Vegan or Raw Food Diet??

I highly recommend trying to go Paleo - meat, veggies, some fruit, nuts, seeds, little startch and no sugar. I'm GF too (celiac disease) and I've found this works best for me.
www.thepaleodiet.com

I don't follow a vegan or vegetarian diet perse, but have found aspects of both ways of eating very helpful. Some of the authors I have read are David Wolfe who has many books out and many Youtube videos online on a great many topics as to why raw food is the way to go.. Additionally, I read Brendan Braizer's book, THRIVE .. it was helpful in terms of learning to replenish the body with GREEN fuel as oppose to animal products.. Also, Tim Vanorden is a good source of info.. If you look online, you'll see that there is a whole new world devoted to eating raw. I personally don't go that route, but began to read more up on it when I had severe tendonitis and nothing was helping it , this includes physical therapy and painkillers (which I am not found of) I began to read Brendan Brazier's book , Thrive.. and thought if I could apply his "green principles" of healing and sports recovery to my tendonitis, then maybe I could get better. I will say, that as I began to drink more green drinks (kale, spinach) etc etc.. I did begin to feel better.. even to this day, if I have worked out heavily (which isn't often :) IF I drink something RAW such as a homemade green drink, my muscles aches tend to heal faster. Additionally, I do think and feel better when I have more RAW in my diet..

good luck!

What you seem to be really looking for is a diet called "pesce-vegetarian" That diet has worked for me through the years. Now i am completely vegetarian, not vegan. (although i have tried vegan)

Basically all you will need to do is eat what you already eat, minus the meat, stay in the fruits and veggies and fish department. Order from the seafood parts of menus.

I have tried a raw food diet, and I felt great! I stopped doing it because it takes some effort if you want to eat something besides salad and fruit and trail mix, but I really want to get back on it, at least eating more raw food. If you are trying to gain weight, I wouldn't go 100% raw because you will probably lose more weight. But if you are trying to feel healthy, add some raw stuff to your diet. It's much more than the stuff you can get at the market that is cold processed like bars. There are tons of raw recipes online that make raw food that imitates cooked food you would be used to like pasta, meat, and desserts. Good luck!

i consider myself semivegan, meaning that i do eat very little egg or dairy products mostly when not at home. i have been a vegetarian for 2 years now and love it. i don't cook any meat at home and my children/hubby are ovo lacto vegetarians at home. they are very healthy.

in your situation, if you want to gain weight but eat cleaner, i'd do a vegetarian diet with eggs/dairy/and fish, thus a pescetarian. and in addition i would drop the low fat aspect if you want to gain weight purely via food. you could alternately begin lifting weights for muscle build. if you do fats, do healthy fats, like olive oil or avocados or whole eggs (not egg whites). make the fat worth it, not just deep fried vegetables or mayonaise.

I highly recommend Alicia Silverstone's book-The Kind Diet. It's a good way to flirt with a vegan or raw diet, excellent recipes. I am kind of moderate about it all. There's not much I don't eat, but I try to eat cruelty free animal products and limit the animal product intake, particularly red meat. I eat a lot of fish too!

This book helped motivate me to eat healthier and every recipe I have made out of it are YUM!

Whatever you think you might do, please research it thoroughly for the sake of your children. most of those diets (including vegan) are not healthy for growing children.

I worked in a clinic years ago. The raw foods thing is SOOO unnatural. Women would come in and tell me "I am so clean so pure I don't even get my period anymore."
My reply, "Your body is shutting down all non essential services so you can live."
We cannot get the full nutrient value out of uncooked foods. That is the whole of it. Do you know of any society that is vegan and raw food eating?
Get on with being normal. You cannot gain weight on the diet you want. You would have to eat a pound of salmon every day just for the fat your body requires.
Take a diet that is healthy for the citizens who eat it. Or better yet E. find out your blood type and get Dr. Adamo's book "Eating Right for Your Blood Type."

I enjoyed reading Dr. Fuhrman's books - can't say I follow his advice, but I did learn quite a lot and have incorporated some of his recipes into our diet. He endorses a near vegan, minimal cooking/low temp, low sodium diet.

I wonder, do you have insurance? Would it be possible to start seeing a nutritionist who could plan out a nutrient rich diet geared for your bodies specific needs? Seems like your dietary needs might be somewhat individual and a diet that works for you could be different than someone who wasn't in your exact body. Might not hurt to have a professional in your corner.

Good luck figuring out something that works for you and I hope this sun is giving you a great deal of pleasure!
(BTW We have a two day Artswalk this weekend. You might enjoy procession of the species, a fantastic and fun annual earth day parade. There are some really amazing floats and a lot of fun costumes (everything hand made) and the theme is the natural world. Strikes me as something you and your kids might enjoy - I think everyone enjoys it! Lots of folks from Lacey and Ft. Lewis come in to watch. It's 3:30pm tomorrow, downtown Oly.)

Are you gluten free because you choose to be or are you gluten intolerant or do you have celiac disease?

If you have celiac disease or any intolerance, i would highly advise against a more restrictive diet bc you NEED all the protiens and minerals you can get. Nutrients need to come from a WIDE variety, and when you limit yourself, you've got to get it from a large base variety to really FULLY get the health benefits. So sticking to rice pasta and the same 7 veggies and 5 favorite fruits etc... kinda not the point.

I'm not vegan but I've been gluten free for 10 years (diagnosed with celiac disease in 2001) and once in a while I will go very basic and start the SCD diet and be on that for 6mo to a year. It's very beneficial to your digestive system! Many people with crohns, colitis, celiac, IBS, dairy intolerance and even ADD, ADHD and depression do this diet with great results.

It's gluten free x 20 I guess.

Specific Carbohydrate Diet is taking out all grains, starches, sugars and dairy and bring you back to a BASIC diet like we all used to eat as very early humans: fish, vegatables (most), fruits (most), nuts and once in a while chicken or red meat.

So it's basically meat, veg and fruit and nuts. NO gluten, no rice, no grains, no starch (not even potato, corn, peas etc), no sugar (cept honey or stevia is okay) and no dairy. Some cheeses are okay simply because of their makeup.

It's AMAZING how my energy shoots up after being on SCD for 2 weeks. Also, my migraines vanish, my skin looks amazing and I'm sleeping 100x better.

Obviously this had nothing to do with vegan LOL!!!

but I always give the SCD diet a shout-out when I can bc not a lot of people know about it.
=)

I do a partial raw diet. By this I mean I eat only raw food during the diet and then have a regular dinner.( I do slack off at times.) The only draw back I have found is I get cold easier which is common. I have read many times that if you live in a colder area a raw diet may be hard to follow in the winter months. My daughter is vegan so we do eat a lot more vegetarian meals. Vegan is very hard to follow. You will need to read all food labels which if you are gluten free you understand this. I always tell people who want to eat vegan to go vegetarian first and slowly work toward becoming vegan. I am gluten free because I have Celiac and I always tell my daughter that I will never become vegan because it would just limit my food too much. Whatever you choose go slow and don't be too hard on yourself if you slip up. My raw food "cheat" is peanutbutter. I am a Skippy lover and just cannot give it up!

What health benefits, exactly are you hoping to achieve. Radical diets of any sort are probably going to run counter to your overall health goals.

In the words of Michael Pollan, "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Food, in this case, means primarily whole foods without much processing.

Good luck.