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A Spiritually Enlightening Online Magazine. May's Theme: "Being Present"
Volume 7 Issue 4 ISSN# 1708-3265

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 		Life in the Raw
Present Moment
with Nicola Watt

We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time.
- Art Buchwald

My yesterday was a daily ritual of addiction and obsession. I'd wake in a morning and weigh myself. If I'd gained, that was it! No swimming, no tight clothes, but maybe if I locked myself indoors for a few days, counted my calories then maybe by the end of the week I could go out to play again. I'd spend my days counting calories checking the labels on so called diet foods that when eaten would have me craving for more due to the right amount of addictive chemicals added to trick our bodies into believing we want more. I'd spend a fortune for what I believed at the time to be low calorie low fat processed food. Why? I'd end up thinking about eating all day, then I'd eat and still be hungry, bad for us - fantastic for the food agencies and the government who rake in tax revenue.

Had I known then that processed low fat products are so full of sugar that when eaten the body would store it as fat (and let's not forget the biggest cause of disease in the UK and USA), I might have pulled myself out of yo-yo dieting years before I did. I was never a big girl. I was on the higher side of my suggested weight range so still uncomfortable for me. My obsessions were in my head, and you can't go out in society today without picking up message about body image and the expectation of how we should look.

My life changed drastically when I switched things up and put my health first. I didn't want a short diseased life. As soon as I started thinking of my health and not my weight, the weight fell off and I started to feel amazing. It took a little while to break away from the cravings caused by the white refined carbohydrates. I tried to limit them initially, although I soon realised that to release myself from the addiction of these foods I had to eliminate them completely. Now I eat for hunger. I don't feel the energy slumps I experienced when eating processed food. The Raw fresh foods I eat now are designed to feed us not addict us. I have no set times of eating. I simply eat and drink when I feel the need.

Diets never solve a problem - they make it worse for most people. The minute you go on a diet you feel deprived. You are no longer 'allowed' to eat the foods you love or you have to restrict yourself from eating a certain amount of them. The situation is that even if you do manage to 'hang in there' and reach your goal weight, what happens next? You reward yourself with the very foods you have been longing to eat in the quantity you have been dreaming of. You have been so good after all and you deserve a treat for all your hard work! The problem is your slim body is pretty short lived. In no time the pounds are piling back on. The no-win situation rears its head again. You either let the floodgates open or you try to exercise immense control over your intake once again. You're never truly free. All you have done is treated yourself to feelings of self-loathing, guilt, lethargy and a lifetime desperately trying to control your intake of certain foods. And how do we try and solve that problem? Another diet!

We need to start understanding that excess fat is a physical 'symptom' of a psychological problem. The real issue is mental - not physical. Diets are not designed to change the way you think. They are simply designed to change either what you eat or how much you eat, not how you see certain foods. Diets are designed to treat the excess fat, the physical symptoms, they don't address the real issue, which can solve the problem for life. Because diets only treat the symptom, inevitably the situation gets worse.

Another problem with restrictive diets is that they are not nutritionally thought out and many times you literally starve your body. If you deliberately stop yourself eating when your body is genuinely screaming for food, you are fighting against the most powerful instinct in the world: survival. When you do this your body's metabolism slows down. If a small amount of food keeps coming in, your body assumes you have no choice. So your metabolism slows down considerably to conserve energy. At the same time the body stores even more of what you do eat as fat as it senses lean times ahead. Because the fat is needed the body even begins to burn muscle tissue, which is a double boo hoo. Every time you go on a restrictive diet you lose muscle tissue and gain more fat cells. Once you gain fat cells they never die they just shrink. That's why it is so much easier for people who have been overweight to gain weight again faster. More muscle equals more good quality food. The only true way to release yourself from a life time of battling with your weight and protecting yourself from disease is to put more raw food into your diet and eliminate processed food for good.

So although I live for the moment I certainly live for future moments. Being raw put me in a different space, I stepped away from an addictive diet and I was already seen as being different. Why wouldn't you want to eat unlimited amounts of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds the natural fast foods designed to balance and repair our bodies! At the point of taking control of my eating habits I became more confident to challenge more things.

Now in the morning I dive out of bed and switch on my juicer. Gone are the days where I would crawl out of bed to switch on the kettle for my caffeine fix. I no longer have to push myself to exercise in an attempt to burn more calories. Now I exercise for the love of it, sun, wind, rain or snow. I embrace it. I don't pound the streets in trainers now trying to burn extra calories. I just focus on movement. I love the great outdoors with a passion and use it as my giant playing field. I run my dogs for a couple of hours at a time or simply pop on my back pack, switch on my iPod and go for a steady jog. I strength-train using my own body as resistance. My life, since being raw, has become so much simpler. I eat raw because in this present moment it makes me feel great and I want so many more of these present moments.


Nicola Watt is a Raw Food Coach and a Natural Juice Therapist. Born in England in the United Kingdom in 1974 she is also a Certified Personal Training Instructor, Reiki Master, Indian Head Massage Therapist and Tarot Card Reader.

As well as writing for Timeless Spirit as a columnist she writes raw e-books on weight-loss for health and allergy prevention and she facilitates Raw Spiritual workshops and re-treats.

She is currently studying to become a Master Juicer which is officially recognized by the CMA (complementary Medical Association).

Mummy to her four young children and supporting wife of a British Soldier. Nicola enjoys the great outdoors, hiking, cycling running and walking her three active dogs along with caring for her children's small pets.

A practicing Christian with some Buddhism beliefs she likes the simple things in life and has a dream to live in a warm climate off the grid.

If you would like to learn more about Nicola and her raw family you can visit her blog.

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