Newbie from West PA

[BigTime]

Just wanted to say hello to everyone and introduce myself. My name's Jason and I just moved to Western PA from South Jersey. I'm about a week into being 100% and besides hearing everyone tell me I'm weird, I like it. I'm only 19, but in my younger years I was addicted to mcdonald's and anything fried. I finally realized this and decided it's time for a change. At first I was doing this for weight loss, but in the past 6 months I have already dropped 45-50lbs. Now I am doing it to help with energy and hopefully help me learn, as I'm starting school soon. Happy Easter everyone! :D

[Autumn]

Hi Jason, welcome and hurray for you!!! What a gift you are giving yourself to start this journey at such a young age. You won't have to undo 20, 30, 40 years of abuse!

I'm just 12 days into 100% raw myself, although I dabbled for 2 months, and spent a year on raw/cooked fruits and veggies only.

Make sure to check out everyone's journals. I find reading them very inspirational, especially when I'm having cravings. The people here are wonderful, informative and very supportive.

Congrats too on the weight loss! Best of luck to you on your continued journey!

P.S. By the way, I'm from Philadelphia (now living in Alabama). I miss it badly!

[DotfromOz]

Welcome to eating raw and to the greatest raw forum on the net, Jason!

Ah, me! MickeyD's! I heard a bit of the sirens' song of fries with ketchup from there yesterday but did NOT listen to more. I know the woes of eating there far too well, however, so I can really relate to what you said about being addicted to that place! (yukkola!)

Autumn is absolutely right on when she says that you are fortunate in not having years and YEARS of SAD damage to undo. How very wise of you to go raw so early in life!

Hope you find this board as terrific, encouraging and supportive as I do!

Great to have another rawie with us,
Dot

[Fuzzball]

Great to see another male around here Jason!

I can't wait till I can say that I've lost 50 pounds by going raw! It seems that my half hearted attempts so far have resulted in 3-5 pounds gain, but I believe that was because I was only about 80%.

Please keep us posted on your progress....what was your goal weight loss?

Personally, I want to lose 100 before I reset my goals!

[sweetgoddess]

A very warm welcome to you Jason. I am so glad for you that you are so aware at 19. That is fabulous and will serve the future you so well.
Best wishes to you in school and on your raw journey! :)

[BigTime]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome.

As far as my weight loss goals, I never really had one. The end of last summer I was around 210. I weighed myself yesterday and I'm at 152 with 11% body fat, and I'm around 5'10.

Honestly, it was because I was out of work and partying every single day. Drinking kinda killed my body, but it was the cool teenage thing to do. Then one day I woke up and realized I was really getting fat, so I decided to stop drinking. Then this past new years I decided to give up red meat, which helped me a ton with losing weight. I then started researching vegetarian diets and discovered the raw diet. When I read about all the advantages it made me curious and I decided to go for it. I can't wait to see what it's like after the whole detox stage.

Today is 1 week @ 100% for me, most books and articles I've read say jumping right in you probablly won't be successful. That, or if you haven't changed due to an illness. Well I'm here to prove that statistic wrong :p