The KInd Life Community Forum

I've been following a detox diet that includes vegetable juices, raw salads, cooked vegetables, root veggies, avocados, raw goats cheese, eggs, butter, fish, low sugar fruit (berries, green apples and grapefruit), quinoa, millet and buckwheat (not mixing starches with flex foods). The diet plan eschews most soy, grains, beans and any sugar (including agave, maple and brown rice syrup). Over the past year, I've gone from just juicing for breakfast to juicing until dinner most days. So I'm eating one meal a day from an extremely limited list of foods. I'm just not really hungry until dinner. While I lost weight at first and was down about 20 lbs at the beginning of the summer, I've gained about 1/2 to 3/4 of that amount back depending on the day. I'd like to go vegan, but have kept the goat cheese/eggs for variety. I read the Kind Diet, and I'd love to be able to eat the wholesome superhero foods as well as some naughty vegan treats once in a while. I'm also seeing a accupuncturist who has encouraged me to eat more cooked foods because Aunt Flow has gone missing since I quit OC shortly before I started doing the raw food detox. I'm just way nervous that I'll blow up like a balloon if I start eating more and a wider variety of foods. Alicia, you mentioned that she was following a raw food diet before finding macrobiotics. How did you transition from raw foods to cooked foods without gaining weight? Also, I know green juice isn't macrobiotic, but I love it, and do I need to give it up? I think I'd like to do more macrobiotic in the Chicago winter and more raw juices, berries and veggies in the summer.

I would love to hear Alicia's answers to these questions as well. I LOVE my green juice.

well, the superhero plan doesn't contain any dairy, chocolate, or sugar. i think if you give up those things for a while, you'll definitely lose weight on the plan.
it seems you're compensating for the low calories of the salad with the fatty stuff like cheese, chocolate, ice cream and such.

with the superhero plan, the whole grains really do fill you up, so you don't have the desire to indulge in fatty foods as much. i'm not saying eating fatty things is bad, everyone needs fat in their diet, but don't be afraid of the brown rice. it won't make you gain weight. if you eat it with a well-rounded meal that contains a big bowl of steamed or sauteed greens and a protein on the side.. like beans or tofu or something, you will find that you're very full and very satisfied. the rice is a big pile of fuel in your stomach that stays with you for hours.

i was eating a high raw diet, but instead of compensating with dairy and chocolate, i compensated with fatty nut butters and sugary berries. now i don't feel the need to go for the nut butters and berries every day. i also feel less.. i don't know how to put it?? eating a lot of cold food really got to me. it's nice to have a big steamy bowl of soup.

i wasn't an overeater, or very overweight, or inactive. i exercised constantly. on the raw diet, i felt unsatisfied and still didn't lose weight. now i'm barely exercising and just doing superhero plan 6 days a week, and the weight is falling off like crazy. and i couldn't be happier to sit down with a bowl of brown rice every day and not worry!

why is brown rice magical for your body?

e.greenleaf and Alicia,
Thanks for your really thoughtful responses. I've been ruminating on this since I read Alicia's book. Intuitively, I know that the detox that I've been on for the past year was good for me (believe me, it's the first diet I've ever been on that I had any discipline to keep going with), but it felt best in the summer (when it sort of made sense) and in the winter, it doesn't make so much sense. Also, I totally agree that it's completely extreme. The online community that follows the juicing/raw diet/lifestyle is super eating disorder-y. It's really bad when someone is saying that tofu and peanuts are the worst things you can put in your body! But the whole experience got me off caffeine, most dairy and meat. Also, it got me hooked on huge salads, green juice and rebounding, so it wasn't all bad.
I've decided to donate my chocolate/honey/dairy/eggs/ice cream to my omni neighbor, and make Christmas with my family my last vegetarian/not-vegan meal. I'm still worried that if I allow myself to start eating during the day that I'll lose all my discipline, but intuitively macrobiotics makes sense and I've been interested in it for a long while. It's a pity I moved away from LA because I could get Real Food Daily delivered to my house. (One of my favorite meals there (aside from the nachos) was the Basic 3 with House Dressing. Thank goodness I have that cookbook!

The day after Christmas I'm going to start on the "weight loss" regimen suggested in TKD, and just take the leap of faith committing to it for at least a month. Until then, I'm going to focus on getting a superhero lunch and dinner every day (except for Christmas).

Thanks again so much for your wonderful suggestions!