30th October 2001
WHY I WENT RAW
Many
of you have asked "Why did you go raw" -- well, if only there was
a quick answer! It's complex, many things happened and (as ever) it's a bit
of a story...
AS A CHILD
Sadly
I wasn't given the best start in life. As I grew up we were literally fed
the same lies as everyone else in our world. My diet consisted mainly of roast
beef, Yorkshire puddings, cod and chips and bread and dripping. I remember
having salad, meat and chips on a Monday. I didn't like vegetables (who really
does like boiled cabbage and carrots?), and I always wanted to eat bananas.
_______
AS A TEENAGER
My diet changed radically after I'd been through a major trauma. At that time I realised that I would never want to inflict suffering on another being, especially one who couldn't even defend itself. In 1985, when I was 16, I became a vegetarian. As I stopped eating meat I started eating cheese, cheese and more cheese (as well as crackers and pasta...). Then I realised that although I didn't feel any worse on this diet, it just didn't feel right and I couldn't live on it for long. I didn't know anyone else who was a vegetarian and I wasn't really into books, so I read some magazines and experimented a bit. My family had a restaurant at the time and I persuaded them to sell vegetarian or vegan specials on the menu. No one bought them -- this was Norfolk!
As
time went on I found myself a social life, did a lot of dancing and started
drinking alcohol at the age of 25. Isn't this when people start to think about
giving it up? Well, I never did follow convention. My diet remained vegan,
but as more vegan convenience foods were being developed (soya cheese, soya
meat, burgers, grills etc), my diet became worse. Eventually, most of the
food I ate came out of tins or packets.
________
I MET A RAW PERSON
My
first meeting with John Coleman was in 1996. At that time he was eating a
high-raw diet, with the intention of soon eating all-raw. He bought me a book
called What Doctors Don't Tell You
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0722530242/shazzie-21
by Lynne McTaggart. While reading it I nodded my head in agreement that the
medical profession is there to mask symptoms, not cure diseases. Even at that
time of little confidence, I wouldn't have trusted my life with them. I hadn't
taken many tablets in my adult life, because I was so against animal cruelty.
I'd frequently get bronchitis and cough up blood, but I only went to the doctor
once about it. I mostly just suffered, thinking that this was meant to be
because I was weak and couldn't change that. Meeting John was like pouring
water on my raw seed that was planted several years before. But only a bit
of water.
_________
EVERYTHING STARTED DETERIORATING
I
know I'm not alone in this, but as time went on I just started getting more
and more things wrong with me. I'd suffered some of the symptoms for years
or sometimes as long as I can remember. I'd always felt that I was runt-like
but I'd started to find survival on a day-to-day basis increasingly difficult.
The health of my family is no better, and whenever I looked at them to see
how I'd turn out in 20 years I was truthfully horrified. Close members of
my family suffered heart disease, arthritis, cancer, diabetes and all the
other diseases that are accepted as normal but unfortunate these days. I didn't
want to end up like that but as I was related to them, what chance did I have?
Without radically changing something in my life, I don't think I had much
of a chance at all. After all, I was a next generation runt, my illnesses
were bound to have been bigger!
___________
I REACHED ROCK BOTTOM
The lowest point in my adult life was just around the corner. In 1998 I'd been very stressed for about a year. I was even more tired than usual. Work was taking its toll on me, I was working about 12 hours a day most days and getting no thanks for it. I had a permanent pain in my stomach which I'm sure was an ulcer (but I wouldn't go to the doctor). I always wanted to throw up and most days could only eat boiled rice with vegetables.
After
gradually putting on weight over the years, there was now a surprising 11
stone (154lb) of me struggling to fit into size 12 clothes. I flatly refused
to ever buy a size 14 -- that would mean I'd been defeated. My thighs were
like two sea lions -- My friend Chef said I had "Cider thighs"!
I had a permanent frown, my face was baggy and puffy like a Yorkshire pudding
with jowls. In fact, I was puffy and squashy all over.
Internally I was no better -- I had a pulse of about 90 and my blood pressure
had started creeping up. I wondered how I got like that, and whether it was
my destiny. I thought about most other women, and how overweight they are
-- and thought maybe that's just what happens to you as you get older. At
the age of 29 everything was heading south -- my skin, my chin and my spirits.
___________
I PICKED MYSELF UP OFF THE FLOOR AND PICKED UP A BOOK
Shortly
after that time I spotted The Optimum Nutrition Bible
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749918551/shazzie-21
by Patrick Holford in a bookshop. I flicked through it and noticed that depression
and stress were mentioned. He also seemed to advocate or at least condone
a vegan diet, so I bought the book. I read it twice and did the test to see
what I was deficient in (the test asks you a long series of questions and
from that you work out how deficient you are in certain vitamins, fats and
minerals). I wasn't surprised to find out that I was deficient in almost everything.
I was on a vegan diet because I didn't want anything to suffer just so I could
have a life, but I was suffering so much. I thought about it and realised
that I might have been even worse off on an animal-based diet -- I was a runt,
remember. It then made sense that my body was puffy -- there was no good stuff
holding it together. I decided to change my diet and take mega supplements
immediately. I also took St John's Wort for my depression. I was determined
to get out of this slump. I really wanted to start living.
____________
A BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE
That Christmas, in 1999 my boyfriend bought me Nature's First Law: The Raw Food Diet, by Arlin, Dini and Wolfe. I read it while we were in Scotland, and as I turned every page I was saying "Blimey!", "Cor!" "F*** me!".
Finally
the penny had dropped. How long did it take? I'm not very fast on getting
hints, am I? At last I was reading something that made complete sense to me.
It was telling me what I felt but I could never make sense of these feelings.
The one thing that stands out in the book is the final sentence at the end
of each chapter: Cooked food is poison. As soon as I saw it, I knew that was
it -- I was being poisoned! No wonder I felt like I was dying. I was toxic
since before I was even conceived, even since before my mum was conceived!
Every cell in my body was made up of substandard material and with these shaky
foundations there was no wonder I'd been crumbling.
____________
I UNDERSTOOD
Finally,
I understood why my life had been such a struggle. And I understood about
generations degenerating -- I was from weak stock and had been fed dead food
since before I was conceived. No wonder I felt like such a runt. I immediately
understood the importance of raw mummies and raw daddies making raw babies.
I understood that even the most unhealthy people could turn their life around
a long way by being raw. I knew I'd never be the fittest, healthiest person
in the world, but I could rejuvenate and remove the toxic cells in my body
and replace them with healthy raw ones. I knew this raw food natural law was
right -- it hit me in the gut as if it were a brick. I understood. I finally
understood. I can't begin to say how humbly grateful I was at having this
lifesaving book come to me at a time when I felt strong enough to fully digest
the information.
___________
I WANTED TO BE RAW
This
was the key to the door that I'd always found locked, no matter how much I'd
batter and kick it. I can't say how relieved I felt just by reading this book
-- it also proved to me that I wasn't mad in looking to nature for the right
way to live, but I was just so fogged up that I couldn't think or trust myself
to look to nature regarding food. As soon as the shops opened after Christmas,
I went and bought a load of salads and fruit. I preferred them over the fake
turkey dinner which I had a couple of days before, and the soya cheese on
biscuits which I'd been eating to pretend like I was having a pigging-out
Christmas just like the meat-eaters. I ate my salads and thought about the
different tastes, textures and feelings between the raw bits and the cooked
bits. I read my golden, beautiful book at every opportunity that holiday.
It went everywhere with me. I carried it around as if it was a bible, and
I read it at every opportunity -- unsociable woman that I am. I tried a whole
raw day as soon as I got back home, and wanted to put the raw diet it into
practice straight away. However, it was almost the year 2000...
______________
HAPPY NEW LIFE
After
reading and re-reading my lifesaving book it didn't occur to me that I should
gradually go into raw food: 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, then finally 100% raw. If
cooked food is poison and I wanted that poison out of me then it was all or
nothing. I suppose I'd just had enough of hanging around. I don't know how
much raw food I ate the previous year, I was only semiconscious about it.
However, that year had been good enough for me to realise life could be OK
and I wanted it to be great. I wanted it to be fantastic. I wanted it to be
perfect. I wasn't armed with any other raw information except a half-raw recipe
book and my old uncook book, but on the 3rd of January 2000 (the first normal
day of the year), I stopped taking my supplements and thought I'd try a little
experiment -- just to see how I felt...
___________
Update: As I write this final section, it's almost 2 years since I went raw,
and it did change everything. I'm living in a different country, have a different
man, have a different job, I look different, I feel different. I'm so glad,
so very very glad that the Universe put me on this path. I'm also glad that
I kept notes of how I felt before I went raw, and during, as I had forgotten
the deep despair I used to feel. I remember feeling depressed, but that enormous
black cloud which used to engulf me had long gone from my memory. It took
me a while to recover, and it still seems like a dream that I don't have to
sleep in the middle of the day, and my aches and pains are barely there. When
I treat myself correctly -- when I get enough sleep, do yoga, meditate and
eat lightly -- I feel fantastic. It just takes time and practice to get used
to that fantastic feeling. I realise that I sometimes suppress it, so my next
challenge to myself is: Channel my energy, all the time. I can't imagine how
I would feel right now if I hadn't gone raw. Everything I've experienced in
the last 2 years has been nothing short of magical. This is a different life.
It's real. It has to be experienced...
Copyright
~ 2000-2002 Shazzie | All Rights Reserved
____________
On Shazzie's site: www.shazzie.com you will also find access to stories by
other folks who discovered the terrific transition to 100% raw/live foods
in their lives - Amanda, Paul, Werner and Jinjee. There are before and after
photos for each of them that are very telling in themselves. If you are seeking
to find effective wisdom regarding health and nutrition, then I'm sure you
will find much you can relate to and use in each one of these peoples experiences.
Back
to Raw Food Enthusiasts
Top
of the Page
Home |
Hotline |
Action Forum |
Articles |
Raw Energy Radio |