Want to feel better, look better, and perform better physically? Will the shift to a raw food diet really help you with all this?

In episode 12 of the Raw Food Health Podcast I talk to Katy Craine, who adopted a low fat raw vegan diet at the age of 16.

Now 20 years old, she talks about how she’s watched herself go from being a sedentary hater of exercise to a lover of physical movement, from having acne covered to skin to being blemish free, and from being overweight to lithe and toned.

Topics Covered With Katy:

1) Growing up eating a high fat diet, and how drastically that affected her health for the worst.
2) Does a raw diet hinder her socially?
3) Why she initially bought into the “overeating hype” and consumed 3,000 calories a day, and how she gained weight doing so.
5) Going from hating exercise to loving it.
6) Why fasting helped her.
7) Losing weight and maintaining it where she wants.

Also In The Podcast:

1) Why does Andrew rain on everyone’s raw food parade when it comes to the Allium family of plants?
2) How many people listen to the Raw Food Health Podcast.
3) Progress On “A Vagabond’s Guide To Chiang Mai, Thailand”.
4) The natural spring-fed pools of Austin, Texas.

Show Notes

1) Nightshade vegetables and arthritis video
2) Getting a good strength workout at a children’s playground.

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One of the oddest parts of the raw food movement is that a section of its adherents demonize fruit, perhaps the most natural, human-ideal food we could consume.

Many blame the fact that it “floods the body with sugar,” raising blood sugar levels. Now, high blood sugar levels do indeed lead to all kinds of problems, including the raw foodist’s bane, candida, as well as type two diabetes and other conditions. But fruit is not the cause of high blood sugar.

I explain in this article exactly how sugar moves through the body on a healthy diet, and how high fat intake “gums up the works,” and slows sugar processing to a crawl, raising blood sugar levels.

It is in this environment that candida, which feeds off sugar, moves in and makes people feel like crap.

But I don’t want anyone to take my word for it, or rely on the wealth of studies going back to 1927 that have connected high-fat diets with elevated blood sugar levels, which I cite in my article.

There’s a very simple way you can test this for yourself.

Go out to the nearest drug store and pick up a glucometer, the same type used by diabetics to monitor their blood sugar levels, and a some test strips.

Do a week of each of the following diets, testing a few times a day to see how things change depending on when you last ate, when you exercised, etc. Don’t start testing until the third day of each diet, as fat takes awhile to build up and clear out of the blood stream. You can easily figure out if you’re eating the right amount of fat by using a free website like nutridiary.com.

1) High Fat: Make sure you’re taking in at least 40 percent of your calories from fat. Depending on what your caloric intake is, you might take in 40 percent of your calories from fat from 3 avocados, a bunch of nuts, etc. Nutritidary gives you the specific amount of calories that come from fat when you enter in all the foods you’ve eaten. Be as precise as you can be. Record your blood sugar levels and how you feel.

2) Low Fat: Now keep your percentage of calories from fat below 10 percent. Basically avoid all avocados, oils, nuts, seeds, meat, dairy, eggs, or other fatty foods. Eat all the fruit and vegetables you like with no worries about blood sugar.

I’ve done this test on myself multiple times. My blood sugar on the high-fat diet is always high, while always normal on the low-fat diet.

I hope you guys do this test and figure out for yourself how your body handles fat and sugar.

I’m in Bali and absolutely hooked on the mangosteen. It’s got a taste like no other fruit I’ve tried, and I can’t stop eating it.

Learn about this awesome fruit here.