Raw Food Success Story: How Author Angela Stokes Lost 160 Pounds

Monday, June 09, 2008 by: Kevin Gianni
Tags: weight loss, health news, Natural News

(NewsTarget) This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni's Raw Food Summit which can be found at (http://rawsummitarchives.com) . In this excerpt, Angela Stokes shares on her experience changing to a raw food diet and losing 160 pounds. She'll share on the dire state of her health before going raw
and the book that changed her life.

Raw Food Summit Excerpt with Angela Stokes, the author of several raw food lifestyle books, including How to Go Raw for Weight Loss.

Kevin: I am so excited about this call because I think success leaves clues. And today we're going to talk about your success in your weight loss. So, why don't we just start with what the landscape of the situation was when you started to realize that and said, "Hey I need to do something about my weight."

Angela:: Sure, yeah. I didn't come from a family where obesity was common, like it wasn't expected that I was going to end up as big as I did. But I did end up at my biggest when I was nearly 300 pounds. So basically how that looked to me was I was pretty miserable.

I was ill all the time. And I had a façade going on in my life. That everything was fine and everything was great. But really I was not enjoying life and it seemed like I'd pushed my body so far that I was on the verge of developing diabetes.

Kevin: So what was the moment for you that just said, "Whoa, I need to do something about this"?

Angela:: Yes, so when I was 21 years old, I had a diabetes scare, which really rocked my
world. And I was really a mess. I was sleeping like for 18 hours a day. I was very lethargic. Always ill and I looked diabetes up in a medical encyclopedia. I literally had every single symptom of diabetes.

Kevin: Wow.

Angela:: And I was terrified. I knew I needed to do something different. I was the person at that point who, literally, couldn't walk past a McDonald's. I was magnetized into places. And I just lived to eat, that's what I did. Thousands and thousands of calories a day, and empty calories. The stuff that just like does not feed the body.

But I went for the test to see if I did have diabetes. And the result came back negative. And it felt like being given a second chance, you know? It was like wow, I pushed everything just about as far as I could and now I can take a step back from that and see what choice I want to make instead.

I had never had any interest in health or dieting my entire life. And I was like 'well what do I do, actually?' You know, 'how do I actually be healthy?'

And so, and I was not going to speak to anybody about it because that was kind of my coping mechanism that nobody was allowed to speak about my weight or my health. It was like completely taboo.

So I just basically guessed what it was that I could do to start trying to be a bit healthier. I stopped snacking as much and I tried being more active. And I started to lose a bit of weight. I lost like about 30 pounds.

But when you're 300 pounds and you lose 30 pounds, it doesn't really make that much difference. To be honest. So that was the beginning of my steps towards being healthier, but things didn't really shift for me until raw foods came along into my life.

Kevin: You said that your life basically revolved around food. I would imagine that's probably one of the most difficult things, to come to terms with that and then change. How did you go about that approach?

Angela:: Well, my whole transformation has gone through every single level of my being
without question. And for me it started with the physical for sure. So it started with literally the food itself. You know, changing that.

My transformation carried on on every level because yes, I changed physically the food that was going into my body. And then emotionally and spiritually and everything else underneath that, shift needed to be made there as well. So I began to get into recovery work, to deal with the stuff that was underlying, surface addiction to those processed foods and cooked foods. It's like well, okay, yeah, that's kind of like the first thing is to put down those foods and to pick up something else instead.

And then what? Look at all this emotional turmoil that's bubbling away underneath that. Okay, now I've got to deal with that.

Kevin: Wow. So how were you introduced to raw foods? You said that you had just started to exercise and you started to eat less snacks. What else did you try? And then how did you come across raw food?

Angela:: Yeah, really for that beginning phase, that was really all I was doing was I was trying not to snack as much. Kind of more or less going vegetarian, vegan, something like that. Trying to be a bit more active. And I was living in Iceland at this point. And I don't know how many listeners are in Iceland or have been to Iceland, but the meat that was available was just so unappealing to me.

I mean it was like we're literally talking sheep's faces. Burned sheep faces. We're talking horse casserole, you know?

Kevin: It is an island.

Angela:: So, I mean I had always been fanatical about meat. Like if there is a meal that didn't have meat in it, I just kind of didn't see the point. It was just like meat three times a day for sure.

Things were starting to shift in my life and it just, being surrounded by those kind of choices around meat, it just helped me definitely to shift more and more into being kind of vegetarian and then kind of vegan. When I was a meat eater, I couldn't understand why would someone be vegetarian? And then it was the same once I was vegetarian. What do vegans eat? But every time I took that next step, I got it. And I would kind of look back over my shoulder and think, "Why was I eating like that before?" So it kind of progressed like that. And as I said I lost about 30 pounds. But I was basically still in the same situation more or less. And that was the point at which raw foods came for me in the form of a book.

My best friend in the village I was living in in Iceland, she is a homeopath. And she could see the kind of state that I was in. That I was a mess physically and very closed down emotionally.
She could see that I was really unwilling to speak about any of this stuff. And yet she knew that she had some kind of healing tool with the raw foods that could help me. So she took this wonderful indirect approach with me.

One day she said, "Would you like to borrow a book?" And I said, "Well, yeah, all right." And she lent me like a stack of books. One of them in there was The Raw Family, by the Batanko's.

Kevin: Sure.

Angela:: And that was the beginning. For some reason, that was the book that spoke to me. I pulled it out and started reading and I couldn't stop. I just knew like this was it. This is the answer I've been waiting for. It was like 'well, yeah, of course. I get it. Why wouldn't I do this?'

Kevin: That's an incredible story. Once you found this information, what did you start doing first? Take me through a couple of the steps that you went through from reading this book. How did you move into 100% raw? Or did you just jump right into it?

Angela:: Yeah. [Laugh] I kind of have a bit of an extreme personality. And yeah, so what happened for me was after reading that book, that night I had the most ridiculous wrangling in my head, with my mind, that whole night. The mind doesn't enjoy change that much. It just kind of wants
things to stay the same and I was like, "Well, you know I think I want to do this. I think I want to go raw." And when I looked at it logically, there was no reason why I couldn't try this out. I was working in organic greenhouses growing vegetables. I didn't have a kitchen or any kitchen equipment that I suddenly was not going to use anymore. There was nobody else I was making any food for, like a husband or kids or anything. It was just me. I had nothing to lose but all this weight. So I woke up the next day and I went 100% raw vegan overnight. Which is a pretty insane thing to do actually, if you are coming from that kind of background that I was coming of so much toxicity.

I mean we're talking 23 years of absolute toxicity in terms of my food intake. And the first week was quite some adventure. Because it was the most extraordinary time as it coincided with this adventure trip in the north of Iceland where there's not really any shops up there. And so I had to take with me all of the foods I was going to eat for the whole week. I had to take it with me. So I woke up that morning. I was like 'wow, okay, yeah I'm raw'. And I packed a bag of completely raw foods and I went off on this journey. And I was there with like celery, walnuts, raisins. I mean it was such a shock to my system. My jaw just ached because I was used to eating foods that was just like mush.

Kevin: Yes.

Angela:: There was no particular structure to it. And suddenly I was eating stuff I needed
to chew and my detox was just enormous. When you detox it's nice to kind of relax, and take some time out and, you know sleep more, maybe get a massage. I was on an adventure trip. So I was like whitewater rafting, I was out sailing, horse riding. I was 270 something pounds and detoxing at like a rate of knots. And it was not a pretty sight. It was a mess. That first week was crazy. But I could see that it was having an amazing effect on my body and on my life. And when I came back from there it was like, 'okay I want to carry on with this, but not this hardcore'. That was really what it showed me.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access more information on raw foods and raw food experts just like Angela Stokes, please visit (http://rawsummitarchives.com) .

About the author

Kevin Gianni is a health advocate, author and speaker. He has helped thousands of people in over 85 countries learn how to take control of their health--and keep it. To view his popular internet TV Show "The Renegade Health Show" (and get a free gift!) with commentary on natural health issues, vegan and raw food diets, holistic nutrition and more click here.


His book, "The Busy Person's Fitness Solution," is a step-by-step guide to optimum health for the time and energy-strapped. To find out more about abundance, optimum health and self motivation click here... or you're interested in the vegan and raw food diet and cutting edge holistic nutrition click here. For access to free interviews, downloads and a complete bodyweight exercise archive visit www.LiveAwesome.com.