There are people who change their life for living their passion and their dream. Stefan Hiene is one of them. He gave up his job as an event entrepreneur working for renowned clients like Daimler, O2 and Microsoft to become a professional vagabond and mountainbike rider. How can you switch from a stressful office job to outdoor sport profession so fast?”
BelgiumGoesRaw present’s an interview with Stefan Hiene – professional mountainbike rider. He is the first cyclist who proofed that it is possible to compete on a professional level with mainly or exclusively raw food nutrition. Stefan is also the founder of
http://worldrawfoodday.org and a member of
http://worldgoesraw.com
Stefan Hiene - professional vagabond and mountainbike rider
Where and when did it all started with you and raw food?
It all started in 2003 in Munich, when a friend of mine told me that he is going to die soon because he was diagnosed with liver cancer. This motivated me to search for the reasons for health and for the reasons for illness. You may find the short but whole story in my Interview with Megumi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0yA_TNAoxg
Since when are you on raw food?
I started eating raw food in 2007 as an experiment. I didn’t believe that it is possible to combine raw food nutrition with professional sports and since I didn’t believe it, I had to try it. Otherwise I would have never known whether it is possible or not. Now I know it from my own experience.
Do you manage to stay 100 % on raw food?
I do not even try it, but most of the times I am around 99,74 % – percentage doesn’t really matter to me at all. We should all relax with these numbers. I am 100% human and thus I am not able to be 100% of anything else. We are not here to be perfect. But we are here to enjoy live to the fullest and experiment with the extremes if we feel to do so.
What does motivate you to stay raw?
Being motivated is something very interesting. Actually you don’t know why you are motivated, but you will find a lot of reasons and explanations when you think about it. I am just motivated and I do ask the question “Why is it?” less and less. I see myself as a nutrient logistic expert for myself and I love to give my body the best nutrition available and I love to experiment with nutrition in many ways and combine my testings with endurance sport and weight lifting. And I am curious where this is going to lead me, since I have no idea. We all just do not know the outcome of our experiment here. We have a lot of predictions, judgements and feelings about it. But when we are honest and tell the truth – we have to admit that we just don’t know how it is going to end.
What is your favourite smoothie?
There are so many, that I even don’t know where to start. My smoothies are changing constantly and the ingredients depend on what I feel to eat. At the moment I am mixing Aloe Vera with pears, water and Curcuma. This is also one of my favourites for going back to raw after a time when I wasn’t able to eat the best foods or when the availability of good foods was reduced, for example due to travelling. Aloe Vera is a laxative and cleanses my colon naturally. Additionally I love my horsetail lemonade and cocktails with wild herbs. During winter time I put some of my dried stinging nettles into my smoothies.
What do you eat and drink 1 hour, 3 hours, 1 day before competition?
I try to eat and drink as little as possible with the highest quality available. Lately I experimented more and more with fasting 1 or 2 days in advance of a competition and I am going to write about the first very interesting results in my newsletter (
www.rawpower.de), which is published only in German up to now.
Do you have different nutrition for running and different for biking?
Lately I didn’t run a lot and my diet wouldn’t change a lot if I did.
How do you see the spirituality and raw food?
When I discovered raw food I thought this is the only solution and that I have to save the world by telling everyone that she or he has to eat raw food. Than I realized that even the raw food movement is not consistent, that many experts disagree with each other and the information out there is conflicting and contradictory to say the least. This was my chance to take a step back and look closer at my judgements about life and how I myself, others and the world should be. It became obvious to me that I am not my opinion and that my opinion is not even important. From that moment on it got clearer and clearer that experience and feelings are much more important and that I always have to look at myself rather than judge others. That doesn’t mean that I am without judgement, but I can see it more clearly.
Every change and every transformation in my life is a possibility to discover that there never was anything non-spiritual in my life. Raw food was my transformation, but I think this discovery is possible for everyone since there are many transformations in each life. My transformation is still happening and I love watching and experiencing it. It is the greatest adventure I could imagine, ever!
Do you focus your nutrition extra on endurance and acting fast? (in comparison to focusing nutrition on body building, where the people eat more plant proteine)
I experiment with every possibility and chance which is given to me and I feel attracted to. Sometimes I try raw protein powder and sometimes my diet is not only plant based. Within the last year my focus shifted towards the logistics of nutrients. There are many ways to become your own nutrient logistics expert or manager. You can use your intuition, common sense, old wisdom or latest scientific discoveries. It doesn’t really matter which way you choose but I feel good with intuition, old wisdom and some of the latest discoveries which point back to old wisdom again.
Do you have special raw food “power shake” recommendation for our reader?
I do not have a special “power shake” but I have some ingredients which I add to many of my shakes: aloe vera, horsetail, stinging nettle, maca, algae, baobab, goji berries, hemp (powder), chia seeds and especially in winter times a lot of sprout juice. To most of my shakes and smoothies I add organic colloidal microminerals.
You have mountain bike program – is it more guide or more sport coaching?
I do train groups and I work as a personal trainer, especially for improving technical skills for mountainbikers in Munich and at the Lake Garda in Italy.
Message to all our readers?
- Life is abundance.Enjoy it!
Live your life to the fullest in every moment.
Give yourself the best nutrition for mind, body and soul available and be gentle to yourself.
Love yourself the way you are.
If you do want to support my experiment which I document on
http://rawpower.de you may buy your organic and raw food supplements at
http://nutrientlogistics.de. Since the beginning of this year I have a great partnership with Nutrient Logistics and I do not only love what they do, but they only sell what I like or use for myself. So it is the shop which bears my hallmark the most. And they will deliver to foreign countries – just ask them for it!
Interview by Marta Gal
1 scallion, thinly sliced
