Will you lose weight?

Will you lose weight?

Very likely, provided you follow the rules. Research suggests that raw food dieters tend to eat fewer calories and weigh less than other types of dieters.

In a small study, 32 people adopted a diet that got at least 62 percent of daily calories from raw food (and the rest from cooked foods). That’s pretty standard, since most raw foodists go 75 to 80 percent raw. After nearly 7 months, the participants had lost an average of 8.3 pounds, according to findings published in the Southern Medical Journal. And in a three month study reported in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 43 people following a raw food diet lost 9 percent of their initial body weight. If you’re overweight, losing just 5 to 10 percent of your current weight can help stave off some diseases.
In another study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2005, researchers compared 18 people on a strict raw food diet with 18 on a typical American diet. After 4 years, body mass index—a measure of body fat—and mid-section fat were lower among those in the raw food group than those in the other group. BMI, for example, was 20.7 among men and 20.1 for women on the raw food diet vs. 25.5 and 25.4 in the other group—the difference between “normal weight” and “overweight.” And total body fat in the raw food group was 13.9 percent for men and 24.1 percent for women, compared with 20.8 and 33.5 percent among the non-ra`w food dieters.
In a study of more than 500 people who followed a raw food diet for nearly 4 years, researchers found that body weight decreased as percentage of daily calories from raw food increased. By the study’s end, body mass index was below the normal range for 14.7 percent of male participants and 25 percent of females, according to findings published in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism. The researchers also found that roughly 30 percent of the women under age 45 developed amenorrhea, which means their menstrual period stopped due to insufficient calories. Participants eating high amounts of raw food (more than 90 percent of daily calories) were most likely to be affected. Since many raw food dieters were either underweight or experienced amenorrhea, the researchers concluded they would not advise a strict raw food diet on a long-term basis.