I’ve bounced between 100% raw and high raw since 2011 but, it’s been high fat. I couldn’t get rid of my love affair with fat and the last few cooked foods. Vegan since 1997. I FINALLY started the fully raw, low fat, 811 journey 3 months ago. The decision was wrought with all sorts of road blocks in my head. It was a difficult jump but I wanted to do 811 for the past several years. I was already eating a version of it with high fruit, big salads, but with baked potatoes and beans. I have been learning about the raw Garden of Eden diet since 2011 and started publicly teaching it 4-1/2 years ago. I wanted to rid of cooked foods and fat but couldn’t quite get there. I’m so grateful to now say I’m finally there. What made me finally jump in was when Doug asked me, what is preventing you from making that 811 commitment? Before I could answer, he then asked me to make just a 30-day commitment. After an hour or two of gruelling agony over his question and how I would answer, and thinking of all the reasons it would be difficult, or not possible, all my road blocks, all the reasons it would be too hard, social constraints, the side-eyed of others, how much I loved my fat, salt, cooked beans and potatoes, my extensive world travel as a guest speaker, not always in charge of my own meals during travel, logistics of living with a cooked vegan eater, and wondering how to reply to Doug, my thoughts went to a few of my own clients and patients, and all their same excuses for not going plant based, that I just made a courageous decision to commit for 30 days. I didn’t want to be mind-trapped like a few of my patients though their food was clearly killing them in slow misery. I could see they were trapped in their own mind with a lack of courage, purpose, their why, and goals. I had to just jump into a decision and forget my roadblocks and just do it, if not for me, for them. If I expect them to make difficult decisions and changes, then I had to be that example that difficult changes are possible. I just needed to get over my roadblocks that were in my head, which now I see weighed heavier than reality.

I’d like to share some feelings and thoughts starting a 80/10/10 lifestyle as good as I know, can, and want. I am still feeling good after some weeks. Sometimes between the second fruit meal and the fruit salad dinner - which contains almost always 1/3rd to 1/2 middle sized avocado - I had to put in a forth ‘3 banana or a few figs snack’. To avoid that it helps having a little more calories in the second meal - sometimes though, that little more feels hard to eat. My workout & running could be more intense and structured. But I work on that too. Happy on fruit Denis

My diet is so great in that I mean that my body's ability to provide bio feedback is greatly enhanced. One continuous improvement after another! So I thought more about my breathing frustrations and came to one realization: if my hypothesis of digestion is the cause of my breathing difficulty then some meals I must be improperly food combining and/or some complex salads with 6 or 7 ingredients like I've had previously would make my stomach feel upset or knotted up while simpler salads would not make my feel this way (I've been doing 3 ingredients for 2 weeks so far) because they are so easy on the body. For the past 6 months I know I've been carefully food combining so I know that is not the case. The knots I felt in my stomach seemed to occur no matter if I had a simple salad with 3 ingredients or one with 7 or 8 I always felt the same. Last day in the gym I got to thinking: so sometimes I feel I cannot get a deep enough breath and I'm running out of oxygen which is a horrible feeling to have. When I get a deeper breath I usually have to crouch down or hang like on a pull up rack to get that full breath. I began to think: maybe I'm breathing all wrong then at work day before yesterday and yesterday I watched a lot of YouTube and did quite a bit of searching. I came to realize that I am a "Mouthbreather" not that I'm stupid as the name can imply. I never realized after all of these years that this was a major problem. So to get full breath which was overbreathing and all in my head I had to breathe so deeply to get a breath I was unlikely to ever get. Interestingly, I only began to do this practice about 10 months ago when I initially began raw vegan 80 10 10 with lots of mistakes and screw ups for the first few months. Ive learned to breathe through my nose only at all times other than when exercising, eating, or talking. So with a meditative focus on breathing through nose I haven't in over a day tried to breathe too heavily through mouth so the soreness I felt under right rib I'm convinced was my lungs crying out from me overstressing them now that soreness is no more. The knot in stomach I think was just the messages I kept telling myself about my digestion still trying to straighten itself out. Next step I messaged a couple of breathing coaches to learn how to breathe because I've been a chronic mouthbreather my entire life and always thought that whether I breathe through mouth or nose it doesn't matter. I still have a lot to learn about breathing but I do understand that mouthbreathing can be very unhealthy. The science is interesting saying that mouthbreathers can cause dental issues (disrupts the mouths ph balance), respiratory problems, changes in fascial structure - a longer face with mouthbreathing, nostrils can become constricted because of non use so to expand have to be used more often, reduces nitric oxide production which affects cardiovascular and brain health, and more (i found good blog post on this subject for anyone that wants to learn more: https://feno.co/blogs/news/the-hidden-dangers-of-mouth-breathing-a-scientific-deep-dive?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21919780221&gbraid=0AAAAA9WBXt4QGiCKf94X_MPI2FPTr5HLt&gclid=CjwKCAjwiezABhBZEiwAEbTPGKSbWinxgbdZAYruQ5-gza66l2KzYg35gEUJzOI8NdXroYw28StPQxoCLqQQAvD_BwE

Lovely to meet in person and loved this conversation. Enjoy https://youtu.be/7EmRWs2iZZw?si=YHJATFBoF3e762tY

I'm officially a Certified 80/10/10 Level One Coach! Now comes the fun part of starting to setup business, socials, course/program setup, and more.