NAKED INTERVIEW LAURA PREPON GREEN IS the NEW BLACK You may know her as Donna from the long-running Fox sitcom That '70s Show, Hannah Daniels on the ABC drama October Road, or Alex, from the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. What you may not know, is that the 33-year- old actress has fallen head over heels in a long-lasting love affair with whole foods. In an exclusive interview with Naked Food, Laura talks about her never revealed before health challenges, her new found integrative lifestyle, and her empowering journey to health. 52 Naked Food Magazine Naked Food Magazine 53 NAKED INTERVIEW Q. Tell us about your journey to health. What has I would eat something, literally would take two developed an allergy to it and it was hurting my healing myself with food. I wish I knew the been the most challenging part for you? What has bites, and be so bloated I could not "t into my stomach lining, like an acid. I then decided I had to importance of assisting the lymphatic system of been the most rewarding? wardrobe at work. I was bloated and had heal myself with food. Enough of the pills and diet the body, and I wish I knew about Elizabeth's work. A. My journey to good health has not been an easy indigestion all day. I would have to always plans and fads! I was going to eat a predominantly one, and I'm still on my way there! When I got conceal that I was bloated as much as possible, plant-based diet and heal my body with real living Q. What is the most valuable change you have to my early twenties, I started having a lot of always telling people I'm PMSing and I get pu!y. nutrients. implemented in your life? problems. My energy levels were nowhere near A. There are a few things: I cook all of my own what a twenty-two year old should have. I started On top of all of this, because of the bloating and Another thing that changed everything for food. I rarely eat out unless it is a restaurant where having problems with my weight and my cycle was trouble with weight, I was on every diet I could "nd. me was "nding my integrative health coach, I'm con"dent they have non-GMO food. I do very irregular. I was always struggling with being I was always reading a new diet book. My friends Elizabeth Troy. She changed everything for me. organic farm fresh delivery to my house. bloated, and -too much information- constipation made fun of me because I was always trying a Elizabeth's background in Integrative Medicine was always an issue. new thing. I just wanted to get better! I went from and Nutrition gave her a deep understanding The other key to my new health is soup. I always doing Atkins to Primal Blueprint caveman diet, of the importance of micronutrients in health eat soup. I make it myself, it’s a nutritional broth I was told that I had parasites in my blood and to PH miracle drinking crazy high-alkaline water and healing. She based my healing process on "lled with micronutrients that my body can intestines, and that these things are living, so that and powders, to being a vegan to injecting myself Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions, The assimilate immediately. I learned about the when they excrete or die o!, that bloats me and with HCG and eating 500 calories a day. I would Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct importance of this from working with Elizabeth makes me sluggish and tired. I went on a whole try everything and anything that may give Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrates, which and assisting my lymphatic system. "cleanse" getting intravenous vitamin C drips a result. I would get to a point where I'd stop emphasizes the e!ect of broths and stock; and every other day for an hour and taking about the diets because my energy level was so bad. I’m Paul Pitchford, author of Healing With Whole Foods: 50 di!erent vitamins to kill these things o!. The such a busy person and can't have this low energy Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition, which problems remained. I found another doctor to help all the time. I would go back to eating "normal" bases his approach on foods associated directly me. I was then told I had hypo thyroid, and that I and tell myself it will just take more time to lose with the positive e!ect on speci"c organs and needed to take synthetic pig thyroid to help my weight. Time would go by, and I would put so clearing & energizing the body so that the spirit body produce more of a speci"c thyroid hormone. much pressure on myself for work and being can #ourish. So, I did, but the problems remained. on camera that I would crash diet again. Elizabeth then took this information and I went to a di!erent doctor. I was then told I had This would make me sicker. My body was integrated it into her existing knowledge base of leaky gut and that when I eat anything, the confused. When the human body is confused, detoxi"cation and "tness. It includes infrared remnants of the food that is supposed to be the lymphatic system does not know what to do sauna and I-Sopod Floating. Elizabeth developed excreted from our bodies, goes through my with the pathogens. My body was literally giving the Muscle Meridian Method, which by using intestines (literally cuts thru the lining of the up on me. It was a constant battle. I've spent assisted stretching techniques, an energy pathway intestines) and back into my blood stream, thousands of dollars getting tested for food is "red (meridian) to a speci"c organ. That organ making me tired and toxic. I started a whole "allergies" and thinking that maybe these were then functions at a higher level and helps develop new cleanse and a new regimen of 50 vitamins, but the reasons I was not digesting food or not feeling an individual in a positive way psychologically. the problems remained and were getting worse. good. Also, with my energy levels being so low, I do believe that "leaky gut" exists, but there was and me needing to perform at work and shoot Q. What do you wish you would have known 10 some major underlying problem for me that I hadn't sixteen sometimes seventeen hours, I would years ago? "gured out yet. drink so much co!ee to keep me energized that I A. I wish I knew about micronutrients, GMOs and 54 Naked Food Magazine Naked Food Magazine 55 NAKED INTERVIEW I eat food that Man hasn't tampered with. I even stopped using stevia 6 months ago, which was very hard for me to do! I used it on everything! After researching it, it really dawned on me how bad it is. They had me on the "healthy sweetener" I'm still on my journey to train for a while, until I realized that when stevia health. I don't think that is made, so we can put it in our drinks and food, the molecular structure is altered. This makes it a journey ever really ends, foreign substance to our bodies and when we but I do know now that ingest it, our bodies don't know what to do with it. finally I'm on the right path. We ingest it, our bodies are like, "Geez what is this?? Pass the buck to the liver." It further makes us toxic and taxes our poor overworked liver. Mine was already very overworked with all of the trauma already in#icted from my fad diets or whatever new "healthy" phase I was in. Q. Do you like cooking? Is there a ‘most favorite’ and super healthy meal that says ‘Laura’ all over it? A. I cook almost every day for my friends and myself. It's a huge part of my life. My mother was a gourmet chef and taught me everything I know. Unfortunately, being a 90/10 vegan, I can't really implement her teachings about achieving the perfect rise of an egg and cream sou$é, ha-ha. When I cook, I roast a ton of vegetables. I roast vs. steam because I learned that any time you add water to anything it pulls from it. So, with vegetables, when you steam them, it pulls out nutrients. When you roast, it condenses nutrients and pulls them closer together so they can better go into the intestines and blood body really started to change when I started this homemade stock/soup and a container full of Q. Do you have a !tness or exercise routine? stream. 90/10 plant-based lifestyle. roasted veggies. As well as coconut yogurt A. This is a funny question to me because my (I LOVE coconut anything!) coconut milk, "tness routine has changed SO much in recent I then make a large pot of soup or a "nutritional Q. What was breakfast today? What is in your coconut water, homemade almond milk, and months. One thing you should know is, that broth" which I also learned from Elizabeth. The way refrigerator right now? dates. Dates are for my sweet cravings. Breakfast because of all of my struggles losing weight I feel and the changes that have happened in my A.