Hi all  - may I say great site and just reading the forums is uplifting and gives me more drive to achive my goals of increasing raw foods and working out again.
My wife and I have been trying all sorts of eating plans to better ourselfs and over the last couple of months have always come back to RAW, we gave it a try about 2 months ago and never felt so good, so after looking into it more and purchasing a couple of books from this site, I am preparing myself for a complete change in my life, I am getting back into weight training after 10 years and when the books turn up, I hope to have more then enough information to help me on my way.
We live in an area were farming is the main income for the area and also found out that it is also high in chemical use through out the area, but we are also lucky enough to own a large house block were we are able to grow our own greens, organically ( and dont they taste great).
I have always thought that I was healthy, worked out in my early twenties, and even competed once, always been one of those people that find it hard to gain weight, but no matter what I ate, I was always lean, ate heaps of meat, carbs, protein shakes etc etc, (did what every 20 year old male did when they wanted to beef up - ate lots of beef). So now that I am turning 35 this year (actually thought I was only turning 34 until about 10 weeks ago - what a susprise I got - 2 years in 1), its TIME TO LIVE.
So after rambling on enough, change is happening,just started at the gym again - will be trying Mike Mentzers Heavy duty trainging and eating raw & orgainic. Will keep you posted on my progress and try for some photos.
so keep on posting as it all helps

Thanks Joss
Just finished reading about the experience people have been having with personal trainers, Its good to see a broad range of people out there all willing to help others on there RAW path.
Would you guys recommend a fast of any type to begin with or just heaps of fruit & greens, today is the starting day for me and I am going with fruit, salads and greensmoothies throughout the days.
thanks

Thanks for the welcome
It's been about a week and what a week it has been, 1st day good, even though it was a very stressful day at I still managed to be totally raw, my wife and kids were also sick and by tuesday we were all eating cooked again for comfort, by the end of the week we were back to old old habits, these are hard to break but I am determined to break this one, for my health and my families.(every day/night my wife and I find ourselfs on this site reading and learning, best motivator out) Thursday was a real eye opener or I should say thur night and fri morn, we decided to have thai for dinner, stuffed ourselfs and then fell into the couch,9.30pm off to bed by about 11 pm all of us were tossing and turning, both kids in bed with us by 1am and everyone still uncomfortable, started work at 5am so didnt make a green smoothie (didnt want to wake anyone) and the rest of the day we were all run down. Got back onto new habit over the weekend and this morn (sun) bit of a detox - everytime I get back onto raw the detox/withdrawls seem to happen quicker and faster, now sun afternoon feel great, just came inside from the vege garden after my daughter & I picked some sweet peas and made lettuce wraps with them and garlic chives - the freshest tasting snack I have had (both the kids polished of the fresh strawberries before I got anywhere near them). Have been making greensmothies fresh from the vege garden with lettuce, spinach, baby spinach, sweet peas ( 16 vines grows a lot of peas) and now with young broccoli, I find this keeps me going through to lunch, work outs are suprising me, recovery is quicker on the days that I eat raw. My wife and I both know that there will be times that we eat cooked and we are preparing ourselfs with as much info and foods to help us with our new life, have recived acouple of books and dvd's already and cant wait for our other books to turn up - hopefully tomorrow, any way enoough rambling ( so easy to do when you let your fingers to the talking) got to finish reading Raw Kids, thanks again for the help, hope to keep more updated with our progress.

thanks Freedom

the food out of our garden is just the best, fresh crisp and the taste is unbelivable, it took us 12 months to prepare the soil and it has paid off for us, to us since eating raw McDonalds does taste like carboard.
I found the diggers club a good gardening site for home grown veges - they even do a deal for people with health care cards to help them grow there own veges and use heirloom and organic seeds/plants.