Welcome to my world – Raw food and a radical change in lifestyle

Welcome to my heart based blog and thank you for taking the time to be here with me. It’s so great to be blogging about a topic which has changed my life in so many ways and to be able to share some highlights of my journey with you.

On my fortieth birthday I awoke and decided my life would never be the same again. It was then I decided the time had come for me to unlearn everything I thought I knew about health and nutrition and start all over again. Initially I did not know I would lose twenty kilos, all I knew was that I could not continue eating the same conventional diet of wheat, meat and dairy that I had been eating my entire life and expect to have any kind of health and vitality throughout my forties.

I left my job and have never looked back. Nowadays, my job is to look after myself, nurture my body and mind and share all that I have learnt with people like you. With heartfelt thanks to my mentors who have enabled me and guided me to do this.

There are so many different opinions out there, so many different ideas and views, with regard to what’s right and wrong with how we are eating today. Like many, I was just so confused, so I decided to go right back to the beginning and start from scratch.

Once I made the conscious choice to forget anything I thought I know about food, health and nutrition it opened my eyes and my mind to a whole new world. It was not easy to release so many years of conditioning and be able to see it all through new eyes. But with help from some amazing people who became my mentors, I was soon well on the way to succeeding and finally achieving my goal. I never imagined I would actually lose so much weight, it just happened naturally, and I guess that’s the way it should be? It took approximately 6-12 months to shed the weight but most importantly three years later I have not put it back on.  It feels like my journey has only just begun and at 44 years of age I’m so excited to be learning more and more each day and now being able to share it with so many of you around me.

So… what did I do? I simply stopped eating processed and cooked food and started on the journey of real and raw foods. Many call this a ‘raw food diet’ however I have given away with the ‘diet’ word and like to call it ‘real food’ and ‘real living’ because it makes me feel real again. I definitely don’t like to be fanatical; I have little treats, and rarely deny myself of anything. The key is that 90% of the time, my diet consists of a high raw content and they are all plant based foods. Therefore I avoid wheat, meat and dairy (WMD?) including any processed or cooked food. So my food consists of lots of vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, sprouts, seaweed, spices, herbs and oils which are uncooked, unprocessed and organic whenever possible.   It’s not just about ‘rabbit food’ and salads – the variety of flavours, colours and textures are absolutely endless and I can honestly say it’s the tastiest food I have ever eaten.

Whoever would have thought there could be so many different ways to combine these beautiful foods? And how good does it feel to kick the cooked food addiction?  Most of the recipes require a dehydrator, blender or juicer but as time goes by you will find you prepare less and less and just crave whole foods and mono meals.

Raw food can cure just about anything, it will normalise weight, increase energy levels, improve digestion and make your skin glow! As you begin to meet more people who eat mostly raw you will notice how alive and vital they look, their hair shines, their skin glows their eyes are bright; they simply just look healthy and happy. After four years I do not have any deficiencies, and through my own personal experience I now understand that I can and do get everything I need from a plant based diet. If you want to grow older and feel better every day then it’s a great path to follow. I say this only because I live it and it certainly works for me. I hope some of the inspirations I share with you in my future posts will work for you too.

Along with massive changes to my eating regime, I also incorporated a big wave of new lifestyle ideas with support from my mentors such as sourcing proper drinking water, increasing water intake, juicing, blending, sunshine, earthing, walking barefoot, mindset, yoga, meditation, exercise and so much more. These topics will all be covered in a book I have begun writing and also throughout this blog.  Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below, I would love to hear your thoughts!

What brought you to my blog and what would you like to see me writing about in the future?