Well,

Being new to the list I thought I would say hello. Outside of some
experiments with raw eggs, I have pretty much been a raw vegan for about the
last 18 months (my experience with this diet will follow below). For various
reasons, I have decided to add some meat back to my diet...and with what I'm
doing, it turns out to be somewhat of a modified paleo-type diet (pretty
much paleo, but I don't think I'm eating as much meat as it looks like some
on the paleo diets are). Anyway, this is pretty much how I ended up on this
list. What I'm really interested in is raw paleo...but I'm just not sure how
far I can take that. Outside of the raw eggs, the only other RAF I have
eaten is fish; which I did like, I will admit.

Anyway, I read Neanderthin about a month ago and I also have the Paleo Diet
book, which I need to start on soon. I'm going to admit that I'm going to be
an oddball here because I don't believe in evolution...but the diet does
make sense to me for other reasons.

Jay Banks
www.roadtowellsville.com

My testimony:

In February of 2001, a co-worker mentioned the Hallelujah Diet to me. Since
I had once been a strict vegetarian -- well, basically a
meatless-version-of-the-SAD-diet vegetarian -- for well over a year, back in
my early twenties, I was intrigued by the Hallelujah Diet enough to give it
an honest try. At that time I had a list of health problems: quite
overweight, general lethargy, slept too much, terrible allergy and sinus
problems that had plagued me for years, fungal problems, several bouts with
suspected kidney stones, chronic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome.

I have really been into alternative medicine since my late teens and have
taken supplements off and on for most of my adult life (I'm 34 now). At the
time I heard about the Hallelujah Diet, I was taking huge amounts of
vitamins and supplements, most of which were very expensive. After reading
Rev. Malkmus's "Why Christians Get Sick" and viewing some other material, I
gave away or threw out all of my supplements -- except for a B12
supplement -- and never looked back. I purchased a juicer and started
drinking fresh carrot juice 1 - 2 times per day and tried to eat the best I
could.

Coming from someone who has pretty much covered the spectrum of diets from
junk food to eating healthy, or what I thought was healthy, from no
supplements to large amounts of supplements,  I can honestly say that under
the Hallelujah Diet, I have felt about the best I can remember...probably
since my childhood or early teens!

My energy increased, I can breath through my nose now, and, although I hate
to use the term "cured," I would say my irritable bowel syndrome and chronic
constipation are at least between 75 - 85 percent better. I went from having
a horrible time going to sleep and then not being able to wake up once I
did, to being able to go to sleep quickly and waking up much more easily,
and actually feeling refreshed (most of the time).  And perhaps one of the
biggest changes is that exercise went from something I had to force myself
to do, to something I actually wanted to do!

And in the exercise area, although I went on the diet to improve my health
and not really to lose weight, I started an exercise program I saw on a
late-night infomercial and was actually able to stick with it consistently,
even while having a newborn in the house. Based on my medical records, my
highest recorded weight was 253. My weight now is 144 pounds, making for a
total loss of 109 pounds. And again, I consider that to be more of a bonus
than what I was trying to do, which was simply to feel better.

I must admit that I was skeptical of the Hallelujah Diet when I first heard
about it, but I felt like I was going downhill fast and had nothing to lose
by trying it. After all, all Rev. Malkmus was asking me to do was eat a lot
of vegetables and fruits and drink some carrot juice. What a change for the
better it has made in my life, too. It makes me think back to the first time
I was a "vegetarian" in my early twenties. One of the first books I saw on
vegetarianism at the time said there were two ways to go: raw or cooked. At
the time I chose cooked and never gave it a second thought. Now I wonder
what a difference ten extra years of feeling better would have made in my
life?

To view my before and after photos:

Go to: http://www.roadtowellsville.com/
and click on, "View Weight Loss Photos"


Thanks,

Jay Banks
www.roadtowellsville.com