What Do You Think About a 'Raw Foods, Vegan, Low-Fat, Mostly Fruit, With a Lot of Walking' Plan for Weight Loss?
15 Dec 2025 · 11 min
JJ Virgin warns against a raw vegan fruit-heavy diet for weight loss. It lacks enough protein and healthy fats, risks deficiencies in B12 and omega-3s, and too much fruit sugar spikes blood sugar. She recommends cooked plant foods, nuts and seeds, and adding resistance training and stress management to walking.
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All right, okay. I was honestly trying to think about like gosh, what could I say positive here? And what I can say positive here is that I'm sure you're getting a lot of non starchy vegetables. However, I have a lot of issues with this diet. So. And we're going to pick apart the diet and then you've got the exercise piece and I'd love to see exactly what it is you are eating. But it says mostly fruit. Here's the challenge. One to two pieces of fruit a day is what you want to be eating. More than that, you're getting the sugar from the fruit. Now remember, we eat whole, not juiced, not dried. Dried fruit is candy. Fruit made into a butter is like a syrup or a sauce and fruit made into juice is a soda. That and so you get super big hits when you do that. At least when you're eating the whole fruit, you're getting all of the phytonutrients, you're getting the fiber, but you're not getting protein and healthy fats. And here's the crazy thing, you have a raw foods, vegan, low fat, so no nuts diet. Now we can't live without protein and we can't live without fat. We can live without carbs. So you've built a diet based on what we can live without and went really low in fat. And honestly, if you're doing a raw foods vegan diet, you're low in protein too. So couple different couple things here. You need protein. And protein is going to be the most important thing for weight loss. It's more thermic and it's more satiating. So better for your metabolism. More satiating. And we can't live without it. And you need it to build muscle to have strong hair, nails and skin and great bones. Plus it's going to help you feel fuller, longer. So there's that. Some foods just need to be cooked. They're better Absorbed. And some foods you cannot cook, cannot eat if you haven't cooked them. So going totally raw is problematic. You're not going to be able to eat a big variety of food and then not eating nuts and seeds where you could get some of your protein and your healthy fats challenging too. So if I was going to eat a vegan diet, I would look at what foods I need to eat. Cooked things like sweet potato or quinoa or wild rice because you can't eat them raw. I would look at what foods that I wanted to add in because they were great sources of healthy fats like chia and freshly ground flaxseed and walnuts. Things where I'm going to get some omega 3s. But your diet right here, you know, I worry about a diet where if you didn't supplement, you'd become nutrient deficient in things like B12 Omega 3s, especially EPA and DHA, carnitine, taurine. And you're not going to be able to get the protein and healthy fats that you need for weight loss. Protein is your best friend. And protein and fat are super important for satiety, for reducing inflammation, for improving insulin sensitivity, for brain function, for mood, for great skin, hair and nails. And if you're eating mostly fruit, you're going to really hijack your blood sugar and, and eat too high of a carb diet which will raise your triglycerides and start to put you at risk for things like hypertension, elevated cholesterol, et cetera. So that's the diet side. The good thing is, hey, we should be eating some non starchy raw vegetables every single day. That's fantastic. Eat a great big salad with things like cucumbers and maybe a little bit of red onion and whatever vegetables you like to have in it. I like some cabbages and some, some salad greens and a little bit of red onion and some hearts and palms and artichokes and things like that. So that's great. Get a good salad in and then look at the things that you can add in that are cooked that actually when you cook the vegetables a little bit and add a little bit of healthy fat, you'll absorb much more of the nutrients. Because think about your fat soluble vitamins. A, D, E, K. You need fat, that's what they fat soluble means in order to absorb them. Moving over to the exercise side, I have a four step process for exercise. The first thing is just to move more is to walk. And walking is great. Walking after a meal is really great for lowering the blood sugar response to the meal, but to really change your metabolic rate, resistance training is key because one of the simplest ways you can change your metabolic rate, assuming your thyroid is working well, is to increase the amount of muscle on your body. It helps improve insulin sensitivity. It's the first place you can do it right. And more muscle requires more energy, more work by your body to keep it there. So resistance training is super key and important here. High intensity interval training to create an oxygen debt your body has to recover from, and then some kind of flexibility and mindfulness to help with your stress hormones. So walking is a great start, but it's only a part of the equation. All right, hope that served if you've got questions, I've got answers. Pop on over to Instagram DM meyj Virgin and and we will add your question to the queue. And be sure to go to subscribetojay.com if you aren't already subscribed so you never miss your daily dose.
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