Author Archives: rawgirl

No matter where you are on your health journey, I’m sure at some point you have struggled to stop eating a food that you knew was not in your best interest. 

Who doesn’t know someone addicted to sugar? I myself used to be a vegan sugar addict. So much so that when I first stopped frequenting vegan bakeries for sweets and started juicing instead, I had to overload my fresh juices with apples for them to be acceptable to my over-sugared palette. Now that I’m “sober” I have equal passion for foods that are bitter and can drink my greens straight-up if need be.  

The reason why your body lets you know that you’re hungry in the first place is because it needs nutrition to function optimally. When you are out of alignment with nature and are addicted to unnatural foods or substances it is possible to be obese and be “starving” your body to death because you are not taking in the nutrients your body needs in order to thrive. 

So how do you break the addiction sis? Cue my new program: Detox My Life!

I designed this 30 day self-guided plant-based detox for someone like you who needs to:

• Release addiction to processed foods or fast food, and reset your diet to support your health
• Start the process of healing a chronic condition through diet and lifestyle changes
• Lose weight long term by making a full lifestyle change
• Transition to a plant-based diet with support and the structure of a meal plan

Head on over to stayingagelessuniversity.com to check it out! -XO

Did you know that over at @stayingageless we donate 5% of profits from our signature program to non-profit organizations that improve the health and well-being of women? One of the programs we supported last year was the @bettyaderafoundation51 based in Nairobi, Kenya. 

When I met Betty I was inspired by her story. After surviving an abusive marriage she has dedicated herself to ensuring that other women and girls in Nairobi get the support they need to take control of their destinies. The Betty Adera Foundation acknowledges that “there many barriers to achievement of life goals. For women and girls it can be: inability to complete their education or go to school in the first place, it can also be a result of harmful socio-cultural practices, or a result of sexual and gender based violence, or even lacking the soft skills required to take on a leadership position.” 

“Our interventions are contextually relevant and we place community engagement at the heart of everything we do. We believe that every life matters, and we are satisfied with small changes every day. That way, we believe that with time, we will contribute significantly to changing lives for the better.”

You can learn more about this foundation by visiting stayingagelessuniversity.com. Please check them out and feel free to support them via their website. -XO

P.S. Tonight at 7:00pm EST I am going live with @ginatrimnutrition to discuss the Pitfalls of Fad Diets Tune in so you can learn and ask questions! We can’t wait to see you there 🙂

Did you know that the average piece of produce travels 5,000 miles to get to your supermarket? Yep. That’s a long way! At some point on your health journey to take more control of your health, it’s important to consider deeply where your produce is sourced from.  Here’s five simple ways to get more local/seasonal produce in. -XO

1. Find Your Local Farmers Market. In Capetown (pictured #throwback) I lived down the street from one of the best farmers markets I’ve ever been to and it was glorious! This past year living in Virginia I had a farmers market each weekend right outside my door. Here in Freetown, I’ve been introduced to farms to source many of my veggies straight from the ground. Not only do you get to try veggies you didn’t realize were season; you get to meet the amazing people who grow the food.
2. Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Nothing nearby? For a flat weekly or monthly rate, you receive a box of fresh, local, seasonal produce. Some CSAs will deliver right to your door, while others have specific pick-up sites.
3. Grown Your Own Food or Start an Herb Garden. I do not have a green thumb, but my mother does. Years ago when she had two large gardens on the family property, I used to help pick the veggies when they were fully grown. My schedule and patience (LOL) has never allowed me to try gardening on my own yet, but I highly recommend it, no matter how small if you have the inclination. This doesn’t have to be a go big or go home project, you can start with some herbs and work your way up to other things. The key is to START!
4. Find Out What Is In Season. Eating mangoes in the dead of winter is fun and possible thanks to our grocery stores—but they’ll most likely taste better if you have them in the right season. Eating what nature locally produces also helps to get more diversity in your diet and avoid a food rut.
5. Look for LOCAL Labels. Shop at grocery stores that labels the origins of your produce. Lucky for you some grocery stores actually label where the produce has traveled from, so you have the option to choose food from local farms.

Chile the word detox is thrown around so often nowadays, but do you really know what it means? 

Detoxification is a key function of the body. It happens naturally and involves elimination of metabolic waste and toxins via our bodies’ major eliminatory organs: our skin, kidneys, colon, lymph, lungs, and liver. 

We live in a toxic world so obviously encouraging detoxification is a good thing, and keeps the body light, renewed, and refreshed. The Standard American Diet leaves the majority of us overloaded with animal protein, saturated and trans fats, and all other kinds of toxins. 

In our natural state, the body is designed to be able to flush out unwanted substances. But when there is toxic overload, the bodies’ natural ability dampens, and toxins end up getting stored in our tissues. Some of us also have issues with the methylation process which is integral for detoxification (more on this later). 

Detox diets are designed to encourage, support, and facilitate our natural elimination process. Some examples of regimens that encourage detoxification are juicing, juice fasting, and the raw food diet. The removal of cooked and processed foods from your diet for a period time, or the absence of solid food altogether, gives your body a chance to rejuvenate and flush out old waste.

Below are some of the awesome reasons why you should consider incorporating a regular yearly detox into your lifestyle. And to help you jumpstart this lifestyle, check out Detox My Life, which is now available for purchase on stayingagelessuniversity.com 

Benefits of a detox:

1. Releases addictions to processed foods
2. Flushes out toxins from the body
3. Helps to balance hormones
4. Encourages weight loss and maintaining healthy weight
5. Improves digestion
6. Strengthens immune system
7. Lowers risk of disease
8. Improves concentration and quality of sleep
9. Clears skin problems and acne
10. Encourages regular bowel movements

Back in Africa 🙏🏾✈️💚 And it feels good. 

My new virtual office for the next month…and perhaps longer will be in Freetown, Sierra Leone. 

Freetown is the capital, principal port, commercial center, and largest city of Sierra Leone. I’m already thoroughly fascinated with the rich history of this town which was founded by freed American slaves from Nova Scotia in 1792. Freetown was part of the larger colony of the Sierra Leone which was founded by the Sierra Leone Company (SLC) in 1787. The SLC, sought to rehabilitate the black poor of London and former slaves of North America by bringing them to the settlement in Sierra Leone where they would stop the African slave trade. 

The first groups of blacks, about 400 Londoners, arrived in Sierra Leone in 1787 and established Granville Town, named after British abolitionist Granville Sharp. When the settlement was destroyed by the indigenous inhabitants in 1789,  British abolitionists sent a second, larger party of 1,100 former American slaves who had been resettled in Nova Scotia at the end of the American Revolution. These settlers established Freetown in 1792. In 1800, 500 Jamaican Maroons were landed by the British. The surviving Londoners, the Nova Scotians, and Jamaican maroons, intermarried to create the Creole population of Freetown. 

It is amazing to walk through the streets of this town and see faces that mirror the diversity of Africa as a whole. They speak English and a dialect called Krio which reminds me of Nigerian Pidgin or Jamaican Patois.

My first stop on Day 1 was to a farm and a market where I copped some greens and herbs for week one. 🌿

Sis, do you need a D E T O X?

Plant-based diets that are composed of whole foods are a powerful intervention for so many chronic conditions. I see this kind of diet work miracles in the Raw Girl Coaching practice daily! And personally, I know that if I didn’t start my own raw/vegan journey years ago, I would have some of the same health concerns that many of my clients have.

That’s why I created the Detox My Life course over at @stayingageless

In this 30 day self-guided plant-based detox, you will get a jumpstart on transforming your health using our simple four step program.

For thirty days you will commit to a vegan meal plan. But rest assured, you’ll receive weekly motivation to keep you accountable. 

You will also learn how to read labels, discover practices to support whole body detoxification, and ways to overcome sugar, salt, and processed food addiction for good. #yaaasss

With my clients, I have discovered that when they commit to transforming their diet, other aspects of their life also begin to blossom! I’ve had clients who have found new jobs, improved personal relationships, and more just from making the commitment to improve their nutrition and habits. I am so excited to help you do the same with the course. -XO

Today’s #Ageless #WCW is Angela Bassett!

If growing old gracefully means I get to be. like. this… bring it on! Lol 

She says, “60 is the new 40, or 70 is the new 50. It keeps getting pushed. But you have to keep the stress down and the attitude hot.”

And she is so right, sis. We are into the implementation weeks of my Staying Ageless 30+ class, and the last few weeks are all about taking all that you’ve learned about diet, exercise, and creating healthy, life-giving rituals and applying it to your life. Chile, it’s time for the follow through!

If you aren’t currently in the class, or haven’t taken it in the past (girl, you better be on the lookout for when enrollment is open again), then let’s talk about the art of creating healthy rituals. If you spend any time studying the world’s most successful people or high performance athletes, you will discover that they all have one specific thing in common: the ability to create and maintain healthy rituals that allow them to maximize their time, energy, and focus throughout the day. 

What is a ritual? Rituals are habits that we can create and repeat over and over. What can make a ritual special is that they can become sacred. The daily actions you take, consciously or unconsciously, are affecting your daily life. When you take control and create rituals that feed your soul, you take better control of your destiny. Below are some steps to help you begin on your path to establishing rituals that feed your mind, body and spirit. -XO

– Start with baby steps

– Push through resistance with preparation 

– Create accountability 

– Set reminders and notifications

– Begin tracking and journaling

– Choose rituals that bring you joy

Chile, it’s finally live! 

Head on over to www.stayingagelessuniversity.com and give us a follow on Instagram (@stayingageless) to see epic content in your feed, which will teach you about holistic wellness and our transformational healing programs that help you achieve extraordinary longevity. 

We’ll give you alllll of the deets on our programs, which are all created from protocols that have been tried and tested on clients who have achieved optimal wellness by following them.

I believe that learning is an essential component of healing and creating lasting change, so I am super excited about launching SAU 🙂 

Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter too. Can’t wait to hear what y’all think of it! -XO