keep planting those seeds!

I might not be able to grow tropical fruit in the UK but I can sure as hell keep telling people about the benefits of raw food!

A few years back I was the only person at my martial arts school to begin eating raw. I was sick of being sick and discovered here and 80/10/10, got on it and wanted to tell the whole world! Quickly I was met with resistance from all angles, family friends and even people who didn't know me. I expected it as it was hard for me to grasp at 1st (where would I get my protein!?) but the worst part was at my gym where I had trained for 13 years I was pretty much ridiculed for my diet. I put up with constant jokes in the changing rooms and even those who would ask questions would disregard my answers.

Shortly before I went high carb raw vegan I had suffered a shoulder dislocation but despite this huge set back in training I recovered faster from any injury. This too was disregarded and people chose only to see that I was a little weak and attributed it to my new "fad diet". Before long I thought enough was enough and I stopped training at the school and began training on my own and with my old training partner who was actually forced to start eating low fat high carb cooked to keep up with me as we trained 3-4 times a week together.

About 9 months ago my wife and I moved away from England up here to Scotland so she could study here. It was an easy decision as I no longer enjoyed the company of old friends so set in their ways and so motivated to tell me where I was going wrong despite being in the best health of my life. It was easy at 1st but every day it was nagging at me about my old friends, most who were closer than family... I even struggled to sleep sometimes, imagining conversations with them, regretting that I was no longer around them but at the same time at a loss because they would not see what I had seen. It felt like a chasm had opened between us and I would never go back to my old unhealthy lifestyle just to be with my friends, as much as I love them it was not worth my own health!

I let these thoughts eat away at me and the move to Scotland went from easy to difficult, I started eating crap again. I was working a s***ty job at a local Subway just to pay the bills and that got me mega down too. I was still vegetarian and still light years away from my old ways but at some points only 1 raw meal a day, the rest cooked and sometimes processed crap too. I get headaches again and even some congestion now and again, it sucked! I realised what I was doing though and got myself back on the track I wanted to be on, much easier this time I must say and I feel like I learnt from it too.

Shortly after my fall from grace I went to visit England to see some of my old friends only to find my old coach who was really against me eating this way and refused to listen to the science as he was so heavily invested in people like Paul Chek etc was now raw too! I was amazed! We trained and afterwards spoke for hours about the raw diet about how we both felt like completely new people for it. There was also another lad now working at the gym who was also raw following on from my coaches lead, he's now a great friend of mine too. I must admit it was a little funny to see my coach dealing with the same resistance from others that he personally gave to me a few years back :P

A long story short, I discovered this lifestyle and lead the horses to water but they would not only refuse to drink but shunned me for drinking. I left and came back a little thirsty myself only to find a few were ready to hydrate themselves too.

I cannot really take the credit for them going raw and now there are even more students getting on the fruit but man I cannot explain how good it makes me feel to have been a small part of their coming to the raw diet.

The cherry on top of the pile of ripe cherries is that I will now be opening my very own martial arts school in a few months up here in Scotland :-) I'm the 1st to do this with my coach, he's going to help others in the future to do this and part of the pre-requisites (along side being a fully qualified martial arts coach) is to be educated on the raw food diet. Any other instructors we have opening schools in the future must be raw and educated not only on the diet but also the benefits of fasting and so on.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I would not be here in this position were it not for you guys.

Peace x