Occupation: Dance/Fitness Instructor
My journey of healthy eating began back in college when I met a girl that was vegetarian. She was so thin and full of energy. I needed to lose a bit of weight so I tried the vegetarian diet and ended up losing about 30 pounds. I stayed on it for a few years but eventually went back to eating meat. In my 42 years of life I have gone back and forth on a vegetarian diet, but since 2005, I have stayed on it and will continue for health and ethical reasons, I just cannot see myself eating an animal ever again. I became aware of the raw food lifestyle around 2005, there didn’t seem to be much info out there about it or I may just not have looked hard enough. I tried it for about 2 weeks, although I felt better, it seemed too difficult to keep up with and the recipes seemed too time consuming, so I eventually went back to cooked foods and didn’t attempt it again until around 2007. I then found more information on the lifestyle than I could keep up with. I read everything I could get my hands on about it and tried several recipes and bought the recipe book “Raw Food Made Easy”. It was just the book I needed; it was full of easy recipes that actually tasted good and were easy to prepare. I began to experiment with my own recipes and just changing the ones I came across to better suit my taste. I found that I really enjoyed making these raw creations even though I have never liked cooking. I really loved the way I felt and looked. My skin looked clear and young and I had lots of energy to last me throughout the day. I no longer had the moments in the middle of the day where I felt like I needed to take a nap. I loved the new feeling. I eventually went back to more cooked foods due to some life situations I was going through, but quickly noticed how tired I was feeling and slowly started going back to it. I am not 100% raw at this time, but that is my goal eventually. I try to stay at least 70-80% raw and the cooked foods I do eat, I try to keep as healthy as possible. At this point, I am trying to find the right combination of foods that will provide me with the energy to teach my dance and fitness classes I teach. At age 42, I am presently teaching 22-24 classes a week, something I didn’t even do when I began teaching fitness classes in my early years. I feel that my raw food lifestyle plays a big part in the energy I have to get me through the day. My goal is to introduce people to this lifestyle and help them become raw to the percentage they are comfortable with. I have recently started teaching Kids Fitness Boot Camps and it has saddened me to see so many overweight and unhealthy kids at such a young age. I would like to come up with ways to get kids eating more healthy raw foods, so my goal is to come up with tasty raw recipes that are kid friendly. I want to continue to learn more about the Raw Food Lifestyle and do what I can to help people regain their health through healthy eating. American people are so unhealthy and overweight that we need to really get out there and teach people about raw food and what it can do for them so that we can become healthier and raise healthier children. I would like to combine my knowledge of raw food nutrition and fitness to work with people for all around health. I have also created my own natural mineral makeup line, Makeup Junky Cosmetics. The products are not tested on animals, and do not contain dyes, lakes, chemicals or anything harmful to the skin. With fitness, nutrition, and beauty, I think I have a person covered for optimal health.