Philip McCluskey wasn't the healthiest person a few years ago.

McCluskey, who spoke Thursday evening in Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe on Unquowa Road, said he weighed 400 pounds, consumed 6,000 to 8,000 calories a day and was wiped out after walking up a flight of stairs. He said he couldn't look people in the eye because he lacked confidence and that his weight "led to depression, sadness and no zest for life."

McCluskey said he'd tried more than 30 different diets and was on the verge of undergoing gastric bypass surgery when he decided against it. "At the very last minute, something inside me said, 'No, that's not the right way to go,' " McCluskey said.

What McCluskey did instead was go on a 100-percent raw diet, which included a lot of salads, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and the results were pretty miraculous. He lost 215 pounds in about two years, has kept the weight off and said he's happier and more energetic and confident.

"I made the rule I could do whatever I wanted, as long as it was raw," McCluskey said to about three dozen people in the 39 Unquowa Road cafe that opened in November. "I made these giant salads, and, little did I know, after a few months, I stepped on a scale, and I had lost 55 pounds."

"It was simple, it was easy, and it really worked," McCluskey said.

During the first year, in which McCluskey lost 100 pounds, he didn't exercise and began his raw diet by eating fruit for breakfast and a "massive" salad for lunch and dinner. In the second year, he began hiking and experimenting with his raw diet, including a 100-day juice fast, and lost another 100 pounds, followed by the final 15.

McCluskey said eating raw wasn't that difficult once he got his mind set right. "I got to a place where food was no longer a priority in my life. I was eating to live, not living to eat," he said.

Glen Colello, co-owner of Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe, said eating raw wasn't as unusual as it might seem. "Believe it or not, the raw food community is not just a few people hiding behind rocks. There's a lot of people out there doing it," he said.

Colello and McCluskey said people overestimate how much protein they need in their diets and that eating raw provided enough protein, though someone could use a protein supplement if they felt the need to.

"I've had family come at me with that more times than I can remember," McCluskey said. "I just let them be with their opinion and do my thing, and, after a while, they're like, 'Oh, you're not dead.' "

Colello said a diet that includes 5 percent to 10 percent protein is sufficient, though he added the caveat was how well someone absorbs protein. McCluskey said he gets his protein from nuts, seeds, sprouted beans and spirulina and doesn't have a lot of issues.

Switching to a 100-percent raw diet overnight was a bit extreme, McCluskey said, but he added that he was an extreme guy. But McCluskey said he also got his mind in tune with his body and didn't get discouraged when he hit a weight-loss plateau after losing the first 85 pounds. "I said, 'I'm going to honor that space in myself. There's no rush. All I'm going to do his honor the space I'm in,' " he said, adding that he started to lose weight again after three months on the plateau.

McCluskey said he believes in positive affirmations and visualizations and that he would visualize himself as thinner, healthier and standing tall, instead of "medicating" himself with food when he felt stress or was emotional. "I started putting my attention on feeling amazing when those feelings came up," he said.

McCluskey said he used to eat "heavy" foods, such as pizza and calzones, to weigh down negative emotions and was "drugging myself with food." He said he felt an "incredible emotional release" when he was on the 100-day juice fast and could no longer weigh down his emotions with food. "There were days when I was just standing there, looking at myself in the mirror and crying, with no idea why. Then I realized none of it mattered. I just needed to let everything go," he said.

McCluskey said it was important to have "go to" foods for times when people felt emotional and that his go to foods included avocados, nut-heavy meals and flax crackers that he made himself. "If you can find five things that are your 'go to' things if you're feeling whatever...It was always there, and it was always ready for me," he said.

McCluskey spoke of the benefits, beyond physical health, that came with his dramatic weight loss and the link between body and mind. "My spirituality changed, my interaction with people changed. I was able to look people in the eye and connect with them. My relationship with women changed, my overall happiness changed. The weight loss was just a side effect," he said.

Mark Sosnowski, of Black Rock, said he lost 86 pounds since February, from 313 pounds to 227 pounds, on a raw diet and that he went on the diet as part of a health challenge at his job. He said he found a lot of information on McCluskey's website, www.lovingraw.com, and viewed his weight loss as "petals of a chrysanthemum, always unfolding," with McCluskey's website and Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe representing two of those petals.

Sosnowski said he tried the Atkins diet and other diets, but didn't want to "count this, count that, weigh this, weigh that." Like McCluskey, Sosnowski said he didn't have a formal exercise regimen, but he became more active and had more energy as he lost weight.

Sosnowski said he lost 12 inches on his waist and wore jeans for the first time in 30 years. He still wears the belt he had when he was heavier, but the loop now reaches the middle of his back. "I still look in the mirror and think, 'Who the hell is that?' " Sosnowski said. "Life is amazing, just absolutely amazing."