Tom Holowka . com

At the beginning of this year I decided that I wanted to slowly move towards being 100% raw vegan again. My plan was just to increase the total amount of days every month I spent eating 100% raw. (taking my own advice from Advice for Wannabe Raw Fooders). In January I managed 10 days, in February I got to 14, and in March I reached 18. After getting to 18 in March I wanted to try to make the jump back to 100%

I’ve begun keeping track of my food intake and I’ve deciced to share it here on my website because I want to show people how to do a low fat raw vegan diet (or 80/10/10). I’ve seen other trials of raw food diets online, but I’ve seen none of people doing low fat raw, and sharing detailed accounts of exactly what they’re eating.

My Diet

I’ve been steadily improving my diet since December 2006 when I gave up soda. Then in October 2007 I gave raw veganism a shot, that lasted just over 5 months until I returned to my old ways.

In June 2008 I went to Hawaii for the summer, and gravitated back to raw veganism because it was so much fun to eat all the fresh local fruit on the Big Island. A couple months after, I came home to New Jersey and I was back to cooked.

All through 2009 I bounced between cooked vegan and raw vegan, generally eating raw all day and cooked for dinner at night.

The problem was never that I wasn’t feeling great on a 100% raw vegan diet because I felt better physically and mentally than I ever had before. Looking back on those times, I realize I made a lot of mistakes that led to me being unable to stay raw. I’ll be addressing my mistakes like poor food combining, under-eating on calories, and eating unripe fruit this time around.

What I Want to Show You

Volume

I think most people will be surprised by the sheer volume of food that I eat everyday. After the first few days I’m eating about 3000 cals/day.

This volume of food is required. You cannot meet all of bodies nutritional needs by under-eating. This is why I was unable to stay eating low fat raw in the past. If you’re eating 1000 calories per day from fruit you’re starving yourself (unless you’re like 4′8 and weigh 73lbs). If you want to experience the optimal health and superior nutrition that this diet brings, eat up!

Nutrition

I also want to show you that it is possible to hit your daily nutritional targets on a low-fat raw food diet. When most people learn about a raw diet they have doubts about nutrition, saying things like: “oh well where does your protein come from?” I hope to quell your concerns about nutrient X or mineral Y by showing you my daily food intake and meeting my body’s nutritional requirements.

I started on April 4th and I’ve been going since then. I don’t really have a definite idea of the amount of time I’ll be doing this for, so I’ll just say I’ll go until I feel like stopping.

Cronometer

I downloaded cronometer, an open source program for tracking my food to show my daily calorie intakes, vitamins and minerals.The great thing about this program is that it breaks down everything and shows how much protein, vitamins, minerals, carbohydrate and anything you could want to know about the food you’re eating.

I made some edits to the program, like removing B12 and Vitamin D from the chart. Vitamin D is not found in non-fortified foods and you get it from sunlight. Since I’m not eating any fortified foods, it would be 0% every day, so I just took it off.

I also removed B12 because it also is generally not found in commercial produce, so the program would also show 0% each day. Vitamin B12 is produced by bacteria in the intestine, so the only way to know if I have adequate B12 would be to get a blood test which I plan to do later this year.

I made some other edits too, which I’ll update later because I don’t have access to them right now.

April 13: Here are the other edits I made to the program. In every case I changed the minimum amount.

Omega 6 to 2.2g
Calcium to 500mg
Zinc to 7mg
Selenium to 26mcg
Vitamin E to 10mg
Vitamin K to 60mcg
Sodium to 400mg

Here’s a screenshot of my day yesterday from cronometer:

I purchased a food scale so I can accurately measure the food I’m eating before I eat it. That’s how I know exactly how many grams of food I ate from the photo.

Measurements

I also bought a scale for weighing humans so I can keep track of body weight fluctuations. This scale also keeps track of body fat percentage, water weight percentage, muscle mass percentage and bone density. I don’t know how accurate those measurements are, but I’ll be keeping track of that also.

On Sunday (April 4th) I took some before photos so you can see any differences in how I look then and how I look in a month or so. After I got some photos, I took measurements of my chest, hips, waist, thigh and bicep to see if there’s any changes.

Here’s my initial measurements
Chest: 35in
Waist: 31in
Hip: 35.5in
Thigh: 21.5in
Arm: 12.5in

Weight: 156.4
Body Fat %: 9.7
Water Weight: 62.5
Muscle Mass: 46.3
Bone Density: 5.2

I honestly don’t expect too much fluctuation in weight or these measurements because I’m already thin and not planning on doing super heavy exercise this month. We’ll see what happens.

Here are some results from the last three days.

April 6th

Body Composition
Above

Food Intake
Bananas: 2543 Grams
Spinach: 260 Grams
Oranges: 1154 Grams
Tomatoes: 287 Grams

Cronometer Summary:

April 7th

Body Compisition
Weight: 153.4
Body Fat %: 8.5
Water Weight: 65.9
Muscle Mass: 47.3
Bone Density: 5.3 %

Food Intake
Bananas: 2988 Grams
Spinach: 100 Grams
Oranges: 743 Grams

Cronometer Summary

April 8th

Body Composition
Weight: 151.8
Body Fat %: 7.9
Water Weight: 64.5
Muscle Mass: 47.7
Bone Density: 5.4 %

Food Intake
Bananas: 2940 Grams
Frozen Strawberries: 224 Grams
Celery (de-strung): 320 Grams
Frozen Peaches: 194 Grams
Romaine Lettuce: 375 Grams
Cucumber (peeled): 235 Grams
Tomatoes: 816 Grams

See the first photo in this post for the Cronometer Summary

In the coming days I’ll continue to share my experiences so anyone reading can get a clear idea of how to do low fat raw food diet.

Part of the reason I’m doing this is to have a source on record that I can show people who have doubts about effectiveness of the low fat raw food diet on health. It works, and I know it works because I’ve done it before.

By sharing this I hope I can help others reach a new level of personal health, so follow along with me!