Eating Raw Food - Michael Arnstein's Raw Food Success Story

Eating Raw Food: When 32 year old elite athlete Michael Arnstein switched to a 100% low fat raw vegan diet and lifestyle in January 2008, he was able to smash all his previous personal bests in running and athletic performance.

Michael grew up on a 'healthy version' of the Standard American Diet'.

Meat and dairy were staples and vegetables were heaped with butter, but on the plus side, fast food was only a weekend treat and sodas were saved for parties.

Growing up, Michael was on the chubby side and had throat or bacterial illnesses regularly. Having older siblings who began to improve their diets in order to improve performance in high school sports, Michael followed suit.

He began to clean up his diet by cutting out fried foods and red meat when he was 15. He was a competitive runner in High School and ranked on a state level by his senior year, by which time he was a strict vegetarian, eating mostly low fat plants and grains.

When he reached his 20's Michael began to eliminate foods each year as a New Year's resolution. He cut out milk/cream, cheese, eggs and products made with eggs, and all fried foods. By the age of 26, he was a strict vegan.

At 28, Michael tried eating raw food of the high fat variety such as nut butters, plentiful avocados and high fat raw crackers.

After 8 weeks on this diet, he felt heavy and tired and his running performance had not improved, though he had lost a few pounds.

So he tried a vegetarian version of the Atkins diet. Vegetarian protein shakes for two out of three meals a day.

His body weight dropped but he struggled with his running and athletics and developed a stress fracture in his tibia, which put him out of the running game for almost a year.

Eat To Live

Michael returned to a low fat cooked vegan diet, eating soups, beans and grains, an Eat to Live type diet.

He continued to pursue running and triathlon training, yet did not improve his performances, even as his diet became ever healthier and more restrictive.

He continued to search for information on superior diet and health and its impact on athletic performance.

Below: Michael before he began eating raw food 100%.

In December 2007, Michael's wife, Victoria, was reading a book about eating raw foods. She passed the book on to her husband, urging him to read it.

The book was The 80/10/10 Diet

Since Michael had already tried a raw food diet, he initially brushed it off, as he felt this was an approach he had already tried, that had failed.

However, Victoria continued to urge him to read the book, saying this was no regular raw food diet. Eventually Michael agreed to read the first few chapters. Within 48 hours the book was finished and Michael was a new man.

Low Fat Raw Vegan

Michael immediately adopted the 80/10/10 diet (also known as the 811 diet), which consists of eating raw food exclusively and receiving the bulk of calories from fruit. After reading the book in January 2008 he has never looked back.

In this youtube video Michael discusses some of the benefits he has experienced since eating raw food exclusively, not least of which is that he runs faster than he ever has before!

Since eating raw food exclusively, Michael has been able to become very in tune with his body and its nutritional needs and able to really listen to his body, in a way that most people are simply unable to do, as their signals are so confused.

He is able to easily meet all his needs on this way of life.

Within four weeks of eating raw food exclusively, the 811rv diet (rv = raw vegan) Michael dropped from 10% body fat to 3-4% and he lost 10 pounds.

He found this very remarkable as the only other time he was able to drop weight at such a rate was when he had been on the vegetarian version of Atkins, and then he had not felt well at all.

Eating Raw Food: Benefits

On 811rv he not only dropped the weight very fast, but felt fantastic while doing so, his energy levels were extremely high and he was eating a massive amount of fresh raw fruit.

His running times immediately began to improve significantly. His recovery became phenomenal, to the point that Michael is now able to run marathon distances EVERY DAY! For example, this is taken from a post Michael placed on a raw food forum in 2009:

"I ran the NYC marathon in 2:35, then the following weekend 2:32 (and a win) at the Harrisburg, PA marathon.

oh yea, I should mention that after this marathon I ran back to meet my wife who was running it too and put in another 5 miles. (31miles for the day)
Then the next day I felt so good I ran a double (31 miles for the day)
then the next day I still felt great so ran another double (31 miles for the day)
then the next day still felt great but didn't have time for a double and only ran 16 miles
then the next day felt fresh yet again and ran another double (31 miles for the day)
uh...did I mention I just eat raw fruit and vegetables...?
140 miles in 5 days...crazy right?
Nope, just all natural!

Vegan Athletes

Michael ran his first marathon when he was 18 years old, and despite hard training for the next ten years his performance plateaued and he could never run it in faster than 2:45.

After adopting the 811rv diet and eating raw food exclusively in January 2008, he ran the Napa Valley Marathon in February 2008 in 2:34.07, finishing second overall. He ran the Boston Marathon in 2010 in 2:28.

"These are not incremental improvements. These are incredible changes in a runner who most would argue is past his prime. I am now in my mid 30s and running faster than I ever have in my life, and I continue to run faster and faster the longer I eat this way."

In the Vermont 100 mile race in 2010 Michael made excellent time and still had energy to spare to run up Mount Washington the next day!

With this diet and lifestyle to support his goals there can be no doubt that he will continue to excell at everything he does!

In this video from the Living On Fruit Video Series, Michael provides some fabulous inspiration on following a raw vegan diet, and gives advice for transitioning

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