We get to the reception, pick up our wrist band, and as we head up the stairs, in walks these models, dressed in skimpy bikini bottoms and tops, leaving nothing to the imagination. The first thing I thought to myself was where's the photoshop!! You see, a couple days ago I read this featured blog, but I thought those issues were in the realm of celebrities only, models make a living off looking good, so they must take care of themselves. These first set of models, well, they looked nothing like the pics. They were thin, but their skin wasn't perfect like in the pics, they had thin 'fat' in places that hung over, and well they just weren't that attractive. But I figured the ones upstairs must be better, so I held judgement until I saw the real deals.

We get to the top and well, the whole place was in need of photoshopping. On the fly! My image of these women have been totally destroyed, they were supposed to have perfect skin, and perfect bodies, and smiles to die for. All I saw were plenty of thin 'fat' and lots more fat 'fat'. Imperfect skin covered up, noticeably I might add, by loads of makeup, and the wardrobe left nothing to the imagination. I wouldn't have a problem if they looked like those in the magazines, but seriously, they just looked downright skanky.

I'm not much a fan of women that put on loads of makeup, I'd much prefer a simple natural look. If it's applied on properly and I don't notice it then great, but in general, makeup is over applied and when you walk up close you see it, I find it unflattering. My take on this is that women who are great at applying makeup are great painters, I wouldn't call them beautiful. They are just applying paint to their face, covering up stuff.  I'm watching all these makeover shows, the one that comes to mind the most is 'what not to wear'. At the makeup portion of the show, the makeup artist, notice how it's an artist, says we want to bring out the real you, then she proceeds to apply tons on makeup on her subject.

My take on this whole makeup thing is that the women want to look beautiful, attractive. In their attempt to do that they put foundation and various stuff to smooth out their complexion, basically making the skin flawless. Blush to enhance the rosiness of the cheeks, eyeliners, lipsticks and so on. Essentially what they are trying to do is create the illusion of health. You see subconsciously we're equating beauty with health. If you're healthy, well for one, you're not fat, and you look good; healthy people just look good. Nobody ever says a fat person is beautiful, and if they do they're lying. They're just catering to the masses, who happen to be fat. A fit body is a healthy body. A healthy body will have healthy looking skin. And the rosy cheeks, I believe that's a fully functioning healthy liver (the liver is a very important organ in the body). So society equates beauty with health. You see, nature did a very good job with the feedback mechanism of the human body. If you're not well inside, it manifests the problem in the form of pain, or imperfections on the outside ie your skin. It's a signal for you to take action to remedy the problem. But most people don't take note of these signals, and proceed with eating their chips, drinking their pop, and staying up at ungodly hours causing continued harm to their body and worsening the problem inside. So rather than fixing the problem, it gets masked with all these chemical illusions.

So there wasn't much for me to see or do at importfest. I'm not a car enthusist, so the tricked out cars didn't really interest me. There were very little vendors, and the music was way too loud I couldn't hear anyone. That and the disappointment with what I originally thought were godesses, I left the joint in under an hour.

So ladies, especially you 'models' from the importfest, cut back on the makeup, eat a fruit or two or 10 a day, drink lots of water, workout, you skin will thank you for it, and you'll look lovely with less of that crap on your face.

Before I begin that, I'd like to preface it with this little tidbit that is a good seque into the health issues.

A couple years ago I was browsing the self-help section of chapters and came upon a book called the adversity advantage. The jist of it is that most people won't rise to the occasion unless they encounter adversity. You don't know much about diabetes unless you or a loved one has it. Michael J Fox wouldn't give a rats ass about Parkinsons if he didn't get it. You won't worry about finances until you lose your job, there are many type of examples like this. Along the same line is that if you're not enthused about something, if you're not passionate about something you'll probably stop doing it or not preform it to the best of your ability. You see it in kids who give up on activities either because of external profits (push parents) or a lack of interest or other interests arise.

So a couple years ago at about the same time I read the adversity advantage, I started breaking out with acne, like really big and ugly ones. I started looking for ways to clear it up, the more I looked the more I didn't like the alternatives, so I kept researching, and kept trying, all sorts of potions and lotions, pills and supplements, nothing worked like I wanted. But I kept searching. My search finally led me to a community of people that eat their food raw, and most of whom are vegans. There are some that do this with meat too, called the primal diet. I didn't think I could eat raw meat, so I concentrated on the raw food diet. The more I read the more I came to believe that this is the holy grail for not just my acne, but all health issues, from obesity to acne and all skin ailments to aches and pains all the way to cancer.

The premises behind a raw vegan diet are enzymes, nutrients and quick digestion. There are a host of others but it'd take me a novel to get it all down. That and there are lots of literature out there about it.

Enzymes (and nutrients for that matter) refer to the raw part of the raw vegan diet. When food is cooked, I believed to 180F the enzymes are destroyed. Enzymes are necessary to aid in the digestion process. Since these food lack enzymes, your body must recruit enzymes from other sources in your body. Over time you become deficient in enzymes leading to a host of problems. See enzymes are required for every -I mean every - chemical action your body does, so they are absolutely important. Raw, fresh, ripe, ideally organic, food have an abundance of enzymes.

A bag of chips has no nutriental value, regardless what they claim on the nutritional value chart or that they claim it's organic. It is junk food. Enriched food? Fortified food? Just a marketing ploy, they do your body no good. Well I can't say that, your body is excellent at adapting and making due with what it can, and if it really must it will attempt to extract some value from these foods, but they are essentially useless. Heating, if you remember chemistry class back in high school, or yesterday if you're still in high school, it is a chemical process. Cooking your food is heating your food to a high temperature, which is a chemical process. The act of applying heat to food destroys the nutrients in the food, so what you eat contains very little of the nutrients claimed. I remember hearing a radio ad from the beef council (of canada possibly) touting the nutritional value of raw beef, yet nobody eats raw beef. But cooked vegetables is still better than a bag of chips anyday.

The faster you digest your food, the faster it gets assimilated into your body to be used. If the food sits in your stomach too long it begins to fermenting and becomes toxic, your body must now work harder to extract what it can from it and rid the poison. What does this mean? Chew your food, if you chew your food, there is a less digestive load when it enters your stomach. Food ordering. Raw fruits and vegetable take about 30 to 40 minutes to digest, cooked food, meat processed food, range from about 2-3 hours to digest. So eat the fruits and vegetables first then the other food that take longer to digest, chew. Food combination, the digestive process for various types of food differs. You'll have to google this, but foods that are digested the same way should be eaten together, those that aren't should be eaten separately, ideally after the digestive action of the first is complete.

So it's passed the 1 year mark of my switch to a raw food diet. Now I haven't been completely honest with it, I've fallen off the wagon a few (many) times. I've changed the rules along the way. But I'd like to say I'm about 85-90% raw vegan. When I go out with friends I'd eat cooked food and meat, but now I'm trying to cut out the meat. I always get a salad though. And haven't had pop or any processed food in well over a year, well except for some seasonings. When I'm lazy to prepare my food, since my family doesn't eat like me, I fall off the wagon, and I'd eat steamed vegetables. I don't eat grains. So no rice, no pasta, no bread or any bakery, unless I'm out with friends. No refined sugar. What does that leave? Fruits vegetables and nuts and seeds. Lots and lots of fruits to get my calories.

What's my result? The acne is gone, I'll get some pimple when I fall off the wagon, but i think there is still some more repair that needs to be done. I used to be very oily, my face that is, that's almost gone. I believe my pores have gotten smaller. (Yeah when you have read as much as I have you learn about these things women fear of too). There's some scarring still, but I believe given more time it'll all disappear - As a side bar, every 7 days you get new skin, and every 7 years every single molecule in your body is replaced, I could write a whole blog on that. I used to have shoulder and elbow issues that have disappeared.

Prior to the switch, I thought I had a decent body, not super star, but ok. And I didn't want to lose any weight. But I weighed the options and felt a clear skin is more important. So I ended up losing weight, I went from 163lbs to about 140 now I'm at 150lbs. I've always weight trained so to lose that kind of weight is devastating. Then I started looking at my old pics, and a couple private ones of myself topless, and I realized that I had quite a bit of body fat. Now I have a lot lot less. The abs show, the tone is more pronounced. But I'd like to put on another 10 or so pounds. Unfortunately eating 3000 calories a day on a raw diet is not easy. Over all body image wise, I'm a lot more cut then before but also smaller and don't fill out the clothes as nicely as i used to.

I think another year on this and my health will jump to the next level. I'm still lathargic and from what I've read is that people that go on this diet gain so much more energy. Which leads me to believe that there is more healing to be done. Also sleep is important, but the healthier you are the less sleep you need. The reason being that sleep is your body's way of shutting you down to do daily maintanence. Like your office closing down at night and the janitorial crew comes in a cleans and fixes what needs fixing. But if there is nothing to clean or fix well you have no need to sleep as much. There will always be repairing and healing but it will be less.

Well I'm pretty committed to this, hopefully one day I can take it to the next level and own my own farm, ideally somewhere tropical so I can grow a wide variety of food. This can probably seque into my opinion on the current state of food, and my disdain for the food and drug industry but this is getting kind of long and I'm done!