably no mystery to you, but how many times does this still happen to us?

Buy Enough!

If you live within walking distance of a good grocery store or farmers market, having enough fruit around is simply a matter of going and getting it, and allowing enough time for certain fruits to ripen. Things are even easier for those who live in an area where they can forage or grow their own fruit.

Otherwise, if you’re serious about having lots of fruit in your life, I highly recommend buying in bulk. Not all, but a good portion of it.

“But that’s too much fruit, what am I going to do with all of it?”

What do you think you’re going to do with it??

EAT IT!

The more fruit you eat the less you’ll be eating of everything else that you already know is not-so-good-for-you. If you have a family that eats a lot of fruit then buying in bulk makes even more sense.

“But won’t it all go bad?”

If you buy cases of seasonal fruit and learn some basic storage tips there’ll be very little spoilage, if any. As long as you eat it of course. ☺

If you’re not interested in a 100% or high raw (80%+) diet then buying in bulk may not be the thing for you. Otherwise buying in bulk is almost a necessity for most people eating a raw diet long term.

Some grocery stores will offer a 10-15% discount on cases of fruits and vegetables (they may not say they do but try ordering a case or two from the produce manager and you might be pleasantly surprised). If not find a wholesaler in your area and order from them.

What should I buy?

Knowing what fruit is in season where you live (e.g. North America) is key to having plenty of the best tasting fruit on hand. In season fruit will be cheaper and higher quality 90% of the time than fruit imported from the other end of the globe. Local is superior of course but do the best you can.

Pg. 173 The 80/10/10 Diet by Douglas Graham has a chart showing the seasonal availability of fruit in the northern hemisphere. The book is so highly recommended that I’d tell anyone who doesn’t own a copy to order it now.

High calorie fruits should be the top priority on the shopping list because staying raw is largely about eating enough calories from fruit.

Bananas are a high calorie fruit that is cheap and available year round. Buy at least 1 case of bananas every week! Once you drinking banana smoothies on a daily basis those bananas will go quick. If you’re eating 30 bananas a day you’ll actually need 2 cases a week!

Find a brand of bananas you like, because you’re probably going to be eating a lot of them! Fair trade bananas (e.g. Earth university or Cerro Azul) are a better choice both ethically and often taste wise than conventional or even some organic brands (e.g. Dole). Otherwise buy organic when you can.

Medjool dates are always ready to eat so they are great for traveling and when nothing else is ripe. Some found in stores may not be raw (e.g. conventionally grown Bard Valley brand). They are in season during the fall which is when they are easiest to find in bulk, but are available in most areas year round.

Mangoes (spring/summer), Figs and grapes (late summer/fall), Persimmons (late fall) are widely available high calorie fruits that are definitely worth buying by the case when in season.

Juicy fruit like citrus, melons, papaya, all of which make a great breakfast meal, may be worth buying in bulk if you enjoy eating a lot of any of these. Buying berries in bulk is usually not recommended since they are low in calories and are often expensive. I don’t normally buy greens or other vegetables in bulk since they need to be stored in the refrigerator and you often get a LOT in a case.

Learn to care for your fruit!

I’ll share a few quick tips on how to store and ripen some common fruits.

Don’t store bananas below 56°F until they are ripened. Some grocery stores don’t know this even though it usually says so on the box! If in doubt, tell your grocer to store your bananas in a warm place outside the walk-in cooler when you order them.

To speed up the ripening process keep some of the bananas in a spare cupboard or closet in a warm area. Once they are ripe you can keep them in the refrigerator and they will last for a number of days.

I find citrus tastes best if eaten within 3 days unrefrigerated. Then I store the rest in the refrigerator. Smaller sized oranges (tangerines, minneolas, small navels etc.) are usually tastier than larger navels and are better for juicing. Wholesalers and some grocery stores may carry what is called ‘juicing’ oranges which are blemished. They are often still good quality and are considerably cheaper because they are not suitable for retail.

A case of apples can last 2 weeks unrefrigerated. I don’t normally recommend that people buy lots of apples, but during the winter months apples can be good to have for the sake of variety. Fruitophile families may consume a lot of apples this way.

Cherry tomatoes (which I also like to buy by the case) usually have superior flavor to larger varieties. Tomatoes don’t taste the best after they’ve been refrigerated, so leave them out. Most fruits will ripen more quickly if put in a cupboard or paper bag in a warm location with another ripe fruit such as an apple.

Do it!

There is much more to learn about fruit care and storage, but these tips should be enough to get anyone started in living a sweeter life today! There’s lots of quality fruit out there that wants to be in your life! Find it today!!

If you’re not happy with your local grocery store it’s almost certainly worth the trouble going to a better one a bit further a way once a week. Or finding a good food distributor.

You are in a relationship with your fruit! Like any other important relationship in your life, investing time and care in it will reward you. Having enough of it around and treating it right is going to make an enormous positive impact on your health and quality of life. I kid you not!

Buy enough. Learn to care for your fruit; it will love you back. I promise.