There has been an increasing trend on social media with showing images or videos of vegans or raw foodies working out, wearing produce as clothing, lying in the middle of a ton of greens wearing a kale bikini, and purposely lying around a garden in just a bikini.

When I scroll down a page to find this images my eyes widen, what a waste of food. With raw food I have found myself being able to use more of my produce, creating less waste and hardly ever using anything packaged.

My previous self, previous to being a vegetarian even thinks elitest when looking at these images. There is some sort of ego validation going on here. May be to prove that eating green does the body good? Vegetarians/vegans/raw foodies don’t look sick? It’s not my personal story so I can brew up some thoughts on what I observe. May be someone needs to hear, “Wow, looks like greens have done your body good.” Something cheesy like that pops up in my mind!

But there is a definite line between “skinny” and “healthy.” Wanting to be skinny seems to be the thing now and days. Skinny does not mean healthy! Someone skinny could have an eating disorder, they just eat wheat products all day, may be they are a drug or alcohol addict, they only eat meat, are junk food addicts, or even have an illness that is causing them to be skinny.

I think what people who are mixing the two of these up are missing out on is that it’s firstly more important to be healthy, to be well. Eat healthy, have a healthy routine, be mentally healthy, have good relationships with others and yourself.

For me personally, when my father passed away and I was in this rather deep depression where there is at least a year of my life I do not remember besides being in bed. I was 13 years old, it was my Freshmen year of High School. These are the things I know for sure.

Eating healthy was just a launching pad to being well. My life was starting all over again, baby steps but it was happening. After that I was starting to get the energy to actually function like a normal human being. I finally started going to school, I made more friends, I had the energy to take care of myself. Then on my own I wanted to have some sort of work out routine. I felt I had enough energy and was at a good place both in and out of myself. To me my life was feeling extreme, black or white, all good or all bad. I didn’t want to get this way about food, myself, others, working out and just everyday things. I was in a position where I would easily go all in head first or all out and probably have some sort of mental episode.

For me eating healthy or working out will always be more important. Like in my current position I have very little funds, the money I do have goes to eating well.

This brings me right to another topic I wanted to talk about today, raw food and all this abundance of energy that people are promising. Being a vegetarian, vegan, raw foodists whatever you want to label it will not give everyone the same results and that is awesome. Yes, it is awesome. It will give you what you need and leave behind what does not serve you.

I needed the be healthy; mind, body and soul. I needed the energy and mental health to get out of bed and let myself live. Over the years I have become a better person I think. Besides almost always being happy, my view on life is completely different. I actively push to achieve my goals, stimulate my mind and in a way, I gained confidence. It’s very rare now that I feel aggressive or violent, which use to be an extremely normal feeling for me.

I do not want people to stray away from a vegetarian/vegan/raw vegan diet because they aren’t feeling that abundance of energy, they still have a little piglet belly, are depressed or etc. That is someone else’s story, it’s time for you to have your own. We all connect with different people for different reasons.

Raw vegan food can’t promise anything to you because you haven’t written your own ending.

This has been something I have been struggling with immensely since I have been in the L.A area. There is this obsession with appearance, saturated happiness for marketing purposes in the food world, the fake it till you make it mind-set is on a whole other level where it is applied to every aspect of someone’s being, and lots of judgement on people based on their looks. Appearance and raw food seem to mean a ton to some people; if they respect you, want you to make them food or not. Appearance and creditability somehow are blurred together, we can only see that outer shell of a person if we keep our minds that narrow. A person could have already lost a hundred pounds changing their lifestyle and still have work to go, but another person may not want to listen or accept their information because “they are still over weight.” These stories tend to be the most exposed, heart-filled stories to me even though I have not struggled with weight. For someone to come all out and be so honest draws me right in.

Without hearing my personal story may be someone wouldn’t find me as “creditable.” Yet those I resonate with the most are people who’s energy I am attracted to, their presence and voice. My quirky, blunt, clumsy, and loving personality might not draw in everyone…and I don’t want it to 😀

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I have never been told ever that I should loss weight by anyone until I lived here.

I am typically a very active person, but since I do not hold a job currently and am technically homeless I haven’t been able to do some of the things I love to do. So that was a cheap and sensitive blow even though I know I do not need to loss weight, or as they said, “be skinnier.” May be what they should have said was “be more fit/toned.”

The people who feel the need to say such things most likely feel this way about themselves.

Once you take control of your health, you take control of your body and life.

Healthy is the new black…or green…it’s the new thing haha 😉

The most important thing is to be well.

There are a few sites I would like to share with you, everyone has truly unique stories and personalities. Like with any book, character, movie, painting and so on there is a voice that will speak to your heart and mind. Also, consider starting up your own site, YouTube channel or project. There are never enough voices out there!

Two Fat Chickx -> Looking for some middle-aged women who are on the road to wellness to connect with?

Choosing Raw -> Vegan & Raw Vegan dishes. Gena also shares her personal journey with food and eating disorders as well as having guests share their stories as well.

Dan “The Life Regenerator” McDonald -> Dan has a simple, easy, anyone can do this approach to raw foods. He even has videos where he was on the go and juicing outside of his trailer. His juices use produce that at least I personally have been able to find on both the East & West Coast.

Kris Carr -> Kris was diagnosed with cancer and found food to be her wellness cure. From what I have read it sounds like she went through a huge shift mentally and spiritually as well. Once you take control of your health, you take control of your body and life.

Take what serves you and leave behind what doesn’t, it’s like a buffet restaurant, someone else may need/what the complete opposite. You can even completely ignore anything here that does not resonate with you!

I hope this helps shed a little light on this topic. I feel like I could keep writing about this, so I am guessing more articles surrounding this topic will be popping up on my site. Thank you radiate people for taking the time to stop by my website. Much love ❤ and raw power 😉