Somewhere around the age of 8 I started eating to comfort myself and I never really stopped. I gained around 20 pounds a year until I was 14, when my attention was suddenly diverted to boys. What joy for my parents! =) My focus shifted to looking good so I could land that “perfect” male. Special thanks to the media for planting those weeds in my mind!
I was eating a lot of junk food, a heavy southern diet and just all out overeating. My mom was always very concerned with her weight, even though she was quite slim. I paid a lot of attention to what she was doing and thinking. I weighed about 30 pounds more than she did and she would always call herself fat, yet insist that I wasn’t. That made no sense to me. We would wake at 4 am and exercise for an hour to ninety minutes every day before school & work. I really enjoyed it, despite that fact that I usually stayed on the phone until the wee hours every morning. We adopted a low fat diet and paid close attention to the amount to fat grams we consumed.
Over the next 3 years I went from weighing 190 in a size 18 to weighing 145 in a size 9. For a big boned girl who is 5’10”, that’s pretty darn thin. Nevertheless, my boyfriend at that time kept telling me I was fat and was really hard on me about it. He wanted me to look like the pin up girls. Again, I would like to congratulate the media for contaminating yet another mind. My view of my body was now locked into place. I am fat.
Over the next seven years my weight went up and down. Between moving, schedule changes, emotional upheavals and ultimately a sedentary job where I sat at a microscope ten hours a day, I found my way up to 220 pounds. I needed some help. I started walking regularly and seemingly out of nowhere a childhood desire of having a punching bag sprang forth and all I could think about was training in martial arts. I moved to New York City shortly after, found a school that I liked and was on my way. 2001’s New Year’s resolutions forwarded me into a health foods store in my Bronx neighborhood. I immediately connected with one of the employees. He was so vibrant and alive! He introduced me to juicing, Apple Cider Vinegar and the ways of a vegan. He recommended books by Paul & Patricia Bragg which I bought and totally devoured. I started juicing regularly, eating lots of salads & fruit and severely limiting sugar, white flour, table salt, meat and dairy. I removed alcohol, worked to keep the desire to smoke cigarettes at bay and really started noticing the amount of processed foods that claimed to be healthy and all natural. Little by little I was decreasing the amount of unnatural foods that I was so accustomed to eating. I switched to distilled water and experimented with water fast and found incredible energy in doing so. I felt fabulous. I trained in martial arts 3 days a week, worked every day and spent my free time in study of nutrition, metaphysics & Spirituality. I put 10 years of coffee drinking to bed and had finally made it to the 21 day mark of no caffeine. Yes!
The wind blew, the tides shifted and I made a decision to move out of New York and give a relationship I ended 18 months prior, another chance. Unbeknownst to me, I was moving right back into a dark hole I had fought so hard to get out of. I felt so good that I really thought I could handle anything. I was confidant my new healthy way of being was locked into place. Stress will throw you back into old patterns if you are not mindful of it though...
Just like that, I was swallowed back up in an old environment of animal products, junkfood, coffee and eventually cigarettes, again. Talk about depressed. I had no encouragement or support for the new way of life I found through natural foods. I was depressed for about a year before I could get a full grip on myself again. The most damaging part of that process was how I mentally treated myself for getting so far off track.
The past 7 years I have cycled in and out of these patterns of eating well & exercise. I’ve had substantial periods of time where I’ve been vegetarian, bordering on vegan. I’ve completed dozens of lengthy juice fast. I have accessed tremendous levels of energy and vibrancy. Yet time and time again I have allowed myself to be thrown off track by special occasions, social functions, holidays, visits back home to family, vacations, gifts appearing in the form of food, stress, heavy emotional patterns, pressure from peers to eat what they are eating and at times, just total resignation.
I find myself at 35 feeling pretty darn beat up. I am experiencing fatigue, tight and painful muscles, poor posture, anxiety, depression, irritability, shallow breathing and just all out unhappiness. Intuitively I feel I have a lot of cancer cells floating about looking to take root. I have prayed to spirit a lot about my health and internal state of being and the message I get is always the same. Diet, exercise & healthy thinking heals all. For me that means being a vegan & raw foodist. I’ve been off and on enough times to know that when I am on that path, I am absolutely radiant and full of life. When I am eating the standard American diet (SAD), I am the complete opposite.
I’ve read countless testimonies of people on deaths door who have completely healed themselves with raw, natural foods. I don’t want to keep wishing for better days, I want to live & radiate vitality now. This segment of my blog is dedicated to that. I will share my experiences and favorite recipes along with information on all the amazing superfoods that I am using to heal my body.
Let's get RAW WITH RAW!
Lots of love,
Amanda
