Three years of Plant Based Goodness

My family and I have been plant based for over three years now. It has been a great experience but not one without bumps in the road. I am going to share with you our experience so far so that maybe it will help you with your own journey. One of the hardest parts of changing your diet is dealing with food addiction. We all have our weaknesses and sometimes we give in to them. I will say though that our weaknesses come in a vegan package rather than something with animal products in it. That doesn’t make it ok but it is still a step forward from where we were before. My weakness happens to be Red Hot Blues corn chips. My kid’s weakness is baked goods and my hubby loves chocolate. There is nothing severely wrong with any of these foods except that they are processed and contain way too much oil and sugar. Some of our vices before going plant based were bacon, butter, sushi and more bacon.

My point is, that we are not perfect. We strive to eat as healthily as possible and when we do fall off the boat occasionally we try to be forgiving and just get on with it.

All of our health has improved. Before I started this journey, I was a bit overweight, having migraines all the time and had just started having heart palpitations. This was before I was 40. My husband was also overweight and was not feeling well overall. My children just didn’t have a whole lot of energy.

When we went plant based, I lost 25 pounds and my hubby lost 50 within the first three months. My heart palpitations had disappeared and I hadn’t had even one migraine! We were both feeling great and had tons of energy. Our kids were also much more energetic.

This was me before.

And after!

I also noticed that my thinking was much clearer and I seemed to be much more balanced emotionally. That went the same for all of us.

Another thing that I noticed was that my menstruation was much less painful and I didn’t have cramps or mood swings =) That was good for all of us!

Now, after 3 years, we have all kept our weight in check after learning to balance our eating after the weight loss. When we first started we were loosing weight really quickly even though we felt like we were eating an incredible amount of food. The difference was that this food was super nutrient dense. We were probably overindulging on the higher fat meals than we needed to but we were having fun adapting our regular food recipes to plant based versions.

After about a year we noticed that the weight loss had stopped and that we were starting to put a little bit back on. But, like I said before we were overindulging on the more decadent recipes that we had created. What helped us was a bit of a re-boot. We re-read Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman which is the book we read to get started. We were indeed overdoing it with what we were eating so we just had to tweek our menus a little. Once we did that our weight stabilized again.

Once you change to eating this way, it is easy to take it for granted and get a bit off track and eat more of the things that you shouldn’t because “its vegan, right?” Just because processed food is plant based or vegan, doesn’t mean necessarily that it is healthy. After time your body will realize the difference between the two ( vegan junk food or healthy plant based food ) and it will give you clear messages by making you feel physically not well.

Our bodies are miracle healing machines. Our bodies can heal themselves if you give them the right tools. I don’t know about you but I would rather thrive than just survive. Our bodies can survive on a lot of different things but that doesn’t mean we are going to feel well or function very well.

It is very evident in today’s world that a majority of the population is functioning on this level. Opioid use is out of control because people are looking to doctors to make them feel better. This couldn’t be more wrong. Almost any disorder of the body or mind is greatly improved and sometimes healed by eating a strict Plant Based Diet.

I am such a believer of this path. I have seen so many of our friends that have changed to a plant based diet and drastically improved the quality of their life. And of course I have the evidence from our own family’s experience.

I hope you will all give Plant Based Living a try and give yourself a gift of disease free longevity!

Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman is a great book to get started with as is watching the documentary What the Health!

Some other great resources:

• Dr. Douglas Lisle: The Pleasure Trap
• Dr. Michael Klaper: On Salt,Oil, Sugar
• Dr. John McDougall: Marketing Milk and Disease | Is Milk, Cheese, Yogurt Healthy?
• Dr. T. Colin Campbell: The China Study Interview
• Eating You Alive
• Forks Over Knives
• Cowspiracy