Sarah 88 lbs in 8.5 Months and still going

342 lbs	254 lbs
RFBC has changed my life. I've taken off almost 100 lbs, dropped 4 pant sizes and feel so much better. I used to get out of breath after climbing 1 flight of stairs and now I've finished a half marathon. I can play with my nephew, who's running around like crazy now, and not be too stiff or tired to get off the floor. I've tried every other diet known to man. They would work for me for the first month or so and then I'd fall off the wagon and be back to my old habits the next day. I could never successfully diet & exercise at the same time until I found RFBC. Raw food gave me the energy to exercise and knowing I was accountable to everyone else at camp helped me get out the door when I didn't feel like exercising. People at camp helped me learn new ways of dealing w/ stress and helped me understand why I ate things that I didn't really want to eat. I still have a ways to go to reach goal, but I know I can do it, probably by my one year anniversary at RFBC. How cool is that? Sarah

Sheila - at Goal 76.5 lbs in 7 months and now stabilizing

214 lbs	138.5 lbs New photo coming
I've tried every other major diet through the years. The weight has come off faster with raw food than any other I have tried. I also feel healthier, have more energy and am never hungry. With RFBC I have found such caring support and guidance. Sheila

Tammy 155 lbs with raw foods 68 of that lost at RFBC

305 lbs	150 lbs
My name is Tammy. I am 48 years old, married almost 30 years and mother to 8 children ages 27 to 4 years old. I have been overweight since before I was in 6th grade. I have weighed as much as 305 pounds in 1997. Some of the health problems I have dealt with are Candida, pain in the knees, bursitis in my shoulders, constant sinus infections etc. I released my first 25 of the 305 pounds by eating high raw (75% to 80%). I learned about raw food diet in August of 2003 and lost 120 pounds in 10 months getting down to 165 pounds. At this time, my family was tired of the raw world and asked me to try to balance raw eating with some cooked foods. This brought on a 1 1/2 year flip-flopping between eating 100% raw and binging on junk cooked foods. December of 2005 I heard about Raw Food Boot Camp and joined December 30 weighing 218 pounds. One year later, I have lost 55 pounds and though I have had some ups and downs with my weight I have been able to learn much and maintain a stability I have not experienced before. Raw Food Boot Camp is about accountability with the scale weekly, support for myself and others, having a sounding board of people to share my ideas about my weight and weight related topics. This web site is also about learning good health in all areas, physical, mental, and even spiritual. All contacts are made with kindness, sincerity and ideas given are in the spirit of helping each other. When I have slipped or tried to justify unhealthy behaviors, I am called on the carpet by others who are familiar with that kind of behavior and are willing to suggest I look at what I am doing to myself and question why so I can change my behavior. Raw Food Boot Camp has helped me in ways no book has ever helped me. The people there are great, Carlene has been generous with her time and all the women at the site have done all they can to offer me support any time I needed it. Tammy

Tina Rose Tina had lost 39 pounds after surgery in 2005 101 lbs in 10 Months at RFBCand still going

356 lbs	217 lbs
All my life I've been the designated fat one of the family. I started being slightly "fluffy" about the age of three or so, to starting to become “fat” about puberty. Thus, I've always been treated differently by family. From having my own milk (skim milk that's now called non-fat (if you want to be PC)) to getting my own sighs of disappointment and "oh honey I wish you wouldn't eat that" from grandma. Now I realize she was doing this out of fear because her cousin died of morbid obesity and she didn't want me to end up that way. Thus the journey to find the perfect diet began… first stop was trying to keep food from me (yeah right… can’t be done to a sneak eater who’s perfected the technique for making it look like leftovers weren’t disappearing!). Next stops were visits with a dietician then my mom having the doctor put me on appetite depressants AT THE AGE OF TWELVE! The depressants only lasted a week because of the negative severe personality change that occurred in me. There have been so many diets since then…. Weight Watchers as a teenager before they did anything for teens, Over Eaters Anon, cabbage soup, portion control. etc. ….etc… etc A few years ago I declared to myself “ENOUGH” I’m tired of always being the focus and keeping my focus on what I’m eating … so tired that I’m ready to focus on something else. This meant ignoring the obesity all together! However, my older sister recently had a better idea for me! Previously she had urged me to connect with a cancer support group in my town to help support me as I overcame uterine cancer. Since this was so successful, she asked me to trust her again and to take part in Carlene’s Raw Food weight loss workshop. Since I knew that short of gastric bypass (which I refused to undergo) this might be the only answer. I also realized that since I had a hysterectomy to remove the tumor embedded in the uterus, I was now post-menopausal, thus making it harder to lose weight. After taking a deep breath, I was willing to trust her again. So off, I went to hear what Carlene had to say. WOW that life-size cut out of her before self was worth ten million words. For the first time in my life I actually felt hope. I slowly started to become raw but at Carlene and Diana’s advice, I went totally raw at the beginning of May. I discovered that the only way to succeed is to commit 100%. Less than that is not effective. There’s just something about being 100% raw and simple low fat at that that works for someone who is morbidly obese. Yes at 5’9” and 356 pounds I was morbidly obese and am now proud to say that I am 239 pounds. Eighty of those One Hundred and Seventeen pounds were lost at RFBC. Yes that’s 80 pounds in seven months. I have a little under 100 pounds left to go and firmly believe that I will be less than 200 pounds by the end of January. Most importantly, I have made the commitment to stay raw. If this will keep the excess weight off for the remainder of my life and keep me cancer free, then I’m committed to a raw active lifestyle! Genetically I’m wired to live to close to 100 years old and baby… I’m ready to face it with energy and life! Tina Rose

Paula 95 plus pounds with raw foods 79.5 of that lost at RFBC in 12 months and still going

209.5 lbs	130 lbs
I am a happily married wife to a great guy and the homeschooling mom of three precious kids. After years of struggling with yo-yo dieting of all sorts, in 2002 I was at my all-time highest weight of over 225 pounds. I stopped weighing out of embarrasement and shame and felt absolutely miserable being obese. I am a stay-at-home Mom and an RN. At my heaviest I started looking for solutions to my weight problem and I became interested in natural health and prevention of disease through nutrition. At that point I began making major changes in my diet; I began juicing carrots and greens almost daily, made my own bread out of wheat that I milled into flour, quit eating sugar and processed foods, periodically did some water and juice fasting, and changed to a 80-95% raw all vegan diet. I had some success losing weight initially and started getting healthier but I found it difficult not to give into carb cravings and overate nuts, avacados, bananas, my home made bread, , etc. I felt so hopeless and out of control with my eating at times and steadily regained almost all the weight I had lost over those three years, all the while on a high raw vegan diet. There were a handful of times over those three years before RFBC that I had dairy, eggs, or sugar. I've been off of meat since 2002. I began Raw Food Boot Camp on 1/1/06 at 209.5 pounds. A 100% raw vegan , low fat eating plan has been far easier for me to follow with better results than three years of a high raw vegan diet with limited cooked food. The support, comraderie, and accountability of Raw Food Boot Camp has been of immense help to me in my journey to permanent weight loss. Low glycemic index raw fruit and vegetables with very limited fat and daily exercise are tremendous tools in overcoming obesity. I am 48 years old and feel like a million bucks; like I am back in my 20s again! There is a saying that I like: "There is no problem so bad that overeating won't make it worse". Trying to meet any kind of need other than hunger through food is futile. Chocolate and sugar and SAD junk are certainly no friends of mine anymore! I'm so thankful for all that I am learning and I am grateful and excited to be in the final stretch of my journey to my ideal weight . I am aiming to settle in the 125-130 pound range soon and stay there for the rest of my life. God has certainly done alot of work in my heart this year. I can't praise Him enough for all He has done for me and means to me. This has been an incredible adventure and the best is yet to be! :) Paula

Jan 100 lbs this past year at RFBC and still going

305 lbs	205 lbs
Last Christmas (2005), I got a wheelchair for Christmas, because walking was not just too difficult. Multiple Sclerosis was disabling me. My blood pressure was sky high, ditto cholesterol. Diabetes and asthma were taking their toll. I spent my days sitting in a chair, shaking and crying, from morning till night. We had Christmas dinner in my sister's home. I needed help into the house, and was plopped down in a chair in the living room. I could hardly contain myself from crying, I was in so much pain. Whenever anyone asked me how I was, I broke out into a bout of tears, because I could not honestly answer "fine". I sincerely thought that it would be my last Christmas on the face of this earth. Which made me cry even more. We left early, and I took my pain medicine that put me in La La Land, and tried to go to sleep. (I hated taking it, because it always made me loopy, but the alternative was severe pain) I didn't want my grandchildren to remember me as the old lady in the chair who shook and cried all the time. I just didn't want them to remember me this way. (I have mixed memories of my grandmother...the happy times, and how fragile and sick she was in the end. I didn't want my grandchildren to remember the fragile, sick, me. And I had been this way too long to have them remember the "well" me.) Well, now let me tell you about the "well" me! I've lost over 100 pounds, my health is great, and NOW, they don't remember me in that chair! They more or less think I was "sick" that day with the flu or something. Because now I am a "fun" grandma, who goes shopping, and takes them to the zoo, etc. My granddaughters joined me last summer, in a 5K "Walk for the Cure" for MS, and I did a 10K walk as well! Hey, I found my long lost health here at RFBC! No more MS, diabetes, asthma, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, high cholesterol (mine's 144 now!), and no more morbid obesity! Not bad for a woman who couldn't walk 10 steps without assistance a year ago! windflower jan.....fun grandma!

Frecs 111.8 lbs this past year at RFBC and still going

303.8 lbs	192 lbs
I had started talking to my doctor about gastric bypass in November 2005. I was desparate and didn't believe there was any other options for me. I'd tried every diet known to man...even did the starve/binge/purge thing in my twenties. But, here I was, weighing in at 308 (at times I've been well over 325) with high blood pressure, high cholesterol (242), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Clinical Depression with Social Panic Disorder, hypothyroidism and a bad case of Rosecea. Through a series of events, I was lead to Carlene's website and began learning about RAW. I thought "well, it can't hurt to give it a try...it would sure beat surgery. So, the day after Christmas 2005 I went 100% raw low-fat vegan. Now, let me tell you that for over 10 years, any diet I'd tried...and really tried hard at...I'd lost 20 pounds and then nothing...the weightloss would stop. Even a Registered Dietitian couldn't figure out why that happened. So, when I lost the first 20 pounds, I was happy but not overly so because..well..been there done that...the question was, would the weightloss continue or not? Well, the weightloss continued. And, other things happened, too. The fibromyalgia pain began to subside, the Chronic fatigue symptoms did likewise. My doctor marveled at the normalization of my blood pressure and at how my cholesterol improved (currently: 139). As the months passed, I stopped needing Zoloft as the depression and panic attacks ceased and the rosecea disappeared. Only the hypothyroidism is left. Oh, and I went from barely being able to walk for 5 minutes to walking in excess of 11 miles with ease! Frecs

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Before and Afters okay some are before and current!

Before and Afters
okay some are before and current!