I Lost 30 Pounds on a Raw Food Diet and Here's How

Losing 30 pounds is a major achievement: Research shows that for the overweight, every pound lost has a positive impact on health—including blood pressure, cholesterol, improved mobility and much more. “For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, a 5% loss is 10 pounds, dropping your weight to 190 pounds. This modest weight loss can decrease your risk for chronic diseases related to obesity,” says the CDC. There’s no one-size-fits-all method: different people respond to different tactics, but the common denominator is weight loss success. Here are five people who lost 30 pounds, sharing exactly how they did it.

Sustainable Lifestyle Changes

Jessie (@jessiemgolden) lost 30 pounds and kept it off with what she calls a “chill, soft life way” which caused as little stress as possible. “I developed a strategy that suited my psychology,” she says. That consisted of looking at what she eats and figuring out what a trade-off might be in her diet, and how certain foods affected her metabolism. “I absolutely had a long-term view,” she says.

Calorie Deficit

TikToker Jess (@pitalifts) lost weight using the good old-fashioned calorie deficit method. Jess showed how she handled her calorie deficit without getting too stressed, focusing on protein shakes, protein chips, and low-calorie high-protein meals with vegetables. This kept her feeling satiated even while cutting calories.

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Lots of Walking

Mila (@mila.magnani) lost 30 pounds with PCOS and hypothyroidism by going on 30-40 minute walks. “You can actually feel your sugar doors open, for me I start to sweat and feel a huge rush of happiness and energy—similar to a runner’s high,” she captioned the video. “A single bout of moderate intensity exercise (walking for 30+ minutes) can increase the glucose uptake by at least 40%”

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1,700 Calories a Day

Denise (@denisehamdan) lost 30 pounds by overhauling her diet, sticking to 1700 calories and 130+ grams of protein to help build muscle and stay satiated. So what are some of the things she eats on a daily basis? Coffee, supplements, egg wraps, a green drink, turkey snack sticks, a protein bar, and chicken alfredo from scratch.

Mind Over Matter

Chris (chris.gordert) lost 30 pounds in two months by changing his entire mindset. Along with lifestyle changes such as watching what he eats and increasing his cardio workouts, he says the real change came from within. It wasn’t until he changed his mental approach that real changes happened. “I changed my mind,” he says. “Sit down with yourself and write a contract up in your mind. No ifs, no ands, no buts. When you’re ready, sign it in your mind.”

💪🔥Body Booster: To avoid stress while in a calorie deficit, prioritize high-protein, low-calorie foods like protein shakes, protein chips, and veggies. This will help you feel full and satisfied.

TikTok influencer Megan (MeggyLosing) lost over 100 pounds in 6 months and kept it off despite living with PCOS and Hypothyroidism. “Don’t believe the lie that you can’t lose weight with PCOS and Hypothyroidism. It’s not easy, but IT’S WORTH IT,” she says. Here are the simple lifestyle changes that helped Megan change her life.

Eating Real Food

Megan changed her diet to focus on good protein and vegetables. “The first thing I did and probably the most important was to change my diet,” she says. “I prioritized protein and vegetables on my plate every meal, I ate lots of chicken, tuna, salmon, turkey. I ate lean beef, I ate tons of vegetables.”

Berries and Nuts

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Megan added lots of healthy berries, nuts, and complex carbs like sweet potatoes to her diet. She also enjoyed grains such as quinoa as part of her PCOS-friendly diet. “I ate like that for a long time,” she says.

RELATED: 7 Breakfast Ideas to Kickstart Your Metabolism

Technology Help

Megan used a food tracking app to make sure she wasn’t overeating. “I downloaded the free version of MyFitnessPal and started weighing and tracking my food,” she says. “Women with PCOS often don’t make enough of the hormone that tells your brain you’re full so you’re hungry all the time.”

Get a Food Scale

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Megan was shocked when she realized the portions she was eating were so much more than she thought. “I had tried just eating real foods without tracking my calories,” she says. “I overate even real foods so I overate.”

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30 Minutes a Day

Megan committed to at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. “Initially, I would do a lot of walking and jogging,” she says. “I also did free YouTube workout videos in my living room because I had three small boys, and alone time just wasn’t going to happen.”

Building Muscle

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Megan realized early on that the more muscle she had, the more calories she was burning. “Weight lifting became my number one form of exercise,” she says. “I thought I would hate it and it became my favorite. I would encourage you to at least try it.”

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Calories and Protein

Megan counted calories to ensure she was in a deficit, and counted protein to make that deficit easier to handle. “You want to be able to lose weight without feeling ravenously hungry because the more hungry you are the more likely you are to overeat,” she says. Megan also counted protein to make sure she was building muscle while losing fat.

💪🔥Body Booster: Making sustainable changes will lead to long-term success.

Do you want to lose 10 pounds a month simply by making a few simple changes to your diet? Xiaoma is “a polyglot who has studied dozens of languages,” according to his YouTube profile, who lost 40 pounds in 4 months when he decided to “seriously start losing weight.” Xiaoma explains that he went from 187 to 150. “I've lost a good 40 pounds,” he says. Here is what he did.

Exercise Isn’t the Key to Losing Weight

“For many people, the first thing that comes to mind when they think about losing weight is exercise. But I had already learned that exercise was not a stepping stone to losing weight. In fact, for me, it was the opposite. Like, the more I exercised, the more weight I gained because the hungrier I got, the more I allowed myself to eat,” he explains.

It Is “A Hundred Percent Diet,” He Says

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“My big realization was that it was a hundred percent diet,” he says. Before, he would eat “multiple pieces of toast or bagels or lots of butter and cheese and multiple eggs fried in butter” for breakfast. And, for dinner, “whatever he wanted. “It usually ended up being like big bowls, cheesy pasta, or like the most delicious pizza I could get my hands on, just like really rich fatty foods, which I somehow convinced myself was okay because saturated fat is all keto and good for you these days.”

First, He Amped Up His Veggie Intake

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“The first thing that I did was I had a call with my nutritionist,” he continues. She advised him to eat more vegetables. “It didn't really make sense to me at first because I was like, what do vegetables have to do with losing weight? Like, I just, I didn't really get it, but I was like, okay, so I'll humor you. I'll eat some more vegetables.”

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He Ate Veggies Before Other Food

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He started with making sure half of every meal was veggies, “and that would be the first thing that I ate,” he says. “I realized pretty quickly that it actually is a great way to lose weight because what you're doing is filling your body with nutritious fiber and crowding out room for all the other rich fatty foods. You're kind of filling yourself up in advance.”

He Realized That He Used to Eat Too Much “Rich and Fatty” Food

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He came to a realization. “I realized what the root of my problem was, that I would just let myself eat as much rich and fatty food as possible, and I would be absolutely stuffed with every meal,” he says.

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He Changed the Type of Carbs He Ate

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The other major change he made was the type of carbs he ate. “Most of my carbs, rather than coming from grains, came from whole recognizable beans or legumes. I eliminated all processed carbs from my diet. So, no more bread. I completely stopped eating bread. No more cookies, no cakes, nothing like that. No soda, obviously. No, no candy, no processed foods of any kind. That wasn't a huge problem for me before. But bread was a big problem. And so what I replaced it with was just essentially these slow carbs, like chickpeas. I had a lot of chickpeas and lentils.”

He Stuck to Whole Foods

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“The core principle for what I was to eat just became whole foods, like as minimally processed as possible—calorically dense foods. I try to eliminate to the maximum extent possible, less fatty meat and more whole grain carbs like oatmeal,” he says.

He Also Ate “Unappetizing” Meals

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He admits that some of his meals are a “little bit unappetizing,” which is “actually the point,” he says. “I wanted to eat food that was as kind of unappetizing but nevertheless still healthy as possible.” Why? “I felt like it was a pretty easy way to lose weight if the food became much less appetizing because I always really enjoyed eating.”

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He Started Weighing Himself Daily

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“That became, that became a core part of my ethos. I started weighing myself every single day. I mean, I started losing weight immediately, but you know, like the first week I lost like several pounds. Here I am, having lost 40 pounds four months later. And honestly, it feels really good.”

Follow Xiaoma on Social Media

For more on Xiaoma, you can follow him on social media. He is on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.