I began to examine my lifestyle to determine what I could do to take back control over how I was feeling. Since I was raised in a multicultural household with a Lebanese mother and an Ecuadorian father, our diet often consisted of rather traditional foods, including heavy Middle Eastern dishes, grape leaves, kibbe (raw meat), baklava, chorizo, garlic-butter sauces, chicken, rice, beans, and fried eggs. In looking back, I am confident that our diet was a leading contributor to my diagnoses and overall feelings of unwell. I did not grow up eating many fruits and vegetables...at all. 

It was by chance that a stranger approached me in a grocery store the same afternoon that I'd been released from the hospital one day, and he started talking to me about raw foods, juicing, and living vibrantly eating fruits and vegetables. The night after meeting him, I was rehospitalized, and as soon as I got out again, he was the first person I called. At my lowest point, I was 87 pounds and could barely walk. I was only 18 at the time, and I couldn't imagine living the rest of my life this way. I de-cided to make drastic lifestyle changes and change what I was consuming in hopes it would heal me. With the coaching and mentoring of prominent raw food experts, I started following a "raw food diet." I literally went FullyRaw vegan in one day and never looked back.

What does it mean to be a raw vegan? A fully raw vegan diet is widely recognized as a lifestyle that only consumes fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, in their natural state, fresh, ripe, and organic when possible. 

I ate simply for my first few years of going raw vegan, and this included mono-mealing on fruits, smoothies, salads, some juices, eating various fruits, with few nuts and seeds. (Mono-mealing is eating only one food type in abundance.) In fact, I ate peaches for two weeks straight when I began. I saw drastic changes in my body's chemistry. I stopped having blackout migraines, fainting spells, chronic fatigue, chronic constipation, depression, and much more. My overall skin and complexion improved, and most importantly, my symptoms of diabetes began to disappear. 

By 2005, when I was nearly 20 years old, I officially won my battle against Type-2 diabetes and hy-perglycemia. It was so empowering and freeing to know that I was able to reverse the effects of my diagnosis by eating a fully raw vegan diet--and in just under TWO years. 

In addition to discovering that this lifestyle is defined by what I ate, I quickly discovered that it was about so much more than just food. I learned that it's actually a compassionate lifestyle. I found compassion for myself and for others, as well as ethical benefits such as saving animals' lives and numerous environmental benefits. A vegan lifestyle lends itself to be a very sustainable lifestyle. Changing what I ate changed my life. It led me on a mind, body, and spirit healing journey and provided me with deep emotional trauma healing I needed in order to live a fuller life. 

While giving me a fuller life, it also gave me a purpose. At that time, I decided to dedicate my life to sharing a message of health and wellness that could also help many others.

While I was attending Rice University, I started the Rawfully Organic Co-op in my garage in Houston. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, my family, friends, and I dispensed fresh fruits and vegetables to our community and neighbors until the co-op had so many supporters that it grew into three separate locations around Houston. Between those three locations, the co-op was feeding more than 50,000 people and more than 300-1000 families per week. 

It was incredibly rewarding to know how many families now had access to fresh fruits and vegetables. However, I quickly discovered that just providing families with the healthful vegan foods their bodies needed wasn't enough. Yes, people were excited to receive their fruits and vegetables, but they found themselves getting stuck with what to do next. 

After many families would take their produce home, they would return with questions like:
"What exactly is this fruit?!"
"What do I do with this kale?"
"What recipes can I make with these vegetables and fruits?"

To answer their questions, I began my "FullyRaw Kristina" YouTube channel, where I posted videos to share with my Texas co-op members and anyone else who wanted to know how to eat fully raw. I quickly learned that it wasn't just my Texas community who needed this health information. The channel began to grow quickly, and hundreds of people grew into thousands of hungry individuals who wanted to learn about how to treat illnesses, eat more fruits and vegetables, and live a raw vegan lifestyle like me. 

I am grateful to share this gift of being able to harness food's healing potential and guide you to the more healthful and abundant life you want. There are so many ways you can be involved and can take control of your own health. FullyRaw by Kristina offers education and solutions for people in all walks of life and for all budgets.