Home | Vivid Body Program | Lectures & Culinary Workshops | Classes

Events | About Me | Contact Me | Friends

Hello I’m Chef Joseph Custer, the creator of the Vivid Body Program and the founder of Vivid Foods. Since 2002 I’ve been delivering lectures and culinary workshops on the subject of raw and living foods. My passion is coaching and guiding individuals on the subject of healthier eating and cleanses for the body.  My Mission is to educate people on the benefits of adding more raw and living fruit and vegetables to their diet.

My road into the field of diet and body cleansing was motivated by self-survival. In the mid 1990 I reach my highest weight of 293 pounds.  Like many others who struggled with obesity I had lost and gained hundreds of pound during my life.  During the late '90s I did several cleanses which seemed to help my conditions of obesity and fatigue.  My problem was I could not get a handle on my diet. The cleanses could not keep up with my bad eating habits.

I read all the information I could about diets, even tried a few of them, but nothing seemed to work for me.  I honestly thought I was the worst person on a diet.  I always knew that when I started feeling better I would stop the diet I was doing and go right back to my bad eating habits.   You need to understand; I was a junk food/ fast food junky.  I’m talking several coffees and cokes and at least two fast food meals a day and that was on a good day. 

During an unforgettable few months in 2001 my health reached its lowest point. To keep the story short I’ll just touch on the highlights, like rolling around on the floor thinking I was having a heart attack. The next day the doctor gave me the news “welcome to the world of Acid Reflux Disease”. A few weeks later I blacked out while standing in the bathroom, and yes, breaking a few teeth out of my mouth the hard way, through my lower lip.  After several tests the doctor could not tell me why I passed out. He could tell me I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol.  You would think the above would keep someone from heading out to a big meal, someone else maybe - but not me.  I proceeded to enjoy a tasty dinner at a nice restaurant.  Two hours later I was holding my stomach in pain while watching that tasty meal go down the toilet.  It was later that night when I decided the food was not worth the pain.  I knew my diet was the cause of my bad health; it just took a lot of pain for me to wake up and decide to get healthy.  

A couple months later found me at a lecture on the health benefits of raw vegan foods.  I knew this was the answer to my health and started the diet a few days later.  I bought every raw food book I could and started preparing all raw foods.  After three months on my new diet I had lost 30 lbs. More importantly, I no longer had any of the above health problems. At the one year mark I was 70 pounds lighter and 100 pounds lighter after 18 months and feeling the healthiest I’ve ever been.

Within two years I was guiding others on the raw food diet and shortly after that started giving lectures and culinary workshops on health and raw foods.  During the next six years I worked on several diets and body cleansing programs before developing the Vivid Body Program.  This brings my story up to date.  Today I have the pleasure of living my passion of helping others on the road to better health.  Contact me if in some way I can help you on that road.