THE WHYs AND THE HOWs I CONVERTED TO VEGANISM
From the age of 10-12 I started to like meat less and less and when I move to London at 17 I stopped completely as the meat there tasted awful compared to the one at home. I also stopped eating fish as there was non available apart from fish and chips, so I changed culture both in living and in eating becoming vegetarian, started doing yoga and power walking in public parks, getting in contact with nature and myself by meditating. There is where the change began...
Then at the age of 20 I moved with my partner to the South of Spain and went back to fish, as it was great quality just gotten from fisherman, then at 23 I found out I was pregnant when I was 3 months already and, let's say I hadn't lead a very healthy life, going out and drinking and having fun nearly every night, so I did my first detox for the sake of my baby: I started drinking 3 juices a day and eating loads of salads the result of loosing 5kilos of extra water I had. In the mean time I gave up meat completely
Another detox I came across in 2006 was exactly the "you are what you eat" book by Gillian McKeith, she had a huge success here in Europe with even a TV program in the UK, but all of a sudden her reputation went the hell as people starting to say that she wasn't a doctor at all or if she was, she got her degree through a US online university, but I must say her books are great and her researches very accurate, I usually go back to consult recipes or remedies for a certain disease.
Another detox I came across in 2006 was exactly the "you are what you eat" book by Gillian McKeith, she had a huge success here in Europe with even a TV program in the UK, but all of a sudden her reputation went the hell as people starting to say that she wasn't a doctor at all or if she was, she got her degree through a US online university, but I must say her books are great and her researches very accurate, I usually go back to consult recipes or remedies for a certain disease.
And then I found the raw diet... the non return point!
In June 2010 I felt bloated and tired (result of a very socially busy Winter) and surfing the web for inspiration I found Angela Stokes-Monarch web site www.rawreform.com and got inspired from her own story of recovering from obesity thanks to raw foods, so that I started to do a lot of research on the matter and came across lots of interesting information and websites
www.terawarner.com weight loss programs if you can't trust yourself to follow one alone
FOR RECIPES:
www.rawtenthicfood.com
www.living-foods.com/recepies
http://www.rawfoodrecipes.com/
So that I converted to raw veganism and developed my own daily routine of:
JUST AWAKE: 1 litre of wáter and hot wáter with lemon or red tea (both great for wáter reléase)
BREAKFAST: Green juice or Green smoothie
LUNCH: mixed salad and/or raw soup
MIDAFTERNOON: mono fruit meal or fruit salad
DINNER: Green juice and/or mixed salad
RESULTING IN:
- 2 sizes jeans gone, I wasn't weighting myself then, but you could notice the centimetres falling off
- maintaining the weight loss, no more yo-yo dieting
- The less I eat the less hungry I fell as the stomach shrink, aiming weight loss
- HAIR AND SKIN IMPROVE AND GLOW
- HAPPINESS AND POSITIVITY THROUGHOUT THE DAY, NO MORE ANSIETY FOR FOOD
- BETTER QUALITY SLEEP, LESS HOURS BUT WITH BETTER RESULTS
- FULL OF ENERGY AND STRENGHT
Going into Winter obviously wasn't easy on raw food, even in the South of Spain where temperaturas never drop below 10º Celsius, so allow myself hot food in winters whilst still enjoying smoothies and juices
I lead a very active lifestyle, I have 2 kids and 2 businesses: I manage 40 holiday apartments www.marbellaholidays.es and I co-own an Italian restaurant www.italiankitchenmarbella.blogspot.com with hubby.
He's a great chef and creates healthy and tasty Italian homemade food, as well as walking my path on raw foods, he's on 50% with 2 juices a day, which is still good.
He's also experienced an important weight loss and life improvement, although he's still attached to an omnivore diet.
Therefore I need all the energy I can get. And a plant based diet is where all the minerals, vitamins and enzimes are.
Not to mention SUPERFOODS chlorella, spirulina, maca powders to be added into smoothies.
What helped me a lot mentally is the Beck's Cognitive Therapy book, it Works on a system of daily motivation and reward, easy to follow whatever diet you are on (omnivore, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free). The idea is having a bit of favourite food every day to satisfy the mind and the cravings.
When I started on it I was on vegetarian diet and I had:
Just awake: red tea
Breakfast: Green smoothie with non sweet fruits
Lunch: mixed salad and some carbs (half a portion pasta, pizza or some bread)
Mid afternoon: non sweet fruit and a cappuccino
Dinner: Green juice and mixed salad
During this period I also learnt to waterfast for 24-36 hours once a week to give rest to the system and the cognitive therapy help me a lot in order to put my mind in order, to listen to my body and to control hunger and cravings.
I have reccomended the book to everybody ever since.
With this system I lost 10kg and mantained the loss feeling great and motivated.
Sincé the New Year (2013) I started to look for new challenges and have been experimenting with gluten free vegan diet in aim to improve my health even more and finally loose the 5 kilos remaining.
More post will follow on this as I'm just at the beginning
www.terawarner.com weight loss programs if you can't trust yourself to follow one alone
FOR RECIPES:
www.rawtenthicfood.com
www.living-foods.com/recepies
http://www.rawfoodrecipes.com/
So that I converted to raw veganism and developed my own daily routine of:
JUST AWAKE: 1 litre of wáter and hot wáter with lemon or red tea (both great for wáter reléase)
BREAKFAST: Green juice or Green smoothie
LUNCH: mixed salad and/or raw soup
MIDAFTERNOON: mono fruit meal or fruit salad
DINNER: Green juice and/or mixed salad
RESULTING IN:
- 2 sizes jeans gone, I wasn't weighting myself then, but you could notice the centimetres falling off
- maintaining the weight loss, no more yo-yo dieting
- The less I eat the less hungry I fell as the stomach shrink, aiming weight loss
- HAIR AND SKIN IMPROVE AND GLOW
- HAPPINESS AND POSITIVITY THROUGHOUT THE DAY, NO MORE ANSIETY FOR FOOD
- BETTER QUALITY SLEEP, LESS HOURS BUT WITH BETTER RESULTS
- FULL OF ENERGY AND STRENGHT
Going into Winter obviously wasn't easy on raw food, even in the South of Spain where temperaturas never drop below 10º Celsius, so allow myself hot food in winters whilst still enjoying smoothies and juices
I lead a very active lifestyle, I have 2 kids and 2 businesses: I manage 40 holiday apartments www.marbellaholidays.es and I co-own an Italian restaurant www.italiankitchenmarbella.blogspot.com with hubby.
He's a great chef and creates healthy and tasty Italian homemade food, as well as walking my path on raw foods, he's on 50% with 2 juices a day, which is still good.
He's also experienced an important weight loss and life improvement, although he's still attached to an omnivore diet.
Therefore I need all the energy I can get. And a plant based diet is where all the minerals, vitamins and enzimes are.
Not to mention SUPERFOODS chlorella, spirulina, maca powders to be added into smoothies.
What helped me a lot mentally is the Beck's Cognitive Therapy book, it Works on a system of daily motivation and reward, easy to follow whatever diet you are on (omnivore, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free). The idea is having a bit of favourite food every day to satisfy the mind and the cravings.
When I started on it I was on vegetarian diet and I had:
Just awake: red tea
Breakfast: Green smoothie with non sweet fruits
Lunch: mixed salad and some carbs (half a portion pasta, pizza or some bread)
Mid afternoon: non sweet fruit and a cappuccino
Dinner: Green juice and mixed salad
During this period I also learnt to waterfast for 24-36 hours once a week to give rest to the system and the cognitive therapy help me a lot in order to put my mind in order, to listen to my body and to control hunger and cravings.
I have reccomended the book to everybody ever since.
With this system I lost 10kg and mantained the loss feeling great and motivated.
Sincé the New Year (2013) I started to look for new challenges and have been experimenting with gluten free vegan diet in aim to improve my health even more and finally loose the 5 kilos remaining.
More post will follow on this as I'm just at the beginning
In the future, I want to train as a Naturopath and through the restaurant promote healthier ways of eating, even if I must say, here in the South of Spain people eat quite poorly. Considering we have the best diet in the world (the Mediterranean diet) and access to very good organic food and vegetables, 70% of population, usually have fried and processed foods various times per week, as well as high quantity of pork resulting in poor health, overweight and different diseases such has cholesterol, diabetes, heart and bones problems that are "cured" with huge quantity of medicines, as the hobby here is to go to the doctor and take pills, for absolutely everything. Not to mentions the plastic they feed the kids: crisps, sweets by the kilo, white bread with processed ham, chorizo or lookalike, resulting in kids 10 kilos overweight.
What I sense is that, as changing habits is hard, they are happy as they are because even if they moan they're not well, they're happy moaning, if you know what I mean.
That's why I'd like to introduce raw food in my restaurant alongside what we normally offer and hopefully they'll go for it and maybe start a health program, but for that I need to train, I still have to find out where... Long term Project!
For the time being I'm fully experiencing the changes in my body and spirit and I am so glad I came across all the raw food websites.
