Annie Lawless - The Suja Juice Solution: 7 Days to Lose Fat, Beat Cravings, and Boost Your Energy

J uice can change your life. I know this is true, because it absolutely saved mine.

Hi, my name is Annie Lawless. Im 27 years old and Im one of the happiest, most energetic, and healthiest people I know!! Yep, double exclamation marks. Im a certified holistic health and wellness coach, nutritional counselor, avid yogini, and the co-founder of Suja Juice, currently the fastest-growing cold-pressed-beverage company in the United States. My life is on the super-fast track forward and if my enthusiasm sounds excessive or even a tad bit inflated, forgive me, but Im just so psyched (or totally juiced, as we say in the biz) to feel and look as good as I do todaybecause not so long ago, I didnt look or feel so hot.

Let me explain. As a young girl, I suffered from really awful eczema, allergies, chronic ear infections, and asthma. If youre not familiar with eczema, its a pretty unsightly rash where the skin becomes inflamed and irritated. And just my not-so-good luck, my eczema wasnt something that flared up occasionally. It appeared daily and faithfully throughout my childhood. I remember way too many slumber parties where Id have to sneak away to apply gloppy steroid creams to my itchy skin. My skin condition was such a part of my everyday life, I carried tubes of anti-itch cream on me at all times, so that I was armed in the event of attack. I made a habit of wearing long-sleeved shirts and tights or leggings under my school uniform to hide the deep scratches on my arms and legs. Yeah, it was gross and embarrassing, and that was just the eczema.

I was also allergic to everything, especially outdoors, where I couldnt last five minutes without having some sort of major reaction. I was constantly sneezing, coughing, or sniffling, and after the steroid cream, Kleenex was my next best friend. Seriously, I was a mess.

Throughout my youth, Mom took me to the pediatricians office over and over again, but the only solution seemed to be more steroid creams, inhalers, or antihistamines. While medicine often helped initially, my faucet nose and scratchy skin always returned with a vengeance. By my preteen years, I was so used to feeling and looking beat-up, I accepted that this was my normal. Its how Id always look and feel, and Id probably be on medications for the rest of my life.

And then one day I went to a new doctor who suggested that my watery eyes, runny nose, and skin rash may actually be an indicator of an autoimmune disease. After several tests, I finally learned that I suffer from lactose intolerance and celiac disease, an immune response to eating gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye. Today theres a growing awareness about this condition, but at the time gluten intolerance was not a term as commonplace as it is now, so I recall thinking I must be seriously ill. Am I going to die? My doctor explained that my body was suffering from a severe inflammatory response to dairy and gluten. These substances were acting as foreign invaders in my digestive system that my body couldnt easily defend itself against. In an effort to protect itself, she explained, my body was attacking itself. I had to agreeI had the war wounds to prove it.

To begin the healing process, I was instructed to remove all gluten and dairy from my diet for one week. This meant giving up many of my favorite foodsboxed cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, pasta, and bagels. What was I going to eat? I thought, Yep, Im going to die, but the opposite happenedfor the first time I felt like I was actually living. Within seven days of removing gluten and dairy from my diet, the eczema, allergies, and asthma Id suffered from for my entire life disappeared without a trace. No kiddingId never known a life without these nasty conditions, and suddenly they were gone.

I was liberated. After so many years of suffering, I felt like Id been handed the keys to unlock my highest health potential. I finally understood the direct and powerful correlation between what I put into my body and how I look and feel. For the majority of my life Id been unknowingly eating foods that were highly irritating to my body, and now I had the knowledge, power, and control to remove them, one by one, and feel and look crazy-good.