Welcome

 I like to think of myself as a pretty healthy guy for approaching the 50 year mark.  I've always been active and passionate about the outdoors and tried to eat a relatively healthy diet. I've never really been too over weight or had any really serious health problems other than an on and off struggle with asthma. I've been blessed in that regard because I've always had some bad habits too. I have always loved to eat. Eating a whole pizza by myself or a second piece of cheesecake were commonplace. I would drink coffee all day long until I swithched to a few beers in the evenings and more of each on weekends. I'd get into the cookies or ice cream or whatever other sweets I could get in to. Out of all this was born my desire to balance these bad habits with some healthy alternatives such as eating better and exercising regularly.

Over the past 4 or 5 years I've been working out with two guys who are in excellent health, Phil and Jeff. Phil lives a cleaner lilfestyle than I do as he doesn't drink coffee or alcohol and he's been exercising regularly for years. Jeff is a raw vegan who rarely has anything that strays from this category and has recently begun exercising regularly over the past several years as well. Anyway...whether it was biking or skate skiing (which are our main activities), I was always lagging behind Jeff and Phil.

After a year or so we became more equal in performance during our workouts but Jeff, the raw vegan, seemed to consistenntly have the edge over both Phil and me. I was amazed at this as I always thought that elite athletes needed to eat tons of fish and lean meat, dairy and carbs like pasta (not that I really consider us elite athletes). Yet Jeff could go strong for a 70 mile bike ride or a 20 mile skate ski. I realized that some days my legs would feel weak and I just couldn't seem to be competitive while other days I felt reallly strong and was able to challenge Jeff and Phil.

Given all of this, I decided that Jeff was either endowed with some kind of great exercise gene or that there had to be something to this raw vegan thing. So I began to adopt some of Jeff's diet suggestions. I started with green smoothies for breakfast. I progressed to eating a mostly vegetarian diet. Then I graduated to having breakfast and lunch mostly raw. And currently, I am working on trying to eat mostly raw foods but also trying to focus on alkalizing foods as well.

Currently, Jeff and I now seem to be the leaders during our workouts. Phil is now making comments like "I guess I'll have to become a vegetarian to keep up". I now feel consistently strong during exercise and realize that diet has made all the difference.

I'll be the first to admit that lifestyle changes like these are not easy but they will make a huge difference in ones life. However such chages will most likely help you feel better and have more energy, lose weight, sleep better, perform at a higher level while exercising and look younger! I'm hoping that, through my blogs, I can help others adopt a few healthy changes in their daily routine. So stay tuned for lots of hopefully interesting stuff be it a green smoothie for breakfast, a new grain like quinoa or teff, wheat grass shots or microgreens, a garden tip, new recipes or maybe even an exercise tip just to mention a few possible topics.

Best wishes!

Keith