Raw Metamorphosis Story! - Shannon "THE BRAVEHEART"

I was raised on the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) like most folks, with one exception to the rule. My diet was worse as it was a more perverted form of self abuse. It was the Black American diet - B.A.D. The Black American Diet, for those of you who do not know is a diet primarily composed of pork and pork by-products, enormous amounts of salt and grease, and most things are deep fried, i.e. Southern Fried Chicken. The farther South you live, the worse the diet. I'm the only child and was raised by a strong single black woman in Tuskegee, Alabama.

The Black American Diet is rooted in the legacy of slavery. Often, after the slaughter of pigs and other farms animals, slave master would take the premium cuts and divide it among themselves, and anything left would be given to slaves. This translates into pig ears, pig feet, pig testicles, cow tongues, hog intestines (Chitterlings), sausages and the likes. This pork legacy remains today and is often a part of ethnic black cooking. To be honest, many of these favorites have made their way into white southern homes. Slaves, out of necessity made these items taste delicious. They added salt, spices, and herbs from Africa and around the world. Well it didn't take long before slave masters noticed the delectable sounds and smells of Black American cooking. The slave owners took a taste and before long added theses delicacies to their Southern Antebellum Homes. And so it is today, that Southerners are the largest consumers of pork and pork by-products in the country.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that pork and pork products are the worst meat or food to consume, if you can call pork food. It truly isn't fit for the consumption of sewer rats. For the more health conscious Southern Folk, they traded in their pork products for McDonalds, cheese puffs, filet mignon, etc. as they still crave the fat and salt of a Southern diet. It's like trading in a gun for a knife, - they both will eventually kill you, one slower than the other, but ultimately you still die. Guys this was supposed to be about my raw food transition and lifestyle and instead I've turned it into a history lesson. let me get back to Shannon's "Raw Food Testimony". I thought that it was important for you guys to have a good understanding of my background and my eating habits to truly appreciate my metamorphosis as a "RAW VEGAN" and I do mean RAW 100%. Let's get back to my story.

Like I said before, I was raised on the Standard American diet. Every vegetable my mom cooked, she cooked with ham hocks, salted smoked turkey wings and or fat back (Pork Fat) for you northerners. The main course would be fried fish, pork chops, BBQ ribs, or deep fried Southern fried chicken. The side dishes: deep dish macaroni and cheese (2lbs of cheese folks), collard greens seasoned with pork, and candied yams smothered (Sweet potatoes) with butter and sugar and a lot of it. I ate this day in and day out for 20 something years, supplemented by Kentucky fried chicken, McDonald's, and all the rest!! I'm surprised I survived puberty and lived to tell my story. I was addicted to these foods and a compulsive eater from an early age.

Once when I was about 10 or 11 my mom cooked an entire pot roast with carrots, potatoes and gravy and a big pot of collared greens seasoned with pork fat and told me I could eat as much as I liked as she had to leave for a pressing engagement. Well, she left at around 12:00 noon and returned to the house at around 6:00 p.m. in the evening. She returned famished and ready to eat her dinner! What did she find? Almost nothing! I had finished over 3/4 of the pot roast and half the pot of greens, don't forget the corn bread, carrots, potatoes and gravy. Oh yeah, and a pitcher of kool aid. She came to me very calmly and asked who came over for dinner. I responded by saying no one, which was true of course. She said "Shannon Don't lie to me", I said "I'm not lying Mommy."

She was no longer calm, and asked why I ate all the food, I simply stated, you told me I could eat all the food that I liked and I did just that!!!!! She was more shocked and in disbelief than angry. That was the beginning of my food addiction and compulsive eating habits. As a child I suffered from the same childhood diseases as most children; chicken pox, measles, etc. However, I had one problem that plagued me like no other child that I knew. I had clogged sinuses and huge amounts of mucous in my chest cavity all the time. I don't ever remember being able to breath out of both nostrils at the same time my entire life, except for this very moment. My mom told me it was just allergies and gave me massive amounts of antibiotics and OTC drugs for temporary relief.

My sinuses would open for a day and return back to their clogged mucous state. After years of discomfort I became used to the discomfort and it became a part of me like my eyes or, teeth! I thought that it was normal for people to breath out of only one nostril. I snored liked a bear and had severe difficulty breathing most nights. That too became common place and a part of everyday life for me. It's amazing what the human body can do out of necessity of survival. For years I asked myself why I was cursed with all this phlegm and mucous in my nasal passages. WHY, WHY, WHY??? Well, it's now that I know it was because of my diet, which was high in meats, dairy products, salt, fats, and very little fresh fruit or veggies. In fact, I considered white rice and white bread vegetables, as a youth. Go Figure???

The only time I remember raw whole fruits being in my home was during the Christmas holidays. My mom would always give me a shoe box of apples and oranges with brazil nuts. They would sit under the tree until they rotted or someone else ate them, but certainly, not me. I would feast on ham, pies, cakes, corn bread, dressing, deep dish macaroni and cheese, and turkey. Incidentally, I would always get the flu or a severe cold after the holiday seasons (Christmas and Thanksgiving). Modern belief is that it's just that time of the year. That's a lie! I got sick (WE get sick) due to my (our) horrible eating habits and nutritional deficiencies. What do we do at holidays, we become gluttons and eat, eat, eat! Shortly afterwards we all get the flu or a cold! We cough up mucous by the bucket loads, brown, black, and green mucous, full of toxins and disease. Our bodies desperately try to save our lives every year, sometimes twice a year by expelling this mucous from our bodies! Our bodies cause us pain and suffering just to get us to reduce our eating, if only for two weeks as we recover from our flu or cold. YOUR BODY IS TRYING TO FIX WHAT YOUR EATING HABITS HAVE BROKEN! The holiday drinking, eating, financial woes, and general gluttony etc. cause us to be sick. Its only now that I know the truth.

I continued this reckless pattern of behavior through high-school and on to college. In high-school, I would skip school with my best friend and sneak to the local $3.99 ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET. We would sit at a table for two or three hours and gorge ourselves and think that it was funny. Well, we were teenage boys, which wrestle with slugs yearly for the dumbest animal on earth award. My best friend and I won the award with honors! That kind of behavior continued for 4 years. My only saving grace was that I played football and I burned off a lot of calories, we ran, lifted weights, etc. If it wasn't for football I probably would have been over 300 lbs. in high-school. I was actually 250lbs, not too far away eh!

After high-school I went on to college. As one of my good friends used to say, there's a time and place for everything and it's called college. Throughout college I continued my erratic and compulsive behaviors. I even managed to pick up a couple more. I became a drunkard and smoked marijuana incessantly, and started smoking cigarettes. I was on a kamikaze mission and headed straight for hell, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. With the added toxins from alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs coupled wih my atrocious eating habits I was in big trouble and didn't even know it. Well, sure enough I lost my saving grace, which was football. I quit playing my sophomore year, which meant no more running, no exercise, - why would I want to exercise on my own accord anyway!!! I was too busy eating, drinking, and being merry. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that bad things started to happen almost immediately.

I started to suffer from excruciatingly painful migraines and even had CAT scans to search for brain tumors. The doctors put me on Imitrex, which was fine for me, if it stopped the headaches. Well it did it's job, it stopped the headaches. Yet coupled with the heavy drinking, drug usage, cigarettes, and eating it made me IMPOTENT!! That's right gentlemen, 19 years young, in the prime of my life and suffering from penis erectile dysfunction. What the hell was going on with me??? I stopped the medication and got my erections back, and the migraines were free of charge, that's right the migraines came back. I played back and forth with the medications all through college, only taking the medication when I absolutely had to take it! It seemed that the toxins had finally caught up with me. My capillaries were clogged, I ballooned to 315 lbs. and was totally disgusted with myself. I was a pig and hated every moment of it! I decided to go on a diet! Well, the diet went fairly well, I dropped 85 pounds and felt good and strong. I continued to smoke and drink and ate fat free foods (my magic pill).

The diet was temporary and you guessed it, I gained alot of the weight back. I finished college at about 275 lbs. However, I started lifting weights and most folks considered me buffed, beleive it or not, - go figure. What can I say, I looked great in clothes, and I hid my fat well. I graduated college and received another saving grace! I was accepted to Peace Corps/Ivory Coast. I would be in Peace Corps/Ivory Coast for 2 1/2 years. They told me that I would be going to a very poor country by American standards and that the indigeneous people wouldn't be as healthy as American folks. It was absolute crap!

When I got to my village, the first thing that I noticed was the robust and fit bodies of the local people. It seemed that every man had a six pack or eight pack. My friends noticed the same thing in other regions of the country. I also noticed that they ate very little meat, and the meat that they did eat was very often dried fish with most of the fat cured out of it. They ate large amounts of fresh raw and organic fruits. In fact most meals ended with whatever friut was in season. They worked all day long under the scorching african sun and sweated all the toxins out of their bodiea through vigorous work outdoors in their fields. Some of the women had arms bigger or as big as mine from pounding plantains all day long with pestal and mortar to prepare the nainal dish Foutou(pounded plantains with cassava). No one had migraines, heart attacks, colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, or impotency!

The chief of my village married a 17 year old girl while in his seventies and produced a child. I honestly saw very few people who were sick from nutritional defiencies. Not to say that no one ever got sick as they did get sick ocasionally. Interestingly, the people who got illnesses were the people who smoked imported cigarettes from Europe, drank alcohol, and cooked their foods with MSG.

It seemed the more contact that they had with "Developed Nations" the sicker thay became. In fact, I noticed that the elitist people in the country were mostly fat and out of shape. They ate lots of meat like their North American and European counterparts and worked in air conditioned offices. the poor peasant that walked to his field daily and worked off the land was among the healthiest people that I saw. They were ripped and shredded like body builders. I was ashamed to take my shirt off in front of the men, as I was holding a lot of subcutaneous fat and a nice love handle. Back in the states I was considered fairly ripped; in africa was the Pilsbury Dough Boy or better yet the Michelin Man.

I couldn't beleive my eyes when I saw how every man in my village had a six pack. It was the norm, unlike in America, where you have to be a health nut or fitness model to maintain a six pack. Every man wants a six pack, but it eludes most of us in developed nations. In the village that I worked in in africa, it was the norm! I started to eat better in Africa and managed to hold my weight fairly well, as I ate what the local people ate. I continued to smoked cigarettes, and drank alcohol. I kicked the marijuana habit and began to eat better. I was still a long way off from where I needed to be.

Well, I contracted Malaria three times while working in Africa and the last case was the worst and a final wake up call for me. I contracted cerebral malaria the last time and almost lost my life to it! I decided that I had to take back control of my life. I met a guy from Michigan, who became a very good friend of mine while serving in Peace Corps. When we first got to this foreign country, he told me how he had eaten only raw friuts, veggies, nuts, seeds, and sprouts for a year. I called him a nut and wanted to punch him in his nose for his hippie tree hugging B.S. He told me his parents wanted him to go and see a psychologist, as they thought he had an eating disorder. I agreed, he was a friut cake. He told me he had boundless energy, felt more alive, was closer to God and fit beyond belief, - all the things I wanted for myself. It would be 2 years before I called him and apologized and thanked him for sharing his story with me.

Anyway, I came back to the states and came down with a bad case bronchitis. I could hardly breath and thought that I would die! I started researching alternative treatments and decided to take medicinal herbs for the brochitis. Surprisingly, the herbs worked! I became more intrigued and continued researching other means of alternative treatments. Soon, I had an offer to go back to Africa and work again. I accepted the postion, but decided that I would do everything in my power to stay heahthy this time. And then it happened. I was in a health book store and walked up on Paul Braggs' Books. He wrote books on fasting and the raw vegan diet. I bought all the books that they offered by him. I read them night and day and finally decided that it was time to give up smoking. I went on a 10 day juice fast and it changed my life! I quit smoking cold turkey while on the fast and had 0 cravings. Every other time that I had tried to stop smoking ended in misery as I couldn't hack the cravings.

I felt like I was reborn after the fast and tried to go semi-raw. I failed on the raw part, but stopped smoking. Sometime later, I started eating meats heavily again, and sure enough I started drinking again. When I had beer and meat together I would almost automatically want a cigarette. I gave in to the cravings and started to smoke again. I continued to fast every three months as suggested by Paul Bragg. I also began running and lifting weights again. I felt much better, but there was till something missing! I went back to the States disease free! I went back to the land of McDonalds and fast foods! I found myself back in the meat grinder of the USA. I gorged myself on meats again and still continued smoking. Well, you guessed it, I got sick again!!!!!!

ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH! I decided to go vegetarian! I went vegetarian for a few months, but it wasn't until I found a website on raw foods that I made my true commitment to the raw food revolution. My body, my soul, my everything begged for superior health! The light bulb finally went off and I decided that this was it! I WAS GOING TO LIVE A RAW FOOD LIFE!!!!!! I Started by going on a 30 day juice and water fast. The 30 day fast was the most beautiful thing that ever happened upon me! I broke every habit at once: cooked foods, cigarettes, alcohol, and developed a keen sense of discipline. I ran two miles everyday and lifted weights every other day. I was full of boundless quantities of energy and life force. I worked 15 hour days and felt like a millon bucks. The effect on my mind, body, and soul was amazing and mind boggling.

I decided to go raw for 30 days after the fast and did so! I felt tremendous and decided to go raw another 30 days. Well after the last 30 days, there was no turning back and I've been 100% RAW FOR LIFE EVERY DAY SINCE THAT DAY!! I would rather die than go back to a life full of addiction and cooked foods! For the first time in my life my sinuses are clear. I'm 6'3, 215 lbs. and 8% body fat. My chest is over 50 inches across in width, my waist is 36 inches and heading towards 34 inches. My arms measure at least 18 inches, not too shabby for a raw-vegan. I'm buffed and feel powerful! I ran 22 miles a week ago just for fun, 4 mile short of a marathon. Can you believe that, I just got up one morning and started running and didn't stop until I hit 22 miles. I still work 15 hour days and people are amazed at my energy levels and mental clarity.
And while I don't want to admit it, I do feel closer to GOD. It sounds so lame, but its my truth.

Oh yeah, guys, I finally found my six pack, hallelujah! I can take my shirt off with pride now. See ya at the beach. And well, my sexual vigor is totally off the scales. I feel like a new man in a brand new body. No more mucous, no more sinuses, no more sickness. I know no one who wishes to be sick. Anyone who is searching for optimal health, stop searching and join the raw food revolution! Your body, soul, and heart will thank you forever, so will your husband or wife. And so here I stand 100% raw vegan. Who would have ever thought that I the carnivore would become a vegan. Just two years ago I threatened to punch a guy in his nose because he mentioned raw foods to me. I called him psycho and resented his hippie crap. What a wonderful journey! Anybody care to join me??? I know no one who wants to be sick and addicted to artificial substances. Dare to dream, Dare to be free, strive for true freedom. PEACE BE UNTO YOU ALL, I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR RIDE TO FREEDOM! FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, THANK GOD ALMIGHTLY I'M FREE AT LAST! Before I leave you, I want to leave you this quote by PYTHAGOROUS FROM "OVID'S METAMORPHOSIS". READ IT AND THINK ABOUT IT!!

THERE WAS A TIME, THE GOLDEN AGE WE CALL IT, HAPPY IN FRUITS AND HERBS, WHEN NO MEN TAINTED THEIR LIPS WITH BLOOD, AND BIRDS WENT FLYING SAFELY THROUGH THE AIR, AND THE FIELDS RABBITS WANDERED UNFRIGHTENED, AND NO FISH WAS EVER HOOKED BY IT'S OWN CREDULITY: ALL THINGS WERE FREE FROM TREACHERY ANDFEAR AND CUNNING, AND ALL WAS PEACEFUL. BUT SOME INNOVATIVE, A GOOD FOR NOTHING, WHOEVER HE WAS DECIDED, IN ENVY, THAT WHAT LIONS ATE WAS BETTER, STUFFED MEAT INTO HIS BELLY LIKE A FURNACE, AND PAVED THE WAY FOR CRIME...ONE CRIME LEADS TO ANOTHER.

PYTHAGORAS - FROM OVID'S METAMORPHSIS

Email Shannon at shannonoliver19@hotmail.com

See (and purchase) Shannon's photos of Africa

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