About

Tanisha Marshall From S.A.D. to Happiness
S.A.D = (Standard American Diet).

I am still on my journey to losing weight and healing, but here are some current pictures. My story follows below.

Finding out about living food really saved my life. At age 26, I was at the point where I thought that I was going to die. I was plagued by a host of ailments, including:

• Depression
• Severe Fatigue
• Anxiety
• Perpetually swollen throat
• Asthma
• Arthritis
• Constant pain on my left side
• Severe memory loss

After only 4 days of embracing the living food lifestyle, however, I noticed a remarkable change. I actually started to feel good for once, and I found myself wanting to get up and call people that I had not talked to in weeks or even years because I was always so fatigued. Everyone always thought I did not like people, but this wasn’t true at all. I love people and I love to be around people, but for years I had unwillingly become a very quiet and reserved person. I had become someone I didn’t know.

The beginning of bad eating
As a child in grade school, I was very outgoing and had many friends. I was cheerful and full of energy. Then, when I was in the 5th grade, my family moved and I had to switch schools. That change was very difficult for me to deal with, and my confidence and optimism suffered a tremendous blow. It was at this time that I began to develop an unhealthy relationship with food. While the meals I ate were delicious, they were rarely well-balanced or healthy. My grandmother was a great cook, but her meals were rarely nutritionally sound. We pretty much ate anything: hamburgers, pork chops, or whatever happened to be around. Nor were there any limits placed on the amount I consumed; if I wanted 2 hamburgers I would eat 2.

My relationship with food became worse as the years went on, and this was reflected in my burgeoning weight. At the tender age of 14, I began suffering bouts of depression. During this time, I could barely stand to be around anyone, and I didn’t know how to communicate with people or have a normal conversation without becoming confused. I was extremely self-conscious about my weight, and my self-esteem plummeted.

My poor relationship with food continued into my adult life until, at the age of 23 I reached my highest weight of 330lbs. At this point, I could hardly walk up and down the stairs without severe knee pain. By means of Gastric Banding, I was able to lose 70lbs, but I subsequently regained 40lbs of that weight. I could never say that Gastric Banding didn’t work but since I had the option to un-tighten the band as I please, I allowed myself not to use it like I should have so it is not that the surgery didn’t work I didn’t use it.

The Awakening
Eventually, my knee pain was joined by a multitude of other symptoms, including severe fatigue, anxiety, asthma, severe pain on my left side, and more. I even had a hard time getting to sleep at night because I could hardly breathe. I just knew the end was in sight for me; I truly thought I was about to die. After several visits to the doctor, I finally found out I have PCOS and Adrenal Fatigue. This was the beginning of my life with raw living food.

On the rode to Happiness
After just 4 days of eating a living food diet, I felt a fog lift. I experienced a happiness I had not known since before the 5th grade; it was the best feeling I had had in years. Within the first week of changing my eating habits, the pain in my left side vanished, as did a number of other ailments that had plagued me for years. In addition, I began to lose weight, which I had been fruitlessly struggling to do for a long time.

Raw food consist of uncooked Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, Seeds, and Sprouts. When I first went raw I couldn’t believe that someone could eat uncooked foods 100% of the time, but something inside if me told me it was the right thing to do. Changing to the raw lifestyle wasn’t easy but necessary, the rewards that I have reaped are so worth the change. Raw is not a diet for me it is a lifestyle.

To this day, I still cannot believe how drastically my change of diet has affected me. The effects that I have experienced go beyond weight loss and health; I’m a new me, I’m the person that I was before my devastating move in the 5th grade. I find myself wanting to be around people again. I want to help people, and I feel that I can accomplish any goal set before me. Raw food has uncovered a confidence in me that was hidden under all of the food I used to stuff into myself.

I am still learning about myself, and I’m so happy with what I have discovered so far. I am still in the process of losing weight and gaining back my old self that was oppressed for so long; I know this will be a very long road but I am confident that it will be a good one as well. I’m unspeakably grateful to have found this lifestyle. Eating living foods has awakened me, the real me.