Swayze has been actively living and avidly promoting a low-fat, high-fruit raw vegan diet ever since.

To learn more about the best raw food diet, visit www.fitonraw.com and subscribe to Swayze’s weekly raw newsletter, Peachy Keen Ezine.
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What is the one thing vegetarians, vegans, and raw vegans are all known for, besides the obvious absence of meat eating?

A lack of muscle tone, which leads many to believe that anyone toying with the idea of giving up animal flesh is destined to a life of comments like, “You’re too skinny. Here, have some meat.”

Don’t believe the naysayers. You can totally build lean and healthy muscle on a raw vegan diet. Wanna know how?

Eat More Fruit?!

No, but good guess! Eating more fruit is my answer to just about everything else.

The correct answer is STRENGTH TRAINING.

Overload and Recover

If you want to build muscles, you just have to do two things: overload and recover. This is called training and if you don’t do both of these, you will not build any muscle at all.

You can eat all the fruit smoothies you can stand, but it won’t make a lick of difference if you are not:

Overloading the muscle using some form of resistance (e.g. hand weights, machines, resistance bands, or even your own body) and
Allowing for adequate recovery time.
Super simple!

Eat More Fruit

Okay, I know I said fruit isn’t the answer to building muscle, but it is part of the equation.

You see, when you start strength training, you will start burning more calories; the mere act of working your body burns calories by itself. In addition, muscle has a higher metabolic rate than fat so once you’ve gained some muscle, you will be burning more fat just sitting around doing nothing.

Sweet!

And since you’ll be using up more fuel, you will need to eat more food. Sure, you can try to limit your caloric intake in order to lose weight quickly, but I definitely do not recommend it.

Not only will calorie restriction leave you very hungry and craving less optimal foods, all your muscle gaining efforts will be thwarted as well. Eating enough food is part of the recover process and is necessary if you want to build healthy lean muscle.

So there you have it! Exactly what you need to build some mighty muscle on a radically raw diet. No disgusting hemp shakes or gagrific protein bars required.

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. There are many, many great resources out there for getting fit and building muscle. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Many of you reading this are probably saying to yourselves, “Why does this blog keep reiterating how important cardio and strength training are, when it is obvious that in order to reach your full potential, such measures must be taken. Is there a reason we have been told 50 times in this article that one must use both cardiovascular and strength equipment in order to maintain a successful exercise program?” Well, if we are preaching to the choir, then more power to you and we are more than pleased that our readers are doing their homework. However, although it is obvious that a total-body workout is necessary for a fitness training session to be complete, many people only focus on one aspect of exercise, while neglecting the other. In other words, many people will just lift weights and not run, or vice versa, so even though the majority of us perfectly understand the theory behind the necessity to incorporate strength and cardio training into the same workout, the majority of that majority, does not put their theory into practice.

When it comes to practicing with exercise equipment, weight machines are really fun and effective. Weight training is essential for increasing strength and muscle mass. There is a large variety of weight training machines in today’s fitness equipment industry, each having its own purpose, specializing in different functions. Therefore, there should be a machine suitable for any and all strength conditioning needs. The variety of home gym options, including but not limited to, single, double, triple or quadruple weight-stack home gyms, make it virtually impossible that someone can’t find a home gym that can help serve their needs. For example, Nautilus, Life Fitness, Body-Solid, Bowflex, Precor, Cybex and Kettler are some excellent brands of commercial and home fitness equipment, that all manufacture a wide variety of strength training machines suitable for ones home, or commercial health club facility.

Home gyms are used for strength training and are built to help people tone, build and define their muscles, however they are not all the same and there are many features of a home gym one must consider when shopping for one. Structural integrity and mechanical capacity are key terms that need to be completely understood by those seeking out a top of the line home gym. The mechanical capacity of the home gym refers to the amount of weight that can be lifted on the machine. Typically, home gyms, strength trainers and circuit weight machines, all have solid warranty coverage. Whereas treadmills, stair climbers, ellipticals and other kinds of commercial and home fitness equipment, all have electronic boards prone to breaking down, strength equipment such as home gyms, weight plates, circuit weight machines and selector strength pieces, are all electronic free and primarily made of steel.

Popular home gym models include, but are not limited to, the Body Solid 1500s, the BodyCraft Family Express, BodyCraft X2 Family Xpress, Life Fitness G7, Precor S3.23 Functional Trainer. Extensive research has proven that the health club caliber gyms previously mentioned are mechanically advanced and structurally superior pieces of gym grade equipment. One of the best parts about having commercial gym equipment at home is that it is rated to last for decades. Imagine how long pieces of gym equipment last in commercial environments over time. At the end of the day, you are only using it for a small percentage of time, compared to its usage in the gym, therefore the fitness equipment is rated to last much longer in your home, than it would in the gym.