My Story

Hi, I’m Robyn, an Aussie Flight Attendant living in the Middle East. I have been living away from home for almost 5 years. I’ve lived in Scotland, London and now Saudi Arabia and although I miss Oz, it will always be home in my heart. I’ve seen loads of countries, but there is still more to come.

As with anything, even within the ‘Raw Food Movement’ there are different levels of ‘Raw Foodists’ and their dietary choices. This is a very personal journey so I don’t usually subscribe to one method or another, choosing to listen to my own body’s signals which are clearer to me, since having unblocked my body of chemicals and processed, refined, packaged foods.

I have a strong interest in Raw Foods and ‘Un’ cooking and love coming up with new recipes and sharing old ones with like minded health conscious people. I am undertaking a Clinical Nutrition Course specialising in Vegan and Vegetarian Foods and love spreading the word on this awesome stuff and more people are beginning to wake up!

I’m really curious on your raw lifestyle, so I have a few questions:

1.Where did your motivation come from and where did it all start?

I have always been interested in diet (well at least from around 22 – I am now 32) but to be honest, it was initially inspired by a desire for weight loss. Working in an image conscious profession only added to my acute body awareness.

Over the years, I suffered from the YOYO diet syndrome, culminating in using diet pills (that might I add were definitely not recommended to anyone other than morbidly obese individuals – not me) working out 4 hours a day and hardly eating a thing. But I felt like crap. My skin was breaking out, I was either up all day and night, or sleeping for 3 days straight. This led me to seek out a more holistic approach, concentrating on a TOTAL health outcome, as I just wanted to feel good again. I felt if I started to be kinder to my body then it would repay me by getting to it’s appropriate size and shape that was right for me, however I had now decided, how I looked was secondary or even non relevant. I just wanted to feel better.

I picked up the book Skinny Bitch, and from there I googled Raw Food and came across Kristen’s Raw. I immediately contacted her (she has been my Soul Sister and Guru ever since) and purchased her recipe books and started to experiment with raw dishes, but I didn’t have much spare time as I was flying a lot and I couldn’t afford a lot of the kitchen gadgets (of which I thought at the time was necessary), so I left it on the back burner for awhile, until a year later when I had more spare time, more money and more desire to make it happen. My weight had ballooned and all I wanted to do was SLEEP all the time. A hangover from the days of taking the diet pills.

As I got further into the Raw lifestyle, I realised you don’t actually need ALL the time and ALL the kitchen gadgets to succeed. You just need to have an open mind and be prepared to experiment and have fun in the kitchen. When you first start eating more RAW food, it is natural to want to eat more complicated and gourmet foods, but usually as time goes by, more simpler and easy to create dishes (and even just a simple piece of fruit) will begin to satisfy you.

2. You look great – do you feel better?

I feel better than I have ever felt in a long time. And it only gets better. Anytime I slip up from my High Raw All Vegan diet, I pay for it, either with skin breakouts, lack of energy, dry skin, bloating, cramping and more. It is only when you feel truly healthy that you realise how unhealthy you have been in the past. The primary motivation for me now is the way I feel and not how I look, but I now know that they work hand in hand. When you treat your body with more respect and love, then it will pay you back by feeling stronger, healing quicker from ailments and sometimes not even getting sick when those around you are, and dropping unwanted weight without even trying.

3.How challenging is it in everyday life?

As with anything that is a change to your normal everyday habits, it is an adjustment, however I see the rewards are more than worth the ‘sacrifice’ of treating yourself with respect and love. In fact for the first time in years, I can eat food, REAL FOOD, tasty food, and as much of it as I want, without having to count calories or feel GUILTY. How liberating is THAT????!!!!