Introducing Angela Stokes-Monarch. She has a an amazing weight loss story with raw foods!
Just recently married with a lot of on her plate traveling the country lecturing and teaching, Angela takes us back to the days when the weight and the health issues were taking her vitality away and how she flipped it all with raw foods!NK: First how is married life?
ASM: Blessed and blissed, thank you – we seem to unfold deeper into love and enjoyment of each other each day :)
NK: Please tell our readers your story with raw foods? How and why did you first starting learning about this lifestyle? What life circumstances prompted your choice.
ASM: Prior to choosing a raw food lifestyle, I used to weigh nearly 300lbs – I was morbidly obese, always ill and miserable. I was introduced to a raw food lifestyle when a friend lent me the book 'Raw Family' by the Boutenkos, in May 2002. I read the whole book in one night and went 100% raw the next day. I released 160lbs in the first two years of this journey and the excess weight has stayed off ever since. My life has gone on to shift in every way imaginable, far beyond simply the physical weight release – emotionally, spiritually, socially, mentally – my life is pretty much unrecognisable now from my pre–raw days ;)
NK: You've lost a lot of weight with raw foods. There are a lot of people who want to lose weight permanently. How can raw foods serve as a lifestyle to keep weight off?
ASM: From my perspective, eating and living raw is all about coming into alignment with our true selves – our true nature – and part of that involves shedding off excess lbs. Especially in the US, many people seem to be overfed and undernourished from other–than–optimal food choices that have very little nutritional value. When we give the body fuel that it can actually use, rather than the empty calories of highly processed, refined foods, the body finally has something to really work with and excess pounds simply melt away and stay away. It's not rocket science – lol – it's simple: eat the foods provided straight from nature, especially water–rich, fresh, organic veggies and fruits and your body will naturally take you towards optimal health.
NK: I think this question might actually be more for me than others, but how can people like me who want to gain weight, gain weight on a raw foods diet?
ASM: There are a number of things that may help someone GAIN weight while eating raw, these include: eating plenty of denser foods such as sprouted nuts/seeds/grains/greens, daily nut/seed milks and smoothies made with them, avocadoes, bee pollen, hemp protein powder, durian, spirulina/chlorella, young coconut, etc. You may also like to look into doing a parasite cleanse, as internal parasites may be preventing you from gaining/holding weight – the Intestinal Parasite Formula from Healthforce is great. You may like to also take enzymes with your meals to increase nutrient assimilation. Getting into regular light weight lifting/endurance/resistance exercises can help build up muscle too. Eating late at night and poor food combinations also often encourage weight to stick on people, these aren't necessarily the healthiest lifestyle choices though ;)
NK: I find that a lot of women more so than men gain weight on a raw foods diet eating a lot of nuts and sweets. In my brain, this just sounds impossible. How does this happen? Do you think there is another cause to this?
ASM: When many people first go raw, they eat masses of food, including nuts and dried fruits and still release weight. This is primarily because of what they are NOT now eating – i.e. they have stopped eating all the junky, refined, processed foods and are instead eating whole, raw foods; they might even be eating bags of nuts a day and still releasing weight because they are finally giving the body fuel it can use (I know this was true in my case). HOWEVER, over time, the body adapts to the new way of eating, the bloodstream and digestive tract get cleared up and we find ourselves more efficient at assimilating nutrients from food. At this point, if someone continues to eat large amounts of food, they can easily re–gain weight, or stay at a 'plateau'. The body is always working towards optimal health and efficiency and most people find that over time with a raw lifestyle, they gravitate more towards greener, 'cleaner', lighter food combinations and meals. If for some reason (emotional or otherwise) a person at this point is not willing/ready yet to consistently eat smaller amounts and instead eats a lot of packaged/dense raw food, they often end up carrying more weight than might be optimal for them. Food = calories, even if it is raw food and if you're overburdening your body with more food than it needs, you're likely to carry extra lbs, even if the food you're eating is raw ;)
NK: What's on your plate today?
ASM: Today I am mostly on juice: watermelon juice, greeeeen juices, freshly–made goji berry juice, plus some bee pollen, a little energy soup, some flax crackers and soaked Incan berries. You can see everything that I eat on a daily basis as a 100% raw foodist over at my blog: http://rawreform.blogspot.com.
NK: What are your favorite foods?
Mmmmmm...durian, sunflower greens, cherries, papaya, bee pollen.
NK: How do you find that a raw foods lifestyle has affected your life spiritually? Do you have more peace, balance, in your life? What are your moods like?
As a young child, I felt very connected to 'Spirit' and had multiple 'psychic' experiences, however I shut down most of that connection, as I felt awkward about it socially. After going raw in my early 20s, I experienced a dramatic resurgence in my 'spiritual' life, especially in terms of the connection to my chakra system. Without doubt my life feels more serene, relaxed, balanced and flowing these days than prior to eating raw. I read my old diaries form my pre–raw days in shock – I was so incredibly angry and bitter at the whole world back then – my outlook on life was very 'negative'. These days I am happy to say things are very different: I feel compassion, a connection to all of life and a willingness to be open and honest that I never experienced before. I feel very blessed.
NK: When you first started eating raw, what was your experience like? What were your challenges?
ASM: When I first went raw my detox was HUGE, as I was nearly 300lbs at that point and very unhealthy. I went 100% raw overnight and was detoxing heavily. It actually felt like too much for me at that point, so I took a step back to about 70–80% raw and that's how I ate for the first couple of years on this journey, during which time I released 160lbs of excess weight. The weight loss was so fast and dramatic that I felt like I could see new aspects of myself every time I looked in the mirror. I changed 10 clothing sizes and all my jewelry was falling off.
Emotionally and socially I often felt quite challenged in the beginning: people around me were used to seeing me eat plate after plate of pasta, pizza etc and suddenly I was eating raw – my friends didn't know what to make of this shift and many 'teased' me at first, before they started to see the changes in my life ;) I also felt awkward socially at first as I released all the extra weight and came into a smaller body, as I felt people 'expected' me to now be someone who I felt like I didn't know how to be...I was used to 'hiding' in an anonymous 'fat friend' role and suddenly it seemed like men were interested in me and women were seeing me as 'competition' – it felt very odd and unnerving for me and there was a lot to breathe into and release. I was also living at that time in a village of about 100 people in the countryside in Iceland, so I felt isolated at times – monthly raw food potlucks in Reykjavik were my lifeline back then ;)
NK: What advice do you give to those who are brand spanking new to raw? What do you tell people who have no idea as to even how to put together a salad or who say to you its too expensive or complicated?
ASM: I usually encourage people to start out eating at least 50% raw and to take it from there, towards 100% raw, if they ever take it that far. This might mean that they eat a raw breakfast and lunch and a 'cooked' meal in the evening, or maybe it means that at every meal they enjoy at least 50% raw foods. Many people find green smoothies a good breakfast to start with, or fruit salads, grawnola mixes with nut/seed milk and so on. Lunches might include a big yummy salad with greens, sprouts, healthy fats like avocado/olives and seaweeds, or maybe nori wraps/lettuce wraps with some kind of simple seed cheese/pate and veggies. Snacks might be fresh fruit, pre–packaged raw bars, home–made raw truffle balls, soaked nuts/seeds/trail mixes, chopped veggies with a dip and so on.
Eating raw can be as 'expensive' or 'complicated' as you like – one could purchase the most costly items and create lavish gourmet raw dishes, or pick and eat some wild greens and berries straight from the wild – there is no exact 'protocol' for eating raw ;)
In terms of purchasing any new kitchen equipment, I feel getting a high–speed blender (e.g. Blendtec) is usually the ideal first choice for most people, as so many things can be created: smoothies, puddings, cake and cookie mixes, ice creams and even juices if you have a nut milk bag too...
I recommend people aim to drink at least one green drink a day, plus eat seaweeds and sprouts daily. Making the choice that everything sweet going into your body is going to be a raw food can revolutionise peoples' health journeys.
I thoroughly recommend getting support from others who have gone down this path before you – whether in your local area or online. Be prepared with your own foods when you go out in public, keep yourself motivated by reading raw books/watching raw vids on YouTube/DVD, visiting websites, connecting with raw friends etc and above all...ENJOY ;)
NK: You are originally from the UK. Do you find that a raw foods diet can be enjoyed in any climate and in any culture? Or do you find that the lifestyle is more of a trend or more of a cultural thing?
ASM: My sense is that people can live and eat raw wherever they are – it is always simply a choice. I actually went raw when I was living in Iceland back in 2002 – if I'm still here 7.5 years later, I believe people can do this anywhere ;)
I always like to bring things back to nature and simplicity; I do not see any wild animals eating cooked or processed foods, no matter where they live on the planet. I've never seen a zebra for example say "Mmmmmm, no, raw food doesn't work for me, I'm going to have some pasta instead." I feel that eating raw is the optimal way to fuel the human body, in the same way that all other animals in the wild fuel themselves. However, that being said, I am also aware that many humans seem to currently have major emotional/social/cultural attachments to food that make it very challenging for them to choose a raw lifestyle. There are also some important things to consider if you're in a colder/damper climate, such as supporting your spleen (perhaps with beneficial herbs), getting Vitamin D somehow if not from the sun and so on...
NK: What do you have coming up for you? Any books, classes, lectures that you would like to share with our readers?
ASM: My most recent book 'Raw Emotions' just came out earlier this year – it is all about re–structuring our emotional relationships with food, handling cravings/overeating patterns and so on. My partner Matt Monarch and I are on very big tours all over the USA at the moment, giving raw food talks, signing books and so on.
We have a new monthly raw food radio show at TheRawFoodWorldRadioShow.com, where we interview well–known raw foodies, plus we do a daily raw food 'TV Show' at TheRawFoodWorld.TV.
We are very excited to get down to our land in Ecuador sometime soon and get started there with growing our own food, starting a family and feeling more connected to the land.
NK: Going back to the nut issue, a lot of people are allergic to nuts? What substitutes would you suggest to them? Also what would you recommend to those who have allergy issues to certain foods?
ASM: Dr. Ann Wigmore suggested that all illnesses and 'allergies' are the result of either an excess of waste/toxins in the system (toxemia) or deficiencies. It may be that some people who believe they have allergies to certain foods/objects, find that once they start eating more raw and clear out some of the waste in their systems (especially with colon cleansing), they can now tolerate foods more easily that caused them issues before. This might not be something people with potentially fatal nut allergies might be excited to play around with though ;)
In that case, I'd suggest to focus on seeds, sprouted grains, algaes, coconuts, durian, leafy greens and so on instead for denser food sources. Most long–term raw foodies don't eat many nuts anyway, so this need not be a stumbling block to eating raw ;)
NK: You travel a lot. How does this if at all does this affect your meal planning and diet?
ASM: Mmmmm, yes, my partner and I actually live on the road at the moment, doing raw food events all over the US...and I've been on the road for most of the last 13 years or so...so, for me, eating raw and living on the road are not so much of a challenge to combine, as that is simply the way I live ;)
We do our best to be prepared at all times on the road in terms of food – we travel with dried raw foods such as seaweeds, chia seeds, nut/seed butters, dried fruits, algaes, bee pollen and so on, plus we have a cooler with ice packs with us for fresh foods. We manage to eat totally raw wherever we are; there is always somewhere to find fresh produce and this combined with our dried supplies gets us through, wherever we are...where there's a will, there's a way ;)
We travel with a Blendtec blender and currently we often make a green vegetable juice in the mornings using the blender and a nut milk bag, then just before we set off on the road for the day, I will blend a little 'energy soup' and we'll eat that with crackers or something, as we start our travels. Later in the day we'll have more juice if we can find it, or maybe chlorella tablets, handmade goji juice or smthg similar and I might have a very light meal like a couple of apples with some bee pollen. That's about it for the day, besides water: we've both been eating raw for quite a few years and we eat pretty simply these days. Our intakes are always changing though, depending on where we are and how we're feeling, so if you want to know exactly what I've been eating lately, you can always check that on my blog, where I put my daily food intake every day: http://rawreform.blogspot.com ;)
NK: How do you see the raw foods movement affecting the food industry and also the healthcare issue at least in the States that is?
ASM: I think there is enormous potential for the raw foods movement to have large and lasting impacts on the food and healthcare industries. It is very clear that the more people who are out there choosing to buy organic produce, for example, the more demand there are for organics, which can have knock–on effects for agriculture, healthcare, the environment and far beyond...
Personally, what I am excited to see unfold is more and more people getting to the land and growing their own food, taking responsibility for their own health and well–being, raising happy, healthy, 'unschooled' children in communities and so on. That is the path my partner and I are starting down, on our land down in Vilcabamba, Ecuador. My sense is that most people in modern, 'civilised' societies are vastly disconnected from nature and my desire is to instead strongly reconnect to the land, set up our own food forest, disconnect from the 'rat race' and grid and really live a life of abundance and flow in nature :) There is the potential for this kind of lifestyle to be replicated all over, if people are willing...
NK:Anything else that you would like to share with our readers about your journey please feel free to do so.
ASM: I truly feel that if I can do this, anyone can. Eight years ago I weighed nearly 300lbs, was miserable and pretty much eating myself into the grave. I started this lifestyle in Iceland (of all places) and I am still here 8 years later, happy, healthy and delighted with my life path. Eating raw is simply a choice, like everything else in life...and it is a choice that I absolutely love and wholeheartedly recommend ;) I wish everyone the very best with their own unfolding paths...
Angela has also offered to give a FREE book, Raw Emotions. Tell us why you would like to have a copy of the book and how it can benefit your health. You can only qualify for the GIVEAWAY if you have not received a FREEBIE from us before. Post your comment to our page along with your name, city, state, country, and email address. We will announce the winner on Monday, October 19th.
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