Hi
I was just wondering what people's reasons for starting on the raw path?
I started about 4 years ago for weight loss. But now it is because I know how wondeful I feel on raw. I have been off and on on raw. Right now I am at about 95%.

At first, purely health reasons - have read many testimonials of people who have overcome so many illnesses with a change to raw food.

But, after a while, you can't help but become aware of all the other great reasons to be raw - it just makes sense.

So I guess I want to be raw for all the reasons, health, weight, glowing skin, the wonderful spiritual impact it seems to have, the clear thinking, joy, energy and so on. And besides being good for the planet, I also feel great that a lot of the money I am spending on food anyway is going to support food producers who follow ethical practices. As consumers, we must exercise our power as much as we can.

Life is just such a wonderful thing when you feel really great.

I'm just getting started with raw and I'm not at 100% yet but I'm getting there. I started because for many years I have felt so low energy. I've gained some weight, I look tired and bedraggled all the time. I'm susceptible to drinking too much, smoking cigarettes, binging on Ben & Jerry's, etc...

Then I had a baby. The energy it takes to care for a baby is insane and I couldn't keep up. I also started having some minor health problems and I thought to myself "there's got to be a better way." I found raw.

Since then, I've dropped most of the weight I want to lose, I have bounds more energy, and I've been able to think clearly about my life for the first time in years and make some very important decisions. I love it.

i read about it the national enquirer

demi moore's new diet

My partner experienced a bouut of Bell's Palsy this past fall... it paralyzed half of his face which is not a good thing considering that he is a self-employed artist who depends on his eyes for a living. Stress was the causal factor, but we both had to stop and reaccess our lives/health when this happened.

We've been killing ourselves working 12-16 hours a day in our studio for the last 5-6 years, and we've let our health slip. I stopped doing yoga and working in the yard, and we both gained weight - not a lot, but still enough to exacerbate negative health symptoms.

We were already primarily organic, although still eating a lot of cooked food and some meat (mostly free-range organic). The market our business is geared to is heavily peppered with vegetarians and vegans, so transitioning to raw vegan is not a huge stretch for us. (Thank goodness)

Anyway, the answer is we want to be healthy, and lose the extra weight.

Judy

After only 10 years on Wall Street in NYC, I became very ill - CFIDS and FMS. I was a disaster. One morning while vacationing with my then fiance, Federico, in Boca, I asked WHOEVER what is wrong with me - I could not after four days bring myself to get out of bed.

A voice said "If you don't take care of this you will have cancer in 5 years."

When I returned home, I searched, searched and searched more until I found HHI, Brian and Anne Marie. Needless to say, those first three weeks changed my life forever. Not only did I fully recover from CFIDS and FMS, I lost 36 pounds (had been slender before this all my life), and left Wall Street and a fiance who I knew could not fulfill his part of our partnership. I came back to myself in the most juicy way.

Since then the journey has simply gotten only more juicy. Truly, I feel so blessed every day of my life. And now as I work with people who are ill, really ill or sometimes getting ill, I know precisely why that voice said what it did the way it did.

May your journey not be quite so dramatic, but equally rewarding. Good luck! May the Gods and Goddesses be with you RAW!

Blissed be, Annie

just got very sick for about 2 yrs. it was horrid.i did not want to be on all the medications the dr. was prescibing for me-so i got busy. i have now lost 55 pounds...since oct 18th-06.i am trying to do the phase one of the gabriel cousens book-but can not figure some of the stuff.there is no fruit.so trying to figure what for breakfast.ok-that is why i am changing my lifestyle-walking 5 miles or more-most days...eating raw...trying to restock my kitchens and buying all these books to get an idea of what to do and what to uncook.taylor

At 18, I turned vegan as i was into that straight-edge movement, where many people are vegans. However, I never really 100% warmed up to those peeps. Many of them are too radical, too everything. But the ethical reasons made sense to me. So then somebody hooked me up with a raw food book and I started going raw and feeling amazing. I'm off and on to be honest but getting better in recent years so I have longer periods of 100% and less temptations.
Still the ethical reason is a big one for me, besides my own health.

Mainly for health. Yet I still haven't really fully embraced that very reason. I slip and slide all the time. Like the past few days. I suppose it's detox that I react to with those old foods, and with eating too much raw food. But health is still my main reason for staying with it as much as I do.



This way is not compatible with Zen practice. This way IS Zen practice. - Dr. Doug Graham

Nothing whatsoever should be attached to. - Buddha

I was having a lot symptoms telling me something was really wrong and getting worse. My five year old was having some probems as well. My niece told me about raw. After trying it I knew for a lot of reasons it was the best way to eat. Because of researching raw I discovered that I had/have most of the symptoms of Candida. I finally feel like I have found the missing piece of my life. I had been searching for it for years but really just needed a manual. My daughter is so much better too.

Evolution -- vegetarian, vegan, raw foodist (=
Never felt better and more ALIVE!!!

I saw a book in a Chapters Bookstore 'Raw Food Real World' The pictures were incredible. I bought it, read it, and my husband and I both ate or donated all of our cooked food products, and basically went High Raw over night.

Funny thing is, as long time vegans, we'd never even heard of Raw Foods until we saw that book.... so happy we did though. I can honestly say it has changed our lives drastically for the better.

I don't remember exactly. I had already been eating more salads, had already cut back on whole grains with the aim of getting more nutrients with the same number of kcals. I just upped the fruit and started replacing oils with freshly shelled raw nuts and seeds.

The fruit intake continues to climb. I've kind of reached an impasse with fat, though. My intake doesn't "want" to go down. I guess I am kind of happy where it is, but I'm still curious and will eventually want to experiment more.

Was vegetarian only then discovered green smoothies (Boutenko).

Because I got such amazing results fron this small change I realized that most of what I was eating was crap and I knew I wanted to try this and bought my first raw cookbook and F. Patenaude's Raw Secrets.

Then I found this forum. Did some reading, got over my fears of B12 deficiency and read posts here everday to motivate me to keep on or near the raw path.

And I have a great reason to eat mangoes everday!

I was very sick from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue in addition to having depression, anxiety and other health issues. All healed now! You can read my story in the success stories section on this site.

Gotta love raw!!!!!

Audrey

I cannot pinpoint any one thing. For me it is mostly health, and wanting to leave a smaller footprint on the earth.

Health - On 100% raw, I no longer suffer the misery of

- waking up choking on acid reflux, terrified to go to sleep for fear of drowning myself.

- constant heartburn during the day

- headaches

- staying overweight (the weight is coming off)

- winter depression

- lethargy, fatigue, crankiness (even _before_ losing a significant amount of weight I felt free as a bird!)

- cravings. I don't have constant "gotta eat" cravings.

- mental fog.

I feel so free and alive for the first time ever. There are probably a million other former chronic complaints I am forgetting. There were tons.

For me, the fresher the better.

I'm into raw food because I want to be fit and healthy as long as posible. There are many things that I want to do in life like hiking, mountain climbing, cycling, adventure tour etc etc. Apart from raw food, I also do exercise regularly like brisk walking about 50 minutes 2 - 3 times a week. Too many things to do with so short a lifetime .

Life is wonderful.