Chillin’ with Tim Van Orden!

Hey Peeps! This trek has been chock full of awesome synchronistic events and this was certainly one of them. Through the help of some friends we ended up making it just in time for an amazing presentation by Tim Van Orden!! 

Me & Tim!

Tim Van Orden is an amazing guy, he got into raw foods about 5+1/2 years ago and with his Running Raw Project, he has made himself a human guinea pig for the performance enhancing effects of a raw foods diet, but his story goes waaaaay beyond that!  Tim was battling with severe depression when he started out and found some serious relief through his new lifestyle which focuses on well being, not just diet, not just movement or excercise, but philosophy. A philosophy that I can totally relate to and that is choosing the moment you’re living in …and embracing it!!  Accepting it as a gift and using it for all it’s worth!

His incredible talk touched on so many things, but one subject stuck out immediately to me. Tim talked about something that can easily get left out when people get their minds set on taking on a raw lifestyle: the importance of community and socialization. If we don’t take the time to connect with and relate to others and let the dogma of a raw diet (that many of us may stumble into from time to time) seperate us from friends, we may miss out on something that impacts our health greatly and that is embracing our fellow human beings!! It can be done, we can be raw and have friends, we can reach out to people and we can relate to people even in their lifestyle aproach isn’t our own.

Amanda and Kim Willard of Rawkin' Lane County!

One sure fire way to make it work is to lose the focus on food in our conversations!  I’ve been there in the begining, so psyched about my raw lifestyle and it’s benefits that I bored a few friends to near death talking about it!  We just have to focus on the reasons we love our friends and family and shoot the raw breeze with fellow fanatics!  We all may notice that we chat about different things with different friends as we share some common interests with different peeps…so it’s easy to use that rule of thumb when it comes to our diet and lifestyle choices!  I hear from a lot of people who feel alienated by their new interest in raw foods and I wanted to share it here because I believe that we can bridge these gaps, have our friends and eat our raw cake too!

After Tim’s talk we were about to head off when Kim Willard of Rawking Lane County offered for us to crash at her and her friend Roy’s place…where they were also hosting Tim for the the night!  We headed off with them and had the most surreal night ever, talking, goofing off (especially Tim, he’s quite a character!), rebounding and whipping together raw pizzas at 2am!!  We all prepared different portions that would make up the finished pizza’s so each lil’ raw pie was infused with a lil’ bit of love from everyone!  Awesome idea Kim!!  We chatted til waaay late before heading to bed and I gotta tell you surreal and wonderful are the only words I can find to describe it!  It’s a night that I won’t forget and to be sure I wrote it down..right here!

Raw Pesto Pizza with marinated veggies and topped with lot's of love!

Keep rockin’ my friends, maintain those relationships, make new ones and trust me there are plenty of peeps out there that love talking about raw foods and the raw lifestyle so we don’t gotta torture our friends who may be wanting to chat about other stuff!  Much love ~ Rory :0)