Just a few years ago, Angela Stokes from Brighton, England, weighed 294lbs (21stone/133kg) and was depressed, lonely and constantly ill. Underneath a false mask of contentment, she was deeply unhappy and binged daily on junk foods in an endless cycle of overeating, refusing to discuss her weight issues with anyone. These days, after moving over to a raw vegan diet since May 2002, she weighs in at a healthy and happy 138lbs (9st 9lbs/62kg), is 100% raw and feels her life has been completely transformed.
Angela was not always overweight. She was a very active child and the fastest runner in her school at the age of 10. Her problems began when at the age of 11 she developed an underactive thyroid and began to gain weight. The weight gain escalated with uncontrolled overeating, so that a decade later, at the age of 21, she found herself weighing in at nearly 300lbs (21stone/133kg). Her pre-raw diet consisted of enormous quantities of chocolate, fried foods, stodgy carbohydrates and greasy fats.
It took a possible diabetes scare to jolt Angela into awareness that perhaps there were kinder ways to treat her body, but it was not until a friend lent her a book about the amazing transformation of one family on a diet of mainly raw foods – ‘The Raw Family’ by the Boutenkos – that life truly took on a new direction for Angela and her body started to take on a totally different form. She felt like it was the answer she’d always been waiting for and swapped her calorie-packed carbs and fat-laden diet overnight for a 100% raw lifestyle.
Coming from a place of such ill-health, her detox was very severe and she found that cutting back to about 70% raw for the first couple of years suited her better. Her weight loss was phenomenal and during the first year alone, she lost over 100lbs (approx. 7½stone/50kg) of excess fat and her health, vitality and passion for life increased exponentially.
She found that the less she became of herself physically, the more she became of herself as a whole person, gaining confidence, developing self-esteem and starting to open up towards others in a way she had previously found very challenging.
As the pounds slipped away, her body came to life and every day was an adventure of discovering new activities she could now participate in more easily, like sports, shopping for nice clothes and attracting male attention: her love life blossomed.
When she looks back now, Angela comments that it often feels like she is speaking about a different person, as her life has changed so dramatically over the last 4 years. She has lost more than half of her body weight from her biggest size and the transformation that began on this physical level led on to huge shifts on emotional and spiritual levels too for Angela. She feels enormously blessed to have experienced such a remarkable transformation in her health and happiness and now devotes her life to sharing with others her message of hope for natural recovery from morbid obesity and destructive overeating patterns. She encourages others to take this holistic approach to healing themselves, emphasising that this does not have to mean an ‘extreme’ lifestyle change to bring extraordinary results.
It is not essential to go 100% raw, now or ever, to experience huge benefits - just eating MORE raw foods than before and more raw than cooked foods will help people begin to lose weight and regain their health. In January 2004 she set up her popular testimonial website http://www.rawreform.com/ - where she shares her own experiences of going raw, along with guidance for others on how to follow a similar path to reclaim their health. She is living proof of the extraordinarily powerful healing effects that can be found through adopting a diet high in raw, living foods – she walks her talk and her "before-and-after" pictures speak for themselves.
Angela currently offers two e-books for sale on her site: RawReform: How to go Raw for Weight Loss is an intro guide to natural weight loss for those who struggle with overeating and RawReform: Recipes is a supporting volume to help raw newbies transition happily and safely into raw.
She has recently finished a tour of the west coast of the USA, sharing her message of hope and recovery and will continue later this year, from August to October on the east coast – details can be found on the ‘events’ page of her website. She also runs retreats (held in Sussex, England and Michigan, USA this year) and guides others who would like support to lose weight with raw foods through personal consultations.
Angela is passionate about helping people to reverse overweight and obesity issues with natural choices, rather than crash diets, invasive surgery or ‘magical bullet’ pills. Her desire to help others help themselves on the road to better health has already earned her an award at the House of Lords in England for research into obesity, along with funding to redevelop her website to better serve the needs of the growing community who look to her work for support and guidance.
Angela sums up her transformation on raw foods in the following way: ‘I may now be half the person physically that I was before going raw, but I am so much more myself in every other way. I am delighted to share my experience and hope with others.’
For more information, photos, or to
purchase her e-books, see Angela’s site:
