Jack Childs Overcomes Chronic Fatigue and Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Jack Childs is a world-leading spiritual business coach who helps spiritual people create businesses they love. After suffering from illnesses during his teenage years, Jack Childs healed by transitioning from a standard Western diet to a raw vegan diet focused on fresh ripe fruit.

This resulted in a remarkable transformation. Jack Childs healed his illnesses, ran an ultramarathon with all the new energy he had and started to become interested in spirituality. He has since gone on to train in a wide variety of spiritual and business modalities, speak and teach meditation at the UK Fruitfest and create a life he loves. Visit Jack-Childs.com.

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Would I ever be able to live normally again?

I left my doctor’s appointment in despair. This was the end. This appointment was my last hope.

For years, I had been suffering with serious digestive issues during my teenage years. These issues resulted in irritable bowel syndrome and chronic fatigue. Doctor’s appointment after doctor’s appointment had gotten me no better.

This world-leading expert was my last hope. The expert had no answer.

The only half-answer was to rest and hope my energy would eventually come back. I had been off school for over two months during the critical period leading up to my A-levels, which are tests that decide university places, and could no longer train despite previously being a regional athlete and was in constant pain every day from my digestive issues.

Jack Childs Instinctively Knew an Answer Awaited Him

There had to be an answer. 

Something insideme just knew there had to be a way. Sport had taught me never to give up—to have determination, recover from setbacks and to keep going even when things seemed impossible. 

It had all started so innocently. When I was 14, I started noticing my stomach would sometimes be in pain and bloated after I ate. Up until then, life had been a breeze. I was academically smart, always the best sportsman at school and popular with my peers. I ate like everyone else I knew ate and didn’t think a second about it—cereal with milk and toast for breakfast; ham sandwich, crisps and yoghurt for lunch; the odd apple as a snack; and then meat and vegetables, generally, for dinner.

The pain kept increasing, though. One day, about a year later, I found myself in so much pain that I had to go home from school and spent the rest of the day desperately doing bicycle kicks to reduce the bloating. It also got awkward. As well as the bloating, I started to pass wind regularly, and it was very embarrassing when this would happen without control.

Jack Childs’ Digestion Woes Lead to Shaken Confidence and a Decline in Athletic and Academic Performance

For the next couple of years, I lived my daily life with constant bloating, terrified about passing wind and, worst of all, scared about how what I ate would make me feel. It was like being in a prison. Up until then, I had never had to think about what I ate, as I had always felt good, but suddenly I became a lot more fixated on my food from fear over what would happen if I got my diet wrong. Despite eating more whole foods and very simple combinations, things didn’t really improve, though. If anything, they got worse. 

My digestive issues also started to affect my socially. Gone was the confident, outgoing lad who was popular and the life of the party. In his place, there emerged a timid, shy and socially reclusive person who just didn’t trust life anymore. My only escape was sport. On the sporting field, I still felt confident and continued to progress well, representing my region at athletics, cross-country, field hockey and tennis. It didn’t last.

As I put more and more pressure on my fragile body to perform, it started to collapse. At first, I noticed my recovery was not as strong as it used to be, and then my performances started to dip. Before long, I was unable to have the energy to train anymore.

My mental energy was affected, too. Going to school became extremely difficult as I just didn’t have the energy to concentrate in the classroom and the journey into school sapped my energy everyday.

‘A Whole New World’ Opens up for Jack Childs

Things had to change. I prayed for a miracle.

One day, roughly one month after the doctor’s appointment, my grandparents were visiting. I was still off school and studying at home at this point, struggling to come to terms with the fact that my life appeared to be over before it had even really begun. My Grandma gave me a book. She had always been into diet and felt a book called The PH Miracle might be useful for me. 

That night, my whole world changed.

The book described a diet focused on grains and vegetables with some fruit, which was viewed as acidic and not optimal in this book. This diet was purported to offer miraculous results in health and athletic performance. Something deep inside me clicked. I made a link between diet and how I was feeling.

A whole new world opened up. I recall reading the entire book in two days and instantly making the changes it recommended. For me, there was no doubt, and I was desperate. Things started to improve. My energy levels were higher, I was back at school again, and I slowly started to compete in sport. The key was not eating meat and dairy anymore as well as combining foods a lot better. The book went into detail on food combining.

Despite this improvement, my energy levels still weren’t as good as they had been. Occasional digestive issues remained, and I wasn’t really enjoying the way I was eating. It was boring and bland. I was determined to find a better way and, again, the answer came unexpectedly one day the following year, when I was on a gap year, before going to university. 

Jack Childs Discovers and Embraces a Low-Fat Raw Food Diet

This time it was my Auntie. She was a vegetarian and was very interested in my way of eating. She mentioned one of her running friends was eating just fruit and vegetables in line with something called the “80/10/10 diet.” Apparently, she had experienced amazing health and performance benefits. It sounded crazy! It had taken me a long time to get over the whole question of “Where do you get your protein from?” and many other aspects of eating a vegan diet. This was like a whole new level. Even vegans thought raw vegans were crazy, and I was no different!

But something in me felt this 80/10/10 diet sounded great.

It certainly made a lot of sense in its simplicity and looked to be a far more fun way to eat, as I had always enjoyed fruit immensely. I took action again.

Initially, I started by changing my breakfast to a fruit monomeal, and then, one month later, I included lunch as well. Within two months, I was eating totally raw vegan. I loved eating this way. The challenge was more with the practical side of finding enough ripe fruit at any one time and standing firm with the inevitable social pressures that came from all angles. 

The biggest improvement I immediately noticed was with my digestion. My bowel movements were so clean, easy and consistent, it was like a miracle had occurred! This improved my energy levels beyond all proportion. Nevermind getting back my energy levels, as this was a whole new level entirely! My eyes also honestly changed colour, going to a bright blue, and my skin tanned far better. I felt such a deep love for nature and life that I had never experienced before. It was very all-encompassing. 

Jack Childs Develops Resolve While on a Fruit-Based Diet As He Advances Farther on His Journey

I feel a massive advantage I had was that I was still young and relatively healthy before. I never did drugs, hardly drank alcohol, didn’t go out late a lot, ate whole foods and exercised every day when not ill. This meant that there wasn’t a lot to undo in my system and that my body could adapt to vibrant health very quickly. On the flip side, the social challenges were enormous. I had to develop a very strong independence, firmness of mind and a deep love for this diet because it was very difficult trying to implement it during my next four years at university. Often, I felt lonely and isolated. I questioned whether this path really was the right way for me to go.

But something in me kept persisting, and the universe seemed to keep guiding me in this direction. As luck would have it, at the end of my first year at the University of Exeter, I heard about a fruit festival being held only 20 miles away. It was the first ever UK Fruitfest—what timing! I just had to go. There, my inspiration for the diet reached a whole new level, as I met the author of The 80/10/10 Diet, Dr. Doug Graham, as well as many other amazing teachers and people who were just like me. I learned about many amazing stories of healing, and the one thing that really stood out for me was how happy the people were at the festival. It was like entering another world. 

As I continued to eat a raw vegan diet, my type of exercise also changed. Initially, I had the incredible achievement of running a 31.2-mile ultramarathon at age 20 and only two years after suffering from chronic fatigue, as a celebration for my new found levels of energy and health. After that, though, I wanted to do the optimal exercise to look after my body. I stopped running and playing sport, instead focusing on a daily yoga practice and eventually qualified as a yoga teacher.

Jack Childs’ Raw Vegan Diet Helped Serve As an Awakening for Him to Embrace Spiritual Practices

Life today is great. I have been eating a predominantly raw vegan diet, focusing on fresh, ripe fruit, for just more than six-and-a-half years and continuing to get great health benefits and using it as a basis for a great life I love. Over time, I have relaxed a lot more. I found, for a period, I was too focused on the “perfect diet”—even going fruitarian for a while—but now enjoy the occasional cooked vegan meal with friends, smoothies every day and steamed vegetables regularly alongside my main staple of fruit.

For me, it was always about more than diet. It was about living my best life.

A raw vegan diet was an awakening for opening up many new things in my life, with a particular focus on spirituality. Over the past few years, I have trained as a yoga teacher, meditation teacher, reiki healer, tarot reader and astrologist. I have worked with many spiritual teachers and masters one to one.

I have also developed a deep love for business. Eventually, I decided to combine my love of spirituality with my love of business and now work as a world-leading spiritual business coach. 

I love my life and am very grateful for finding a raw vegan diet when I was at my lowest point. It was not just a transformer for my health but a whole new way of approaching life, my development and the infinite potential I believe we all have inside ourselves.

Thanks for reading and have an amazing day!