How To Lose Weight?

My personal philosophy on diets is, die ts don't work if you end up feeling what's the use in living?  I agree with Oprah Winfrey's book, "Make The Connection".  Coming from someone like me who lived to eat, my opinion...
life is too short to feel deprived, ever!  Acheiving your ideal weight must be a choice born out of a vision you see for yourself.  To acheive this goal, one of the first steps is to...
add new foods:  the raw food diet will introduce you to a whole new variety of products and new ways to prepare your food.  I have friends and family who are not on the raw food diet, but have enjoyed many of the replacement options such as dehydrated kale chips (these are intended to replace potato chips).  They taste great and kale provides a full spectrum of vitamins.
Determine what each food you eat will do for you?  Separate friends from enemies.  Wake up and be conscious about your choices.  I ask the food, what will you do for me?  Can you help me, or will you do something bad to me?  Will you lift me up and give me energy, or will you trick me and then drop me like a rock?  Will you help me avoid inflammation or take it away like pineapple, ginger, or goji berries?  Can you help my vision like fresh juiced carrot juice will?  Will you help me keep my stomach flat, or will you make me bloated or gassy?  Just tell me; what you will do to help me?  If you don't hear the answer, go look it up.

Sometimes I wake up and ask myself, what foods do I need to eat today?  I think about what I put in my green smoothie yesterday, and then try to add some different items today.  I see right through the food now and think about the vitamin spectrum.  As Andrew Weil suggests; eat a color variety as well;  eat reds, yellows, purple, and lots of greens of course.  One goal I aim for is to rotate everything for an entire week without repeating too many of the same things.  Even my doctor said to me to try and eat a wide variety and try not to buy the same things.  Shop at different places for your vegetables and fruits to minimize the types and amounts of pesticides.  I just try to buy as much organic and local produce as possible.

Look in the mirror and notice how good you look today.  When you have eaten right today, tomorrow you will look even better.   The more fresh raw food you eat, the more youthful your face will look.  Especially if you begin to cut out foods that harm.  When you become your ideal weight, the better you will look and feel.

Less Is More  We deserve the finest food nature can provide; especially when we are trying to become our ideal weight.  As Michael Pollan says, "choose quality over quantity" and "eat less".  At Tree Of Life Rejuvenation Center, a sign sits on their buffet saying, "the first cause of death is malnutrition, and the second cause of death is overeating".

Weight Loss is a result of Fat Loss   But do not take out all the fats; separate them into good and EVIL.  Coconut Oil is one from heaven, (there is an excellent book called "The Coconut Diet" which speaks volumes of its benefits) avocado, and flax seed oil (but do not cook it and do keep it refridgerated) are all excellent sources.  The mediterranean diet raves about olive oil, but I must point out, that is before its cooked.
I rotate what fats I have throughout the day.  If I had olive oil on my salad dressing for lunch, I make sure and use flax seed oil on my evening salad.  All foods containing fats must be used in moderation and should not exceed 5 - 10 % of your total food intake.  Be clear on what food you eat contains fat, and what kind it is (beneficial or harmful)?
Also, follow this link to read how Angela Stokes lost weight on the raw food diet
 Angela Stokes of www.RawReform.com. Angela was recently featured on CNN.com and national TV, speaking about her phenomenal weight loss with raw foods: over 160lbs lost and over 2 MILLION hits to CNN.com, to follow her story. Since this CNN exposure, we are delighted to have seen a HUGE rise in interest in raw foods for natural weight loss.
I hope you are not eating margerine, and if you use butter, use it sparingly, and have replaced regular vegetable oil with olive oil.  The best change you could make is cutting out all fried foods since they contain transfats.