A Sussex woman who decided to change her diet to eat nothing but raw food has lost 12 stone in three years.

Angela Stokes, 27, from Brighton, said she noticed a difference within the first month of not eating cooked food. She said previously she had been unhappy with her weight to the point of depression, and had also suffered from a number of skin and health problems. Emma Wells, of Sussex-based Smart Nutrition, said the diet worked because bad food groups had been cut out.

Ms Stokes now weighs nine stone and said eating the "living food" had completely changed her life. "In the first year I lost seven and a half stone, which is kind of like a person," she said. Ms Wells said the raw diet eliminated sugar, alcohol, wheat, pasta, and starchy foods like potatoes and rice."They are really high in calories, but don't really deliver many nutrients," the food nutritionist explained.

A typical day for Ms Stokes begins with a sultana, banana and sunflower seed breakfast, with a salad containing sea veg, kale and dehydrated crackers for lunch. Her evening meal could be a seaweed roll filled with olives, avocado and sliced vegetables. Ms Stokes now has no oven in her home and said she had reached her ideal weight.