alicia grant – how eating raw changed my whole life!...i go to the dentist every 6 months and get...

The RAWmazing Life Summit 2014 RealRawNutrition.com

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Alicia Grant – How eating raw changed my whole life! All kinds of people, from all sorts of ethnic, philosophical and creative backgrounds seem to find their way to this lifestyle through the common denominator of health. We all want to look and feel our very best. But the benefits of this diet seem to stretch way beyond health into those more esoteric realms of spirituality and creativity. Alicia Grant came to this lifestyle nearly six years ago, like many of us, for her failing health, but what she received in return for her diligence in following this diet, was WAY more than she bargained for. And today she’s going to tell us about it… As well as reversing a lifetime of health issues, as a singer songwriter and musician, Alicia has been able to take her art to a whole new level. And through her website and Youtube Channel RawSynergy TV, Alicia shares her passion about wellness and spirituality and inspires others to also achieve vibrant health. Hello Alicia! Alicia: Hi - Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to share with you today. Anthea: Could you tell us about what life was like for you before finding raw foods? Alicia: Life was really frustrating for me. Ever since I was a toddler, I had digestive issues and as my life progressed, I developed more and more issues that were extremely frustrating and I had skin issues, hormonal issues - I had such bad PMS that I was an emotional rollercoaster on a constant basis. I had chronic headaches. If you knew me back before I went raw, I had a bottle of Advil and Tylenol in just about every drawer in the house. It was in my purse and in the car because I was always in pain and I was always taking pain medication to get me through the day. I was also very fearful - I was afraid of everything it seemed like and especially having so many issues at such a young age, it was so frustrating to think that I was going to have to face the rest of my life in so much discomfort. That was what my life was like. I spent a good portion of my life searching for natural alternatives and searching for answers to all these problems that I was having and I was so grateful when I found the raw food diet because it really did change everything.


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Anthea: I can so relate to looking down that tunnel of your life and thinking you would feel like that for the rest of your life and probably get worse. That's serious motivation for you to seek a solution, isn't it? Alicia: It definitely was for me that's for sure. Anthea: And how did you find out about this particular approach to raw foods? So the fruit-based, high-carb approach. Alicia: I'd been following the high fat gourmet raw food diet for about six months and I was so excited about eating a raw food diet and eating the high fat foods though, I began to notice that it was having the same affect on my digestive system as cooked foods. I was feeling really heavy after meals. So many of the gourmet raw meals are prepared with lots of nuts and fats and oils and things like that. My digestion was feeling really heavy and I was thinking 'this can't be right'. The raw food diet is supposed to be so much better and there were a lot of things that I was feeling good from eating plant based but the heaviness of the fats were really getting to me. I jumped online as I usually do when I'm looking for answers and searching for solutions and happened to come across the 30 bananas a day website and was blown away by the information that I was learning there about people eating all this fruit. It really resonated with me because in the past, I'd always told my husband if I could just eat fruits and vegetables, I would be the happiest person in the world because the only time I ever did just eat fruits and vegetables, I just felt amazing. But from the conditioning of society and what we've been taught and the food pyramid growing up, you don't think that it's possible. We're not taught that it's possible to just eat fruits and vegetables but I knew from my experiences that that's when I felt my best. So when I saw this website and I saw people were thriving eating fruit which I've always loved and lots of tender leafy greens and easy to digest vegetables, I was so excited and that's when everything really took off for me. Anthea: The 30bananasaday.com website is a great support and full of tips. So tell us some of the changes in your health and general all round wellbeing you’ve noticed since you've been doing this fruit and veg approach.


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Alicia: This is what gets me so excited. My list is long but I'm so excited to share all the different things that I've experienced eating this way because I know so many people out there who are struggling just like I was struggling. Here's a bunch of the things that have improved for me: The biggest thing that improved which was the thing that I was searching for answers for so long was my digestion - since I was toddler and potty training, I suffered from constipation. I had a bloated belly - really uncomfortable. When eating fruits and vegetables, my digestion just improved so much. I don't have any problems anymore with my digestion - it's amazing. My skin definitely improved so much over the years of eating raw and it's still improving. My skin is still not perfect but it's nowhere near what it used to be with breakouts and I'm so grateful for that. I had chronic headaches - those completely vanished. The horrible PMS that I had, completely vanished. I was blown away when I would just sail through the month just being happy all month long - not having any emotional ups or downs. My cycles were completely balanced and I have little to no pain when my menstrual cycles come around which was such an amazing blessing because in the past I would be curled up in the fetal position just in agony until the Advil would kick in and I would have to take 3 Advil in order to get the cramps to just mellow down a little bit. It's so amazing to go month to month and it's barely even there. I have so much more energy. My endurance has improved so much when I'm exercising. I sometimes feel like I could just go on forever. Overall I'm happier - I just feel so blissful - how can you not feel blissful when you are enjoying meals of fruit - it's like eating dessert all day long. My vocal ability has improved so much - it's really changed a lot which was really such a blessing to me. There were 3 things that I thought would not change - that were going to be with me forever. I stopped getting colds and flu - I would normally get a cold or a flu once or twice per year at the very least, every single year. I haven't been sick in almost 6 years now. Another thing was that I had nail fungus - which was really embarrassing if you have it - it's very ugly and disgusting. If you go to the medical community which I did to try to find a solution and the crazy thing is that the drugs that they have for getting rid of


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nail fungus is so strong and so dangerous that you have to get your blood tested regularly because it can be so damaging on your liver. When I went to the doctor and enquired about getting rid of my nail fungus, the doctor actually recommended me not to take this drug because it's that bad and it's really hard to get rid off even with this exceptionally strong drug - there are no guarantees that your nail fungus is going to go away. So I just lived with it, it was very embarrassing but within 6 months of being on a high fruit diet and keeping the fat relatively low, the nail fungus completely vanished and it hasn't returned - which I'm so grateful for. The final thing that just absolutely blew me away was that I have no more dental plaque. From a very young age, I always had tons of dental plaque and I have always taken religiously great care of my teeth. I go to the dentist every 6 months and get a cleaning and my dental hygienist would always tell me 'you're not brushing enough, you're not flossing correctly' and I literally would do everything that I possibly could to do such a good job brushing and flossing my teeth and no matter what I did, I always had tons of dental plaque. I was in the dentist's chair for the full hour with him scraping it off my teeth and it was horrible - I hated it. Right after going raw, my very next check which was 3-6 months after going raw, my dental hygienist was blown away - 'what did you do to your teeth? They are so clean'. Now every time I go to the dentist and get a cleaning, I'm only in the chair for a few minutes while she's doing just a general checkup, doing a light cleaning and the rest of the hour we talk about diet and health. That's my list of things that have really improved so much. Anthea: And that is an incredible list. We had a few questions about dental hygiene and lots of people worried that the fruit sugar would damage their teeth so that's really interested to hear your experience there. I suffered the same PMS problems and now I don't even get a warning any more. I have no mood swings - I have no pain. You noticed improvements in your voice quality, do you know why this would be? Alicia: I have a couple of theories. One is the salt content in the food that I was eating before. The sodium levels of the food that is available in restaurants and just prepared foods that you buy in the store is literally off the charts. Just in one meal, you are getting hugely more sodium than you should have in an entire day. Even based on the RDA and I found that the sodium just created so much puffiness and inflammation and water retention in my entire body and around my vocal chords. I would do a 3 hour show in the evening and before that, I would always have to eat


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before my show but before I would eat, I would always warm up my voice and my vocals would sound perfect. Then I would have a meal and it would typically be at a restaurant nearby where I was preforming and shortly after that, it would always sound like there was this glub over my voice - very muffled and, by the end of the show, I would be losing my voice. So I think that the sodium level really had a big effect on my vocal chords. The other thing is dairy. Dairy creates so much mucous and phlegm in the body and I would always find that I would be clearing my throat and just have lots of stuff going on back there. I think those two things played a very big role in my difficulty and I think also just eating fruits and vegetables, cutting out the dairy, cutting out the salt and the body's ability to heal. Everything would get refined - everything becomes better and that's one thing that I find with eating this way. All of your positive qualities seem to be enhanced. Everything just seems to go up several notches in quality - whatever that is - singing voice or just your personality - the niceness of who you are - your creativity flourishes. Every aspect of you that is a good quality just seems to become so enhanced and the bad qualities just seem to fall away. It's miraculous to me but honestly it's the way that we were designed to just function. The body is designed to function optimally when you give it the right conditions. So I really feel that that played a big role - naturally eating the way I'm supposed to be eating. My body is functioning at an optimal level the way that it should be. Anthea: You had a lot of issues with your skin before you went raw, an even at the beginning of our raw journey. Can you tell us about what those were and how you overcame them? Alicia: I do believe again that the food that I was eating definitely played a big role on my skin. There is so much toxic junk in the standard diet. There are so many preservatives, the dairy, the animal products and all of that seems to clog up the system and for me, if you have a genetic predisposition of your skin being very reactive, I feel like the food that I was eating really played a big role in that. Also, once I started eating just fruits and vegetables, I knew I had food sensitivities before, but I really started to notice them when I was focusing on just eating fruits and vegetables and my skin started to break out even more from food sensitivities. I thought that I was just sensitive to tomatoes, oranges and strawberries before starting this diet but when this was the main focus of my food, eating just fruits and vegetables, I started noticing that all acid fruits were affecting my skin and when I would eat them, I would break out.


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Within half an hour to an hour, my face would get really red and hot and would get really bumpy and pimples would just start popping out of my skin everywhere - it was horrible and I would also get hives as well. The longer that I followed the diet, it just seemed like my body was developing even more sensitivities so I got down to the point where I couldn't even eat lettuce or herbs or celery because I was starting to have reactions to so many of these things. It was really terrible. I was literally just eating sweet fruits with a few sub-acid fruits and it was 9 months - all I ate was just fruit and I was really getting frustrated because I so desperately wanted to be able to eat oranges and tomatoes and strawberries and all of these amazing fruits that are in abundance here in Southern California and I eventually opted to water fast in order to overcome these sensitivities and I'm so grateful that by water fasting for 13 days with Dr Graham, my food sensitivities completely vanished and I've been able to eat everything that I wasn't able to eat before without any issue. It's amazing to be able to eat all these foods and not be restricted at all. Anthea: So many people experience struggles and they expect that things are going to just be great for them from the beginning - that their skin is going to clear up and then when it doesn't, they really don't know what to do. Its great to hear experience. Water fasting - we had Jesse Bogdanavich on the other day and he talked about water fasting to heal from his vaccination injury and it really is quite incredible what you can do with that. You even went out on a limb and posted your skin before and after photos on your Youtube Channel RawSynergyTV. Why? And how long did it take for your skin to clear up completely? Alicia: I really wanted people to know because suffering with acne is thought to be one of the worst things. It's the first thing people see when they look at you. When you have acne on your face, it crushes you. You just feel like you cannot be your true self. You feel like your true self is not shining out of you when you're looking in the mirror and you've got this stuff all over your face that's impeding with your appearance. I wanted people to know that it is possible to change. It's possible for your skin to heal. That it is not out of your control. You do have control over it and if you get committed and you make some changes, you can change it. I really wanted to give people hope. I wanted to show people what was possible and people had even asked me, why were you taking pictures of your skin in the first place? and the reason was that I had hope that the diet was going to change my skin, I really believed that it was going to make a difference and I wanted to have, proof of before and after because I thought 'gosh, how amazing would this be if this diet really does clear up my skin'. So that's what I did - I took pictures and when I felt brave enough and ready enough that I knew I wanted to share it with people so I eventually just put it out there to let


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people know that it is possible. You can heal your body no matter what it is. There is hope and this diet is probably one of the best avenues for healing whatever you have, whether it's acne, an autoimmune disorder, headaches, PMS - whatever it is that you are suffering with. There is hope and I really wanted to give that to people. For most people, their skin will clear right up. They will find that their skin will just start clearing up right away. For other people, they will notice that their skin will break out even worse - and they'll think 'what is happening to me? This diet isn't working!' but really what is happening is, your body is taking the time to clear out all the junk that's been sitting inside your cells for so long and it hasn't had an opportunity to let go and release it. When you start eating really healthily, your body suddenly goes 'OMG, I have this energy and this ability to get rid of all this stuff now and if you have that just genetic predisposition for breaking out, like I do, you're going to see more of a break out but is typically only for a limited time. Within a few weeks or a month, maybe two months, you're going to break out worse, but then it's going to clear up so I just want people to know - give it time - don't freak out because definitely freaking out and stressing out is going to make it worse and you don't want that. Just know that you are doing the right things for your body and that your body will heal. My skin took a little longer because of my food sensitivities. I did notice, as far as the texture goes, I was seeing improvements but it wasn't until I cut out all the offending foods that I noticed that I would have clear skin - or until I did my water fast and then my skin was so much better after that, because I could eat all of the previously offending foods and my skin was absolutely fine. No issues whatsoever. I've been on this diet about 5 and a half years now and I'm actually, right now, in the process of going through complete detoxification again and my skin is breaking out right now and part of me wants to freak out about it, but the other part of me recognises, it's just my body doing it's job - it's doing what it needs to do - it's cleansing, clearing stuff out and I know in a certain period of time, it's going to go back to being clear again. I just want to let people know that it is possible. Your skin will clear up for a while and then maybe it will break out for a little while again - but don't panic and don't think that the diet is not working or whatever. Just know that your body is always going to do what's best for you based on the conditions that you're providing it. And when you provide it with the ultimate conditions, it's really going to help heal and you're just going to get so much better by eating healthily and doing all the right things. But of course, diet isn't everything. You've got to exercise. You've got to get plenty of sleep. Sleep is a really big deal. Sleep is so important, especially for healing and skin. Healing any condition, this is really important. You want to get out and get sunshine and fresh air. There are so many other aspects, but diet really does play a major role.


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Anthea: You tried Accutane in the past. I wanted to know if you think there was any damage caused by that? Alicia: I'm sure there was. That is another drug like the nail fungus drug that it's so strong and so damaging to the liver that they force you to get regular blood tests to make sure that your liver is not breaking down and whatever it is that happens to the liver when you take really offensive drugs like that. Accutane is such a powerful drug and I'm sure that it did some damage. I don't doubt it at all. I don't know what damage it did, but I'm sure that played a part in my journey along the way in whatever I was experiencing - headaches, moodiness, PMS, everything - it all plays a role. I'm sure that it did have an effect at some time. Anthea: I tried it twice in my teens and 20s and I'm in my 40s now and I had to have a liver biopsy a year or so ago because I had suspected liver auto-immune disease. I have absolutely no doubt that there is a connection there for sure. There were lots of prescription drugs in my past so I can't say that it was that one in particular but it's not good people - don't go there if you don't have to - and you definitely don't have to. What's your skincare routine like now? Alicia: I'm a big experimenter. I'm experimenting with everything - diet and skincare and shampoos and all that kind of stuff and right now, I am trying a new skincare routine with Ann-Marie Gianni's skincare line a couple of months ago and I've been using that and I like it so far but I typically just cleanse my face at night and I put on an oil serum and that helps to keep it moisturised but I think really honestly, the more simple you go with your skincare routine, the better. That's really what I'm finding for myself. When I was just using water on my face for five years, I just felt that was so good for my skin. My skin was so happy when I was doing that. Now, I've gone back to wearing a little bit of make-up just because it's fun and I enjoy having a little bit more color on my cheeks and on my lips - I've been using a cleanser at night, just to remove but, really honestly, I feel like the more simple you go, the better. Anthea:


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It's really interesting your experience. I've been experimenting a lot recently with the caveman routine - I don't know if you are aware of that. A hardcore caveman routine is not even washing your face with water, it's just letting the natural skin mantle be undisturbed. I do wash my face just with water and a cotton cloth and I absolutely love it. I just will never ever go back to using products I don't think because I just found all that washing - the chemicals and even using natural products, I found that if you have got skin sensitivity, it really mucks around with your natural sebum protection and your acid mantle and it can create more problems. Alicia: I agree. We are really not meant to put anything on our skin. If you think about how we were in nature, however long ago, we didn't have skincare products. We didn't bother with that stuff. That we do it now is crazy but I totally agree with you. Messing with the acid mantle and the whole balance of your skin - it's not good. Anthea: Tell us about what you eat and drink in a day. Do you eat greens? What about overt fats like nuts? Seeds, avocadoes, durian, coconuts? Do you ever eat cooked foods? Alicia: I eat fruit for my morning and afternoon meal - fresh, ripe, raw, organic fruit and so for example for breakfast this morning, I had a big orange juice, blended with some green plums which was so sweet - it was like drinking candy water but it was a little thicker. For lunch, I had a huge bowl of ripe persimmons with some fresh juicy dates which that combo is just to live for. It was amazing. For dinner, I will usually have a big glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, or if I don't do orange juice before my meal, lately I've been doing a really giant California mango and I'll use part of it in my salad, part of it in my dressing and I'll do a huge of bowl of mixed greens with arugula and some zucchini noodles and celery, cucumbers - things like that. I just love salads - I'm so excited that I get to eat giant servings of salads every night. I don't eat cooked food. I'm not attracted to it. I can tell you the very last time i had a bite of cooked food was right before my water fast two years ago. My husband was making baked fries in the oven and I took a bite of one of his baked fries - they just looked really good and I thought 'that really looks good, I wonder what that would be like to eat that?' and it didn't do anything for me. It didn't excite me, it didn't make me want to have more so I haven't had a cooked meal since I went raw back in 2009. I just didn't want to eat to cooked food because I associate cooked food with digestive issues, acne, dental plaque, PMS, the emotional roller coaster - that's what I associate cooked food with so I just really am not attracted to it so I just never go there.


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As far as fats go. In the very beginning, I cut out fats completely. I feel like I really needed to do that. I felt that's what helped me get past my nail fungus and then I got to the point where I was feeling that maybe I should have some fats and I was reading a lot of people online that were saying you really should have some fats and even though I was getting maybe 4%-5%, in just eating fruits and vegetables alone, I started adding in a little bit of chia seeds and a little bit of hemp seeds and I started feeling differently. I started feeling that it took me up a notch in terms of overall wellbeing. This was after the WFF in 2013 because there we were having a little bit of fats every night during the evening meals and when I really started noticing that my body was really reacting well to this. Right after that, I went to culinary skills with Dr Graham and we were having a little of overt fats there every night and so when I came home, I just started adding them in every night - whether it was a little tiny bit of avocado or I was doing a lot of young Thai coconuts and adding in some hemp or chia seeds and they really just seemed to balance me out. I definitely really am enjoying eating more overt fats but still not going too overboard with them. I still find that I'm within my 10% range. If I go a little over, I'm not concerned about it and I don't really notice any issues from eating more fats - I feel better from it. I'm definitely in with the fats. When I get a chance to have some durian, I will definitely eat it. I purchased it twice for myself, but it's so much more fun eating it with friends. Usually when we have a fruitluck - I'll enjoy some durian. Question from Lorena: What do you think about raw honey? I don't know much about it - I know it's an animal product but I feel like it helps my skin heal using it occasionally or as a supplement. Alicia: I don't use honey and it's mainly because my husband, after I went raw for about 6 months, he decided he was going to go vegan. Once I didn't perish and disintegrate into nothing from eating a vegan diet, he decided for himself that he wanted to try it and he became so excited from his results from eating a vegan diet, that he decided no honey - he wanted to be so strict about his vegan food, that he wasn't even going to do honey and I admired that so much about him that he would take it to that degree and I just never really enjoyed honey in the first place. It wasn't something that I ever really gravitated towards. I have talked to a couple of different bee keepers and people who have bees on their farms - because I wanted to know, if we are taking honey from the bees, how dangerous is it for the bees and I've heard from several of them that, yes, if there is no other bee colonies around or no other sources of food for the bees, they will eat their own honey, but for the most part, a lot of times, the honey will just sit there and they just move on from it and nothing happens with the honey.


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I think people should do what works for them but for me, I personally don't use it and I'm just not sure that there is anything we need from it but then again I'm always learning and I can't always say for sure that yes you should have this or no you should not. New information is cropping up all the time and I really am not an expert in honey so I don't know a whole lot about it. As for my personal use, I try to avoid products that use honey as far as skin care products go. I never eat any products that contain honey because I'm pretty much just buying fruits and vegetables and not eating anything processed. Anthea: When my skin was really bad, I did use some Manuka Honey topically, I wouldn't ingest it but I found it was really good for the inflammation - it really helped to settle my skin. I'm not using it at all but I did find it useful for that and said a little prayer to the bees before I used it because I didn't like using honey but sometimes I felt it was the gift that the bees gave to me when my skin was really bad and now I don't feel like I need it any more. You may want to try that if you feel you need it at all. Alicia: That's so beautiful. I think that you just never know what is going to work and is why I say I like experimenting with things because you don't know what it going to work. You don't know how something is going to react with you and I'm all about trying things for myself. What is going to work for me? Anybody can say - do this, do that, or this works, or this doesn't but until you try it for yourself, you never really know. I try to keep an open mind about everything and the more that I learn about this diet, and this lifestyle, the more I realise we just have to stay open minded. We can't stay closed minded in any way and we can't be close minded towards other people - it's so important to just really be open and accepting of others and all possibilities because you just never know. It's great to hear that it helps with your skin and it helps because you never know, it may help somebody else. Question from Bella: I have been fully transitioning to raw foods because I had to get eating produce from processed foods so it's been a long time for me but I've also been following Dr Gabrielle Cousins diet for the length of that time which has always been very challenging for me but I've been grateful that someone had some understanding of candida but recently, I came across your information online and it's really been an unexpected source of hope that really rocks me deeply and I heard initially of the 80-10-10 diet but I thought it wasn't appropriate for me for candida and the emphasis on fruit. Initially I tried eating fruit and actually think I was so extreme with it that it made my teeth too sensitive but I've been trying it again recently and again, I'm so elated and hopeful with the effects on my skin and freeing me from candida and all the challenges around it. Again I would love your insights on greens - I'm hopeful that


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the Petenko's are on the right track when they talk about eating a lot of greens to balance our needs and to protect our teeth. Alicia: Greens are important for their mineral content and I don't know a lot about teeth sensitivity, although I do know that I used to have teeth sensitivity in the the past and minerals I believe do play a big role in that. I know that there are some people like Ann Osborne who doesn't eat any greens and she's doing really well but for me, I love greens so much. I just love eating lettuce, all greens and since I've been working with Don Bennett, I've been doing the Daily Green Boost, the Barley Grass Juice Powder and I feel like that is going to help a lot of people. There is such a buzz about that right now. Even the website for that product has been out of stock for a while. Greens are important for the mineral content and as far as your teeth sensitivity goes, I noticed that you really need to have a super soft toothbrush. My husband says that when he eats more fruit, his teeth get really sensitive and he doesn't eat a lot of greens. We have him on the Daily Green Boost supplement, the Barley Grass Juice Powder. Greens are definitely important because you need to have your minerals. With candida, it's so important to really keep your fat low. Cut out the fat just temporarily. Your candida levels will completely balance out and then you can go back to adding in a relatively low amount of fats and still do lots of fruit and just thrive. It's really important in the beginning, with your fat intake to keep it really low or omit it completely temporarily to get your levels to balance out. I definitely had issues with yeast before and that's also part of where the nail fungus comes in - that's a yeast issue. Give it a little bit of time and you should be good. Anthea: What kind of exercise do you like to do, if anything? Did you exercise before you became raw vegan? Alicia: I did exercise sometimes before getting into the raw food lifestyle. When I was in my teens, I was a member of a gym and I would go regularly and I was also a dancer when I was in high school. I was on the dance team and I was a cheerleader so I was always used to getting a lot of exercise. After that, I got out of it and leading up to going raw, I did some exercise but I wasn't really keeping up with it and the exercise that I do now, I've really streamlined it because if I try to focus on doing something like - my husband and I were trying to go hiking 3-4 days per week and then there would be times where things would get in the way and we couldn't go so now we have this thing where we get up in the morning and the first thing we do is walk out the door and go for a 2 and a half to 3 mile walk and I have been doing barefoot walking which I


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absolutely love and I'm probably going to start talking about this more because I feel like barefoot walking is just amazing. I love it so much. You get the effects of grounding in the earth and energies coming up in through your feet and I have been doing barefoot walking and I've built my way up to be able to go 2 and half to 3 miles barefoot every day and you just walk for that long and then once that's done, it's out of the way and we can move on with our day. We do that six days per week and it's been so wonderful. We get outside, we get the fresh air. If the sun is out, we're getting the sunshine and that has been my routine for the last year now and I absolutely love it. I should be doing a little bit of weight training and I probably will eventually get into that a little more where I'm lifting some heavy stuff once in a while but for now, I feel like as long as I'm moving my body and walking. I feel that dance is just a big thing. Sometimes I will just stop what I'm doing, if I'm stressed out, if I'm having a stressful day or moment, I will put in my earphones and I will turn on some music and will just dance and that will change your mood and change your aura and make you so happy. You have to smile while you are doing it and you have to play a song that makes you feel really good - especially one with a good beat and that, to me, is one of the best exercises. Those are my two favorite exercises right now. If I could, I would find somebody hoop dance because I watched these girls do these hula hoop moves that are so amazing and I think it's so beautiful and I would love to learn hooping too. That's on my bucket list. For now it is barefoot walking every day and spontaneous dancing. Anthea: With your barefoot walking, do you walk on trails or go on the side of road? Alicia: Where I live, we have sidewalks and they're cement so the energy can still come up through the cement fortunately. I just walk on the sidewalk. We have beautiful pathways through our park near where we live and that's what I do. When I have the opportunity to walk on grass or walk on the beach or even just stand on the grass, I will do that too because you can get more energy through the elements of the grass and the earth and the sand and especially in the water. When you are standing at the shoreline, and your feet are in the water, you get even more energetic activity coming up through the earth and it has been proven how healing this is. The thing that I find, ever since I started walking barefoot - I'm always cutting myself in the kitchen - maybe I don't have good technique or not being careful - but I seem to cut my finger sometimes when I'm in the kitchen - and before going raw, it would take well over a week for my cuts to heal and then going raw, everything heals so much faster - about 4 days. Now with barefoot walking, my cuts literally heal almost overnight. It is amazing.


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Anthea: I got into barefoot running for a while but I didn't think about barefoot walking so I'm definitely going to try that. Question from Andrea: I watched your video where you mentioned how you got rid of a mole on your skin. Do you know a simple remedy on how to get rid of a small cyst on my leg? It's been there for two years now. It's still small enough but growing. I don't want to have it surgically removed - I'd prefer some natural solutions. Alicia: I have a suggestion and one thing that you can try is living clay. Its calcium bentonite clay and it's really easy to get online. I have it on my website if you want to get it. You can get it on Amazon. The Living Clay brand is probably one of the best because it is really pure and clean. If you can just get any calcium bentonite clay, that would be good. Make a paste of it and just mix it with some water, put a big blob of it on your cyst and cover it every night with a bandage and keep the clay moist. It might take a week or two but it might really help. If you do try that, let me know if it works. I've used it before on my breakouts and milia under my eyes. I had one that evolved under my eye and I thought it would be there forever but I used the clay and I put it over the little bump every night, and after the third day, it was gone. I put it on before bed every night and by the third morning, it just wiped off. I definitely recommend trying the clay. Tasha: I've heard that some people put iodine on their moles to make them go away. That would be something to look into through the testing process for iodine. Iodine deficiency may not just be making moles, there may be other effects in your body too. Alicia: Do you think it would work for a cyst? Tasha: Yes. Alicia:


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That's great to know. Definitely getting tested for your iodine levels would be a really good idea then. Anthea: Do you supplement with anything else other than the Daily Green Boost? And what do you recommend for those who can't sustain being 100% raw, what would you recommend? Alicia: I do supplement. I started working with Don Bennett last year which I highly recommend and he helped me get my iodine levels tested as well as my vitamin D levels and vitamin B12 levels - all of which were very low. I am now supplementing with iodine, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and he also has me on a few other supplements such as vitamin C and some zinc every once in a while and I am supplementing with the barley grass juice powder and I just want to let everybody know that it is really important to find out for yourself what you need. Don't look at what I'm taking and say 'she's taking all this stuff - I'm going to go out and take all of this'. You really need to know where your body is at because we all come from different backgrounds and different issues. Again, with the genetic predisposition of things that we have with our bodies, we're all different and we all need different things and some of you may not need anything. Some of you may not need to supplement with anything and if you start supplementing, you could throw your body completely off. Even though I'm sharing these certain things that I'm supplementing, it's so important to know for yourself what you need so be sure to seek out someone like Don Bennett to find out where you're at with your levels. If somebody cannot do 100% raw, definitely sticking with a whole foods approach I think is optimal if you can't do all raw. It as much raw fruits and vegetables as you can and then focus on the other foods that are whole foods. For example, my husband doesn't eat a raw food diet. He does enjoy some raw fruits and vegetables from time to time but his diet is a steamed or baked potatoes and steamed vegetables and he does an organic corn pasta that he really loves. He does organic brown rice with vegetables and so there are options out there if you can't do it. Obviously if you can do 100% or an all raw diet, it's obviously going to be much better for your body and you're going to see really great results from that but I understand, not everybody can do that. Just keep your body really clean. Try to avoid eating really high fats. Try to avoid the sodium. That's the hard thing with eating a cooked food diet - often we need to add stuff to make the food taste good when you are cooking all the flavour out of your food or you're eating foods like oatmeal. He has oatmeal for breakfast and if you don't put salt on it, it really is just like yuck - it has


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no flavor. Try to eat things that really have more flavor. That's the amazing thing about raw food - the fruits especially - they just taste so good. Even for me, eating lettuce and cucumbers taste amazing because my tastebuds have changed so much. My palate is so different. I enjoy fruits and vegetables so much more than I ever did. I used to hate plain lettuce. I used to think it was bitter and awful and I love it now. I could just sit and eat a whole head of lettuce all by itself. Of course I love my fruity dressings so much that it's more fun to eat lettuce with a fruity fun dressing. Try to eat as clean as possible and you should still get great health results from eating that way. My husband is doing amazing. He loves the way he eats. He's not a huge fruit eater. He does enjoy some fruits but he doesn't love them as much as I do but is still doing fantastic. He goes to the doctor and gets his blood tests done and all his levels, with the exception of iodine, B12 and D are all good - except for those 3 where he was also low. A whole foods diet is the way to go. Question from Bella: I was wondering if you would be comfortable expanding a bit more on your video that's really vulnerable regarding the transformation of your skin because there are moments in my life in the last 10 years where I have really felt like hiding away from the world which is not a part of myself that I ever foresaw coming around because of my skin. Some days it's pretty close to looking like the glow takes over and I feel so much hope but other days, there is such a strong redness that I would love any words of inspiration you would have. The second part - just after I found your information, I bought a zapper from you and I've been so pleased with it. I recently saw a clip of David Wolfe, putting it around his face and so I wanted to follow up with a question around that regarding my teeth and the health of my eyes and the healing of my skin - do you feel comfortable, and may be you could even explain how it works? If I put this up to my face and it seems ironic to me because I try to avoid electro-magnetic radiation as much as possible and suddenly I've found something that's kind of like that but it's really good for me so I'm a little bit misunderstanding the rationale of it. Alicia: Inspiration for your skin. One thing that I noticed when my skin was bad - the first thing I always wanted to do was put on sunglasses and a big hat and just hide away from the world. If I had to go to the store, I would go out with my head down - not making eye contact with anybody. Wanting to pull my hair down as far as I could around my face so that it would hide the majority of my face and it's no fun to live that way. The thing that I realised is that no matter what your skin looks like, the best thing that you can do when you're having a bad skin day, is to smile at everyone and to just allow your inner spirit to just shine out through your face because the most amazing


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thing happens when you do this. When you just smile and your eyes light up and you're looking and talking to people - honest to God, they don't see your skin, they don't notice it at all. What they see is your true spirit shining out of your eyes and your face and the only person who sees your skin is you. The only person who notices it or feels like the sensation of the heat and the redness on your face is only you. My best advice is just to smile. I found that when I started smiling at people, that their faces would light up and we would have great conversations. I would think about 'gosh, if I had come in here with my hat on and my hair covering my face, not making eye contact, I never would have had this cool interaction with this person'. You really have to let go and realise that, at the end of the day, even if they do notice your skin, if they happen to say 'her skin is red today' or 'her skin is bumpy'. When you leave, they're not thinking at all about your skin. They're thinking about the interaction that they had with you. They're thinking about the person that they connected with - your spirit, your energy. You control your reality and how people see you and the more you withdraw, the more they look at you and see you withdrawing and think 'wow, what's wrong with her? That's a strange person'. If you light up and smile, that's what they see; they see your gorgeous smile and they see your eyes lighting up. Visualising your skin being clear and feeling better and just anticipating that it is going to get better and it's just a temporary thing. The zapper has been an amazing little gadget that came into my life. I was so sceptical of this thing. Both my husband and I had parasites and we tried everything under the sun to get rid of them and nothing worked. We tried medication, we tried herbs, we tried changing our diet, we tried adding in supplements to try and get rid of them and it would help a little bit but without lasting effects. We saw all these incredible testimonials about the zapper online and we were so sceptical but it was such an affordable little gadget that we had to try it and the thing worked. We never had an issue with parasites after using this gadget - although I did have an issue when I went to Costa Rica this year. I got some sort of parasite or bug - I don't know exactly what it was but it definitely did a number on my system and of course, I came home and used the parasite zapper and it's totally better. There are so many people who were sceptical of it like I was but when you try it, and you see the difference that it makes if you do have parasites. It really does get rid of them if you do it correctly. As far as putting it on your face - I know David Wolfe put it on his face and said that you can hold it there. You can put it on your face just temporarily for a short period of time but the skin around your face and neck is really delicate and because the zapper has the potential, if you leave it too long in a certain place and your body is


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acidic, it can cause some minor burning, so you just want to be really careful. If you do hold it on your face, do it temporarily for a short period of time and then put it back on your abdomen or someplace where your skin isn't quite that sensitive. You don't want to fall asleep with it on your face or near your neck. Put it more on your chest area - put it in your bra strap. Put it closest to where you think you have parasites or where you have pain or an issue, put it close to that area for not a long term period on the sensitive areas. The zapper is pretty amazing and it's one of the things that sells well on my website and I'm so happy to hear that people are having such great results like my husband and I did by using the zapper. It really is an incredible little device. There's no harm to using it at all. As far as elecro-magnetic fields - it actually creates more of a positive energetic field around your body, especially the terminator one because it contains gemstones, coil and organite. All those things you can look up online - the benefits of using them. I have some healing extras that help heal your body on more of an energetic level and I know that for some people, that sounds so woo-woo and crazy honestly, I've had such great results with it and I know so many other people that have had such great results with it as well. It's really difficult to get rid of parasites and they are one of the most misdiagnosed malady that doctors don't know to test for and really the only way to find out for sure is to get a comprehensive stool test and those can be really expensive - hundreds of dollars. The basic zapper is only around $35 and it's so affordable. It's better to try the $35 little gadget to see if it works and for the most part, it usually does do the trick. Anthea: Have you noticed any difference since you've been supplementing? Alicia: I have. I was noticing that I wasn't having quite the energy that I was having when I first went raw. My energy levels and my motivation levels started to feel diminished. Also I noticed when I was travelling that I was feeling really dizzy after flying. I would also get this even when I would just go in an elevator or after we had an earthquake. When I asked Dr Graham about this, he said that's sounds like it could be a B12 issue. So when I started supplementing with B12 that went away right away. Almost an instant fix. The motivation and the energy issue I feel was related to the vitamin D and the iodine levels being low and I feel like ever since I've been starting to get my levels built up with that because it can take a while for vitamin D and iodine to build up in your


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system and get your levels back to where they need to be. I'm really starting to feel now like those are really helping. One of the things that was plaguing me was that I had a chronic dry eye issue. Every time I would lay down to go to sleep at night, my eyes would dry out so bad that I would wake up in the middle of the night and I could not blink my eyes and when I would wake up in the morning, I couldn't blink. I would have to stare at the ceiling for several seconds to make my eyes water and be able to blink. Ever since I've begun supplementing with the iodine, my eyes are literally 95% better. The dryness has almost completely gone which has been really amazing for me. My sleep is so much better as well. I started to get to the point where I wasn't doing well sleeping. I would wake up many times during the night. I was sleeping very light and would wake up so often but now I'm getting really good sleep and I feel like that is related to the iodine. Everything that I am doing but I am also noticing that I am detoxing. That's where my skin breakouts I feel are coming from all this supplementing. Stuff is really clearing out of my body and my skin is purging a lot of stuff that was may be stuck deep into my cells and now it's able to come out. I feel that partly is where the detox is coming from. I'm feeling a lot better. Anthea: How do you work with people, Alicia? And please tell us about your website. What sorts of resources you have on there to help people go raw? Alicia: I feel like my biggest help to people is making videos. It's one thing that my family and friends were always telling me I should be making videos and then one day on a whim I said, 'okay I'll try it and see what happens. If it gets lots of negative comments, I can always take it down and forget about it'. I really got a good response when I started making videos and it just really motivated me to continue making more and more and I feel that's my joy. I just love making videos and sharing my experience. To be able to help others in that way and reach so many people that I wouldn't reach other ways is such so much fun. Mostly my website has links to my videos, links to my blog and my social media pages as well as all of the things that I use and love as far as what helped me in this lifestyle - the Vitamix and the skincare and make up I have used, the zapper and the dehydrator. All the things and the gadgets that I use. The movies and documentaries that I've watched. I have a list there that have really helped me. The books that I've read and all the things I've used to help keep me raw. That's what my website has been so far.


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Pretty soon I'm going to be updating it and making some changes and putting some more information on the website. Maybe some more reading materials and things like that. As far as coaching goes, I really enjoy helping people. I'm not a medical doctor and I'm not here to diagnose anybody but if I can help motivate you on your body or help answer your questions or if there's anything that you have concerns about. When I started out, I had so many concerns about this diet. I had so many concerns over whether I was going to be getting enough of the right nutrients and just if it was a safe way to eat. Was I harming myself? I had all these concerns and questions and so I am just really happy to be there for people. If they need coaching, they want help, I do everything from just answering questions through email, I do phone consultations if people want to have that. I can meet in person - to go shopping or clear out their cupboards. And if they are not 100% raw but want to make changes, I can show them alternatives to what they are already eating. If they're eating Campbell's soup and cereals, things that are not necessarily the best thing. If they are still drinking milk or eating ice-cream, I can show them healthier alternatives and that's one thing that has been really fun for me. Giving people alternatives for things that they can do at a pace that they are ready for. Not everybody is ready to go 100% and that's okay. You do what you can do and I will work with people at whatever level they are at. Wherever they want to go with their health. That's what I do. Anthea: You have a gift for people on the call today. Would you like to share what it is? And how they can receive their free gift? Alicia: It is a brand new raw recipe ebook. From 13 of my favorite raw food educators and chefs and they've contributed beautiful recipies for this book and some of them have shared their stories and transformations. Even Tasha Lee has contributed a wonderful recipe and her before and after photos and her story and I'm so excited to share this book. I was so pleased that everybody who wanted to be involved with this book - they were so excited to share. You can go to: http://www.rawsynergy.com/rawmazing Anthea: Definitely take advantage of that.


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It’s been so great talking with you, Alicia. Thank you from all of us. Alicia: Thanks for inviting me.

alicia grant – how eating raw changed my whole life!...i go to the dentist every 6 months and get...

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